WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 39: Alice’s Nightmare (4)
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“Since we don’t know what’s happening inside, we can’t make any hasty judgments. The other groups may have been on the outskirts of Zone A, but they’re in just as much danger.”
Javert furrowed her brow.
“Let’s hurry as much as possible. Every second may count inside.”
“We’ll do our best!”
After that, the spellcasters threw themselves into their work, drawing magic circles.
Javert stood there with cold sweat running down her face.
Her distinctive green eyes remained fixed on the barrier.
‘Something’s wrong.’
She had a feeling.
A feeling that something terrible was coming.
“Hoo...”
She took a deep breath.
As the person in charge, she couldn’t afford to lose her composure.
Steeling herself, Javert glanced down at the crystal ball.
Contact with the inside of the barrier had been cut off. All it produced was crackling static.
The crystal ball’s screen displayed the profile of the team she had been watching.
[Student Hunting Ground, Group 31]
-Viktor
-Alice
-Ranne Kihano
One of the teams trapped inside.
Javert silently clenched her fist.
A faint hope lingered in her thoughts.
‘Please.’
Let them be safe.
Let this be a passing incident.
Standing before the writhing barrier, Javert held those thoughts without realizing how futile that hope was.
* * *
Inside the barrier.
Fifteen minutes had passed since the situation began.
“Miss Ranne, watch our rear!”
“I’ll hold this side!”
Viktor and his teammates faced off against the mutants.
Tentacles swarmed everywhere, and the air was thick with demonic energy.
Their desperate defense continued.
“Hup...!”
-Kihano Style Spearmanship, Third Form-
‘Sever and Shatter’
Shwaaaak-!
Sharp aura bloomed in every direction.
The mutants were sliced into hundreds of pieces.
New mutants rushed in through the collapsing corpses.
-Nikneunecaridirddinal!
-Kkeulg, kkeulg, kkeulg, kkeulg?
Six wolf legs, one bear leg, ten monkey legs, and a mass of writhing tentacles.
Countless legs scraped across the ground as it crawled forward like a centipede.
Perhaps because it was drenched in demonic energy, every plant it touched melted away.
Dozens of mouths barked wildly.
-Ayok! Ayok! Ayok! Ayok! Ayok!
-Kweohoksweongdwenjul, kweohoksweongdwenjul!
-Jjut, jjut, jjut, jjut, jjut, jjut, jjut, jjut!
Just as its huge body was about to pounce on Ranne, something fell onto the mutant’s head.
“Activate. Hammer.”
Kwoooong-!
A massive hammer slammed into the centipede.
“Activate. Thorns.”
Pubuuk-!
At the same time, spikes burst from its entire body.
Yet perhaps due to its stubborn vitality, the tentacles kept moving instead of dying.
The masked boy didn’t panic.
He simply continued chanting.
“Activate. Thorns.”
“Activate. Thorns.”
“Activate. Thorns.”
“Activate. Thorns.”
Chwaak! Pubuk, phwaaaak-!
Spikes erupted again and again.
In the end, the centipede could no longer withstand the damage and burst apart.
Its mangled remains lay scattered across the ground.
“Haa, haa...”
The boy caught his breath.
But he wasn’t given any time to rest.
More mutants immediately came pouring in.
“Sir Viktor! This way!”
A shining spear.
Brilliant holy power radiated from it, displaying the caliber of a knight.
-Kihano Style Spearmanship, Seventh Form-
‘Falling Star’
An intense flash crashed outward like a wave.
It struck the mutants, its tide burning away their foul energy.
Even as they melted under the holy power, the mutants continued crying out.
-At, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at!
-Chatchukchwenchichutchampaengik!
As though they were mocking the struggling children.
“...It never ends. Are you two all right?”
“Alice and I are fine. Sir Viktor...”
“I’m still fine too. But I don’t know when this flood of them will end...”
The children steadily hunted the mutants.
But the mutants poured in faster than they could kill them.
The forest was full of mutants in every direction, leaving them with no route of escape.
They were at a disadvantage.
“Miss Alice? Is there still no contact through the crystal ball?”
“Yes... Ah, there’s no signal connecting to the outside at all...”
“This is troublesome. I don’t know if we can just keep holding out...”
Alice was close to tears, and Ranne was gradually tiring.
Viktor directed the situation before them.
The party’s balance was only barely holding together.
It wouldn’t have been strange for it to collapse at any moment, nor would it have been strange for any one of them to fall.
“...”
Cold sweat trickled down Viktor’s face.
Fiddling with his mask, he spoke.
“For now... we just need to hold out. If something like this has happened, the faculty must be responding. The staff in charge should be on their way.”
It was a hopeful briefing.
Words meant to keep his teammates from despairing.
Ranne gripped her spear beside him, while Alice took hold of her sword as if she wanted to help somehow.
“All right.”
Viktor looked them over, smiled once, then extended his scythe again.
“Then... we’ll coordinate as before. I’ll leave support to you two.”
“Y-Yes!”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
Tak-.
Viktor leaped toward the mutants.
That was when it happened.
Something rippled across the ceiling.
For a moment, the children blankly looked up at it.
“...Huh?”
“Is there something on the ceiling...?”
The next moment.
A crimson figure fell from above.
Before they could even dodge, it crashed into the ground.
Kwoooong-!
The explosive sound shook the entire area.
It all happened in an instant.
Armor redder than blood, a body that had to be at least ten meters tall.
Black tentacles wriggled behind its helmet.
“...”
A knight stood before the children.
A giant knight clad in scarlet armor.
Though whether it was truly a giant or something else was impossible to say...
“Ah...?”
That wasn’t what mattered right now.
The children’s eyes turned toward the Red Knight’s feet.
The brutally crushed ground, the debris scattered everywhere.
And then...
“Sir Viktor...?”
“...?”
Something had been mercilessly crushed beneath it.
A lump of meat.
There was no other way to describe it.
It was damaged so badly that it was hard to believe it had once been human.
Only a torn robe and a shattered mask revealed what it had been.
“That can’t be...”
“...”
He was dead.
“Ah...”
A vacant breath escaped.
Their trembling gazes traveled up the towering armor.
Only then did the being before them feel real.
“...”
They couldn’t even breathe freely.
It was as if that giant ruled over the entire space.
Their muscles stiffened, leaving them unable to move, while cold sweat ran down their skin beneath the cutting sensation.
‘No way. This is definitely...’
Ranne muttered to herself.
She had felt something similar once before.
‘An Apostle of the Evil God.’
The Reader.
The ghost that wielded hundreds of grimoires.
It had once pushed Ranne to the brink of death.
If Viktor hadn’t helped her, she really would have died then.
‘It’s the same.’
The being before her.
That red knight possessed the same nature.
Its race was certainly different, and it looked different, yet the girl felt that they were alike.
[Name: the Red Knight]
-Race: ■■■, ■■
-Description: ■■ ■ ■■■ ■ ■■ ■■■.
The dizzying fear stole her breath.
It had not made any significant move yet, but its presence alone was enough to overwhelm the entire area.
The Red Knight’s pressure.
One by one, the mutants scattered around them began bursting apart.
They couldn’t endure the demonic energy of the same frequency, the power resonating with theirs.
Peok, pang! Phwaaaak-!
It was a grotesque sight, flesh and entrails spraying everywhere.
Even while enduring the Red Knight’s pressure, the girls’ noses streamed blood.
“Haa, haa...!”
“Ugh, urk...”
Their breathing came in ragged gasps.
Their eyes repeatedly rose to the Red Knight, then lowered to Viktor’s crushed body.
“Uh, ah...”
The two of them were among the few who knew Viktor’s strength.
Ranne had watched him erase The Reader with a single branch.
Through her ability, Alice had glimpsed him flicking one finger and cutting a dragon into pieces.
And yet...
‘He was taken down...?’
That kind of superhuman had been killed without even getting a chance to react.
It was a reality too difficult to believe.
The two could only keep panicking.
Deathly silence filled the air.
Kiiiiik-.
The Red Knight, which had been standing perfectly still, began to move.
“...!”
Despair filled the girls’ eyes.
Meanwhile.
Having slipped away at just the right moment, I sat some distance off and watched the situation unfold.
A blonde girl and a black-haired girl.
Standing before them was an Apostle of the Evil God.
Tapping my mask, I muttered.
“Now then... let’s see how Alice responds.”
Wonderland.
The nightmare buried deep within Alice’s mind.
Once the main body was pushed to its limit, it would have to react somehow.
“When that bastard comes out, I’ll settle them all at once.”
The First Calamity, Lacquer Night.
The Apostle of the Evil God, the Red Knight.
Alice’s nightmare, Wonderland.
Every bastard that would interfere with what came next had gathered here.
“I’ll beat the hell out of all of them.”
And today,
I intended to crush every last one of these bastards.
Footnotes:
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