WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 319

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Why Use an Inferior Version

“And so, the vanguard led by Peerless Spear crushed the wicked invaders and raised the military state’s flag high.”

After finishing her solo performance, Hilde bowed at the waist and quietly waited for our reaction. Tyr and I gave a light round of applause, and Azzy stared at me for a moment before copying me by thumping the floor with her front paws. The only one who stayed still was the regressor.

In a village of two-eyed people, the one-eyed person always looked strange. For a moment, everyone’s gaze turned to the regressor. After drawing all attention with silence alone, she clicked her tongue instead of clapping.

“So they already invaded.”

“Invaded? Did you even listen to what I just said? They attacked first. They were chewing through Tantalus first. The military state is only taking a defensive posture.”

“You were planning to advance into their heartland anyway. Am I wrong?”

Hilde fell silent at the regressor’s sharp point. A moment later, she smiled as if she’d been caught and answered.

“Hmmm. You really are so, so strange. Most of the time you seem about as clueless as an elementary school kid, but sometimes your insight is as seasoned as a hundred-year-old elder.”

“Shut it. If you really meant to defend, you would’ve sent the engineering corps, not a legion. Who are you calling stupid?”

‘It was the same in the previous round. Back then, the Lesser States were much more cautious than this. Because of that immortal corpse golem, neither side could approach carelessly...’

The regressor was kind of similar to me too. I bragged as if I had deduced things myself when I had really read people’s thoughts, and she talked about pre-regression experiences like they were her own predictions. We were both conning people by hiding our methods.

Without regression, the bottom of her abilities would’ve shown right away. Tsk, nothing to do about that. Just like mind reading was a power, regression was a power too. If I didn’t like it, I should’ve been the one to regress.

‘Was that simple side she sometimes showed actually bold decisiveness? I thought she was just Father’s chess piece... I need to rethink that.’

Without knowing any of that, Hilde revised her evaluation of the regressor.

“Hehe. So now you understand, right? How hard a decision the military state made. We gave up quite a lot to accept the ceasefire proposal you all forced on us.”

“Hard? You’re just standing there.”

“Do you know how hard it is to stay still while holding enough force to march straight into the enemy’s core? ...Well, I doubt you said that without knowing.”

“...”

‘You’re just standing still. Is that hard?’

Yeah, she was saying that without knowing, even if she showed none of it on the surface.

I needed to clue her in before she embarrassed herself too badly.

“It’s because of the supply network, right?”

“Yes. Gaps in military state troop deployment become gaps in administration. Soldiers don’t just stand around for a living, you know? They have to transport goods and do construction work across the whole military state. But we gathered them in a hurry and left them in an empty field, so the losses are enormous. We’re fine for now because of stockpiled supplies, but later...”

Hilde, who had been pretending to count on her fingers, let out a deep sigh and trailed off.

“Coldly speaking, one week. After that, we’ll have to advance just to keep the legion from collapsing. So please push harder, all right? Before one week passes, you need to reach the Golden Palace and present the ceasefire oath document.”

“One week?”

“What, is that not enough?”

“No, it’s enough.”

‘The ceasefire itself should be easy if we persuade the military state. The Lesser States are relatively weak.’

The regressor answered as if it were nothing. Hilde stared at her and added one more thing.

“Let me add this. One week is enough time for us, and for the Lesser States too, to finish preparing. Under the original plan, we were going to break the enemy’s spearhead, cut off information, then destroy the Juggernauts one by one while advancing. But after one week, we won’t be able to do that.”

“So because we made war harder for you, you want our help?”

“I’m saying if you’re going to stop the war, do it properly. A war that starts one month later will be dozens of times more horrific than a war that should have started yesterday.”

Hilde had a habit of saying serious things with an endlessly light face. Maybe that was a skill she cultivated in her own way, but it gave me chills, so I wished she’d tone it down.

With nothing to say, the regressor snapped her gaze away and answered.

“...Tsk. Someone would think you love peace. So, do you know where the Golden Palace is?”

Hilde smiled brightly.

“I don’t! Who could possibly know where a moving palace is right now?”

“Fair. Let’s find it on the way. Even if we can’t find it, we can get information if we stop by Claudia. Hold on, I had a map...”

The regressor turned around and rummaged through her pocket. While she did, Hilde, watching me carefully, crept closer. So Tyr and the regressor wouldn’t hear, she pressed right up against me and even used energy before whispering in my ear.

“Father, please don’t misunderstand. We’re not trying to hide it. ‘I’ really don’t know, and neither does she. Because...”

“Because she can’t see it?”

“...Yes. You even know that.”

Hilde gave a faint smile and nodded.

Clairvoyance could see everything in the world, but it could only see. In other words, if light didn’t reach a place, it hit a major wall. There was a reason Tyr, called the Sanctum’s greatest enemy, always wrapped herself in darkness.

That was also part of why Yuel had tried to chase us out. Tyr’s darkness blocked Yuel’s Clairvoyance. Even with Clairvoyance, Yuel failed to detect our diversion and got fooled.

‘...And even Yuel doesn’t know the Golden Palace’s structure. I wonder if even Father would know.’

Still, at least one person in this world had to know. If I read that person’s thoughts, we’d be fine. First we just had to get close.

“Good. I’ve decided.”

The regressor, who had been fussing over something on her own, clapped and called us over. She pulled out a small map and spread it in front of us.

A blank map, with nothing written and nothing drawn. You might wonder what kind of map that was, but that was the Lesser States. In that cursed land that drove countless surveyors to despair, drawing nothing was better. Cities and terrain changed every moment.

At the far right edge of that map, a mountain range stretched out like a folding screen. Surveyors trying to carve the Lesser States into a map must have been thrilled when they found that mountain. In a nation where today never looked like yesterday, it was the one landmark they could identify.

And besides, surveyors weren’t the only people who loved what didn’t change.

The regressor pointed at one spot in that mountain range.

Claudia.

A city name standing alone on a map of the Lesser States. The most populated place in the Lesser States.

“First, we head to Claudia, the only settled city in the Lesser States. If we find the Golden Palace’s location on the way by raiding jackals or Juggernauts, we go there immediately. If not, we stop at Claudia and learn where the Golden Palace is.”

“Claudia? The city at the foot of the eastern cloud mountain range?”

“Yeah. The Golden Palace moves however it wants, but Claudia, its base, doesn’t. So we only need to reach it. It’s also the easiest place to meet people from the Golden Palace.”

It was a diligent, straightforward plan, unlike the regressor in a good way. But there was one problem.

“To get to Claudia, we have to keep moving up along the mountain range, right? Can we reach it in one week on the Cataphract?”

“Not with this. The defense is good, but it’s not that fast.”

“Then what? Don’t tell me we’re flying.”

“No, I can’t fly that far with Skywarbler. There isn’t enough space stored in Skywarbler. So we need an alternative.”

She had worked out operations, a plan, and even an alternative. Regressor, you really had thought this through. For the first time, you actually looked a little reliable to me.

The regressor lifted Skywarbler and Jizan, then looked over the Cataphract with an icy expression.

“Let’s modify it.”

Why was she saying that while holding swords...? I had a bad feeling. Did she even know what modifying meant? She couldn’t be thinking that simply, right...?

Maybe it was just me, but the Cataphract seemed to tremble.

The regressor’s “modification” was exactly as rough and violent as I expected.

First, she separated the engine section with the thunderwheel so it wouldn’t be damaged. Then she cleanly sliced off the upper part with Jizan and Skywarbler. The Cataphract was a masterpiece covered in level-three alchemic steel with level-four plating on vulnerable points, but even it couldn’t endure the regressor’s brutal hands.

[Ah, aah... the Cataphract....]

The golem covered its mouth as it watched the Cataphract get miserably disassembled.

Most of the Cataphract’s weight came from its thick armor. Once that was cut away in one go, it became unbelievably light.

The regressor looked proudly at the Cataphract, now reduced to a cargo cart.

“There. Now it’ll go much faster!”

Of course. I should have stopped her.

Holding my head, I said,

“Mr. Shei. Making it lighter doesn’t make it faster.”

“Huh? Why?”

‘Carriages go faster if you unload them, though?’

She looked reliable for one second, then went right back to being a goof. If you trimmed fat off a horse’s rear, would it run faster? Speed barely changed. It was a structure and design issue.

Shaking my head, I spoke to the golem, who was sitting in despair.

“...Haa. One second. DG, how do we fix this?”

[Hngh.... Please just destroy this chassis instead....]

“I won’t let you be the only one who gets off easy. Open your eyes wide and crawl through this hell. That is your duty, communications officer.”

[...Communications Officer Captain DG... understood. I will stand and overcome this grief.]

The regressor had made even a golem cry, yet she just blinked, not knowing what she had done wrong.

“How should we fix it to make it usable?”

[To increase speed by as much as the weight was reduced... we must adjust gear size and reprocess the thunderwheel....]

“Can we do it?”

[If you cannot process a thunderwheel with alchemy... then realistically, impossible....]

Tsk. This was cutting it close.

I could process the thunderwheel. The problem was that I couldn’t read a golem’s thoughts. My power didn’t really come from myself. A lot of it came from reading others and taking the answers from there.

And me, with this low mana, was supposed to reprocess it to exact specifications just from the golem’s explanation? Even if I somehow processed the thunderwheel, what about the lightning to load into it? I was far short on mana.

“Huh? Can’t do it?”

When the regressor asked calmly, Hilde shook her head and stepped in.

“Whew. I guess there’s no choice. Well, what would someone who swings around a Demon God know about machinery?”

“W, what? There’s nothing bad about making it lighter!”

“That’s enough. Move.”

Hilde grabbed the thunderwheel and yanked it out in one pull with pure force. The thunderwheel embedded deep in the Cataphract’s core came out helplessly.

Power worthy of an energy practitioner who had reached the Principle. Hilde, who could crumple steel by strength alone, infused energy into her fingernails and scratched the thunderwheel’s surface. Deep grooves were carved into the hard wheel.

‘I am an alchemist, an interpreter of steel who changes matter with mana.’

The chaotic-looking lines soon formed a single shape. A transmutation circle. Mana flowed into the grooves carved by energy. Light flashed, part of the thunderwheel’s grooves melted... and shifted into a larger standard.

In moments, the thunderwheel more than doubled in size. It wasn’t crudely stretched by force, and nothing was slapped on at random. It was pure alchemic processing.

The regressor admired it inwardly.

“You can do alchemy too?”

“If I can’t do alchemy, I can’t disguise myself as an alchemist, can I? I learned as much as I needed.”

How serious was she about acting? Dumbfounded, the regressor muttered,

“You learn skills because you need to disguise yourself? By that logic, you can probably use magic too....”

“Huh? How did you know? ‘I’ mastered most standard spellcraft!”

“What?”

Instead of explaining more, Hilde covered the thunderwheel with her palm. Then she closed her eyes and recited inwardly.

‘I am a mage, a sage who recreates the principles of the world within my grasp.’

The prayer changed. Hilde, who had been an alchemist just moments ago, now became something close to a mage.

Like everything else in the world, people had aptitude. Even when they knew the principles, if it didn’t suit them, most people couldn’t achieve much.

By that standard, my aptitude for all techniques was garbage. Thanks to mind reading, I could understand and absorb any technique, but I could never pass a certain level of achievement. My energy and mana were both average.

Hilde was different. She had ample mana and stamina, and she used what she had perfectly. Even for a great genius, excelling in every talent was practically impossible, but Hilde pushed herself into first-rate territory through self-suggestion.

“Set, Ri. Bolt.”

The mana scattered through her body took the shape of lightning and sank into the thunderwheel. Hilde had a large mana pool, and her method of manifesting it was first-rate.

Lightning settled into the thunderwheel. Proudly presenting the crackling wheel wrapped in sparks, Hilde approached the engine.

“DG, instructions.”

[Yes! Connect Part A to the drive shaft! Optional, but I recommend removing Part B completely to prevent interference! Then if you align only the core, it will mesh with Parts C and D under current specifications!]

Hilde followed the instructions exactly.

She didn’t know everything. She had only learned the minimum base knowledge needed to follow instructions. But that minimum understanding, combined with a communications officer’s guidance, produced perfect results.

It was precise work combining strength and technique. She boldly tore out unnecessary parts and set the enlarged thunderwheel into the connector. Minor errors were adjusted with quick alchemy.

So this was the true face of Yeonggwe of the Six Generals.

Soon the thunderwheel turned, and the Cataphract slowly began moving. The golem shouted with excitement.

[Operational sound... good! Output good! Success!]

Magic, alchemy, and even mechanical engineering had all reached first-rate. Even her energy had reached the Principle. She could use every weapon at master level and disguise herself flawlessly as another person. A true all-rounder.

She could make a place for herself anywhere. Damn. At this rate, I had much less to do now, which should make things easy for me...

Huh?

‘She is so familiar with miscellaneous skills, she really resembles Hyu. If Hyu regains just a bit more of his strength, he will look similar to that child... Good grief. I can’t tell who is the child and who is the father.’

Huh? Wait a second.

Didn’t that make her my superior version?

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