WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 457: Escape from the Principality no.4

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Step.

I took a step across the damp earth. Grains of soil gathered together and strained to bear my weight. Once I lifted my foot, they should have been able to rest in that shape, but some force lightly raised them back into place. The footprint left in the ground vanished like a ghost the moment I moved on.

"Merciful Earth Mother even erases the marks left by treading on her, pretending not to see them."

Snap.

A branch I brushed past broke and drooped. Then a fresh shoot sprouted from the broken spot and quickly grew into a new branch. Thick branches and leaves filled the gap more densely than before.

"Nature's overflowing vitality restores the forest damaged by beasts."

Earth arts and druidism. I erased our traces using the remnants of two Demon Gods. Watching me use a Demon God's power, Hilde pointed at me as if she had been wronged.

"That's cheating! You're stomping around like you're announcing, 'Here I am,' then erasing everything with a Demon God's power! I'm the one putting my all into every step, and even I feel cheated!"

What was that supposed to mean? I erased footprints with earth arts and made grass grow with druidism. Why was that a problem? If she felt cheated, then so did I. I pointed back at Hilde.

"At least I'm using a Demon God's power. Isn't Hilde more unfair for doing all that with energy arts? A Demon God's power is supposed to be greater, so why is it worse than energy arts?"

"Father got that power for free, but my energy arts are the result of more than ten years of training and real combat! Of course I feel deprived!"

"Please. A Demon God is a flower bloomed by an exceptional genius, one who stood out even in the thousands of years of accumulated human history. It makes no sense to think you can compete with that after only a few years of training."

"You didn't bloom it yourself!"

"I'm the King of Humanity. Anything humans did might as well be my achievement. What's the problem with the king making a little use of it?"

"You weren't even around!"

When we found a patch of brush suitable for hiding, we got off the horse. We had set up a device so it could run on its own, but even so, an uncontrolled horse would not keep racing down the road forever.

That was fine. We could hide our tracks anyway, and simply leaving our pursuers with that possibility was an advantage.

"Leaving tracks, or rather, erasing the tracks Father would leave, was my biggest concern, so this is a relief! I was considering carrying Father while I ran!"

"Oh!"

"What do you mean, 'Oh'?! I'm not carrying you unless you run out of stamina!"

"You'd carry me if I ran out of stamina? Wow. Even if I had a real daughter, she wouldn't be more filial than Hilde."

"My filial devotion is starting to run dry too, you know?"

"Filial devotion is the kind of resource that can run dry? Our ancestors would weep if they heard that."

"Did Father have ancestors?"

No. I did not even have a daughter. Whether it ran dry or not, Hilde's mine of filial devotion could not be developed in the first place. She was not actually my daughter.

I nodded.

That self-proclaimed daughter, who was older than me, grumbled while sticking to the act.

"Even a well needs a little moisture before it can give water. Refill my filial devotion before it dries up completely."

"Fine. Good work."

"Woooow. That feels so rewarding."

While Hilde was complaining, I caught a faint thought from beyond the ridge behind us. It belonged to a Yeiling directly under Baron Zenryu, a member of the Dark Knights. Before the vampire caught sight of us, I hurried over to Hilde and covered her mouth.

"Mmph? Mmph mmph?"

"Shh. Get down!"

Hilde tilted her head, but she soon noticed the presence approaching like a ghost. There was no need to explain. Holding on to Hilde, I lay flat on the ground. Vines rose at my will and wrapped around us in a thick cover of leaves.

Not long after, that ghostly presence passed close by.

Hilde and I held our breath as though we had agreed to it beforehand.

Vampires were not sensitive in every way. They could see through darkness far better than humans and had an extraordinary sense of smell for blood, but they could not keenly detect other scents, faint body odors, or the warmth carried in someone's breath.

Still, it would be unfair to call that a vampire's weakness. Hilde and I could sense each other clearly because we were pressed close together. An ordinary human would have failed to find us in the brush as well. It was only a little disappointing. A human trained in energy arts would have noticed us... though I would have hidden underground by then.

The vampire's presence moved farther away. Once I confirmed there was enough distance between us, I slowly withdrew the vines and rose. Hilde was crouched over me like a cat, feeling out the vampire's presence.

"There, there. Now you understand how amazing I am, right? Get up."

"As expected of Father! I think my filial devotion recovered a little!"

Hilde placed a hand on my shoulder and slowly raised her upper body. She peeked her head out, looked to either side, and spoke with a puzzled expression.

"Just one pursuer? Hmm. Searching like this would not be very meaningful."

"What do you mean it isn't meaningful? If it weren't for me, we would have been caught."

"That isn't important. What matters is that they passed right by us without seeing us."

Hilde slowly rose to her feet.

"The virtue of a pursuit is numbers. They need to maintain enough density so no one can slip through a gap in the encirclement. The moment they begin to wonder, 'What if we passed them by?' the pursuit has already failed. But... no matter how I look at it, they don't seem to have enough people for that."

That made sense. This was the Fog Duchy, a land where sunlight did not even reach except at the northern and southern edges. They lived well by herding sheep and diving for seafood, but the land's capacity to support a population was inevitably limited.

It was still a country, so they would have quite a number if they gathered everyone.

"The duchy probably doesn't want to use humans in situations where they might get hurt. They're valuable resources."

"That way of thinking is flawed from the start! Deciding not to use humans because they might get hurt! What investment comes without losses? You need to commit if you want results!"

"That sounds like military state thinking. What a rotten country. I really don't want to live there."

"You say that, but the countries properly smashed to pieces were the Lesser States and the duchy, weren't they? The military state and its communications officers are still standing, aren't they? Your mouth says one thing, but your body is honest!"

Hilde grinned. Anyone listening would think I went around wrecking countries. I had only taken off clothes that did not fit.

"Now that they have passed through here once, their encirclement will gradually widen. We haven't gone farther than them, but their net is thinner now, so it should be easier to slip through. We could rest for a moment. How is your stamina, Father?"

"I'm full of energy. It would be better to move more during the night."

"You've gotten quite lively, haven't you? That seems a little different from what I've seen so far."

...She was right.

Moving took less effort. Normally, if I stayed active for a long time, the muscles I used would become overworked and ache. Now it felt as if something invisible wrapped around my body and moved me. Not only that, but I could directly picture how my blood flowed and how my body moved.

Was this the Demon God's power?

It was not an exact comparison, but in terms of qi arts, it felt like I had fully mastered Water Qi Art. Unlike true energy arts, though, I did not have the inner strength to release it. Compared to a real energy practitioner, I would be far weaker.

"Energy arts? It seems a little different from what I've seen before. Were you hiding your strength until now, or did you learn something in the duchy?"

"Secret. No comment."

She was more or less right, but explaining sounded bothersome, so I brushed it off. Hilde thrust her face closer and protested.

"Why? What secrets could there be between us?"

"Asking about someone else's energy arts is rude to begin with... And Hilde is more mysterious than I am, when I've already shown all my cards."

"Me? What about me?"

"Of course you are. You use energy arts, shapeshifting, and divine power. You were in the Holy Sword Corps, then you went through an oracle and secretly became one of the military state's Six Generals. Isn't that stranger? If you put it in an autobiography, it would be so turbulent that readers would think it was written by someone with a split personality."

Comparing it to an autobiography was purely my own impression. It was one thing to live while acting, but if the narrator and behavior changed every time, I thought I would lose my mind reading it too.

"Ahh. I didn't know Father took such an interest in me! I thought you were neglectful, so that makes me a little happy."

"Neglectful or not, I never raised you in the first place. Why do you call me Father instead of calling your actual father that?"

When I asked the question that had bothered me most, Hilde wore a sly expression and walked ahead. With her back to me, she said,

"If I had a father, would I call Father 'Father'?"

Oh? Was she going to make me feel awkward by emphasizing that she had no parents? Hah, not a chance. I was the King of Humanity. I was an orphan from birth, popping into existence without parents or anything else. Just like humanity as a species.

Trying to win sympathy from me with a lack of parents would not work. I casually pried into Hilde's family circumstances.

"Do I resemble Hilde's father?"

"No. You don't resemble any of them."

"Any of them?"

Why was she using the plural for her father? Then I remembered the memory I had read before.

Hilde's mother had been a courtesan. If she became pregnant without knowing it herself, it was possible she would not know who the father was...

But then why did she call me Father? She had not explained that at all!

No matter how hard I thought, I could not find a clear explanation. Even Hilde herself could not think of a proper reason she called me Father.

Because I saw through her true nature at a glance? Then she should have called Yuel Mother too! She had called me that without much reason back then as well!

In any case, I could not bring up something I learned through mind reading first. How should I respond to Hilde's strange statement...?

"Why do you call your father 'them'?"

"Who knows~. Want to guess?"

The reason she referred to her father in the plural. An ordinary person who was not a mind reader would naturally be curious about that. This was it. I voiced the answer that came to mind.

"With all due respect, could your mother perhaps have... well, mixed cocktails...?"

By the time I wondered whether that was not it, it was already too late. Hilde suddenly turned and stepped close. Her body pressed tightly against mine, and then pain shot through the top of my foot.

Hilde had stomped on it hard.

I could not even scream for fear of alerting the pursuers, and while I swallowed the pain, Hilde leaned close to my ear and whispered.

"Even if you guess right, there are things you should and shouldn't say~."

She started it herself.

Footnotes:

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