WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint

Chapter 004

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I Lifted the Veil and Peeked into the Future, But There Was Only…

"Everyone, rest easy! Tantalus is safe. I am your ally!"

Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint illustration

I shouted with fierce conviction, the kind of line that would put anyone at ease and send them right back to their daily lives.

But the regressor just scoffed at my speech.

'Our ally? What a joke. Does the military state even have allies?'

Huh. She's not buying it.

Well then, how about I show a little more warmth? They say there's no woman alive who hates cute animals, right?

Alright then. I glanced over at the King of Dogs and smiled.

I nudged the broken golem with my foot. The crystal orb that had been lodged in its eye socket popped free and rolled across the floor. I scooped it up with my foot and tossed it into the air a few times, catching it each time.

"Woof! Woof!"

The King of Dogs came bounding over, tail wagging furiously.

The King of Dogs may have had the form of a person, but at their core, they were a dog. Dogs went wild at the pull of their hunting instincts, and nothing triggered it quite like a game of fetch.

The King of Dogs locked their gaze onto the crystal orb, bouncing up and down each time I tossed it. The perked-up ears and bright, shining eyes practically radiated excitement. Once I felt I had their attention well and truly, I hurled the crystal orb with everything I had.

"Go fetch!"

"Woof!"

The orb arced through the air and sailed far into the distance. In that instant, the King of Dogs kicked off the ground and bolted after it, gone in a heartbeat.

Nothing beat a good game of fetch when it came to playing with a dog. I smiled warmly and struck up a conversation.

"What a cute little doggy. Do you keep them here?"

That ought to be enough to lower their guard a little. I glanced sideways at the regressor and read her thoughts.

Right then, let's see.

'Doggy? He’s treating the King of Dogs like... just a regular dog?'

Strange. I had clearly intended to put her at ease, but if anything, her wariness toward me had only grown. Why? Whenever I showed a friendly attitude toward animals around ordinary people, they always relaxed.

Let me try again.

"Dogs really are wonderful creatures, aren't they? They're loyal to people, useful, and above all, aren't they adorable? There aren't many animals that are so helpful without even needing to provide quality meat."

'...On top of that, she's treating the dog beastkin as completely beneath humans. And he even threw in a remark about them being livestock for their meat? Is he some kind of species supremacist?'

Well, that was an unexpected new misunderstanding to add to the pile.

More to the point, I hadn't been treating the dog beastkin as a dog. The King of Dogs, while they might look like a beastkin on the surface, was fundamentally a dog in a human's shape. What was the problem with treating a dog like a dog?

It wasn't like you would send an envoy to a queen ant. Even if they were the King of Dogs, sitting at the same table as a person was a different matter entirely.

"What I mean to say is, I've come here to establish a friendly relationship with all of you. I am..."

The very first step in connecting with another person was finding common ground.

Saying I was in the same boat as them, brought here against my will, would be the safe bet. They wouldn't have much reason to be on guard after hearing that.

That was what I was about to say.

'One year from now, Tantalus will collapse. The abyss will sink, and countless lives will fade with it. Only a handful will survive.'

...Huh.

Wait a moment.

Tantalus? This place was going to fall?

'The King of Dogs, Azzy... the Progenitor, Tyrkanzyaka. They both survive even as Tantalus crumbles... but for some reason, whatever happened to them in the depths of the abyss, they end up corrupted.'

And the progenitor of vampires who had once shook the very foundations of the world.

And the King of Dogs, who carried the will of all dogs... she would get corrupted? Actually corrupted?

'The corrupted seeds of ruin will accelerate the end that's set to arrive ten years from now. She’ll massacre people indiscriminately, plunge the world into chaos. And then…'

Ten years at the latest. When that day arrived, the one foretold as inevitable...

True "ruin" would come.

The world would end.

Having read that far, I was left completely dumbfounded.

Even when I was captured by the military state, even when I was dragged off to Tantalus, I had felt despair, yes, but I had always had confidence in my ability to push through it. My plan had been to use mind reading to keep the instructors and prisoners in good humor, build up a reputation, gradually dig out hidden secrets, and then use them, whether through blackmail or negotiation, to find a way out.

But what I had just read threw that entire plan into shambles.

A fixed future was, in and of itself, a tragedy and a despair. There was a reason so many prophets throughout history had taken their own lives or lost their minds.

And if what she thought meant the end was an inevitability drawing near...

...What was I supposed to do?

'And in every future I've seen, this man never appears.'

Of course I didn't appear. I was just a petty criminal. There was no reason someone like me would end up in a fight to save the world. What a ridiculous thought...

That was what I muttered inwardly, but the thought that followed froze my face solid.

'In the previous cycle, I came straight here after Tantalus collapsed. And this man wasn't there. There was nothing but a pile of corpses down below.'

The regressor stared me down and thought:

'A man who arrived at Tantalus late, at a time like this. He might be a corrupted seed of ruin. Or he could just be an unlucky victim... but one thing is certain: this man doesn't exist in any future I know.'

So, to sum it all up.

This world ended in ten years.

And I was going to die in the abyss before that end even arrived?

"Ha… Hahaha."

The laugh came out of me, hollow with disbelief.

My entire life had just been spoiled for me.

And the ending, of all things, was a tragedy. Given what kind of place Tantalus was, the death waiting for me down here would be something too gruesome to even put into words.

I had read the thoughts of a regressor who had seen the future, and in doing so, I had read the future itself. Just like so many prophets before me.

But…

I was different from them.

This cycle had a regressor in it, and I had read her thoughts. A regressor was someone who crossed through time to alter the past and chase after futures that should never exist. Since I had read her thoughts, the future of my death could change as well. A prophecy that had been observed could always be rewritten.

Don't tense up. Loosen the body. Wear a smile like a mask and step forward with confidence.

Same as it had always been. When had I ever survived by being strong? The strong, I made into allies. If they became enemies, I avoided them. What I needed to survive was never strength, it was knowledge.

The same applied to fate as a great and terrible opponent. There was no need to fight it head-on. All I had to do was make sure fate had no reason to kill me.

Fortunately, I had the pieces I needed.

The Progenitor of vampires.

The King of Dogs.

And the regressor.

I would earn their goodwill. Build a friendly relationship. Cultivate bonds and ties, and make sure they would not kill me. No, better yet, I would make them want to protect me.

I would survive. By whatever means necessary.

Good. My mind was made up.

In the previous cycle, the version of me that existed back then had probably told them everything honestly. That I was a laborer, that I had been brought here by the military state just like them, that we were absolutely not enemies. I would have tried to persuade them and then quietly kept my distance from these dangerous individuals, trying not to get entangled with them any more than necessary. That would have been the best strategy for surviving.

But now that I had read the future, stubbornly clinging to the original plan would be nothing short of foolishness. The only way to seize a different future was to avoid the choices that had been made before.

I would run a con on fate itself. I would become a different person from the me of before, the me of the previous run.

I lifted my chin high and shouted out loud.

"Because I'm the instructor sent by the military state, here to guide the trainees!"

"Instructor?"

The regressor asked, her eyes sharp.

Impersonating a soldier in the military state was a serious crime. But so what? Getting caught as an impersonator was still better than dying in a year.

Since I had made up my mind to get actively involved, having some kind of title to wear would make things a lot easier when it came to showing my face around. I announced it shamelessly.

"That's right, trainees! Each of you possesses extraordinarily dangerous abilities and volatile temperaments. Due to a severe lack of social skills, you were to undergo socialization training here at Tantalus, completely isolated from the rest of the world! However, as you know, something unfortunate has occurred here!"

I repeated back the very words the arcane golem had spoken, and continued.

"In response to this mass escape incident, the military authorities determined that re-socialization training for the dangerous trainees was urgently needed, and so they dispatched me directly! I will be living here, managing and overseeing all of you!"

I had just changed the very first variable.

Such a small, trivial change of a step. And yet, even this alone would reshape the future dramatically. The circumstances I would be placed in, the position I would hold, all of it would shift in a substantial way from here on out...

But wait.

If we were talking about variables... I narrowed my brows and glanced at the regressor.

Wasn't the regressor herself a variable too, someone who hadn't been in Tantalus during the previous run? A variable had already appeared. Had there really been any need for me to step in?

A vague regret began to creep in, the sense that I might have made a needless move, and just as it did,

"Instructor... I see. So that's what you're saying."

A cold killing intent pierced straight through me.

Before I even had time to process it, she had already drawn Skywarbler. Her sharp hostility toward the military state was near-explosive, almost reflexive. That hostility had taken on a clear and defined shape, and it was pointed directly at me.

I had made a mistake.

Because I knew she had the power of regression, the absurd ability to return to the past upon death, I had let my guard down. I had overestimated her based on her power alone. I had mistaken the composed gaze she had been watching me with for a kind of inner peace.

It had simply been the detached, observational look that regressors tended to carry.

Having undergone thirteen regressions to grow stronger meant, in other words, that she had died thirteen times.

Which meant this woman was a walking mass of post-traumatic stress, and seven of those deaths had been caused directly or indirectly by the military state, a grudge worth seven lives.

'I'll kill him.'

The killing intent swelled up out of nowhere. The sheer volatility of her emotions was enough to raise questions about her mental health. Well, dying thirteen times over, it wouldn't be strange to be carrying around a diagnosis or two, but I hadn't expected her to actually swing the blade right then and there.

And yet the trajectory of that swing passed right through my right arm.

'First, I'll sever one arm and start from there. Then interrogate him. Find out what business he has in a prison where all the prisoners have escaped, what exactly he's "after."'

Had I accidentally hit some kind of self-destruct switch? Or was this the coercive force of fate at work?

Whatever it was, the immediate reality before me was this: a weightless sword was being swung at my right shoulder.

Skywarbler was a sword without weight, without thickness. Compared to Skywarbler's speed, my body was agonizingly slow. All it would take was a flick of the regressor's wrist for the transparent blade to stretch outward.

The future became visible to me. The future where Skywarbler grazed my shoulder and my right arm dropped away with a clean cut. If I had been an ordinary person, I wouldn't have been able to react in time and my arm would have simply been gone.

But I read thoughts.

Just a moment before the regressor swung her sword, I sensed the killing intent and worked my mind at full speed.

Block it? Impossible. My opponent had honed her abilities through thirteen regressions. If I tried to take a defensive stance, I would get cut right through it.

Dodge it? Not fast enough. Even having read her thoughts and moved first, Skywarbler's speed was far too great. The best outcome from dodging would only change which part of my arm got cut, from the shoulder down to the upper arm.

What options were left?

None.

Wait. Was I actually about to die? Was it not a year from now but literally a minute from now?

That couldn't happen.

I had to survive. I had to keep this miserable life of mine going by whatever means it took.

After all the desperate, undignified, wretched ways I had scraped by to survive in those back alleys. After everything I had endured.

I hadn't survived all of that just to lose my life in some abyss like this.

I had no particular strength, no special talents. But there was one power left I could fall back on.

Mind reading. The ability to read the hearts of others. On the edge of death, I pushed that one and only power of mine to its absolute limit.

The regressor was strong. So strong, in fact, that she could know precisely at what moment and where her sword would arrive. She had reached a level, one attainable only through the most extreme refinement of her energy, where her body moved entirely according to her will.

And because of that, I too knew precisely at what moment and where the regressor's sword would arrive.

It didn't matter that I couldn't see it. It didn't matter how fast it was.

Because I knew the one swinging it, I could know it as well.

Of course, knowing didn't guarantee I could stop it. If that were the case, everyone would have succeeded. But it did give me a chance.

Gritting my teeth, I snapped my fingers in a reflexive burst of motion toward the nearest point I could reach. A desperate gambit, drawing on the technique I had once drilled into myself by flicking playing cards with my fingers. Nothing more than a frantic act of survival, just to push the odds of making it out alive up by even 0.1%.

But then, a person could only be saved if they first tried to save themselves.

'What?!'

Ping. A clear, bright sound rang out. Ripples spread across the transparent blade. The trajectory bent ever so slightly and grazed just a hair above my right shoulder.

Sparks flashed along the path of the blade. Skywarbler was a sword that could even cut through air itself, and the air caught on the blade shattered, leaving behind something like a bolt of lightning pruned cleanly at both ends. A heartbeat later, thunder rolled in and battered my eardrums.

Every hair on my body stood on end. Whether from the static electricity or from sheer terror, even I couldn't tell.

'He deflected Skywarbler? With a finger flick?!'

Huh? Did I survive?

Arm, intact. Body condition, normal. Pain, none.

I was alive. Skywarbler had gone off course.

Wait, hold on.

Had Skywarbler actually hit my hand and gotten deflected?

That actually worked?

'He blocked it, but not even properly... he deflected it with just a flick of his finger? That's impossible. He didn't look that strong...! Is he hiding her real power?'

Deflecting a blade with a finger snap was something that should not have been possible under normal circumstances. But the regressor's sword was Skywarbler, the weightless sword. Formed by gathering space itself, the blade bent the moment it made contact with my finger, and thanks to that paper-thin margin, I managed to avoid losing my arm.

And it actually worked. Wow. I had accomplished something that happened only a handful of times in a life.

No wait, that wasn't the point.

The stunned regressor lurched backward, putting distance between us as she leveled her sword. Up until moments ago she had been the one doing a job. Now she had shifted into something else, a kind of wariness toward a formidable opponent.

Unbelievable. Why was she the one going on guard? Shouldn't I, the one who had just been attacked out of nowhere, be the one doing that?

"...I made a mistake."

You certainly did. A big one. I had nearly just lost my life.

The regressor stared me down with the eyes of a cat cornered in a tight spot, every muscle in her body coiled and tense.

"If you were being dispatched as an instructor to Tantalus, you'd need to be at least that capable... I apologize for underestimating you."

"Well. You're apologizing for the wrong thing, aren't you?"

I was grateful, on some level, that she had impulsively elevated my status by overestimating me, but now was not the time for that. If the regressor labeled me as an "enemy," not only my future but the version of me in every future run would be in danger.

Honestly. Having been attacked out of nowhere was infuriating, and I was seething inside. But we were both trapped in Tantalus together, for better or worse. We were going to be seeing each other's faces for months.

No matter how much this person had wronged me, at least for now, I needed to keep things pointed in a friendly direction.

So…

"The apology isn't for underestimating me. It should be for attacking someone without warning! Do you have no sense of basic decency?"

The sudden scolding made the regressor's brows draw together. I ran a hand through my hair in a show of exasperation and looked around.

"I understand your anxiety. Something truly awful happened here only a few days ago, starting a riot and killing people, looting equipment, even breaking out of prison. It's only natural to have lost faith in the state that was supposed to protect you. I understand that. The fact that you suspect the state, that's a burden I have to carry as someone who draws their pay from it."

'I never trusted the state in the first place. Why would I ever trust a country like that.'

"But!"

I don't either. Just let it go!

I cut right into the regressor's thoughts and shouted.

"Even so, that kind of aggressive attitude is not acceptable! You're already here because of crimes you've committed, and on top of that, if you're going to conduct yourself with such a complete lack of social grace, what do you think becomes of me, the person who came here to help you?!"

"Help... you said?"

"That's right!"

Just then, the King of Dogs came trotting back with the crystal orb in its mouth and set it down at my feet. It was nudging my calf with its nose, as if to say to stop babbling and throw the ball already.

Tch. What an annoying interruption in the middle of a speech.

I grabbed the crystal orb and hurled it straight toward the prison.

"Go fetch!"

"Woof!"

As the King of Dogs bounded off after the ball sailing into the distance, I turned back to the regressor and spoke.

"Even in the middle of all that chaos, all of you stayed put and waited, without breaking out of the training facility. A light always appears in the darkest of times. The upper echelons of the military state have been watching very closely, with great interest, those of you who managed to hold your ground and abide by the rules even at the heart of such fear and turmoil."

'No. The King of Dogs has no intention of escaping until their "promise" is fulfilled, and the Progenitor of vampires was asleep the whole time. And as for me, I stayed because there's something I need to do here.'

Every time I said something, she found something to pick at. Why was this person so relentlessly negative? Just accept it for once.

People like her were the type to dig up counterarguments the moment they were given even a second to think. I pushed forward without leaving the regressor any room to breathe.

"That is precisely why I was dispatched directly! To support all of you, the upper echelons of the military state dispatched me here personally!"

It wasn't a lie. I had been dispatched here to perform labor, after all. And it was true that the upper echelons had sent me. It was just that, to them, they had simply needed disposable workers they could work to death without anyone caring.

But as the saying went, it was all in how you phrased it. If you shifted the emphasis not to "support" but to "me,"

"So I look forward to working with all of you from here on out! Just trust me and follow my lead, trainees!"

You could make the other person mistake you for someone great.

And if everyone came to believe it.

'There's just no reading this one.'

You actually became someone great.

"Woof!"

As if on cue, the King of Dogs came padding back with the orb again. No matter how far I threw it, she found it and brought it back every single time without fail. I just kicked the orb straight without thinking. My foot stung from hitting the hard crystal, but that pain wasn't wasted, because the orb flew farther than it ever had before. The King of Dogs went panting after it once more.

'The way he handles the King of Dogs with such ease... that composed, unhurried movement that deflected Skywarbler... This one is impossible to measure. I have no way of reading how strong he really is. Not with where I am right now...'

Of course there was no way to measure it. In terms of raw strength, I was nothing more than an insect on the roadside. Someone who had rubbed shoulders with outliers like the Sword Saint and the Holy Maiden would have absolutely no concept of the life a true insect led. Those who stood at the top could never understand the hearts of those at the bottom.

But I could understand hers.

In any case, it was a success. I clenched my fist.

Humans were animals at their core. When faced with the unknown, they instinctively felt danger and became wary. Ignorance was the same as danger, and keeping one's distance from danger was the foundational principle of survival.

So she wouldn't be moving against me carelessly anytime soon.

That said, we couldn't keep circling each other with suspicion in this cramped abyss indefinitely. At the very least, a neutral stance needed to be maintained. I put on a gentle smile and extended my hand toward the regressor.

The regressor flinched and raised Skywarbler toward my arm. If she had put any force into it, my arm would have been cut clean as tofu.

But if I pulled back here out of fear, it would be the same as showing her exactly where to bite. Keeping up the act of composure, I extended my hand toward her without so much as a tremor in my fingertips and offered a handshake.

"Then, as a gesture of getting along well from here on out, shall we shake on it?"

The regressor looked back and forth between the offered hand and my face, then with a flick of her wrist, sent Skywarbler sailing away and turned her back to me.

"...Hmph. As if I know what you're planning."

"Now hold on. Wasn't I the one who just got attacked? The one who swung the sword is acting like the victim here."

Thanks to reading the regressor's thoughts, I had caught a glimpse of a future I had no business knowing. Just one layer deep, only able to peer into the person standing right before me, and yet I had come to grasp the flow of the world like some prophet who could see the currents of fate itself.

I wouldn't have known if she hadn't let me read it. But now it was different.

They say fate was like something bashful, turning away the moment it was glimpsed. If it was going to hide anyway, I hoped it would disappear for good. A petty, stubborn fate that had been trying to kill me was one I could absolutely do without.

"Then, allow me to introduce myself. You may address me with all due respect as instructor-nim."

I gave my own chest a quiet tap and made a vow to myself.

I would survive. No matter what it took. Even if fate was telling me I was going to die, I would deceive that fate too.

The regressor, who had been watching me with eyes full of wariness, finally tossed Skywarbler upward with a flick of her wrist and gave a short answer.

"...Shei."

And at the same time, her quiet resolve drifted into my ears.

'For now, I'll keep watching. If it really comes to it, I can always give up on this cycle and carry over to the next one.'

Fortunately, it seemed the regressor had decided to simply observe for the time being. Someone who had died before really was cut from a different cloth. Even thinking I was a threat, she was the type to first see what would unfold before making a move. It was a certain comfort regressors had, or perhaps just a small habit of curiosity, a tendency to watch and wait for even the smallest clue.

The regressor looked up at me.

'...Having to live alongside such a flippant man is unsettling. But the others won't be so easy to handle either.'

What kind of eyes were those to look at someone with? The ones over there were a dog in a person's costume and a corpse that had been dead for over a thousand years. What strange thoughts were running through her head about a dog and a corpse? I was not someone with unusual preferences. My tastes were thoroughly ordinary, entirely appropriate for any average human being.

'And I'm also in perfect male disguise, so it should be fine!'

Ah.

Well then.

So that was how it was.

Having to spend months living alongside a regressor who was completely convinced she was passing perfectly as a man was not going to be easy at all.

I muttered that to myself on the inside, and then turned toward Shei with a somewhat strained smile.

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