WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 247: People Before Horses

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An angel's explosion was Sacrifice, a purifying light that drove away every foul thing. The bursting light gnawed at Tyr's darkness and delivered a final blow against the vampire's darkness.

At that moment, the regressor intervened. She swung Skywarbler and, just before the light exploded, carved a circle around it.

Heavenly Sword Technique, Heavenly Mirror.

The light that should have spread in every direction struck something and bounced back. It ricocheted through the space the regressor had cut, then forced its way through the one remaining opening and shot upward. Unable to reach anywhere else, the pillar of light returned vainly to the sky it had come from.

The lingering light flickered like an afterimage. Tyr swallowed it with darkness, then frowned deeply as though she had eaten something revolting.

[Even its behavior is a perfect imitation of an angel. Is the military state protected by angels?]

"It isn't an angel. More precisely, it's something the military state created by imitating one."

The regressor answered as she put Skywarbler away.

[They created it by imitating an angel? Is that possible?]

"As you know, angels are higher beings the Sanctum's priests summon by offering something as a sacrifice. But the military state's angels are a little different."

In her previous life, the regressor had fought all of the military state's Six Generals. The most troublesome among them had been Heavenly Link, a mystery in itself. After being wiped out alongside the Resistance without finding a countermeasure, she had gone to the Sanctum to uncover its secret.

The Sanctum, which had preserved and observed every kind of mystery for two thousand years, had given her an answer.

"They suppressed other faiths to the extreme and made soldiers into followers of the military state. Then they shaped it with a single will: to protect the nation and defend it. You could call it an artificial spirit, or an artificial guardian angel."

[An artificial guardian angel.]

"Yes. They broke down and dismantled even the principles of angels one by one, then artificially recreated them in the military state. Of course, since it's a guardian angel, its range of activity is limited. It can only stop beings that have conceptually invaded. That's why it has only appeared now."

Until now, battles in the military state had taken place on the meta-conveyor belt or on land outside it. The military state itself had not been under attack, so Eimeder's deployment conditions had not been met.

But now, as we crossed through the very center of the Inner Circle, Eimeder had descended as a guardian angel protecting the military state.

To protect Maximilien, the Halberdier, one of the Six Generals.

"Heavenly Link and Eimeder are collective terms for those angels. Or perhaps for some being that served as their original model. I've never seen its main body, so I don't know for sure, but if we attack the headquarters, we'll settle this one way or another."

[Does it have nothing to do with the Sanctum?]

"I can't be a hundred percent certain, but the Sanctum is probably unrelated. Otherwise, the military state wouldn't tax the Church of the Celestial God."

[Oh-ho.]

Seemingly convinced, Tyr looked at the traces left by the vanished angel and muttered.

[I have complicated feelings. It is immensely pleasing to know that the angels the Sanctum boasts of are nothing more than trash that can be copied at will. But having one strut around before my eyes is irritating.]

"Well, with Skywarbler and your darkness, we can defeat them easily enough. There's no need to worry too much."

[They will keep appearing from now on. That is what angels are.]

Tyr was a legendary being who had waged war against the Sanctum for centuries. Yet battles between the Sanctum and vampires had always become a back-and-forth struggle because each side's strengths and weaknesses were so clear.

For vampires, who needed to advance as far as possible at night, angels that hindered them from the rear before detonating Sacrifice and vanishing were more than hateful. They were frighteningly troublesome.

[This one is even stronger and more troublesome than the angels I saw in the past. It would not lose out even to the seraphim summoned by the Holy Maiden.]

"That strong? I've never fought an angel, so I don't really know."

[You do not know angels? Then again, Shei, you may look as though you have been through everything, but you are still young. It is possible that you would not know angels... Wait.]

In the middle of their conversation, Tyr sensed something and abruptly turned around. Her red eyes pierced the darkness and took in what was happening beyond it.

[Hyu?]

Right after Historia fell from her horse, the princess riding the white horse had been left exposed on her own. Yet she did not feel particularly threatened despite being alone.

The ability to avoid hostility. Depending on the situation, it was power close to invincibility. She did not fall into danger.

Unless a natural disaster such as a landslide struck, or a runaway carriage came charging at her.

The princess was safe from the hostility of other humans, humanity's greatest enemy.

Perhaps that was why she had remained in such a careless position throughout the battle.

Neighhh!

As though struck by something, Selphie reared up. It was a dangerous movement, enough to make the princess on her back lose her balance. Thinking Selphie had been startled by Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka's darkness, the princess tried to calm it.

Then Selphie's hind legs buckled, and the princess's eye level suddenly dropped.

At that instant, she instinctively realized something was wrong.

The princess was dragged back into the world. The shock left her unable to think straight. Physical and mental shock alike shook her.

Selphie's warm, soft body was plush. The princess's leg, trapped beneath the white horse, would not move. Hot blood flowed through the darkness. The white mane was soaked red.

She could not process the sudden change, but her reason calmly produced an explanation.

‘Ah, Selphie has died.’

The princess understood a half beat late. Someone had attacked, and Selphie had been brought to death before she could even scream. It was still alive, but that life would soon end.

Beasts were generally stronger than humans. But that only held true when the opponent was an ordinary human.

"Are you the Princess of Grandiomor? I bear you no personal grudge. But you need to die."

Her opponent was not an ordinary human.

Maximilien, the Halberdier of the Six Generals. He had pretended to flee, then returned while darkness swallowed the surroundings.

Facing a Six General alone, the princess stupidly asked.

"Y-yes?"

"It seems the King of Dogs is confused. She was distracted for a moment by nothing more than a princess of a fallen country. Still, that is understandable. You carry the royal bloodline, after all. Are you not descended from the five traitors who slaughtered the King of Humanity and stole that authority?"

"Y-yes."

"A symbol that the King of Humanity is unnecessary. The arrogance that humans can be represented even without a king. The obstinacy that their bloodline will remain great forever. Only when all of you who bear that burden disappear... will the King of Humanity truly return."

After quickly explaining this to the princess, Maximilien nodded to himself.

"You understand, yes? As expected, you are clever. You are worthy of being a descendant who inherited a ruler's blood."

The princess did not understand the situation well. Pinned beneath Selphie's body, she only answered the Six General's questions by reflex.

Maximilien spoke with the tidy finality of a clerk finishing a report.

"Then I will kill you."

Maximilien brought forward a blade with a spinning saw. Power that could cut through steel approached, ready to tear into the princess's soft flesh and claim what lay beneath her skin. Only when death was right before her did the princess finally recognize her situation.

‘Huh? Am I... going to die?’

The princess, who could avoid hostility, had always grown up surrounded by goodwill. You could say her head was full of flowers, but no one in the world could cultivate a more beautiful garden in their mind and remain safe than Yerien Grandiomor.

Her natural ease, the kindness possible only because she could not be hurt. With that shabby ability, the Grandiomor royal family had survived longer than anyone else.

But the Halberdier, who had entrusted part of his thoughts to gears...

He was someone who could kill without any hostility at all.

Neigh...

The dying horse swung its foreleg in one final struggle. It was pitiful loyalty. With a wet thud, flesh was severed, and the foreleg torn off beneath the saw blade scattered wildly through the air. The saw blade, stained with Selphie's blood, reached the princess's head.

There was no beautiful death that left a corpse intact. Death by a blade tearing open the chest or cleanly severing the neck to cause blood loss was a luxury.

The princess would die. The raging saw would crush her head and spill every fluid inside it.

She would die in desecration.

That was when it happened.

Crack.

Maximilien's arm bent outward.

At the critical moment, Xiaty's black magic activated, twisting his arm to another unnatural angle. The saw blade turned outward.

"That damned Noise."

Maximilien ground his teeth in a clipped voice. He sharply turned toward Xiaty's left hand, now blackened up to the middle finger.

Though she groaned from the effects of her injuries, Xiaty slowly raised her prosthetic right hand and gripped her remaining fingers. Only her thumb and index finger remained, but her expression was still full of defiance.

"...Don't move, Six General. I still have two uses left."

"You dare hope to survive after interfering with me twice, Noise?"

"I'm not afraid of death. I'd rather you killed me, actually. Why don't you try?"

With a snort, Maximilien set his bent arm back in place. Just as before, his arm was not built in a way that made bending it a problem. He raised the saw blade with his restored arm.

Xiaty glared at him, panting.

‘His arm bends, and nothing happens. At this point, I don't even think it's cowardly or unfair. What a... monster.’

But Xiaty still had one final measure left. The final contract, renewed when all sacrifices had been consumed.

The ultimate spell that would force the same mortality on her opponent if she broke her own neck in exchange for her life. Prepared to use it if necessary, Xiaty faced Maximilien.

"Do you think you're the only one who knows black magic? How arrogant. You lack both the power and the right, yet you cannot accept your own insignificance. I'm sick of that behavior."

"I'm glad you know. I was going to explain it if you didn't."

"Yes. Do you think I would die if you broke your own neck with black magic?"

Xiaty flinched when he saw through her final spell. As though he had expected it, Maximilien gave a contemptuous sneer.

"Absurd."

Standing still, Maximilien turned gears somewhere inside himself. Click, click, click. A different set of gears meshed together.

Maximilien's neck bent to an angle it should never have been able to reach.

An ordinary human would certainly die if their neck reached that position. The neck was the passage connecting the head to the rest of the body, a vital point.

But it was not a vital point for Maximilien.

"Insignificant. That belief that death has value because you fear it. The death of something insignificant is naturally insignificant, yet you act as though a scrap of knowledge you picked up somewhere will make you my equal... It is truly ridiculous."

Her black magic could break his neck. But he would not die. Having modified parts of his body, Maximilien did not meet death by ordinary means.

As Xiaty was overcome by fear and helplessness, Maximilien slowly turned his neck back to its original position.

"Go on. Accomplish what you desire with that pathetic power."

Taking a step toward the princess, Maximilien added briefly.

"You cannot, of course."

Helpless.

The blade Xiaty had sharpened her entire life was utterly powerless before the abnormal monster called a Six General.

But she could not stop just because she felt despair. Whether she lived or died, she had to keep moving in fury.

Otherwise, the princess would die...

And there would have been no meaning in Xiaty surviving until now.

Gripping the index finger of her left hand, Xiaty watched Maximilien's movements with every nerve tensed.

She could not break her finger before Maximilien moved. Having realized she could not harm him, her black magic could do no more than interfere with his actions. If she used it in advance, he would casually restore his arm and kill the princess.

To protect the princess, Xiaty had to aim for the instant right after Maximilien moved.

‘...That is what she is thinking. The thoughts of insignificant things are so easy to read. That is why they are boring and monotonous.’

Maximilien did not move. Instead, his weapon moved as though it were alive.

Click.

A gear in one corner moved. The mechanism connecting his left arm and saw blade slid apart, extending the weapon.

A complicated harmony that only Maximilien could understand unfolded, and the machinery moved according to its own formula. Without any visible warning, the saw blade stretched out.

"Yerien!"

Xiaty hurriedly gripped her index finger, but her black magic did not activate.

Black magic forced the same action upon similar things. Breaking a finger allowed her to break something thin, long, and jointed.

In other words, it could break only that.

Maximilien's saw blade did not resemble a finger. Its complicated structure was neither thin nor long, and it was unclear what parts could even be called joints. Xiaty's black magic therefore came to nothing.

But it was not meaningless.

Because Xiaty had bought time for me to arrive.

"Well, it isn't as if I can do much now that I'm here."

Same as Xiaty, I guess. I could block a strike at most.

Lamenting my own helplessness anew, I thrust my skewer into the joint of his saw blade. Noise entered the precisely meshing gears.

Crrrk.

The gears stopped moving as the foreign object suddenly intruded.

"Hm? You approached without even a trace. Progenitor... no. Is it you?"

"Yes, it's me."

Tyr's darkness filled every direction and continued to spread. Hidden within it, I had approached and succeeded in causing a minor malfunction in Maximilien's saw blade with a surprise attack.

Thanks to that, the princess had preserved her life once more. Phew. Super save.

"Excuse me for a moment. I'll be leaving now."

After landing a blow, I pulled out my skewer and threw myself backward without a shred of hesitation.

He was a Six General, a monster who could tear me apart with raw strength even without gears. If I hesitated for even a moment, my body would be ripped to pieces.

Maximilien's voice came from behind me as I ran for my life.

"You wrapped yourself in darkness and hid your presence! You slipped right into the Progenitor's presence! Your ability is remarkable!"

"Thank you for thinking so highly of me. I'll be going now."

"You wouldn't have simply tampered with it! Let us see what you did!"

Maximilien swung his saw blade wide. In an instant, it became roughly twice as long and lunged to tear apart my back.

Its speed was no joke. I was sprinting at full speed, yet the saw blade was already right behind me. More astonishingly, Maximilien had not moved from his spot at all.

Phew, what a relief.

My opponent was using gears.

"Well, I got caught."

But just as the saw blade tried to extend farther, it jolted hard, and the gears spun violently in place. Maximilien smiled.

Having successfully escaped some distance away, I opened my clenched hand. The gears I had just pulled out tumbled to the ground.

"You drop things rather easily. Be careful from now on. Every piece of junk like this harms the environment."

The weakness of gears was that they could be replaced whenever they fell out, but until then, they could not function properly.

If they did not mesh, they could not transfer force. No matter how strong it was, if it only spun freely, it was nothing but a poor fan. I had targeted that weakness and succeeded in pickpocketing his gears.

Of course, pickpocketing valuable gears required understanding their structure first.

"You understood the structure of my gears in that brief moment? How did you know?"

I had learned it through mind-reading. There were blueprints for every gear in Maximilien's head, so I had simply picked out and removed the truly important ones.

As usual, I gave a rough excuse.

"The automatic carriage's structure collapsed when it was struck from below. I applied what I learned there to your weapon, pushing from the inside outward."

An automated carriage took shape through meshing gears, and that structure made it vulnerable to an impact rising from below.

The same was true of Maximilien's weapon.

It was resistant to outside impacts, but Maximilien's gears were weapons designed from the start to be assembled and dismantled easily. Apply force from the inside outward, and they came loose with ease.

I understood that structure, bent the tip of my skewer, and pulled out the gears. That was why I could still be alive and talking after attacking a Six General.

Well, I probably would not get a second chance. Still, this was plenty.

"You understood that all at once? Remarkable! Truly, you are a talent of another kind!"

Maximilien lavishly praised me, spitting as he spoke. It was a completely different attitude from when Xiaty had interfered with him.

"You aren't angry?"

"Why would I be angry? The intuition to see through it, the drive to immediately put what you understood into action, and the decisiveness to never doubt that you would succeed! You certainly have the qualifications! No, even if you lack the qualifications to be the King of Humanity, you are qualified to succeed me!"

Though I had interfered with him, Maximilien laughed loudly as though he were even more satisfied. He sure laughed easily.

I rolled the dropped gears back toward his feet. When they reached them, the gears crawled up his body on their own and disappeared beneath his cloak.

At the same time, a pillar of light shot upward. Tyr and the regressor had finished off the angel.

We made it.

Relaxing again, I spoke calmly.

"They say clingy people are ugly. Isn't it about time we had a beautiful parting? The darkness is practically Tyr's body. If you stay here, you'll be in danger too."

"That is certainly true."

Maximilien readily agreed and stepped back. Because darkness filled every direction, his body already looked blurry despite moving only a few steps away.

"I think I still have some room to spare, but I will withdraw as a sign of respect for you. For someone who may be the King of Humanity."

"Seriously. You don't even pay taxes, yet you're making such a fuss over me just because I'm supposedly a king. I don't know who it is, but if the King of Humanity is here, shouldn't you be a little more respectful?"

"Hahaha! You are still only a candidate! Once it becomes certain who it is, I will offer every bit of respect that remains!"

His booming laughter soon vanished beyond the darkness. After waiting until I could no longer hear his thoughts, I let the tension drain from my whole body and muttered.

"It's rough out here."

Footnotes:

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