WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 221

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A Story of the Past, Pied Piper of Hameln - 7

A fierce battle broke out between one hundred people and one. It was not hard to see who had the advantage. The one did.

Nicholas's long sword, specialized for slashing, had long reach and broad coverage. Both the weapon and the energy art were built to handle many weaker opponents. Fitting for a chief instructor of students.

But this forest was full of thick trees untouched by human hands. He sometimes cut straight through whole trunks as he advanced, but his strength was steadily draining.

And on top of that.

Peep!

"Ri! Lux!"

"Pascal!"

The kids moved in perfect sync under my orders, and they were much harder to deal with than Nicholas had expected.

The moment the whistle blew, standard-issue spells slammed into Nicholas all at once. Light and wind. Mysteries the military state had carved up and standardized until they were no longer mysterious fired at him.

"You little brats!"

Nicholas stepped forward and unleashed a quick-draw slash. Vines that had taken years of growth and labor to spread were severed in an instant.

At the same time, thud, the kids blocking him with logs screamed and were thrown back.

But Nicholas did not look satisfied. That strike should have split everything in one blow, from the log shields to the children lined up behind them. Instead, something sticky clung to the blade and dulled its edge.

"How is it? Those logs we threw earlier? We soaked them in resin boiled from ivy vines, then wrapped them up tight with it. Resin sticks even harder to life force, so you won't peel it off easily, not even with energy."

A minor trap. Something we prepared in case he cut through the logs.

Originally, I planned to coat his whole body in resin and weaken him, but only his blade got hit. Shame, but it couldn't be helped.

When Nicholas moved to finish off the fallen kids, I cut in. The moment my dagger went for him, his resin-caked longsword flashed.

At me.

"Hahaha! As expected, you're not planning to die yourself, right? Of course not!"

A trajectory drew itself from his thoughts. A strike meant to cut my waist in half. I couldn't block it, but I had never planned to close in to begin with. I smiled, pretended to step in, then pulled my leg back and opened distance.

The tip of his blade skimmed just past my waist. I wasn't afraid. I knew it wouldn't hit.

A brief standoff followed. In that time, the kids who had been in danger quickly fled. The situation reset to the beginning.

"...You're quite good, Hui. More than I expected. The more I see you, the more wasteful this feels. Why make such a foolish choice."

Nicholas clicked his tongue as he watched me dodge without even blinking. His lament carried some genuine feeling.

From his perspective, cutting in at the right timing and breaking his flow was a technique only someone who truly understood combat could pull off.

In reality, I was just reading his thoughts and constantly aiming for openings.

Well, either way. If he saw me as a threat, that worked for me.

"Ahaha! You know this already! I learn anything fast, but I can't go beyond that point! In other words, I've already hit the peak of my life!"

"Exactly! If you let this chance pass, you'll stay at that level forever! You'll end up running even from a colonel like me who failed to become a general!"

People said soldiers who never got stars got sick in the head. Of course, many still worked faithfully in their positions, but Nicholas, who felt the limit of his talent faster than anyone, clung to talent even harder.

To him, I must have looked like an idiot blessed with talent and throwing away my chance.

"Accept it, even now! If only you agree, everything can be resolved! If the two of us keep our mouths shut, we can make this taboo disappear as if it never existed!"

Practically speaking, that was true. Out of the hundred and forty here, I was the strongest. If I were gone, these kids who were barely holding on would shatter like a rabble.

Some of them were clearly worried I might betray them.

But.

"Nicholas. If you're going to do this, then challenge it! Why are you always the one who gives tests? The one who assigns hardship? Why is it always our side that has to risk our lives to achieve the impossible?"

A longsword had long reach and wide range, but that also limited its path. No matter how much sharp energy he wrapped around it, trees that had survived wild beasts for years didn't give way easily. When it caught on wood, his sword got stuck just the same.

Worried he might target me, I kept dodging to the position he hated most and shouted.

"Fight a trial you can't overcome, like they are! That's the real thing. Ordering others around without risking your own life, without overcoming hardship yourself, that's just old-man lecturing, isn't it?"

"You insist on being a fool to the end!"

Nicholas shook me off and ran toward the cluster of students. A few escaped as planned, but two who reacted too late were torn apart.

They weren't cleanly sliced by a sharp edge. Their bodies were ripped by a savage slash. The resin on the blade got the rare experience of being born in a plant and then seeing inside a human body.

A child beside them screamed. He was still too young to swallow his friend's death and move on.

Just as Nicholas moved to cut the next screaming throat, I charged at his back.

"I'll promise you this, Nicholas! If you truly want me to eat all of them, then shake off my interference, kill everyone except me, and take their blood! If you overcome that hardship and pull off that feat, maybe I'll make a slightly more 'rational' decision too!"

If he overcame every hardship and fed me blood to make me into an even greater talent, if he forced that outcome with unshakable will, then from that point on I wouldn't have much choice anyway.

But as if he'd been waiting for it, Nicholas immediately thrust his sword at me. The blade aimed at my neck carried clear killing intent.

It meant one thing.

"Hahaha! Just as I thought! You don't want to overcome hardship yourself!"

Still laughing, I knocked his blade aside. Heavy. My body slid back.

Nicholas clicked his tongue.

"...I will not negotiate with reactionaries."

"That excuse is weak. You draw the line before you even try because it looks hard. Is that your limit?"

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

"Ah. Now I get it. You only talk about giving your life for the military state. In the end, you never had the will or passion to accomplish anything yourself. You just sit up high and force the people below you to meet expectations."

I had heard enough of his heart while our blades clashed.

High expectations, quick surrender. Efficient cost control. Exactly the kind of educator the military state wanted. No hesitation about sacrificing others.

And yet, no courage to risk his own life. No resolve to throw himself into hardship.

"Ah, how boring. You're willing to spend 161 lives, but not willing to risk your own to do it."

"...Do you think I'd fall for such provocation?"

"That wasn't provocation. It was an objective assessment. Whew, I'm glad I chose to fight you. A boring story needs a twist."

Crack. The word boring hit Nicholas's sore spot. Veins bulged in his neck like they might burst.

Enraged, Nicholas raised his longsword over his head and charged me.

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

"So much for calling me talent that would glorify the military state. You swallowed the provocation whole."

I put the whistle back in my mouth and gave orders.

The longsword came at me. I spun around a tree as a shield. His spear-like thrust shattered bark and shot out from a blind angle, but I'd already read his thought, so I dodged with a slight tilt of my head.

Someone like me, who read thoughts, was hard to catch. Nicholas was getting impatient as his best attacks kept missing.

From behind him, magic, spears, stones, and lassos rained down.

The fastest way to give people courage is to guarantee safety. Put bars between them and a beast, and they'll dare approach it. Give them a shield, and they'll dare move forward.

The kids were no different.

Lassos, spells, ropes, logs, and spears. Armed with distance, they kept pressuring Nicholas from outside his reach. Siati, once a brawler, and Kerafald, who had aimed to become an arcane officer, played especially big roles.

"Y-you little...!"

It was cramped for swinging a longsword. But he couldn't throw his weapon away carelessly. He still couldn't fully coat his body in energy, and if blades pierced him, he'd still be injured. These were middle military school kids with basic energy training. If they rushed him and brought blades down, even Nicholas would be in danger.

Then, in a blink, Nicholas's foot sank into a pit full of resin. He lost his balance. A lasso flew over him. Nicholas thrashed like mad, but the human hunt grew more relentless by the second.

Yes, just like hunting a great-horned deer.

"You bastards!"

At last, instead of me, whom he couldn't catch, he decided to eliminate the nuisances first. He kicked off a tree to leap away. The instant I read that thought, I reversed both daggers and slashed hard at his ankle. The blades darkened red for a moment even without touching skin.

Blood splashed. His pant leg tore, and blood flowed.

I didn't have enough to keep it going long, but for a brief instant, even I could inject energy.

"Ugh! Hui, you...!"

Switching posture here was too costly. Even so, he accepted the loss and leaped at the spearmen led by Siati, the group that annoyed him most.

They were the healthiest and bravest kids, and they could handle at least some energy, which made them dangerous. Trained in their own way, they responded.

But in front of a colonel, they were pups.

One boy forgot the order to drop to the ground the moment Nicholas closed in, and tried to block with a hastily made wooden spear shaft. A massive slash came crashing down.

"Idiot! Move!"

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

Too late. More than late, it was pointless and brought an even greater loss.

Along with his body, Siati's right arm was severed too.

Caught in the sword's path, her right arm snapped and flew upward. Beyond that arm, separated from her body, the boy split from shoulder down and the light slowly faded from his eyes.

"Aaaaaah!"

A scream rang out, unclear whether it came from her friend's death or the pain in her right arm. Clutching the stump below her elbow, Siati dropped to her knees.

Even though he could have finished Siati immediately, Nicholas did not swing down. Instead, he kept his sword ready to thrust backward at any moment. Even after killing a student, he was still only guarding against me.

In other words, this whole scene was bait to draw me out.

I made noise on purpose and walked toward him slowly. Nicholas's brow twitched.

"...Calm. As expected, he's on a different level from the others. If he approaches this carefully, then I should target the others."

"Oh, really?"

I'd already confirmed Nicholas had no intention of letting me live. At this point, those students and I shared the same fate. Nicholas himself had made it that way.

So I gave him exactly what he expected. Calling Siati's name, I burst forward as if all my earlier composure had been a lie.

"So in the end... you're young too."

I read Nicholas's thoughts. His pity for me had thinned over the course of the fight. Through exhaustion and irritation, only fatigue, annoyance, and resentment toward me remained.

If only you'd listened to me, you wouldn't be dying now, he thought as he drew a trajectory in his mind.

A dark slash beginning at his sword hilt.

Its endpoint was me. A surprise strike fired backward.

But really. Was he underestimating me this badly? Swinging that openly?

"I was top of the class too!"

For one instant, I drew up all the energy in my body. Maybe because of Gluttony, it was rougher and murkier than usual, but dark light swirled around my daggers. Maybe because it came from death, it looked faintly dark red.

Still, once it entered my body, it was my power. I burst it out. The daggers in both hands seized the massive longsword trying to split me.

Taaang. A heavy clang.

My arms trembled, and the dagger tang twisted. It felt like every bone in my body was screaming.

Still, coating it with resin had been the right call. Thanks to that, the blade didn't slip, and I avoided being split apart.

I steadied my creaking arms and flashed a proud grin.

"Even Historia and Rancart rank below me. Chief Instructor, you felt a wall when you faced those two, right? Did you think I'd be easy? I ranked high in both written and practical work."

"...What does that prove?"

Nicholas braced his waist and swung even harder.

"You lack the one thing that matters most, strength!"

What I felt was pure force. He meant to crush my defense with raw power. It felt like the end of a windmill was shoving me away. My misaligned dagger shrieked.

The force was too strong to endure. To break the situation, I pulled out another method.

"Set, Ri. Fahrenheit."

I scraped resin with my nail. Flames ran along the adhesive packed with dry grass. His longsword was swallowed by fire. The huge, long torch looked threatening, but in truth it hurt Nicholas more than me.

The flames blocked his vision, and melted resin clung to his blade. It wouldn't stay sharp now.

Taking that chance, I scraped off burning resin with my dagger and flicked it at his eyes.

"Cheap tricks!"

Like the trained soldier he was, Nicholas didn't make the mistake of shutting his eyes. Still, burning resin flying at him over and over was a burden even for him.

While dodging and trying not to give me distance, he pulled his longsword back and stepped away.

I shouted at the top of my lungs.

"I won't let you goooo! Fight, Nicholaaaas!"

I stayed in the corner of his vision and stuck to him. I kept pounding his eardrums with shouting. I threw away the left-hand dagger with the ruined tang. Then I drew up magic power in my left hand and fired spells in rapid succession.

As I attacked by squeezing out everything I had, Nicholas lost momentum. One step back became two, then two became three.

But he went no farther than that.

"Every single move you make is a cheap trick...! That is your limit! Whatever you face in the future, you'll quickly hit that limit...! Though you have no future now!"

My dagger swings and spells were pitiful. At best, a dagger thrust packed with squeezed-out energy posed any real danger.

After focusing and reading my attacks, he realized none of what I used carried much power. He reset his stance and moved to overpower me with raw strength.

But.

"You backed up too far, Nicholas."

Thud.

Three spears stabbed his back, hamstring, and waist. Then ropes once used to build rafts wrapped around his arms and legs. In an instant, force from every side locked him down.

From between them came a voice, almost breaking.

"Die..."

A sharp dagger sank into Nicholas's shoulder. Siati. Even after losing one arm, she rushed in with a dagger, consumed by fury.

They were all kids with military training. When a chance came, they seized it. They had the talent and skill to do it.

"Y-you losers! How dare you!!"

Even with ropes binding his limbs and blades digging into him, Nicholas still resisted desperately. He grabbed a rope with one hand, rooted his feet to the ground with energy, and tried to break every restraint at once.

But he didn't move at all.

There were over a hundred students. Only so many could fight at once, so everyone not in direct combat stayed far back holding ropes. Then, when the trap and lasso teams succeeded in binding Nicholas, they gathered in groups of twenty and pulled with all their strength.

A tug-of-war is ultimately a battle of numbers and weight. A straightforward contest where force increases exactly as weight is added. Even if he used Geon and Gon to pull against the ground and twist his body, he couldn't overcome that gap.

"Urgh...!"

There was only one way. With his dulled longsword, caked in fire-scorched melted resin, he had to cut through the restraints one by one.

All while blades kept digging into him every moment, and he had to endure it.

Practically impossible.

The moment that thought crossed his mind, panic rose in Nicholas's heart.

Wait. I'm... dying?

Finally. Took long enough. Nicholas pictured death in his mind. With his life on the line, he frantically recalled his own position.

In this desperate crisis, one he had believed would never come for him until it did, his heart raced in panic.

But it was too late.

"Goodbye, Chief Instructor Nicholas. I used what you taught me well. Never thought you'd volunteer as teaching material at the very end."

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

I ignored him and muttered in front of him.

"You admired people above you and despised people below you. Hameln was the perfect place to feed that vanity. You loved your seat as chief instructor, drunk on the role of guiding students better than yourself. For you, what was it like to watch the discarded talents you despised gather and achieve a feat together? Maybe it was the ending that suited you best."

"If you kill me, that's insubordination! Not only that. Instead of keeping silent over the taboo, you attacked me...! The military authorities will bury this! If you kill me, you're crossing a river you can never recross!"

He should've said that before crossing it. It was so hollow that even the kids stabbing him with spears weren't shaken.

Anyway.

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

At first Nicholas didn't understand. Then I held out my biometric terminal, and his eyes went wide.

An Archi Avatar is a kind of body-following mold. You can shape things over the body. Usually it's used for clothing packets, but what he'd given me was a packet-type tattoo.

The blood spilled throughout this battle resonated with that tattoo. Blood pooled all across the ground climbed up my legs and burrowed into the inside of my biometric terminal.

The military state really did strange things.

"With the gift you gave me, I'll devour all your memories, your vigor, your experience. Just as you wanted."

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

"Do you think people get eaten because being eaten is all they have left to do? It just turns out that way."

Right. This was just a result. If you force results on others, at least accept the result that appears.

"N-...!"

So he wouldn't die looking any uglier, I drove a period into the throat he could no longer defend.

At the very last instant, he thought, if I'm going to die anyway, I don't want to be devoured by Gluttony... I cut that thought off.

His thoughts stopped. The slash across his throat was a period that ended his words, his thoughts, his life, everything he had lived. Chief Instructor Nicholas died there.

What he left behind after half a lifetime in education was this.

More than a hundred children filled with hatred.

And my vigor, increased by barely a speck.

That was all.

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