WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 491

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Ende's Spring - 4

Around the same time, on the outskirts of Ende.

Sapien had been standing with his arms crossed, waiting, when he turned at the sound of an approaching presence. The cattle-kin who had gone to find Gruel was on his way back, duty fulfilled.

The Beast Faction warriors were a rough lot, and they were showing sharp reactions toward the Obelisks keeping watch over them. The Obelisks, who had initially maintained a policy of non-response, were growing increasingly tense.

Even as level-headed as Sapien was, he was still a noble and public official of a vassal state. It took considerable patience not to make an issue of the insults the Beast Faction warriors, wild ones and beastkin that they were, kept hurling out.

Fortunately, Gruel returned before that patience ran dry. Sapien greeted him warmly.

"Grand Chieftain Gruel. Welcome to Ende, before I say that, I want to make it clear that disappearing without a word causes problems."

Gruel glanced around to get a rough read of the atmosphere and answered flatly.

"What problems? I just arrived a little early and went for a walk."

"An appointed time is set so both parties arrive at the same moment, not merely as a suggestion about when to show up."

"Tch. All that roundabout talk just because you call yourselves civilized. You wanted to keep an eye on me in case I started trouble, didn't you?"

"If that's how you hear it, I have nothing more to say."

"Hmph."

Gruel gave a loud snort and strode forward. In that instant his body crossed the space between them as though he had folded distance itself. One step, and he was right in front of Sapien's nose, growling low.

"Watch yourself. We're savages, treat us like troublemakers and we tend to actually make trouble. If you called us here because you need our help, don't make our hackles rise."

Grasping reason doesn't necessarily mean one's energy is at a high level. That depends entirely on talent and mindscape, so an energy practitioner who has grasped reason and yet falls short somewhere can certainly exist.

But Gruel was not that. Sapien had studied under an exceptional master and honed himself through the ascending methods to the limits of heaven, earth, and water, and even he could find no fault with that movement.

The gap wasn't vast, but that was only because Gruel hadn't shown his reasoning. Sapien answered, feeling a slight twinge of inferiority toward the pig-kin.

"Please don't forget that we gathered here to help 'each other.'"

"That's my line. I'd prefer not to end up as the only side dying after you've fed us plenty of pretty words."

The standoff between the two leaders had been loud enough, but it had the effect of making it easier for their subordinates to keep their own feelings in check. Sapien led the way for Gruel.

Quietly relieved on the inside.

'Good. It doesn't look like Orcma, or whatever they're called, made contact with Gruel.'

Sapien's reason for coming out to meet him in person, and for watching Gruel's movements so closely, had been Orcma.

He had known the pig-kin had been causing trouble lately, but he hadn't known they were operating in the shadows through a secret organization. That was unavoidable, in a way, since pig-kin caused problems as routinely as they ate meals. Expecting someone to pay close attention just because the pigs were eating a bit more than usual today was asking too much.

'Whoever they are, I should thank the Magician. If they had joined forces with Gruel, the negotiations would have been a lot harder.'

Sapien sent a silent word of thanks in his heart to someone who wasn't there and headed toward Oberli alongside Gruel.

Without knowing what kind of disaster had unfolded in that person's absence.

Around that same time. A prison in Oberli.

Urukpaing, captain of the orc mercenary company and the First Fang, was sitting with the other inmates.

The Magician's maneuvering had led to the arrest of several key figures in Orcma: First Fang Urukpaing, Elder Mother Halfana, locksmith Bonkrak, the cart-rich Gulta, and others. Not a large number, but every one of them had been an important link in the chain, each filling a specific role.

Those locked up weren't all of Orcma, but they were part of why Orcma had chosen protest over resistance. With Orcma's organizational functions broken, only a blunt instrument like protest remained.

And this was also the reason that mere Piggies were sitting in Oberli's comfortable prison.

"Pretty luxurious for being locked up."

Urukpaing swung his arms with dissatisfaction. The shackles chained tight around his wrists struck the wall and threw sparks. He could break them if he put everything into it, but his wrists would break along with them. And then the Obelisk guarding outside would smash his skull and put the irons back on.

It was heavy restraint, but considering Urukpaing was an energy practitioner who had grasped the fundamentals, even this much was a courtesy. The fact that an escape attempt was possible at all didn't quite make sense.

Urukpaing realized that and grumbled.

"The beds are soft, the food is good. Compared to rolling around outside, it's paradise. Ordinary orcs would probably want to be locked up here their whole lives."

"Tsk, tsk, what nonsense... If it weren't for that Gruel, would they have put us up in Oberli? They'd have thrown us in some underground solitary cell down there in Ende."

Elder Mother Halfana, the oldest among the orcs, replied in a still-vigorous voice. Locksmith Bonkrak grinned and chimed in.

"Sniff, sniff. Not necessarily. I caught a bit of conversation when we were being transferred, they were worried the godmother might just up and die if they locked her up wrong. They're going to treat us well because Gruel-nim is coming? From their side we're just filthy, no-good Piggies? Hehe. We've got the godmother to thank for this."

Locksmith Bonkrak was the security officer who had built the Pig Safe and maintained its locks. When he was arrested and the Magician broke into the safe, the pig-kin lost their trust in it. No matter how much they were kin, one's own money was more precious than kin. As they quietly drew their money out one by one, Orcma's funds dried up.

All of that damage flowed straight to Gulta, Orcma's logistics officer and the cart-rich. Gulta had been caught running cons to scrape together the dwindling funds, and seeing Bonkrak laugh without a care, he poured out something close to hatred.

"You can laugh at a time like this?! What's so good about being locked up?"

"Hehe. Still, my mind is at peace in here."

"Without knowing what kind of hardship our kin are going through out there?"

"That's true enough, but what could we do out there that would actually help? Whenever the Magician shows up, things explode in every direction."

The moment the Magician's name came up, everyone in the cell bristled.

Not quite the core of Orcma, but pig-kin who held important roles of their own. They all had one thing in common.

They had all crossed paths with the Magician.

Met him, provoked him, tried to capture him, tried to run from him.

Bonkrak was the one who had tried to hide from him.

"That man... is someone you should never have anything to do with."

When things had started going wrong, Bonkrak, the Pig Safe's locksmith, had gone into hiding to avoid the Magician. He already kept his movements hard to track, and on top of that he had guarded his hideout with dozens of locks.

But the Magician had laughed at that. He found the hideout in one go and walked toward him without concealing his footsteps, releasing six iron doors and ninety locks one by one.

Click. Click. Locks that Bonkrak, a locksmith of no small skill, had made with everything he had, broken through on technique alone, without energy or magic. With every step that drew closer, something in Bonkrak chipped away. His pride crumbled, and fear seeped into the cracks.

He had wished the Magician would just smash all the doors and come crashing in, grab him right away and crush him flat. Bonkrak trembled with that wish, and when he came back to his senses, he was being transported to Oberli, under arrest on charges of illegal key duplication.

Dragged to Oberli and put in shackles, Bonkrak felt relief. Something in him had broken, and he smiled a little more brightly for it.

"Because at least the Magician won't be walking in here."

He wanted to scold him for it, but Gulta couldn't blame Bonkrak either. He was one of the Magician's victims himself.

With their funds dry, Orcma had raided a horse-kin clan just to keep food moving. The raid succeeded more easily than expected, and Gulta rode hard with his accomplices, fleeing like mad. After escaping to a safe location through a prearranged route, just as he was about to share in the joy of victory, he found himself face to face with a stranger in the flickering firelight.

A human who introduced himself as the Magician.

He saw the Magician's face, but no opportunity arose to describe it. He was knocked unconscious immediately, and when he opened his eyes again, furious horse-kin surrounded him.

Gulta muttered, the Magician's shameless face floating in his mind.

"...Right. Now that we're already caught, the Magician won't bother with us anymore."

That murmur, relief or self-mockery, it was hard to say, was still echoing through Oberli's prison when a breath of wind came.

The pig-kin found it strange. However luxurious Oberli's prison might be, a prison was still a prison. They wouldn't put in a window large enough for wind to blow through. This was the kind of wind that only came when a prison door opened.

That meant someone should have appeared, but strangely, no presence could be felt at all. The door had opened on its own.

"What's going on? Who's there?"

Bonkrak peered out through the bars and asked, but there was no answer. Instead, a thin card fluttered down into the middle of the corridor like a leaf on an autumn wind.

On the back of that card was a small key.

I hadn't done anything. I hadn't moved anyone through manipulation, hadn't killed or hurt anyone.

I had simply made a small change to the personnel arrangement.

"The pig-kin wish for spring to come. To leave behind the era when they were devoured, to leave behind the years of wandering in search of freedom, and for a time to arrive when everyone recognizes them."

The wind had been inside them from the start, already blowing hard and moving something vast. Even without me giving them a push, Orcma would have accomplished something. Whether success or failure.

"Even other beastkin sympathize with them, and agree with them."

The same went for the other beastkin. They held a place because they were more useful than the pigs, but the memory of discrimination still filled them to the bone. Watching the pig-kin cause their ruckus, they were rooting for them rather than trying to stop them.

Meaning there was nothing to hold them back.

"Well, so what? With that much wind behind them, maybe it's fine for them to have one success. Some people get involved with pigs and have beastkin children, so there's no reason a pig-kin couldn't become the master of a city, is there? Pig-kin or human, either way, we're all just animals."

Enraged pig-kin came charging in. The pickets they had been holding with the writing facing out were now swung like weapons, and they rushed not toward their dream but toward the enemy. The peaceful protest had transformed into a riot, trying to swallow the city whole.

The security forces fell back. Duke Erectus fled under the escort of the Obelisks. The frenzied pig-kin chased after the retreating public officials and attacked Oberli.

"I'm less curious about the pig-kin's spring, and more curious about what they'll do when spring actually arrives."

Oberli, with its tall sturdy walls and the powerful force of the Obelisks, would not fall so easily. The convulsive pig-kin protest would end as a riot rather than a revolution.

Unless someone on the inside was ready to respond, or powerful reinforcements arrived.

A dry spring wind blew through Ende.

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