WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 503: When the Rabbit Dies, Boil the Hunting Dog

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If the King of Dogs were offered as a sacrifice, the wolves' wrath could be avoided. Ende's safety would be guaranteed by the sacrifice of a single person. No, a single animal.

Orcma learned that information from Urukpaing. They urgently gathered the elders and began an uncharacteristically secret meeting.

"If we offer the King of Dogs as a sacrifice, the wolves will leave us alone...? Is that really true?"

Elder Mother Halfana furrowed her wrinkled face even more before answering.

"Hmph. The King of Wolves searches for the King of Dogs. That is why humans who wished to avoid fighting wolves would drive out the King of Dogs. The last time dogs and wolves fought... must have been around when your mother was born, so nearly fifty years ago."

"What country fought the wolves fifty years ago?"

"The Sanctum, of course. The Empire and the Sanctum do not avoid fighting wolves. With their strength, they can crush a pack of wolves in an instant. But... hmph. Other countries do not have that kind of leeway. Their circumstances are complicated, too."

Elder Mother Halfana had lived past 120. Even among those who trained in qi, that was a long life. Considering she did not know the first thing about qi, it could only be called a miracle.

Halfana was not wealthy, did not carry the blood of an old tribal chief, and had learned neither qi nor magic. Yet Elder Mother Halfana proudly held an elder's seat through her experience, wisdom, and connections. She embodied the 'old' in 'elder.'

"Ever since then, human countries have avoided fighting wolves. I can't remember exactly when it was... but I recall hearing that the Magenta Principality drove out the King of Dogs. They said an imperial envoy visited over that incident, so it caused quite an uproar. Back then..."

An old person's words were like a mudflat. They might look murky, but if you sifted through them carefully, you could find all kinds of useful things.

Poina sifted through Halfana's words, and her face brightened.

"...Then if we drive out the King of Dogs, or let the King of Wolves kill her, the wolves will have no reason to attack Ende."

Poina voiced the plan everyone had considered but could not bring themselves to say. Some of the orcs stared at her in fear, but Poina did not even notice their looks as she spoke the thought that had just occurred to her.

"We can't send an envoy to the wolves and make a treaty. Then we should use the King of Dogs as bait and send her far away, somewhere the King of Wolves can hunt her without interference."

"Is, is that really all right?"

At someone's mutter, Poina snapped her head around and shot back.

"Why wouldn't it be all right?"

"No, it's just... doing that to the King of Dogs when she came here asking for help..."

"Spring has only just arrived in the city. We need time. Things keep going wrong because we're not used to this yet, but we orcs can do it. We can do what humans have done."

Poina was still full of faith. The city was creaking now, but she believed everything would be fine if they worked hard enough. Orcs could govern a city just as well as humans.

Still, something had to be discarded for the future she envisioned.

"But we can't shed blood in a fight that isn't ours."

"A fight that isn't ours?"

"That's right. This is a fight between dogs and wolves. We orcs have no debts or grudges with either dogs or wolves. We can't waste precious lives because of a promise Beast Kings arbitrarily made among themselves long ago."

Poina had never seriously considered the fight between dogs and wolves before today. Yet now, she felt as though she could list more than a hundred reasons they should not fight the wolves. Looking at Orcma's elders, she continued.

"Even principalities, human countries, often cast aside this promise without hesitation. It's unfair to expect a single frontier city to uphold it. Especially a city that only recently found true equality."

"The King of Dogs is only a symbolic beast. When comparing an animal's life to a human life, human lives naturally come first. And when it's one life against tens of thousands, tens of thousands of lives are obviously more important."

"And are we the only ugly ones here? The King of Dogs is just as shameless. If she truly cared for humans, she could fight alone so that no human would be harmed. Why does she travel around looking for humans to help her? Isn't she simply asking them to die with her?"

"Bringing the King of Dogs to Ende was suspect from the start. The plan must have been to use us as meat shields to defeat the King of Wolves. It wouldn't be fair for us to play along. Why should we be sacrificed?"

With every word, her logic grew clearer. The orcs owed nothing to the dogs and had made no promise with them. Therefore, they had no need to involve themselves in a fight between dogs and wolves. If anything, the dogs and wolves were causing trouble by dragging humans into their own fight. Humans had no duty to see that fight through.

After producing dozens of arguments in an instant, Poina gathered her thoughts and said,

"It pains me, but if we make a firm decision, we have much to gain. By driving out the King of Dogs, we can gain countless things. We orcs are now the race leading this city. We must make a cold-hearted choice."

Poina's words were so perfect that they seemed impossible to challenge. No, there was no reason to challenge them when every word was right. Why should pig beastkin, who had been persecuted until now, step up and fight for the King of Dogs? That struggle belonged to the humans who ruled from the top of the pyramid, or to the dog beastkin involved in it. Pig beastkin did not need to shed blood for dogs.

It was easy to accept because it was the logic everyone wanted.

Gulta nodded.

"Fine. Then let's call Mayor Triber and tell them that's our decision."

It had been nearly a week since Orcma entered Oberli, but Mayor Triber still handled the major administration. Gulta's suggestion was appropriate, but Poina remembered something and urgently stopped them.

"No. They're a noble of the principality and a dog beastkin. They'll certainly oppose our decision."

"Ah, right. Then what should we do?"

Poina considered it for a moment, then smiled coldly.

"...First, we should reveal the King of Dogs' identity."

The wolves were no longer an unseen danger.

They appeared at all hours and attacked throughout Ende. Compared to an army, they were no more than scouts, but even as scouts, the powerful wolves were as swift and threatening as mounted knights.

"Wolves! The wolves are here!!"

A vast city like Ende inevitably had an outer edge. Despite the evacuation order, people who had failed to flee in time were scattered everywhere. Some had nowhere to take their sheep, some were about to harvest their crops, and some could not bear to give the animals they had raised to the wolves.

The wolves did not care.

"Everyone, hide!"

At someone's shout, people grabbed their children's hands and rushed into their homes. They barred the doors, shut the windows tight, and huddled together in shelters built underground.

Once the city that had spotted the wolves fell completely silent, a wolf circling outside leaped over the wooden palisade. It had been reinforced, but the wolf jumped far higher than it. Entering Ende with astonishingly light movements, the wolf bared its teeth and stepped into the village.

Clank.

The moment it crossed the palisade and took one step, a steel jaw hidden beneath the sand sprang up. Sharp ridges like an animal's teeth clamped down on the wolf's foreleg.

"Yelp!"

"Whine, awooo!"

As the startled wolves leaped back, Kito, the trap designer hiding in the bushes, popped out with a faint smile.

"Hee, hieee. What do you think? These are specially modified bear traps I set up all night..."

Traps enhanced by Kito's innate arcane reacted more powerfully to even the slightest trigger. The wolves might have been intelligent, but they could not avoid traps perfectly concealed by innate arcane. In an instant, nearly thirty percent of them were caught and unable to move.

"Beasts are beaasts... As long as there are traps, there's nothing to be scared of!"

Kito shouted proudly, as if trying to convince herself.

The wolves showed astonishingly little interest in Kito.

After glancing at one another, every wolf began doing the same thing.

Creak, crunch.

They stomped hard on their trapped forelegs. They hooked their claws into the latches and bit the traps with their teeth. Twisting their heads, they forced the interlocked ridges apart again.

Creak. Crunch.

The loosened springs contracted, returning the traps to their original state.

They understood how the traps worked. As though they had experienced them before, they dismantled the traps with practiced skill.

"Uh, uh?"

No matter how sturdy an animal was, escaping a steel bear trap should have meant accepting a serious injury. But the wolves invading Ende dismantled them as though they had encountered such traps before. Like a human caught in a trap by accident.

The leader simply bit through the spring itself. Broken bits of metal dripped from its mouth with its saliva.

Having neutralized the traps, the wolves swept through the village without restraint.

"Aaaah!"

"Help..."

"Woof! Woof!"

Gray fur raced through every street. People and dogs who failed to hide were bitten to death by wolves. The wolves chasing their prey did not stop there. They broke down house doors, scratched at floors, and searched for hidden humans.

Basements were a little troublesome for the wolves to search, but it was only a matter of time. The persistent, vicious wolves set out to wipe out an entire village.

"Eek, eeeek! Please save meee!"

Kito, suddenly the one being chased, fled from the wolves. Three wolves followed behind her. Kito was fast, but she could not match real wolves, and the distance slowly closed.

Kito glanced back, saw the wolves, and burst into tears.

"Toooeeeeng!"

Rabbit beastkin were known for their upright ears and quick changes of direction. The pursuing wolves bit at empty air again and again as Kito vanished in an instant right before their eyes.

Even though Kito was a mage who had awakened innate arcane, she was still a rabbit beastkin at heart. The countless chases through Ende since childhood proved fairly useful even against wolves.

And Kito had innate arcane as well.

The rope she trailed behind her tied itself into knots through her innate arcane, and the traps she tossed out carelessly set themselves. Meanwhile, the traps did not react at all when Kito stepped on them. Only enemies could activate triggers within her innate arcane.

Using every method available to buy time, Kito stood with her back against a wall, gasping for breath.

"Ahh. Ahhh. I shouldn't have come alone without an escort..."

How had Kito, one of the city's major fighting forces, ended up like this? Why had she been setting traps in a frontier city where wolves could arrive at any time?

As Kito calmly traced back the reason, she remembered the root cause of it all and chewed her lips.

"This is all those damned piggies' faulttt!"

Orcma ordered Kito to set traps. It was work Kito normally did anyway, so she accepted.

But Kito did not expect them to order her to take out all her traps, even the outdated ones, and set them up indiscriminately without an escort or strategy. They told her to cover every village in traps without even saying where the battlefield would be or how long they would be used.

It was the sort of mindless idea pig beastkin would have.

"So why am I the one paying for their stupidityyy?!"

Kito was a rabbit beastkin. She could shake the wolves off for a moment, but she could not run forever. Before long, wolves began gathering around her.

Trembling in fear, Kito activated her innate arcane. Yet no matter how she searched, there was nothing left in this village she could use.

With tears pooling in her eyes, Kito squeezed them shut.

"Toooeeeeng... Is this as far as I gooo...?"

But what Kito expected did not happen.

When her head remained firmly attached to her body, Kito slowly opened her eyes.

An unfamiliar beastkin stood on all fours in front of her. Her tail stood stiff, and a terrifying presence poured from her body. The King of Dogs bared her teeth at the wicked wolves.

"Grrr, woof!"

Azzy moved.

Ende was vast. No matter how sharp Azzy's senses were, she could not sense the entire area affected by a city.

But when the wolves invaded, humans fled into Ende, naturally compressing that area. Azzy tried hard to look away from fights between humans, but she was endlessly threatening toward humanity's enemies.

Azzy burst from the mansion in an instant and took down every wolf attacking humans. The wolves stopped their raids and gradually began surrounding the city.

Azzy's existence, which had already been quietly known, rose into the open. Every citizen of Ende recognized the King of Dogs, who darted out like lightning and brought back wolves in her jaws.

The dog beastkin cheered for their king's exploits, but the other beastkin were not as pleased.

Partly because the King of Dogs showed such an especially friendly side that it stirred jealousy, but more than anything...

-The wolves are invading because of the King of Dogs.

It was because of one rumor whispered in secret.

Footnotes:

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