WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Asakusa
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Knight Commander of the Doomed Heroes ◈
Chapter 11: Peaceful Days (6)
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Messages poured in through communication magic.
- We need to rescue the people trapped under the rubble first!
- What are you doing? What the hell are you doing! Can’t you see those flames? Put out the fires first!
- Evacuate the wounded and get the healing centers and healers working again! Why are you still running around in circles?
Rahur, the office manager of the logistics city of Ark, honestly wanted to kill them all.
At last, they shouted into the communication spell.
“What do you expect me to do? Rescue the people trapped under the rubble first? Put out the fires first? Look after the wounded first? Fine. I’ll do it. I don’t know where the city guard and fire brigade have gone, so I’ll do it! I’m just an office manager, but I’ll take my clerks and do it all! So what should we do? What comes first? Why don’t you high and mighty deputy executives and executive supervisors decide? I’ll follow your orders. But please, agree on one thing!”
Even that open sarcasm changed nothing.
- Listen, you little shit! I said put out the fires first! Will you take responsibility?
- We need to get the healing centers working first.
- People are dying under the rubble even as we speak!
“Aaaaaaagh! Aieeeeeeeee!”
- Wh-what? What’s gotten into you? Have you gone mad?
- Is something wrong?
- What’s the matter with you?
“Aieeeeeeeee!”
Rahur simply screamed.
They felt as though they were losing their mind.
People were crying for help beneath collapsed buildings. Scarlet flames and pitch-black smoke rose higher and higher, forming a thick wall. Untreated casualties wandered around in a daze.
“What the hell do you expect me to do? What should I do first? Do you even know what’s happening here? Where are you? Where the hell are you! Where are you sitting so comfortably that you can waste your time arguing?”
- You little bastard. Are you defying orders?
- Don’t you know it’s a crime to insult a superior?
- Please calm down first. Let’s handle things one at a time. One at a time. Ignore everyone else and follow my instructions first.
It was complete chaos.
That was when a red-haired woman in a pure white uniform passed by.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
She manipulated her magical power to take over Rahur’s communication spell.
“This is the Commander-in-Chief.”
- ...Pardon?
- Wh-who did you say you were?
- Wait. Check the communication spell’s crest.
- Eek! It’s real! The D-Duke Protector?
The voices rose in a clamor, then suddenly fell silent.
Helian Ionia declared coldly, “From this moment on, I’m taking control.”
* * *
Helian recalled the scenes she had witnessed on her way here.
“It was a complete mess. There wasn’t even a proper chain of command. I had to step in several times on the way.”
It was all too typical.
The headquarters had descended into the same chaos one would expect from a decimated army.
“But why did things reach that point? The head of the city is alive and well, right here.”
Her icy gaze fell on the city administrator, Ark’s highest authority.
The administrator shuddered with a terrible sense of foreboding.
“Y-Your Excellency. Th-that was...”
Their eyes darted about as they searched for an excuse, but Helian cut them off.
“Incompetence is evil.”
The magical power pouring from her pressed down on their entire body.
They could only tremble, not daring to open their mouth.
“Whatever the circumstances, even if an apostle had descended instead of an angel, it is your duty to protect this city and minimize the damage. And what did you do? You were in the underground fortress?”
“...”
The administrator looked as though they wanted to say something, but the magical pressure kept them from opening their mouth.
“You failed to fulfill even the smallest part of your duty. Yet instead of reflecting on your failures, you tried to excuse yourself by finding fault with the Order of Eternity. You meant to start a political dispute over who was to blame. Against none other than Revel, Duke of Eternity, one of the six pillars of Estel.”
The administrator’s eyes widened. Their face went deathly pale.
Even under the weight of her magical power, they managed to force their mouth open.
“Ghk! Urgh! N-no...! Ugh. Not a... political... ghh... dispute...”
Helian did not listen.
She continued in a businesslike voice, as though delivering a verdict in court.
“The city administrator of Ark brought chaos upon the city through their incompetence. Furthermore, they sought to deepen the crisis before us by provoking a pointless political conflict. Therefore, I, Helian Ionia, Duke Protector, shall exercise the authority of summary judgment granted to the Commander-in-Chief. I accept full responsibility for this judgment and am obliged to account for it before the Chief Justiciar at a later date.”
“Ghk! Sp-spare...!”
The administrator struggled beneath the crushing magical power, but it was useless.
Shhk.
A cold sweep of a steel sword passed through their neck.
Whoosh. A head rose into the air, then bounced across the floor. Tap, tap, tap.
Everyone held their breath.
Helian looked down at the head without expression and opened a communication spell.
Using her authority as Commander-in-Chief, she connected to the city’s entire communication network.
“This is the Commander-in-Chief. I have just executed the incompetent city administrator. Effective immediately, I will reassign each department’s duties, authority, and priorities. Listen carefully and carry out your orders without the slightest deviation.”
- Gasp.
- Ugh.
- The c-city administrator was executed...?
A jumble of voices came through the communication spell.
Helian frowned, lowered her voice, and said just one word.
“Answer.”
- Yes!!!!!
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
The replies echoed not only through the communication spell, but across the entire city.
Helian had begun bringing order to Ark.
* * *
People were endlessly weak when they floundered in confusion, but endlessly strong when they united as one.
- I will set your priorities. Put out the fires first. Rescue those trapped under the rubble. Treat the wounded. Remember that order.
Helian’s instructions came without pause.
- Your work is a disgrace. You’re relieved of your post. The deputy executive is doing well. You take command now.
She reorganized the personnel without hesitation.
- We need more people. Actively encourage the citizens to help.
- Don’t send the city guard and fire brigade straight into action. Have them collect their equipment and prepare properly first. Morale will reach its peak if their arrival brings an immediate improvement.
- The city legion has a vital role. End the fighting in the streets quickly. Recruit swift-footed volunteers to lure the monsters out, then wipe them out in one sweep. Each volunteer will receive twenty gold coins.
At some point, the flames that had been growing larger began to die down.
One by one, the people groaning beneath the buildings were pulled free.
Healers in white hoods moved through the disaster sites, gathering the wounded and sending them in orderly groups to healing centers that were functioning.
“At last, we can catch our breath.”
Once she had confirmed that the city was stable, Helian returned to the healing center where Revel lay.
It was a neat, five-story building made of carved white stone. Looking at the building, said to have been converted from a centuries-old temple, Helian bit her lip.
“Revel...”
She was worried about him.
Thankfully, she had received a report that he was past the worst and in stable condition. But she felt that her anxiety would not ease until she saw for herself that he was safe.
Still, she firmly pushed those feelings down.
There was work left to do. If only to ease Revel’s burden when he woke, it was better to take care of everything quickly.
“The Duke Protector is here!”
As she approached, the people gathered outside the hospital straightened and paid their respects.
Helian raised a hand in acknowledgment and stood beside them.
“That one’s large. And one is small.”
Before them lay the bodies of the two angels killed in the battle.
One stood ten meters tall, with a wingspan of at least twenty meters.
The other was only a meter tall.
As Helian examined the bodies, her eyes sharpened.
“How strange. Don’t angels normally give off a metallic sheen when they die?”
Yet the angels before her only had the same soft, milky-white glow they had possessed in life.
The people around her exchanged odd looks.
“Um... Your Grace.”
“Hmm?”
“Try touching one.”
“Touch it?”
“Yes. Just try it.”
Tilting her head, Helian reached toward an angel’s body.
“Well, an angel’s corpse is cold and hard any...”
Squish.
“Huh?”
Her eyes widened. Her red eyes seemed to light up.
She began feeling the angel with both hands.
Squish. Squish.
“It’s soft?”
The people around her smiled knowingly.
“Isn’t it?”
“Why is it soft?”
“We’re not sure. But it is.”
“What in the world...?”
“This is only a guess, but... we suspect that exposure to magical power of an excessively high order, like that of the heroes, might change the bodies and make them hard.”
“So it’s like this because we didn’t borrow a hero’s power?”
Squish. Squish.
Still looking astonished, Helian kept pressing the angel’s body.
Someone whose mouth had been twitching as they watched her raised a hand.
“Would you try channeling some magical power into it as well?”
“Magical power?”
“Yes.”
Helian chuckled.
“Hmm. I can tell from your faces. It must amplify magical power better than the hard corpses we’re used to.”
She wiped away her dazed expression and spoke with ease. There was a clear determination not to look foolishly surprised again.
Vrrrrm!
Her magical power flowed into the angel’s corpse. It traveled once around the body, then returned to her.
That process amplified magical power. The high rate of amplification was why angel corpses had always been used to make the most powerful weapons and armor.
‘Just how much will it amplify my power this time?’
Bracing herself, Helian calmly took back the returning magical power.
At that very moment,
Dooooong!
A bell rang. Helian’s entire body rang like a bell.
Bzzzt!
Her red hair shot straight up, and yellow sparks crackled around her.
“Huh...?”
The people around her stepped closer, their eyes shining.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
“I’ve honestly never seen amplification like this before.”
“Incredible, right?”
Helian nodded slowly.
“Three times... the usual amplification... No. Five times...?”
It was a rate of amplification that could not even be compared to what they had known before.
Forcing her raised hair down with magical power, Helian looked toward the healing center.
“Revel... No, the Duke of Eternity will make something extraordinary with this.”
“Yes! I’m sure he will. We’ll be able to fight better next time. Little by little. Better and better.”
Helian truly believed that would happen.
Goosebumps rose across her skin.
Twisted angels, which only heroes had been able to slay, could now be killed by human strength.
“And what’s more... the more twisted angels we kill with our own hands, the more of these precious materials we’ll have.”
There might not be a major change right away, but in the long run, this advance would change the course of the war itself.
For the first time, the people of Estel, who had depended entirely on girl heroes for a hundred years, were taking a step toward standing on their own.
“That’s not all.”
Helian listened to the report.
Those who had fought the angels at close range had acquired a small amount of denser, higher-order magical power.
“...So this wasn’t just a single lucky victory. We’ll be able to keep winning?”
“That’s right. The more we fight, the stronger we’ll become. With the Duke of Eternity at our center!”
Helian looked toward the healing center where Revel lay.
He had nearly died, they said.
His skin had rotted away and fallen off, leaving his muscles and bones exposed, they said.
She bit down hard on her lower lip.
“Honestly... I wanted to be angry this time.”
“Pardon?”
“No. It’s nothing.”
The words she wanted to say.
The feelings she had kept inside.
Helian buried them all deep in her heart once again.
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