WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 296

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The World Made of Gears - 3

A massive steel arm came straight at me. I could feel its crushing weight before it landed. My terrified body shook on its own.

'Let go of the sawblade, or keep holding it and take the hit. A two-choice question. How will you respond?'

If I let go of the blade, it would smash my head. If I kept holding on, the steel arm would crush me. There was no right answer in the two choices he forced on me.

So I chose a different one.

I hooked my fingers into the inside of the sawblade. The outside was razor-sharp, but the inside was dull. I gripped it carefully so I would not get cut, then stole and used Maximilien's innate arcane.

Innate Arcane: Gear Maiden.

A world made of gears. Touch one, and every connected gear moved together. There were no "imperfect" concepts there, like power source, friction, or gear wear.

In the world of gears, there were only two states.

It turned, or it did not.

While Maximilien focused on his own arm, I spun the sawblade the other way. My body was yanked upward in a whip-like motion. My arm trembled under the pressure. The edge was not sharp there, but I could still clearly feel my fingers being crushed.

Luckily, the drug in my system kept it from hurting. Thanks, drugs. Keep taking care of me.

'Skilled. But that ability was mine to begin with.'

Maximilien did not just watch. The moment he glared at me through his monocle, the sawblade stopped dead. My rising body flew into the air on inertia.

A dizzying sensation, like gravity had vanished. Still, this was far enough. I pulled two cards from my chest.

Diamond 2 and 8. Multipurpose Hook and Long Thin Things.

I connected wire to the hook and threw it at the Steel Beetle. The hook caught on a gear, and I yanked hard. I did not have superhuman strength, but I had enough to adjust the direction of my fall.

My body traced a downward arc and reached the side of the Steel Beetle. Before impact, I stretched both legs and planted my feet on a gear. The instant my feet touched it, I used Maximilien's innate arcane to move that gear, only the one under my feet, upward.

The gear faithfully did its job. A huge gear shaped like a waterwheel spun with my weight on it. It felt like the ground under my feet was throwing me upward. I kept my balance and ran up in long steps. After all that acrobatics, I reached the Steel Beetle's back.

Maximilien's voice came from behind me.

"Your linked movements are skilled. Even if someone can turn gears, copying this so smoothly is difficult. So you are not simply stealing innate arcane?"

Right after I heard his voice, a huge hand slammed down beside me. The impact shook the footing under me. I sprang back and saw a hand made by attaching scrap steel and gears scraping across the Steel Beetle. Sparks flew as ridges meshed with ridges. After a brief scrape, the steel hand became one with the Steel Beetle.

Maximilien pulled on that arm and leaped up in one move. The height I had clawed my way up to, he matched in a single second. It was almost absurd.

"Still not as good as you."

"I have lived with gears all my life. Compared to that, you used this power for the first time only moments ago. Is that also an ability of the Human King?"

It was really because of mind reading, but there was no reason to tell him that. I nodded.

"Humans are animals that use tools."

"So the Human King is one who uses every tool skillfully. Then this is not limited only to tools, is it? Alchemy, energy, both are remarkably refined."

His gaze shifted to my cards. Was it because he was an alchemist? He instantly grasped the essence of alchemy contained in them.

"But compared to that refinement, your work is disappointing. You shaped alchemic steel and gave it no function at all. Is that truly all?"

Tch. Did he know how much magical energy it took to grant functions through alchemy? Ah, of course he did. He was the military state's strongest alchemist.

Give me some of your magical energy and I'll make better ones. Grumbling inwardly, I spread another card.

"Want to see more?"

"You must show me, if you want to survive with your body intact."

If he wanted it, I could give it to him. Now then, time to start the magic show ag...

Before I could, Maximilien thrust out his arm without warning. A giant steel hand obeying his command lunged to grab me. If that thing caught me, I'd end up like minced meat fed into a grinder.

But I was standing on top of the Steel Beetle. Every foothold was a gear. Like before, I would turn the foothold and move my body...

I tried, but the gear would not move. My body staggered, unable to keep up with what had happened.

'You will not escape the same way. Just as you did, I can stop the gears you move.'

He read and reacted too fast. Even battered, he was still one of the Six Generals. He had overwhelming force, yet still pressured me by steadily reducing my options one by one.

In a blink, the steel grip filled my vision. If it grazed me, severe injury. If it caught me, no future. I had to evade, but I had lost control of my foothold and was already stumbling.

My plan broke, panic slowed my judgment. Against a strong opponent, even that tiny gap was fatal. I missed the only chance to overcome the crisis, and the steel hand swept across my body...

'Is this all?'

The instant I thought that, I had my opening.

I had baited him into dropping his guard, and now my view was blocked. As if I had been waiting for it, I reached out.

Hundreds of gears lay before me. Most were attached just to increase destructive power, but some were key gears forming the core frame. Anyone else would never tell them apart, but I knew exactly, because I had read the designer's thoughts.

I locked onto my target and drew a card.

Diamond 1, Pickpocket Skewer. I held it in a reverse grip and stabbed diagonally. It slipped into a gap between gears, then bent like a fishing rod under pressure from the steel arm and sprang back with a ping. Blood welled where my palm had torn, but one gear came loose. I could see the frame beneath the surface.

It was no different from pickpocketing. Strip the shell, then reach for the one thing that mattered most. Without a moment's hesitation, I thrust my hand inside.

Maximilien could spin gears freely, but if that was all, he would only spin in place forever. To use force properly, he needed a central point to brace against.

Naturally, that brace point was his own body, and for that he had embedded gears all over himself.

Which meant that steel arm was connected to him.

In other words, I could also destroy his body through those connected gears.

Reach it.

Gears flooded. A steel wave swept over me. I could stop rotation, but not inertia itself. Steel that had already gained speed hammered my body with heavy blows.

A little later and my whole body would have been crushed. Before that happened.

My fingertips touched the frame.

A steel hand made to imitate a human body. Through the skeletal frame, from the fingertips to the core, I ran his ability in reverse. The moving gears stopped one by one. Fingers, wrist, elbow, shoulder... every device turning at each joint stopped in sequence. That was the end of the steel arm he had made.

But the gears did not end.

To attach the prosthetic, Maximilien had burned his flesh and embedded steel into his shoulder blade. On the surface of that joint sat gears for controlling the prosthetic. From there, I caught a newly formed gear network stretching across his entire body.

"Found you."

Even while steel crushed my body, I clenched my hand tight.

Innate Arcane: Gear Maiden.

'What is this? My senses...?!'

By the time he realized, it was already too late.

The target was every gear connected to me, including those inside Maximilien's body. I gave all of them one command, simple enough to understand, and powerful because it was simple.

Spin in reverse. Until you break.

'----!!!!'

The steel arm exploded.

The parts that made up the arm spun wildly in different directions. Misalignment, twisting, malfunction, runaway behavior. Every possible mechanical failure erupted at once, and the steel arm shattered and flew everywhere.

The steel arm that had lunged at me smashed into me as thousands of separate gears. Smaller than before, yes, but all level-three-plus alchemic steel. Dense metal tore my skin and struck my head. Some gears even rolled across my body.

The impact threw me backward. My back slammed into the ground and throbbed, and both arms hurt from being crushed in multiple spots. The drug I took earlier should still have been active. My body seemed to sense mortal danger and scream emergency.

It was fine.

I was still alive.

The steel arm exploding at the last moment was huge. The coupling weakened, so the impact scattered in different directions. Thanks to that, what should have been a fatal crushing ended as whole-body pain. A very positive result.

The problem was.

"Yes, I see! Now I understand at last!"

Maximilien was alive too.

I failed.

No, half succeeded. Maximilien's prosthetic was gone without a trace, and the exposed left half of his body was dyed bright red. The bleeding from gears running wild inside him was visible even outside his skin.

But he was not dead.

Maximilien saw exactly what I was trying and reacted fast. Before the gears could grind up his body, he severed the connection and barely saved his life. And that had been a reflexive response. What kind of monster was this?

He opened his mouth. Fresh blood sprayed from it, so yes, he still looked very alive.

"You can control only the gears touching your body. Is that right?!"

...He almost died and still figured out my weakness.

What he said before, that force needed a center, applied to me too. My body had to make contact with his innate arcane for me to steal or use his power.

I did not want to admit that, so I tried to deny it.

"Nope."

"You try to lie about what is obvious! If you could control gears not touching your body, my own limbs would already have strangled my neck! Just as you tried moments ago!"

Tch, too sharp. More than anything, the speed of his decisions and bold responses in that tiny window made him troublesome.

"That is why you came up onto the Steel Beetle, yes? If your feet leave it, the Steel Beetle at a distance will obey only my command! You pretended to flee and deliberately moved the battlefield here! Am I wrong?"

At this point, I had to admit it. I nodded plainly.

"So you did not become a Six General through strength alone. Unlike Historia."

"Haha! I should be the one saying that. Human King, you may have lost most of your power, but you are absolutely no easy opponent! It feels like I am fighting myself!"

"I felt something similar too. Within the concept of gears alone, you are better than anyone."

I said it with real sincerity.

He was growing every moment. Within the concept of gears, Maximilien had reached the edge of human limits. I thought there was nowhere left for him to go, yet he kept advancing even now.

"In a world made of gears, you are the pinnacle of humanity. Every step you take is a step no one else has walked. If you open a new horizon, that becomes territory humanity has conquered. In the field of gears, anyway."

That was the highest praise I could give. It was sincere, with no exaggeration.

Maximilien listened with a blank look for a moment, then burst into loud laughter.

"Hahahahaha! Moving. I never needed anyone's recognition, yet this pleases me more than any praise I have heard in my life! As expected, this is the Human King!"

"Well, I got kicked out as humanity's representative, so I do not exactly have authority."

"Then regain your power!"

"Ahaha. I said I do not want that. Even if I did, I would not do it with your side. How would I know what you would do to my body?"

Even if it was someone's wish, I could not grant a wish that tried to control my body as they pleased. The most basic instinct of a living being. The homeostasis that protected me was still there.

Before the Human King was a king, he was a beast.

"And I have more to tell you... but I will say that right before I kill you."

"You will have no such chance. I have grasped your ability. I need only prevent you from approaching."

In an awkward posture, Maximilien raised the prosthetic on his left arm. Clack, clack. The arm-shaped prosthetic reassembled itself, and a long groove opened from elbow to back of hand. The tip split open, taking the form of a bowgun.

No, it was a bowgun.

A thumbnail-sized gear rolled in by itself and settled into the groove. On Maximilien's command, the tiny gear spun in place while hanging in the groove. Vrrr, the wind noise was shockingly loud for such a small piece. If it accelerated along that groove, it would fly at me at a speed comparable to a bolt.

Maximilien aimed the improvised bowgun at me.

"Can you use bullet-deflecting energy? Well, no matter. I have enough ammunition. I need only fire until you are spent. Now, if you have anything left to say, speak it all."

I could not use it in the first place because I was out of stamina. Threatening someone at gunpoint, what a perfectly proper method of conversation.

Grumbling, I stacked cards. One Diamond card with ten Clover cards. I made an eleven-card deck and shuffled it lightly.

"No. A magician's trick is something you never reveal, even with a blade at your throat. So I only tell people who can keep their mouths shut. Someone like Lieutenant General Ebon."

Maximilien remembered Lieutenant General Ebon, the Lords of All Creation, too. He asked back.

"Lieutenant General Ebon. A nostalgic name. Last I heard, he was in the Abyss..."

Then he trailed off. As the information came back to him, Maximilien narrowed his eyes and glared at me.

"That person who can keep their mouth shut, you mean someone who will soon die. Did you kill him?"

"I did not kill him, I was just there at the time. If you want to hear my eulogy, die by my hand. I will recite it until your last breath."

"...Conversely, if I torture you right up to the brink of death, I may hear it."

"Good mindset. Try it."

As I spoke, I grabbed the top card with both hands and pulled it open.

Diamond Queen. Queen of Cloth.

It was like an unrealistically small-folded blanket unfolding all at once. I wrapped myself in the Queen of Cloth like a cloak. A warm texture enclosed me.

Queen of Cloth. Higher-grade cloth, warmer, tougher, and better at concealment. But that was not all. If that were all, there would be no reason to call it the Queen of Cloth.

Its true ability was confining magical energy. Even if it was light, if it was made of magical energy, it trapped it perfectly. Enough to grant vampires who hated light an absolute darkness, pitch black.

I gathered the cloak around my collar and declared,

"I'll resist with everything I've got."

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