WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 25

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Resistance

A leather ball sailed through the air. Happy barking, then the thunder of paws. Clatter. Clawed feet kicked off the hard concrete in pairs, an offbeat rhythm that rang out with surprising force. Unlike soil, concrete absorbed none of the vibration, so every impact converted cleanly into sound and came straight at me.

"Woof! Woof!"

The brief rest was already ending. Azzy had the ball in her mouth and was sprinting back. I watched the approaching small disaster with unfocused eyes.

My rest time was directly proportional to how far I threw the ball.

Throw it high and Azzy took longer to catch it.

Throw it far and Azzy took longer to come back.

So in the beginning I'd thrown it as far as I reasonably could, enough to get a decent breather while she ran all the way out and all the way back.

But nothing lasts forever. Except Azzy's stamina.

I learned that lesson one throw at a time.

The more I repeated it, the shorter the distance got. The leather ball that had once soared high had dwindled to barely clearing my head before dropping to the ground. At this point, it rolled farther than it flew.

Azzy had stopped bothering to run. She just crouched at my feet, picked up the ball when it rolled away, and padded back to me. Then I'd pick it up again and flick it with just my wrist, the only joint still cooperating.

And then the moment arrived.

"Hold on."

Humans were animals at their core. Sometimes that primal instinct surfaced without warning. After a long absence, my inner animal was back. Whispering.

One more throw and your shoulder's done.

"Woof?"

I stopped mid-throw and held my arm up. A strange grinding sensation settled into my shoulder. Like a pencil sharpener with the axle knocked out of alignment, the handle wobbling every which way. Something familiar that absolutely should not be coming from my arm.

I let it drop to my side. Azzy padded over with a puzzled look.

I let my arm hang and spoke.

"That's enough fetch for today."

"Woof woof! More! More!"

"I could throw more. But."

I deactivated my clothing packet. The sweat-soaked standard-issue shirt dissolved piece by piece, revealing the pathetic body underneath.

Lean and nimble, built for fleeing and surviving. It hadn't given me much grief until now, but with my durability being tested, I regretted every hour I'd spent being lazy. If I'd known I'd end up trapped in Tantalus as a ball-throwing machine, I would've exercised when people told me to.

Regret always comes too late. All I could do was try my best each day so my future self wouldn't have to look back on today with shame.

I pushed that aside, dropped down where I stood, and showed Azzy my red, inflamed shoulder.

"If I keep going, my shoulder breaks down. Fine with you?"

"Woof!"

"Want to die?"

A whimper.

Still, Azzy was clearly unhappy about playtime ending. She circled me with a sulky expression, shooting sideways looks.

Ha. Not a chance.

"What are you going to do? Push me to keep throwing, and watch. My arm stops working entirely. Then I spend the rest of my days hobbling around from the aftereffects, and sooner or later I drop dead out of nowhere."

"Woof!"

"What? Losing my arm won't kill me? Don't be absurd. I could trip on the stairs, reach for the railing, and miss because my arm won't go up. A terrorist could barge in and order me to raise my hands, and I'd get shot because my arm won't go up! One compromised limb is an enormous, life-threatening vulnerability all on its own!"

"Woof woof..."

"If I die, think about what that means. A human willing to throw a ball this obediently, here in the Abyss of all places, disappears from the world forever. Are you really going to destroy the goose that lays the golden eggs, or rather, the machine that throws your ball, all for a few extra minutes of fun?"

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

"Ha! Then if you don't want me breaking down, you'd better guarantee my rest time!"

It was time to teach this dim-witted beast the basic concepts of labor efficiency, fatigue limits, and rest.

Azzy thought hard about something. Then she wrapped both arms around mine and brought her muzzle close.

What? Was she going to eat me? Since I couldn't lay golden eggs anymore, had I been demoted to goose meat? Surely she wasn't that stupid.

Wait. A dog couldn't eat golden eggs anyway. Goose meat was the better deal.

Oh. Hold on.

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

Before I could pull my arm free, Azzy's muzzle was already there. I braced for something terrible and squeezed my eyes shut. Then came the sound of licking, and something wet and soft brushed across my shoulder.

I cracked one eye open. Azzy was carefully licking my inflamed shoulder.

"What is this. Are you lubricating me because I said I was broken?"

"Woof."

Of course. The King of Dogs wouldn't eat a living human.

Though, not being able to read her thoughts had made me flinch without meaning to. Couldn't help it. Self-preservation instinct.

Feeling a little embarrassed, I scratched the back of my head and watched her work.

What a manager. Equipment not running smoothly? Just lube it up and keep going.

"Hey. I've heard the Beast King's lick heals wounds, but can it actually fix this? This isn't an injury, it's a body that's just worn out from overuse..."

As I muttered that, a strange coolness spread through my shoulder. Like a window had been opened in my body, air flowing through cleanly, cool without being cold. A welcome sensation.

Saliva? No, this was something else entirely. I lifted my arm to test it.

Slightly stiff, but it moved far more smoothly than before. Actually, better than it had before I'd ever started throwing the ball.

"This actually works?"

I'd heard the Beast King's lick was holy-water-grade healing, but to this degree? Or was Azzy just special?

I sat there tilting my head. Azzy inspected my shoulder from every angle, then barked once, satisfied.

"Woof! All better!"

"Solid after-service. My arm's not going anywhere now. Still, let's rest a bit even if it's healed."

"Woof woof!"

Azzy promptly laid her upper body across my thigh. I ran my fingers through her fur and looked around.

If the golem was right, supplies would be arriving soon. But how, exactly?

Dropping them made the most sense. Could anything reach the bottom of the Abyss through normal means? And if it could, how was I supposed to receive it? They weren't expecting me to catch it with my body, were they? All that would accomplish was turning me into a hamburger patty, which only the vampire would appreciate.

Ah, right. The vampire. I turned to look at the underground armory in the distance. Its entrance sat there as ominous as a door leading into the void, shut tight as always.

"She's been completely bedridden lately."

People always said the older you got, the more you slept. If there was even a sliver of truth to that, a vampire's daily sleep time converging on twenty-four hours made perfect sense.

Throw in orthostatic hypotension and she couldn't even get out of her coffin without difficulty. And yet she'd pushed herself to form a master-disciple bond and freely given up precious true blood. All without any blood supply coming in, no less.

Tsk tsk. I was clicking my tongue when something suddenly occurred to me. Blood. Supply.

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

If she forgot I was human due to some vampiric senility, or woke up hungry in the middle of the night and mindlessly reached for a snack, I'd be the first to go. No way to resist. She'd tear into me like ripping open a bag of chips and help herself.

"Blood isn't on the supply list, is it?"

My skin crawled. This needed solving.

Blood packs weren't exactly the kind of thing you could drop in a supply crate. Could they at least send down a condemned prisoner instead?

"No, that'd be a problem too. No guarantee I could actually beat one."

For now, things would probably be fine. If three days' worth of food for four people had become ninety, then the original population here had been at least a hundred. Even accounting for escapees, a good number must have died.

But when I'd come down here, there were no corpses. No bloodstains. The military state certainly hadn't sent a cleanup crew. There was only one explanation.

The vampire had consumed them all.

Thinking about it that way was a little gross. This wasn't a human garbage disposal.

Still, having absorbed that much blood, she probably wouldn't be craving more for a while. Then again, you never knew. A running engine needed fuel, and a vampire might require a steady supply going forward.

For my own survival, I needed a blood source. Something like livestock that could be bled continuously.

Wait. There was one.

Hadn't I just found it?

"The undying race. Right. That's what they were called."

A brilliant idea struck me, and I silently congratulated my own brain. Self-praise was ugly and embarrassing, but this time, calling myself a genius felt like an understatement.

The undying race didn't die even if their arms were cut off. Draining some blood wouldn't kill them either. As long as they ate and regenerated, they'd be an almost infinite blood supply, given enough food.

"Heh heh heh. Perfect. This doesn't have to be a death sentence after all."

"Woof?"

"Azzy. I just had the most brilliant idea. Want to hear it?"

"Woof woof?"

"I know. You're too dumb to understand. That's why I'm explaining, so just listen. I just came up with something that would make even the greatest genius in history slap their own forehead."

"Woof? Dumb? Me?"

"Ha ha ha. Originally I was going to dump the food scraps on you, but why bother between friends? Let's just eat well among ourselves. Leftover food, burnt food, spoiled food, all of it goes to the undying race."

"Woof! I'm, not dumb!"

"Spoiled food to spoiled people, it only makes sense. The undying race won't even die from eating it wrong, and they'll just detoxify and produce blood on their own. Then we drain that blood and sell it to the vampire. The vampire herself is broke, but her self-proclaimed student is rich enough to pay on her behalf. So..."

Thwack.

Azzy's front paw connected with my cheek and kept going. My head snapped sideways from the sudden blow.

It didn't hurt, but I was rattled. I glared at her in mild indignation, only to find her still lying with her head on my thigh, staring straight at me. Still using my leg as a pillow. Did she have zero awareness of what she'd just done?

A beast daring to slap a human.

She'd crossed a line. I really hadn't wanted to go here, but it was time to initiate the doenjang protocol.

Having made up my mind, I jumped to my feet, intending to shake her off.

I'd expected her to slide off my thigh, but Azzy was already upright, staring at the sky.

What. What was up there. I looked up too, but there was nothing except the same pitch-black darkness as always.

Was she trolling me?

No, she didn't have the intelligence for that.

I looked again, squinting hard. Far away, deep in the black, something was glimmering. The sky through a gap? But the light was growing larger, drawing closer.

Mother Earth in her mercy sometimes approached us, but the heavens were too refined to come down easily. When humans tried to reach the sky by climbing high, the sky punished them with wind and lightning.

So whatever was coming wasn't the sky. Probably.

"The supplies the golem mentioned, I'd guess."

Right after that, a flapping sound reached us. A massive presence loomed out of the darkness. The Abyss was windless and still, yet the air around us grew heavy.

It would get here on its own. I waited. The rippling darkness in the distance and a rhythmically blinking light drew closer.

Once they entered the reach of light, the shape became clear.

A rectangular crate wrapped in tarpaulin hung from a large parachute, descending steadily. Small indicator lights blinked from its sides, a precaution against someone failing to notice it in the dark and getting crushed. It was large enough for a person to fit inside, which at least supported the claim of a ninety-day supply. Packed full of food, no doubt.

With no wind to carry it sideways, the supply crate landed perfectly upright on the concrete. A heavy thud rippled out through the floor.

"Woof!"

Azzy bounded over. I followed, walking toward the landing spot.

So this was how they dropped things into the Abyss. Parachute and all. They must have sent me down the same way. The military state actually used parachutes to keep things intact on the way down. The expected thing to do, obviously, but honestly a little touching that they were being sensible for once.

As I drew closer, fabric rustled and the parachute sucked itself into a small packet. Made from a clothing packet, then. Using it that way meant no one had to repack it by hand. Clever.

I reached for the lid with a smile.

Odd.

Why was the factory seal broken? Had someone torn into it on the way down for a snack?

'Infiltration successful. A long wait, comrades. Now we advance.'

A thought leaked from inside the crate.

Comrades? Advance?

Not thoughts you'd expect from a supply crate.

While I stood there frozen, something inside began moving quickly. The crate shuddered ominously, and whatever had been crouching inside began to stretch.

'Give your lives, comrades! To defeat the oppressor military state!'

Damn the military state. What exactly had they sent?

Before I could prepare for anything, the side of the supply crate burst open.

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