WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: LilGuyBlastoise
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Made Magic Easier by Changing the Formula ◈
Chapter 12: The Mender Doesn’t Only Work with Fabric
──────
A hidden room underground.
Heavy silence hung in the air, along with the metallic smell of blood.
“...”
Ellen covered her mouth and trembled.
Her face was pale, and she could not take her eyes off the severed head.
But I remained calm.
Only my heart pounded wildly.
Memories of growing up in the slums.
A place where human life weighed less than a single coin.
Days when I was beaten by nobles for no reason and had to bow my head even when I was falsely accused.
That life had hardened my heart.
“My lady, don’t look. I’ll take care of it.”
I took a scrap of cloth from the workbench and covered the man’s head.
“This... What on earth...?”
Ellen finally managed to speak.
“He was an unwelcome visitor.”
I went over what had happened.
“It happened like this...”
* * *
Thirty minutes earlier, on the first floor of the annex.
I was sitting at my desk, making notes on second-tier magic theory for Ellen.
Slide.
The locked window of the annex opened without a sound.
“!”
I turned around in surprise and saw a man in a black mask sitting on the windowsill.
“You’re Hans, the mender?”
A grim smile leaked through the mask.
“The young master of House Bergen ordered it. Come quietly, or you’ll be dragged away with your feet cut off.”
The man hopped down from the window.
“They said they’d pay ten times what you make here. You’re not stupid enough to refuse, are you?”
The young master of House Bergen...?
Felix!
Why was that pathetic bastard suddenly after me?
‘Ten times my pay?’
Ridiculous.
‘He’s always been out to get me.’
My mind went cold.
“And if... I refuse?”
“I only need to bring back a corpse. Whether you walk out alive or get dragged away as a lump of meat is your choice.”
The man drew a dagger.
Its blade gleamed coldly in the moonlight.
At that moment, I knew.
‘If I refuse, he really will kill me.’
But if I went with him?
Would Felix, who had sent someone like this, really let me live?
‘This room is narrow. There’s nowhere to run.’
I could not face him head-on with only first-tier domestic magic.
If I fought, I would die. No question.
There was only one way to survive.
‘I’ll lure him into a trap.’
I hunched my shoulders and backed away, pretending to be terrified.
I had to look pathetic.
I had to make him see me as a bug and lower his guard.
“Wait! I’ll come with you. Please don’t hurt me.”
“Hmm? So you know your life is precious. Good. The smart ones live longer.”
“But first, I need to pack some things. Needles and thread... mending tools. Without them, I can’t do the work the young master wants.”
With trembling hands, I kicked aside the rug behind my desk.
Then I pressed a knot in the floorboards.
Rumble.
A secret passage opened.
“My tools and all my savings are in the secret storage room below. Let me take them, and I’ll come quietly.”
“A secret passage in a corner? You’re an interesting one.”
The man’s eyes gleamed with interest.
I ran down the underground stairs as if trying to escape.
“Heh... Go ahead and run. You’re still in the palm of my hand.”
Behind me came the mocking laugh of a predator enjoying the hunt.
“Wait. This place is suspicious. It looks like some secret location belonging to House Valderk.”
The man glared at me sharply.
“Talk. How do you know about this place? Who told you?”
“Do I really... have to tell you?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’ll tell me everything once we get there.”
Spinning his dagger between his fingers, he slowly closed the distance.
“Where are your tools?”
“Near the workbench over there...”
“You know what happens if you try anything funny. I’ll gouge your eyes out.”
My heart felt ready to burst.
Cold sweat ran down my back.
Still, I desperately controlled my expression.
Until he stepped into the range of the magic circle.
“Quit dawdling. Once you’ve got everything, crawl back out. My patience is running thin.”
At last, the man stepped directly into the center of the magic circle laid out with five lower-grade mana crystals.
That was the moment.
“A mender doesn’t only work with fabric.”
The cringing fear drained from my face like the tide pulling back.
“Sometimes... I deal with tenacious lifelines too.”
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
As the man frowned in confusion, I poured my will into the mana circuit running through the floor.
Fear of killing someone?
Guilt?
Those were luxuries.
If I died, my future would vanish too.
All the golden stock certificates I had worked so hard to gather would turn to dust.
Flash!
The five lower-grade mana crystals emitted blue light at once.
[First-Tier Transformation Formula: Shadow Needle]
“...?”
Before the man could even look down, something rose like black awls and pierced his ankles.
Thunk! Thunk!
Bright red blood sprayed in every direction.
Startled, the man glared at me.
“W-What is this?”
What did it look like?
Shadow Needles launched by the power of lower-grade mana crystals.
The needles rose from the ground, pierced the man’s feet, and drove back into the floor.
The invisible threads attached to them pinned his feet to the floor as though they had been sewn in place.
“Argh! Aaaargh!”
The man screamed and twisted his body.
But the needles embedded through his flesh would not come out.
Instead, the harder he struggled, the deeper the threads in the floor tightened around his feet.
‘Now.’
When the chance came, I had to finish it.
[First-Tier Transformation Formula: Invisible Thread]
Dozens of Invisible Threads hidden in the ceiling.
Whoosh.
They poured down like snakes striking their prey and wrapped around the man’s limbs.
Twang.
Then one of the strands wound around the man’s exposed neck.
“S-Save... Ghk!”
The man begged, but I pulled the Invisible Thread without hesitation.
The thread went taut.
For a brief moment, flesh resisted as it split along the thread.
Then it gave way with absurd ease.
Schlick!
A dull, wet sound I had never heard before, as flesh and bone separated at once.
Drip. Drip.
Blood spouted like a fountain.
The body fell forward.
That was the end.
* * *
“...That’s what happened.”
I finished speaking calmly.
“I did it to survive... and to protect this place’s secret.”
Ellen stared at me blankly.
“Felix... sent him?”
“They said they would kill me if I didn’t go with them.”
“No. This was definitely Sophia’s doing.”
“Lady Sophia? The assassin gave Young Master Felix’s name.”
“Felix doesn’t have the nerve for something like this. Sophia was thoroughly defeated by me at the Academy today. Sophia must have pushed Felix into it after getting worked up.”
Cold anger flickered in her eyes.
“In the end, you almost died because of me. I’m so sorry.”
“No, my lady. I realized something because of it too.”
I glanced down at the corpse on the floor.
Felix Bergen!
‘Whether Sophia pushed him into it or not... there’s no doubt that he was involved.’
I would make him pay for the arrogance of sending an assassin after me, treating me like a mere toy.
Swipe. Swipe.
Then Ellen took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the blood from my cheek.
“Hans, no one can ever know about this.”
This secret place of House Valderk could never be exposed.
Someone had died here.
“First, let’s get rid of the body.”
“I’ll handle that, so please go back, my lady.”
“No.”
She firmly shook her head.
“This is my family’s problem. Why else would Sophia try to kill you? It was because of me. You got blood on your hands to protect me.”
She touched the ring on her left hand.
“If we burn or bury the body here, the smell may linger, or someone may find traces. The safest thing is to put it in my subspace and take it outside.”
Calming her trembling hand, she reached toward the body.
Fwoosh.
In an instant, the corpse seemed to seep into the subspace linked to her ring.
Every trace of the horrible slaughter vanished without a mark.
“Your subspace is quite large, if it can fit a body.”
“...It was a gift my dad gave me a long time ago. Anyway, don’t worry about the body. I’ll dispose of it properly. But the bloodstains...”
“I’ll take care of them.”
When Ellen tried to wipe the blood from the floor with her handkerchief, I stopped her.
No matter how tough she acted, she was still a noble lady.
Her hand shook violently, unaccustomed to the smell of blood.
“We need to erase every trace.”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
This was my first time killing someone, but I had erased stains hundreds of times.
The only difference was that this stain was human blood, not dirt on fabric.
[First-Tier Transformation Formula: Trace Erasure]
Flash!
The instant white particles of mana spread from my fingertips and covered the floor, the chilling red pool scattered like vapor.
Sizzle.
The faint bloodstains lodged in the cracks of the floor.
The metallic smell of blood lingering in the air.
They disappeared completely.
“Amazing... The traces disappeared as if they were never there. So cleanly.”
Ellen’s eyes widened.
“You should return and rest now, my lady.”
“I’m fine. I’m more worried that Sophia may send another assassin after you.”
“No. If anything, they’ll stay still.”
“Stay still? How can you be sure?”
“I’m alive and unharmed, but the assassin has disappeared. Would they dare act rashly when they don’t know why the attempt failed?”
Ellen’s expression brightened.
“No. From Sophia’s perspective, this must be terrifying. If she thinks our family captured the assassin...”
“Exactly. If this gets out, House Bergen will have a hard time avoiding blame. They won’t be able to move carelessly.”
“She may be trembling right about now.”
“So please act as you normally do, my lady. Proudly. That is how Sophia will make a misstep.”
Silence was the most terrifying weapon.
Sophia would have to fight the terror born from her own imagination.
A fear that dried the blood in her veins.
Life returned to Ellen’s eyes.
“I have something to tell you, Hans.”
A strange smile curved her lips.
“I spoke to my dad earlier and secured ten intermediate mana crystals. I’ll bring them to you tomorrow.”
“Intermediate-grade mana crystals?”
“You created something this powerful with lower-grade ones. You’ll be able to make something even more incredible with intermediate crystals, right?”
“Of course, but such valuable items...”
“I’m giving them to you because I want to. That way, I think you’ll stay with me for a long time instead of leaving.”
Ellen’s eyes gleamed strangely.
“Get stronger quickly, Hans. For me. And for yourself.”
With those words, she disappeared up the stairs of the secret passage.
Slide, thud.
The wall closed, and I was alone again.
I collapsed into a chair.
Only after the tension left me did my hands begin to shake.
“Haah...”
The heavy, horrible sensation of cutting through a person’s neck was still vivid in my hands.
No matter how much I washed them, the bloodstains in my memory would never disappear.
But I had no regrets.
To keep from dying, I had willingly chosen to become a monster.
I clenched and unclenched my fists, steadying myself.
Then I thought over Ellen’s parting words.
‘Ten intermediate mana crystals.’
They were on an entirely different level from lower-grade mana crystals.
Even by a simple comparison, they contained more than ten times as much mana and offered over twenty times the output efficiency.
‘With that much output, I could theoretically build a third-tier magic circle.’
I closed my eyes and pictured the designs.
Third-Tier [Lightning Spear]
Third-Tier [Fire Storm]
Powerful killing spells dreamed of by combat mages.
But I soon shook my head with a bitter smile.
“No. I can’t.”
Even if I had intermediate mana crystals, I could not activate the complex Spell Formula of third-tier magic with my weak mana.
My mana circuit would burn out from overload before it could even start.
‘For now, first-tier magic is all I can use without strain.’
Even with mana crystals, that meant I could not cause wide-ranging explosions or unleash flashy spells everywhere.
Then there was only one way.
‘If I can’t spread it over a wide area... I’ll concentrate it into one narrow point.’
Compression!
Like a mender’s needle.
I would focus tremendous power onto a point as small as a needle’s tip.
“If one strike isn’t enough, then ten... If ten aren’t enough, then a hundred...”
A new formula appeared before my eyes.
An approach only I could use, one combat mages would never even consider.
[First-tier Composite Formula: Mana Needle + Rapid-Fire Launch]
Using the overflowing output of intermediate mana crystals, it would create hundreds of short, sharp Mana Needles in the air.
The instant an intruder entered, they would rain down upon that narrow point.
The so-called [Needle Shower].
Turn the enemy’s body into a beehive!
No, into powder.
A merciless piercing spell.
‘This is it!’
I picked up my quill and began drawing the new formula on a blank sheet.
Line by line.
A chilling aura came from the completed Spell Formula.
‘If I just change the formula...’
My eyes gleamed coldly.
‘...I can pierce anything.’
Whether it was fabric or a person.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
