WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B.

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 40: 040

──────

The Soul Binding ritual was simple.

-Iing Iing!

"Uh... So I just stay still and accept the connection?"

-Iing!

Na Hyeji sat still.

The fairy flew over with a flutter and plopped down on top of her head.

Then...

-Hummmmmm...!

An unusual wave pulsed through the air.

Flash!

A bright rainbow glow burst from the fairy.

That was the end of the ritual.

-Iing Iing!

The fairy sprang to her feet and thrust a fist into the sky proudly.

I was surprised.

"Hyeji! That fairy got bigger!"

"Really?"

It had only taken a little over a minute.

Yet the fairy had grown.

Before, she had been about the size of one of my fingers. Now she was around one and a half times bigger.

Kids really did grow fast.

Interesting.

"What about you, Hyeji? Has anything changed?"

I was curious about Hyeji's changes too.

A Soul Binding ritual.

As the name suggested, it was apparently a ritual that tied two souls together and made them companions who shared the same fate.

Wouldn't Hyeji have changed somehow too?

She answered.

"Um... How should I put this? I think Iing Iing and I are connected."

"Iing Iing?"

"That's this child's name. I'm going to call her Iing Iing. She keeps going iing, iing when she talks, right?"

"..."

What awful naming sense.

She was on the same level as my my sister, who gave her car nicknames like Vroomie and Squeaky.

Still, connected?

"What does that feel like?"

"Um, it feels like I have another organ outside my body. Except it's an organ with its own consciousness."

"Oh?"

"And I can vaguely tell what emotions she's feeling too... It's a strange feeling."

It was a vague explanation, but I could roughly understand the sensation.

After all, I felt something similar every day.

'Whenever I held my staff, it felt connected to me like it was part of my body. Isn't it like that?'

Just like my Body-Staff Unity.

Na Hyeji had achieved the realm of Body-Fairy Unity!

That was close enough.

Anyway...

"Now that the contract is done, shall we go test it in the field?"

My EX-grade porter, Na Hyeji, had leveled up into an EX-grade Fairy Mage porter!

And if her stats had improved, we needed to test them.

I was planning to head straight into the Tower.

But...

"Um... I don't think I can go to the Tower right away. As you can see..."

Na Hyeji pointed somewhere with an awkward expression.

She was pointing at the living room and bedroom, which had become a complete mess.

The window was broken, letting harsh wind blow in from outside.

All sorts of junk were scattered across the floor.

"I need to call someone to cover the broken window first, then clean the house. So I can't go right away... I'll come over to your place this afternoon, Jiho."

"..."

Right.

It wouldn't be right to leave this wrecked house as it was and head straight into the Tower.

We agreed to meet that afternoon and left the house.

Hyeji had become a Fairy Mage.

If we entered the Tower today, I would be able to find out exactly what she could do.

* * *

After returning home, I prepared to climb Floor 16.

In other words, I browsed Hunter Gallery.

[Floor 16's an exploration map, this sucks...]

[Orc Shamans are seriously the worst]

[Ahh, stop shooting lightning at me!]

[I need to save up and buy a magic resistance artifact for real]

...

These were the posts that appeared when I searched Hunter Gallery for "Floor 16."

Click.

I opened one post that caught my eye.

[Post Title: Floor 16's an exploration map, this sucks...]

I have to find and kill five Orc Shamans?

But where are they?

Ah lol, their locations are random?

Fuck, does that mean I have to wander around fighting Orcs until Shamans show up?

This seriously sucks...

How long does it take to clear Floor 16?

└About two weeks.

└It takes two weeks? Crazy.

└Yeah, where the Orc Shamans are hiding is totally random, so it takes a while to find them... And you have to find and kill five of them.

└It's probably a little faster these days, though. The Floor 16 map is complete now. Their spawn locations are random, but the places they can appear are limited, so if you move quickly, you can finish in a week if you're lucky.

└Still annoying because there are way too many Orcs you run into along the way lol

└At least you can use the Return Portal. Better than having to eat that awful Orc jerky and cheese lol

└That's true. That jerky stinks so bad...

...

I quietly muttered as I read through the post.

"Floor 16 is a kind of exploration floor."

A vast forest spread out from the starting point, surrounded by rugged mountains.

If we found and killed the five Orc Shamans somewhere within that enormous area, the Escape Portal would open and let us clear the floor.

The average clear time was about two weeks.

The terrain was vast and rough, the Shamans' locations were random, and there were plenty of wandering Orcs...

It apparently took quite a while to clear.

I spoke quietly.

"If Hyeji's fairy scouts well, we could clear it easily."

It didn't look like we could clear Floor 16 in a single day.

No matter how much of an Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter I was, I couldn't figure out the locations of every Orc Shaman across such a vast map.

It was obvious that we would spend a lot of time running all over the place.

But now, a fairy had joined our party.

We had gained a fantasy drone that could freely fly hundreds of meters in the air!

If that fairy scouted the terrain, found the Orc Shamans, and told me where they were...

We might even clear the floor in one day.

'How capable is this fairy, really?'

I wasn't expecting too much.

How strong could such a tiny fairy possibly be?

Still, if she could scout well, I figured she would be quite useful.

That was how I waited for my EX-grade porter Fairy Mage.

[Entering Tower Floor 16.]

The Floor 16 raid began.

* * *

Flash!

The bright light faded.

I slowly looked around.

All I could see was dense forest and rugged mountain terrain.

The sky was clear, and clouds drifted lazily by.

Just like always, the inside of the Tower was filled with nature.

Glance.

I turned my gaze behind me.

'The Return Portal. And a small stone tower.'

The Return Portal stood behind me, with a small stone tower beyond it.

Above the stone tower floated a number.

[5]

It was the number of Orc Shamans we needed to kill.

Once we killed five Orc Shamans, the door to that stone tower would open, revealing the Escape Portal inside.

It was a floor where we had to fill a certain count, like Floors 8 and 10.

I was used to this format now.

While I checked our surroundings...

"Iing Iing. This is inside the Tower. What do you think?"

-Iing Iing!

"You feel more energetic? Is it because we're inside the Tower? Well, you are from the Tower..."

-Iing Iing!

"Okay. Let's do our best!"

I heard Hyeji talking with the fairy.

It looked like she was encouraging her and building rapport before her first real outing.

Hmm...

I was jealous.

'I want a fantasy pet too.'

Seriously, it was so unfair.

What the hell did the size of a soul even mean?

Why couldn't I have a fairy?

Jealousy rose inside me...!

Then a thought suddenly crossed my mind.

'Wait. If I can find one with a soul similar in size to mine... couldn't I have a fantasy pet too?'

My soul was too large to bond with a fairy.

So if I found a fairy or spirit with a large soul instead...

Couldn't I make it my pet?

I was curious, so I asked.

"Hey. Iing Iing."

-Iing Iing?!

When I spoke to her, the fairy flinched and hid behind Hyeji's hair.

She was still scared of me.

I was a little annoyed, but I ignored it and asked my question.

"You said you can't make a contract with me because my soul is too big for yours, right? Then if I find a spirit with a soul around my size, can I command a spirit too?"

-Iing... Iing Iing. Iiiing. Iing Iing.

The fairy replied to my question.

What was she saying?

Hyeji translated.

"Um... Iing Iing says it's definitely possible."

"Oh...! Then someday, I can have a fairy pet too...!"

"But... Jiho's soul is apparently abnormally large. She says an ordinary fairy probably wouldn't work. It would have to be something like a Fairy Queen, a Spirit King, or a Dragon hatchling..."

"?"

What was that supposed to mean?

What was a Fairy Queen? What was a Spirit King? And what was a Dragon hatchling?

Look at that absurd lineup.

More importantly, were things like that inside the Tower?

I'd never even heard of them.

'Could they appear beyond Floor 51?'

It was entirely possible.

Humanity still hadn't completely conquered the Tower.

The Tower had only existed for seven years.

Humanity had only conquered up to Floor 49, and knew absolutely nothing about the world beyond that.

How many floors the Tower had.

What appeared inside it.

A Fairy Queen.

A Spirit King.

A Dragon...

If I kept climbing the Tower, maybe I would meet incredible beings like those someday.

I clicked my tongue.

'Anyway, it means I can't do it right now.'

Because I was such a great and noble Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter, I was fated to be unable to get a pet whenever I wanted.

Sigh.

Being too exceptional was a sin too.

It couldn't be helped. I had to endure it.

For a while, I would have to soothe my desire for a pet by watching animal videos online.

Anyway.

"Shall we start the raid, Hyeji?"

"Yes."

I had already explained my plan before entering the Tower, so Hyeji moved right away.

"Iing Iing, you know what to do, right? Find the Orc Shamans and tell us where they are. We need to find all five."

-Iing Iing!

At Hyeji's request, Iing Iing raised her fist.

She looked like she was telling us to leave it to her.

The fairy drone certainly had confidence.

Let's see how well it could scout.

Right after that...

-Flutter!

Our scouting drone launched.

The fairy shot high into the sky, trailing shimmering rainbow dust behind her.

I was secretly surprised.

'Wow. She's incredibly fast?'

I had thought she would be able to fly high but wouldn't move that quickly.

Contrary to my expectations, the fairy was quite fast.

Like an actual military drone, she rose hundreds of meters in only a few seconds.

She was so small that I could barely see her at that height.

If I hadn't been an Extreme Lunatic Hell Wizard Hunter, I probably wouldn't have been able to see her with the naked eye.

Whoosh.

After reaching a certain altitude, she moved rapidly and disappeared beyond the sky.

Clap, clap, clap.

I clapped without realizing it.

"Hyeji. Your fairy is amazing. She's really fast."

"I know... I didn't expect Iing Iing to be that fast either..."

"Ah, but she's really far away. Are you still connected? Doesn't anything change because of the distance?"

"I don't feel any particular change. I think the connection remains no matter how far apart we are."

"Oh."

Fortunately, the connection between Hyeji and the fairy seemed to continue regardless of distance.

That meant Hyeji could tell in real time whether the fairy was safe and what emotions she was feeling.

They could sense each other's physical condition and emotions no matter how far apart they were.

Interesting.

"Then shall we wait a little until the fairy comes back?"

Plop.

I sat down.

Since the fairy had gone scouting, I planned to rest until she found all the Orc Shamans.

But then...

"Jiho. I think the scouting is finished."

"Pardon?"

"Iing Iing is coming back over there."

I had no choice but to stand up again a moment later.

Whoooosh!

I could see the fairy returning from far away.

'What?'

I was confused.

Hadn't it only been about ten minutes since the fairy left?

And she had already found all five Orc Shamans?

-Iing Iing!

The fairy returned quickly and proudly raised her fist.

Hyeji said,

"Jiho. Iing Iing says she's finished scouting. She found all the Orc Shamans."

"...Really? Is that possible in only ten minutes?"

"I know. I didn't expect her to find them this quickly either... Shall we go where she's leading us?"

I nodded.

If she had really found all five, we could follow the fairy's guidance and clear the floor quickly.

Then...

-Iing Iing!

"Oh? Really? You can do that?"

The fairy said something, and Hyeji's eyes widened.

It was frustrating not being able to understand all those iing sounds.

"What's wrong?"

"Um... Iing Iing says she can take you straight to the Orc Shamans, Jiho."

"How?"

She was going to take me to where the Orc Shamans were.

What could she do with that tiny body?

Surely she wasn't planning to let me ride her.

Then, at that moment...

-Iing!

The fairy strained and began drawing out some kind of power.

Hummmmmm...

Rainbow radiance rippled around her.

A strange energy wrapped around me.

Then...

Float.

"Oh?"

I couldn't help being surprised.

My feet, which had been touching the ground just moments ago, suddenly rose into the air!

I was shocked!

'No way. Telekinesis?'

I stared at the fairy in surprise.

There was no doubt.

The fairy was using telekinesis right now!

She had lifted my body into the air with telekinesis!

-Iing Iing!

"Uh, she says she'll lift you into the air like this and take you there herself..."

"Ooooh...!"

It felt incredibly strange.

The sensation of my body floating in midair.

I never expected telekinesis to be possible.

Was she planning to lift me with telekinesis and deliver me to where the Orc Shamans were?

That meant I was now a flying wizard!

A wizard who flew through the sky!

My heart pounded.

Then a thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

'Wait. If I can fly thanks to the fairy, wouldn't it be ridiculously easy if I just rained magic down from the sky?'

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried