WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 465: Abandoned in the Mountains

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Food tastes best when you're starving, and sleep is sweetest when you're exhausted. I lay in an underground tunnel on a spread-out blanket, yet I had never felt so comfortable in my life.

Of course. My fatigue had built up over three days, and I had finally slept it all off at once. How could I not feel refreshed?

The way to feel light isn't to carry nothing. You have to lift something heavy, then put it down. Humans are creatures of adaptation, so we feel every stimulus in relative terms. Feeling much lighter, I sprang to my feet...

Huh. I feel light?

That was strange. I was sure Hilde had been sleeping nearby last night. Why didn't I feel any weight on me?

The reason was simple. Hilde wasn't beside me.

Did she go out? Leaving me behind? What had she found that was so good?

With a hint of anticipation, I threw aside the blanket and looked for my clothes. That was when I spotted a small slip of paper tucked into my bio-terminal. I couldn't have put it there in my sleep, so Hilde must have. I unfolded the crumpled note and read it.

[To Father. Your snoring is so loud that I can't sleep beside you! This young lady is leaving to find her own life. So Father, please live your own life too. Don't miss me. That is all.]

Who says I snore? And why bring up finding herself now, after keeping up that self-discovery act this whole time? Besides, I'm not her father. And I wasn't going to miss her either. How could a letter this short contain so many errors?

As I coldly examined every sentence, I suddenly felt as though I had overlooked something important. What was it? This letter sounded an awful lot like she intended to go her separate way.

"Huh? Did I get abandoned?"

No matter how I looked at it, that was what it meant. Reading between the lines, she was saying she would leave me behind, so I should take care of myself.

That was ridiculous. It had to be a joke, right? I'm ordinary and fragile. Without an escort, I couldn't even escape an Ain, never mind an Elder! Dumbfounded, I turned toward the tunnel entrance.

It had to be a prank. Obviously. Before long, she would come back into the tunnel saying, "It was a joke~." Just as I expected...

"Huh? It's a rat hole!"

A different girl came in.

She was completely unlike Hilde, from her face to her mindset. She was a mountain girl born and raised in the nearby village, with every intention of living there for the rest of her life. The girl who had found the tunnel shouted without coming closer.

"Uncle! I found a rat hole! It's huge!"

"Matilda! Don't go any closer. Stay where you are! Chief Biritear told us not to approach carelessly before nightfall!"

"Why? I can catch rats too!"

"An ordinary rat wouldn't live in a hole that big! Come back! We'll keep watch, so hurry!"

The girl seemed dissatisfied, but thankfully, she didn't come any closer and simply retreated. I was saved. At least I would be safe until nightfall...

No.

At night, even if my opponent was only a Yeiling, I couldn't guarantee victory. When fighting vampires, do it during the day. That was an ironclad rule.

If I really wanted to escape, I needed to rush out of this tunnel immediately, but there was one problem.

I'm weak against multiple opponents.

In a one-on-one fight, I could catch my opponent off guard. In a many-on-many battle, I could find gaps in their awareness amid the chaos and slip through.

But many against one was another story. My style of fighting was all mind games. My only trick was catching people off guard with hidden cards.

Yet as everyone knew, numbers were the most important thing in a mind game. Even the best gambler couldn't win money in a rigged game. The number of cards you could play was different.

And these were ordinary villagers who had entrusted their safety to a vampire. Amateurs who barely knew how to fight. To a professional like me, an amateur's ignorance was more frightening. Escaping uninjured from more than a dozen grown men who didn't even know where their spears would swing was close to impossible. Especially if they surrounded the tunnel entrance.

In other words, only one option remained.

"Up!"

I'd break through above my head and escape their encirclement. That was all. Thankfully, I didn't need to pass through the Yeiling's hut. I could move a little to the side with earth arts.

Earth arts weren't all-powerful. It wasn't as though I could manipulate the ground like sand in a sandbox. When I borrowed Jizan's power, I could split the earth and do things like that, but without it, earth arts were ordinary. All I could do was dig through the ground like a worm without damaging the earth's structure. It sounded ridiculous, but it was useful enough. From this tunnel, I made a passage slanting upward.

Parting the soil gently, I crawled up the tunnel quickly on my knees.

Had she sensed my movements? The vampire's thoughts echoed above my head.

'You're parting the earth and moving forward. I thought you were a rat, but it seems you really did have the power of one.'

Hmph. What could you do about it? What could a Yeiling who couldn't even use her strength properly under sunlight do? Snorting, I pushed the earth upward with my earth arts. Morning sunlight flickered through the falling dirt.

'If you believed someone who has lived five hundred years couldn't deal with something so simple, you were mistaken.'

Huh? What did that mean?

I tried to read Biritear's thoughts, but the Yeiling reacted faster than I could.

Tch, this was why vampires were troublesome. They had lived too long, making it hard to read everything at once.

Who would have thought the vampire had spent so long taking control of the entire building?

The vampire's hut had a timber frame covered in hides to block the sunlight. Biritear bled within the building. She might only be a Yeiling, but she could still move a house.

Grrrkkk.

The hut scraped across the ground as it moved. Soil that suddenly had to bear an enormous weight poured down over my head. If I stayed still, I would be buried alive. I quickly shoved the mound of soil upward and burst out.

A girl in a dress stood before me, her red eyes gleaming in the darkness.

"You're out, little rat."

It was Biritear, the village chief and a Yeiling of the Blood Leech bloodline. I greeted the vampire I had suddenly come face-to-face with in a friendly manner.

"Squeak, squeak."

"You still have room to joke. Are you an alchemist from the Lesser States, if you can swim through earth? Or someone from the Church of the Earth Mother? ...No."

Chief Biritear reached out and picked up her weapons. A fork and knife, things closer to tableware than weapons, but there were no weapons more suitable for the Blood Leech bloodline, whose battles were meals.

"How about we put away the cutlery and talk first?"

As I cautiously tried to rise, Chief Biritear approached with the fork and knife held in a reverse grip.

"Fine. I'll talk to you. After I hang you on a hook."

Damn it!

My opponent was a Yeiling. A vampire of the Blood Leech bloodline, with immense strength and immortality. As befitted the Blood Leech bloodline, her bloodcraft was somewhat lacking, but she could perfectly control any blood she had made her own. By the military state's standards, Biritear was a general-level powerhouse.

Unlike the energy techniques wrapped around one's body, a vampire's bloodcraft was life itself, making it extremely stable. In terms of burst firepower, military state generals who actively used energy techniques and equipment would be stronger. But while a general could die from one vulnerable opening... a Yeiling would not die.

Even the "Shadow" I fought in the military state was far stronger than I was, but they had needed to probe me first. Approaching without knowing my abilities could be dangerous.

Chief Biritear had no need to do that.

There was no danger.

"If you don't resist, I'll spare you by eating only your right arm."

"My right arm again?! Why is everyone in the world so obsessed with right arms?!"

My scream did nothing to stop the knife as it swung for my shoulder. I could read the thought behind it, but it was too fast for me to respond properly. Until now, stronger people had protected me, but this time I was alone.

Damn it. I worked so hard to keep this right arm...! I had to stop it somehow!

But my pathetic body wouldn't move the way I wanted it to...

Huh?

"Huh? It's moving."

Thud.

My hand blocked Biritear's wrist. I felt considerable strength, but my hand was only slowly pushed back. It was still holding.

I had read her thoughts and reacted, but I was keeping up surprisingly well? Until now, even after reading their thoughts, I could barely keep up with their speed and strength.

Was this the Demon God's influence? Come to think of it, my body had felt easier to move lately.

"So it isn't only your mouth that has room to spare."

"Yours should have a little more room to spare. You have plenty of time, so instead of baring our fangs like this, why don't we talk it out? I don't mean we should kiss, so don't worry."

I even threw in a simple joke, but it didn't seem to reach the vampire. Chief Biritear immediately twisted her wrist. Instead of my shoulder, the knife's edge turned toward my arm.

It was an attack meant to draw blood rather than strike. And the moment I started bleeding, it would be all over. Wounds inflicted by vampires did not heal easily.

I knocked away Chief Biritear's hand and rummaged through my waist pouch. The only useful cards I had were skewers and two steel wires. Why did I have so few cards? Vowing to replenish them someday, I hurled cards at Biritear.

It was a desperate attempt to keep the vampire away, but Biritear didn't care even as cards embedded themselves in her body.

First, run. I leaped over the vampire's chair and headed for the wall. The vampire followed leisurely behind me.

"Run all you like. This hut will not open until I permit it."

"What thief asks the owner for permission before entering and leaving a house? Goodbye!"

That didn't matter. I pressed the Demon God's card containing the elixir against my palm and slammed it into the wall.

The Lord of Gold's cards transformed all matter into cards. A vampire's hut was no exception. This was the Demon God's power. Witness it clearly...

Then dozens of cards burst from where my hand met the wall like a rushing current. Part of the hut was changing into cards.

But I didn't get the result I wanted.

The wall that should have turned into cards and collapsed remained exactly where it was.

"Didn't I tell you? You entered with my permission... but you cannot leave without it."

Chief Biritear muttered as she gathered overflowing blood energy in her hand. Blood that had flowed from Biritear swirled madly along the building's walls. My cards transformed part of the hut, but in that instant, the blood clumped together and filled the wall.

The Blood Leech bloodline's ability was Gluttony. Even among bloodcraft, it was a kind especially difficult to manifest externally. I had let my guard down a little because of that... but only after reading Chief Biritear's thoughts right in front of me did I finally realize what she had done.

For a long time, Chief Biritear had shared and infused her authority into this hut, turning it into something like her own body.

"The moment you entered this hut, it was over. You are inside my stomach."

Plates, chairs, a huge cauldron, and a fire poker. Every household item in the hut slowly began to move.

As though they were alive.

Was this what a witch's house from a fairy tale looked like? The furniture that had received Biritear's blood gradually pressed in on me.

Footnotes:

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