WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 253: The Land of Steel and the Faceless Humans - 2

──────

No one in the military state could commit a crime. Not ordinary citizens, not even high-ranking officers. Not even the owners of holding companies.

If someone used their power and status to satisfy their own greed, if they squeezed the lifeblood from citizens when they were not the military state itself, an uninvited guest would come calling on the night they sat atop a pile of money and raised a toast.

The Ministry of Public Safety, the military state's executioner with the authority to command the military police.

Once the Shadow Casket, Zikhrund, paid a visit, it was over. Every piece of evidence had already been secured, and their position and assets had already been erased. Even the jackals who usually acted as though they would give up their livers and gallbladders for them would receive a warning from Public Safety, then cower in fear and keep their heads down.

They said a master's swordsmanship was so profound that its victim did not even realize they had been cut. Something similar happened here. By the time someone noticed the Ministry of Public Safety was watching them, all four limbs had already been severed.

Even if they tried to resist in despair, their opponent was a Six General at the height of power and authority. No officer could stand against his blade. The only emotion permitted to a criminal was regret for having committed a crime in the military state.

Yet there was one fact no one knew.

Before the Ministry of Public Safety arrived, the criminal had already received a visit from Zikhrund.

He would not have worn Zikhrund's face at the time, of course.

Urged to hurry because we had no time to waste, “Carapald” led us deeper into the foundry.

It was a factory of staggering scale. Its exterior walls were thick concrete, and enormous chimneys spewed pure white smoke like volcanoes. For such a huge building, there was not a single window outside. Instead, dozens of vents and one massive steel door stood bleakly along the outer wall. When the heavy door opened, a blast of scorching heat poured out.

Then the interior of the Alchemy Steel Foundry came into view.

“The Alchemy Steel Foundry is a large facility that turns alchemizable materials into alchemy steel. It is divided into three stages: decomposition, classification, and refinement. In the decomposition process, alchemizable materials are broken down through Diaalke, or structural transformation. During that process...”

“Carapald” tried to demonstrate his usefulness by explaining what he knew, but no one paid attention to him. They were too horrified by the sight before them, something beyond all common sense.

Clank, clank.

Humans pierced by chains walked along rails. Their left arms hung limply above their shoulders as hooks led them onward.

There was no expression or life in their faces. They headed for their assigned positions without even the freedom to look toward unfamiliar intruders. Barely able to breathe, they stopped before rails carrying streams of red-hot molten metal.

Then the chains behind them jerked taut. Their ends were connected to bio terminals. Like fishing hooks piercing a fish's mouth, hooks embedded inside the bio terminals controlled their bodies through pain that had become constant.

“Ugh.”

With a dry cry, a laborer who could not overcome the hook's pull reached out. Before them lay half-molten alchemy-steel pig iron. Steam still rose from it, and the hook tugged the laborer's hand toward it like a whining child.

Even the laborer hesitated at that moment. The instinct of a living creature warned them not to approach the red-hot chunk of iron.

But.

“Gaaaaaaaaah!!”

The chain was yanked violently, as though threatening them. The hook, pulled tight, bulged beneath the skin. The pierced skin bunched into bright red folds and was pushed aside. It was as if their skin itself screamed that it was no different from a piece of clothing.

Unable to overcome the force, the laborer had no choice but to reach out toward molten steel, something denser even than flame.

Their skin cooked. To resist the blazing heat that would otherwise turn them into a lump of meat...

They had to use alchemy.

“Set! Re, D, Diaalke! Diaalkeee...!”

Cries forged through that horrific process rang out from every direction. Enough cries to produce the alchemy steel supplied throughout the military state.

Somewhere, someone seemed to have failed at alchemy. A horrible scream rose alongside the smell of roasting meat. White steam burst upward as bodily fluids burned, drifted to the top of the factory, looked once upon the place it had come from, then vanished into the distance with the wind.

The military state's worst labor camp, where people were worked... no, squeezed dry with survival and pain held hostage.

The Alchemy Steel Foundry shattered every shred of common sense I had built up, then stood atop the wreckage as a blasphemy that mocked morality and justice.

“...Th-this, this is... I-I can't believe it.”

The princess's reaction came late because it took her that long to understand the entire system. She trembled in shock and horror.

“H-how can this be? What terrible crime could these people possibly have committed? No, even if they did commit one! This is...!”

The regressor, more accustomed to sights like this, merely frowned.

“This is why I didn't want to come. Tch, it just ruins my appetite.”

[...Even the human farms ruled by my retainers were not this bad. Humans occasionally show a side worse than vampires.]

Even Tyr, a vampire, judged it that way. There were no words for how brutal this scene was.

‘When faced with an unfamiliar sight, humans show new reactions. Humans are inherently like square boxes. Dark boxes that give different reactions depending on what is poured in through their two eyes and two ears. Unless one is a god, one cannot know what lies inside those dark boxes. But with enough observation, it can be imitated.’

While this was happening, “Carapald” observed the gathered people as though testing all of us.

‘Reaction confirmed. Dangerous individual X shows familiarity. Has he visited a foundry before? That would explain his negative feelings toward the military state. Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka, admiration...? Contempt? One thing is clear. She must have endured battlefields worse than this, because her reaction is slight. And...’

After looking over Shei and Tyr one by one, “Carapald” showed a clear interest in me.

“What do you think, Hui?”

‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin. What will your reaction be?’

“Carapald” seemed pleased with himself for having infiltrated such a dangerous place.

But that was only an act to justify his own actions from the role's perspective. Inside, he was coolly watching me.

Why? There were so many dangerous people here, so why single me out and stay on guard against me?

‘Insufficient information. The power he uses has not been identified. Carapald described him as a simple prodigy without any exceptional talent, but someone who took first place over the Six General and survived Tantalus... If I simply accept that he is ordinary, there is no fun in digging deeper.’

Strange beings really did seem to take an interest in me.

All information in the military state passed through the Shadow Casket at least once. He had the authority to review communications officers' reports first, and there was even an independent communications headquarters dedicated to supporting him.

Since he collected information like that, he had become interested in me, someone who was practically an information black hole.

‘You even made the Gunslinger betray the military state, and got the Progenitor out of her coffin. Was that coincidence, or your ability? Come now, show me, Pied Piper. Show me how you persuaded such powerful people, and how important a role you hold...’

Fine. If that was what you wanted.

I would show you.

A version of me completely unlike my usual self.

“This country is insane...! What the hell do they think humans are?! How can they treat people like worthless tools?!”

I shouted, drawing out my emotions as though I were enraged by the human rights being trampled under the military state's name.

The princess, feeling something similar, agreed with me, but Shei instead looked at me strangely.

“Huh? What's with you? Have you suddenly discovered love for humanity?”

“There's a time for jokes and a time not to joke. Is that really what you have to say in this situation?! Mr. Shei, you can see all this and feel nothing?!”

“Huh? No. I just... You're more emotional than usual...”

It was to fool the Shadow Casket! Stop ruining it and stay quiet!

‘A sense of justice? Did he oppose the military state because of some pathetic sense of justice? Hm. The dangerous individual's reaction does not make it certain yet. Shall I test him a little more?’

Pretending it was not his intention, “Carapald” added a thoughtless remark.

“Uh, this place is actually one of the better ones...”

A single line calculated with great precision. It sounded like something careless “Carapald” might say, while quietly laying a trap.

I cheered inwardly. The fact that he had set a trap meant he recognized me completely as prey.

Then I had to play the prey. I eagerly stepped into the trap he had laid.

“Carapald, what do you mean? If this place is one of the better ones, what comes next? What's there?”

“The people assigned to decomposition work are relatively educated. They learned standard magic and know alchemy, so they have comparatively easier jobs.”

“Then what about the next stage?”

When I asked, “Carapald” answered as though it were nothing.

“People who do not know alchemy at all work in the next stage.”

It was a contradiction. Alchemy steel was the result of alchemy. How could someone who knew nothing of alchemy refine alchemy steel?

But “Carapald” stopped explaining there, as though telling me to figure out the rest myself.

‘He has not stood out in combat so far. Is he the group's strategist? Let's test his ability.’

Sorry, but I had already passed every test by cheating. As long as you knew the answer, there was no question I did not know.

“Using alchemy without knowing alchemy? That can't possibly...”

It could. There was exactly one way to use alchemy without knowing how.

That thing every military-state citizen received upon becoming an adult. One of the military state's seven great inventions, capable of performing alchemy to suit its owner's body when a clothing packet was inserted.

Because I had read his thoughts, I already knew. Still, I gave the answer as though I had barely found it after deep thought, wearing an expression of disbelief at what had just come to mind.

“A bio terminal...?”

‘Correct.’

“They use human bodies as molds, then pour molten iron into them...?”

‘To gather fragmented information and infer that much. It is hard to see him as a simple prodigy. It would be more accurate to view him as this group's strategist.’

“Carapald” adjusted his assessment of me upward and nodded.

“Tch, you already knew. I suppose it was an easy question for the top student across every grade...”

Alchemy was the broad term for the act of processing one substance into another useful material. There was nothing especially unusual about it. Every living creature, including humans, performed alchemy every moment.

They burned the food they ate to gain heat, refined the waste into blood and flesh, then circulated it throughout their bodies.

Life itself was an entity carrying out the most complex alchemical activity in the world.

“Your answer is right, Hui. Life is alchemy's first element... So if that's the case, it is possible to perform alchemy using life itself.”

Beyond this door, humans would be packed tightly into spaces as narrow as chicken coops. Only their left arms, the ones bearing bio terminals, would stick out through the iron bars, bound in place, and red-hot molten metal would seep into those arms without end.

Unlike here, they would not be given even a speck of freedom. They did not need freedom to work, after all.

I let out a short remark.

“This is completely insane.”

I meant it.

This foundry had not been built out of malice. The suffering inflicted on the laborers was only a secondary factor, even if it was the result.

The military state built this foundry because it needed it.

It needed enough alchemical resources to fill the military state and enrich the country, and the only way to produce those resources was to work countless humans to the bone. So the military state exploited prisoners to make alchemy steel.

I looked over the laborers screaming in pain. Their clothes were clean, and though stress had stripped away their skin and hair, they had put on a fair amount of weight. Even the chains binding them were spotless, without a trace of rust. It would be a loss to the military state if the laborers required to squeeze out magical power died too quickly.

There was no malice there, no corruption, no hatred. Cold reason alone drove humans into suffering.

I finally understood how Carapald had been able to infiltrate such an important facility. No officer in their right mind would work as a supervisor here, so they must have had to bring in outside personnel.

Then the Shadow Casket caught him and took his place as “Carapald.”

I shouted.

“Let's tear this place apart right now!”

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried