WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 107

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Beast, Beast King, Human - 3

Before Lieutenant Colonel Callis Kritz, a world-shaking final battle was unfolding.

The King of Dogs, the King of Cats, and the Progenitor.

It truly was a clash that could decide the fate of the world. Even if it wasn't, it made no difference to Callis.

Her own fate hung on the outcome of this fight.

The rattling leash yanked her hard. Callis threw herself away on instinct. Even so, she couldn't keep up with the pull of the chain, and rolled pathetically across the ground.

As the chain around her neck choked her, Callis kept repeating one thing.

'I can't give up on living. I'll survive. No matter what, I'll survive. Survive... go back up there... and claim my father's legacy....'

But could she?

A moment ago, the Progenitor's straight punch had buried itself in Nabi's chest.

Calling it just one punch felt absurdly inadequate for how lethal it was.

The instant that clenched fist touched Nabi's chest, something cracked with a crunch. A red blood aura exploded from the impact point like a sun.

Then Nabi was blown away like a bullet. She shot across the corridor without even flailing her limbs.

If Nabi had been an ordinary life-form, her chest would have caved in and she would have stopped breathing on the spot.

But this was the King of Cats.

While still flying, Nabi opened her red eyes, let out a feral cry, and screamed. She flipped midair like an acrobat, landed on the wall, glared this way with sharp eyes, licked her forepaw, then

hid herself in the darkness.

A cat that erased its presence might as well have vanished from the world. No one could see her, no one could hear her. Nabi only existed when she chose to show herself.

Because of that, the Progenitor and Azzy were forced entirely onto the defensive. Each of them had a shackle.

The Progenitor had to protect that laborer...? or whatever he was.

And the King of Dogs had to protect Callis, more precisely, keep her from dying in the aftermath of the fight.

'The King of Dogs... is trying to keep me alive. Maybe more than I am myself.'

And yet all she was doing was dragging the King of Dogs down. Bound to a leash, with her own life as a hostage.

It was so ridiculous she could have laughed, but there was nothing Callis could do.

'If I resist here... what changes?'

If she resisted now? If the King of Cats lost?

The people in Tantalus were criminals seized by the military state and thrown here. Taking their side promised nothing but a grim future.

Instead, if the King of Cats won, and the Lords of All Creation achieved its goal, what would Callis gain...?

What would she gain...?

What, exactly?

As Callis wrestled with that question, Rashy's right thumb suddenly caught her eye. She reflexively moved to grab it, but

clank.

The heavy iron chain around her neck yanked her back.

'...A chain.'

Until now, the only thing that had pulled her, tightened around her throat, and tried to kill her was this chain.

It was the only thing she had gained from following the Lords of All Creation.

The medal she had once worn proudly, useless in the end.

The suicide packet that had worn the mask of hope.

The chain around her neck in the name of orders.

Even the King of Cats.

All of it had only tried to kill her.

In contrast, Rashy and Azzy, who had tried to save her, were now in miserable shape, rolling on the ground. They were bleeding to keep Callis alive in her place.

Quietly, Callis repeated what Rashy had said.

'...My father's legacy is me.'

She might have been her father's precious daughter, but to no one else was Callis precious.

She had become a lieutenant colonel, yet knew nothing.

What the Lords of All Creation was planning, who it had used as expendable pawns.

Though she was a lieutenant colonel of the military state, she was no different from a level 1 citizen. No, she was more worthless than a level 0 laborer. At least that laborer...? had been ready to strangle a colonel to death.

...Though she still didn't know whether he really was a level 0 laborer.

Like him, if Callis wanted to live right now, she had to follow one single proposition.

"I have to break the chain."

There was no need to think about later. Callis was so insignificant that lieutenant colonel was too grand a title for her. Talking about future prospects was as pointless as trying to read the waves in a storm-lashed night sea.

That was the privilege of people who had the ability for it.

Callis couldn't guarantee even one second ahead.

To survive each moment, she had to give everything she had.

"Starting now."

Callis grabbed her belt.

She had no bundle anymore. The trump-card bundle the Lords of All Creation had granted her was gone long ago. What remained was only one small memory buried deep inside, and that was all she had left.

The legacy her father had passed down.

A house, an auto-carriage, a gold-inlaid sword, and a war-suit.

Of those, the only legacy she could carry, the war-suit, lay hidden deep in her belt pouch.

The reason Callis kept this belt with pouches was to always keep that war-suit with her.

It wasn't anything special, it was an old model, and only part of a left arm, so the military state hadn't even recognized it as a war-suit and threw it away.

Even so, because of that, it had become a legacy, and the only weapon in Callis's hands.

"Call to Arms."

Murmuring softly, Callis plugged the war-suit packet into the biometric terminal on her left arm. At once, alchemic light flashed, and compressed steel unraveled strand by strand.

An officer was completed by the war-suit.

The military state was a nation with a short history of only twenty-five years since military rule was established.

It had toppled the monarchy in a coup and seized power, then secured its place among neighboring nations by rapidly expanding military strength through every kind of combined technology.

Clack, clack.

A smooth gauntlet of metal scales formed from Callis's elbow to her fingertips. Once installation finished, Callis clenched her left fist. Rough metal scraping rang out.

This war-suit's ability was simple: protection of the body.

It was merely a decent armored gauntlet, a trivial war-suit.

Callis wasn't disappointed. A tool depended on its user. Even with a better war-suit, she wouldn't be able to draw out its true power.

But this war-suit had been with her for half her life. It would surely carry out her will.

Trusting that, Callis grabbed the padlock binding the chain.

The chain was level 4 alchemsteel. With her ability, she could never break it.

But not the lock attached to it.

Lieutenant General Ebon, whom Callis had believed dead, had intended to put this chain on a colonel's neck. The lock was only there to keep the chain from coming loose. There was no reason to use anything precious.

Of course, that didn't mean she could easily break a steel lock on a chain.

But if she could dismantle it without breaking it.

Callis gripped the lock with her gauntleted hand and drew magical energy through her whole body.

Military state standard-issue magic.

"Set, Ri, Ri, Ri, Ri...."

Lieutenant Colonel Callis Kritz of the arcane soldier corps.

Because of her unusual trait, she had been selected by the Lords of All Creation from the arcane soldier corps, where every member was an officer.

Like all mages, she wasn't very useful in small-scale fights, but the essence of standard-issue magic was versatility.

The gauntlet wrapped in magical energy grew burning hot.

Body-mediated magic was an old method that manifested miracles through one's own body as the medium.

Old mages used it often, but it was abandoned because the backlash from overlaying the world's rules had to be borne entirely by the caster. It left behind only one saying: "The stronger the mage, the faster they die."

But after the military state invented biometric terminals and clothing packets, and made it possible to shift part of the body's cost onto packets through the Archi Avatar, standard-issue magic proudly became one branch of magic.

"...Ri, Ri, Rialke, Dikei, Mund."

Magical energy gathered, and the spell began.

Alchemic release, corrosion, fracture.

She manifested three level 2 spells at the same time.

Composite spell, alchemic material decomposition. Tentative evaluation: level 3.

The level 3 spell that crumbled alchemic material on contact slowly ate through the lock.

When the lock had heated enough, Callis clenched her gauntlet.

Crack.

Inside her fist, the lock split, rotted, decomposed, and shattered to pieces. In return, the palm of her gauntlet turned to powder and scattered. She had set it in a hurry, so part of her own skin decomposed as well, and blood ran from her grip.

Still, she had been freed from the chain.

The chain felt lighter. It was like her blocked throat had opened wide.

With a crisp sense of release, Callis threw off the chain around her neck.

"King of Dogs!"

Now fully free, Callis shouted at Azzy.

"I'm free! Stop worrying about me and fight!"

"Woof? Woof! Woof..."

Azzy turned at the clinking sound, saw Callis out of the chain, and barked happily.

"...Cheongi! Woof!"

Callis felt a brief wave of dizziness, but quickly steadied herself and shouted.

"Focus on the cat!"

"I know, woof!"

Nabi sprang out of the darkness. Sensing it by instinct, the King of Dogs prepared a counterattack and moved to defend first.

But Azzy's right arm didn't rise and only dangled below her shoulder. Azzy looked down at her own right arm in confusion.

"Woof? Kkiyaeng!"

As Azzy twisted desperately, Nabi lunged like a predator. Azzy ducked in a rush. The forepaw that missed Azzy's head smashed the concrete wall like tofu. In the shower of dust, Azzy rolled across the ground to evade Nabi.

She had slipped the chain, but the hardship wasn't over.

The feral surge that appeared when life reached the brink.

When a beast could survive only by killing its enemy, it unleashed complete killing intent. Stripping away everything else, it pushed every ability to the limit to kill the "enemy."

At this moment, the King of Cats was a beast driven by certain-kill intent, and she tried to eliminate her enemy in the way she did best.

"Kkiyaeng, kkiyaeng!"

Azzy, already wounded from protecting Callis until now, could only take one-sided hits from Nabi, who struck and vanished through the darkness.

The Progenitor tried to step in and help Azzy... but each time, Nabi hid in darkness again. It was clearly a move to keep the Progenitor in check.

Unable to move away from the laborer, the Progenitor bit her lip and stepped back again.

Dogs couldn't use feral surge. All feral surge was borne by wolves.

The Progenitor couldn't move. If she left her position, the laborer...? would be in danger.

Right now, only Callis could help Azzy.

And Callis had to help Azzy.

To survive, if nothing else.

"Set."

The gauntlet clacked. Callis drew up all her remaining magical energy and recited firmly.

"Ri, Ri, Ri, Ri. Fahrenheit, Celsi, Kel."

Deploy magical energy, condense, condense, condense, condense. Then heat it as is.

In an instant, she wrapped the four-times-condensed magical energy around her left arm.

What manifested was overheating. The gauntlet glowed red. The heat-swollen steel scales all rose at once, and blazing red fire ran through the gaps like fiery breath.

Callis gritted her teeth against pain so intense it felt like her arm was being cooked. The gauntlet protected her arm somewhat, but heat her exposed palm couldn't block seeped in. Her blood began to boil.

A violent heat that went beyond destroying the war-suit and began destroying her own body.

But she couldn't stop.

More than her arm burning away, Azzy falling was the real problem.

Over the Arms already raging with magical energy, Callis overlaid more magical energy.

"Set, Aquus, Ri, Pascal...!"

Add water and condense wind. The heat gathered in her left hand greedily swallowed the water. She compressed those screaming droplets to the limit, compressed them again, and then,

just before Nabi attacked Azzy,

she released the force.

"Steamstream!"

Violent steam was unleashed.

Superheated steel, and one drop of water fallen inside it. The erupting steam repelled itself and burst upward. Callis gathered that force to its limit, then fired it into one point.

It was steam, water that had become wind.

Hissss!

Steam surged out fiercely. Along with the shrill roar, pure-white scorching heat blasted out with enough force to upend the world. A level 2 spell with decent attack power and utility.

Only level 2 combat magic. Against the King of Cats, it was a petty trick that wouldn't damage even a single hair.

Yet.

"Hak!"

Startled by the unexpected attack, Nabi leaped back and fled.

When one surrendered to feral surge, reason was forgotten and instinct took over. The King of Cats hated water and hated heat, so hot steam was an unspeakable torment.

It might have been a petty trick, but magic twisted and deceived the world. Callis scattered hot steam and drove Nabi back.

"D-don't come close!"

It wasn't an order, but a scream close to a plea as she sprayed steam around Azzy.

Azzy herself didn't welcome the white steam either and smacked the ground with her tail in irritation, thump, thump, but Callis ignored it and stood at Azzy's side.

"Your body's already injured. We can hold this line! If we stall for time, feral surge will die down!"

Shouting as if to convince herself, Callis kept the spell active and aimed in all directions.

A vicious silence swallowed the Abyss. No one made a wasted sound. If extra noise mixed in, they might miss the cat hidden in darkness.

Whenever Callis heard anything that even resembled a sound, she fired steam at once. She didn't know whether it hit or missed. She only hoped it helped.

Like that, time passed slowly.

Sweat rolled down her hair. Heat that had burrowed into her body spread everywhere, soaking her completely. On the verge of exhaustion and dehydration, Callis barely held the spell together.

Meanwhile, the Progenitor was raising Black Knights to fill the darkness. If the King of Cats tried to ambush through the dark, they would notice at once.

After repeatedly licking her wounds, Azzy regained enough strength to move again. Azzy planted both hands on the ground and crouched as if ready to dash out at any moment.

'Good. If this keeps up.'

Live. Survive.

Now that she had defied a lieutenant general, she could never return to the military state, and Callis would never see what she had left behind again.

But if she still had a chance, if she still had time,

this time she would build better memories.

As if it had heard her wish, the thumb she was holding twitched.

A feeling close to foreknowledge struck Callis.

"I'm here!"

She hadn't gone long without hearing it, yet it was already a voice she missed. Callis's expression brightened at once.

Immortal, Rashy. What a welcome name.

To Callis, his existence, never staying dead and always returning, was deeply reassuring.

Now they had one more ally. Her chances of surviving the King of Cats had risen.

And she had stepped one pace closer to the future she had imagined.

For Callis, who relaxed for one moment as a hopeful future seemed to draw near,

"Watch out!"

when the laborer shouted, she reacted too late.

Thud.

Something tore, and searing pain hit her.

Callis tried to groan, but even that wouldn't come out properly. Something seemed to be gripping her body tight and refusing to let go.

The heat that had swirled inside her body escaped through her abdomen. With effort, Callis lowered her head to see what had pierced her stomach.

Three blades were protruding from her abdomen.

They looked like something she'd seen before. Three blades hanging one finger-joint apart.

Surely, those had been the lieutenant general's claw... or should have been.

"A traitor has only death. You know that, don't you, Lieutenant Colonel."

Lieutenant General Ebon, his right arm gone, whispered coldly to Callis.

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