WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 113

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Aftermath - 2

The first condition for rock-paper-scissors to turn into a mind game: someone starts trying to read the other first.

The regressor paused for a moment and probed my intentions.

‘What is this? Mind games? Hmph, pathetic.’

“Then I can just throw paper.”

“Knew you would. Still so indecisive.”

“What?”

Before the regressor could snap, I shouted first.

“Here we go! A match that decides Nabi’s life or death! What will happen?!”

The second condition was when the stakes were huge.

When mind games mixed with desperation, rock-paper-scissors changed genres.

‘The beasts closest to humans, and the ones with the largest beastkin populations, are dogs and cats. If those two settle down, the disaster coming later will be much weaker too.’

The regressor widened her eyes and focused on the match.

But the moment you started thinking, your loss was already decided. I grinned to myself and shouted.

“If you don’t throw, you lose! Ready, scissors!”

‘He said he’d throw rock, so I should throw paper... no, maybe he said that so I’d throw paper, then he’d throw scissors. In that case... I’ll pretend to throw scissors, then switch back to paper!’

Yep. Hooked. And she even picked the wishy-washy option, paper. Tsk, tsk. Even without mind reading, you were never winning this.

Don’t resent me too much, regressor. The moment you accepted rock-paper-scissors against me, a mind reader, the result was already set.

“Rock!”

‘Huh? Wait. There’s no way he’d play fair. Why did I assume this would be fair?’

Kekeke. Of course it wasn’t fair. Too late to realize it now. In rock-paper-scissors, with the advantage of mind reading, I was guaranteed to wi...

“Paper!”

‘I almost got baited again! Good. Don’t play by his flow. I’ll throw paper, then change after I see what he throws!’

Huh?

What?

Wait, you insane regressor. Why are you changing the basic premise of rock-paper-scissors? This isn’t changing the game’s genre, this is turning it into a reflex contest!

‘Heavenly Mirror, response form! Take the move that beats whatever the opponent throws!’

You’re even using energy arts?

And Heavenly Mirror was a technique that reflexively reproduced preloaded movements. It caught the opponent’s motion through energy spread across the entire body, so the gap between recognition and response was extremely short.

At this rate, I’d lose. I had to stop it. But both the regressor and I had already thrown.

Damn it. She said she’d throw paper, so while throwing, I just had to shift slightly and throw scisso...

‘Fist.’

Right. Just win.

Rock-paper-scissors result: I threw scissors. The regressor threw fist.

By the great law of rock-paper-scissors, I lost. It stung more because I’d been sure I would win.

Damn it. I lost. Of all things, I lost at rock-paper-scissors.

If she had just changed her throw on a whim, I could at least swallow it, but before that cowardly regressor overturned the game itself, I had already won!

The regressor checked the result and opened her eyes wide.

“...Huh? What? I won?”

“Looks like it. Wow. It’s Mr. Shei’s victory. Thanks to that, Nabi gets to live.”

‘What? He didn’t use any trick? Was he really trying to play normal rock-paper-scissors?’

Rock-paper-scissors was rock-paper-scissors. What even was “normal” rock-paper-scissors? Why did a simple game like this need the word normal in front of it?

I glared resentfully at the regressor who had cowardly dragged it into a physical reflex contest and stolen my win.

The nasty regressor enjoyed my glare and sneered.

“Heh. I won? What was that? You said men throw rock, and then you threw scissors?”

“Seems so. Compared to a true man like Mr. Shei, I still have a long way to go. I accept defeat. Your manliness surpasses mine.”

‘...Wait. Why am I not happy at all?’

While the regressor tilted her head, Tyr, who had been watching from afar, quietly signaled to me.

Tyr’s blood-red eyes flashed warm for me alone.

“Hyu... if you wish.”

If I wanted, she was offering to deal with Nabi herself, even if it meant clashing with the regressor.

I shook my head immediately.

“No. Rock-paper-scissors is a sacred match. We follow the result.”

It was the most peaceful promise humans had made to settle minor conflicts. I had lost, but that didn’t erase its sacredness.

A winning gambler had to know how to accept the occasional loss. That was what made victory more valuable.

So now there was only one thing I had to do. I had to make sure drug-soaked Nabi could safely move around outside.

Sigh. My fate.

“Azzy. Lick that one for me.”

“Woof? That one?”

Azzy tilted her head at me, then gave Nabi a small growl. I sighed and petted Azzy’s head.

“What can we do? If we’re saving Nabi anyway, we have to treat Nabi now.”

“Woof... don’t want to. She’s annoying.”

“It’s okay. I’ll make sure Nabi doesn’t attack people. If Nabi doesn’t attack, Nabi will be your good friend.”

“Woof.”

Azzy barked unhappily, but after my repeated persuasion, she reluctantly agreed. When Azzy stood beside Nabi, the terrified Nabi let out a pitiful “Nyaa-.”

Azzy looked at Nabi’s wounds as she begged pathetically, gave a small bark, then lowered her head and started licking Nabi’s injuries.

Nabi curled up, thinking she was about to be bitten. But once Nabi realized it wasn’t an attack, she stopped resisting and accepted the grooming.

“Woof woof.”

Azzy’s small tongue slowly worked up from Nabi’s ankle. The bite marks Azzy had left began healing, slowly, visibly.

“Looks like no rabies, then. Well, Azzy licked it, so it should be cured.”

The curse in her own fangs had its antidote in her own saliva.

It wouldn’t be a complete cure, but it would keep it from getting worse. After cleaning the calf wound, Azzy gradually moved up toward the thigh. Maybe because her tongue was small, it took quite a while just to lick one calf.

It wouldn’t be good if she smelled too much blood. Should I ask Tyr to wipe only the blood with bloodcraft...? Then again, the Beast King was a holy being, so would that blood even work the same way...? While I was thinking that,

“Hyu.”

“Yes?”

Tyr called me.

When I turned, Tyr suddenly seemed impatient, grabbed my sleeve tight, and started pulling me out of the training room.

“Get out.”

“Yes?”

Tug, tug. The force on my sleeve was no joke. I got dragged along helplessly.

“What a ghastly sight. You must not watch this. Hurry.”

“No, that’s just grooming.”

“...Must I use force?”

“But the air in this room suddenly feels unbearably heavy. I should go out and take a walk.”

At the far end of the hallway, Callis was still carrying out her blitz operation in the instructor’s office. There was nothing good about staying here longer while an immortal’s anguish echoed through the place, so I decided to leave.

The regressor looked at me and sneered.

“Hmph. You see now, right? I’m not the weird one, you’re the weird one for taking this scene so norm...”

“Shut up and come out too, Shei of the Iron Fist.”

“W-what? Why... ah!”

‘Right! I was crossdressing!’

I really wished she’d get it together. What was she going to do with a mind like that?

Tsk. No, forget it. Better this way. At least she couldn’t act. If her ego had been weak, would she have stayed sane through repeated regressions? Fine. Better you than anyone else.

“We’ve got things to do together, right? Come on out. I’ll teach you how to roll mana herb.”

“I don’t smoke mana herb.”

The regressor refused flatly. It was so reflexive I almost suspected she had used Heavenly Mirror.

‘If I rely on stuff like that, my will gets weaker every time I regress.’

Diligent, too.

“I’m not telling you to smoke it, so just come with me.”

I glanced around, and Tyr had already called in thick darkness and was watching me as if guarding against me. The darkness was so dense you could barely see anything, yet those red eyes kept tracking me.

No, why so defensive? This was really unfair. Even in human form, a beast was still a beast...

“...What are you looking at? Go quickly.”

Those blood-red eyes that had been warm only to me now showed a strict light, again only to me.

Fine, no reason to stand around watching beasts groom each other anyway. I left the training room like I was being kicked out.

Ugh. This pissed me off, so maybe I should beat up the regressor.

I took the regressor with me toward my room and opened with the main point.

“You heard the basics, right? The King of Cats is drug-soaked right now. On a special mana herb made with catnip and World Tree leaves.”

“Yeah. I never thought that was how they controlled the King of Cats.”

“You can’t get mana herb in the Abyss, so what were you planning to do?”

“...Wouldn’t Nabi just quit?”

“So you had no plan. Understood.”

‘Urgh...! It’s true I hadn’t thought of a method... but still!’

The regressor shamelessly argued back.

“There’s no way to get drugs in the Abyss anyway. Then all Nabi can do is endure it, right?”

“Think with common sense. If a junkie runs out of drugs, do you think they’ll sit still?”

“If it comes down to it, we can suppress her by force...”

“Then what’s different between you and the Lords of All Creation? Enough, just follow me.”

The regressor fell sullenly quiet and followed behind me.

As we walked, I took out the mana herb I had set aside and showed it. These were Nabi-only catnip mana herbs I had scraped together by rummaging through the lieutenant colonel and colonel’s belongings.

“Six Nabi-only mana herbs from the colonel and lieutenant general. If we just hand these to Nabi, how many days until they’re gone?”

“Six sticks, so if she conserves hard and uses one every three days... eighteen days?”

“One day. No matter how many they have in hand, a junkie’s nature is to burn through all of it in a day.”

How could someone who didn’t do drugs understand a junkie’s mind?

I sighed, entered my room, and opened the drawer. The eleven mana herbs Callis had supplied were still there untouched. I took them out, lined them up on the table, and said seriously.

“Even if we ration carefully, getting below one stick a day will be difficult. So what do we do?”

The leaf wrapper around the rolled cigarette was made from juniper leaves that absorbed scent.

I tore open the outer wrap of a mana-herb cigarette. The moment it ripped, a cool, sharp scent drifted out and woke me up. The faint magical energy spread through my body reacted to the mana herb and ran through my veins.

Enjoying the refreshing sensation, like a window opening in my head, I said,

“We increase the amount.”

“You can do that?”

“Nothing in this world is impossible. High-quality mana herb is especially easy to stretch. More precisely, you make it carry a faint trace of that scent and trick people into thinking it’s premium. Especially this Nabi-only catnip mana herb, since it even has a tiny amount of World Tree leaf mixed in...”

In the Sanctum’s holy scripture, the first Holy Maiden was always mentioned for the miracle of feeding a thousand people with one sheep.

Right now, I was just like her.

I spread out paper and loosened the dry mana-herb leaves. Base it with standard mana herb, coat it with catnip mana herb containing World Tree leaf, roll it up, then fold the end slightly and seal it.

By the time I finished distributing it,

“Ta-da. I mixed two standard mana herbs with one Nabi-only catnip mana herb and distributed it properly, and look at this. Five Nabi-only catnip mana herbs appeared! What do you think!”

This was magic. This was a miracle.

The rolled cigarettes multiplied like spawning offspring. Feeling proud, I brought one to my lips.

“Hey. What are you doing smoking it?”

“Oops. My body moved on its own.”

Damn it. If I sold these outside, I’d make at least 100 alke each. And I have to give this to a cat?

My hand trembled. I barely pulled my fingers away as they kept trying to cling to the cigarette.

While I kept working and tore open more mana herb, the regressor stared at the growing pile and made a suggestion.

“If I give you World Tree leaves, can you make more?”

“You have more World Tree leaves?”

“Yeah.”

“One or two won’t be enough. How many?”

The regressor immediately ripped a crack in the air, shoved her right arm into that pocket, frowned, rummaged around a few times, then pulled it back out with a ginkgo twig thick with leaves in her hand.

It was a World Tree branch.

Loaded with leaves.

“This much?”

No, this was absurd. The World Tree guardians sold leaves, but never branches. How did she even get that?

“What exactly are you carrying in there?”

“If it’s needed, pretty much everything.”

“No, not just leaves, a whole branch...”

“Here, take it.”

She handed it over without hesitation. I couldn’t tell whether her sense of money was broken, or she just didn’t care because she would regress anyway.

World Tree leaves were packed with life essence itself, and when mixed well, they could multiply the effect of any herb without side effects.

In other words, roll them with mana herb and you got mana-herb cigarettes several times stronger.

World Tree leaves didn’t dry through normal methods, so I had to touch each one and pull out the moisture one by one with Aquus magic. As I tore the dried leaves into long strips, I tilted my head.

“At this point this isn’t cheap filler anymore...?”

As someone trying to pack cheap material inside for profit, filling it with even more expensive material felt utterly unfamiliar.

Was this the mindset of the rich? Had I lived too much like a commoner?

In the end, we made a total of sixty mana-herb cigarettes. Forget addiction, it felt like smoking these would make you healthier.

“Mana herb made with World Tree leaves... uh, can I smoke just one?”

Each stick was precious enough to stop Nabi from going berserk, but for a smoker, this temptation was impossible to resist. If I held back from this, I couldn’t even call myself a mana-herb smoker.

The problem was the regressor.

“Go ahead.”

She gave permission surprisingly easily.

What was this? I quickly grabbed one and said,

“I’m going to smoke mana herb, so get out.”

“Huh? Why? I told you to smoke.”

“I don’t want to blow smoke in front of a kid. Hurry.”

“What? Kid?”

That brat with nothing but brute strength flared up at my words, snatched a mana herb from the desk, and shouted,

“I can smoke mana herb too! Want me to prove it?”

Sigh. Of course. I set mine back down. No way I was smoking in a closed space like this.

It was expensive too, and each stick was basically equal to the King of Cats’ life. Even if I kept them now, I’d have to hand them over once Nabi ran out anyway. Regrettably, I decided to set my smoker self aside for now.

If any were left after we escaped, I’d steal one then and smoke it.

“Eh, forget it. Adults should set an example.”

“I said smoke it!”

Leaving the chattering regressor behind, I trudged out.

‘This cycle... I came here ready to throw it away, even postponing other things, but now I can’t throw it away.’

‘I secured the King of Cats, and the King of Dogs is fine too. Tyrkanzyaka is normal. I even stopped those Lords of All Creation bastards. I still don’t fully know what changed from the last cycle, but... now I have to check.’

‘How far this cycle can go. How far it can advance.’

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