WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 127: Don Quixote’s Reverie (11)
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- Garulik and Unnieon of the Slayers have just returned safely from a branch of the Cult.
What followed was predictable.
Everyone welcomed our return in their own way.
It looked like none of them had slept for the past two nights. Their complexions were terrible.
“Vik... tor...”
Exhaustion hung beneath their eyes.
Yet it all melted away in an instant.
Anxiety dissolved into relief, and tears rolled down their cheeks.
Thud.
Of course, Carmilla was the first to approach us.
The princess strode over and wrapped me in a tight embrace.
“Princess.”
“...Bad retainer.”
Her forehead rested against my chest.
Strands of silver hair and her breath tickled me through my shirt.
“You’re bad... Truly bad.”
“...”
“You clearly promised you wouldn’t make me worry...”
Her muttered words were thick with tears.
She bit her lip as if trying to hold them back, but it didn’t seem to work.
Her shoulders eventually trembled, and she buried her face in my chest.
“You said... ngh, that you wouldn’t leave my side...”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Sniff, you didn’t do anything wrong...”
“Still, I almost broke my promise to you, Princess.”
“...Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I’m perfectly fine. Just a little tired.”
“Bad retainer... Bad, bad, bad.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Did I not tell you to stop apologizing...?!”
The princess complained through a stuffy nose.
Still, she only tightened her arms around me and muttered softly.
“Thank you... I’m truly grateful that you came back...”
The vampire trembled so sorrowfully.
So I patted her delicate back for quite some time.
“...Viktor.”
Alice came next.
The girl didn’t say much. Her eyes simply brimmed with tears.
Her blue eyes grew hazy, then the tears finally burst forth in a flood.
“Waaah...”
Alice simply cried her heart out.
Tears gathered on her pale chin before falling in thick drops.
“I’m... hic, so glad that you’re both... safe...”
“Miss Alice.”
“I thought something... really bad had happened... Sob, I...”
“I guess I made you worry. I should’ve gotten out sooner.”
Alice cried often, but I rarely saw her cry this hard.
She must have been tormented by all kinds of anxiety over the past two days.
Out of everyone in our group, she was one of the more emotionally fragile ones.
I gently reached out and wiped away the tears beading on her face.
‘Hmm.’
Seeing the first two reactions had guilt slowly creeping up on me.
‘Well... I was never kidnapped by the Cult. I just vanished to farm items.’
Hmm.
Should I let it slide because I really did nearly die?
No, wait. Looked at another way, that place could count as a branch of the Cult too, couldn’t it?
‘Let’s think about it.’
Was it hidden somewhere difficult to find? O
Did something related to the Evil God happen there? O
Was it hostile to intruders? O
Every item on the checklist got a circle.
‘That’s right.’
The Temple of Lumiera was a branch of the Cult.
I nearly got into serious trouble after wandering in without knowing.
I needed to be careful not to enter it by mistake again.
“Ahem.”
“...Hey.”
While I was sorting out those pointless thoughts, a head of blonde hair had already approached me.
Thump.
A bronze fist struck my shoulder.
There was a lot of emotion behind that punch.
“Fuck... You’re fine.”
“Miss Caitlin.”
“You were going to come back alive anyway, so why the fuck did you make everyone worry?”
“I’m happy too. I’m glad I get to see you again, Miss Caitlin.”
“Shut up. Just shut the hell up...”
Thump, thump, thump.
The assault continued without any sign of stopping.
Her language was rougher than usual too.
“You bastard. Piece of shit. Fucking asshole. You smooth-talking bastard.”
Thump.
Was this supposed to be my punishment for making her worry?
The girl even had a vicious look in her eyes.
Of course, I wasn’t scared when I could see how red her eyes were.
“Miss Caitlin.”
“Don’t pat my head.”
“Thank you for believing in me and waiting.”
“Drop dead.”
Thump, thump.
Her bronze fists landed a few more times.
Without a word, I patted her head.
“I’m glad I came back.”
There were people here to welcome me.
“I’m back,” I said, smiling once more.
After that, I had to serve as a punching bag for quite a while until everyone calmed down.
* * *
Ranne and I were forcibly put to bed.
Neither of us had any obvious injuries, but they said it was just in case.
Most of our strength had been drained, and the attending physician firmly stated that we needed rest.
“Um... I don’t think we need to drink potions. I’m really just tired.”
“I feel the same! Though I did briefly lose consciousness, my body is perfectly fin...!”
“Both of you, stop arguing and drink.”
“Please drink it quietly.”
“Shut up and drink.”
Yes, ma’am.
Our tiny rebellion was crushed beneath the voices of the majority.
After that, we lay in bed for several days and recovered our strength.
“...”
It was also an incredibly burdensome arrangement.
I was surrounded by a crowd.
First, the princess was clinging tightly to one of my arms.
She usually got embarrassed if our hands even touched, yet this time she hugged me tightly and showed no intention of letting go.
“Um, Princess? My arm feels a little numb...”
“Quiet.”
Our disappearance must have hit her especially hard.
Instead, the silver-haired girl pressed herself even closer to me on the bed.
Maybe it was karma.
It was hard to point anything out.
“U-um...”
Alice had claimed my other arm.
Unlike Carmilla, she couldn’t bring herself to hug it. She only timidly held onto my sleeve.
Even that was enough to make her cheeks look ready to burst from blushing.
“Ah, um... Ugh.”
She appeared to have lost the ability to speak.
Whenever I tried to get out of bed or leave the room, though, her hand tightened around my sleeve.
It was a little pitiful, but she was also cute, like a puppy clinging to its owner on the way to work.
The problem was that, unlike with a puppy, I really couldn’t move once she held on.
“Viktor... you can’t move.”
“I was only going to get some fresh air.”
“You need to... rest.”
“You’re remarkably stubborn.”
“It’s for your sake, Viktor...”
That wasn’t all.
Lua was hanging onto me from the front.
Her clear eyes beamed as she looked up at me.
As though she was simply happy to be close to her dad.
“Hehehe.”
The girl rubbed her cheek against my chest.
Then she glanced at the two women attached to either side of me and spoke up.
“Wow...! I got two more moms!”
No.
What are you talking about?
“Then Lua has three moms now!”
That was quite astonishing.
Dad didn’t have a single mom, yet at such a young age, Lua had three of them.
“My daughter really is extraordinary.”
“Give it a rest, for fuck’s sake...”
Caitlin’s curse came thick and heavy from beside the bed.
She stared at us as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“You all look fucking ridiculous.”
“Oho.”
“What are you all doing, glued together like that?”
“Want me to make Miss Caitlin the Cretin look ridiculous too?”
I had been bored lately.
Ever since the school trip, she’d been a little more obedient, so I’d left her alone.
“Woof?”
“Ah.”
“Answer.”
“...”
That was how we spent several days in the room.
Ranne wasn’t restrained like I was, but she was in much the same situation.
The moment she tried to move even a little, she was bombarded with nagging.
“Hmm! To be worried over this much! I must be a very beloved person!”
Of course, our protagonist overcame even that with the power of positivity.
She was someone who shone no matter when you looked at her.
‘She has good sense too.’
What had happened in the courtroom.
Ranne kept quiet about it.
‘More specifically... the things about me.’
The orphanage burning down.
Kim Muro.
The Evil God.
She didn’t say a word about any of it.
She probably didn’t understand what any of it meant in the first place.
It seemed she had simply guessed that it was a sensitive subject for me.
Even when the count asked what had happened, she answered while leaving out every detail related to the trial.
‘That made things go smoothly.’
People firmly believed that Ranne and I had been kidnapped by a branch of the Cult and returned.
I suppose the little preparation I did before coming back paid off.
‘They can’t help but believe it.’
Using the Plague Tablet, I had soaked Ranne and myself in demonic energy.
We looked like we were saying, ‘The Cult attacked us, boo-hoo!’ no matter who saw us.
Thanks to that, Count Kihano and his retainers had completely lost it.
His purple eyes boiled with fury toward the Cult.
“How dare they... target my daughter and son-in-law on Kihano land!”
The count was enraged that his daughter and son-in-law (not) had been attacked.
It wasn’t just the count. Every resident of the territory was furious.
The people of the North were famously warlike.
The blood of warriors who had survived hellish winters for generations ran through their veins.
They were the kind of lunatics who charged at a bear with an axe when it showed up while they were chopping firewood in the forest.
‘They said they usually won, too.’
A land where every resident possessed warrior DNA.
Making an enemy of a house like this meant death.
‘Even the Cult was afraid of them.’
In the original story, they waited until the North was busy subjugating magical beasts.
The perfect time. They struck while everyone was in disarray, then brought them down quickly.
‘But.’
They wouldn’t be able to do that this time.
The North had already begun preparing defenses against the Cult.
‘Cult! You utterly wicked bastards! How could you kidnap Count Kihano’s daughter and son-in-law (not)? You deserve to be judged by the North...!’
As I dwelled on their cruelty, tears welled in my eyes.
I sniffled, overcome by my deeply rooted trauma.
“Prepare for war at once! We’ll show those filthy dark mages the taste of Northern axes!!”
Jackpot.
Now this was auto-hunting.
“I’ll chew every last one of them up until not even a handful of bones remains!!”
““We’ll chew every last one of them up until not even a handful of bones remains!!!””
The knights of the house shouted along with the count.
I smiled broadly as I looked down at the training grounds through the window.
‘Oh, I love this.’
It seemed the Cult’s situation would get interesting soon.
* * *
This happened a few weeks later.
Cult executives continued their meeting with their heads in their hands.
“...Over the past few weeks, five branches established near the North have been reduced to ruins.”
One of the executives reported their defeat with a devastated expression.
The nightmare that had descended on the North.
Beasts charging in with axes.
They were less like an army at war and more like a moving disaster.
“Fuck.”
“No... Who the hell was it?! Which asshole messed with the North?!”
“Are you out of your mind? Of all people, why would you kidnap Count Kihano’s daughter and son-in-law...!”
“The plan is ruined! We agreed not to touch the North until the right time came!”
The warriors who defended the North from the annual hordes of magical beasts.
They had calluses from hunting and slaughter.
The Cult could only be helplessly overrun.
What drove them even crazier was that every branch denied ever having touched the North.
“Then, fuck! Who was it...?!”
The branch that had kidnapped Count Kihano’s daughter and son-in-law.
They had searched in earnest, but no branch had any record of such a thing.
It was utterly baffling.
“Who the hell framed us like this?!”
A scream erupted as the stress reached its limit.
Afterward, several Cult executives reportedly collapsed while clutching the backs of their necks.
On the other hand.
The mastermind behind it all was humming as he heard the news, or so the story goes.
“Ah, serves them right.”
He said it with a delightfully refreshing sneer.
Footnotes:
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