WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Asakusa
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◈ Knight Commander of the Doomed Heroes ◈
Chapter 3: The Proper Use of Buffs (2)
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People called magical beasts monsters.
Even twisted angels, which ranked far above magical beasts, were still called monsters. People simply put more despair into their voices.
But no one called an apostle a monster.
It was something beyond that category.
A phenomenon.
The end itself.
When I was very young, Harin noona and I once had a conversation about these categories.
“So, magical beasts are zombies. Say it after me. Zombie.”
“Zombie.”
“And twisted angels, those bastards with no par... No. Sorry. Those bits of slime are boss zombies. Say it after me. Boss zombie.”
“Boss zombie.”
“That’s right. And apostles...”
She parted her lips, then paused.
For some reason, I still clearly remembered that pause, and the uncertainty in her eyes.
“Apostles are... a zombie apocalypse.”
“A zombie apocalypse. But, noona, what’s a zombie?”
“They’re these weaklings. Even magical beasts could deal with them with power to spare.”
I still wasn’t quite sure what zombies were, but I had come to understand exactly what an apostle was.
An apostle was an apocalyptic being that could destroy the world all on its own. Or a phenomenon that could do the same.
* * *
When I crossed the gate, the place was already hell.
A military city beside the western Great Wall.
A regional hub and major production center with a population of over two million.
If this place fell, supplies to the Great Wall would be disrupted, eventually causing a chain reaction of collapsing defenses.
It was a painfully vulnerable location for humanity. As always.
“H-help me...”
“Aaah! Aaaaaah!”
Now that city was filled with things that looked like small, wriggling boils.
Wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wri...
Things like stretched-out pimples sprouted in dense clusters and writhed everywhere, making no distinction between streets, buildings, and human skin.
Wherever I looked.
Whatever I saw.
Nothing but little boils.
...ggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle...
People collapsed, spilling blood and pus, while buildings rotted away beneath yellow bodily fluids.
“...Disgusting.”
Of all the apostles I had encountered since joining the Order of Eternity, this was one of the most revolting.
Squirm, squirm, squirm.
Perhaps the little boils spread through the air. Before I knew it, one had appeared on my cheek and another on the back of my hand.
Ssssss.
I raised my magical power and crushed them with my hand. They burst easily, but the places where they had grown were raw and throbbing.
I healed the damage with magic, only for another boil to pop up nearby moments later.
It was horribly itchy and disgusting.
“It can get through even my resistance this easily?”
Through painstaking effort, I had gained enough magical power to count among the best.
As commander of the Order of Eternity, I also carried all sorts of protective items.
I couldn’t compare to a hero, but outside that group, it would have been difficult to find anyone with better defenses than mine.
And yet this was happening.
An ordinary person’s entire body would probably be covered in boils in an instant.
A terrifying rate of spread.
This was why apostles were so horrifying.
I held back my rising nausea and cast a spell.
「Clarity」
The key to this reconnaissance spell I had developed was choosing what mattered and focusing on it.
It didn’t search for large amounts of information. Instead, it gathered only the essential facts about the apostle that had appeared nearby.
The apostle’s type.
Its scale.
Its weakness.
Within just a few seconds, 「Clarity」 delivered a summary.
- Fission: It has no single core and continuously divides to increase its numbers.
- Strength in numbers: As its numbers increase, it unlocks special abilities and grows stronger.
- Scale: So far, it has barely consumed one-tenth of the city.
- Weakness: Crushing into particles of 0.1 mm or smaller.
In other words, all these boils covering the streets and buildings, growing on people’s bodies and even on my own skin, were the apostle itself. The only way to defeat it was to grind every last one of them down to particles no larger than 0.1 mm.
That was how absurd an apostle could be.
If Baek Soyeon didn’t follow me through the gate, these disgusting boils would swallow the whole city in a single night. Then they would spread throughout the world.
They would turn the entire world into hell.
A hell that would never end until some innocent girl from another world gave her life.
But there was no need to worry.
“What the actual fuck...”
She had followed me straight through the gate, swearing with that youthful face of hers.
I was very glad to see her, and deeply grateful. But the truth was, it pained me.
Their deaths always stayed with me. So did the choices they made.
But I never showed it.
Baek Soyeon looked thoroughly sickened. With shadows beneath her eyes, she spoke.
“Maybe this is a good thing.”
“...?”
“Until a moment ago, I was really scared. Dying terrified me.”
I was about to ask why she had followed me in, then, but she continued without giving me a chance.
“But now I’m not scared. This place is so disgusting that it beat the fear out of me. Yeah, I should wipe it all out. Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad if I could blow away every last one of these revolting things first.”
Sparks seemed to fly from her eyes.
I frowned.
“You’re not going to die...”
“Commander. That’s actually rude. I know perfectly well that I’m going to die, and I’ve prepared myself. Having you keep saying I won’t die right beside me... I know you mean well, but that’s enough.”
What?
No. It was true...
Shing.
Baek Soyeon drew her sword.
The hand gripping its hilt trembled.
“Ah.”
She looked down at her shaking hand and gave a bitter smile.
“I take back what I said about not being scared. Now that I’m about to do it, I’m scared again. Ha. So this is what dying feels like. Like setting off alone for some place you don’t know anything about. I never even traveled alone, you know. I’d rather go hungry than eat alone, and when I was little, I wouldn’t even go to the bathroom by myself. Ugh. What do I do? I feel like throwing a tantrum and begging someone to come with me. But even if we left together, death is still something you go through alone... Ah. That really hurts.”
She didn’t seem to want an answer. Without even looking back at me, she ignited her magical power.
Ignition.
That term was used only for heroes, and even among them, only those with less than a year left to live.
As magical power grew denser and denser, it eventually reached a singularity. At that point, its very nature changed.
Magical power originally had no mass, pressure, or heat of its own.
It affected the world only when its owner’s perception and will shaped it into a phenomenon.
But magical power that had crossed the singularity was different.
It began to possess energy of its own.
Simply moving it inside the body produced weight, pressure, and heat, unleashing all kinds of forces.
Heroes began to feel considerable pain even when moving small amounts of magical power. That was how they realized their time was running out.
Only heroes in that state could “ignite” their thickened magical power.
Water could be poured out a little at a time. But once a heavy anchor was thrown, it wouldn’t stop until the entire length of chain attached to it had run out. In much the same way, once that thickened magical power was moved beyond a certain limit, it reached a point where it could no longer be stopped.
The magical power already in motion pushed against the rest, causing a chain reaction. It continued until all their magical power was active.
That was ignition.
Rrrrrumble.
All kinds of energy began to form around Baek Soyeon as she raised her sword.
Her black hair turned a glittering silver, as though it might melt and flow like mercury.
The color faded from her eyes, leaving a cold blue like the light of dawn, as though they might evaporate at any moment.
Amid magical power that pulled, pushed, and burned, she shed her old self.
I had seen it many times, but I never grew used to it.
The moment ignition occurred, a hero became like a god. The power flowing from her seemed capable of creating all things or destroying them. A force on a cosmic scale.
In that final moment,
that moment of absolute power when anything became possible, however briefly, the heroes all wore much the same expression.
Fear.
Terror at the impossible power tearing through their skin as it broke free.
Baek Soyeon was no different.
So I laid a hand on her back, over the shoulder blade, as she went deathly pale. And I whispered.
“I’m here with you. Just five seconds. For those five seconds, you can let loose as much as you want. Trust me.”
I made sure to tell her once more.
“Exactly five seconds. Finish everything within that time. You must not go over it.”
I didn’t wait for her answer.
I simply brought forth the imperfect result I had reached after 130 failures.
The question.
Why did magical power at extremely high density interact with reality?
Because magical power repelled other magical power. The denser it became, the more strongly it pushed against itself.
That repulsion kept distorting the plane on which the magical power existed.
As that plane twisted further and further, it eventually intruded on the plane of reality.
That was how extremely compressed magical power was dragged down into reality.
In other words, it was like crumpling, bunching, and folding all the pages inside a book until the book could no longer close properly.
If so, the solution was surprisingly simple.
I just had to line it all up.
I had to take the wildly twisting, bucking planes of magical power and bring them into a single, even alignment.
If I unfolded every bent, bunched-up, crumpled page and even ironed them flat, the book would close neatly again. Nothing would stick out past its covers.
That would remove the danger of the owner’s body collapsing, no matter how dense their magical power became.
However, it was nearly impossible for one person to control their magical power to that extent...
So I helped them do it myself.
That was the ultimate secret of the support magic I had spent my entire life researching.
「Unhindered Harmony」
“Hh...?”
Baek Soyeon made a strange sound.
Through the fingertips pressed to her back, I felt her whole body tense, then relax.
Yes, she must have felt it.
The magical power that had been trying to burst out in every direction aligned itself, forming a perfect circle inside her body. The power that had threatened to destroy even her was now perfectly contained, never straying outside that circle.
As though leading a dance, I wrapped my magical power around hers and guided it gently onward.
Rather than merely strengthening someone else’s power, I connected myself directly to them and guided it along the right path. I added force where it was needed and held it back where it wasn’t. This was the ultimate buff I had discovered.
“W-what is this?”
Enjoying the tremor in her voice, I answered quietly.
“I told you, didn’t I? Trust me.”
“Ah...”
Sir Soyeon slowly opened her eyes.
“This feels good.”
I replied.
“I’m honored.”
Her magical power had now changed completely.
It was no longer a nuclear bomb that would explode the moment it ignited.
Now it was more like steel heated until it glowed bright red.
With enough strength and skill, it could be shaped into anything.
And she had that strength and skill.
She had possessed them from the moment she joined the Order of Eternity.
She hadn’t run away or lashed out at the world she had suddenly been dropped into. Instead, she had simply fought for others. Each noble step she had taken had built upon the last, becoming that strength. And that skill.
“This feels really good.”
She murmured softly.
Swish.
Then she moved her sword.
For just five seconds.
A god descended.
Footnotes:
“Noona” is an affectionate term a boy or man uses for an older sister or a close older girl or woman.
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