WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 350

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Mid-Point Check

We bolted and hid in a corner of the cornfield. The field was wide enough, and the Golden Mirror was no tracker. We had time to catch our breath.

Even so, we couldn't afford to relax. The air around the cornfield had shifted in an unmistakable way.

Footsteps shuffled past overhead. The search party had made it this far. I held my breath until the sounds faded, then spoke.

"Ugh. They're crawling all over the place out there."

"It won't be homunculi. They can't range outside the Golden Palace. Probably the Suppression Lord's soldiers."

"Attack them and the homunculi come running, same result either way."

Fortunately, they hadn't found so much as our shadow. We were underground.

Once we'd put enough distance between ourselves and the pursuers, the regressor dug out a space with Jizan, as casually as if this were routine for her. Normally the excavated dirt would be a problem, but Jizan had a remarkable power for that too, compacting the displaced soil straight down into the earth below. The result was a surprisingly comfortable hideout, nothing like what you'd expect from a hole in the ground.

Animals that have suffered the pressures of the wild instinctively prefer dark, narrow spaces. Darkness hides them from a predator's eyes, and a tight space protects them from attacks on all sides.

The same holds for humans, those lords of all creation. I stretched out in the corner and let myself enjoy it.

"Ahh. This is nice."

"You think so too? I feel the same. To confess, I've been a little put out lately, with all of you insisting on going outside during the day."

"Still, if we're going out at all, daytime is when we do it. We can't live down here forever."

Well, not as long as a vampire might, anyway.

"And look at Perru. She's coughing. Must be the air in here."

"...Cough. That's... your fault..."

Perru's voice came out half-dead, her face scrunched up.

What a fuss. I've said it again and again, I'm ordinary. So no matter how hard I hit, a punch without any energy behind it falls squarely in the ordinary range. That's fair to take.

If you want to be particular about it, call it the price of having your life saved. If we're calling it the cost of a life, I'd take a hundred hits.

"Well, while we're at it, let me ask again. Are you willing to cooperate with us?"

"...Cough, cough. I've cooperated... enough."

"Hmm. Too stubborn for reason. Mr. Shei, the knife."

I held out my hand toward the regressor like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Since when did I hold anything for you? Where do you get the nerve."

Grumbling, she reached into her void space and handed over a sleek dagger. No legendary treasure, but carved from the fang of a rare beast, the kind of thing money alone couldn't buy, and if you haggled right, tradeable for a house in a major city.

She handed it over without a second thought. Just how much money does she have? I should hide this rather than give it back.

Ahem. Regardless. I crouched like a street thug and leveled the dagger at Perru. No intention of stabbing her, but a sharp blade is a threat on its own. She couldn't hold out forever.

"Doesn't look like you care much about your life. Even with a knife pointed at you, you still won't..."

The moment I made a jabbing motion, the tip of the blade turned pitch black and crumbled to dust. The dagger carved from a beast's fang vanished, leaving nothing but the leather grip.

"Oh?"

My money, reduced to a pile of dust? Rustscale's power crumbles beast fangs too? What in the world... how does someone like her even exist in the Lesser States?

Afraid something else might crumble, I flung the leather grip away and scrambled back. The regressor, who had been watching closely, issued a sharp warning.

"Rustscale. Don't use your power carelessly. You could die."

She meant it. Killing intent was aimed directly at Perru's throat. Skywarbler and Jizan couldn't be rusted away, so even Perru couldn't stop the regressor's attack.

Perru faced that killing intent without flinching.

"...Kill me. Either way, I'm... cough. Worse than useless."

'...If I use my power, it destroys what the Golden Mirror would use as materials. Even if war breaks out, I can't take part. A power that only breaks things has no value...'

She was stubborn even sitting at the enemy's doorstep. It felt closer to resignation than loyalty, and that made it all the harder to shift.

The regressor clicked her tongue.

"Tch. Hughes, threatening her with a knife isn't going to work."

"Then how about money? Perru, cooperate with us and we'll give you half the Lesser States. You'd be rich."

"...Cough! Don't... need it."

Come to think of it, money crumbles in her hands anyway, doesn't it? Hmm. They say there's nothing scarier than someone with nothing left to lose. Knife and money alike bounce off Perru, who practices a very acquired form of possessionlessness.

Reading her thoughts doesn't give me any answers either. Any normal person ought to waver at one of the two, knife or money. I muttered at length.

"Knife won't work. Money won't work. What has the Golden Mirror even done for you that you're this loyal? From where I'm standing, it doesn't look like he even pays you."

"...It's not a matter of good or bad. This land. The food I eat. Alchemy, the truth of all things. Everything in the Lesser States comes from the Golden Mirror. He is everything to this country.... You wouldn't understand."

The Golden Mirror himself seems to be living in the Gold State, but that's still part of the Lesser States in the broader sense. I scratched my head, hitting a wall.

Perru has no desires. The problem is that, unlike faith or conviction, this is a rationally sound conclusion on her part.

For someone who destroys everything she touches, the concept of ownership barely exists. Whatever she might keep for herself, cultivating goodwill by giving to others is always the better deal. One careless use of her innate arcane and everything she owns turns to scraps.

It's a sensible, rational way to survive, grounded in human sociality. Which means I can't argue against it or correct it. In short, I have no way to persuade Perru in our current situation.

"What is the Golden Mirror even..."

I was still muttering when a distinct, suspicious presence brushed past overhead. All of us fell silent at once, as if on cue, but the presence lingered without reason before drifting toward the entrance.

The regressor gripped Skywarbler and rose.

"Tch! Did your noise give us away!"

"That's all because of Perru's coughing! Wait, don't tell me she was coughing on purpose to tip them off!"

"...Cough. The coughing is your... fault..."

"Were all three of you not the ones making noise?"

Everyone erupted at once, eyes fixed on the hole leading up to the surface. We'd covered the entrance with dirt and grass, but it wasn't invisible to a careful eye. We were exchanging tense looks when a familiar voice seeped in through the gap.

"Knock, knock! Anyone home? Peace envoys from the military state?"

It was Hilde.

Well, I'd known from reading her thoughts, but still.

Hilde slipped through the entrance gap as if it were nothing. The regressor stared at that cheerful face and asked, sounding unimpressed.

"How did you find us?"

"The corn you pushed through on your way here pointed straight to this spot like a compass! Plain enough for even my most basic tracking to catch! It was so blatant I was half convinced it might be a decoy, I was on edge the entire time!"

"You have a knack for the strangest skills."

"'Impressive' would do just fine. Shei, you're not very honest!"

"I never thought that for a second!"

Hilde smiled and spun around, then spoke with a theatrical flourish.

"Anyway, everyone, we have a problem. The Golden Mirror is making weapons! It looks like he's seriously preparing for war!"

"Weapons?"

"Yes! Like this, for example!"

She smiled, reached her hand back through the entrance, grabbed hold of something she'd left outside, and hauled it down. The dirt wall gave way, and a suit of armor with a rough metallic texture came tumbling through. Greaves, helmet, breastplate, gauntlets, separately forged pieces scattered and rolled across the ground with a loud, clanging racket.

"Plate armor."

"Yes! Full body armor! It was so tough that all I managed was to dent it a little with my own strength! If that's what it takes to dent one, imagine how many more of these there are!"

In a fight between armor and bare hands, the armor wins, common sense. But if the other side is a master of energy, the math changes. Channel energy and your body becomes as hard as steel, and there are techniques for pushing energy inside metal to shatter it from within.

So if this armor could only be dented under the attacks of someone who has mastered their craft and stands among the military state's finest, calling it a treasure of the age would not be an overstatement.

Even so, armor like this should never be common. Quality alchemic steel plus refined technique means a single suit would cost as much as a castle, but...

"There are rows and rows of it, lined up like corn in the field!"

To the Golden Mirror, Demon God of alchemy, this was something on the order of an ear of corn. Maybe even easier than that.

"And that's not all. Weapons. Vehicles. Every last one a fearsome thing, laid out across the ground. The Golden Mirror seems to be planning a massive armory beyond this cornfield. It looks like something has come up that will actually call for weapons."

Nothing to say. Elik had already declared the war was starting.

Hilde picked up the gauntlet, let it drop, and rounded on the regressor.

"Excuse me, weren't we here to negotiate peace? How did things end up like this? As peace envoys of the military state, would someone care to give a brief explanation?"

"I'll explain."

The regressor hadn't been there from the beginning, so she wouldn't know the whole story. I gave a quick account of what had happened at the Golden Palace. Elik declaring the war would continue. The Golden Mirror siding with her. The homunculi that came pouring out after. And finally, our escape.

After hearing all of it, Hilde scratched her head and laughed apologetically.

"Ahahaha. So a ceasefire really was too much to hope for. This is bad. If the Golden Mirror is preparing for war right now, the plan we had falls apart, doesn't it?"

"Plan?"

"Yes. A mobile campaign using the military state's communications officer. The idea was to wedge apart the lords' thin solidarity, sow chaos, occupy key areas, and finally march on Claudia."

Hilde let out a long sigh and twirled a strand of hair around her finger.

"This is terrible. If the Golden Mirror rallies the lords, the Lesser States will be no pushover. An all-out war at this rate means both sides take enormous losses. What are we going to do?"

What Hilde was saying was squarely from the military state's perspective. They'd sent peace envoys and lost the window entirely. On top of that, the enemy was now on alert. It sounded mild the way Hilde said it, but put numbers to those losses and the figure would be staggering.

The regressor, suddenly on the receiving end of all of it, trailed off.

"Well... that's..."

"It's alright. Don't be too hard on yourselves! You do have a way to make up for this enormous failure!"

As if she'd known all along it would come to this, Hilde smiled brightly and continued.

"If war breaks out, someone has to end it eventually. Obviously, ending it fast with overwhelming force is better, fewer dead, less wasted. But the military state's strength has been steadily chipped away by Mr. Shei and the rest of you. And the one real advantage they had, mobility, was lost when you held a blade to command's throat and threatened them."

The regressor had attacked the military state entirely to prevent a war that would become the spark of chaos. But if she'd failed to persuade the Lesser States, then regardless of intent, she'd effectively taken their side.

That was plainly the fault of the regressor, who had used a ceasefire as leverage to threaten the military state.

Hilde pressed the point, smile never leaving her face.

"But if you all join the fight, the balance is restored!"

You made this mess, so own it. Hilde kept smiling and kept pushing the regressor into a corner.

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