WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 185

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Say You Want to Live - 1

A teacher's grace may be as vast as the sky, but a true teacher makes a disciple believe that proverb is true. In that sense, I was a truly exemplary teacher.

Seeing Sepi come in person to help her teacher who had gone out alone, I was moved to tears.

"Wow. I really did raise at least one good disciple. Look at you, rushing over the moment your master is in danger."

All those years I poured my youth into this had paid off.

If you wanted to survive in the back alleys, you needed at least one connection. The world was too harsh to get by on mind reading alone, so the moment I arrived in Amitenggrad, I went into a host bar to build contacts.

Meeting the heir of a landholding company there was pure luck. Pretending to be Sepi's private tutor, I moved back and forth between Sepi and her godfather Alexei and sweetly milked both sides.

Then the moment I saw signs of Alexei heading for ruin, I cut ties fast and latched onto Sepi.

Damn, even now I was proud of that call. Mind reading was useful when you used it like this.

Anyway. Maybe I should at least say something nice to the disciple who came looking for me.

"I'm touched right now. I didn't know your concern for your master ran this deep... This is why all that effort raising you was worth it."

"Could it possibly be deeper than Master's concern for me?"

'Concern, my ass. You ran off first without saying a word, assuming I'd follow once you left. You never spare even a speck of thought for the one left behind.'

Her words and thoughts were still badly out of sync.

Still, words were part of thought too. If she was speaking politely, that meant I still had points banked.

Anyway, if she had brought Seamless Perfection's full strength, there was no way I'd be in danger...

Huh?

"But I don't see anyone behind you. Where's the rest of the force?"

"Force? We're a landholding company. The only people we can hire are specialist workers for professional labor. The only one here who can even pretend to fight is Peto."

Sepi pointed at Senior Peto and said it calmly. I was so dumbfounded I asked again.

"So your full combat power is a coat rack on horseback?"

Senior, who had abruptly been demoted to coat rack, replied.

"You're saying that to my face, and what do you mean coat rack...?"

"Yes. This coat rack is all we have."

"The boss is... no. I am a coat rack."

He really was just a coat rack. As long as he could stay on the horse, wear armor, and swing a weapon, anyone would do. It was one of those cases where the tool mattered more than the person.

"What the hell, then? That's barely any help."

"I'm sorry I can't help more. If there were mercenaries in the military state, I would have brought them."

'After Alexei fell, the rules changed so the landholding company couldn't hire employees who were basically private soldiers. You tore that system apart yourself. Don't act like you don't know.'

I thought you were the kind of kid who'd break the law for your precious self and your respected master. Hire mercenaries, short-term contract strong soldiers, something like that. So that's as far as you'd go. Your master was disappointed in his disciple.

Tch. Then I wasn't perfectly safe. One senior wasn't enough against a threat like Shadow.

Still, it was fine. I had one more backup line for contingencies.

The military state's captain.

"Ah, Sepi. I need to talk to the captain for a bit. Could you step out?"

Normally Sepi would have agreed at once, but this time she answered after a delay, as if something had caught in her throat.

"...After taking so much from me, after pushing me around however you wanted, now you're openly keeping secrets? Master, do you have any conscience? I wasn't expecting a perfectly fair trade, getting exactly what I gave. Still, if I gave something, shouldn't Master give me something too, so at least we keep the form of a transaction?"

'I'll step aside, so talk quietly. Meanwhile I'll wait outside all lonely.'

Something was off. It felt like her thoughts and words had switched places.

"Sepi. Didn't your true feelings just leak out?"

"Not true feelings. A valid demand. I followed Master's will, kept the captain in place, even provided needed equipment, yet both the captain and Master refuse to tell me even a word about what's going on. Is this how you're going to do this?"

'Not at all. I've never lied to Master.'

My stored Sepi points were draining in real time. Resentment showed on her face, along with doubt about whether she should keep following me.

Before my Sepi points hit zero, I spoke quickly.

"It's not because of me, it's because of the captain. She's on a classified operation."

"So what does that have to do with me?"

"If the secret leaks, she dies."

The word dies clearly shocked her. Sepi flinched and glanced into the carriage from the corner of her eye.

Not long after, Sepi recovered her cool expression and answered.

"...Understood. I'm sorry for raising my voice, Master. I'll step aside, so you two can speak quietly alone. Meanwhile I'll wait outside all lonely."

After saying that, Sepi leaned against one side of the motor carriage. I gave a slight nod and stepped through the open door.

Inside, the captain in uniform sat waiting for me, both hands on her knees, posture stiff.

I shut the door. Along with it, I closed the small window to the coachman's seat. The night had already been quiet, but once every opening was closed, an even more stifling silence settled in.

Even while looking at me, the captain only stared without saying anything.

'Honestly, something was strange from the beginning. A life too comfortable for someone from District 15, a relaxed attitude, broad connections, and versatile response skills. Why did this officer not suspect from the start?'

Now then.

'Or perhaps this officer did suspect, but did not want to. Perhaps this officer wished for him to enjoy ordinary life a little longer. This officer is unfit to be a soldier as well.'

It was time to face the captain.

'But now, that too is over.'

Her thoughts ended, and I had finished choosing my words too.

The captain spoke first.

"Are you the one called Magician?"

"Ah, that. It's just a meaningless nickname."

With an awkward smile, I confirmed her guess. At this point, there was no avoiding it. Better to act like someone with some weight than make excuses that the one behind all this was some petty nobody criminal.

Even if that title was all bluff.

The captain swallowed and pressed me.

"Your actions are clearly illegal. After several days of investigation, this officer has detected criminal circumstances suspected to be connected to your actions."

Her speech was still stiff as ever. That's the problem with rule-followers.

Rule-followers had to be handled with rules. I shrugged and said:

"Do you have evidence?"

You'd think asking that so boldly would make her hesitate, but the captain stayed sharp.

"Magician. There is an abundance of circumstances pointing to your actions. If even one tenth of the rumors about Magician are true, the day you finish your sentence will never come."

"So a military state captain throws people in prison based on rumors? Come on, even in the military state that doesn't fly."

"There is testimony as well. Three days ago, there are circumstances that you privately punished the criminal who attacked Anna."

"I said bring evidence, not circumstances."

I picked at my ear and answered shamelessly, and the captain narrowed her eyes and pushed harder.

"A captain's testimony is itself evidence. This officer witnessed a death in person. That man died with spice in his stomach and mentioned Magician until just before death. If you are Magician, you are strongly suspected of being connected to his death."

"Huh? I just recovered the stolen spice."

No way he'd shove that expensive stuff into his own stomach. I pulled the golden spice from my pocket and shook it. The captain saw my spice and went silent.

"That is...?"

'They clearly said the spice was in his stomach...'

What was she talking about? There's no way all that goes down a resisting person's throat. It was just a prank, lightly scaring him with a rounded card.

The only thing he swallowed past his throat was a beer bottle cap.

"Could he have died cutting open his own stomach because he couldn't bear losing the spice? Surely he wasn't that stupid."

"..."

"Wait. Did someone slice open his stomach?"

Hold on. Really? How does someone even think of cutting open a person's belly? That's ice-cold.

'Thinking back, he was clutching his stomach... That action was not from eating spice, but from being stabbed in the abdomen...'

Ugh, horrifying. Sensitive people like me didn't even want to imagine a scene that gruesome. People aren't packages. How do you even think of cutting one open to take something out?

'A simple prank...? Or did he induce that and create the whole situation itself? What exactly was his true intent...?'

"Ah right, Captain, there's something way more important than that crap."

Enough talk that hurts me; let's move to what helps me.

The captain questioned me with her eyes, and I said confidently:

"You should be thanking me. I handled what the military state couldn't."

The captain was speechless. She still didn't understand, so I kindly explained.

"Thanks to you running around trying to block Shadow, I also roughly figured out their identity and target. And would you look at that, people connected to me were in danger. So I had no choice but to move first. I infiltrated them, made them mistake today for the execution date, and while their unprepared raid was underway, I warned my acquaintances."

When an ambush stopped being an ambush, its effectiveness dropped sharply. Unless a force like Shadow deliberately stepped in, their attack would end as a mere disturbance.

Like any other ordinary incident.

My prediction was right. More than half of the groups gathered by incitement were sunk before they reached even half their objective.

"And this is the result! Thanks to that, peace in the back alleys was preserved! What happened today will only be recorded as a simple incident! It's all thanks to my effort!"

On the ride over in the motor carriage, the captain had already grasped most of the situation through a surveillance golem. The military state's back alleys were loud, chaotic, and disorderly tonight, but not as catastrophic as expected.

If they let it pass now, it was noisy but small enough to bury and move on.

"...Even so, the situation is not over."

Still, the captain's expression refused to ease.

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