WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 490

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Ende's Spring - 3

The marching crowd of Piggies, screaming at the top of their lungs and hoisting their pickets, left the regressor thoroughly rattled. Once for the sheer numbers, and again for what they were actually doing. Having read the signs, the regressor quickly fell back to my side.

"What on earth is that?!"

I answered without much fuss.

"A peaceful protest."

"A peaceful protest?"

"Yes. No weapons, just pickets and chanting while they march. How much more peaceful can you get?"

"Woof!"

The people around us were murmuring with confusion or irritation, but nothing was boiling over. No fighting meant Azzy looked perfectly at ease.

The one exception, the regressor, wore a headache on her face.

"Why now, when the King of Wolves is about to come crashing in?"

"Maybe that's exactly why they're protesting. Fighting the King of Wolves goes smoother when there's no unrest in the city, doesn't it? Now that Ende is under pressure, the timing is perfect for them."

"I didn't see this coming. It's throwing me off."

That was the honest truth of her position. The regressor scowled and scratched the back of her neck, muttering to herself.

"Frankly, we can fight just fine without them. Among the pig-kin, Gruel's the only one worth much."

Even so, more allies was always better. Even if they were no immediate use to me, it was better than having them go to the other side.

"But if they muddy the waters too much, that's a problem. One accident and Gruel splits, and the rest of the beastkin split with him. If the pig-kin end up siding with the Werewolves because we handle this badly, things get messy. Let's deal with it."

Having made up her mind, the regressor drew Jizan and Skywarbler and stepped forward. I hadn't caught what she was thinking until the very moment she moved, and I lunged to grab her shoulder.

"Whoa! Why?!"

"Why? What exactly are you planning to do?"

"Rough them up a little, tell them to back off."

"You want to suppress them by force? A protest this peaceful? The backlash will be ten times worse!"

The regressor knew that much herself. She just had a compulsion to resolve the situation, any way she could. She turned it back on me.

"Then what do you suggest? Let them cause a scene all day?"

"We might stab them in the back later, but for now we need to promise them something, smooth things over, and send them home!"

"...Stab them in the back?"

"Obviously. Isn't that the easiest way through this? Buy time first, deal with the fallout later."

Pretending to meet the other side's demands while just running down the clock is the most basic move in politics. The more desperate the situation, the more effective it is.

'...He says that so openly. Shameless.'

Shameless? They're the shameless ones! They're holding the city's crisis hostage to push their demands! That's just politics!

'But she has a point. Brute force would cause its own problems.'

"Fine. So what's the plan?"

"Why are you asking me? Oberli is the one who'd be making promises. Mr. Shei, go to Oberli and bring back someone who can negotiate."

"And what are you doing?"

"Me? Do I have to do something too?"

"Of course you do! Don't treat this like it's someone else's problem! Fighting the King of Wolves is your job, yours and Azzy's!"

Azzy and I looked at each other and tilted our heads in unison. That was true enough, but still. The city's politics moved regardless of what I wanted, which made things awkward. Honestly, these people weren't fighting to help me and Azzy, they were fighting for themselves. It happened to be useful to us, but still.

Complicated. Genuinely complicated.

"Fine. I just have to stop the commotion, right?"

"Can you actually do that?"

"There are plenty of ways. Which one to pick is the question."

I straightened my collar and pulled my robe low over my face. In Ende, a suspicious outfit was just a personal statement. I walked toward the thick of the crowd and waved back at the regressor.

"Mr. Shei, head to Oberli and get someone. I'll disperse the protesters down here."

"Oh, really? That'll work?"

"You pushed me to act, and now that I'm acting you ask if it'll work. Are you two different people?"

'I'm not exactly confident in him, but I am curious how he'll pull this off. Does the King of Humanity actually have a way to handle this?'

It's not because I'm the King of Humanity. I'm just curious too, whether this situation can actually be resolved.

A march is a great current of motion. The water finds its path along the sides. The Orcma protesters had built long walls of bystanders on either side of their route, people of Ende watching the beastkin demonstration with expressions that landed somewhere between interest and displeasure.

I slipped into that wall.

A march has a destination, and destinations tend to be somewhere high up. Naturally, Orcma's target was Oberli.

"It's not a matter of life, it's that pigs have a life problem!"

"Beastkin are people too!"

"Give us the right to hold our heads up!"

As if trying to pour out everything they had swallowed for so long, the Piggies of Orcma marched and screamed. The tide of pickets rose and fell, showing slogans written and rewritten over themselves again and again. Letters in black and red, each one laying out some grievance of their own.

There were plenty of ways to argue with their demands, but no one could honestly deny that what was written there was true. Having earned a kind of legitimacy for themselves, they marched on under the watching eyes of Ende's citizens.

"Chief, what do we do?"

"What do you think? Does it look like they're stopping?"

"Not even close!"

"Damn it. Fall back!"

The security officers holding the line wavered and stepped back under the pressure. Ende's security force was little more than a mediation crew for ordinary squabbles. Handling something this large was beyond both their strength and their authority.

"We need the Obelisks! What happened to the runner we sent?!"

"Most of the Obelisks are out on deployment, apparently!"

But the Obelisk unit had already marched out to meet Gruel and the Beast Faction. There was no one left to hold back the Orcma protesters.

The security force had been pushed all the way to the foot of the hill leading up to Oberli, scrambling for options, when a runner arrived with welcome news.

"A substitute, but someone has come down from Oberli!"

"Who?"

"Duke Erectus, a public official!"

"Oh, is that so?"

Color returned to the security chief's face.

A public official meant one of Oberli's highest tier, a power holder of noble birth from a vassal state. Duke Erectus was chief of the thermal fuel bureau, the office that supplied the city's charcoal, coal, and magical furnaces to Ende. A man with the city's interests in his grip.

Someone like him had the authority to handle this. That single fact was enough to make the security chief breathe easy, and he shouted.

"Get a megaphone! You two escort Duke Erectus, and you, get to the Piggies' representative and tell them a public official has come to hear them out!"

He cursed the powerful every day when they trampled him, but when a crisis slipped beyond his hands, no one was more welcome. He rushed to receive Duke Erectus.

"Not necessary."

"Pardon?"

"No need to call them over. I'm not here to listen. I'm here to act."

The security chief of Ende had no idea.

What kind of man Duke Erectus was.

Duke Erectus snatched the megaphone and skipped any preamble. He did not try to draw their attention. He simply spoke, with open irritation.

"What exactly is your complaint? What do you expect us to do about it?"

Flanked by his attending Obelisks and retinue, he stepped forward without hesitation, squinting to read the signs. He took in the slogans spelling out the pig-kin's grievances and tilted his head.

"Well written. You all know your place. But why? You know it, and now you want to leave it behind?"

The Orcma protesters had noticed the public official who had appeared before them. Even those who had ignored the security force entirely paused at the sight of an official.

He was a bigger figure than expected, but they had anticipated that someone would come out. The pig-kin leading the march stepped forward and spoke up.

"Duke Erectus! We..."

"I'm the one talking! Don't interrupt!"

But Duke Erectus had not come for a dialogue. He cut them off and raised the megaphone so every ear in the crowd could hear.

"So then what would you have us do? Use you as delivery workers when you can barely keep pace? Hire you for grooming with that short, coarse fur of yours? You lack the strength and stamina of cattle, and all you do is make demands!"

It was clear he had no intention of listening, but this was still a chance to put Orcma's will before Oberli. The pig-kin leading the protest seized the gap when the megaphone fell quiet and pushed their case with everything they had.

"That's not the point! We face discrimination in areas that have nothing to do with any of that! Look at Oberli, not a single pig-kin has ever become a clan head!"

"If you were good enough, at least one of you would have made it to Oberli! Gruel, we invited him even when he wanted nothing to do with us! You're not even close to that!"

Gruel. His name came up again, the pig-kin's one point of pride, now deployed to shame them. A few orcs bristled with humiliated fury and hurled curses, but scattered voices without unity dissolved into meaningless noise.

Duke Erectus read their defeat and pressed one step further.

"The other beastkin in Oberli at least have something to offer! Your only selling point is that you taste good!"

A stillness fell over the cacophony of Ende.

The world seemed to freeze all at once. The charged air drew a breath and held it, and a thought crept into every mind that made the skin crawl.

Ende was a city of beastkin. An uncomfortable truth that everyone knew, that touched everyone.

That was exactly why it was an unspoken taboo, something never said aloud, and now a public official had let it fall from his mouth.

Duke Erectus paid no attention to the reaction and kept going.

"Oh, but that's gone too now, hasn't it? The Holy Maiden has taken in even you poor wretches. You should be grateful that what little you had to offer has been taken away from you. Instead of whining here, of all places!"

His meaning was plain: the only use for them had been to kill and eat them. Be grateful you've escaped that fate.

Even the pig-kin who had led the march bristled, fur standing on end, shaking with fury at those words.

"You... cruel..."

"Cruel? You think saying something out loud makes it the same as doing it? I'm an officially recognized human. Unlike you!"

Duke Erectus was rough in his speech and reckless in his manner. But calling him impolite would be hard to justify. When dealing with the regressor, Sapien, and other humans, he had at least listened to what they had to say. He had the competence to lead the thermal fuel bureau, and he was no fool.

And yet toward beastkin, he was nothing but contempt.

Because for him, beastkin genuinely were not human.

"Cruel is a word for what you do to humans! You beasts born from the Sorcerer King's womb!"

Once upon a time. A very long time ago.

Sorcerer King Agartha, queen of all nations, stood before a pig and fell into thought.

Pigs grew fast, ate anything, and above all else made for extraordinary livestock. The meat was tender and rich with fat, a delicacy no matter how it was prepared. Having personally tasted several hundred recipes, Agartha smacked her lips with longing.

Pigs were delicious.

But they were useless.

The wasteland was already short on water and food. If the Enger Plain could be cultivated, that would be another matter, but humanity had not yet flourished to that point. Raising pigs in Agartha's land meant taking food from human mouths.

Difficult to manage, without purpose, unable to work properly. Compared to cattle, sheep, horses, and dogs, they were the most inferior of creatures. Already, some priests were spreading teachings that pigs should neither be raised nor eaten.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were a beast that worked like a human and still produced delicious meat?

Idly muttering to herself, a thought surfaced in Agartha's mind. Something so pure it was demonic for that very purity, a way to commit dozens of sins all at once.

The only misfortune was a single thing.

She had the ability to actually do it.

Whatever might be said now, at the very beginning ,

Beastkin were not human.

They were simply a more refined form of livestock.

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