WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 221: A Story of the Past, Pied Piper of Hameln - 7

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A fierce battle raged between one hundred people and one person. It wasn't hard to tell who held the advantage. The one person did.

Nicholas's long sword, specialized for cutting, had great reach and covered a wide arc. It was the sort of weapon, and energy art, suited to dealing with many weaker opponents. Fitting for a chief instructor who taught students.

However, this forest was full of thick trees untouched by human hands. Nicholas occasionally cut straight through them while advancing, but that strength was steadily being drained away.

And besides.

Peep!

"Ri! Lux!"

"Pascal!"

Following my instructions, the children moved as one, making them far more troublesome opponents than Nicholas had expected.

Whenever the whistle sounded, standardized magic struck Nicholas all at once. Light and wind. Mysteries the military state had reshaped into its own form until they were mysteries no longer flew toward Nicholas.

"You little brats!"

Nicholas stepped forward and unleashed a quick-draw slash. The tangled vines that had taken much time and effort to grow were severed in an instant.

Crack!

At the same time, the children holding logs to block Nicholas screamed and were thrown aside.

But Nicholas didn't look satisfied. The strike should have split apart both the logs used as shields and the children lined up behind them. Instead, something sticky had clung to the blade and dulled its edge.

"How do you like it? The logs we threw earlier were dipped in resin boiled with ivy vines, then wrapped all over with those vines. Resin sticks even more firmly to life energy, so you won't be able to remove it easily, even with qi arts."

It was a minor trap, prepared in case Nicholas decided to cut straight through the logs.

Originally, I had planned to cover Nicholas from head to toe in resin and weaken him that way, but it had only gotten on the blade. A shame, but it couldn't be helped.

As Nicholas tried to finish off the fallen children, I stepped in. The moment my dagger went for Nicholas, the resin-caked long sword flashed.

At me.

"Ha ha! Of course you don't plan on dying yourself, right? That's only natural!"

A trajectory formed in Nicholas's thoughts. A strike meant to cut me clean in half at the waist. I couldn't block it, but I had never intended to get close in the first place. Smiling, I pulled back the leg I had extended as if I were about to rush in and retreated far away.

The tip of the sword skimmed past just in front of my waist. Since I knew it wouldn't touch me, I wasn't afraid.

A brief standoff followed. During that time, the children who had been in danger fled quickly. The situation returned to how it had begun.

"...You're quite something, Hui. The more I see, the more of a waste it seems. Why make such a foolish choice?"

Nicholas clicked his tongue after seeing me evade the attack without even blinking. There was some genuine regret in that lament.

To Nicholas, my ability to cut in at the right moment and break his rhythm was a skill only someone who understood combat could possess.

All I had done was read thoughts and keep aiming for openings.

Well, whatever. If he considered me a threat, that was good.

"Ahahaha! You know it! I'm good at learning anything, but I can't go beyond that! Put another way, I've already reached the highest point of my life!"

"Yes! If you miss this chance, you'll remain at that level forever! You'll end up running from even a colonel who couldn't become a general, like me!"

They said soldiers who couldn't earn their stars became ill. Of course, many faithfully worked in their assigned positions, but Nicholas, who had felt the limits of talent sooner than anyone, had become even more obsessed with it.

From Nicholas's perspective, I may have looked like an idiot with outstanding talent who was throwing away an opportunity.

"Accept it even now! If you agree, everything can be resolved! If the two of us keep quiet, we can make it as though this taboo never happened!"

That was true. I was the strongest among the one hundred forty people here. Without me, the children barely holding on now would crumble like a disorganized mob.

A few of them even looked worried that I might betray them.

But.

"Nicholas. If you're going to do it, then try challenging yourself! Why are you always the one testing others? The one handing out hardship? Why is it always our job to risk our lives and achieve the impossible?"

A long sword had great reach and a wide radius, but that also limited its trajectory. No matter how much energy Nicholas wrapped around it, trees that had protected themselves from savage beasts did not reveal their rings so easily. If the sword caught on a tree, even Nicholas's long sword would be trapped.

Keeping clear of the long sword, I moved toward the position Nicholas found most troublesome and shouted.

"Fight against trials you can't overcome, like they are! That's the real thing. Ordering people around without risking your life or overcoming any hardship yourself? That's just throwing your weight around!"

"Foolish to the end!"

Nicholas shook me off and ran toward the group of students. As planned, some fled quickly, but two who reacted too slowly were torn apart.

They weren't cut by a sharp blade. Their bodies were ripped apart by a savage slash. The resin on the sword, born inside a plant's body, got to experience the rare sight of a human body from within.

A child nearby screamed. They were still too young to simply accept a friend's death.

Just as Nicholas was about to cut down the screaming child, I charged at his back.

"I'll promise you this, Nicholas! If you truly want to feed all of them to me, then push past my interference, kill everyone except me, and let me take their blood! If you overcome that hardship and achieve something so great, I might make a more 'reasonable' decision too!"

If Nicholas overcame all those hardships to make me an even greater talent and fed me the students' blood, if he truly changed me with unwavering determination, then I would have no choice after that.

But as if Nicholas had been waiting for it, the sword immediately thrust toward me. The blade aimed at my throat carried clear killing intent.

It meant only one thing.

"Ha ha ha! Of course! You don't want to overcome hardship yourself!"

Laughing wildly, I knocked the blade aside. It was heavy. My body slid backward.

Nicholas clicked his tongue.

"...I won't negotiate with a reactionary."

"That's a pathetic excuse. You draw a line before even trying because you think you can't do it. Is that where your limit is?"

I steadied my nearly collapsing stance, brushed my hair back from my forehead, and muttered.

"Ah. I understand now. You only said you'd give your life for the military state. In the end, you had no will or passion to accomplish anything yourself. You just sit above everyone else and force those below you to meet your expectations."

I had heard enough of Nicholas's heart while fighting sword against sword.

His expectations were high, and he gave up quickly. He tried to manage costs efficiently. That was the image of an educator the military state wanted. Nicholas had no hesitation about sacrificing someone.

Yet Nicholas lacked the courage to risk his own life. He lacked the confidence to throw himself into hardship.

"Ah, how boring. You're prepared to use the lives of one hundred sixty-one people, but not to risk your own life to do it."

"...Do you think I would fall for such a provocation?"

"This isn't a provocation. It's an objective assessment. Whew, I'm glad I fought back. A boring story needs a twist, after all."

Crack.

The word boring struck Nicholas's sore spot. Veins bulged as if they might burst.

Enraged, Nicholas raised the long sword overhead and charged at me.

"You should have accepted my will! If only to survive!"

"You called me talent that would bring glory to the military state, and now you fell for a provocation that easily."

I put the whistle to my lips again and gave the signal.

The long sword came for me. I circled around a tree as a shield. The sword stabbed out like a spear, shattering bark and emerging from my blind spot, but I read the thought beforehand and dodged with a simple turn of my head.

I was hard to catch when I could read thoughts. Nicholas was growing impatient as his best attacks were avoided one after another.

Magic, spears, stones, and snares rained down behind Nicholas as he faced me.

The best way to give people courage was to guarantee their safety. Put bars between someone and a beast, and they find the courage to approach. Give them a shield, and they find the courage to advance.

The children were no different.

Snares, magic, ropes, logs, and spears. Armed with distance, they kept pressuring Nicholas from beyond reach. Siati, who had once been a fighter, and Keropald, who had been an aspiring mage officer, played especially large roles.

"Y-you brats...!"

It was an awkward space to swing a long sword. Still, Nicholas couldn't recklessly discard it. Until he could completely wrap his body in energy, even Nicholas would be hurt if stabbed by a blade. After all, the children had learned the basics of energy arts at the middle military school. If they rushed in and brought blades down, even Nicholas would be in danger.

In an instant of carelessness, Nicholas's foot sank into a pit full of resin. A snare flew toward his off-balance body. Nicholas thrashed madly, but the hunt by humans became increasingly persistent and tenacious.

Yes, just like when we hunted great-horned deer.

"You little brats!"

In the end, Nicholas changed course. Instead of me, who couldn't be caught, he decided to deal with the irritating obstacles first. He kicked off a tree and tried to leap away. The instant I read that thought, I held two daggers in reverse grip and slashed at Nicholas's ankle. Though the blades hadn't touched flesh, they briefly stained dark red.

Blood sprayed. A trouser leg tore, and blood flowed out.

I couldn't use it for long because there wasn't enough, but for a moment, I could pour energy into a blade too.

"Ugh! Hui, you...!"

Changing direction here was too great a loss. Even accepting that loss, Nicholas leaped toward the spearmen led by Siati, the most irritating presence.

They were the healthiest and bravest children, dangerous because they could handle a little energy. Those who had received some training responded.

But before a colonel, they were pups. One boy forgot my instruction to roll across the ground the moment Nicholas approached and tried to block with a hastily made wooden spear shaft. A huge slash fell upon it.

"Idiot! Move!"

Siati, who had dodged faster than anyone, was startled and shoved him away.

But it was too late. No, worse than late. It was meaningless, and it brought an even greater loss.

Siati's right arm was cut off along with the boy.

Her right arm, caught in the path of the long sword, broke and flew into the air. Beyond the arm separating from her body, the eyes of the boy split apart starting at the shoulder slowly lost their light.

"Aaaaaah!"

It was impossible to tell whether the scream was for her friend or the pain in her right arm. Clutching her right arm, gone below the elbow, Siati fell to her knees.

Nicholas could have finished Siati immediately, but instead of swinging the sword, he readied it to strike backward at any moment. Even after killing one student, Nicholas was still only wary of me.

In other words, this situation was bait meant to draw me out.

I deliberately approached slowly and loudly. Nicholas's brow twitched.

‘...Cold-hearted. As expected, you're on a different level from the others. If you approach so carefully, I should target the others...’

"Oh, really?"

I had already confirmed that Nicholas had no intention of leaving me alive. Now, the students and I were bound by fate. Nicholas was the one who had made it that way.

Then I would meet that expectation. Calling Siati's name, I rushed out as though my composure until now had all been a lie.

"You really are... still young."

I read Nicholas's thoughts. Any regret Nicholas felt for me had gradually faded through the battle. All that remained amid exhaustion and strain was fatigue, irritation, and resentment toward me.

Thinking that if I had listened to Nicholas, I would not have had to die either, Nicholas drew a trajectory in his mind.

A dark slash beginning at the sword hilt.

At the end of that trajectory was me. A sudden strike launched behind Nicholas's back.

But wasn't this underestimating me a little too much? You were going to swing that openly?

"I am the top student, you know!"

For an instant, I drew up the energy throughout my body. Perhaps due to Gluttony, a rougher and murkier light than usual lingered around my daggers. Since it was power gained through death, it seemed to glow faintly dark red.

Still, it was my power now that it had entered my body. I let it out. The daggers in both hands caught the enormous long sword trying to split my body apart.

Clang!

A heavy noise rang out.

My arms trembled, and the shafts of my daggers twisted. It felt as though every bone in my body was screaming.

Still, it was good that we had applied resin. The blade didn't slide, so I avoided being split apart.

Holding my creaking arms steady, I smiled triumphantly.

"Historia and Lankart are both below me. Chief Instructor, you felt a wall before those two, didn't you? Did you think I would be easy? I'm near the top in written work and practical training too."

"...What does that mean?"

Nicholas braced himself and swung even harder.

"You lack the most important thing. Power!"

What I felt was pure strength. Nicholas intended to crush my defense through force alone. It felt like the blade of a windmill was shoving me away. My misaligned daggers screamed sharply.

The strength was too overwhelming to endure. To break through this situation, I pulled out another option.

"Set, Ri. Fahrenheit."

I scratched the resin with my fingernail. Flames rose along the adhesive coated in dried grass. The long sword was engulfed in fire. The huge, long torch looked threatening, but it was a worse situation for Nicholas than for me.

The flames blocked Nicholas's vision, while the melting resin clung to the long sword. It would be hard to expect any sharpness from it now.

Taking advantage of that, I scraped burning resin off with my dagger and flicked it toward Nicholas's eyes.

"Dirty tricks!"

As expected of an experienced soldier, Nicholas didn't make the mistake of closing his eyes. Still, burning resin continually flying at his face was burdensome even for him.

To avoid it without letting me close in, Nicholas pulled the long sword back and retreated.

I shouted.

"I won't let you goooo! Fight me, Nicholasssss!"

I kept following, occupying one corner of Nicholas's vision. My shouting kept pounding against his eardrums. I threw away the dagger in my left hand, its shaft already ruined. Instead, I gathered mana into my left hand and fired spell after spell.

As I squeezed everything out to attack, Nicholas was pushed back by my momentum. One step backward became two, and two became three.

But Nicholas went no farther.

"Every single thing you use is a dirty trick...! That is your limit! No matter what you face in the future, you will soon reach that limit...! Though you no longer have a future!"

My swinging dagger and flying magic were utterly insignificant. At most, the dagger thrusts strengthened with the little energy I could scrape out were dangerous.

After concentrating on my attacks, Nicholas realized that nothing I used had much force behind it. Just as he steadied his stance again and prepared to press forward with pure strength.

But.

"You retreated too far, Nicholas."

Stab.

Three spears pierced Nicholas's back, the backs of his knees, and waist. Then ropes used to make rafts wrapped around his arms and legs, restraining Nicholas in an instant.

A strained voice came through them.

"You... die..."

A sharp dagger stabbed into Nicholas's shoulder. It was Siati. Even after losing an arm, she had charged forward in a frenzy with a dagger in hand.

They were all children with military training. When an opportunity came, they seized it. They had the talent and skill for that.

"Y-you failures! How dare you!!"

Even while ropes bound his limbs and blades tore into his body, Nicholas endured stubbornly. Gripping a rope with one hand and planting his feet against the ground with energy arts, Nicholas tried to throw off every restraint at once.

But he couldn't move at all.

There were over one hundred students. Yet only so many people could fight at once, so everyone not participating in the battle stood far away holding ropes. When the trap and snare teams succeeded in tying Nicholas down, twenty people gathered at a time and pulled with all their strength.

A tug-of-war was ultimately a battle of numbers and weight. An honest contest where more weight meant more strength. No matter how Nicholas used Heaven and Earth Qi Arts to pull against the ground and twist his body, that difference could not be overcome.

"Ghk...!"

There was only one way. Nicholas had to cut through the ropes one by one with a dulled long sword covered in scorched, melted resin.

All the while, blades kept digging into his body, and Nicholas had to endure it.

It was practically impossible.

Practically impossible. As that thought passed, Nicholas's heart grew desperate.

‘Wait. I'm... going to die?’

Finally. It took long enough.

Nicholas imagined death. In the crisis of life and death, as if chased, he recalled his own situation.

This desperate situation. A crisis Nicholas had believed would never come until it arrived made his heart race.

But it was too late.

"Goodbye, Chief Instructor Nicholas. I put what you taught me to good use. I never expected you would willingly become teaching material in the end too."

"H-Hui! Wait! If you kill me here!"

Ignoring whether Nicholas spoke or not, I muttered quietly in front of him.

"You admired those better than you and despised those beneath you. Hamelin was the place that filled that vanity of yours. You were drunk on the position of guiding students better than yourself, and you loved being chief instructor so much, Nicholas. What did you think of watching abandoned talents you despised gather together and accomplish something great? It may have been the perfect ending for you."

"If you kill me, it will be insubordination! That isn't all. Rather than keeping quiet about the taboo, you attacked me instead...! The military authorities will try to cover it up! If you kill me, you will cross a point of no return!"

You should have said that before crossing it. It was so empty that even the children who had stabbed you with spears weren't shaken.

Anyway.

"But I'll grant your wish. Let's use Gluttony."

Nicholas didn't understand what I meant at first. Then I held out the bio-terminal, and his eyes widened.

An Aki avatar was a sort of copy that followed the body. It could materialize something over the body. It was normally used for clothing packets, but... what Nicholas had given me was a packet-type tattoo.

The blood shed during the battle so far resonated with that tattoo. Blood flowing from all over the ground climbed up my feet and seeped inside my bio-terminal.

Really, the military state did strange things.

"With the gift you gave me, I'll devour all your memories, aura, and experience. Just as you wished."

"N-no! I still have things to do...!"

"Do you think some people get eaten because all they have to do is be eaten? It just happens that way."

Yes. This was only a result. If you forced results on others, you should at least be ready to accept the results that followed.

"No...!"

So that Nicholas would not become uglier, I drove a period into his helpless throat.

As though cutting off the thought that, if death was inevitable, Nicholas did not want to be consumed by Gluttony.

The thoughts stopped. The cut in his throat was a period that ended Nicholas's words, thoughts, life, and even existence. Chief Instructor Nicholas's life ended there.

What remained from someone who had devoted half a lifetime to education was this.

Over one hundred children filled with hatred.

And my aura, increased by a speck.

That was all.

Footnotes:

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