WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 307

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Sealed City (5)

Three years had passed since Yuel took office as City Lord.

Over those three years, Sealed City's crime rate dropped exponentially. Cases of people killing each other declined, and bodies turning up in back alleys every other day became far less common.

She tamed beasts with fear.

She put collars on beasts and made them human.

The people of the city feared their City Lord, but they no longer feared the night. They stopped walking around with blades tucked close while eyeing their neighbors, and suspicion between people eased.

That was how three years passed.

The blood dried up. In a city that should have been stained with blood, blood no longer flowed. To whoever had built this city, it was not a desirable outcome.

"God has spoken!"

With a shove, God pushed a human's back.

"Kill, kill, and kill again!"

"With sinners' blood, we shall prove our purity!"

"Raise your blades! Kill!"

Sweet words were whispered in their ears, and their hearts were shaken. Emotions flared, impulses surged, and the shackles called restraint were smashed to pieces. The order Yuel had built over three years started collapsing in an instant.

"City Lord! On Daimel Street!"

"In District 2, there's a massacre..."

"They've started rising up in groups! Like they're possessed, all of a sudden...!"

A fire caught.

Once it caught, it spread fast.

"Uahaha, uha! God, God is speaking!"

"Kyaaaaaaaaaah!"

"Kill! The more you kill, the more God cheers!"

People claiming they heard the voice of God started swinging blades everywhere. There was no warning, no context.

A street vendor who used to smile gently as he handed toys to children turned into a madman overnight and slaughtered those same children. A man famous for loving his wife murdered her. An old man who no longer had the strength to lift a sword and had only been waiting to die killed two passersby.

Humans became beasts.

"..."

Yuel stood silent before that sight.

What she had built, teeth clenched and step by step, collapsed in an instant. One whim from a god, one flick of a god's hand, and human lives became worthless.

"Ha."

Some people would drop to their knees in that kind of situation. Laughing bitterly that their lives had no value, they would let go of themselves. Some would give up, saying nothing could be done. How could a mere human defy a god's intent?

"Bullshit."

Yuel was not one of them.

What rested on her shoulders was not only her own life, and her pride would not allow resignation.

"Fuck off, goddammit."

She was a capable ruler.

She was the masterpiece the previous City Lord had made.

"Execution."

She unleashed her forces. She executed the maddened more brutally. She turned the law into a net and bound the city with it. By any means, in any way, she hunted criminals down.

If God incited humans,

then she would restrain humans with fear.

As emotions grew more extreme, so did the fear city residents felt toward Yuel. Yuel equated her own existence with the law itself, and fear of Yuel led directly to fear of the act of breaking the law.

Blood never had time to dry in the Lord's Keep plaza.

"Oh! God, God!"

Again, Yuel was a capable ruler.

"A warrior desired by God has appeared!"

They were not merely warriors.

"Uh, uhh?"

"With blood, I shall prove my purity."

"Urgh..."

Some escaped Yuel's grasp and roamed the city with blood on their hands. Around the time each had killed close to a hundred people, a change occurred.

Sword Aura rose from the weapons in their hands.

Sword Aura, the symbol of a Sword Expert.

They had never spent their lives swinging swords, and they did not even know how to handle mana, yet they became Sword Experts. Simply by killing many people, they reached that level.

That was the turning point.

Until then, Sealed City had no expert-level powerhouses. Put differently, it meant there was no way to suppress someone on par with a Sword Expert.

"R-run!"

"Ghk..."

"Retreat! Retreat!"

The City Lord's direct soldiers were cut down by Experts. Against blades wrapped in Sword Aura, their weapons and armor meant nothing.

"..."

Yuel was capable, but once people armed with the logic of brute strength started appearing, the scales slowly began to tilt. She stayed composed in front of her subordinates, but the moment she returned to her office, she threw the papers off her desk and screamed.

God whispered in her ear.

Give up.

What meaning did any of this still have?

The god of Sealed City whispered into the ears of the human resisting it. It shook her. Just as Yuel's hand naturally moved toward the sword on her table,

twirl, stab.

With her fountain pen, she stabbed the back of her own reaching hand. Raising that blood-dripping hand, Yuel narrowed her eyes.

'I will not become a beast.'

She would live as a human and die as a human.

Repeating that to herself, she searched for a way.

...In the original history,

she brought in killers.

She drew in murderers who had become Sword Experts by killing people, gave them power, and used them to crush other Experts. When they grew too large and stopped listening, she used other Experts to kill them.

Poisoning, ambushes, traps in their rooms, she used every method to suppress them.

She became more and more mechanical. She mobilized every available means and committed any act at all if it would stabilize the city. In another sense, it was the process of losing her humanity.

The human who refused to become a beast

turned into an elaborate machine that was no longer human.

Even as her emotions wore down, she still refused to become a beast. Some began calling her a doll. That was what happened in the original history.

'If I bring in others.'

The choice made by a human struggling to find an answer in a hopeless situation.

'Even if I have to give power to killers, even if I use any method...'

And the history that would repeat unless someone intervened.

Tap.

But.

"..."

Tap, tap. Someone knocking on the window.

Creak, the window opening.

A sound that had never rung out in the original history echoed through the desolate office.

"You again."

"Yes."

"I don't have the time to talk with you right now. I'm busy, so..."

"Yuel."

"..."

"You asked me something back then."

Najin stepped into the room Yuel had locked.

"You asked what I'd been doing outside."

An abrupt topic.

But it was a question Yuel had definitely asked once.

"I did many things out there, but this was the first one. And I did it in my hometown, a place like this city."

Why was that?

Yuel felt like she already knew what he was about to say.

"Executioner."

Najin held out his hand to Yuel.

"You don't need to compromise."

"..."

"Leave it to me."

"Leave what."

"Didn't I tell you?"

Najin gave a crooked smile.

"My specialty was beating down bastards who aren't even human."

"Huh..."

Yuel wiped her face.

She hesitated, thought, stayed silent, and then burst out laughing.

"You crazy man."

"You're the one saying that?"

"Because it's me, I can say it. And because it's you, you can hear it."

Yuel handed Najin the sword she had always held and never been able to let go.

A person who did not exist in the original history.

In a city beginning to be dyed in madness, a being who was not dyed in madness, who understood Yuel, and who willingly volunteered to become her hands and feet stepped into the story.

Not many things changed.

But something definitely did.

2.

People who killed and got drunk on blood rose to Expert rank and appeared everywhere. Competing with each other, they beat down more humans and dyed the city in blood.

They thought no one could stop them.

Overwhelmingly faster reflexes than ordinary people. Dynamic vision sharp enough to bat away flying arrows. Strength enough to break stone walls barehanded, and bodies reinforced by mana that could produce several times a normal person's output.

How sweet mana was.

And what about Sword Aura? In front of Sword Aura that could hack even iron armor apart, didn't even that mad City Lord's soldiers tremble? As they killed more people and felt their own power grow, they even felt omnipotent.

"A warrior blessed by God stands with us!"

Followers appeared too. Leading those intoxicated by God's voice, they enjoyed the sweetness of privilege. Then, in front of those drunk on themselves...

Tap.

Someone appeared.

"..."

Under the lamps hanging along Sealed City's streets, someone's shadow flickered. The Expert narrowed his eyes and looked at the human blocking his path.

He sensed no mana.

An ordinary person.

The moment he realized that, the Expert burst out laughing and puffed up his frame. If the opponent was not an Expert, why should he be afraid? He did not even need to step in himself.

Glance.

A signal was enough, and the fanatics following him would clean it up. As expected, they shouted, "This is our divine warrior's territory! Who dares here!" and approached the young man blocking the road.

They approached, but

crunch, bang, KWAHAAAAANG!

Sounds of things breaking and bodies slamming into walls rang through the dark in rapid succession. In just a few seconds, the fanatics were embedded in walls or collapsed with their heads smashed into the ground.

"..."

The Expert blinked. What had just happened? He hurriedly drew Sword Aura. He pointed his sword at the young man walking toward him.

He was a Sword Expert. There was no way he could lose to an ordinary person who could not even handle mana...

Thinking that, he charged Najin.

That was not wrong. The gap between a Sword Expert, who could reinforce his body with mana and draw Sword Aura, and an ordinary person was enormous. Just as you could bring dozens of street thugs and still fail to beat a knight.

But Najin was a Sword Master.

Even if he could not draw Sword Aura, even if he could not handle mana, even if his physical ability had fallen to ordinary human level, even if all those constraints were pressing his body down,

how could a technique that had touched Transcendence simply disappear?

One step.

The Expert swung his sword down. He had clearly swung at Najin, but the blade cut only empty air.

Two steps.

As he tried to raise his sword again, a weight dropped on his hand with a thud. It was Najin's foot. The moment that weight vanished, blood sprayed before his eyes.

"Ah?"

It was his own blood.

Slash.

Najin's blade cut through the Expert's neck. Outstanding cutting power from Sword Aura and wall-breaking brute strength were unnecessary. If the angle and force of a sword swing were precise, even a rough blade could take a human neck.

First one.

Holding the City Lord's sword, Najin cut across Sealed City. He stirred up every corner of the city and ferreted out criminals, easily hunted strong enemies the Lord's Keep soldiers could not catch, and dragged wanted men out by the hair and threw them into the plaza.

"Fuck, it's the Lord's Hound!"

From some point on, that was what they called him.

"That bastard can't even draw Sword Aura, jump him! We've got a warrior who can draw Sword Aura..."

"Fuck, Calix from the next district said that too and got taken down! Forget this, just run first."

"H-heuaaaaaaah!"

He could not draw Sword Aura. He was not so fast that the eye could not track him. So he looked beatable. Every person who said that proved with their own body that they were wrong, by ending up beheaded and displayed in the plaza.

Originally, far more manpower would have been needed.

Yuel would have had to break her own beliefs and use every method just to barely catch them...

Even then, criminals who would have produced more victims before being captured were hunted by Najin. Of course, with physical ability lowered to ordinary level, it was impossible to tear through the entire city in one night.

Some incidents were missed no matter how fast he ran.

The number of criminals he could capture in one night was not that high either.

"You know, right?"

"..."

"Even doing this, all you're doing is buying time."

Merlin said it, and Najin answered with silence.

He knew.

This could not be a fundamental solution. In a city with destruction already set in stone, all Najin was doing now was slowing the speed of that destruction.

"It only buys time, but."

Then Najin said,

"From what I can see, what she needs is time. Time to catch her breath, even for a moment."

With every step Najin took, a woman with bloodshot eyes, rotting away in her office, could finally let out the breath she had been holding.

"For now, that's enough."

Narrowing his eyes, Najin looked up at the sky.

Because now, he felt like he understood how this city had been made.

"Merlin said this before."

There was a madman who had proposed a theory, that simply killing many humans could make someone a Sword Master.

On the day he first met Yuel,

Merlin had pointed at Yuel and said, "The one who actually did that was Yuel Razian. A human who reached Sword Master by killing many."

Of course, that did not happen inside this city but outside it. Still, Najin could not believe the two were unrelated. Turning that story over in his mind, Najin lowered his gaze.

Najin looked at the city.

Then he looked at the owner of that sky, the one who seemed to drape threads over the city. Beyond the sky, rippling like a night sea, he felt someone's gaze.

"Hermann."

Merlin said.

"A Transcendent who holds the Star of Omniscience."

Najin became certain.

This city was an experimental ground built by a Transcendent to prove his theory.

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