WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 375

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It's the Farmer, Sir

Fields built up layer by layer inside a building, each plot of sky and earth pried from the world and stacked in place. Standing before them, you felt no overwhelming majesty, no unfathomable mystery. The idea of bringing a field indoors was novel enough, but the soil and the light were both perfectly real.

What you felt, instead, was a ferocious obsessiveness.

The will of a human being who had taken the world apart with purely practical eyes and reassembled it in service of other human beings. That was what had seeped into the artificial fields inside the Lightning Rod Tower.

And this probably wasn't the only place. These fields mattered, but hands had been laid on every other facility in Claudia as well.

Something bothered me, though. I couldn't pin it down in words, just a vague, nagging sense of wrongness poking at me.

"You built all of this yourself, Thunder Lord-nim?"

"Not entirely on my own, of course. However exceptional I may be, I still only have two hands."

Fair enough. No matter how remarkable a person is, they can't do everything alone. Reading the Thunder Lord's thoughts confirmed that her words were all true.

But what I'd actually read in her mind was that she was a consumer of lightning, not the one who first thought to use it this way. Someone had to have had that idea first. So why was there no trace of them? Did the Thunder Lord herself not know?

Reading thoughts only told me what the person in front of me knew. My access ended at their own knowledge. Given that the Thunder Lord had been raised by her predecessor, it made sense she wouldn't know everything.

Let me dig a little further.

"I may be getting confused on the details, but, the lightning thief stole lightning, and then the first Thunder Lord returned it to the sky, yes?"

"Yes."

"Then who built the Lightning Rod Tower? Was it the lightning thief, or the first Thunder Lord?"

"The first Thunder Lord-nim."

She answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. I almost felt embarrassed for having asked.

Right. The Lightning Rod Tower was clearly a proper structure. A thief couldn't have built something like this. Someone must have erected it.

But looking at it purely in terms of function, the Lightning Rod Tower was obviously a device for capturing lightning. So the lightning currently being used to tend these fields wasn't stolen? They were generating it somehow?

"The first Thunder Lord-nim must have been truly remarkable. To put the lightning a thief stole to such extraordinary use."

"Remarkable, yes. Comparable to myself. Though what exactly are you getting at with these questions?"

Too much prying. She was starting to eye me with suspicion. A stranger from another land suddenly asking about the lightning thief and the first Thunder Lord, reasonable enough to be wary.

When you're under suspicion, the amateur move is to insist how unfair it all is. An outsider like me was always going to look suspicious. The better play was to show just a little of what I was actually after.

"Ha, simple curiosity, nothing more. A skill like this is nothing less than a gift to the human race, wouldn't you say? My profession being what it is, whenever I discover a new frontier like this, I can't help myself."

Fortunately, the Thunder Lord smiled as if she'd figured me out.

'You said you came from the military state. Of course you're trying to extract something. I brought you here half-expecting as much.'

"Knowing won't do you any good. This is a miracle possible only in Claudia, where clouds and lightning pour down from the falls. If it worked anywhere, Maximilien would have achieved it long ago before he ran off to the military state."

"Ah. Maximilien-ssi."

No need to mention I'd left him half-dead and sent him on his way.

How to handle this.

There were two ways to use mind reading. Either read the other person's thoughts and act accordingly, or find the gap and drive something into it. The first was about becoming background noise in their awareness until they stopped noticing you. The second was about constantly catching their eye so they stayed focused on you.

It depended on the situation. With someone as proud as the Thunder Lord, the right approach was probably to be a little clingy.

"Thunder Lord-nim, if Shei-ssi kills the Sky God, Claudia would become so much more peaceful, wouldn't it? No more violent lightning bearing down on you, everything else easier to manage. The city would rise past the danger and flourish. And so..."

"You want to ask for Claudia's wisdom in exchange."

She answered like she'd seen it coming a mile away. I scratched the back of my head with an awkward smile.

"Ah, if I'm being less political about it, something like that, yes. Since we're going to be helping each other anyway, perhaps you might let us have just a small glimpse of the first Thunder Lord's legacy."

"No objection."

"Really?"

"I don't go back on my word. If you truly kill the Sky God, if you ensure the Sky God's apostle can never return to Claudia, I'm prepared to repay you with everything I have."

Watch the phrasing. Even if you mean every word of it.

Still, I now understood why the regressor had been so fond of the Thunder Lord. Completing the quest to eliminate the Sky God would earn complete and unconditional trust going forward. The kind of clean simplicity the regressor would love.

"That said, a reward like that belongs to the one who kills the Sky God. There's no reason to give it to you."

"Shei-ssi is our companion."

"Then hear it from his mouth directly, later. If he truly kills the Sky God, and he wants the reward, and he decides to share it with the rest of you."

In short, nothing was coming to me directly. I clicked my tongue and answered with my best disappointed look.

"I understand your position, Thunder Lord-nim. I'll ask again another time."

"I'm glad you understand, at least now. I don't have the patience to explain it twice."

"Tch."

When I let a little wounded pride show, the Thunder Lord actually relaxed.

'The first Thunder Lord-nim's legacy.... You're so blatant about wanting it that it's almost reassuring. Not that I'll ever reveal it.'

I relaxed too. She'd written me off exactly as I'd planned.

And thanks to that, I now knew where it was.

The legacy left by the first Thunder Lord was buried beneath the Lightning Rod Tower. Her inheritance, not fully understood even by the current Thunder Lord.

The Sky God had retreated in an incomplete burn, but the people of Claudia were completely at ease. This was the cloud city ruled by the Thunder Lord. Layers upon layers of countermeasures against lightning were already in place. A bit of trouble was nothing they couldn't handle.

Beyond that, living things are built not to fear what they've seen often enough. Familiarity becomes proof of harmlessness. If something were truly dangerous, you'd be dead before you could grow accustomed to it.

Word spread, passed quietly from person to person among those who always seemed to hear things first.

"You hear? Rumor going around among the guardians, apparently the Thunder Lord is planning some kind of operation to bring down the Sky God."

"Didn't the Thunder Lord herself ride out not long ago? Something about a threat coming in."

"Not sure of the details, but it seems it had to do with the Sky God campaign. If it succeeds, the Sky God gets wiped out for good."

"Really? Good news, I suppose, though I'll be a little sad. Gotten used to it by now."

"What do you mean, used to it! How many people have died to Sky God lightning strikes!"

"Those were people wandering outside the Lightning Rod Tower's shadow."

"Honestly. What a thing to say."

"Well, the Thunder Lord will handle it! How bad could it get!"

It wasn't a leak. The Thunder Lord had deliberately let the guardians hear just enough so that word would seep out naturally, so the citizens wouldn't be caught off guard. Knowing in advance softened the psychological blow.

The faith in the Thunder Lord was so absolute that it didn't do much in practice, but the way she managed this city was impressively systematic. She had every right to be proud of it.

I passed the people chatting in that easy, unhurried way and headed back to the lodgings.

The regressor and Azzy were still there. The regressor was swinging Skywarbler in various directions, the blade so saturated with cloud it had gone stark white, and every time she did, small bolts crackled up from Jizan on the floor. Azzy's fur stood on end each time.

"Oh, you're back? Welcome."

The regressor was greeting me? She was in a generous mood. I asked her, keeping my tone easy.

"Shei-ssi. You seem to be in good spirits."

"More or less."

She didn't even snap at the question. She really was in a good mood.

"The Golden Mirror is gone, and I've met the Thunder Lord. Once this is done, the war will stop too. Everything is falling into place. It's all new ground, but somehow, along the way, there haven't been any strange detours or unexpected disasters."

'Usually around this point in the route, something always goes wrong at least once!'

No appreciation whatsoever for my efforts. The reason things were going smoothly was because I'd been quietly patching up every little gap she didn't even notice.

Well. I'd benefited from the regressor's efforts too, so I could hardly complain.

"Once I take down the Sky God, the problems on this side are basically solved! Tyrkanzyaka is here to handle the Duchy, and the military state will go quiet! Nothing left to go wrong!"

Why did watching her be this happy suddenly make me uneasy? She laughed like a child, utterly unbothered by my worry. Enough breathing room to actually laugh now, apparently.

"Heheh. This is a new record. I can see hope from here!"

"Shei-ssi. Don't get too excited. I've sat through more gambling tables than I can count, and what I learned is that the moment you feel most confident, when everything seems like it's going to work out, is exactly when you lose the most."

"You knew that, and you still gambled?"

"I was the one filling the suckers with confidence. I'd pump them up until they were bursting with certainty, and the moment they threw everything they had on the table, bam, they'd lose it all. What you'd call a shill."

"...You're describing running a crooked gambling operation and you sound almost proud of yourself."

"It wasn't crooked. The gambling itself was completely fair and square."

Fair and square, just with a little mind reading on the side. Nothing like ordinary rigged gambling.

"More to the point, when are you planning to kill the Sky God?"

"Sea wind comes in during the day. The clouds from the Cloud Waterfall work the same way. Tomorrow, when the sea wind blows in, the Sky God that pulled back will return. The Thunder Lord will let us know the exact time."

"The Sky God getting wiped out is a massive event. Things will get chaotic in Claudia, won't they?"

"Probably. To prevent any accidents, a city-wide emergency order will go out across all of Claudia tomorrow. The Thunder Lord will gather her subordinates and practitioners to deal with whatever's left of the Sky God afterward."

"You know all this quite well."

"I heard it from the Thunder Lord."

No, you didn't. Not in this regression. She just says things and figures the details out later.

Anyway. That wasn't what mattered. I got to the real point.

"I don't actually need to go watch, do I?"

"Huh? Watch?"

"Yes. As you know, I'm afraid of lightning. Even if you handle it cleanly, Shei-ssi, I'd rather not take on unnecessary risk."

"It'll be over fast. Won't be much of a threat."

There was a quiet disappointment in her when I said I wouldn't be there. Did she really want me watching her fight that badly?

"Me being there to watch doesn't actually help anything, does it?"

"That's true."

"Is that right?"

"Even so, well, hmm..."

'When you're around, things have a weird way of working out. There are parts that seem off, but it doesn't matter because everything just goes smoother. Ugh. Honestly, I feel better when you're there.'

Oh? She knew?

That was actually a little touching. I'd figured she was completely oblivious, never gave it a second thought. But she'd noticed.

"So you've been relying on me that much? Well, if it's that important to you, I suppose I have no choice. If that's what Shei-ssi wants, I'll stay by your side and lend a hand."

That was a genuine concession on my part, but the regressor flared up.

"What? It's not like that at all. And you're no help in a fight anyway. You're the negotiation one, not the combat one!"

"Negotiation? That was my role?!"

"What else would you call it? You had the smooth talk, you charmed women and got people moving, but you were never much direct use in an actual fight, were you?"

That's harsh! Do you have any idea how many times I've nearly died out there!

The reason I left the fighting to the regressor and Tyr was because they were there. I can still hold my own at an ordinary human level!

"Fine. Enjoy hunting the Sky God on your own, then. I'll be lying here comfortably watching out the window."

"Good. That was the plan from the start."

Perfect. I'd built myself a decent alibi in the process. I could move at that time without anyone asking questions.

I walked toward my room, making my footsteps deliberately loud, when the regressor muttered something behind me in a voice barely above a whisper.

"...Still, I do rely on you, you know."

"Sorry? What was that?"

"Nothing! I didn't say anything!"

'That jerk, your hearing is way too good! How did you catch that? I was talking to myself!'

Talking to yourself means talking to yourself.

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