WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 15: Someone’s Gaze
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Rust-colored water splashed.
The blue rain finally stopped after pouring down for quite some time.
Drip, drip.
I folded the umbrella I'd opened and put it away.
Thankfully, not a single stain had splashed onto my sleeves.
“Ahem.”
“......”
The silver-haired girl was still in my arms.
Her red eyes stared blankly at one spot.
The place where the master of the 70th floor had stood moments ago.
It was now a mas/ter.
“Princess.”
“......Good heavens.”
A corpse split cleanly in half.
Rotten entrails spilled from between its severed body parts.
I hadn't noticed until now, but it had died in a truly grotesque state.
Carmilla only muttered a few words under her breath.
“You blocked it? The dragon breath...?”
Was she unable to understand what she was seeing?
“Viktor...”
“Yes, Princess.”
“H-how did that happen? You blocked the breath with your bare body, and without so much as a scratch...”
“Yes, I blocked it with my bare body. Without a scratch.”
“And then, with one, one snap of your fingers...”
“I killed it.”
“......”
I answered calmly.
Carmilla looked dazed, as though her mind couldn't keep up with the situation.
Her red eyes trembled.
“H-how...?”
Of course she was confused.
Since she didn't know about bugs, it must have looked even more bizarre from her perspective.
I'd snapped my fingers once, and half the dragon's body had disappeared.
Blocking its dragon breath without suffering a scratch was just a bonus.
The princess couldn't bring herself to continue.
“......”
Silence settled over us for a while.
After remaining in my arms for some time, she finally muttered in a trembling voice.
“Viktor.”
“......”
“It's only just struck me that you are my retainer... I, I'm glad you are...”
“Hehe, of course. I'm your capable retainer, Viktor. Always will be.”
“Mmm... I can't even begin to tell how far your strength goes, or how powerful you are. It's beyond someone of my level to judge.”
“I think you're overestimating me, but thank you for the compliment.”
No.
I'm telling you, I'm weak.
‘Well... maybe that's not something I can say after tearing a dragon apart.’
Once again, I had no choice but to let the misunderstanding deepen.
Perhaps her shock had settled somewhat.
The girl cautiously looked around.
She kept peeking at the dragon's corpse as though she couldn't believe it was dead.
“So cleanly...”
A lump of meat.
Its oppressive presence had scattered, leaving only the stench of rot behind.
Even split cleanly in half, it was easily over ten meters long.
It really drove home just how monstrous the thing had been.
“...I thought I was certainly going to die.”
“Didn't I tell you? That everything would be fine.”
“I'm sorry. I didn't trust you enough. The barrier I deployed with all my strength was torn apart like paper, and the concealed weapons I'd forged with Bloodcraft couldn't even leave a scratch. I thought it was an opponent we had no hope of resisting. Yet you blew up such an existence with a single gesture...”
“It was thanks to the help you gave me, Princess.”
“Mmm? It doesn't seem like I was any help at all...”
“You bought time for me, didn't you? Thanks to that, the plan succeeded.”
That was the absolute truth, without even a trace of flattery.
If Carmilla's barrier hadn't been there, I would've become a lump of meat long ago.
I would've been torn apart before I even had time to prepare the clipping bug or anything else.
“As expected of you, Princess. You successfully defended against a dragon several times.”
Considering this was still the very beginning of the original story, her stats were overwhelming.
An ordinary person would've fainted the moment they made eye contact with it, never mind defended against it.
I'd carried out the plan because I trusted Carmilla from the start.
There was no reason for her to feel discouraged.
Like I did when she was in bat form, I gently patted the girl's head.
“You did wonderfully. Thanks to you, I made it through safely too.”
“U-ugh... Don't, don't pat my head so freely...”
“Please consider it a sign of my gratitude and respect.”
“H-how rude! It undermines my pride as a pureblood.”
“Ah... I'm sorry. Should I not do it anymore?”
I deliberately made myself sound disappointed.
As I let a slightly sulky note slip into my voice, Carmilla cautiously glanced my way.
“N-no...”
Such a kind princess.
She was going to give in when I acted like this.
The girl took hold of my hand and placed it back on top of her head.
“Princess?”
“I shall grant you special permission... Only because it's you, Viktor...”
“Is that so? Hehe.”
Stroke, stroke.
Silver hair softly unraveled beneath my fingertips.
The faint sensation brought a smile to my face.
“Y-you are an impudent retainer...”
“My apologies.”
Her cheeks had somehow grown warm.
Though she pouted, she didn't avoid my hand.
The tense mood had lifted as well.
“I'll take a quick look around. It seems another door has appeared over there.”
“It's probably the passage to the 71st floor. Please don't go too far inside.”
“Very well.”
While Carmilla moved away for a moment, I opened my status window and checked the pile of messages.
‘There are a lot of them.’
There were over ten at a glance.
Every one of them announced a completed quest.
I'd cleared a big one, so the smaller ones had probably come pouring in alongside it.
‘Let's check the important ones first.’
I brought up the screen.
Ding!
[You have defeated the master of Purgatory's 70th floor, the ‘Undead Dragon’.]
[You have completed the main quest, ‘Conquer Purgatory's 70th Floor’.]
[You have obtained the exclusive weapon ‘Dragon's Scale ×1’.]
Those three were the most important.
They included the reward I'd originally come here for.
When I tapped the screen, something appeared above my hand.
Thud.
“Oh.”
It was light.
A thin plate that looked fairly heavy.
Yet contrary to its appearance, it was light.
It barely had any weight at all, like I was holding a feather.
Ding!
[Dragon's Scale]
-Category: Exclusive Weapon
-Rank: A-
-Status: Contaminated, Unrefined
-Description: A contaminated dragon's scale. It may prove useful if it undergoes a refinement process.
“Nice.”
It was exactly as I'd seen in the original story.
A dragon.
Even if it had been reduced to an undead, its original stature couldn't be erased so easily.
Scales from one of the strongest and rarest species among countless living creatures.
Even in the original story, it was a rare item with only a few routes to obtain it.
‘You can't judge it by rank alone.’
Its rank was A-.
That was probably because of its <Contaminated> and <Unrefined> traits.
But considering its true value, it was an item beyond even S-rank equipment.
It worked especially well with my mask.
‘Contaminated, Unrefined... I just need to remove both traits.’
As I idly turned the scale over in my hand, Carmilla returned to my side and asked,
“Is that the weapon you said you were looking for, Viktor?”
“Yes. I entered the 70th floor to obtain this.”
“Hmm... No matter how I look at it, it doesn't seem like a weapon.”
“Then what does it look like to you?”
“To my eyes, it looks like a scale. A little disgusting, with a murky energy mixed into it...”
“It looks that way to me too. It will be different once it's processed.”
“Processed?”
Carmilla tilted her head.
“You mean to process a dragon's scale?”
“It would be difficult to call it a weapon in this state.”
“So it must undergo refinement. The scale wasn't a weapon, but a material.”
“That would be the simple explanation.”
“But it's strange. A dragon's scale can't be an ordinary item. Surely it cannot be refined so casually? You would need the skills and materials required for refinement, and those won't be easy to obtain either...”
“You don't need to worry about that.”
I already had them.
I opened the additional quests I'd cleared.
Ding!
[You have completed the mini quest, ‘Small Courage’.]
[You have completed the hidden quest, ‘The Important Thing’.]
[You have completed the hidden quest, ‘Veteran Warrior’.]
[You have completed the hidden quest, ‘Purification’.]
.
.
.
Notifications piled up in heaps.
It was still the beginning of the story, and my stats were fixed at E-rank.
Yet I'd cleared the 70th floor in that state without suffering a single injury.
Along with the main quest, numerous side quests had been completed.
‘The rewards here will solve everything.’
The materials needed to purify and refine the scale.
They were provided as rewards for those quests.
Ding!
[You have completed a total of 13 quests.]
-Reward: Holy Water ×8, Thin Mist ×1, Unrefined Scream ×4
The rewards went into my inventory.
With just these, refining the scale would be finished in one go.
Once I combined them with the scale, it would be reborn as a complete weapon.
‘It will take some time to finish, though...’
There wasn't another weapon that suited me this well in my current situation.
Like the other rewards, I stored the large scale inside my robe.
I'd achieved everything I came here to do.
It was a clean haul.
“Shall we head back now?”
“That's welcome news. Perhaps because I used too much blood, it's becoming difficult even to remain standing...”
“You worked hard. We'll replenish your blood once we return to the dormitory.”
The wrecked scenery of the 70th floor.
Just as we were about to leave the underground area behind us,
“...Hmm?”
“Viktor? Why did you stop all of a sudden?”
“It's nothing. I thought I felt someone's gaze...”
“A gaze?”
“Yes.”
“Could it be your imagination? We made sure no one else was here.”
“Probably.”
I agreed awkwardly.
Maybe being in such a gloomy place had made me unnecessarily jumpy.
I took my eyes off the empty space I'd been staring at and continued walking.
* * *
Elsewhere.
The girls' dormitory.
“Eek, eeeek...!”
Tearful blue eyes.
Black hair spread across the bed.
A girl sat trembling, her shoulders shaking.
She had pulled the blanket over her head as though she were terrified.
“Our, our eyes met...! How? It's never happened before...”
Her breath came in ragged gasps.
Incoherent words spilled from her lips.
“He, he noticed me...! I'm going to die. I'll be killed. He'll, he'll silence me...”
Tears dripped from Alice's eyes.
“Sniff... W-what do I do...?”
The girl's trembling didn't stop for a long time.
Footnotes:
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