WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 108

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Beast, Beast King, Human - 4

I read the wind.

As I quietly read someone’s mind through mind reading, their wish lingers in me for a moment, leaves only an aftertaste, then fades. Most wishes simply pass by like that.

Sometimes, though, a wish spins violently inside me before it can slip out the window.

Wicked, dangerous, presumptuous. If it is desperate, a mind reader cannot turn away, even if they want to.

I can’t help it. I read thoughts.

When the wind flips a page, the rustling words beneath it fill the margins. At first glance it looks chaotic, but whenever I see it barely holding together, I can only feel solemn.

If a beautiful epic stood before your eyes, denser than stacked bricks, more precise than interlocking gears, complete as a whole while every single letter still held its own small meaning.

It would be natural to look forward to what would be written in those margins.

And always.

The sentence that wanted to keep going, the book that looked beyond the period, shone brighter.

A book that wants to end, to close itself perfectly, and searches for the finest period paradoxically prepares only the worst ending.

Because there is no perfect life in this world, and pretending to be perfect stains everything with lies and contradictions.

That is why I hate obvious lies. Especially lies that deceive even the liar himself.

A noisy commotion came from outside. The regressor and Nabi, who had suddenly barged in, were fighting.

They were close enough that I could clearly hear the regressor’s flustered voice.

“What the hell?! He had mana herb in his severed right hand...!”

Lieutenant General Ebon, pretending to be consumed by madness as he charged the regressor, sacrificed his right arm instead of attacking. The regressor’s counter cut it off cleanly, and the arm flew away.

In that instant of confusion, he fled at fierce speed. The regressor gave chase a beat late, and then his severed right hand opened in front of her.

There was mana herb in that fist. Sparks clung to it, harsh smoke billowed, and the burning herb scattered toward the regressor.

At the same time, Ebon, still running, blew out the mana-herb smoke he had been holding in his mouth. If it were paper-wrapped mana herb, maybe not, but smoke from burning herb with that intense scent was enough to provoke Nabi.

Left with only instinct, Nabi followed the scent and ran into the regressor.

The two flowed straight into battle.

From pretending to keep fighting while revealing his own shame of being beastkin, all to make his opponent lower her guard.

To enduring the pain of holding mana herb in his mouth and lighting it, even though he could have just smoked it normally.

A thriller, meticulously designed from the very bottom.

If this had been an effort to live, I would have given him a standing ovation.

But.

If all this was only the thrashing of someone trying to deceive himself, if what I was reading was nothing more than self-comfort for a man running toward a false goal.

The more fiercely he built it up, the more exhausted I felt by how meaningless it was.

“The King of Cats is here! Stop him before he does anything!”

I heard the regressor shout from far away, but he had already done something.

And he was about to do more.

The claw that had split Callis’s abdomen from back to front dripped blood in silence.

“The King of Dogs... does not trigger feral surge. Because the wolf took all the feral surge.”

Lieutenant General Ebon released the claw. In his hand was a chain, the one Callis had thrown off.

He was a cat beastkin, and he knew how to approach prey in silence. Callis, distracted by the sudden appearance of the immortal, never noticed him closing in. Even if she had, the result would not have changed.

Her opponent was one of the Stars of the Military State. Even as a lieutenant colonel, the gap was overwhelming.

Ebon wrapped the chain around the claw’s grip and tied it tight. The claw was the anchor, the chain the rope.

After gouging through Callis with it, Ebon muttered darkly.

“But the King of Dogs has a time when feral surge comes out. Not when her own life is in danger. It is when she kills a human. When a human life is lost because of the King of Dogs' actions, the King of Dogs triggers feral surge.”

Ebon’s gaze followed the chain. At the other end was Azzy.

The chain was still tied to Azzy’s forepaw.

Callis had removed the chain from her neck, but Azzy had been fighting Nabi and had no chance to do the same.

“Even if it wasn’t by her own will....”

Because it is not that dogs do not kill humans; rather, what does not kill humans is what is called a dog.

If a human dies, if humans make the King of Dogs kill a human.

Then the old promise between dogs and humans shakes, and the boundary between wolf and dog blurs.

That is why Azzy cannot intervene even while humans are killing humans. No one can be allowed to die because of her action.

So she shuts her eyes, blocks her ears, and curls up in a corner.

“You attacked your own side. What are you trying to...? Hyu?”

As Tyr stared in shock, unable to process the sudden turn, Ebon charged at Azzy. Azzy, who held only goodwill toward humans, did not resist. He rushed at the defenseless Azzy, raised his sharp nails, grabbed her by the hair, and sprinted.

“Kking! Woof woof!”

Dragged by her hair, Azzy’s eyes widened.

Not because it hurt. Because she understood what this would cause.

At the opposite end of the chain around her forepaw, the claw was embedded in Callis’s body. If Azzy was dragged like this, the chain would pull tight, and the hooked blade of the claw would rip out all of Callis’s muscles and organs.

She was already fatally wounded. If it was pulled on top of that... Callis would die instantly.

Even if not by Azzy’s own strength, a person would die because of Azzy.

Azzy did not kill a person entirely by her own power, so the foundation of the promise would not collapse, but right now triggering feral surge and rampaging was also dangerous. This was an isolated Abyss.

If she shattered even the ground, everyone would fall below.

“Woof! Woof woof woof! Let go! Arf!”

Azzy struggled desperately. Even while being dragged, she dug in her claws and scraped the ground and walls, resisting with everything she had.

But Azzy was not very heavy, and the lieutenant general was a strong fighter who could use energy. Most of all, the concrete walls and floor were too weak to withstand that force for long.

There was only one way out.

“Thrash all you want, King of Dogs! But if you want to stop me, even with your strength, you’ll have to kill me! That would be fine by me too!”

“Kkiiing...!”

And that way was even more impossible.

The distance left until death was about fifteen meters. Azzy had her claws buried in the floor and was holding on with everything she had, but that only bought a few seconds.

At this rate, Callis would die and Azzy would trigger feral surge. Even if she did not try to kill humans, they would have to subdue her to protect this place.

Such obsession, such skin-crawling malice, billowed from him.

No one but me read that scheme. Then again, who could imagine it, taking his own life hostage to shackle someone else to a cycle of death.

But I read it.

And the moment I did, I ran.

Callis was dying, and soon she would be dead. The moment this chain ran out.

The moment the claw pierced her abdomen, she sensed death.

‘I wanted... to live. Guess it was impossible. Well, I made too many wrong choices. And I was too late.’

At the end of all that struggling, what Callis felt was relief.

She had done everything she could, used what little strength she had, and achieved at least a small result. She regretted not doing it sooner, but that was the small regret everyone carried.

‘...I hate beasts. Even before my father died, I hated beasts. Dirty, filthy things. They make no effort and still live easy lives. But dying... is all the same....’

As a member of the Lords of All Creation, she knew about the King of Dogs, so through her fading consciousness she roughly understood what Ebon was trying to do.

She understood she would become the sacrifice for the King of Dogs' rampage.

‘...Even if I die, I won’t die to some dog.’

Callis reached her trembling hand behind her, grabbed the claw’s grip, and tried to pull it out.

Far away, she saw Rashy running toward her. In that final moment, she thought she was lucky to see him.

It would probably be the last dignity she, a woman full of mistakes, could manage before death....

“I like this version of the story better. Even if both sides are desperate, if one side’s desperate resolve is made of childish lies... it feels hollow.”

I am the one who listens to wind.

For those who want an ending, a perfect finish.

For those who want to continue, blank space to keep writing.

The impossible is impossible.

But if something is possible, I make it possible.

‘That laborer! When did he get all the way there!’

I heard Lieutenant General Ebon’s thought. When? I was already running from the moment I read your mind, while you weren’t paying attention to me.

I stood behind Callis, curled and uncurled my fingers one by one, and placed them on the chain knot.

As expected, every escape trick needs an assistant.

“Just wait a second! I’ll undo it for you! I used to be pretty good at picking locks and stuff!”

I shouted confidently and yanked on the chain knot.

Clank clank.

The chain clanked uselessly. The knot gave me nothing but metallic noise. After fiddling with it for a while, I let out a flustered sound.

“Huh? Huh? W-why won’t this come undone? That’s weird?”

‘Idiot! That knot was made by twisting a Level 4 alchemsteel chain by force. You think you can undo that in no time?!’

Lieutenant General Ebon sneered at me and reached the chain’s maximum range. Azzy’s claws carved long marks into the concrete, and the slack chain began to pull tight.

‘If I just pull the King of Dogs like this! The lieutenant colonel dies because of the King of Dogs!’

“Ah! Th-this! Wait! It should work!”

Clank, clank. The metallic sound of something not catching properly continued. Sensing victory, the lieutenant general put his whole body into it.

‘All of you, sink into the Abyss! Until I return to collect the corpse!’

He yanked Azzy’s hair hard, and just as Azzy was about to scream in agony.

The chain snapped taut. The lieutenant general’s force traveled through Azzy, through the chain, reached the claw’s grip, and then.

Pop.

The claw’s grip came off.

Only the grip, leaving the blade part behind.

Ting, ting.

The grip tied to the chain bounced uselessly on the floor.

No sound of a body being torn open. No horrific scream. The claw remained embedded in Callis’s abdomen, still blocking the blood from spilling out.

Only the claw’s “grip,” tied to the chain, rolled across the concrete floor.

In an instant, everyone’s expectations missed, and the thoughts of those who failed to grasp the situation were bleached white.

As expected.

I love this silence, this pure white blank that follows a magic trick. Unable to contain the rush of joy, I spread both arms and shouted.

“Sur~prise! Ta-da! Escape successful!”

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