WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 222: A Story of the Past, Pied Piper of Hameln - Finale

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"We killed the chief instructor... an officer... a colonel. What do we do?"

"That bastard deserved to die! Rick and Cantana died too! If he killed them, then of course he deserved to die!"

"What are we going to tell Hamelin, no, the military state? No, will a rescue team even come? Were we abandoned here...?"

"If we explain it well, couldn't we work something out?"

"More importantly, what's a taboo? What kind of taboo made the chief instructor try to kill us?"

"Idiot, you fought without even knowing that? Hui explained it earlier. It was a vampiric magic circle!"

Seventeen had died in the beast attack, and fifteen more had fallen in the battle against Nicholas. The losses were immense, but honestly, it was an unbelievable achievement.

Even veteran hunters would retreat when faced with rampaging deer and prowling wolves.

A colonel was only one rank below a general. Their strength varied wildly, but they were still hardened soldiers. Unless someone was a military academy cadet recognized for exceptional talent, an ordinary military school graduate would struggle to stand against someone like that.

They had lost too much to celebrate.

"...Everyone, shut up."

Having finished stopping the bleeding, Siati gripped the cloth-wrapped stump and raised her head. Everyone fell silent. The person who had lost the most in this battle among the living staggered toward me.

"Hui. I... don't trust you. You're the one who brought us to this point."

Murmurs spread, but I nodded as though I understood. Siati continued, her face pale.

"But your orders weren't wrong. We made it this far because we followed them. So... tell me. What should we do?"

Siati asked in a gloomy voice. There wasn't a speck of hope for the future in her empty eyes.

What she needed now was simply an arrow to point her in a direction.

Yet I was someone who couldn't move without a wind to drive me. I asked her empty heart.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Anything."

"It'll be easier to decide if I know what you want. Should we run to survive? Or should we risk our lives to expose Nicholas's corruption? Which do you want?"

A moment after I asked, Siati's eyes regained focus. The emptiness in them filled with nothing but burning hatred.

"If I tell you what I want, can you make it happen?"

"As much as I can."

"I want the military state to collapse."

Siati answered at once.

"I spent my entire life doing what I was told! Working, learning, getting scolded, studying, taking tests, being evaluated. To become even a little more useful to the military state, I endured when my parents died, endured when I was sick, cried in secret when things were hard, all so I could earn better evaluations and accomplish something! But!"

Her emotional cry reached the hundred-plus children without any filter, then reached me as I read the wind through them. Siati clutched her missing right arm tighter and screamed.

"This isn't right! We can't be used as materials...! Even if we're unnecessary, even if we're common Level 2s...!"

To the military state, anyone at Level 2 or below could be replaced at any time. Their existence or absence made little difference.

So they were discarded.

The military academy advancement students had been left alone. Only the desperate students left behind had been brought here.

To be used as materials.

They had truly been abandoned by their country. The military state itself had proven that it did not need the likes of them.

"...But even if we scream ourselves hoarse, this country won't hear us. Instead of compensating us, they'll probably kill us to silence us. Just as Nicholas said, we're completely useless to the military state."

When Siati finished, the children listening lowered their heads. Her grief-stricken cry had forced them to confront the reality they had tried so hard to deny.

In the end... the military state would bury the Hamelin incident.

Then they would all die. None of them would survive.

That simple, cruel fact.

"Do you want to become useful?"

At that moment, someone stepped out from among the children. They flinched at the sudden presence. A red-haired boy approached leisurely, as though he had been there from the beginning.

A few children recognized him.

"Lankart...?"

Lankart neither answered nor turned his head. He only walked straight toward me, his gaze fixed on me. He did not even look where he stepped in the forest.

Yet a whirlpool formed half a step ahead of him, parting the brush and scattering dust. It was as if the world itself were clearing his path.

The military state's first mystery. A boy with strategic-grade innate arcane. A future mage.

Lankart Spendry.

Standing alone in the branch-strewn forest without a speck of dirt on him, Lankart suddenly began clapping.

"Amazing. Truly, genuinely unexpected. I thought it might happen, but I never imagined you'd kill and consume Nicholas."

While everyone stood speechless at his abrupt appearance, Lankart stopped clapping and deliberately frowned.

"But you know it too, Hui. Nicholas is far too different from you. Nicholas is old, worn down, and differs from you even in aura affinity and reserves. It's extremely, horribly inefficient. Even if you consume Nicholas with Gluttony, your power won't change dramatically."

"Lankart. How long are you going to keep telling me things I already know?"

At my irritated reply, Lankart flinched mid-sentence. I crossed my arms and pressed him.

"You should be having an efficient conversation, Lankart. Surely you aren't explaining this from the beginning because you doubt my intelligence."

"Ah, uh, um."

"Just tell me what you want. I'm tired."

"Ah, okay. Sorry."

Shrinking back as he apologized, Lankart immediately got to the point.

"Consume the rest of them."

It was a conclusion reached through several leaps of logic. Still, as a mind reader, I understood Lankart instantly.

They were going to die anyway. Even if I didn't kill them, the military state would. So rather than let them die meaninglessly, it would be more efficient to kill them atop the taboo formation and turn them into my strength.

On top of that, they were the finest materials, biologically matched to me in every way. Unlike Nicholas, Gluttony would consume them more smoothly. There was no point consuming them if I missed this chance, so I should do it now.

That was what he meant.

Naturally, Siati, who had barely escaped death moments ago, reacted fiercely.

"Lankart! I thought you were just an unpleasant bastard. Are you Nicholas's lackey too...?!"

"An idiot who knows nothing should shut up. Do I look like I'd be a lackey to that loser?"

Irritated, Lankart sharply turned his head. An enormous pressure crushed Siati in an instant. Her face twisted in pain. Lankart's innate arcane had reached where she stood.

It twisted.

The world, including the air, swirled to the right at different speeds. Faster near Lankart, slower farther away. In that flow, which changed according to distance, Siati felt agony as though someone had seized her body and torn it apart.

"Argh! Aaaagh!"

Siati screamed. Even the sound seemed strangely distant. In the innate arcane that twisted space, sound itself lost its way and wandered.

Having subdued Siati without lifting a hand, Lankart turned back to me.

"If you don't want to dirty your hands, I, I myself, will do it for you."

"It'll be troublesome."

"What of it? It's for a friend. I can put up with this much trouble, this tiny amount."

Of course, the friend Lankart meant was me alone.

The children screamed and tried to save Siati, but they couldn't even approach. Their outstretched arms felt as though they would be torn apart.

One could not cut straight through a storm inside a teacup. One had to move diagonally. But who could know how? Who could see through the maze of swirling space at a glance and overcome it?

It was impossible. Without his permission, no one could approach or retreat.

Not even me.

The Right-Handed World.

To him, the world was like water swirling to the right. The principle of the world. Its current. If one did not follow it, they would collide with it and be swept away.

They would sink, bubbles rising around them.

Lankart, master of that world, spoke as he tightened his power as though he might seize Siati and twist her apart at any moment.

"Ah. For your information. Even if you interfere with me like you said, I can shake you off and kill them all. I'm not like Nicholas. Hui, you probably have a trump card hidden away too... but you still can't reach me."

Lankart warned that, unlike Nicholas, he could not be persuaded. His eyes gleamed with interest and curiosity, like someone wondering how I would respond.

But.

"Lankart. Don't be so boring."

The words slipped out because I was annoyed. Lankart looked puzzled.

I was good at listening to other people's wishes, but that didn't mean I indulged every child who threw a tantrum because they wanted to be entertained.

It was tiresome.

"I just took your and Nicholas's tests and gave you my answer, didn't I? Are you going to make me give the same answer again? Where did Lankart Spendry go, the one who complained about being given the same problem with only the constants changed?"

"No, no. I..."

"You deliberately adjust your strength and cast magic that hurts but doesn't kill her. It's a threat. You know it won't work, so why waste mana? Stop irritating me and withdraw your magic."

Lankart obeyed me for now. The force that had been tearing Siati's body inside and out loosened, and she collapsed to the ground. A pained sob escaped through the gap between her face and the earth.

"Then what are you going to do? The rescue vessel and instructors will come. If they question only a few people here, they'll quickly learn what happened. Once the report goes up to headquarters, the military state's 'reasonable' judgment will obviously be..."

"I said we shouldn't tell each other things we already know."

"Ah, right."

He did not even trust rationality himself, yet he kept trying one thing after another to test it. When would he realize that those tests themselves were irrational?

After making Lankart shut up, I summarized things simply.

"In short, you're saying this. There is no other response that can break through this difficulty. Or perhaps there is, but you, Lankart, couldn't think of it. So you're curious about my response, about how I intend to break through. Right?"

"It's not exactly... Wait. You can overcome this situation, this difficulty?"

"Situation, difficulty. If you don't understand, shut up and watch. Why do you keep butting in and muddying the water?"

After scolding him once more until he wilted, I waved my hand.

"Go clear away whatever is blocking the river. I have something to do downstream."

"Even if I do that, the river ends at the sea. As long as Sea Calamities, the primordial dread, live in the sea, escape is impossible anyway..."

"Again. Things I already know."

When I made an irritated face, Lankart sealed his lips and hurried toward the riverbank.

My request was little different from a demand. Whether he granted it was entirely up to Lankart, and there would be no problem if he refused.

Yet now that he had agreed to stop interfering and watch, he had to grant my request.

He had become curious about how I would respond. That bound him to help me prepare.

Not long after Lankart headed for the riverbank, a harsh cracking sound rang out. The driftwood that had dammed the river shattered all at once. What would have been difficult even with a hundred people hanging from it ended effortlessly before Lankart's innate arcane.

Magic was a mystery that overlaid the rules of the world. Before someone who controlled it as they pleased, driftwood held together by nothing but structure and weight would naturally collapse with ease.

"Siati!"

"...Hah. One person... is better than a hundred, I suppose."

Supported by her friends, Siati barely rose to her feet. Her pale face wore a smile as if she had given up on everything.

"...At least a path... has opened."

"Lankart...! Even if you didn't see us as friends, I thought you at least considered us classmates!"

Keropald, once Lankart's follower but now more attached to the others, was furious over Siati's injury. Forgetting entirely that he had once admired and feared Lankart's magic, Keropald shouted.

"Everyone, help me! I won't be able to stand it if we don't teach that bastard a lesson!"

"Stay... still. Hah. Compared to losing an arm, this is nothing."

Holding Keropald back as she panted, Siati repeated in a strained voice.

"What I just went through is what all of us will face from now on. We should all get used to it. The military state, everyone... instead of helping us, won't even care about us."

The children lowered their heads miserably.

If they couldn't handle even one Lankart, they had no chance of overcoming the hardships ahead.

They had barely defeated a colonel only through traps set in advance and the brave sacrifice of fifteen people... but if the military state used its power properly, one hundred and thirty students who were no better than losing lottery tickets would be pulled out like weeds and thrown away like trash.

Someone shouted.

"Fuck...! What did I do wrong?!"

The excitement faded, leaving only resentment. Pain and grief forgotten in the heat of battle came back, and the brief flame went out as darkness closed in.

They had nowhere to go. Even wasting time couldn't serve as an escape, because another enemy called a rescue vessel was drawing closer every moment.

Everyone had lost their path, their destination, even their hope and will. They only swallowed their resentment.

Even so, they wished someone would show them the way.

Had the influence of the Church of the Celestial God reached this place, they would have prayed to a god. They would have begged to be saved from this trial and led to heaven.

But there was neither heaven nor hell in the world. Death was the simplest ending imaginable.

Heaven and hell. Beliefs processed to make them easy to swallow were artificial things. And artificial things were no more than imitated lies.

They were nothing more than the bad parts excreted while the best were kept inside the body.

"Go to hell..."

Still, I had to answer that wish.

In the middle of a place where even hope had been lost, where no one could think of a path and only desperate wishes filled their hearts.

I put the cold whistle to my lips.

The rescue vessel wasted time where the driftwood had piled up.

There were clear signs that the children had stayed there, yet the children themselves were nowhere to be seen. Judging from the traces, they seemed to have suffered a beast attack and fought fiercely. Bloodstains covered the area, and marks showed that something heavy had been dragged toward the riverbank.

Then someone recognized sword marks carved into a tree and cautiously pointed them out. They said Chief Instructor Nicholas had swung his sword there. Nicholas's opponents seemed to have been an organized group of ordinary soldiers, probably the students.

The instructors were confused, but soon grew angry and hurried the search.

Nicholas had no reason to attack the children in such a remote place, but the children had every reason to attack Nicholas.

The trainees participating in the graduation exercise were failures eliminated from the competition, those certain to remain at Level 2. The instructors concluded that they must have held a grudge against the top student Hui or Chief Instructor Nicholas, then threatened or attacked them.

In any case, the need to hurry the search had increased. The rescue party divided into a camp search team and a team that searched downstream. Since a section of the piled driftwood had collapsed, they considered the possibility that the children had gone downriver.

When the rescue vessel followed the river, they received information upon reaching a downstream garrison. Children divided among several rafts had passed the garrison and continued toward the city downstream.

They couldn't complain about why the garrison had not stopped them. Unlike Chief Instructor Nicholas, the instructors at a secondary school ranked below the garrison commander, and this was an internal Hamelin matter with little connection to the garrison.

The instructors saluted and prepared to continue downstream.

"By the way, did you give them some strange order again? They were rowing while singing their school anthem..."

A great commotion broke out downstream on the Hamelin River.

The Hamelin River was not particularly large, which made it a good place for people to live. Narrower rivers were especially safe because terrifying Sea Calamities were less likely to swim upstream.

A group drifted down such a river. They were children spread across several large rafts.

- The hall of learning upon a gentle hill. Oh, Hamelin's embrace.

At the whistle's sound, the hoarse children sang as though tearing their vocal cords apart. Their song was a more terrible cry than any desperate scream. Citizens frowned and turned toward the riverbank.

- Burning all our blood and sweat, we shall defeat the enemy...

Spectators gathered at the riverbank with a mixture of discomfort and curiosity. They wondered whether some instructor with terrible taste had given an odd command.

Pheeeew.

When the boy standing on the foremost raft blew his whistle, something strange happened.

The children who had been rowing began to stand one by one. They looked at each other once, gripped one another's hands tightly, and headed for the edges of the rafts.

All while continuing to sing.

- For the radiant nation, we offer our lives and advance...

No matter how large a raft was, it was still a raft. It looked difficult enough to keep one's balance on it, let alone walk across it. Yet the children held each other up as they calmly removed their hard military boots on the swaying rafts.

Bare feet settled on rough logs.

Someone let out a groan.

It was not the children. They were still singing.

Among the spectators whose imaginations ran wild, some let out uneasy laughs. Surely not. That imagination was too unrealistic.

How could that many people...

The river, mist rising from its surface, had an eerie atmosphere. Cool water sounded through the hazy view. The wind striking their faces was cold.

- Forward... forward...

Singing the refrain, the children walked forward hand in hand.

To the edge of the raft.

To the place where one more step would replace hard logs with the soft surface of the water.

Only then did the spectators realize something was wrong and urgently shout at them. But their voices did not reach the children singing their song.

The river water reflected pale dawn sunlight filtered through fog. With the current running rough and no light falling on them, the children's faces did not appear on the surface.

It did not matter.

Right beside them, if they turned their heads, were faces like their own.

And so, singing the final line together.

- Into the future of the military state...

The children sank beneath the cold, deep river.

Only then did the song stop.

- Headquarters addresses Hamelin Secondary Military School. Determine the truth as quickly as possible and report. Locate and interrogate survivors to establish their intentions.

Urgent. Urgent. Determine the full details as quickly as possible. Headquarters will also conduct an independent investigation...

...

...

...

- Correction.

From this moment onward, activate Level 5 information control.

Control Hamelin.

I repeat. Control Hamelin.

Footnotes:

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