WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 393: Lightning Did Not Fall from the Sky - Conclusion

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Phew. I came to. This time took a while.

She knew it herself but was forcing herself to look away, which made it all the more difficult. If I hadn't been protected while I was out, who knew what might've happened.

No. This was another seed I had sown. Today proved exactly why a person ought to live by doing good. Now then, should I get up...

"...Who are you?"

The chilling voice seemed to bore into my bones. I stopped halfway through rising.

As I lay there, Tyr slowly approached me.

"Was trying to harm me not enough? Do you want to destroy everything I love too? Are you trying to tear me away from the world that way again? How dare you? Who are you?"

The sight of me reflected in Tyr's eyes was miserable. My clothes had been torn across my back, revealing wounds that had hastily closed. Bloodstains covered the ground around me.

The Progenitor's solemn fury seemed ready to shake the whole land. She had come here worried about me, so it would feel awkward to suddenly get up and show her I was perfectly healthy...

Wait a moment.

Was I healthy? I felt like I was in pain.

Tyr's arrival was like night itself. Cloud Waterfall darkened beneath her presence like a silent, black night, and the noisy battlefield fell quiet. The Elders, who had been carrying out a massacre with only the three of them, all stopped at once and turned toward her like sunflowers toward the sun.

Before the awestruck Elders could approach, the regressor warned her in a sharp voice.

"Tyrkanzyaka! Be careful. Yeonggwe stabbed Hughes!"

...?

What was that supposed to mean? Why bring that up now?

Well, it wasn't impossible to think that. Hilde was closest to me right now, and she was holding a sword. Still, that was a strange misunderstanding. Why assume that?

Once someone made such a firm accusation, everyone naturally began to wonder, Was that really what happened?

Hilde paled at the sight of Tyr striding toward her and hurriedly tried to clear her name.

"No, no, how could that be? Me stabbing my father? The Thunder Lord was the one who stabbed him!"

"What? Why would Elkid stab Hughes?"

"Didn't I tell you earlier? She's part of the Holy Sword Corps."

At that moment, Valdamir released the Thunder Lord. The regressor had said Tyrkanzyaka was coming, and since that had proven true, he had let Elkid go to avoid acting rashly.

Of course, he could only do that because he was confident he could capture her again whenever he wished.

Thanks to that, the regressor had a chance to see the Thunder Lord again. Elkid spread her wings of lightning and regained her balance.

She looked far too much like an angel.

Anyone with devout enough faith could become part of the Holy Sword Corps. Those with unusual powers like the Thunder Lord, yet nowhere to turn, often fell into faith more easily than others. Perhaps it had been natural for Elkid to be friendly toward the regressor from the start.

She wasn't aware of it, but the regressor seemed connected to the Holy Maiden.

"That still isn't a reason to stab Hughes. Even if Elkid is part of the Holy Sword Corps, why would she stab him?"

Yet the regressor still did not know the final piece. She had seen the future with her own eyes and overlooked one fact I had deliberately kept hidden.

"Because Father is the King of Humanity. The one the Sanctum and Holy Maidens despise as a remnant of savagery."

"...What?"

Ah. So it had been exposed.

Honestly, it was impressive that I had hidden it this long. I had made a point of never even thinking about it whenever I was with the regressor.

The regressor was forcing herself to think of the two separately, but the King of Sin was undeniably the King of Humanity. And the regressor was trying to stop the King of Sin.

In other words, her target was me.

If she learned that I was the King of Humanity, I would gain a persistent, powerful pursuer who would come after me even across time. Unfortunately, that was not especially good news for me.

I had been particularly careful not to let the regressor find out, but...

There was no way to hide it any longer. Ugh. One more reason not to get up. For now, I stayed down and pretended to be unconscious, deliberately ignoring the regressor's gaze.

"What? Why would you... No! Even if that were true, why did you betray me?!"

"Isn't it obvious if you think about it for a moment? There, I'll explain it so even foolish Shei can understand."

Tyr knelt beside me. Hilde approached the regressor as though taking turns with her and began counting on her fingers, as though explaining something to a child who could only understand that way.

"What I wanted was similar to what you wanted. We didn't need to show each other everything or cooperate completely. We could leave the parts we didn't understand hidden in darkness. You do your work, and I reap benefits for the military state.

"I owed you too, so I would've been fine with that much cooperation. But then..."

Hilde was undoubtedly the one who had betrayed them. She had driven a wedge between the regressor and Tyr, realized Claudia had some connection to the Holy Sword Corps, and called the vampires.

Having abandoned the Sanctum once already, Hilde had likely found the vampires more appealing allies. She had attacked the regressor for her own benefit and that of the military state.

Still, was the betrayal entirely Hilde's?

"You could never become my strength. The military state was never in your heart. So I should use you as needed, then throw you away. If I can use an enemy of the military state as an offering to seek cooperation with the Fog Duchy, isn't that a profitable deal? I'd be selling off excess baggage for money."

Hilde had belonged to the military state from the beginning, and she still did. She had followed them all the way to the Lesser States to gather information and arrange matters for the military state's benefit.

Hilde could play any role, but the only things she held any affection for were the military state and the Holy Maiden Yuel. Everything else was worthless to her.

"For such a reason...?"

"Such a reason? Shei, we can't trust each other. Not just me, everyone here. Trust is... such an empty thing. It can change at any time based on feelings alone.

"Could you truly believe a Holy Maiden or a prophecy without question? They're the people who use faith better than anyone else."

While Hilde faced the regressor, Tyr rested my head on her lap and slowly stroked my face with pale fingers. Her expression was full of worry and sadness.

Sigh. I supposed I had no choice. I didn't know if I could straighten out this whole mess, but staying down would only make things worse. It was time to get up and do some work...

"...Hyu."

Anyone would think I was dead. I was only taking a short nap, so please stop making such a fuss.

That was what I tried to say, but no voice came out. My eyes were still closed, and Tyr was looking down at me.

I saw it through Tyr's gaze.

Huh? No voice came out?

Damn it. Had I been left there too long after getting pierced through? I was conscious, but my body wouldn't move. Could it be that I hadn't simply been stabbed?

The fact that I remained conscious was even stranger. Unless I was somehow managing the trick of thinking while unconscious, this was probably...

The power of the Demon God I had just found. It was keeping my consciousness alive regardless of my body.

I wasn't sure whether that was a good thing.

"...Lungken. Cabilah. Valdamir. I command you."

Tyr spoke quietly. Even though her voice would not have carried more than a few steps, the Elders reacted fiercely.

"Haaah!"

"Yes, Sister! Just say the word!"

"Command us, and we shall obey."

The three Elders struck their chests, clasped both hands together, and bowed deeply. With every ounce of respect they held in their hearts, they waited for the Progenitor's command.

Tyr did not make them wait long.

"The Celestial God's vermin. Clear them away. Leave not a drop of blood behind."

"I obey!"

"Of course! I-I'll kill every last one of them!"

"...By your command."

The Elders did not hesitate for even an instant. They moved at once to carry out the Progenitor's order.

Until now, they might have felt some enjoyment in the slaughter. From this point onward, it was duty and mission. By any means necessary, they would destroy every trace of the Celestial God from this land.

The regressor saw it coming and shouted.

"Tyrkanzyaka! Stop!"

'If the Elders are with Tyrkanzyaka's darkness, they can massacre people even in daylight without restriction. Claudia will be destroyed! More than that, the most dangerous one right now is...!'

The regressor's tense gaze naturally turned toward Valdamir.

Crimson Duke Valdamir. He had observed the situation until now, but now that the Progenitor had given an order, he would become a killing machine more powerful and efficient than any other Elder.

The reckless Lungken and cruel Cabilah were horrifying enough, but Valdamir stood on another level.

Why had humans become the dominant species on earth? Why had they tamed powerful beasts and flourished despite disease and disaster?

Valdamir seemed to prove the answer. He was the Progenitor's first sword, one that perfectly understood immense power, wielded it with precision, and accomplished its purpose.

A sword was neither heavy nor evil. It was only sharp.

Valdamir was simply sharp, and that made him dangerous.

She had to stop him. It would be difficult, but the regressor was the only one in this place who could stop Valdamir. She turned toward Valdamir as he slowly lowered his greatsword.

'I might die... But there's no other way! No one here can stop Valdamir...!'

"Shei. I'm talking to you. Please focus on me?"

A sword of light suddenly thrust deep toward her. There had been no warning, but the Heaven-Reversing Boundary reacted first.

The regressor bent backward to evade it and instinctively tried to counterattack. Hilde pressed deep into her guard, braced her wrist against the regressor's, and slashed at her with a holy sword held in a reverse grip.

The holy sword became streaks of light, carving dozens of cuts across the regressor's arms and abdomen. Light flashed, and sparks flew.

Skywarbler clashed with the holy sword.

Skywarbler's weightlessness worked astonishingly well with the Heaven-Reversing Boundary. The regressor managed to block every one of Hilde's close-range attacks. After taking a brief moment to catch her breath, she swung Skywarbler with all her strength.

Whether Hilde lived or died, she needed to end this quickly and go stop Valdamir.

The invisible sword swung with force enough to split even a mountain. Hilde tried to deflect it with her dagger, but the shorter a weapon was against overwhelming strength, the greater the disadvantage.

There was a reason martial artists favored long-handled weapons even when they possessed qi arts.

Then the holy sword changed shape.

Hilde's holy sword, which had been no more than a dagger, lengthened from hilt to blade. In a brief flash of faith, it changed from a dagger into a longsword and smoothly caught Skywarbler.

"The holy sword... changed?!"

The blade of light bent and dispersed the impact. It was far too complete to be something improvised.

The regressor was stunned by a phenomenon she had never seen in all her regressions.

Holy swords were forged by tempering the faith held in one's heart. Only those whose faith in the Celestial God was deep and firm could draw one, which was why they were called the Holy Sword Corps.

The shining holy swords they held in their hearts were filled with divine power and cut down evil.

That was why they could always be drawn, and why they would not break as long as faith did not collapse.

They should have been.

"I told you. Faith... can change this easily."

Hilde's holy sword was a longsword, then a dagger, then a scythe, then a spear. Each time she took on a role, the strength granted by faith changed shape with it.

Faith was not eternal. It was an utterly subjective concept, so even power sent directly by the Celestial God could not distinguish an act taken to its extreme.

If its form changed, could the faith guaranteed by the Celestial God truly be called false?

Perhaps every role Hilde played was real.

Or perhaps humanity's faith had been an illusion from the beginning.

The two holy swords shifted through countless forms as they drove the regressor back. Yeonggwe of the Six Holy Stars returned the regressor's plan to stall for time in full.

Footnotes:

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