WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 104: Just Dance

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Historically, what tool had killed the most beasts?

A sword? A spear? Or a stone axe?

None of them.

Since ancient times, the tool that had killed the most beasts, most brutally and most easily, had been the rope.

A weapon unique to humans, with their blunt nails, nimble hands, high intelligence, and the innate cruelty that came with it.

"Guh...! Cough! Ngh!"

"Welcome... to the land... of fantasy..."

The colonel's bubbling noises harmonized with my humming. I planted my foot against his back and pulled the rope tighter.

Being suddenly strangled naturally sent someone into a panic. The colonel instinctively made a futile attempt to tear away the rope around his neck.

'What's happening?! My neck... is being... strangled. Who the hell...?!'

His survival instinct stirred every part of him awake. He had followed the lieutenant general's orders without question, his thoughts frozen solid, but after coming down here, he was finally beginning to think for himself.

He drew up his qi and circulated it around his neck. Shielding it with Rebound Qi and Hardened Qi while securing the bare minimum of blood flow, he opened his eyes wide.

'The laborer! How dare a prisoner like you ambush an officer!'

His thoughts came in fragments. Holding his breath as he assessed the situation, he became furious.

'You think you can defeat an officer just by strangling him?!'

Even while being strangled from behind, hostility welled up within him.

Maybe anger was not a combustion reaction after all. It still burned even with the oxygen cut off.

'I'll show you the difference in our strength!'

Still, there was one fortunate thing. The area behind a person's body was difficult to reach under most circumstances.

Attacking someone behind one's own back required a plan.

And once he made a plan, I could read it.

Come on, let's dance.

The colonel's elbow flew toward my shoulder. A fierce spinning back strike.

I drew my right foot half a step back and lightly leaned away. Limited by its range of motion, his elbow stopped just before it touched me. It was a close call, as if we had practiced the move together beforehand.

Smiling faintly, I loosened the rope around his neck for a moment, then wrapped it around his right arm.

The colonel's right arm was now tied to his neck.

'My right arm! You bastard...! Then how about this?!'

Next came his foot. With us pressed together and his vision blocked, he intended to kick me away from behind. If I could not read his thoughts, I would have been caught by it.

That is, if I could not read his thoughts.

As he extended his leg, I took a step back. Like a couple dancing, the colonel and I moved one step at a time while pressed close together.

A couple dance?

Now that I thought of it, it was not a bad comparison.

Other than the fact that my partner was a bear of a man.

This was the mood today. I whispered into the colonel's ear.

"Where are you going? I'm not letting you go, partner."

'What bullshit...!'

I read my partner's mind, reacted to it, and followed along exactly.

I was surely the military state's finest dance partner, able to match steps naturally even with someone I had just met.

'No... I can't breathe...'

One attempt after another to escape failed.

Whenever he tried to turn, I pulled the rope tight and turned with him.

When he flailed his arms and legs, I moved only enough to accommodate his excessive movements.

The colonel used Rebound Qi to push me away, but pushing and pulling were my specialty. All I had to do was loosen my grip a little, then grab hold again.

No matter how wildly he struggled, the distance between us always remained a quarter step.

His pulse traveled faintly through the rope. The climax was already over, and all that remained was a finale that gradually slowed.

Until the song of life ended, this dance would not end.

'Am I... dying...?'

A little late, no, quite late, death finally crossed the colonel's mind. Fear arrived with desperation.

At last, he was going to be honest.

"Grunt McKinsey. You probably think you survived because you were exceptional. You endured all kinds of hardship, became the lieutenant general's trusted subordinate, and felt confident that you were doing something capable of changing the world."

A couple dance was not complete without a little conversation. Pulling the rope tight, I whispered into his ear.

"But you're just Lieutenant Colonel Callis, a little stupider and a little luckier."

'Me... compared... to that Litmus...?'

"Just because you're in a position where you use other people's lives doesn't mean you have two lives of your own. People get confused about that sometimes."

I let out a long sigh, proudly showing off a sigh he could no longer manage.

"Now it's your turn to be tested. Have you prepared yourself to put a period on your life, Grunt McKinsey?"

'No... no...'

He had no intention of dying. No, he had never put much thought into anything from the start. He had simply fallen down here with the lieutenant general on his orders.

The only feeling he truly possessed was the vile superiority he felt while tossing Lieutenant Colonel Callis aside. Putting the chain meant for him around Callis's neck had filled the colonel with relief and superiority.

The lieutenant general had kept him alive not because he was more capable, but because he was stupid.

The living tool's hand reached out in vain. His desperate gaze fell on Nabi.

'Nabi...! Help me! You worthless beast who only gets high on drugs! I'll give you drugs, so help me!'

Had Nabi been even a little less intoxicated, she might have reacted differently to this crisis.

Nabi did not even look this way, purring atop the magical herbs. Giving up, the colonel's eyes found Callis.

'Callis...! Save me...! Don't just stand there...!'

Had he not put a chain around her neck, Callis might have hesitated for a moment. But now, she had even lost the will to resist and could only stare blankly at us.

Still, the consequences the colonel had accumulated were already in the past. No one could change the past...

Except one person.

'No...'

At the very end, the colonel tried to roll on the ground in a desperate attempt to shake me off. Just as he gathered every last bit of strength to bend forward at the waist, I hooked his leg before he could exert that strength.

The colonel's heavy body toppled forward in an undignified heap. I was dragged along with him as well.

Even then, I did not let go of the rope and rolled once. The colonel fell to the ground, and I lay with my back to him, pulling the rope against my chest. He reached out with his left arm, but one arm was not enough to escape this position.

The thoughts of the man beneath me gradually grew dim.

"Goodbye, Grunt McKinsey. Once the protagonist of a brilliant world... You survived by abandoning your own thoughts and becoming a tool. It's always a shame to see a book become a copy of something else, but perhaps even a summary seen from another perspective has its own value."

The music that had been gradually fading completed its finale and reached the period at the end of the score.

Snap.

It stopped.

A period was placed at the end of a book.

I released the rope. Red marks rose across my palms where it had pressed into them. Sighing in exhaustion, I took out the skewer hidden by my foot and slowly got to my feet.

The first thing I saw was Tyr. She had been watching me with a Blood Steed at her side. If I had been thrown aside while dancing, the Blood Steed would have rushed in and turned the colonel into a pancake.

It was fortunate that had not happened. I did not want to spill blood if I could avoid it. I raised a hand toward Tyr.

"I missed you quite a bit, Tyr."

Tyr approached me with tears in her eyes.

"Art thou well? Art thou injured anywhere?"

"My heart hurts a little?"

"What did those insolent wretches do to thee?! How is thy heart injured?"

"The Black Knights I trusted to protect me got smashed to pieces, and my heart was torn apart along with them..."

Tyr flinched.

She had been preparing for an emotional reunion, but my sudden reproach stopped her cold. Her crimson eyes trembled for an entirely different reason.

"I, I am sorry."

"No, it happens. I already knew the Black Knights were secretly useless... But you said that power once brought down an entire city. Sorry, but was that city made of sand?"

"Th-that is... They used to be stronger than this... And..."

Tyr trailed off, avoiding my eyes as though she had committed a crime.

After agonizing over it for a long while, Tyr fidgeted with her fingers and quietly added,

"There is something I have not told thee. My bloodcraft is incomplete."

Huh? What was that supposed to mean?

I opened my eyes wide and shouted at the sudden confession.

"What? What do you mean?"

"If darkness is the vessel, blood is the power. I should have filled the Black Knights with blood qi, allowing them to move while carrying a part of my power... Yet for some reason, I cannot freely control blood qi now."

Come to think of it, when the lieutenant colonel had been stabbed by a suicide packet and began bleeding, that blood had not moved at all. I should have been suspicious, but it was such an ordinary sight that I had let it pass.

More importantly, what the hell happened? Why had I risked my life to get her heart back? Her bloodcraft had weakened?

Having suffered the most expensive investment scam in history, I cried out in injustice.

"What? You got weaker because you became my ally? What kind of nonsense is that?"

"I, um... I am sorry."

"No, this is all my fault! Azzy is on my side, but she's no help at all. Tyr becomes my ally, then suddenly gets weaker! At this point, I am the problem. I'm the problem!"

I deliberately turned away from Tyr's embarrassed expression, thumped my chest, and lamented.

"People of the world! Here stands a walking suppressor! If you want to become weak, come become my ally! You will learn what weakness truly is!"

"N-no. Thou art not at fault. It is entirely my failing... I should have remained by thy side and protected thee..."

"How unfair, how unfair! If this is how it was going to be, give me the heart back! Give me exactly what I gave you!"

Tyr's eyes widened, and she drew in a breath. She looked down at the ground with a sorrowful, resentful expression, then shut her eyes tightly as if making up her mind and raised a finger toward her chest.

"...Very well. It is thine, so I shall return it..."

"No, why would you actually try to give it back? Let's take a joke as a joke, okay?"

If her heart was taken out and she became a cold-blooded vampire again, there was no telling what she might do to me. Even weakened, it was better for her to remain my ally. At least she was not a negative.

Thanks to my desperate intervention, Tyr's heart was safe. But her confidence had taken a tremendous blow, and she muttered gloomily.

"...I did not know ordinary soldiers could be so strong. Though the lieutenant general is below a full general, I did not expect such strength... It seems the world has changed beyond recognition. It is difficult to keep up."

"No, of course they're strong. Full general isn't a rank they hand out to just anyone."

"Even lower than that... Was it a colonel? To think even an ordinary soldier could so easily subdue a Black Knight."

"No, not a soldier. An officer."

"...? Are they not the same thing?"

Apparently, she had mistaken the rank of full general for the 'captain' in mercenary captain or guard captain. To her, a colonel below that was just Soldier Number One.

If the colonel who had crawled his way through life under the lieutenant general like a dog to barely earn his promotion had heard that, he would have died of rage.

What a shame. Rather than someone insignificant like me babbling on, I should have let the colonel hear it from the real thing, Tyr.

A civilian outsider really was best at taking down soldiers.

Anyway, explaining the military state's hierarchy to a girl from twelve centuries ago felt a little pointless. I simply nodded and changed the subject.

"Now then. Until Shei gets back from leisurely dealing with that lieutenant general who isn't even a full general, what should we do about that drugged-up cat?"

Tyr asked with even less confidence than before.

"Must we attack...? Hyu, as thou surely knowest, a Beast King releases its feral nature at death's door. A Beast King that has done so is an exceedingly troublesome opponent. Even Shei only prolonged the battle against the King of Cats."

Huh? When had I said anything about fighting? I lightly rebuked her.

"Why are you trying to fight when you're not even that strong?"

"Urgh..."

This reaction might be a little fun. I snorted at the shrinking Tyr and shrugged.

"We need to sweet-talk her. We have those magical herbs right there, so I'll try calming her down with a little medicine."

That was when it happened.

A thin stream of blood flowed from the dead colonel's mouth. Its metallic scent drifted through the air. Because Tyr could not control blood, the smell slowly spread.

Huh. Why was he bleeding when he had died by strangulation?

I had tried to avoid drawing blood as much as possible because its smell could excite beasts.

A little blood should be fine... right?

That was the careless thought I had just then.

Footnotes:

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