WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Mistaken for a Masked Monster

Chapter 015

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Someone's Gaze

Rusty water, squelching.

The blue curtain of rain had been pouring for a long while before it finally stopped.

Snap, snap.

Viktor folded his umbrella and tucked it away.

His sleeves, not a single stain on them. Lucky.

"Mm."

"......"

The silver-haired girl was still nestled in his arms.

Red eyes. They stared blankly to one side.

The spot where, moments before, the master of floor 70 had stood. The master, now a corpse.

"Your Highness."

"......Good heavens."

A corpse, sliced clean in half.

Where its body had been split open, rotting innards spilled out.

He hadn't noticed until just now, but it was a genuinely grotesque way to go.

Carmilla murmured, still dazed.

"You blocked it? The dragon's breath...?"

She couldn't make sense of what she was seeing.

"Viktor..."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"H-how did that happen? You stopped the breath with your bare body, and without a single scratch..."

"Yes, with my bare body. Without a single scratch."

"And on top of that, with just one, one snap of your fingers..."

"I killed it."

"......"

A perfectly calm reply.

Carmilla looked utterly lost.

Her red eyes wavered.

"H-how...?"

Understandable.

Not knowing about the bug, what she'd witnessed must have looked all the more incomprehensible to her. Viktor had snapped his fingers once, casually, and half the dragon's body had simply ceased to exist. Blocking the breath without so much as a scratch was just a bonus on top of that.

Her words trailed off.

"......"

A long silence settled over them.

The girl stayed nestled in his arms for a while before she finally murmured, her voice trembling.

"Viktor."

"......"

"Finding out, even now, that you are my retainer... I'm, I'm glad. So glad."

"Heh, of course. Viktor, Your Highness's capable retainer. Always."

"Mm... I can't begin to fathom how strong you are, or where your limits lie. It's beyond anything I can measure."

"I think you might be giving me too much credit. But thank you for the kind words."

No.

He was weak.

Well... not much of an argument to make after ripping a dragon in half.

Once again, there was nothing to do but let the misunderstanding deepen.

The shock seemed to have worn off a little. The girl peeked hesitantly around her, stealing glances at the dragon's corpse like she couldn't quite believe it was dead.

"This cleanly..."

A lump of meat.

That overwhelming aura had dissipated, leaving only the stench of rot hanging in the air. Even split in half, the thing stretched easily over a dozen meters. It hit him, all over again, just how monstrous the creature had been.

"......I was sure I was going to die. No question about it."

"Didn't I tell you? That it would be fine."

"I'm sorry. My faith in you was shallow. The barrier I deployed at full strength was torn apart like paper, and the blades I honed through Blood Manipulation couldn't leave so much as a scratch. I thought there was simply no way to fight something like that. And yet you blew it apart with a single gesture..."

"It was thanks to your help, Your Highness."

"Mm? I don't think I was of any help at all..."

"You bought us time. That's why the plan worked."

Not a trace of flattery in it.

If Carmilla's barrier hadn't held, he would have been reduced to a pile of meat long before he could do anything. Clipping bug or no, he would have been torn apart without a moment to prepare.

"As expected of Your Highness. Holding your defenses against a dragon, not once but several times."

Given that this was still the very beginning of the story, her stats were nothing short of overwhelming. Under normal circumstances, most people would have fainted the moment the dragon's eyes met theirs, let alone managed a defense.

From the very start, the plan had been built on trusting Carmilla. She had nothing to feel diminished about.

He patted the girl's head, the same way he did when she was in bat form.

"You did wonderfully. Thanks to you, I'm safe too."

"D-don't... just go around patting my head like that..."

"Think of it as a gesture of gratitude and respect."

"H-how impertinent! You're making a mess of a pureblood's dignity."

"Ah... I'm sorry. Should I refrain going forward, then?"

He said it on purpose, a note of reluctance slipping into his voice.

At the faint sulk in his tone, Carmilla hesitantly glanced his way.

"N-no..."

Kindhearted princess.

She always gave in when he played it this way. The girl took his hand and placed it back on her head.

"Your Highness?"

"I shall grant you special permission... only because it is Viktor, mind you..."

"Is that so. Heh."

Softly, softly.

Beneath his fingertips the silver hair gave, soft and fine. Something about that quiet sensation pulled a smile from him.

"H-how insolent, for a retainer..."

"My apologies."

A warmth had crept into the girl's cheeks. She pouted, but made no move to pull away. Whatever tension had been in her earlier was gone.

"I'll take a quick look around. It seems another door has appeared over there."

"That's probably the passage to the 71st floor. Please don't go too close."

"Understood."

While Carmilla stepped away, Viktor pulled up his status window and scrolled through the stack of notifications waiting for him.

Quite a pile.

More than ten at a glance. All quest completion notices. Clearing something that big was bound to drag a whole chain of smaller ones along with it.

For now, the important ones first.

He brought up the screen.

Ding!

[Purgatory Floor 70 Boss 'Undead Dragon' has been defeated.]
[Main Quest 'Conquer Purgatory Floor 70' completed.]
[Exclusive Weapon 'Dragon's Scale x1' obtained.]

The three that mattered most. The rewards he'd come here for, all accounted for.

One click, and something appeared in his hand.

Thud.

"Oh."

Light.

A thin plate that looked like it should be heavy. But it weighed almost nothing. Like holding a feather.

Ding!

[Dragon's Scale]
-Category: Exclusive Weapon
-Grade: A-
-Status: Contaminated, Unrefined
-Description: A contaminated dragon's scale. Refining it may prove quite useful.

"Nice."

Exactly as he'd seen it in the original.

Dragons.

Even degraded to undead, a creature's original standing doesn't simply vanish. A species ranked among the mightiest and rarest of all living things. Even in the original game, there were only a handful of ways to get one.

Not something you judged by grade alone.

Grade A-.

Probably the Contaminated and Unrefined statuses dragging it down. But in terms of true value, it was worth more than any S-grade piece of equipment. The synergy with his mask alone made it remarkable.

Contaminated, Unrefined... both easy enough to clear away.

He was still turning the scale over in his hands when Carmilla returned to his side.

"Is that the weapon? The one you said you were looking for, Viktor?"

"Yes, that's right. We came to the 70th floor for this."

"Mm... No matter how I look at it, it doesn't look like a weapon."

"What does it look like to you, then?"

"A scale, to me. Somewhat unsightly, with a murky aura running through it..."

"Same to me. But it'll look different once it's been worked."

"Worked?"

Carmilla tilted her head.

"You're going to work a dragon's scale?"

"As it is, it would be a stretch to call it a weapon."

"So it goes through a refining process. The scale is a material, not a weapon itself."

"Simply put, yes."

"But that puzzles me. A dragon's scale is no ordinary thing. Wouldn't refining it carelessly be risky? You'd need the right skills and materials on top of that, and none of those will come easily..."

"You needn't worry about any of that."

Already taken care of.

He opened the secondary quests that had been cleared alongside the main one.

Ding!

[Mini Quest 'Small Courage' completed.]
[Hidden Quest 'What Matters' completed.]
[Hidden Quest 'The Comeback Hero' completed.]
[Hidden Quest 'Purification' completed.]
.
.
.

A whole pile of notifications.

Still the very beginning of the story, with all stats locked at grade E, and he had cleared floor 70 without taking a scratch. The main quest wasn't the only thing. A whole chain of sub-quests had come along for the ride.

The rewards from these would handle everything. All the supplies needed to purify and refine the scale, provided as quest rewards.

Ding!

[13 quests completed in total.]
-Rewards: Holy Water x8, Thin Mist x1, Unrefined Scream x4

The rewards flowed into his inventory.

With these alone, refining the scale would be a one-touch job. Combine them with the scale and it would be reborn as a complete weapon.

It would take some time to finish. Still, there was no weapon better suited to him right now.

He stored the scale in his robe alongside the rest of the rewards.

Every objective, accomplished. A clean haul, all things considered.

"Shall we head back?"

"A welcome suggestion. I may have spent too much blood... standing is starting to become something of an effort."

"You've worked hard. We'll replenish your blood once we're back at the dormitory."

The ruined landscape of floor 70 behind them, they turned and headed back up through the underground passages.

"...Hm?"

"Viktor? Why did you stop all of a sudden?"

"Nothing. I just thought I felt something... like someone watching."

"A gaze?"

"Yes."

"Surely it's just your imagination. We confirmed there was no one here."

"You're probably right."

He agreed, though without much conviction. Being in a place this dark and desolate for so long had probably gotten to his nerves. He lowered his gaze from the empty air above and kept walking.

***

The girls' dormitory.

"Eek, eeeek...!"

Blue eyes brimming with tears.

Dark hair splayed across the bed.

A girl lay trembling, shoulders shaking, blanket yanked all the way up over her head.

"H-his eyes met mine...! How? That's never happened before..."

Ragged breaths. Words that made no sense.

"He, he noticed me...! I'm going to die, I'm going to be killed, I'm going to be s-silenced..."

Alice, tears streaming down her face.

"Sob... w-what do I do..."

The girl's trembling didn't stop for a long time.

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