WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 506

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Human to Human

"Hyu. Causing a scene feels so good. Thinking about the cleanup afterward makes it feel hopeless, though."

"What? You had a plan for the cleanup? I assumed you never thought about anything, the way you just charge ahead all the time."

"I was far more calculated here in Ende than you give me credit for!"

With everyone gathered at the plaza, Ende had a rare quiet to it. The regressor and I walked through the unusually empty streets, talking as we went.

"Honestly, going to the vassal state would be fine with me. There's no real reason to keep covering for Ende's problems at this point."

'Stopping the King of Wolves was much easier from the vassal state than from here. When Ende fell, the vassal state pooled every resource it had to fight him. Choosing to face the King of Wolves in Ende is nothing but my own stubbornness.'

That stubbornness was something else, I had to admit. Was it because she was a regressor? In situations she had no prior experience with, she moved almost recklessly in how aggressive she was, but once she had lived through something, she became surprisingly methodical. Making contact with the merchant guild, working her way up to the upper echelons, pulling in the Beast Faction, all from inside Ende, I could actually feel the reality of her having regressed.

Then again, maybe it was just routine by now. Either way, I understood that the regressor wanted to end Ende's troubles as cleanly as possible.

"You won't abandon Ende, will you."

"You said you had a method. I don't know what else might happen here, but I'm saying the vassal state is on the table as an option."

"There's no need for that. I've finished what I came to do with the pig-kin as well. I told them they were human too, just like anyone else, so the wish that was granted should now be let go."

Primitive desire isn't something to be ashamed of. What's strange is not being able to say out loud what is perfectly natural.

I want to live better. I want what they have for myself. That's just how it is. And yet somehow you get people saying humans are inherently superior to beastkin, and others saying we're all equal so hand it over without a fuss, and it is really something to behold.

All I wanted was to strip away the wrapping paper around that animal desire. Come back to being a beast a little, I say.

The regressor looked at me with a suspicious eye.

"...You use language that subtly puts humans down, don't you."

"If it strikes you that way, then Mr. Shei has set his expectations for humans too high. My attitude has always been perfectly consistent."

"Well, expectations aside, you can still ask for a reasonably sensible response from people."

"That sense of what's sensible is different for everyone."

"True, but there's enough overlap that it's called common sense."

"The moment any part of it differs, something has already gone wrong. Someone, in the end, has to correct that differing part. That's what fighting is."

Argued into a corner, the regressor opened her mouth to say something more, then stopped and let out a pained groan instead.

"So? What do we do to knock some sense into those idiots?"

"For now, Mr. Shei should keep causing scenes the way you have been."

"How?"

"No need to think about it. Whatever comes naturally to you is a scene in itself."

There's a difference between wild-caught and farmed, after all. No matter how much I rack my brain, I can't keep up with the regressor. So do as you like.

The regressor narrowed her eyes at that.

"You've been subtly putting me down this whole conversation, haven't you."

"Not at all. They're here!"

No sooner had I called out than several horse-kin appeared before us. Fast on their feet, apparently. It had barely been any time since we slipped away from the plaza on the wind, and they had already tracked us down.

"Found them! Over here! Here they are!"

"That's!"

"Neigh? I'm merely a scout!"

The regressor let out a sharp burst of energy and the horse-kin bolted. They had only the most basic energy training, using it purely for running, but even that was enough to drain anyone's will to pursue.

"Killing them would be easier than catching them. Not that there's any need!"

The moment the horse-kin vanished, several beastkin came charging in to take their place. A cloaked beastkin who spotted the regressor and me shouted out.

"Report to Chief Gruel! We'll hold them here!"

"The Beast Faction?"

There aren't many people in Ende who can match the regressor in power. The reason I said "many" and not "none" is because of him.

Gruel. A pig-kin who had touched the principle. The regressor gripped Skywarbler and tensed.

'Why is the Beast Faction here? Did they decide to side with Ende outright this time?'

The regressor had exceptional energy arts backed by overflowing vitality, but she still fell somewhat short compared to someone who had truly touched the principle. That gap wasn't something you could explain in terms of raw strength or speed, it was a difference in split-second judgment and instinct, a difference in talent.

She had Skywarbler and Jizan, along with all manner of treasures and various authorities. Losing wasn't guaranteed. But.

'I don't like this! Fighting someone where I don't know if I'll win or lose!'

The regressor drew up her energy and shouted.

"Move!"

Celestial Sword Qi, Meteor Shower.

Broken rubble and chunks of rock lifted into the air, swept up by the storm. The regressor wrapped herself in wind and brought it sweeping down in a wide arc, sending hundreds upon hundreds of fragments pouring toward the Beast Faction warriors.

She had meant to disable them fast, but the Beast Faction warriors were not so easily dealt with.

"Cloaks!"

Seeing the debris come down, the warriors immediately threw their leather cloaks up in front of them.

Thud, thud, thud.

The leather cloaks rang out like drums. The fragments, deflected by their bullet-deflecting energy, fell limply to the ground. Spreading that technique wide, they took the regressor's attack without so much as flinching.

The warriors Gruel had trained himself were a match for the Obelisks by any measure. With energy that shaped the earth-heaven technique, and though they had not grasped Kan, they had tempered the powerful beastkin body in its place, putting them on par with generals of the military state. Their command of energy fell below a general's level, but this was not a fight between humans, and technical refinement is not much of a factor in that case.

That held true now as well. The regressor was the type to rely on force more than finesse.

"Tch! Would have been nice if that put them down!"

The Beast Faction warriors bit down through the heavy impact and shouted.

"Don't meet her blade directly! She's a master. Buffalo hunting formation, push and pull!"

"Thanks for the compliment!"

Unprompted, the regressor charged straight in. Watching her cause exactly the kind of scene I had asked for, I quietly glanced over at Azzy.

"Azzy. Shall we go?"

"...Woof."

Azzy nodded weakly. She seemed badly shaken by what had happened earlier.

The plan was this. Well, less of a plan and more of a state of mind, I suppose.

The wish of Orcma had been granted. They had won the right, like humans, to ruin things on their own terms, and they were currently exercising that right with great enthusiasm. If they want to handle it themselves, who am I to interfere.

What I wanted now was to see another wish through. Granting that one might even be enough to protect the city.

"Hey! You!"

A pig-kin who recognized me pointed a finger, and the moment he did I grabbed it and bent it back. He screamed at the sudden pain, and I seized him and drove him into the wall.

My own strength isn't enough to break stone, but earth arts made it possible. The wall caved in exactly as much as I pressed him into it. The pig-kin fit into it perfectly, as though he had always been part of the wall.

I looked around for the next one.

"Next."

"Wh, wh, spit..."

The words never made it out. I flicked a card.

Snap. A card charged with lightning buried itself in the pig-kin's shoulder. Blood sprayed. For a beastkin of Ende used to a rough life, a scratch like that was nothing, but the problem was the coil of lightning running through the blood. The electric current traced his nerves, and the pig-kin convulsed and dropped.

"My hand is faster than the eye. Not exactly the right phrase for the moment, but still."

I shook out my hands and pushed open Oberli's gate.

With Oberli's key figures briefly away and the regressor causing havoc in the middle of Ende, the district's security was thinner than it had ever been. And inside Oberli sat tempting prey that anyone would want.

"Woof woof woof woof!"

"Free the public officials!"

The guard dogs of Oberli and the other dog-kin poured through the gap and struck. Prim, self-contained Oberli suffered the humiliation of being taken twice in quick succession. Not that Oberli itself would feel anything about it.

The dog-kin lashed out as though releasing every grievance they had built up, and the pig-kin, who had done little more than fill the numbers, crumpled without being able to do much about it.

A coup at an oddly convenient moment. It was not particularly planned. It was the kind of thing that would have happened sooner or later anyway. Right down to being on the receiving end of the coup, they were the same. Falling together, that's what makes them human.

"Magician... I'm not forgiving you! I only let you go because you're with the King!"

"...Woof."

"No, not you, King. I wasn't shouting at you.... Tch, regardless! Until next time!"

A man shouted and led the others forward. Carried by momentum, the humans ran through Oberli's tidy streets and threw open every door they came to. They freed public officials where they found them and threw punches at anyone else. Those fists made no distinctions of men, women, young, or old. The only distinction was whether they had pig ears or not.

Screams and cheers rang out in turns. The blood flowing was more than last time, by volume alone. Last time the targets had been the public officials only, and the humans who carried out the coup had not resorted to physical violence even against them.

"This is no place for Piggies to set foot!"

"Felt good playing lord of the manor, didn't it?"

But toward humans with different ears, no such restraint was applied. What they practiced instead was far crueler reprisal.

"...Au, au."

Azzy squeezed her eyes shut. From her perspective, the last time had been far better. At least then, humans had not been the ones suffering.

Well, I felt much the same. Weren't they getting carried away?

The ones who actually had the power were somewhere else.

"Yipe yipe yipe!"

The desperate cries of dog-kin rang out. At the alley in front of Oberli's prison, where a good number of public officials were being held, the dog-kin who had rushed in to free them were being swept away like leaves in a gale. Watching their comrades fall in bloodied heaps, the Oberli guard dogs slowly backed away.

"What's wrong? Didn't you say Piggies have no place setting foot here?"

A massive pig-kin walked out in front of them with perfect calm. The dog-kin, tails tucked under the weight of that overwhelming pressure, screamed out in desperation.

"S-stop! Didn't you hear? If you keep resisting, this becomes treason against the vassal state!"

"Go ahead."

The Beast Faction is a term for the wanderers who roam the Enger Plain. With every tribe, race, and origin mixed together, they belong to no country. Having some other nation howl treason at them carries no real threat.

To a powerful being who had touched the principle, threats of treason were nothing. Gruel gave a short laugh and raised his fist.

"A frightened beast is just noise. Stop barking like a dog and show me something with force."

"Urgh!"

The dog-kin around me had all edged backward, and simply by staying still I found myself relatively exposed at the front. Through the chaos, Gruel spotted me and spoke as though he had been expecting exactly this.

"I've been waiting for you, Magician."

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