WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 183

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People Die When Kicked by a Horse

The Third rolled backward across the ground after dodging the horse's attack by a paper-thin margin.

Its momentum was terrifying. If his reaction had been even a little slower, that enraged horse's forehoof would have crushed his shoulder.

It was too early to sigh in relief. The lionhorse's decisive blow had missed, and as if displeased, it scraped the ground and charged after him again.

'Black Shadow Energy!'

Thick black energy billowed from the Third's entire body. The aura of Black Shadow Energy hid him behind a veil of darkness, yet the lionhorse's mane twitched in a strange way and pinpointed his position again.

Only then did the Third realize what that mane could do, and his eyes widened.

'Is it reading the wind through its hair? A gift like that? Even back in the kingdom days, horses like this were rare...!'

He had no choice. He had wanted to subdue it without hurting it too badly, since he needed to use the horse.

The Third pulled a throwing dagger from inside his coat. He poured energy into it, black force rose from the blade, and in an instant it melted into the dark.

In the dim street, the Third scattered invisible daggers.

"You damned beast!"

One stab would make it behave. Blades shimmering in the darkness flew at horse and rider. Even someone wrapped in bullet-deflecting energy would not get away unharmed, and a beast that could only rely on its natural strength would scream in pain.

But then.

Ting.

The dagger bounced off with a limp, powerless sound. The Third's eyes flew open.

In the blink of an eye, tough cloth armor had wrapped around both of them. Horse and rider alike, every vital spot.

That part made sense. The Third knew this well too. The Military State had packets.

But what shocked him was something else.

'Not even a scratch... on cloth? I put energy into that dagger.'

If the Third had known who his opponent was, he might have accepted it.

The third-generation Seamless Perfection, Jiknyeo Sephier Bakia, owner of the Military State's greatest holding company and one who had even collaborated on war-suit production.

The Military State's finest alchemist and tailor in every sense.

Calling clothes she had made with unlimited resources mere cloth would have been an insult to everything the name Seamless Perfection had built.

But the Third did not know that, so his frustration was understandable.

Peto shrugged and said,

"The boss is great with employee benefits."

As soon as he finished speaking, a masklike face cover wrapped over his face. Clothes that perfectly enclosed the whole body, something only a packet could do.

He was wearing cloth armor, yet Peto looked every bit like an old knight reborn.

Holding a riding whip instead of a spear, Peto pointed at the Third and said,

"Peto Tinhart of Skevally. I come... ah, shit! Bad old habit! This is why I shouldn't carry weapons!"

Grimacing at a habit ingrained from his squire days, Peto snapped his whip long. The lash came down at the Third as he retreated from the horse.

Why knights had once ruled the world. A manifestation of violence that rode creatures far faster and stronger than humans, then wielded power from above.

Only a knight could stop a knight wearing costly armor and wrapped in energy.

"Ngh...!"

The Third pushed stealth technique to its limit and dodged several more times, but his opponent was a horse. Even with a person on its back, the lionhorse drove its hooves into concrete and twisted its heavy body as if inertia did not exist.

Passing close by was risky with that whip-wielding rider there. Not because the whip itself was scary, but because if he got caught for even a moment, he could be crushed under hooves.

"If only there were no horse...!"

It was his mistake in failing to gauge his opponent's ability, or more exactly, the ability of that gear.

Still, what else could he do? After knights fell, good horses had vanished from the Military State, and packets were invisible until inserted.

And on top of that.

'A horse wearing packet-made horse armor...! Without that armor, a beast is nothing!'

Maybe that stray thought cost him. In the split second the Third slipped, the lionhorse closed the gap.

As if saying got you at last, the lionhorse grinned and slammed him with head and shoulder.

"Urgh...!"

He jumped backward to bleed off the force, but even so, the impact hit him like his whole body was being wrung out like laundry. If he had not wrapped his entire body in energy, his bones would have broken.

Even while flying back, the Third expertly stripped off his cloak and wrapped it around the horse's head. In the brief pause from the startled horse, he sprang away and landed atop another streetlamp.

Peto, now like a dog that had lost the chicken it was chasing, looked up. The streetlamp was fairly high. The whip could reach, but it would not do much damage.

Now that he had secured safety, the Third gritted his teeth and replied.

"Watch yourself. Next time, I'll come when you aren't prepared."

It was supposed to be a grave warning in the Shadow's style, but to Peto, who had been shoved into this fight, it just sounded absurd.

"Sorry, but I didn't come prepared for a fight this time either. My life has always been one unexpected incident after another."

"Like the kid your sister-in-law ended up with?"

A voice came from the dim street.

***

Busy, busy.

I contacted the Shelter and told them to take the kids, and sent an errand runner to tell Family to get ready to fight. Those two had enough muscle of their own, so they would not go down easily.

Hah. Babysitter, meerkat lookout, all of it. Where else were they going to find a kind neighbor as useful as me? The Military State should hurry up and award me a Brave Citizen Medal.

Anyway, those jobs were done, and Market was what remained. That side made me nervous. Unlike Family or Shelter, it had too many gaps for people to slip through.

If they wanted to fight the Transport Union, that was none of my business, but those Shadow bastards were another matter.

Good. Time to check on Market. After roughly settling things elsewhere, I steered the motor carriage toward Market.

"All that running around with the captain paid off."

Traveling all over the Military State with the captain had definitely mattered. I had not read the Half-Shadow's mind since he was an officer-class type, but I had at least found their targets through the memories of messengers and couriers.

As expected, their targets were Market, Shelter, and Family. Organizations that formed power blocs and ran things in the Military State's back alleys.

Shadow did not want to split the pie with them, so they were trying to use all the piled-up resentment in the alleys as gunpowder and blow it all at once.

I happened to be the type who put a match to gunpowder the moment I saw it. I lit the fuse that was supposed to burn slowly and set it off first.

This was the result. Not a fight led by Shadow, but real chaos where desire slammed into desire.

If conflict was going to happen, then do it right. Do not dance to someone else's tune.

I was muttering that as I headed for Market.

Then things got noisy up ahead. I leaned out to look, and right on cue, I saw Senior Peto on horseback fighting a Half-Shadow.

Senior Peto, the man who had given me heartfelt advice at the host bar... that advice would have sounded more convincing if he had not gotten involved with a widow who had lost her husband in another region and been run out for it.

Still, he was fighting well. He acted like he got PTSD every time knight and squire stories came up, but experience from all those brawls over women did not disappear.

Honestly, the horse was fighting better than he was, but still. Even while the horse ran wild, he stayed mounted and kept pressuring his opponent.

By numbers it was 2 to 1, and by gear Senior had the edge. He was mounted too. Not just any horse either, an armored one.

And there it was. Right on prediction, the horse slammed the Half-Shadow with its shoulder. Even then, the Half-Shadow jumped back and absorbed the impact, then used that rebound to leap up onto a streetlamp.

Hm. What to do with that. Ram it with the motor carriage?

No. He would just jump away. And if I rammed it, I was the one who would get hurt, so that was a loss.

Good. Decided. I got down from the motor carriage and approached carefully. Then I reached out my left hand and pulled out a card.

Diamond 3, Horn Bow.

I bent the card slightly with my thumb and pinky, then gently wrapped the body with my middle three fingers. In that state, I poured in magic and did alchemic conversion.

The card grew while keeping the curved shape. At first it was soft like a fresh sprout, then as it grew it stiffened, and soon it became so hard it was difficult to pull at all.

The Third, who had not noticed I was aiming a bow, said to Senior,

"Watch yourself. Next time, I'll come when you aren't prepared."

"Sorry, but I didn't come prepared for a fight this time either. My life has always been one unexpected incident after another."

"Like the kid your sister-in-law ended up with?"

Ah, crap. My mouth ran on its own.

Well, that part was not important.

Did he know how huge the uproar had been when, a week after the widow's funeral, she got pregnant, people questioned Senior's morals, and he turned in his resignation and ran?

What mattered was whether I could hit this or not. That was all.

This card had been converted together with an arrow drawn back by a windlass. The instant conversion finished, it would recover full elasticity and fire the arrow.

I had set the zero too, so as long as my posture was right, this one shot was guaranteed hit and guaranteed kill.

Really, it was closer to a pre-cocked crossbow than a horn bow, but the form was still a horn bow, so whatever.

"People without talent need to prepare thoroughly."

After finishing my aim, I muttered that and completed the conversion. For a moment, it felt like a huge wall shoved my left arm away.

Twung, something snapped tight.

'An arrow? But an arrow like that, with bullet-deflecting energy...'

Yeah. That damned bullet-deflecting energy. No matter how hard an arrow was pulled with a windlass, it would not do heavy damage.

As long as bullet-deflecting energy existed, arrows and bullets were worse than firing underwater.

But I was not aiming at your body.

I was aiming at the streetlamp.

The arrow pierced the streetlamp's neck.

The soft alchemic steel used in Military State facilities could endure shaking somehow, but it was weak against sharp points like arrows. Snapped in the middle, the streetlamp started to fall limply.

Bullet-deflecting energy or not, Mother Earth pulled everyone equally. The Third, who had suddenly lost his footing, could not defy that law either.

And below him, an enraged horse was waiting. As if it had been waiting for this, the lionhorse drove its forehooves into the ground and spun its body. Its powerful hind legs targeted the Third.

"No...!"

He tried to twist in midair and avoid it, but Senior's whip came at the perfect timing. His body, wrapped in the whip, stalled for an instant in the air.

Then the horse's hind hoof smashed into him.

The crunching sound was closer to a sculpture breaking apart. The Third's body, hit by an unbearable shock, flew through the air.

Unlike arrows, a horse's back kick could not be blocked by bullet-deflecting energy.

The Half-Shadow called the Third flew away with his eyes rolled back.

That should be one less of those Half-Shadow whatever-the-hell guys. Yeah, too many minor pests around.

Senior, who had watched a man get hit by a horse from first-class seats, muttered blankly.

"...You little shit. Marriage just wasn't in my plans. Don't say that in front of a kid."

"Show me the kid first, then say that. Since we're on it, want to go see her once?"

"No. Don't come. I care about my daughter too...."

The card that had done its job slowly returned to its original form. On the restored card, only the number 3 remained, and the vertical line of diamond symbols inside it was gone.

While I was chatting casually, the carriage door opened.

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