WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 102: Colorful. Squishy. Sparkly. Adorable.
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Fwoooosh-!
With a notification in the status window, the Balloon Knife gave off a brilliant light.
Rainbow hues seeped into the opaque glow, painting the corridor in vivid colors.
“Ugh...”
“W-what is that...?”
Even the others had to shield their eyes with their hands.
Yet the message in the status window remained perfectly clear amid the radiance.
I calmly stared at it.
Ding-!
[You have fulfilled the conditions through astonishing persistence!]
-The rank of this weapon will rise as a reward.
-A special function will be added to this weapon as a reward.
Soon, the light faded, and the world returned to normal.
Through my blurred vision, I glanced down at my hand.
The Balloon Knife still rested in it, sparkling brightly.
Its glow had become more vivid than before, beautiful as though it had swallowed a gulp of stars.
“...”
I stared blankly at the entrancing blade.
The moment I lost myself in it, blue windows appeared one after another.
Ding-!
[Balloon Knife+]
-Category: Growth-Type Weapon
-Rank: B
-Growth Rank Limit: None
-Status: Colorful, Squishy, Sparkly, and Adorable
-Description: A special Balloon Knife. It emits a faint purifying light from its blade.
The basic information filled the screen.
Below it were descriptions of the key skills.
[Skill Name: Sparkle!]
-Heals targets stroked with this weapon.
-The range and effect of this ability increase as the rank of the exclusive weapon rises.
[Skill Name: Vitality Charge!]
-The light emitted by this weapon replenishes vitality.
-Vitality is absorbed by the designated target and restores their basic energy, such as stamina, mana, and aura.
-The range and effect of this ability increase as the rank of the exclusive weapon rises.
[Sparkle!] was a skill I had used often before.
Now, a new entry called [Vitality Charge!] had been added beneath it.
As if it wanted to earn its B rank, the Balloon Knife had gone and learned an entirely new skill.
‘...Wait, it replenishes vitality?’
I had no choice but to doubt my eyes.
The unfamiliar wording, Vitality Charge, caught me off guard.
I let out a faint breath as I mulled it over.
‘Why all of a sudden...?’
This went beyond simple healing. It meant directly infusing vitality itself.
That was something even dozens of high-quality healing potions couldn’t accomplish.
The very concept of restoring vitality was rare.
In other words, this skill was worth dozens of times more than mediocre healing skills.
‘It was an incredibly rare function even in the original story.’
It not only comprehensively restored depleted stats, but also relieved the mental fatigue that had built up in the target.
It was a function that could only occasionally be found in spirit items or items ranked SS or higher.
Yet such a function had been granted to a mere B-rank item...
‘To a Balloon Knife of all things? And as a passive skill?’
Was it really trying to become the Absolute Balloon Sword?
Like [Sparkle!], it was even a skill that grew with the weapon’s rank.
‘And...’
One more message caught my eye.
It was the final line beneath all those descriptions.
Ding-!
[This weapon is approaching the requirements of a ‘Holy Sword’!]
A Holy Sword.
A weapon considered among the highest tiers of holy relics.
The notification said the Balloon Knife in my hand was approaching one.
I couldn’t help growing serious.
A Holy Sword was less of an item and more of a concept.
It had no independent physical existence, nor was there a designated way to obtain one.
Rarely, weapons that fulfilled [Unknown Conditions] were granted the title of ‘Holy Sword.’
‘But this Balloon Knife is meeting the conditions for a Holy Sword...?’
The title Holy Sword.
The catalyst and conditions by which that concept took root in a weapon.
Nothing was known about them, and no player had ever figured out the exact cause and effect.
‘Not even I managed to figure it out.’
A mystery.
And that mystery had suddenly come to me.
My thoughts became complicated, but I had no choice but to accept the blessing.
‘Well... a win’s a win.’
I didn’t know what the conditions were, but all I had to do was keep moving at my own pace.
I put aside any thoughts of getting tangled up in it.
The reward was so good that it felt like my brain was freezing.
Leaving that complicated joy behind, I pulled my attention away from the status window and refocused.
“Ugh, ugh...”
“Grrgh...?”
Fortunately, I hadn’t been distracted for long.
The club members were only just recovering from being flashbanged.
As I casually dusted off the Balloon Sword, Caitlin, who had even taken off her mask, furrowed her brow.
“What the fuck was that just now? What was that light?”
“My apologies. I accidentally released it.”
“You did that? You scared the hell out of me! I thought something exploded...!”
“It was nothing, so please don’t worry. It wasn’t a light that harmed living things.”
Fortunately, the others let it slide easily enough.
Something much more attention-grabbing lay right in front of us.
“No... putting that aside, what the hell is this?”
“A creature that huge was swimming t-through the air toward us...”
Just a few steps ahead of us, the mangled corpse of a sea serpent blocked the corridor.
It had to be well over a hundred meters long. The others fell silent for a moment at its overwhelming size.
“To think we...”
Only after we had slammed it into the ground did the size of what had been flying through the air truly sink in.
Ranne, who had been stunned for a while, muttered without thinking.
“...How did we manage to kill something like this?”
“...”
It was almost a question to herself, but everyone agreed with the sentiment.
It didn’t look like something students could possibly handle.
Even if each of us had unleashed our strongest attacks, it still felt strange that a monster that large had gone down in one blow.
‘Because that was a failed creation.’
A failed creation from some project, Project Leviathan-Failed.
It was waste discarded as a byproduct of that project.
‘It isn’t the finished product.’
It didn’t possess even a single scale’s worth of the finished product’s power.
Even against such a failed creation, our group had stopped it only by pouring in all our strength.
The successful creation would be twice as large and possess dozens of times more power...
“This is unsettling. Even if this is the den of wicked things, I’ve never seen anything this ominous.”
“Will it r-really be okay if we keep going...? The farther in we get, the worse this motion sickness becomes...”
“What, do you have another idea? The way behind us was blocked anyway. We’ll run into them eventually if they come from that direction.”
“I’ve continued sending signals to the professors just in case, but I don’t know what’s happening with the coordinates. The signal won’t reach them.”
Carmilla.
Alice.
Caitlin.
Ranne.
One by one, the girls gave their increasingly serious opinions.
After silently watching them, I finally walked past them.
“For now, let’s keep moving forward.”
“Hey... You want to keep going after seeing that? I know you’re fucking strong, but who knows how many more of those things there are?”
“But Miss Caitlin just said it herself, didn’t she? Even if we go back, it’s a dead end, and they don’t seem willing to stop attacking us from that side.”
“That’s true, but...”
“In the end, moving forward is our only option.”
“...I’m almost out of stamina. I used nearly all my mana pouring attacks into that thing earlier.”
Caitlin scratched her head, looking troubled.
She didn’t sound frightened, but perhaps she hated the idea of becoming dead weight even in a situation like this.
She was seriously addicted to being competent.
‘It’s a fairly significant loss, though...’
Caitlin being sidelined under the current circumstances would hurt quite a bit.
She might be somewhat lacking in a one-on-one fight, but she was an extremely useful card in a situation like this.
On top of being able to launch wide-area attacks, she was one of the three fastest students in the academy.
Without her, our fighting strength would drop by thirty percent.
“Hmm.”
Then should I test it here?
I raised the Balloon Knife in my hand.
Ding-!
[Skill Name: Vitality Charge!]
-The light emitted by this weapon replenishes vitality.
“Miss Caitlin, please stand still.”
“What?”
I designated the target.
Right afterward, fierce radiance burst from the weapon just as it had before.
An opaque glow washed in brilliant rainbow hues enveloped the entire corridor.
Fwoooosh-!
“Ugh, fuck...!”
“How do you feel? Is this enough?”
“What do you mean, how do I feel? Why the fuck did you suddenly flashbang me... Huh?”
As the light faded, Caitlin was about to lose her temper as usual.
But she soon froze at the unfamiliar sensation.
Crackle, crackle-!
“How is this...?”
She had looked as though she had been pushed to the brink of complete discharge.
Yet electricity leaked from Caitlin’s fingertips.
Her energy had filled her reserves to capacity and was now overflowing, electricity spilling out from its source.
‘It worked.’
Caitlin stood there, dumbfounded.
After clenching and unclenching her fists a few times, she finally looked at me and asked,
“...How did you do this?”
“Who knows?”
The skill was far more effective than I had expected, enough to bring a broad smile to my face.
To the girl asking how I’d done it, I held my index finger before my lips.
“It’s a secret.”
As always, it was a trade secret.
Footnotes:
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