WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 237: I Won

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Bren, a Level 1 citizen who made a living moving cargo at Central Waystation, had a secret that could not be shared with anyone.

Bren was a member of the Resistance.

The military state was harsh on failures... or rather, it had no interest in them at all. All that remained for those released into the world after completing citizen registration was a lifetime of labor until they died. Bren lacked the intelligence to attend middle school, but Bren could easily see the obvious future ahead.

Bren had been given the life of a cog. Like a cog, Bren turned without ever feeling the slightest doubt.

Yet humans possessed free will. Enough free will to even believe that free will itself was an illusion.

The same routine as yesterday would repeat tomorrow. Bren's life so far had inductively proven that hypothesis. Yesterday had not been fun, nor had anything particularly happy happened, so tomorrow was surely going to be the same. Bren lived each day with an apathy deeper than despair.

Then his life changed. It began with a stranger's visit.

The young visitor arrived carrying a bottle of beer, and the two drank together as they talked about all sorts of things. The young man was pleasant, and Bren's mood gradually improved as well. Even when the drunken man began recklessly badmouthing the military state, Bren only chuckled and played along.

From that day on, Bren became a member of the Resistance.

The reason came afterward. Once Bren joined the Resistance, life became thrilling. Just imagining what noble orders might come down, and how brilliantly Bren might carry out those orders, filled Bren with excitement. Even the right amount of tension from wondering whether Public Security might come looking for Bren gave Bren a sense of purpose.

At the very least, tomorrow was no longer the same as yesterday.

Becoming a member of the Resistance changed Bren's life. Every day was rewarding.

Rewarding.

Bren was not especially thorough or cautious by nature, but had never once been caught in the military state's surveillance net as a Resistance member.

The reason was simple. Bren had not received a single order yet. In fact, Bren had worked so hard to avoid suspicion that the supervisor's evaluation had improved... though that did not change anything.

Still, Bren had no doubt that when the time came for a great decision, Bren would stand with the Resistance and act. Bren had lived all this time for that one day.

That day came while Bren was working energetically as usual. A young laborer approached him. The young man, wearing a slightly troubled expression, put a hand on Bren's shoulder and whispered.

"Mr. Bren. Orders."

The day had come. Bren nodded solemnly.

It was a short, concise briefing pressed for time.

The target was Headquarters. The operation would begin immediately after arriving at Central Waystation. The regressor gathered everyone and calmly explained.

"The road to Headquarters is lined with checkpoints and garrison units. Their inspections are thorough too. We can't sneak in from here."

A forced breakthrough. The regressor's proposed method was truly simple.

"Publicly, we'll make it look like a Resistance raid. At Central Waystation, I'll subdue the Waystation Administrator and the other high-ranking officials. The rest of you head to Headquarters first. I'll clean up quickly and follow."

Central Waystation was directly connected to Headquarters and the largest waystation on the entire meta-conveyor belt. It was a crucial facility guarded by a general, and in an emergency, elite forces would be dispatched from the three nearby units. The regressor's claim that she would seize such a place in one stroke did not feel real.

But... the regressor's power was close to omnipotent. She had not reached the ultimate level, but no one could match her diverse methods or her ability to wield them at nearly their fullest potential.

"Can you do it?"

"Leave it to me."

The result of a determined regressor acting... surpassed all imagination.

"Emergency! Emergency! We're under attack!"

"Everybody ruuuuun!"

The moment they opened a container, white smoke erupted from within as though it had exploded. It was a cloud the regressor had created.

Wind, Cloud, Rain, Dew, Frost, Snow, Thunder, Lightning.

Skywarbler's essence was compressed space. Within it, she could store clouds and wind that existed only in the sky. The regressor had emptied a container and spent several hours gathering power inside it.

Then she released it all at once.

A localized thundercloud settled over Central Waystation. Unlike an ordinary thundercloud, it was piled like a tower from just above the ground. In the fog, where not even an inch ahead was visible, only the regressor, her seven-colored eyes activated, strode forward without hesitation.

The chain of command was paralyzed in an instant.

"Ahhhhh! It's the Resistance! A Resistance attack!"

"Run! We'll all die like this!"

"It's dangerous! They'll suck out our blood and turn us into vampires!"

Panicked laborers, Resistance members stirring up greater confusion among them, soldiers and supervisors trying to respond urgently. Unprecedented chaos broke out. It might have been different if people could at least hear properly, but this was a waystation. Massive cranes and countless laborers produced their own noise. Sound did not even travel ten steps before being swallowed by the clouds.

"This won't do! Bring the Administrator!"

The most diligent and capable soldiers went searching for their superior to swiftly contain the chaos. The Central Waystation Administrator was a general. They believed that a general could sort through this confusion and lead everyone.

The military state's qualification for recognizing someone as a general was sustained combat ability. A general standing above everyone could not die easily. They had to survive until the end and lead their soldiers.

That was why every general was a powerful fighter who had mastered the Water Qi Art and could strengthen their entire body. They maintained a constant state at all times by establishing a single will within themselves.

They were war machines.

The soldiers hurried to the Administrator, intending to ask them to command the confused personnel.

"Administrator! Please take comman...!"

Yet when those soldiers, driven by their sense of duty, entered the Administrator's office, the Administrator was already unconscious beneath the regressor's feet.

The regressor, catching her breath after a fierce battle, waved at the unfamiliar guests.

"Hello."

"W-Who are yo... Argh!"

Now. I swung the club from behind the door and struck Ketern in the back of the head. Master Sergeant Ketern, the senior supply officer, collapsed without putting up much resistance.

Trembling, I lowered the club soaked in blood.

"Ugh. I'm a noncombatant. Why am I even working here...?"

"You fight pretty well for a noncombatant."

"That's because I only picked off weaklings and knocked them out from behind! More importantly, why did you specifically bring me? There are plenty of people more used to fighting!"

The regressor spoke as though it were obvious.

"It's still daytime, so we should conserve Tyrkanzyaka's strength. The King of Dogs and King of Cats don't move when I want them to. That makes you the next best choice, doesn't it?"

"Next best choice? This is far too dangerous for an ordinary small-time criminal like me!"

"...I don't know what else you're hiding, but fine. I'll call you ordinary. Anything unusual?"

"Oh, right. I saw a vault on the way here. We don't have time to rob it, do we?"

"Show me. I'll put the whole thing in my Pocket."

Even in the middle of this, the regressor thoroughly finished looting. The vault, made of Level 5 alchemical steel, disappeared whole into her spatial storage, the Pocket.

That Pocket really was a cheat item. It might have been even more absurd than Skywarbler or Jizan.

'...He's used to fighting. He's never shown overwhelming strength, but when we fight together, it feels strangely comfortable. He doesn't get in the way, he's thorough, and he spots the enemy's openings well. I should use him often.'

Don't use me! Spare me! Think of me as a sunfish that dies if you poke it!

After roughly finishing up, the regressor and I left the waystation office. Outside was still chaotic, but amid it was a somewhat organized movement. It was a group of Resistance members trying to escape while the waystation was in disarray.

One young man stood out among them. He looked like a laborer, yet carried himself with the ease of an officer as he surveyed his surroundings.

I recognized him.

Chento, who had been good at reading the wind. A survivor of Hamelin. Out of all those children, he was one of the few who had desperately clawed his way through the riverbed with the will to survive somehow.

I had wondered what he was doing. Apparently, his role in the Resistance was to seek out helpers. He had been entrusted with the important work of an infiltration team that created countless internal collaborators, directly and indirectly. Someone who had once dreamed of becoming an officer was now a Resistance recruiter. Was that a promotion, or a fall from grace?

He led the noncombatant Resistance members, joined up with collaborators Chento had identified at the waystation in advance, and climbed onto the belt. The north would soon be consumed by war. The only way for the Resistance, who needed to abandon their base, to escape quickly was the meta-conveyor belt.

They were fleeing, but the military state would not be able to pursue them. It would not have the spare capacity to worry about them.

Just then, the regressor noticed another presence.

"They're coming. Forces from the nearby units."

"Good. We should withdraw too! If we head south toward Headquarters, they'll follow us!"

"Just withdraw? That's a little disappointing."

The regressor crossed Skywarbler and Jizan in her hands. Pressing the two blades together at one point, she slid Skywarbler's edge along Jizan's body as though sharpening a dull blade. A somewhat unusual friction occurred where the two blades met.

Normally, if you rubbed one blade against another, metal would crumble and sparks would fly.

Then what happened when the sword of heaven and the sword of earth rubbed together?

I did not know. This was my first time seeing the sword of heaven and the sword of earth.

But I had learned what happened when heaven and earth rubbed together.

The Celestial God's roar.

Lightning.

Crackle!

An enormous amount of lightning poured from the ends of the two treasured swords. Even from this distance, my entire body tingled. A bright yellow crack opened in the air, and lightning flowed from it as though a faucet had been turned on.

The leaking lightning seeped into the clouds that filled the area. The clouds the regressor had summoned over the ground gradually darkened and rumbled ominously. Lightning could strike from a clear sky, but it needed the earth beneath it to become complete.

Holding the writhing lightning in her hand, the regressor muttered with a rush of omnipotence.

"Heaven-and-Earth Sword and Staff. Lightning Sweep."

"You're saying your finishing move's name out loud. If you explain its attribute and attack pattern too, won't everyone dodge it?"

"S-Shut up! It's weak and has a big windup, so it doesn't work well on strong people with good instincts!"

"Ah. So it's a technique that only bullies the weak."

"It's an area-of-effect technique!"

Flashiness aside, the regressor's swordsmanship was magic swordsmanship, using treasured swords as a medium and adding her own magic.

When the regressor forcefully pulled Jizan, dozens of lightning bolts burrowed through the ground, sweeping across it like an enormous hand clawing at the earth.

"Aaargh!"

"Guhhh...!"

The ground flipped over entirely, and the soldiers in the area collapsed, their bodies convulsing. The military state would now have to treat its wounded while fighting the enemy.

Upturned earth, clouds flashing with lightning, humans collapsed within them from electric shocks. I watched devastation too immense to believe a single human had caused it.

"...I'm having a hard time deciding whether Shei is incredible or whether this waystation just has nothing impressive here. I hope Headquarters is this easy too."

"We only need to watch out for the Six Generals and the other generals. Quite a few of them are away right now, so it shouldn't be much different."

"Well, you're the one fighting, Shei. If you use that technique that bullies the weak properly, everyone weaker than you will fall! Good luck!"

"I said it's an area-of-effect technique! You should start fighting properly too! How long are you going to keep half-assing it?!"

I was already giving it everything I had. Get better at judging people!

From what I could see, only soldiers and wounded people convulsing on the ground remained at the waystation. Most of the laborers had fled, and the Resistance seemed to have ridden away on the belt.

Just as it became difficult to find even an enemy, a corps that had come to support the waystation appeared in the distance. It was a war unit fully equipped for battle.

"All right, now let's really get out of here. It'd be bad if we got too excited and wasted all our strength."

"So you knew you were excited, and you knew it was wasteful. Knowing that and doing it anyway means we're already in trouble, doesn't it?"

"Stop chattering! Just grab my hand! It'll be a pain if the Arcane Corps intercepts us, so we'll fly away at full speed before then!"

"Wait. Why do I have to hold your hand if we're flying? Don't tell me. I won't be hanging from Shei's hand while we flyyyyyyy, will I?!"

And with one hand, of all things! I didn't even hang from a pull-up bar with one hand!

Hanging from the regressor's hand, I swung back and forth as I set a new personal record for one-handed hanging.

Footnotes:

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