WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: WeTried
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◈ I Made a Tier List the Transcendents Are Obsessed With ◈
Chapter 37: Fake News
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Civic Public General Exchange.
The fabrication shops inside that official Hyeondeok City institution were fiercely competitive.
For roughly forty-six years now, Delphon Workshop had occupied Room 206 exclusively, proving its worth over that time.
"How far out are the reservations?"
"They're booked solid through August."
Over those long years, Delphon had improved his realm and become an artisan capable of producing even full-frame-grade cyberware.
Of course, he had never met a proper full-frame-grade user. Most people said his skill was too valuable to remain in Hyeondeok City.
Yet he never left the city. It was because of a customer he had last met around thirty-six years ago.
"...When will he come?"
A Mage who had struck Delphon as particularly unusual during his first visit and procedure.
After his own first procedure, the Mage had brought in his Assistant and adopted daughter for procedures as well.
At the time, Delphon had not thought much of it.
He had simply been pleased that someone recognized his skill.
But after some time passed, customers began flooding the workshop.
Most of them had come at the Mage's recommendation.
Delphon was delighted by this unexpected fortune, but regretted never hearing any news about the Mage.
Then, during a stretch when he had been too busy to catch his breath, they met a third and final time.
"You've finally come back. I've been waiting!"
Delphon warmly welcomed him with gratitude and delight. The Mage answered with a small smile and asked to have the cyberware he had installed reinforced again.
Thirty-six years ago, Delphon had demonstrated every bit of his improved skill. The Mage had finished the procedure quite satisfied, then left him with a single remark.
"I'll come once more. I hope your skills will have improved even further by then."
Delphon had naturally assured him they would.
After that, Delphon became a renowned maker not only in Hyeondeok City, but throughout Haedong.
Yet that Mage had never returned.
The aging of Delphon's physical body was approaching.
Having attained his realm, Delphon could extend his life by mechanizing his body.
But one fact he had learned upon walking this path was that, after shedding his original body, he could never be completely identical to his original self.
That was why he had hoped to keep that promise before undergoing the procedure.
"...What a shame."
But it seemed unlikely now.
There had been no word at all, so Delphon had no way to find the Mage himself.
News related to the Mage had not disappeared entirely.
His Assistant, who had come with him back then, had made astonishing progress over the past forty years and become the Deputy Tower Master of the Winter Tree Mage Tower.
An 8-Star Mage. A realm that could be called the strongest in all of Hyeondeok City.
And the little brown-haired girl from back then.
The child he had introduced as his adopted daughter had made a name for herself by punishing the entirety of Hyeondeok City's underworld.
Rumor had it that she was already a Martial Artist of the Life-and-Death Realm, though it was only a rumor and nothing certain.
...Even after hearing that news, there was nothing Delphon could do.
Other than their public appearances, he had no way to contact either of them personally.
Most mysterious of all was the Mage, who had vanished from the world as though he had never existed despite his Assistant and daughter becoming such remarkable figures.
It was hard to believe that something had happened to him.
From the very beginning, he had seemed that extraordinary.
At least in Delphon's eyes, he was not someone who would disappear into the life of an ordinary man. That was why Delphon found it so strange.
Hoo...
With a sigh, Delphon was about to close up for the day.
Ding!
A notification sound.
It was quite unfamiliar to Delphon, as the Assistant sorting equipment beside him proved.
"Who'd be contacting you for once?"
"...Quiet."
He never received contact unrelated to work, and work rarely came through his personal contact information.
The clients he had given that contact information to could be counted on one hand.
Could it be the customer who had visited recently, the one closest to full-frame grade?
[ Requesting warranty service within the coverage period. ] - Jin
"Huh?"
"What's got you so worked up, old man?"
At Delphon's reaction, the Assistant abruptly leaned in.
Delphon pushed that head away at once and checked the message again.
The message directly above the one that had just arrived was dated exactly thirty-six years and twenty-three days ago.
"...Heh heh."
Speak of the devil.
Watching old man Delphon smile with such delight, the Assistant, who had fallen to the floor in the process, muttered in disbelief.
"Have you finally gone senile?"
* * *
Naturally, almost no one remembers the moment they were born.
With a few exceptions, most people cannot properly remember even their childhood, much less the moment of their birth.
So I could say I was having an extremely rare experience.
Of course, I was not going through one of those regressions that start from the womb or anything, but...
Riiip, rrrrip!
I was having an experience somewhat similar to one.
As strips of cloth tore apart, the bindings around my entire body slowly loosened.
It had taken quite a long time even by my own sense of it, so far more time had probably passed in reality.
Crack, crack, crack!
The cocoon of threads made from spiritual power that had wrapped around my body burst apart.
After untangling the threads and splitting open the center, I finally regained my freedom.
Thump!
The half-collapsed cocoon and its outer shell fell to the floor.
It was a product created by One Life, One Birth, One Shedding, One True Art.
I had shed the cocoon and emerged from it, but there were no wings on my back.
There was only me, returned once more to a lower realm.
"Urgh..."
I let out a small groan at the daylight before my eyes and the pain throughout my body.
I had repeated this several times already, but it still felt awkward every time.
I stretched my stiff body in every direction and checked my condition.
"...4-Star."
As a Mage, I was at 4-Star.
My spiritual power was roughly at the initial stage of Foundation Establishment.
The art's effect had weakened more than I expected. It was an art whose benefits improved the farther down I regressed.
I had expected it to some extent, but this seemed to be the limit before I entered the path of magic.
It was a somewhat disappointing result.
Of course, there would still be plenty of chances to make use of the cultivation art later.
There were still several subdivided realms remaining before Transcendence.
But I had to be satisfied with only five times.
As I grumbled to myself, a familiar voice came from somewhere nearby.
"Dad!"
"Oh, you're here."
The brown-haired girl whose form of address had somehow become familiar to me.
Judy smiled as though she was truly glad to see me, then scrunched up her face as if she had remembered something.
"Why did it take so long this time? I was worried."
"How much time passed?"
"Eleven years."
"...Ah."
It did take a while.
I had reached the limits of the spellcraft, so even if its effectiveness declined, the duration could only grow longer.
It felt as though only a few days had passed for me.
"I'll probably be around for a while now. Don't worry."
"Really?"
"...Probably?"
The average time it took to reach Liberation from the path of magic was several thousand years.
No matter how overwhelmingly fast my cultivation was, it would still take quite some time to get there.
"So..."
As I began to continue, Judy crossed several dozen meters in a single step.
Then she wrapped her arms around my neck.
"......"
She used footwork so naturally.
A little startled, I returned the hug.
...What a clingy kid.
Judy had barely grown at all during that long time.
She looked different from when we first met, but at some point, her growth had stopped.
Of course, Ability Users could halt the aging of their outward appearance at a certain point.
But Judy's problem was that the process had stopped during her growth, long before aging was even relevant.
Such cases were common enough, but the fact that she might have made that choice because of me frightened me a little.
I felt responsible for changing this child's fate.
Judy's trajectory had clearly begun to differ from that of the protagonist of the original work.
It was not merely about appearance.
Compared to the protagonist of the original work, who could truly be called an Übermensch, Judy had taken on a little more of my influence.
"Is Wendy still at the Magic Tower?"
"Yes. Sis is probably busy."
...Of course, that could not be helped.
I had resolved to introduce some variation into this world, so I had to take responsibility for what took shape from the tasks I had sown.
I was not enough of a fool to run away because even that burden felt heavy.
"Then let's go to the Magic Tower first."
"Okay! Oh, wait a moment, Dad."
As though she had remembered something, Judy began rummaging through her pocket.
"Right."
Watching her, I remembered something I had forgotten as well.
The Transcendent Gallery, which I had only occasionally checked in on to lurk.
The last time I looked, everyone had still been caught up in the lingering echoes of that legend.
For one reason or another, the posts were no longer drawing as much interest as before, and I welcomed it as a chance to devote myself to cultivation.
I had already accumulated more than enough Points, after all.
Wouldn't the aftermath of the previous incident be nearly over by now?
With that rather lighthearted thought, I logged into the Gallery.
For ordinary people, a few decades was a long time. For Transcendents, that amount of time was truly no more than a moment.
They were probably just having fun among themselves...
- Fuck, where the hell are they!!!!!
- We even turned the Underworld upside down, and we still can't find them. Shouldn't we at least have found a trace?
- No, does it make any sense that we mobilized every registered handle and still couldn't find a single lead......
- Oz let quite a few personal details slip. How can they still not have turned up?
- Was it even true they got kidnapped in the first place!!!!!!
"...Huh?"
What were they up to now?
Footnotes:
The character used for "gwa" in "tasks I had sown" is 課, meaning a lesson or assigned task, rather than 果, meaning fruit or result.
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