WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 360: The King Who Kills Others, the God Who Kills Himself - 18

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A crumbling road formed before the Lord of Gold. Having made a path with Verdigris's power, Perru spurred Aurea onward. As Aurea raced wildly with Perru on its back, Perru forced out a shout despite the violent jostling.

"...Lord of Gold!"

Even then, Perru had no intention of opposing the Lord of Gold. If anything, she was like a loyal subject willing to risk her life to stop her king from making a misguided decision.

The Lord of Gold was the god of alchemy. He had created the system known as the Lesser States and was its undisputed ruler.

Whether they wanted it or not, he was the origin, teacher, and god of all alchemists. That included Perru, who possessed the power to deny alchemy. In fact, because she had loved alchemy enough to reach one of its peaks, Perru's devotion to the Lord of Gold ran deeper than anyone else's.

Perru raised her voice, trying to change the Lord of Gold's mind.

"...Please reconsider! They haven't done anything wrong...!"

But her words never reached the Lord of Gold.

The Lord of Gold acknowledged Perru only because her power was dangerous. To the Lord of Gold, who intended to create the Golden Kingdom, Perru, who could destroy it, was his highest-priority target for elimination. Having shifted his focus to Perru, the Lord of Gold wielded godlike power to kill a single person.

A massive structure rose before Perru as she raced toward the city. It was a round, pitch-black steel structure whose purpose was impossible to guess. Even I couldn't tell what it was, so all I could do was stay on guard. I couldn't read the Lord of Gold's thoughts.

Yet the beast instincts still lingering in me warned me of danger.

That was dangerous.

Perru must have felt the same way, because she used her power on the black sphere. Verdigris's aura corroded the steel from the outside in. The instant her power touched it, the black surface swelled as if it were about to explode.

"Watch out!"

The regressor shouted urgently as well, but it was already too late.

The black sphere exploded. Its force could not even be compared to the Heatblast Lord's power. A visible wave of pressure spread outward, vomiting out what lay within.

Millions of sharp steel fragments.

Each one traced its own path as it plunged into the ground.

Death spread. It was a rain of steel that burst anyone it touched into a spray of blood. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the fragments struck only the ground, but the remaining zero point one percent was more than enough to kill countless people. Even Perru's power could only dull their sharpness slightly. It couldn't stop their speed or weight.

Rat-a-tat-tat.

It sounded like a heavy monsoon pounding the earth. Anyone struck by those cruel raindrops had part of their body blown apart. The jackals trying to flee the city were slaughtered in droves by the fragments pouring down from above.

Before a Demon God, ordinary lives vanished like trash.

It was a horrible tragedy. What made it even worse was that those countless deaths were only a secondary outcome for the Lord of Gold. He had unleashed that rain of steel to kill Perru alone.

The steel rain poured down over Perru's head at a density incomparable to anywhere else. It was like droplets spilling from a burst water balloon. She had no special equipment or qi arts, no means of stopping it. Frightened, Aurea reared up on its hind legs, but what could that accomplish?

The fragments descended to kill Perru.

Then.

"Woof."

Azzy dashed in like the wind. With all her fur standing on end, Azzy took the steel fragments raining down in a sheet across her entire body.

The steel fragments were certainly deadly enough to kill humans, but they were nowhere near enough to hurt Azzy. Since Perru was riding a horse, she was also safe from the fragments that bounced across the ground.

For one moment, thanks to that fleeting help, death passed Perru by.

Perru, whose life had been saved by the narrowest margin, thanked Azzy.

"...Tha, nk you."

"...Woof."

Azzy's expression wasn't good, though. She stared blankly at the people dying in the distance. For a dog who liked humans, it was far too cruel a sight.

While Perru's horse had stopped for a moment, the regressor leaped forward and landed before Perru.

"Verdigris Lord! Be careful! More are coming!"

The Lord of Gold's second attack followed. The fallen fragments blackened, then crumbled and billowed up like smoke. Steel dust carried by the wind obscured our vision in an instant.

Verdigris's power could easily destroy a structure, but gathering it back together was difficult. Even if Perru broke apart this fine dust, she couldn't clear it away. The Lord of Gold seemed quite wary of Perru, considering how he chose only attacks troublesome for her.

"Trying to block our sight? Damn it, and it has to be steel dust!"

Even the Seven-Colored Eyes couldn't see through metal. As the regressor grumbled, I felt vibrations from the ground and shouted urgently.

"Shei, something's coming!"

"I know! Earth Staff Style, Fierce Strike!"

A huge iron ball came through the storm of steel. The regressor reacted immediately and struck it away with Jizan. A clang rang out, and the iron ball, as large as a person, flew far away like a baseball.

That wasn't the end of it. The earth shook as the thunderous rumbling continued. One vibration, then two, then more than I could count.

"Shei! Hundreds of them are rolling toward us?!"

"Tch, the Lord of Gold must feel threatened! He's trying to eliminate us himself and doesn't care what methods he uses. Let's regroup for now!"

If the Lord of Gold had still been role-playing inside the Golden Palace, he would have used only homunculi to attack. But now, he wielded every Lord's alchemy himself. His scale and versatility surpassed all the other Lords combined. Perru was the only reason so much of it had become useless. Otherwise, something far more frightening than fragments or iron balls would have come at us.

...What the hell had the regressor done in the last iteration? How had she survived after facing all that? I still had no idea.

The regressor grabbed Perru and pulled, but Perru held Aurea's reins and refused to move.

"...Not yet. There are still people over there."

"Calm down, Perru. Everyone who could run has already escaped. It's too late for the rest."

The people still left in the city had no way to flee. They were jackals without mounts, or those left behind with fatal injuries. There was nothing more we could do for them.

Perru understood that in her head. Her heart couldn't accept it, and she hesitated.

Her feelings were noble, but that wasn't enough. I confronted her with the cold reality.

"Even if you decide to charge headfirst into the Golden Palace without a plan or the power to back it up, that's your choice, Perru. But remember this."

The Lesser States wasn't a country suited to words like belonging or loyalty. Few people wanted to save this imperfect nation, and Perru alone possessed both the will and ability to do it.

In other words, if Perru died, the Lesser States would truly be finished. No one, not even the regressor, would be able to stop the Lord of Gold.

"If Perru fails, Claudia will suffer a disaster hundreds of times worse than this. Calculate it coldly."

Anyone who could put a price on an object could put a price on a life too. Perru, as a citizen of the Lesser States, could make that calculation naturally.

Were the lives of a few dozen people, who were as good as dead already, more precious?

Or were the lives of tens of thousands of children who knew nothing, along with Claudia, the foundation that sustained them, more precious?

There was no question. The latter.

Claudia might not be everything to the Lesser States, but if Claudia was lost, the future of the Lesser States would disappear. Perru lowered her head and turned Aurea around. Aurea, who had been anxiously bobbing its head, gladly followed its master's will.

While the regressor covered our retreat, Tyr wrapped us in darkness. Once we escaped the Lord of Gold's gaze, his attacks became less frequent. After we put enough distance between us, the Lord of Gold went back to cleaning up the city as though nothing had happened.

Before even a few minutes had passed, every thought coming from the city vanished.

There hadn't been many to begin with.

Only after securing a safe distance from the Lord of Gold did we have room to recover. Unlike Perru, Aurea hadn't been fully covered by Azzy's body and had been pierced by steel fragments all over. Perru dismounted and stroked the wounded Aurea.

It depended on the breed, but a trained horse wouldn't be in mortal danger just because it had been pierced by fragments. Still, a wound was a wound. Full-speed running would be impossible. I examined Aurea from every angle and spoke.

"There's no point in retreating if we don't have a way to stop the Lord of Gold. The horse is hurt, so what do we do? Perru needs a living mount to reach the Lord of Gold..."

Would Perru have to ride Azzy? We could try, but a dog probably wouldn't let a human ride on her back. As I seriously considered it, Perru muttered.

"...The Golden Ark."

"What?"

Perru had placed the jackals' lives on one side of the scales and Claudia's survival on the other. They said Lords could deceive a scale's needle, but that only applied to alchemy. Perru had made a cruel choice, and the scales had tipped honestly.

Still, just because the scales tilted to the other side didn't mean the lighter side could vanish without a trace. Perru, who had chosen, had to carry the weight of what she abandoned. A king who killed others had to nourish herself and her kingdom on those lives.

No matter how disgusting or horrible it was.

That was a king's responsibility.

Only gods were free of responsibility. A dead man like the Lord of Gold could no longer bear any responsibility at all.

Perru had made her choice. To fulfill her duty, and for those who had died because of her choice, she found a way to possibly stop the Lord of Gold.

Of course, it was only a possibility. It wasn't perfect. It could fail. Even so, Perru found the smallest chance within that imperfection and made a demand of me with firm resolve.

"...If we have the Golden Ark, we can reach the Lord of Gold. Help me."

For the sake of her country, she was asking me to die with her.

Of course, I had no intention of dying. I was only a beast, and that was what every human had wanted me to be. What foolish beast would walk into certain death on its own?

"The Golden Ark is a Juggernaut the Lord of Gold made, right? How are we supposed to fight the Lord of Gold with that? Ram it into him?"

"...Yeah."

That was a very appealing plan.

A beast that wasn't foolish wasn't much of a beast. Fine. I'd help, as long as I didn't die.

Footnotes:

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