WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Irevi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Upbeat Newbie the Infinite Regressors Are Obsessed With ◈
Chapter 34: Please Don’t Do This, Saintess
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Elena stood with her mouth agape at the unbelievable sight before her.
How many times had she regressed?
She had worked tirelessly to stop the Fallen from burning Eden Vale.
But fate was not so easily twisted.
No matter how hard she tried, everything vanished into nothing at the final moment. The helplessness was unbearable.
Elena had already accepted that she had failed again and would soon regress.
But then...
“Elena Evangeline!!!!!! Wake up and buff meeee!!!!!!!!!”
The impossible happened.
A man she had never seen in her life held a black sword and had freed her.
And what was more...
‘How does he know my name...!’
She had lived as a Saintess chosen by God.
Perhaps because even speaking her name was considered irreverent, those around her usually called her Saintess rather than using her name.
A name she had nearly forgotten after countless regressions.
‘Elena Evangeline.’
Yes. That was her name.
Her heart pounded.
What trigger could possibly have caused such a butterfly effect?
But the surprises did not end there.
‘!!’
Others might not have noticed, but Elena, a Saintess who had regressed over and over, could tell.
Faint though it was, true divine power like her own flowed through that man's body!
‘Ah... Ahhh...’
The person before her was...
A new Saint sent by Sola-Estella!
This was an opportunity she could never let slip away.
“Saint!”
Judging by the sword in his hand, he was surely a knight who wielded physical power.
Elena cast divine power upon the Saint.
A buff skill that greatly increased the target's physical strength.
“O Sun!”
A brilliant golden wave immediately seeped into the Saint.
Then...
“The damage buff is in!”
The Saint stomped hard.
Elena could not help but be astonished at the sight.
A strange force, unlike divine power, surged from his heart.
That power explosively burst from the Saint's legs.
Boom!
The earth literally flipped over.
“Argh!”
“Don't let him escape! Purify him!”
Having sent the Paladins flying in an instant, the Saint took a stance.
Thud!
“...?”
You know, the stance that clearly said, I'll carry you.
“Get on! There's no time to explain!”
The Saint crouched down with his back toward her.
Elena swallowed as she stared at his sweat-soaked back.
For one brief moment.
Just a very brief moment.
She hesitated.
‘P-physical contact with a man...?’
And he was telling her to get on the back of a man drenched in sweat!
Even if he was a Saint.
Was this really all right?
She was a Saintess who had vowed to serve God for her entire life.
‘T-this is physical intimacy!’
And an incredibly sticky kind at that!
Elena's face flushed.
The Paladins came to their senses and, realizing the situation had turned dire, immediately drew upon their wicked energy.
Fwoooosh!
Horrific tentacles erupted from their abdomens.
It was a critical situation.
Elena immediately pushed those thoughts away and staggered to her feet.
‘That's right! It's only physical contact!’
Lady Sola-Estella will surely forgive me!
Elena tried to move with the corners of her mouth raised high.
But her legs would not move as she wanted.
“Eek!”
Thud!
Her divine power remained, but her body had no strength left.
Perhaps frustrated by the sight, the Saint shouted.
“I knew this would happen!”
“Plan B! Plan B!”
“Huh? Huh?”
The Saint's words came out all at once.
She had only a moment to be startled by that strange sight.
Zip, zip, zip!
Whip!
“Ah, aah!”
Thin blue threads shot from the Saint's fingertips and wrapped tightly around her body.
Swoooosh!
Snap!
Elena was forcibly placed on the Saint's back.
* * *
A dizzying sensation pressed against my back.
‘Heavy!’
Of course, someone who had long surpassed human limits wouldn't find one person heavy just because I was carrying her.
I meant heavy in several other ways.
Still, this was no time to get distracted by the feeling.
The situation was critical.
I had a basic damage buff for now, but it wasn't enough.
“Die smothered in God's grace!”
“Purificaaation!”
Just look at those crazy Paladins.
They were already being violated by black tentacles and reveling in it.
There were ten of them. Ten.
‘How much time?’
‘About twenty minutes left!’
And we still had to cover the distance to the religious order.
There was no room to lose focus.
I shouted at Heretic Exterminator, Elena, whom I had tied up in mana threads.
“Elena! Buffs! Cast every buff you've got!”
“Hah... Sniff, sniff. Haaah!”
“Elena! Buff me!”
Step, step.
The Paladins in tentacle armor approached, forming an encirclement around me.
It wasn't like I couldn't fight them right now.
But I should at least get buffed before fighting!
The original plan was to skip the battle, fly to the religious order, and smash the Holy Grail!
What the hell was our support doing?!
“Get it together, Elena!”
“S-sorry! I'm sorry! Y-your scent is too dizzying...!”
Come to think of it, I couldn't smell Elena even though she was right next to me.
It wasn't just my imagination. Even with my enhanced sense of smell, I couldn't detect Elena's scent at all.
‘Is this what a Saintess is like?’
I only had a moment to wonder what kind of strange perk that was.
“I thought you were my brother!”
Tentacle-Slick charged at me, wildly swinging a cola-flavored Chupa Ch*ps, tentacle included.
“Brother my ass!”
With Elena on my back, I used Heaven-Shaking Mad Steps.
Heaven-Shaking Mad Steps was a chaotic movement technique that split your mind and body!
Its hallmark was irregular movement far beyond an opponent's predictions!
Which meant something on my back got shaken around wildly every time I stepped.
“Hah, haa! Saint! Saaaint!”
“You filthy bastards! Aren't you ashamed?!”
Boom!
Dodged a mace, one shake.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
“O Sun!”
Fwoooosh!
Charged in to stop the wide-area finishing move gathering in another Paladin's sword, two shakes.
Clang!
“Argh!”
“Y-you're too intense, Saint!”
Swoooosh!
Whoosh!
Dodged an arrow from afar, three shakes.
“Rise, purified lambs...”
I threw a dagger to interrupt the necromancer's casting.
Thwack!
“Gaaah!”
One jiggle.
Incidentally, the mana threads were still binding Elena, so I couldn't retrieve the dagger.
“Hah! Saint, p-please, let me catch my breath for a moment...!”
“...”
This was clearly a tense situation where one mistake meant a retry.
So why didn't it feel tense at all?
Was it just my imagination?
‘No. Elena is definitely the problem.’
Right, I was correct.
I had set up a determined stealth-rescue action scene, and suddenly the genre had drifted into R-rated territory. I was one step away from losing my mind.
I needed to do something about this problem Saintess first.
‘Lady Sola-Estella. What kind of battles have you been fighting?’
I gathered mana again and stomped.
Boom!
The stage was already a mess, but the ground flipped over once more and turned into something like a coliseum.
Having bought some time, I immediately set Elena down, lightly tore off part of her sleeve, and plugged her nostrils with it.
Of course, I could use mana threads again, so I had retrieved the dagger.
“Aah!”
Snap, snap, snap!
I snapped my fingers in front of Elena's eyes so she would focus.
“You can't smell it now, right? Please get it together and cast your buffs!”
“H-hah! Yes!”
More than half of the Infinite Regression Gallery's plan had been ruined because this crazy Saintess was trolling.
No wonder.
‘I thought we had prepared enough, but there was a reason Heretic Exterminator kept changing the subject and telling us to prepare more.’
It was better to be overprepared.
The plan to quickly break through while carrying the Saintess was completely scrapped.
I would steadily receive buffs and deal with the Paladins first.
Saintess Elena knelt on the ruined ground and began praying once more.
“Drive away the darkness...”
She smoothly recited the Lord's Prayer.
Was that because she was a Saintess?
There was no trace of the R-rated moves she had shown just moments ago.
Fwoooosh!
A brilliant golden wave flowed into me.
One stack, two stacks, three stacks.
Strength began overflowing through my body like crazy.
The Paladins returned to the coliseum one by one.
But once the buffs started coming in, each Paladin was no threat anyway.
Boom!
A Paladin slammed into the coliseum wall from one simple kick.
“D-damn it!”
I protected the praying Saintess while steadily sending the approaching Paladins into the walls.
Boom!
“Bestow Your blessings upon the earth...”
Hummmmm!
Every time Elena's buff stacked, it felt like I had received the Monolith's huge all-stat increase clear reward.
In other words...
‘Ten stacks!’
My stats were now like I had climbed ten more floors of the Monolith.
Golden energy overflowed from my body. I felt like I had become a Super Saiyan.
“Hah, hah! I-I'm really at my limit now!”
Squeeze.
I gripped my sword tightly.
I could tell instinctively.
‘This will work.’
It would work.
What would?
‘It feels like I can get a taste of my second advancement skill!’
What was a second advancement skill for a magic swordsman like me?
Once you held a sword, the answer was obvious.
Aura.
Aura was something that could only be awakened after one honed their mental image and reached the realm of becoming one with their sword.
‘Aura...’
Now that I had obtained such tremendous power, confidence that I could do it welled up inside me.
Stabilizing my core quickly had been a godsend.
And I had the experience of inducing a tide of mana when I cleared the tutorial.
I drew all that unprecedented power flowing over me, wasting away beyond my body, back inside.
Whiiiiine!
My core couldn't handle the power and was overloaded.
This was probably the crossroads between life and death the Head mod had mentioned.
ㄴSolo Hero*) It's simple. Control power you can't handle and it's Aura. Fail, and you regress.
I honed the energy raging inside me as though it would burst apart.
“S-Saint?”
Whiiiiine!
A sound like scraping glass.
I kept compressing and honing the power.
“P-purify him at once!”
“Break through! Break through now!”
The Paladins shouted bravely, but not one of them dared approach me carelessly.
Thanks to that, I could refine the power without panicking.
An opportunity like this wouldn't come easily again.
Not all power was the same.
The reason I could create an S-rank Core was because mana had high purity.
So I gathered only the purest, most destructive power.
After how long had I concentrated?
Flaaash!
Brilliant golden Aura began flowing along my Black Iron Sword.
I knew the moment I saw it.
‘What a shame.’
Aura awakening didn't seem that easy after all.
This was coating. Aura coating.
An Expert swordsman at the very beginning of the rank might succeed at this basic level once out of every ten attempts.
But this was enough for now.
I took the basic horizontal slash stance Solo Hero had taught me.
Thud.
The Paladins happened to be hesitating in a standoff.
I swung cleanly.
Fwoooosh!
Aura release, or sword energy emission.
A light of pure destruction cut through the surrounding terrain and corrupted tentacle monsters alike.
Shhhk!
It was an unreal sight, as though a single golden line had been drawn across the world.
They vanished into ash without even a scream.
And that was not all.
Everything around us had been neatly cut apart as if with scissors.
“Ah... Aah...”
Saintess Elena made a nasal sound as she watched.
Even I had to admit it was fucking awesome.
Of course, it had only been possible because of Elena's assistance.
Still, this was definitely the greatest mad movie of my entire Monolith career, right?
I needed to clear this quickly and brag about it on the Infinite Regression Gallery.
I only enjoyed the thrilling feeling for a moment.
Saintess Elena looked at me, making that nasal sound.
“Aura? Was that Aura just now? Saint, are you, are you in the legendary reealm? The Sword Master's reealm!”
I put on a serious expression as I looked at Elena.
Nod.
Actually, I was only at the beginning of the Expert level.
But Sword Master.
That had a nice ring to it.
I knew it already, but hearing that the Sword Master realm was legendary made it clear.
Solo Hero had been called a Sword Master when she was probably twelve, right?
Apparently, every family over there had a Sword Master.
‘The power balance really differs from setting to setting.’
I pulled out the cloth plugs blocking Elena's nostrils.
Pop!
“Hup.”
Snot immediately ran down.
“...”
Ugh, this was driving me crazy.
“Achoo!”
Elena sneezed, scattering her remaining snot everywhere.
Naturally, I had no intention of taking that, so I easily dodged.
Elena wiped her nose.
“S-sorry, Saint.”
I took the hand of the fawn-like, staggering Elena and helped her up.
“Lead me to the religious order. Let's go smash Baal's Holy Grail.”
Elena's eyes widened as though wondering how I knew that.
But her surprise did not last long.
Elena nodded with a determined expression.
I carried Elena toward the religious order.
.
.
.
.
“Haaah, Saaaint! Slooow dooown just a little!”
Footnotes:
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