WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint

Chapter 001

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There Is No Country for Sinners

The carriage came to a stop where the road ended.

A barren wasteland stretched out before them, not a single tree in sight. With no shade to block the scorching sun, every living thing on earth groaned under the oppressive heat. In this desert where even the dirt mounds seemed to pant with exhaustion from the sweltering temperature, a signpost stood tall, declaring the end of this road.

The two officers looked at the signpost and realized they had found the right place, and that it was time to begin their next task.

The officers split up. While one approached the signpost, the other headed toward the back of the vehicle, nervously fingering the steel baton hanging from his belt. The officer heading to the rear was tense, gripping his only weapon, the steel rod, tightly in one hand. The baton kept slipping in his sweaty palm, but he had no time to worry about that.

Transport vehicles were typically used to escort criminals, and those bold enough to break the military state's laws would rebel at every opportunity they saw. Until now, the officer had given such criminals a harsh taste of his steel baton and had been quite satisfied with its effectiveness.

However, today, for the first time since pinning the insignia to his shoulder, he wondered if this steel baton might not be enough.

The place they had arrived at was Tantalus[1], the prison of the abyss. It was a place that held only the most vicious criminals who could never be integrated back into society, a legendary land where people entered but never left.

If you wanted to know about the prisoners locked up there, it was said you'd find them faster in history books than in newspapers, and even the mighty military state with all its power could only manage to imprison them. It was a land of sin where monsters whose combat abilities rivaled entire nations, kings of beasts, and warriors who had single-handedly defeated armies roamed around like ordinary residents.

What they had brought today was a criminal destined to be locked away in that very Tantalus.

‘Damn, I heard he was a first-time offender, but what kind of heinous crime did he commit to be sent straight to Tantalus?’

I wholeheartedly agreed with his thoughts. What crime could someone have committed to be sent directly to Tantalus without any proper trial? Especially someone as harmless and wholesome as myself. There had to be some major mistake.

The officer took a deep breath and banged on the back door with his steel baton.

"Get away from the door if you don't want a beating!"

The military state's approach to handling criminals was similar to dealing with explosive waste that needed to be disposed of. They wrapped them up tight with extreme caution. Even petty criminals who had committed minor offenses were restrained with limb restraints and hooded as standard procedure, and depending on the officer's discretion, they might also be gagged or dressed in restraint suits.

Having been informed that the person being transported was a criminal bound for Tantalus, the officer had applied the maximum restraints allowed. Blindfold, hood, gag, and restraint suit. It was treatment that would have killed an ordinary person from suffocation.

And since I was an ordinary person, I was having trouble breathing. Please, save me.

Even when dealing with a prisoner whose essential lung function wasn't free, the officer didn't let his guard down. You couldn't expect common sense from your opponent. After all, this was a criminal destined for the infamous Tantalus.

Judging by how they had assigned this job to mere foot soldiers, he probably wasn't a high-risk criminal, but they still couldn't afford to be careless with their vigilance. Not because it was their duty, but for the sake of their own lives.

Well, honestly, they could have been careless and it wouldn't have mattered. I didn't have the ability to break free from properly tied ropes, let alone a restraint suit.

"Opening up!"

The damn officer left no openings. After opening the back door, the officer quickly stepped back. With his whole body tensed and steel baton gripped tight, he aimed at the criminal.

The back door opened, and the cursed vicious criminal revealed himself to the world once again... still trapped in his restraint suit, rolling around on the floor just like before.

Somewhat relieved by the unchanged appearance from when they had locked him up, the officer approached him... then suddenly raised his steel baton above his head. I read his thoughts and let out an inaudible groan.

Ah, wait. Stop...

"Oof!"

The steel baton struck my abdomen. The shock reached my bones and I let out a pained groan, but it was blocked by the gag and couldn't escape. I was beaten without being able to offer any resistance. As if delivering a finishing blow, the officer struck down with his steel baton five or six more times, then relaxed upon seeing my reaction.

"Fortunately, it looks like his restraints haven't come loose. No need to worry about a surprise attack."

Confident now, the officer grabbed the belt of my restraint suit. My body, which had been sprawled on the vehicle floor, was dragged this way and that before tumbling to the ground. Watching my powerless form being dragged along, the officer felt puzzled.

"I heard he was a vicious criminal bound for Tantalus, but what's this? He feels just like any ordinary petty criminal when you hit him."

Reading the officer's thoughts, I writhed my body while swallowing my rising indignation.

Of course that's how it felt. I wasn't a criminal destined for Tantalus imprisonment, nor was I some terrorist of the century. I was just a petty criminal whose only ability was reading minds, someone who would at most commit a bit of fraud in back alleys rather than crimes worthy of being recorded in history books!

I had been playing cards with some suckers as usual, with house deeds on the table.

The idea that gambling is bad is just prejudice. If you have money, or connections, or in my slightly unusual case, mind-reading abilities, then gambling is like sweeping money off the ground. The world is full of idiots willing to pay their entire fortune for a moment of thrill, and I was the priest of a paid confessional who completely understood their secret desires. Instead of collecting tithes, I only took half of the money I won.

As always, I was in the middle of securing a house from these marks when suddenly there was a commotion outside.

The old lady from downstairs, who wasn't even in the game but kept giving advice anyway, signaled us, and one of the suckers who had been struggling with a bad hand suddenly looked pleased and overturned the table. Putting aside my dream of securing a house, I hid the evidence and waited, when unfamiliar military police burst through the door.

Military police conducting surprise inspections and gamblers cleaning up their games, this was all routine. As I always did, I reached into my jacket to offer some bribes to the military police as well. At that moment, the military policeman grabbed my wrist.

"Under military law, we're arresting all of you."

The military police who had come for a surprise raid beat up everyone there and hauled us all away.

The military state was far more insane than I had expected. I desperately tried to defend myself, but they put me on trial without evidence or witnesses. It took less than a full day for me to be transformed into a major criminal. In a courtroom with no observers, I was sentenced to hard labor at Tantalus without being able to offer any resistance.

My mind-reading ability was of no help in that absurd courtroom. The military police insisted we had been plotting something while pretending to play cards, and the judge banged his gavel knowing full well there was no solid evidence. Thud, thud, thud, guilty. While the wooden hammer symbolizing justice apologetically struck its own head three times for its injustice, no one raised their voice. Logic? Principles? If those had existed, the military government wouldn't have staged a coup in the first place.

I was thrown onto the cold floor of a detention center.

And then I was transported to Tantalus, the world's worst prison.

Recalling the past while tied up made me even more depressed, but the officer didn't care about my circumstances and dragged me along. Thanks to that, I was able to feel the ground with my entire back. Every time the officer pulled on the belt, the sand mixed with stones scraped across my back.

Ah, dear Mother Earth. Your skin is a bit rough. I should help you with some moisturizing.

While offering impious prayers to Mother Earth and being rolled around like luggage, the officer who had been standing in front of the signpost looked worriedly at the officer dragging me.

"Sir, is that really okay?"

"What's wrong with it? He's a criminal anyway."

"No, I mean. He's the kind of guy who gets locked up in Tantalos, so is it really safe? What if he escapes later and seeks revenge..."

"He's been blindfolded since the authorities handed him over to us. This bastard doesn't even know my face or name."

The lieutenant hooked his finger under the belt connected to my restraint suit, lifted it, then dropped it. Because of that, my body hit the ground. I shuddered from the impact I felt throughout my entire body.

I'm a mind reader, you know? Lieutenant Evian from Edelheit. If I break out, just wait and see. I'll come for you first and have my bloody revenge.

"Besides, how is he going to get out once he's locked up in Tantalus? Stop worrying about nothing and send the telegram."

"I'm worried about you, sir. There was talk about an accident at Tantalus last time. If this guy escapes too..."

"If this guy had the ability to escape from there, he would have escaped from our transport wagon. Instead of wasting time on pointless worries, hurry up and call the person in charge. Let's hand over the prisoner and get back quickly. Coming to Tantalus even once is too much."

"The telegram has been sent. We're just waiting for a reply..."

At that moment, the arrow on the signpost began to shake. The two officers and I, who had been reading their thoughts, tensed up instantly.

A steel body with an arrow painted on it. Somehow, what should have been just a painted arrow was vibrating like crazy. Everyone watched the signpost in silence. The painted arrow on the signpost shook more and more violently, spinning around and around as if an earthquake had struck, then...

It pointed at the ground.

Crack.

Something broke with a sound.

At that moment, the two officers saw the scene unfolding before their eyes and doubted what they were seeing.

Where there had been wasteland just moments before, a bottomless pit with no visible bottom or end had somehow appeared.

The suddenly revealed abyss was utterly alien. In the vast wasteland, where it was hard to find a single tree or blade of grass, but which offered a clear view all the way to the horizon thanks to that barrenness, a hole with no visible bottom had been punched open without any context whatsoever. It was too large and deep to be a trap dug by someone, and too unnatural to be a natural formation.

Not only the officers but even I, reading their thoughts, momentarily wondered if it was a hallucination, but the endless darkness that only emptiness could create and the flow of wind moving inward insisted it was real. The officers lost their words and stared down into the abyss.

Just as the two officers were wondering if they were sharing the same dream...

[Verified.]

A dry, emotionless voice came from the signpost. While the two officers had fits of panic at the voice from an unknown source, the signpost continued speaking in a mechanical tone.

[Mission performance confirmed. Please complete your mission by handing over the prisoner to us.]

The officer overwhelmed by the scenery saluted toward the signpost. It was a ridiculous sight, but those two were awestruck as if the signpost were some kind of ability user who had created this abyss.

"L-Lieutenant Evian from Edelheit reporting! Where should we deliver the prisoner?"

[Your mission is to transport the prisoner to Tantalus.]

Tantalus. The prison in the abyss, supposedly created by the gods to imprison giants. Of course, it must have taken its name from mythology, but it was easy to deduce that Tantalus lay within that deep darkness. The officer looked down into the distant abyss and gulped.

"D-Do we have to go down there ourselves?"

[There's no need for you to accompany him. We'll leave the method of delivery to your discretion.]

Hey, signpost. Wait a minute.

The officer smiled faintly. He understood the true meaning of delivering someone down there without needing to accompany him.

Actually, it's hardly even worth calling it understanding. The truth was, the officer had been planning to throw me into the hole from the very beginning. The signpost's words simply gave legitimacy to his plan.

"Hey, you there. Help me."

Understanding the implication, the subordinate officer hesitantly grabbed my legs.

"I-Is this really okay? If he falls, we won't even be able to recover the bones..."

"So what if we can't recover his bones? He's unreformable trash anyway, that's why we're locking him up in Tantalus. Who cares if he dies like this?"

Wait, hey, no, sir. Please calm down. I'll reform. From now on I'll only read thoughts moderately and commit less fraud, so please, even if you're going to throw me, at least tie me to a rope first...

"Even so..."

"If you don't like it, should you and I hold hands and go down there together? Huh?"

He didn't like that idea, so the subordinate quickly lifted my legs. I struggled desperately, but with my body firmly restrained by the belt, I couldn't offer any resistance.

The two of them holding me on either side matched their breathing and swung me left and right. One, two. Each time I moved from left to right, I soared higher and higher before coming back down. And on the third swing, right after I reached the highest point, whatever had been holding me disappeared.

A complete sense of liberation enveloped my body.

...Ah.

Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint illustration

And so I was hurled into the infinitely deep abyss.

[1] Tantalus was a king condemned to eternal punishment in Tartarus, made to stand in a pool of water beneath fruit trees, with both the water and the fruit receding whenever he reached for them, hence the English word "tantalize."

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