WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 25: Resistance

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A leather ball flew through the air. Joyful barking and running footsteps rang out. Clack, clack. Clawed paws kicked off the hard concrete in a powerful, staggered rhythm, two at a time. Unlike dirt, concrete could not absorb vibrations, so the impact reached me entirely as sound.

"Woof! Woof!"

My short break was ending. Azzy was already running toward me with the ball in her mouth. I stared at the approaching little disaster with unfocused eyes.

My rest time was proportional to how far the ball flew.

The higher I threw it, the longer Azzy took to catch it.

The farther I threw it, the longer she took to return.

So at first, I threw it as far as I could without overdoing it. That way, I could rest while Azzy ran all the way over there, grabbed the ball, and ran back.

But nothing in this world lasted forever.

Except Azzy's stamina.

I learned that while throwing the ball.

The more I did it, the shorter the distance became. The leather ball that had once soared high into the air now only rose slightly above my head before falling to the ground. It had reached the point where it rolled farther than it flew.

Azzy no longer even prepared to run. She simply crouched at my feet, picked up the ball when it rolled away, and came back to me. Then I picked it up again and gave it a little toss using the wrist that still felt fine.

Then that moment finally came.

"Wait."

Humans were animals by nature, so animal instincts sometimes came out of nowhere. The beast inside me, which I had not heard from in a long time, whispered to me.

Keep throwing it, and your shoulder is going to fall apart.

"Woof?"

I stopped halfway through throwing the ball and raised my hand. My shoulder gave off a strange creaking sensation. It felt like turning a pencil sharpener with its axle out of place, making the handle wobble around. It was familiar, but absolutely not a sensation that should have been coming from my arm.

I stopped throwing the ball and let my arm hang at my side. Azzy approached me with a puzzled look.

With my arm dangling, I declared, "That's enough ball for today."

"Woof woof! More! More!"

"I can throw it more. But..."

I deactivated the clothing packet I was wearing. My sweat-soaked standard-issue shirt scattered apart piece by piece, revealing the pitiful body hidden underneath.

A lean, nimble body specialized in fleeing and surviving. I had never felt especially inconvenienced by it before, but now that its durability was being tested, I regretted all the time I had spent being lazy. If I had known I would get trapped in Tantalus and become a ball-throwing machine, I would have exercised when people told me to...

Regret was late no matter how quickly it came. All I could do was try my best in each moment, hoping my future self would not regret today.

Setting my disappointment aside, I sat down and showed Azzy my red-hot shoulder.

"Then my shoulder will break. Are you okay with that?"

"Woof!"

"Do you want to die?"

"Whine..."

Azzy still seemed deeply unhappy that she could not play more. She circled around me with a sulky expression, shooting me sidelong looks.

Hmph. Not a chance.

"What are you going to do if you make me play fetch now? I won't be able to raise my arm anymore. I'll waste away from the aftereffects, then suddenly drop dead one day."

"Woof!"

"What? You think I won't die just because I lose an arm? What are you talking about? I could fall down the stairs, fail to grab the railing because I can't lift my arm, and die. Terrorists could break in, order me to put my hands up, then shoot me because I can't raise them! Having even one part of your body not work properly is an enormously serious threat all by itself!"

"Woof woof..."

"Look, if I die, there won't be another human in this Abyss willing to throw a ball for you as obediently as I do! Are you going to ruin the goose that lays golden eggs, no, the machine that throws balls, forever just for a little short-term gain?"

"Woof... I don't want that."

"Ha ha! Got it? If you don't want me to break, guarantee me some rest time!"

It was time to teach this intellectually lacking beast the basic concepts of work efficiency, fatigue limits, and rest. Azzy thought about something for a while, then wrapped both arms around mine and brought her mouth close.

What? Was she going to eat me? Since I could no longer lay golden eggs, was I supposed to become goose meat instead? Surely she was not that stupid.

Wait. If she was a dog, would she value goose meat more than golden eggs she could not eat?

Uh. Hold on.

"Boss, I'm sorry! I'll throw the ball, so please spare my life!"

As I tried to pull my arm away, Azzy's snout came even faster. Expecting terrible pain, I squeezed my eyes shut. Then, with a slurp, something wet and soft brushed across my shoulder.

I opened my eyes a crack and found Azzy carefully licking my reddened shoulder.

"What? Since I said it hurts, you're oiling it up for me?"

"Woof."

Of course. The King of Dogs would not eat a living human.

No, it was not my fault. Since I could not read her thoughts, I flinched without meaning to. It could not be helped. It was self-preservation instinct.

Feeling awkward, I scratched my head and stared at Azzy as she licked me so diligently.

She really was managing me like a complete tyrant of a boss. If something was not running smoothly, she oiled it first.

"Hey. Even if the Beast King's licking heals wounds, do you really think this will help? This isn't an injury. My body is worn down because I've used it too much..."

As I muttered that, I felt a strange coolness around my shoulder. It was like someone had opened a hole through my body and let air flow through it, but it was not cold. It felt fresh instead, and I welcomed the sensation.

Could it be her saliva? No, it was too different from that wet feeling. Just in case, I raised my arm.

It was still a little stiff, but it moved far more easily than before. No, it might even have been smoother than before I started throwing the ball.

"This actually works?"

I had heard that being licked by the Beast King was practically like receiving holy water, but was it really this effective? Or was Azzy special?

As I tilted my head, Azzy examined my shoulder from every angle, then barked as if she were finished.

"Woof! It's healed!"

"Your after-sales service is reliable. Looks like my arm won't give out. Still, it just healed, so let's rest a little before we start again."

"Woof woof!"

Azzy rested her upper body across my thigh and lay down. I parted the fur on her head with my fingers and looked around.

According to the golem, supplies should arrive soon. How exactly were they going to get here?

Dropping them would make sense, but could something reach the bottom of the Abyss by ordinary means? If it could, how was I supposed to receive it? They were not going to tell me to catch it with my body, were they? I would only turn into a hamburger patty, which would make the vampire happy.

Ah, come to think of it, there was a vampire here too. I turned my head toward the underground armory in the distance. Its entrance stood ominously like a door leading into the depths, tightly shut as always.

"She hasn't been getting up much lately."

People said older people slept more. If the connection between age and sleep duration was even a tenth as strong as people claimed, it would not be strange for a vampire's average daily sleep to approach twenty-four hours.

She also had orthostatic hypotension, so she could not easily get out of her wheelchair, no, her coffin. Even so, she had generously given away precious true blood because of her master-disciple relationship with Shei. Now she could not even receive more blood.

Tsk, tsk. As I clicked my tongue, a fact suddenly came to mind.

Blood. Supply.

"Wait. If the vampire runs low on blood, doesn't that put me in danger?"

What if the vampire forgot I was human because of dementia, or got hungry in her sleep and casually reached for a snack? Wouldn't I be the first one to die? I had no ability to resist. She would drink my blood as casually as tearing open a bag and eating what was inside.

"There won't be blood on the supply list... right?"

A chill went down my spine. Shouldn't I do something about this?

Blood packs were not the kind of thing they could supply this way. Could they at least send a death-row prisoner?

"No, that would be a problem too. There's no guarantee I could beat a death-row prisoner."

It would probably be fine for a while. If three days' worth of food for the original population had become ninety days' worth for the four of us here, that meant more than a hundred people had originally lived here. Even excluding the ones who escaped, a great many people must have died.

Yet when I came down here, there had been no corpses or bloodstains. The military state would not have dispatched a cleanup crew, so there was only one possibility.

The vampire had eaten them all.

Thinking of it that way made the vampire seem a little filthy. What was she, a human sewer...?

Anyway, if the vampire had consumed that much blood, she would not crave more for a while. Then again, who knew? Once an engine was running, it needed a steady supply of fuel. The vampire might need blood continuously from now on.

If I wanted to survive, I needed a source of blood...

Was there not something like livestock that could keep producing blood?

Wait.

There was.

Had I not just found it?

"The undying race. Right. They said it was the undying race."

A brilliant idea came to mind, and I could not help praising my own brain. Self-praise was ugly and embarrassing, but this time, I could rightly call myself a genius.

The undying race did not die even if their arms were cut off. Likewise, they probably would not die if we drew a little blood. They would keep regenerating as long as they ate, so if supplies were sufficient, they could provide an almost infinite supply of blood.

"Heh heh heh. Good. Perfect. So there isn't necessarily a rule saying I have to die."

"Woof?"

"Azzy. I just had a fucking brilliant idea. Want to hear it?"

"Woof woof?"

"I know. You're too dumb to understand it. That's why I'm telling you, so just listen. I just came up with an idea that would make the greatest genius in history slap their forehead, you know?"

"Woof? Dumb? Me?"

"Heh heh heh. I was going to give you the leftover food, but do we really need to do that among ourselves? We should eat well and live well together. The leftovers, burnt food, and spoiled food can go to the undying race."

"Woof! I'm not dumb!"

"Food that's gone bad should go to someone in bad shape. That undying man probably won't die even if he eats something bad, right? He'll detoxify it himself and turn it into blood. Then we draw that blood and sell it to the vampire. The vampire is broke, but the woman who calls herself her disciple is rich, so she can pay instead. So..."

Smack.

Azzy's front paw struck my cheek.

My head snapped to the side from the sudden blow.

It did not hurt, but I was stunned. Come on, no way. I glared at Azzy, a little offended, but she was staring straight at me while lying on my leg. She was still using my leg as a pillow? Did she not realize what she had done?

How dare a mere animal slap a human across the face?

She had crossed the line. I had not wanted to do this, but it was time to start preparing the smear-her-with-soybean-paste protocol.

Just as I made that decision and sprang up to shake Azzy off, I expected her to slide off my thigh.

Instead, Azzy stood up before I could and looked upward.

What was up there? I raised my head to check as well, but there was nothing except the pitch-black darkness that was always there.

What? Had she tricked me?

No, Azzy did not have the intelligence for that.

I raised my head again and squinted hard into the darkness. Far away, something glimmered in the black expanse. Was that the sky visible through a hole? It could not be, because the light was gradually growing larger as if it were coming toward us.

Merciful Mother Earth occasionally came close to us, but the noble Celestial God did not come near so easily. Whenever humans tried to rise high enough to approach the god, the Celestial God punished them with wind and lightning.

So that was not the sky approaching us.

Probably.

"It must be the supplies the golem mentioned."

Right after that, I heard something flapping. A huge presence could be felt in the darkness. The Abyss was quiet because there was no wind. Yet here, the air settled heavily.

There was no need to rush. It would arrive eventually. I waited calmly as the wavering darkness in the distance and the periodically flashing light drew closer.

Once they entered the range of the spreading light, I could see them much more clearly.

A square box wrapped in a tarp was descending beneath a huge parachute. A small indicator light on the side of the box flashed. It was a precaution to stop us from missing the box in the dark and getting crushed underneath it. The box was large enough for a person to fit inside, suggesting the claim that it held ninety days' worth of food was not empty talk. It had to be full of supplies.

Perhaps because there was no wind, the supply box landed upright on the concrete without swaying even once. A heavy thud sent vibrations through the ground.

"Woof!"

Azzy bounded toward it. I followed her to the drop site.

So this was how they dropped things into the Abyss. They had probably dropped me in the same way. Those military state bastards did use a parachute so things would not break. It was common sense, really, but I was honestly a little moved that the military state had followed common sense.

When I got close, I heard fabric being drawn in as the parachute was sucked into a small packet. The parachute had been made from a clothing packet too. If you used it like that, you would not have to struggle to fold it back up. They really used these things cleverly.

I was grinning as I reached to open the lid of the box.

Huh.

Why was the tamper-evident seal broken? Did someone open it during delivery and eat something?

'Infiltration successful. We have waited a long time, comrades. Now, let us enter.'

At that moment, a stream of thought came from inside.

Comrades? Enter?

Those were not thoughts that should have come from a food supply box.

While I stood there blankly, I heard hurried movement inside. The supply box rattled ominously, and something that had been crouching inside stretched itself out.

'Let us give our lives, comrades! For the sake of defeating the oppressive military state!'

Damn military state. What the hell had they supplied me with?

Before I had time to prepare for anything, the side of the supply box flew open.

Footnotes:

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