WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 227: Hello? I'm the Sleep Fairy

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Tyr had been getting teased nonstop by me, so the moment she found an excuse, she eagerly accepted the proposal.

[Yes. We have been here long enough. Let us switch places!]

Darkness briefly covered my eyes. When my vision returned, Azzy was blinking at me.

So the order was Ria, Tyr, Azzy, me, and Shei. Wedged in the middle, Azzy squirmed uncomfortably and cried out.

"Woof! Me, outside! Want out!"

"Azzy. Don't say such nonsense. Tyr's darkness may hide us, but military state searchlights are uncanny at spotting human shapes."

The biggest reason they developed such high-performance lights was to catch people trying to escape. There was no comedy more absurd than that.

The Inner Circle was both the military state's most developed area and its darkness, crawling with exploited people. A secret land that gathered the military state's essence in one place.

That was why we had to move quietly. Outside was full of people struggling through harsh labor night and day, along with searchlights watching in case they tried to escape.

But then.

"Woof woof! Stuffy! Awooooo! Guarantee my spatial rights!"

"Being lively is nice because you don't get stressed by travel, but at times like this, it would be easier if you liked cramped places like a cat."

What was I supposed to do with this?

The Beast Kings were conceptual beings, so they never lost their essential nature. Dogs acted like dogs, and cats acted like cats.

Even Nabi loved catnip mana herb despite all her fussing, burrowed into narrow spaces, and showed no mercy when things went wrong, despite being able to speak with humans. Azzy had a personality of her own too.

Nabi must have woken up as well, because a satisfied purring voice came from the box by my feet.

"Meow. A foolish dog that cannot come to its senses unless it moves.... How pitiful, meow. How sad, meow. Maintain your dignity like me, meow."

"Woof! Only she is comfortable!"

At least that was fortunate. If Nabi had started acting up too, we could not have moved this easily. Better for Azzy to feel cramped than for you to throw a fit. At least there would not be bloodshed.

Nabi's attitude was too sharp to call friendly, but... Azzy was the strange one for not harming humans. For a beast to approach without hesitation and immediately try to bond with someone, that was practically the same as being close friends.

Ordinary beasts usually either ran too far away to be seen, or their appearance meant a death was already certain.

Why did humans, the so-called lords of creation, bother gathering dogs and cats? Because they had no other choice.

"Woof! Violent cat, comfortable! Nice me, uncomfortable! Unfair! Awooooo!"

"Just endure it a little. It's only one night."

"Awoo! Violence, consideration! Nonviolence, neglect! Woof woof!"

"Ugh. Stop throwing a tantrum. What do you want me to do?"

"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth! Answer, show of force!"

"Wait. That conclusion is strange."

This dog exercised every day until she became an activist! This would not do. At a time like this, I needed a convenient tool!

"Fine! Take your stake or whatever, just calm down!"

"Woof! Ten percent!"

"Sure, take it!"

"Woof, okay!"

Then Azzy lowered her ears and pressed her lips together meekly as if nothing had happened. I tilted my head.

"I think I just got played by stock manipulators."

"Woof! No! Fair compensation!"

"What did you do to deserve fair compensation... Though, you did do quite a lot. Hmm."

Come to think of it, I had used Azzy's nature to subdue Historia through Nabi too. Getting her to side with me more than Historia had been a huge accomplishment.

Fine. Give a dog some useless stake with no practical value. Even after making a pact with the military state, Azzy had only caused a little trouble when they declared default. Even if I refused to pay up and said, 'Gut me if you like,' she would not actually do it. I would die.

Cheering Azzy up had never been difficult, but getting a free carrot still felt nice.

"Woof! Woof! Woof!"

Without knowing my thoughts, Azzy moved energetically. Ah, wait. It hurt when she moved around like that in such a cramped space....

[...King of Dogs. Stop wagging your tail. Its fluttering is distracting.]

"Woof woof?"

[No, never mind. I will simply take measures myself.]

Whoosh.

Darkness covered my eyes. For a moment, it felt as if my body were being swept somewhere. When my vision returned, all I could see in front of me was the wall of the coffin.

The order was now Azzy, Tyr, Ria, Shei, and me. Azzy's tail pointed toward the edge of the coffin.

[The King of Dogs should have been put at the edge from the beginning. She is far too noisy....]

It was a reasonable choice, but it left Shei and Historia lying face-to-face. Of all possible combinations. Mixing us around like this really created every kind of situation.

Historia chewed on her mana herb and spoke.

"Progenitor. I appreciate you moving us, but this is a little much. Wouldn't it be too stimulating for the little one?"

"What stimulation?"

Just as she said. Historia still had both arms tied up. She was restrained inside the coffin, where she did not even have room to move, wearing only a shirt because we had removed her outer clothes to dress the decoy doll.

She could take off clothing packets while tied up, but she could not put them on. So she had been left unable to dress herself.

She did not look comfortable. Having learned internal energy, her body would not be harmed, but even Historia had to be in pain from being bound this tightly.

Shei immediately crushed such complaints.

"Hmph. Then you should've left when we offered to let you go. We said we'd send you away unharmed, yet you asked us to take you along."

"Being a prisoner is better than being bait. At least I won't hold my allies back."

"Red horse is bait. The code you used. You don't call that holding your allies back?"

Historia closed her mouth.

Red horse is bait. A military braille code she had personally tapped out with her fingers.

It was a clue, but also devilish information that restricted the other side's thinking. It was obvious how the military state would react after taking it as a decisive clue. Yet Historia had tapped it out without a moment's hesitation.

Thinking she had cornered her, Shei smugly provoked Historia.

"Right. You didn't lie. It really was bait. But... as you know, wouldn't the military state naturally assume we were still in the Belt after reading it?"

"...I see. I didn't know."

"Aha, you didn't know. Is that what you're going with?"

Historia could not answer and looked away. Oh. Shei. Was this your first argument victory of the season?

"What could it be? Why would someone who's one of the military state's Six Generals follow us, then become this passive?"

"...What do you think?"

"Want me to guess?"

'As expected, it's certain. This woman isn't loyal to the military state. The other Six Generals are almost all loyal, aside from Absolute Spear, but she only pretends to be more diligent than anyone while being ready to abandon the military state at any time....'

Shei tilted her head slightly and glanced toward me.

'Perhaps the Hamelin incident and this guy influenced her? Hamelin was a huge incident, but that can't be all. What influence was it? I know they were close, but... could it be?'

Uh, wait. It felt like her thoughts were running away on their own again. Shei, stop thinking for a moment....

Before I could act on that thought, Shei lowered her voice at the sudden idea and subtly asked,

"Could it be... you and this guy were dating?"

If that was a talent, it was one. The talent to change the atmosphere with a single sentence.

Silence settled inside the coffin. A coffin was originally a place for the dead, and the dead did not speak, so perhaps it was simply following the natural order.

Historia only blinked at the sudden question, trying to gauge what Shei meant.

Shei's eyes held only pure curiosity, though. Well, it was closer to her usual habit of gathering information for the next cycle.

'Could it really be? Even when the Resistance rose up and created a republic, this woman alone had been strangely passive. It was similar when the military state was destroyed by another country and a new kingdom was established.... Ah, no way. Would it be because of a man?'

It was not entirely because of me. I had provided the trigger, though.

Historia was not exactly a kind person either. With a mysterious smile and lowered gaze, she said,

"...I suppose so. I had so many lingering feelings that I even sold out my country and came after him."

"Uh, really? It's true?"

"Do I have any reason to lie?"

The way of speaking that meant it was not a lie. I knew it well because I had used it often.

It was true that she had lingering feelings, but not because we had dated! Historia's lingering feelings were not that kind!

'Uh? Really? It was real? Wow, wow! Now that I think about it, I've never heard that the Gunner was involved with anyone! So that was it?!'

Even after asking the question herself, Shei had not expected it. Her eyes shone with curiosity as she asked,

"Were you dating? Since Hamelin? What year were you in?"

"I can't give you an exact answer. We were so close for so long that I couldn't tell when it became that kind of relationship."

"Wow, ah...."

That slander had gone far enough, Historia. Before this got out of hand, I stepped in.

"Hey! Stop making a perfectly normal person sound strange! We couldn't tell because we were never in that kind of relationship in the first place!"

When I shouted, Shei turned her head and yelled back.

"The coffin is echoing! You're loud, so someone uninvolved should stay quiet!"

"Excuse me? This is about me, and I'm the uninvolved one?"

In any case, Shei lost interest in me and focused solely on Historia. What was this? It felt like she did not trust what I said... Had I teased her so much that my words no longer worked?

And she was listening to Historia's story of all people. You had made the wrong choice.

"S-so? How did you get to know each other?"

"We entered school in the same cohort. We knew each other from the beginning. Lankart, Hui, and I were all famous as geniuses from the moment we entered, so... secretly, we saw each other as rivals."

What rivals? I had been overwhelmingly first place. Who took second changed depending on the political situation and the standards of judgment, but there had never been any question about first place.

"Who was first?"

"It was close, but Hui was always first. I was always second."

"Tch, so that was true?"

'I was hoping it was just a bluff!'

Your thoughts were impure, elementary school graduate. I deceived your judgment, not your information. I did not need false information to deceive you.

"Trying to surpass Hui, focusing on him, studying him... I suppose I ended up being drawn in."

"W-wow."

See? There was no need for this. She was just getting absorbed into the story because she had been fooled. This would not do. I did not know if it would work, but I should try to stop it.

"Um, Mr. Shei."

"I said be quiet!"

"I was speaking quietly...."

Tsk. Fine. Tear into it all you want. I would not care how much you got fooled....

'Hmm. Hughes's old stories... Well, someone like Hughes must have received advances from many people.... It feels strange, but I should listen for now.'

Was it really okay for me not to care? The coffin was already too cramped to move in, and it would be a problem if strange rumors spread too!

No one noticed my anxiety, and Shei kept questioning Historia.

"...B-but it was a Middle Military Academy. You lived in the same place, and instructors watched you. How could you date?"

"If you wanted to, there were many ways. During free sparring, we would choose each other as opponents and spar. Fighting until we were drenched in sweat, getting to know each other through it."

"Wow...."

'That's... rather romantic.'

Romantic? Was your brain made of muscles too? Had romance recently changed to mean a relationship where one person beat up the other?

"Sometimes we shared the mana herb one of us was smoking...."

"Huh? You smoke mana herb by holding it in your mouth, right?"

"Hoo. Yes, so how do you think we did it?"

"T-that would be, indirect...."

'Wow. That makes my heart flutter a little....'

This was bad. Shei had been caught by her own trick, and her mode had shifted a little. Where had the regressor mode gone, the one that was coldly digging for information for the next cycle? Had she fallen for a fabricated story?

'Was that really true...! Sharing mana herb that was already being smoked!'

Dark energy rushed in from the other side. It was Tyr.

Ah, there was one more person who had fallen for the fabricated story. Still, what exactly was she upset about with sharing mana herb...?

'He would not spare me even a drop of blood. He would make such a fuss over even the slightest injury! What a loose tongue!'

Pretending not to care while listening closely, Tyr shot her hurt feelings at me.

What did that have to do with this? Not every bodily fluid was blood, you know? I did not use blood like saliva the way vampires did. Why were you calling me loose-tongued over that?

Besides! She had taken the mana herb and smoked it unilaterally, so I could not resist! This was unfair!

Shei had forgotten all about gathering information from her opponent. She was now sincerely immersed in the story as she kept asking questions.

"I heard that at military school, you had scheduled routines from the moment you woke up until you slept. Did you even have time to meet?"

"Hui and I had special curricula. We were exempt from several subjects and had plenty of free time. We shared that time."

"Wow...."

Shared?

When I tried to arrange free mornings so I could sleep in, she immediately jumped in and changed them however she wanted, saying we had to exercise after meals! I ended up exercising after eating every day and suffering from stomachaches!

Shei, don't take that nonsense at face value!

'If I had entered middle school too... Heh. In a very distant past I no longer even remembered, I admired middle school, and I would marvel when I heard that the Gunner, only a few years apart from me in age, had become one of the Six Generals.... Yet now she's my prisoner, tied up right before me. And she's even telling ordinary stories about her school days.'

This was bad. She had reached the point of relating it to her own memories. At this rate, she could not escape on her own... from this black hole of pajama talk!

Shei smiled self-mockingly as she recalled memories that would never return, then suddenly had a question.

"Huh? Wait. Then why were you trying to catch this guy?"

"Why? I told you, lingering feelings."

"No, you didn't need to bring an army."

That question made Historia think for a moment. It had reached her true feelings.

In the end, though, Historia remembered that I was listening inside this coffin too and spoke to me through Shei.

"...Back in Hamelin, Hui escaped alone without a care then too. I might have lost him again if I came alone, and also... he had to be questioned."

"The part where he fell into the river with the students? It was a serious matter, but we just heard it all. In the end, the military state was the one that killed them, so why were you trying to question this guy about it?"

"That was...."

Historia stopped mid-answer and chewed her mana herb. An unlit herb offered nothing but a burnt, bitter taste.

But taste was memory. Sometimes people sought the taste in their memories, and sometimes they recalled memories through taste. To Historia, mana herb meant that time.

"One hundred sixty-two people disappeared at once. Other than a few who fell behind or chose a different path along the way, my entire cohort vanished. Graduation became an occasion to remember empty spaces. The children I had shared memories with and imagined the future with sank beneath the river. Sometimes, when I turn and look at the river flowing in the distance, I feel as though I'm sinking deep into it."

Though she had not smoked the mana herb, Historia's gaze grew hazy for a moment. As if she were looking somewhere far away, not here.

"They can't die like that. Not one or two of them. So many children... dying without even trying to live, that's wrong. If the military state had killed them instead... I might have grown disillusioned with it. But it should never happen that way."

Historia had not wanted her classmates to die. She was different from Nicholas and Lankart.

Nicholas saw students as parts of the military state, believing they could be "processed" like trimming hair or nails. He thought it was only natural to use students as materials on his own authority.

Lankart saw no value in them at all. What did he care if a pebble by a lake was swept away by a river? Whether they lived, died, or struggled was outside his interest.

I had simply been with them, and because he could not bring himself to call someone smarter than him, or someone who seemed smarter than him, foolish, he had only wanted to test me in his own peculiar way.

"But... I don't know. Perhaps I think this way now because I felt something when I saw that scene."

Unlike them, Historia looked for beings with whom she could share her heart.

In other words, she was lonely. She wanted those inferior to her to follow closely enough to stand beside her. Even if they lacked talent and strength, she wanted them to desperately catch up.

...Her expectations had simply been too high, and she had been disappointed again and again.

"Still, that was not right. It was a plan that should never have even been conceived. If he had told me before then...."

She could not even confidently say that something would have changed. Before that happened, I had asked Historia for help, and she had come right up to me herself.

She turned away because she did not want to ruin her classmates, or this graduation field exercise, or anything else.

A terrible regret that could not even entertain an if.

'If I had known everything that happened before and after. If I had known that... would I have helped them anyway? Would I, who had been born and raised in the military state, have made the same choice I would make now?'

As such heartfelt words passed between us, Shei noticed something and made a strange face.

"Hm? You speak as if you saw that scene yourself."

"Ah."

Historia emerged from her thoughts. With the mana herb in her mouth, she somehow managed to turn her body despite the uncomfortable position and muttered,

"...Enough. I am only a prisoner. Think whatever you want about the rest."

"Huh? Wait! We still...!"

The questions were getting too long. This would not do. Extreme measures it was. I had to end this conversation.

I leaned close to Shei's ear and whispered as sweetly as possible.

"Good night, Mr. Shei."

"Hiiit?!"

Wow. I had only sent my voice to her, yet she arched her back and trembled all over. Was this how sensitive the stimulated regressor was?

"Y-you, what are you?!"

"What do you mean? I'm the sleep fairy. Another difficult day awaits tomorrow, so you should greet today's self and say you did well. Come on, everyone, go to sleep now. Dismissed!"

[There is no particular need for me to sleep.]

"Tyr, you're the adult here. What have you been doing while the children stay awake this late? Reflect on yourself! You should take care of their sleep too! Just because you don't sleep at night, does that mean you can keep the children awake?"

I abruptly scolded everyone into ending the conversation. Complaints sprang up here from Shei and there from Tyr, but I ignored them and forcibly turned out the lights. When I covered the small light source by my head with my finger, darkness descended.

'You are still recycling the lines you used as class president.... You do not seem to have changed much, Hui.'

Now I was starting to feel strange too. Historia, were you really my ex-girlfriend?

Footnotes:

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