WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 522: Side Story, About White (Part 3)
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Everyone knew it.
Demons were fundamentally immortal, undying beings. You could beat them until they were as close to death as possible, but they would still be breathing. They simply would not die. That was troublesome for anyone trying to subjugate demons.
Of course, there were ways.
A Sacred Relic of a higher order, such as Excalibur or Gramr, could deny even a demon's immortality and kill it. But Sacred Relics like that were hardly common. The Sacred Blood Church had to find another method.
Burning them to death with starlight? It was possible. However, the amount of starlight required to burn a single demon to death was astronomical.
Trying to kill them until they truly died? There had been a demon that chose self-annihilation after being stabbed over three thousand times. But that was unreliable too. Most tenacious demons simply gritted their teeth and endured it.
So what could be done?
How were they supposed to deal with immortal, undying beings?
The Sacred Blood Church pondered that question for many years before reaching one conclusion.
- You drain them until they die!
In other words, use them as lab rats.
- They won't die? Not even now? They still won't kill themselves? Then we simply drain them until they die. Demon blood, flesh, souls, mana, whatever we can take. Purify it, sell it to the Mage Tower, and it brings in quite a bit of money, you know?
Demonic materials were fairly valuable. Using them untreated would cause trouble, naturally, but the Sacred Blood Church had hunted demons for a thousand years. It knew countless ways to purify demon remnants, and the Church made active use of that knowledge.
First, beat a captured demon until it entered suspended animation. Then bind it in chains without a single gap. After that, drive specially made stakes, personally Star Blessed by their patron deity, into it according to the demon's rank.
- Ta-da! It is complete!
A factory that produced high-grade magical materials.
This was the Sacred Blood Church's main source of income.
There was a reason the Sacred Blood Church was among the three great Orders. While the Holy Radiance Order raised funds through donations from its overwhelming number of followers, and the Sacred Body Church earned sponsorships through outside events, the Sacred Blood Church made money by subjugating demons and beating the hell out of them.
- If we cannot kill them, we simply drain them until they die, is that not so? If a demon bites its tongue and kills itself, that is one less demon in the world, so we profit. If it endures, we profit by selling the byproducts and supporting this lovely maiden's priests.
It was a plan so demonic that demons themselves would weep.
What else could they do? The world was a total mess.
The Thorned Martyr believed that to deal with sons of bitches, you had to become one yourself.
- And we get to hear demons scream as well! It is ever so delightful!
Anyway, the girl smiled.
- Please, look around as much as you like!
Leaving her patron deity's confident smile behind, Yuel surveyed the sight before her. The city was full of preserved demons and inquisitors extracting magical materials from them.
“Welcome, Great Champion!”
“Welcome, great Dawning Star!”
The inquisitors who recognized them greeted them with broad smiles and saluted them. Each also held a stake dripping with demon blood. While Yuel was left speechless by the avant-garde scene, Najin blinked.
“Ah, so this is the farm.”
“What? A farm?”
“Merlin told me about it before. About a farm that cultivated things with demon blood after beating demons senseless. I had wondered what that meant...”
Najin looked around with interest.
“So this is what it looked like. Is that demon over there Arkel, the Demon of Arboriculture? If I remember correctly, the Guardian of the Thorn Tree captured it personally. I saw it in an epic tale once.”
“...I asked our patron deity, and she is clapping while asking how you knew. So I suppose it is.”
“Oh, then is that one...?”
“That is the Demon of Greed...”
“Ooh.”
Najin's eyes sparkled. Inside Yuel, her patron deity also bounced excitedly, her eyes gleaming.
“...”
Yuel wore a particularly complicated expression.
‘Huh?’
Najin was having fun. His eyes shone as he wandered around, smiling as he asked about this demon and told stories connected to that one. He did not seem to be merely enjoying himself out of courtesy for Yuel, who had worked hard to prepare the trip. He truly seemed to be having fun.
‘It worked? This? Really?’
She had thought the trip was ruined from the moment they reached the entrance.
Instead, it had somehow worked out.
What Yuel had overlooked was that Najin was obsessed with epic tales. He was an avid reader who had read nearly every heroic tale in human history. And demons were common fixtures in epic tales. The beings heroes fought were usually witches or demons.
“Gasp.”
“So that is the Demon of the Cold War? The one said to have incited the largest ideological war in human history by driving a wedge between the Kingdom and the Allied Nations, before Queen Elize, the Iron-Blooded Ruler, captured it...!”
- I cannot believe it! Yuel, this maiden is moved! He knows history in such detail! Hurry and tell him that Queen Elize was actually a secret agent of the Sacred Blood Church!
To Najin, it was no different from a museum.
A museum connected to heroes, at that.
Perhaps it was only natural that Najin loved it so much.
‘I never expected things to go this way.’
- Najin is enjoying himself.
‘He is an unusual man.’
- I think I am enjoying myself too.
Yuel Razian watched Najin's shining eyes from the side and let out a quiet laugh. Then she reached out and took his hand. As their fingers intertwined, Najin turned to her.
“Honestly.”
She must have been completely blinded by love. Even this peculiar side of him looked adorable to her. Looking resigned yet secretly pleased, Yuel Razian rose onto her toes.
“Since things have turned out this way...”
Then, tap, she stepped forward and pulled Najin along by the hand.
“I suppose becoming your curator for the day would not be so bad.”
2.
Hubert, an ancient demon.
A demon active a thousand years ago, Hubert had once sat upon the Demon King's throne and was one of the most powerful demons in history. Even now, chained up and pierced by more than a hundred stakes, Hubert retained a little intelligence.
After all, Demon Kings were demons possessed of intelligence.
In any case, this remarkable demon had not given up on life for over a thousand years. While countless demons chose death of their own accord in the face of the loathsome Sacred Blood Church's cruelty, Hubert endured and endured.
The concept Hubert governed was Survival.
Hubert, the Demon of Survival.
Hubert had remained faithful to that concept. Despite being tortured by the Sacred Blood Church for a thousand years, Hubert had not given up on life. Even now, Hubert dreamed of living. Waiting for the day the chains binding them weakened even slightly, Hubert endured.
‘A demon's life is infinite and eternal.’
If they waited, the time would come. With that one conviction, Hubert endured for a full thousand years.
‘Damn it. I should never have touched that crazy bitch's country. Who could have known it would turn out like this?’
Hubert's kind had made a rather interesting plan to swallow an entire nation, and Hubert had joined in.
Then Hubert had been bitten by a mad dog.
The Thorned Martyr.
The name Hubert remembered was the Undying Flame. A terrible girl wearing a crown of thorned vines upon her head, swinging a claymore larger than herself as she butchered demons, and eventually cutting off Hubert's head. Remembering her made Hubert shudder.
It was while Hubert was thinking of this.
Click. Click.
Footsteps echoed through the deepest part of the Sacred Blood Church, a place so sealed away that even signs of human presence had vanished. How long had it been since Hubert heard footsteps? Hubert slowly raised their head, wondering whether it might be a human they could tempt.
‘A man and a woman?’
What Hubert saw was a pair of lovers walking toward them from afar. They did not suit a place where an ancient demon was sealed away in the slightest. Hubert first looked at the woman in a fluttering one-piece dress, her heels clicking against the floor.
Then Hubert's expression crumpled.
They could sense the loathsome Thorned Martyr's power. Was she that mad dog's apostle? As Hubert focused their gaze, their body trembled at the sudden scent of blood. Every sense had grown faint from the stakes driven into them, yet the blood scent coming from the woman was strong enough to seize even those dulled senses.
The stench of Hubert's kin's blood filled the air.
‘How many demons has she killed?’
Hubert swallowed dryly.
She was strong. Strong enough to inspire fear.
The Great Champion of this generation seemed to be a monster. Even compared to those active a thousand years ago, she was a mighty being. Someone who could rival a Knight of the Round Table. If the current Great Champion was that powerful, Hubert would certainly have to give up on escaping in this generation.
‘Then who is that man?’
Was he her companion? He looked like an ordinary human. Then again, no matter who it was, their light would dim beside someone as powerful as that woman...
Tap.
That was as far as Hubert's thoughts went.
Tap.
The closer the man came, the more Hubert felt something was wrong.
‘Ah?’
Their heart, soul, body, every part of them reacted. Even the heart pierced through by hundreds of stakes, long since stopped, began to pound.
Thump, thump, thump.
Everything ran wild beyond Hubert's control.
Tap.
As the footsteps drew closer, Hubert's eyes shook. Every sight except that being grew blurred, then collapsed. Even the Great Champion of Star Blood, who had appeared so powerful, disappeared from Hubert's view.
When everything vanished,
only Hubert and one human remained.
No, could that truly be called human?
It was different. Their very rank of existence was different. Something vast and indescribable crushed Hubert beneath it.
They said that before immense gravity, even the flow of time warped and eventually stopped. What Hubert felt was not greatly different.
Within that arrested time,
“...”
that being silently looked at Hubert.
All it offered was a mere glance.
Only a single glance.
The gaze lingered for an instant, but that instant denied the thousands of years Hubert had accumulated. The mighty demon who had once sat upon the Demon King's throne, the insignificant creature that believed intelligence had allowed it to transcend demonhood, collapsed helplessly before that single glance.
Life was something that required a god's permission.
Existence was something that required a god's acknowledgement.
The one and only god of this land denied both Hubert's life and existence. The moment Hubert's concept was denied, their intelligence was lost. The intelligence they had clung to for a thousand years crumbled futilely before that god's gaze.
All that remained was an animal's instinct.
Rattle, rattle, rattle!
Forgetting even that they were bound in chains, the demon thrashed. It screamed and twisted its body. Terrified, it desperately tried to avoid that gaze.
“So that is one of the demons that helped destroy Rappeli, a demon that once sat upon the Demon King's throne. Since it is one of the few demons that has retained its intelligence, my patron deity said it should be possible to speak with it...?”
Yuel, who had been approaching Hubert while explaining, tilted her head. It looked far too beastlike as it thrashed madly to have any intelligence left. Blinking, Yuel looked back at Najin.
Her gaze seemed to ask whether he had done something.
Najin merely shrugged.
“Come on. What intelligence could a demon have?”
“Pardon?”
“Demon King or demon, they are all the same beasts.”
Najin said this while glaring at the demon.
“Intelligence is wasted on beasts.”
3.
Life's turning points often arrived without warning.
There was no sign of them.
They came suddenly and changed a life just as suddenly. Yuel had experienced several such turning points.
‘The day I entered the Ivory Tower. The day I was kidnapped into the Sealed City while doing research. The day I met that damned elder. The day that elder forced the position of warden on me...’
And then,
‘the day I met that man.’
The day Yuel met Najin was the greatest turning point in her life. That day, Yuel learned for the first time that her heart could beat so quickly.
Thump, thump, thump.
That merely having someone beside her could make her happy. That she could love someone this much.
That day, Yuel learned love.
Razian was no different.
She had no self to call her own. She did not know her past. She did not know who she was. From the moment she opened her eyes, all she had been given was strength, murderous intent, and the bare minimum of reason. Only when she killed people could she feel alive.
But then she met Najin.
And she met her past self.
For the first time, she began to think about who she was, what she desired, and what she wanted to do in the future. That was how she reached her own turning point.
In the end, the greatest turning point in Yuel Razian's life had been one man.
She, or they, felt something strange.
Things that had never interested them. Things that had stirred no particular emotion. Things they had considered ordinary daily life. Things they had simply allowed to pass by until now. With Najin, all of it was enjoyable. Their hearts raced.
Even now.
“Najin, this way.”
Razian took Najin by the arm and led him along. At first, she had thought this place was bizarre, but walking through it with Najin was fun. In truth, it did not matter where they went. What mattered was who they were with.
That was all it was.
Yuel's view of the world was narrow. Razian's was as well. Both had a habit of becoming absorbed in a single purpose, and neither was someone who actively socialized with others. As their patron deity had said, they were both children who had not yet properly grown up.
Yuel had been forced to become the warden of the Sealed City.
Razian had needed to follow her instincts because she did not know herself.
Only now were they beginning to learn about the world. And for them, Najin was the window through which they saw it. Holding Najin's hand, Yuel Razian smiled.
As they walked,
the trip gradually came to an end.
“What is this?”
A small gift box sat there. As Yuel blinked at it, her patron deity whispered in her ear.
- It is a gift this maiden prepared.
A gift, her patron deity had said.
- The Sacred Blood Church keeps more than one or two things in storage, so this maiden selected it with the utmost care. You may trust this maiden's eye. Go on, open it.
Inside the box was a single pure-white flower. When Yuel asked what it was, her patron deity answered.
- The thirty-eighth masterwork, Snowflake.
A masterwork.
- Its mystique is a fleeting moment, and eternity.
The Primordial Blacksmith had created it to bless a couple's marriage. Later, the masterwork fell into the hands of evildoers and was used in an entirely different manner, but this was the use its maker had intended.
- Snowflakes melt and vanish quickly. But in the moment a snowflake blooms, it is more beautiful than anything else. It is only a fleeting moment, but if one cannot forget that moment, is it not no different from eternity?
Snowflake was a masterwork that gifted an unforgettable moment. Once used, it was gone. That was why it was the perfect masterwork with which to bless a single moment.
‘Why give something like this to me?’
Her patron deity smiled.
- Because Yuel is the greatest masterwork in this maiden's life!
A masterwork for a masterwork.
“Honestly.”
Yuel clasped the masterwork her patron deity had given her. The moment she grasped Snowflake, it melted away. For the fleeting moment that would now remain with her forever, Yuel turned her head.
She stepped toward Najin, who was watching her.
Her pure-white dress swayed.
Her swaying straw hat fell to the floor.
Amid drifting snowflakes, the woman who resembled pure white snow smiled shyly.
She rose onto her toes and kissed Najin. Whether it was Yuel or Razian who kissed him did not matter. Both were her. The brief kiss felt like eternity. When their lips parted, she smiled.
“Once, I gave you ownership of a masterwork, did I not?”
Yuel placed a hand over her chest.
“Here is the Sacred Blood Church's finest masterwork.”
Then she smiled.
“Well? Would you like to own it?”
It was a rather embarrassing line for a confession.
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