WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 43: Alice’s Nightmare (8)
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The Black Queen.
A boss counted among the worst calamities in the original work’s setting.
It was also ■■■’s final awakening stage.
More precisely, it was the state of being completely consumed by her own nightmares.
Endless hordes surged like waves, and undying dreams poured into the world.
[Title: How Am I Supposed to Clear This?]
[Author: Urgency’sOppositeIsBrevity]
I’m currently progressing through the <■■■’s Nightmare> story on Impossible difficulty.
■■■ has reached 100% Nightmare Transformation and already transformed into the Black Queen.
What am I supposed to do here?
I literally can’t do anything in the game.
All the students I’d worked so hard to raise got slaughtered,
and even when the entire faculty turned out, they just got torn apart ;;
The Black Queen herself didn’t even show up, and I still got killed by all the other knockoff queens.
<The apocalypse has begun.>
That message just keeps flashing on the screen.
I’ve tried every method I can think of, but I seriously can’t figure out how to get past this section.
If any veteran players know a strategy, please help...
[This run’s screwed lol. Just start over from the beginning.]
-> If ■■■ hit 100% Nightmare Transformation, there’s no way around it.
-> Once the Black Queen appears, there’s nothing you can do.
[It’s a boss they never intended for you to beat...]
-> Urgency’sOppositeIsBrevity) Then what’s the strategy for this thing? It can’t just end like this.
-> Start over from the beginning. Kill ■■■ before she reaches 100% Nightmare Transformation.
-> Urgency’sOppositeIsBrevity) Kill her??
-> Yeah. Otherwise, she’ll eventually become the Black Queen and destroy the world.
-> Urgency’sOppositeIsBrevity) Do I really have to kill her...? Is there no way to save her?
-> Not on Impossible difficulty. The other difficulties each have a hidden route, but on Impossible, if you let her live, she’ll always reach 100% Nightmare Transformation and destroy the world.
[There’s a reason this character has such a devoted fanbase.]
-> Her story’s depressing as hell, and if you play on Impossible difficulty, she can’t be saved either.
-> She either suffers from nightmares until they consume her, or the player kills her...
-> Kind, pretty, unhappy characters always have an audience.
The [Black Queen] was never a boss designed to be beaten.
What the game demanded of players was prevention.
Before ■■■ completed her Nightmare Transformation.
Before she was corrupted into a queen, they had to kill ■■■.
‘It’s too late.’
Nightmare Transformation.
A status condition that existed exclusively for ■■■.
‘It’d be nice if I could shake it off with Status Effect-Parrying, but...’
Unfortunately, that was impossible.
As I’d explained before, Status Effect-Parrying couldn’t remove every status condition.
It only worked on minor, lower-tier conditions.
It had no effect on higher-tier conditions.
‘It doesn’t work on Nightmare Transformation.’
Nightmare Transformation was the foundation of a calamity.
Unlike the previous ghoulification, it was clearly a higher-tier status condition.
After all, it held enough power to effortlessly destroy an entire world.
Since Status Effect-Parrying didn’t work, I couldn’t rely on the bug that removed status conditions.
‘Then... well, there’s only one way.’
I straightened my rumpled sleeves.
Shattered chess pieces lay scattered around my unhurried footsteps.
‘Crush them myself.’
Nightmare Transformation: 100%.
That percentage was divided among the manifested nightmares.
The Jabberwock and the soldiers accounted for 10%, the three queens 20% each, and the final Black Queen 30%.
As the percentage rose, the corresponding nightmares manifested.
‘It’s probably around 90% now.’
The Jabberwock and the soldiers had been summoned, and the three queens had appeared as well.
If the percentage continued to rise, the [Black Queen] would manifest.
There was no need to check a status window.
The nightmares that had appeared so far were indicators of Nightmare Transformation’s progress.
‘Then...’
What would happen if I smashed all of them?
The monsters that existed as percentages of Nightmare Transformation.
The Queen of Hearts, Red Queen, and White Queen.
They made up a full 60% of the total.
What would happen if I attacked them in reality?
What if I went beyond attacking them and erased them completely?
‘The progress goes down.’
White Queen, 20%.
Red Queen, 20%.
Jabberwock, 10%.
I’d already cut the progress by half.
If I crushed the nightmares, the progress value would be forcibly lowered.
Like plucking puzzle pieces out one by one from a puzzle that was nearly complete.
‘Why not just flip the whole puzzle board over?’
The three pillars supporting ■■■.
The Queen of Hearts.
The Red Queen.
The White Queen.
I would beat them to a pulp and suppress the Nightmare Transformation.
If the progress didn’t rise, the Black Queen couldn’t manifest either.
‘Of course.’
It wasn’t a plan that could normally be carried out.
If the solution to Nightmare Transformation had been this easy, someone would have succeeded in my previous life.
There was a reason the <■■■’s Nightmare> story was considered brutally difficult.
The nightmares summoned by the girl.
They were fundamentally invincible.
It wasn’t a matter of strength. The game treated them as targets players’ attacks simply could not reach.
They were literally [nightmares], so the logic was that you couldn’t exert physical force on a dream.
Not only the three queens, but even their foot soldiers couldn’t be scratched.
‘There was only one strategy.’
Kill the source of the nightmares before the progress reached 100%.
Yet even that method stopped working after the [Black Queen] manifested.
From that point onward, ■■■ was classified not as a character, but as a nightmare.
The source itself became invincible.
‘The apocalypse.’
Undying soldiers and nightmares gradually spreading across the continent.
The player could do nothing but watch the world get ravaged.
Then the ending credits would roll.
The completion of the calamity, <Wonderland>.
The world would enter an unstoppable descent into ruin.
That was why hunting nightmares to lower the progress was an impossible strategy.
If attacks couldn’t even hit them, how could anyone hunt them?
‘But.’
Things were different for me.
Hadn’t I already experienced it?
How to deal with an enemy designed to be impossible to kill.
‘The Reader.’
Bookworm, the Apostle of the Evil God.
The one I’d swept aside with a single branch.
That thing was also a monster I shouldn’t have been able to beat.
Its armor stat had been set to infinity, so no matter how much you hit it, attacks wouldn’t work.
‘It’s similar to the nightmares.’
Strictly speaking, Bookworm had infinite armor while the nightmares felt like they had infinite evasion...
But the basic mechanism was the same.
So I used the same bug I’d used on Bookworm.
A bug that could always inflict 3 damage on any target.
Like Bookworm, the nightmares’ health was fixed at 1.
‘In other words.’
To me, they were weaker than the goblins in the student hunting grounds.
That had also been true in the original work.
The <Alice’s Nightmare> story had once been infamous for its difficulty.
After I discovered that bug, though, its difficulty dropped drastically.
“Hmm...”
Whoooosh.
I brushed back my windblown hair.
As I gathered my thoughts, the area around me had become a wasteland.
Only the remains of soldiers lay scattered about.
Amid the annihilated nightmares, all that remained was a bright red mannequin wearing a red crown.
“Now you’re the last one.”
<[◆◆◆◆◆◆]>
It was the Red Queen.
I approached the retreating thing one step at a time.
In a final act of desperation, the queen tried to fire a brilliant red blade aura.
A flash of red filled my vision, but...
“Slow. Even when you fall.”
I was already standing behind the nightmare.
Slice.
The sound of severing rang out a moment later.
The queen’s cleanly severed head fell to the floor.
The corpse melted into a limp mess, then scattered like mist.
“Whew... That was rough.”
I kneaded my stiff shoulders.
Moving around in a body with overall E-rank stats really was difficult.
“Activate. Gloves.”
Squirm.
The scythe crept up my palm and wrapped around my hand like a glove.
As I straightened my disheveled clothes, I turned toward the gaze I felt.
“...Ah, Miss ■■■.”
The girl was sitting there blankly.
It looked like she’d been watching the whole time.
I walked over to ■■■.
“...”
Blue eyes.
Blood still flowed down her cheeks, but despair no longer showed on her face.
The shadows crawling over her entire body had lost their force as well.
The black crown floating above her head was no different.
I stopped in front of ■■■ and carefully crouched down.
“Are you all right?”
It was a casual question.
It was about time to bring this incident to a close.
* * *
■■■.
She stared blankly at the boy.
The clown who had wiped out every last nightmare, then knelt before her.
“Are you all right?”
A brief question.
For some reason, the boy’s voice sounded kind.
No, perhaps that was simply how she wanted to hear it.
The sound of him saying her name seemed to carry an inexplicable warmth.
‘I don’t know...’
She felt dizzy.
Was it because she hadn’t completely awakened from the nightmare yet?
■■■ remained frozen, unable to give any answer.
Even so, the boy smiled as if he understood.
‘It’s strange.’
That smile made her stomach churn.
Unlike the whispers of the nightmare, it felt as though her heart was being gently kneaded.
“Miss ■■■.”
“...”
Tap.
A hand settled on her shoulder.
Was it meant to tell her not to be startled?
The boy met her blue eyes.
Just as she was beginning to grow used to the warmth on her shoulder.
Riiip!
The shadow flickering around ■■■’s shoulder blade.
The boy grabbed it and peeled it away as if unwrapping a package.
Perhaps because it had lost its strength, the darkness tore away in ragged strips.
“Miss Al■■.”
“Ugh...”
“Did that hurt? If it did, tell me.”
Al■■ swayed from the recoil.
It didn’t hurt, but it felt as though her center of gravity had shifted.
The boy gently reached out and held her.
‘...Warm.’
With her mind still hazy, Al■■ found herself having such a childish thought.
After confirming she was unharmed, the boy reached out again.
Grip.
This time, he seized the crown floating above her head.
He firmly grasped the black shape and pulled it out just as roughly as before.
Shhhaaaak!
“Miss Ali■.”
“Ah...”
“It’s almost over.”
Her vision spun again.
The crown, cleanly torn free, softened and soon scattered away like the other nightmares.
‘It doesn’t hurt...’
The process wasn’t painful at all.
If anything, her body felt lighter.
The pressure weighing down her shoulders disappeared.
The stabbing pain in her chest faded, and even the headache that had become almost ordinary grew quiet.
‘Ah...’
Breathing wasn’t painful.
The swarming misery was gone, leaving only a faint sense of weightlessness.
The noisy voices in her ears could no longer be heard.
That alone made her feel like crying.
‘How did I...’
Blue pupils.
Ripples danced over the watery sheen covering them.
Waves formed in the overflowing blue, and with every one of them, the girl’s world trembled.
Just as a pitiful sound was about to slip past her lips, the boy reached out one last time.
“You endured so well.”
Slide.
A palm gently rested on Ali■’s cheek.
Kind warmth touched her, and the cold girl began to melt.
His thumb brushed the corner of her eye, wiping away the dark red bloody tears pooled there.
“It’s been hard for a long time, hasn’t it?”
“...”
Carefully.
Carefully.
As though handling a glass vessel that might break.
As though she were so precious that he feared even a scratch might mar her.
“I know everything.”
“...”
“You did well. You really did.”
A soft voice filled her ears.
A touch she had never dared hope for from anyone in her life.
Words telling her she had done well, comfort that didn’t feel like a pretense.
The warmth, touch, and voice of another person... she felt like all of it would melt her away.
“Sniff...”
The blood was gone from her cheeks before she knew it.
Only the handkerchief clutched by the boy was stained with dark red marks.
Even that became part of the nightmare and slowly scattered away.
Emptiness lingered around her.
Before she could even grow used to that feeling, he whispered.
“Miss Alice.”
“...”
Her name.
A name someone called her by.
-Alice.
The girl regained her name.
At the same time, her older sister’s voice rang in her head.
“Sniff, ngh...”
Only then could the girl shed clear tears.
Only then were the trails running down her face no longer dark red.
Her sobs overflowed, coloring the world.
They were only a few drops, but to Alice, they were a sea reaching to the roots of the sky.
“Sniff, hic... sob...”
She tried to hold back her sobs, but it didn’t work.
Something too hot was caught in her throat.
‘It’s gone, the nightmare... I can’t feel the nightmare inside me anymore...’
It didn’t feel real.
That was why she cried even harder.
A long time.
Far too long a time.
The trembling girl finally collapsed into the boy’s arms.
“Miss Alice.”
The boy didn’t say much.
He only whispered a short, very short sentence.
“You’ve been through so much.”
“Sob... hic, sob...!”
Alice cried for a long time.
And so the calamity came to an end.
Ding!
[You have cleared the main quest!]
-Title: Lacquer Night
-Details: Defeat the boss monster ‘the Red Knight.’
[You have prevented one of the seven calamities!]
-A special reward has been provided. Please check your inventory.
Ding!
[You have cleared the emergency quest!]
-Title: Welcome to Wonderland.
-Details: Stop the Nightmare Transformation of the rampaging ‘Alice.’
[You have astonishingly completed the quest without killing the source!]
-A special reward has been granted. Please check your inventory.
Ding!
[You have completed the hidden quest.]
-Title: Queen Slayer
-Details: Defeat the boss monsters who rule Wonderland, the ‘Queen of Hearts,’ ‘Red Queen,’ and ‘White Queen.’
[You have wiped out the queens with an outstanding performance!]
-A special reward has been granted. Please check your status window.
Ding!
[You have cleared the sub quest!]
-Title: If You’re Going to Do It, Do It Right!
-Details: Place third or higher in the practical training.
[You have taken first place in the practical training with an outstanding performance!]
-In addition to the existing reward, an extra reward has been provided.
As the apocalypse came to a halt, the practical training ended as well.
Footnotes:
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