WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 105: Beast, Beast King, Human - 1

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The scent of blood reached Nabi, and she jolted as if burned. Even with mana herbs made from processed catnip and World Tree leaves filling the area, she suddenly lifted her head and looked around.

She looked frightened. Or perhaps uneasy.

"Nyat?!"

I hurriedly grabbed Tyr and stepped back. After sniffing around for a while, Nabi approached the corpse. Once she had confirmed the colonel's death several times over, she trembled as she looked down at him.

"N-no, nya. The servant... the servant's servant is dead, nya."

Of course, she did not seem angry over the servant's death. A drug addict would not mourn a dealer's death.

"There's no one left to give me my tribute, nya."

She only mourned that.

The paper boxes lay open, mana herbs scattered everywhere, yet Nabi writhed as though she had lost her drugs forever. She clawed at her face, oblivious to her nails scratching her skin, and wailed.

"Nyaaa! Nyaaa!"

Ah, just as I thought.

I had tried to be careful, but cats did whatever they pleased.

If she had been an ordinary cat incapable of defeating humans, it would have been different. But there was no reason for the King of Cats to obey human orders and receive mana herbs one at a time as "tribute."

As I said, what could stop Nabi from attacking someone carrying mana herbs and stealing them?

Force could not stop her. There was only one way.

They had tamed her.

They taught her, killing a few people along the way, that stealing mana herbs would never truly get her any.

When the herbs she had stolen ran out, Nabi would return and go mad. They tormented the King of Cats with the tiny amount of mana herbs left over, slowly eating away at her body and mind with drugs.

They repeated it every time Nabi stole mana herbs.

After doing that over and over, Nabi came to obey human commands rather than harm the keepers of the herbs.

All while deceiving herself by calling it payment and tribute.

I had barely learned the truth by reading Lieutenant General Ebon, because it was suspicious that a cat would listen to orders. That was why I had been wary of the scent of blood spreading.

Tyr spoke tensely.

"...The King of Cats is in a strange state."

"Well, even humans get strange when they're addicts."

This was probably why Lieutenant General Ebon entrusted the mana herbs to the colonel instead of personally managing such an important item. Kill the keeper, and it would trigger the King of Cats into a frenzy.

...Though there was another reason as well.

The colonel had died, and Nabi reacted as though she had broken.

"Nyahk! He's dead, nya! That stupid servant's stupid servant is dead, nya!"

Creak, creak. Nabi nodded, her pupils unfocused.

"N-no, nya. My tribute, my happiness..."

Her tail twitched as she twisted her body unnaturally.

"Nya, two, three, four... N-no, nya. Four isn't nearly enough. Tomorrow, tomorrow, it'll all run out, nya..."

Watching her fall apart made even me uneasy.

A cat acting mad. No, a cat truly driven mad by drugs. The King of Cats, who must once have been clever, playful, and exceptionally fastidious, now looked unnatural, like a puzzle forced together wrong.

Rallion snorted and stepped forward to face her. Tyr sensed the dangerous atmosphere too and pulled me away.

I did not resist her grip. Even I thought I looked like the one in the greatest danger.

I suggested, "Let's keep looking Nabi in the eye and slowly back away. Like we're dealing with a wild animal..."

"Kyahahahk!"

Nabi's vertical pupils flashed. Her fur stood on end all at once, and her hidden wildness pounced at me.

"Shit!"

I could not read a beast's thoughts. Worse, she was a Beast King. She was an opponent my pathetic strength could never face. Even if I strangled her with a rope, one shake of her head would tear my body into strips like grain in a threshing machine.

Death came toward me.

Then Tyr shielded me and shouted.

"Rallion!"

[Puhehehehiiing!]

With a heavy thud, the horse with blood-red hooves blocked my path. Nabi sprang aside to avoid the massive hoof bearing down on her.

Her threatening growl turned toward Rallion.

"Tyr, I take back what I said about you getting weaker! Rallion alone is more than enough!"

"Stop talking nonsense and leave! Leave this place to me!"

"No, if we're going to deal with that thing now..."

I looked away for only a moment.

Nabi appeared before me in a blur. She had moved so stealthily that even the Blood Horse and Tyr noticed too late.

A cat's stealth belonged to a hunter. It instinctively exploited a prey's opening.

"Ah."

Damn it, this was why I hated felines. What kind of mind reader gets ambushed?

I quickly raised both arms, but it would not matter. Sharp claws came for me.

A creature with tawny fur leaped in front of them.

"Woof!"

That's right. This was Azzy!

With the rattle of chains, Azzy charged at Nabi. Her sharp teeth snapped shut around the flying cat.

An ambush within an ambush. Yet the instant Nabi heard the chains rattle, she had already reacted. Twisting her body, she thrust out a front paw at Azzy.

Azzy tried to counter with her own paw.

Clank.

The chains rattled, and Azzy's eyes shook with them. Callis's neck was tied to the other end of the chain.

Rather than swing a chain with a human attached, Azzy hurriedly twisted around and took Nabi's paw on her back.

Thwack. The cat's paw struck the dog's back. Unlike dogs, felines were far more adept at using their front paws.

Unable to defend herself, Azzy cried out in pain as she took the blow.

"Yelp!"

Azzy rolled across the ground. Even then, she stretched out her foreleg to keep the chain from pulling tight. If it wrapped around her body, Callis would die.

The impact could not be avoided, though. Callis's body, connected to the chain, was flung aside.

"Aagh... Cough, cough!"

Callis choked as the chain strangled her. Azzy looked down at it and howled urgently.

"Arf! Awoooo!"

"Kyahk!"

"Grrrr... Yelp!"

It was an even worse handicap than having one hand bound. If Azzy swung too hard, a human neck would fly off. To protect the human, the King of Dogs had no choice but to hold back.

But she could never defeat Nabi, another Beast King, while holding back.

"Whiiine...!"

Azzy could only desperately block the swinging paws with one foreleg. Thud, thud. Every time Nabi mercilessly struck down with a paw, Azzy's body jolted violently. Her skin tore and bled, while her entire foreleg turned blue with bruises.

She could not counterattack, nor could she block with her other foreleg. If the chain caught on Nabi's paw, the human's neck would be torn off that instant.

"Kyahahahk!"

Nabi's paw flashed. Its path seemed deliberately aimed at the chain around Azzy's foreleg. Azzy instinctively moved, blocking the attack with her entire body.

"Yelp..."

Bang. The impact shook her whole body. Azzy could not endure it and rolled across the ground. Blood spilled from her mouth.

As Nabi approached the fallen Azzy, Tyr shouted.

"Rallion! Help the King of Dogs!"

[Puhehehehiiing!]

Rallion charged forward, pounding the ground. The house-sized Blood Horse's charge threatened even Nabi. Nabi sprang left and right to evade it, then viciously tore into Rallion with her paws.

The battle was turning against us. It was not just my impression. Tyr shouted more urgently than I had ever heard her before.

"Hyu! Let's get out while we can!"

"Wait! We need Azzy to catch Nabi! That chain!"

"Fall back first! I will handle it!"

"Can you cut that chain? It must be incredibly tough."

It was level-four alchemic steel, the strongest steel the military state could obtain through ordinary means. Vampires were not the type to deliver immense force in a single blow.

After a brief hesitation, Tyr's eyes glowed red.

"Who says it has to be the chain we cut?"

Ah. So she meant she would remove Callis's neck instead? No neck, no collar? Logical and cold-blooded.

...No, we could not do that!

"That seems dangerous, doesn't it? Azzy is smart enough to understand cause and effect when it comes to death! If a human dies because of her, she'll lose heart! Then she'll be just as useless!"

"Then what should we do?"

"We need to undo that chain! Could you take me over there?"

"Into the middle of that?"

Nabi had just torn through Rallion's entire body. Flesh burst open and hooves were torn away, but Rallion desperately held Nabi back. Still, Rallion had already been pushed onto the defensive against Azzy. There was no way Rallion could properly hold back Nabi, who was raging even more fiercely now.

Azzy was struggling to get back up in the middle of it, while Callis gasped from the repeated impacts.

"No. I cannot send you there."

Tyr firmly shook her head.

"I will do it instead. I cannot die, so stay somewhere safe in the meantime. Please..."

"I don't think you're suited for picking locks or untying knots."

"I will find a way. If I use my control through bloodcraft to manage that chain and force it open somehow..."

As Tyr muttered, something that should not have been there entered her sight.

Nabi.

Nabi bared her sharp teeth, her vertical pupils shining as she raised a paw at me. She had left the fighting Rallion and Azzy behind.

Having instinctively spotted the weaker target, she had turned and attacked me.

Ah. This was why I hated beasts.

"Hyu!"

Tyr hurriedly stepped in front of me. Nabi's paw came for Tyr and me at once. She looked like a small girl throwing a tantrum, but Nabi was a Beast King. That tiny paw carried enough force to gouge up the ground and tear a house-sized horse to pieces.

As I sensed death approaching, Tyr instinctively raised an arm to block the incoming attack.

But that arm was as frail as a candle in the wind.

'She can't block it.'

The Progenitor, Tyrkanzyaka, was power incarnate. She created familiars with blood, strengthened her kin, and commanded an immortal army.

Black Knights surging with red blood aura, thirteen Elders including the Blood Horse Rallion, and thousands of vampires under their command.

She was Tyrkanzyaka, the vampire Progenitor and Shadow Queen who fashioned calamities from empty air, a woman whose power rivaled that of a nation.

'But my true body... is utterly frail. I am immortal, and because of that, I neglected my own body.'

It was a body that would not die anyway.

Leaving her heart outside her body did not pose much trouble.

She could take blood out of her body and put it back instead of breathing through her lungs.

Really, she did not even need to imitate such things. She was fine without breathing at all.

Bloodcraft that had reached the realm of gods had instead taken from her the desperate struggle of life.

'And now that even bloodcraft will not obey me... I am helpless.'

She would not die, but the man behind her would. Whether she blocked the attack or not, the outcome was already decided.

Even so, Tyr stood in Nabi's way.

'Still, I cannot let Hyu die.'

With bloodcraft in this state, she could not even revive him as a vampire.

A man who was always cheerful, who was fun to be around, and who had given Tyr his heart...

A man as precious as her heart itself.

The life she had regained after twelve hundred years, perhaps something she needed even more desperately than that.

Perhaps, perhaps... this feeling was...

As she reflected on that feeling, Tyr drew out everything she had.

She had to save him. She had to live.

'No matter what it takes, even if I must draw out everything I have.'

With that single thought, Tyr thrust both arms forward.

Toward the irresistible strike of the King of Cats.

Crunch. Tyr's arm burst apart. Blood sprayed uselessly. Along the path of Nabi's paw, her flesh became a spray of blood. Before power she could not dare oppose, Tyr's frail body shattered like waves breaking against rock, and the attack came for me behind her...

But Nabi's paw did not crush Tyr and reach me.

Because that arm had been destroyed, yet not destroyed.

Bloodcraft was a form of energy art. Energy arts were primarily used to strengthen one's own body.

Even the regressor, after learning bloodcraft, used it only to restore his own blood or briefly accelerate his blood flow.

But Tyr, whose death had blurred the boundary between herself and the world, could impose that energy art on all things. She controlled and strengthened things with marks of fresh blood, and could even revive the dead by turning them into homunculi.

If magic was the external manifestation of one's own world, the Progenitor's bloodcraft was the act of dividing herself and scattering herself throughout the world.

It was very much like magic, yet different from magic.

Demon God.

But now that she had regained her heart and clearly separated herself from the world, bloodcraft, every authority she possessed over blood...

Turned inward, into Tyr's own body.

Crunch.

Tyr grabbed Nabi's front paw. Crack. Nabi's paw twisted as bone crumpled.

Her arm had clearly shattered and burst apart. Her tattered dress proved it. The scattered blood and exploded bone and flesh had torn through the fabric.

Yet in the blink of an eye, it returned to normal.

Bloodcraft, which had finally drawn a clear boundary between her own world and the world outside, refused to allow Tyr's body to scatter. Her fragmented body reassembled itself as if it were a lie.

Nabi's eyes widened. Sensing danger, she struggled, but Tyr's firm grip did not budge.

Now that bloodcraft's authority was directed wholly inward, Tyr's strength was enough to overwhelm Nabi instead.

"Nya, ah?"

"So this is what it was."

Only after using it herself did Tyr understand her power.

"I have never fought so brutishly before..."

It was not grip strength. It was bloodcraft, controlling every drop of blood throughout her body.

Without wasting any of it, she used bloodcraft in full to move the blood inside her.

Then, through Tyr's newly defined body, that immense power erupted into the world.

"To protect someone, I have no choice."

"Nyanyang?!"

Tyr's clenched fist slammed into Nabi's chest.

Footnotes:

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