WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 509

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Hour of the Dog and the Wolf - 2

"Hm? What did you say?"

"Exactly what I said, Teia-ssi. You'll need to be the bait that draws out the King of Wolves."

Teia pressed her fingers against her lips, thinking it over.

She preferred staying somewhere safe, and not entirely because of her injury. The Empire managed every aspect of a racehorse-kin's life and bloodline. Running her way into legend had earned her a degree of autonomy, but that autonomy didn't extend to the freedom to get mauled to death by wolves on a whim.

Teia asked again, in a tone that made clear she genuinely wasn't sure I was serious.

"Me? Really, me?"

"Yes. You're the only one who can race the King of Wolves and come in first."

The Empire was far away, and my persuasion was right here. My words, nudged only slightly, prodded at Teia's competitive streak.

'A race against the King of Wolves, that's actually kind of exciting. There's even a cause behind it. And the rule where you die if you get caught, isn't that just wonderfully simple and thrilling? Well, whoever the opponent is, I'm not going to lose!'

Her mind was already made up, but Teia rocked on her heels and made a show of hedging.

"I mean, I don't mind~ But I'm recovering from an injury, you know. I can't run for long?"

"What injury. You couldn't run for long to begin with."

Hit dead center, Teia muttered a little sheepishly.

"...Have you seen me race?"

"Not personally. But everyone knows racehorse-kin are fast and lack endurance."

"That's not true across the board."

"Who watches long-distance races these days anyway. The pace is too slow, comebacks almost never happen, it's boring."

"Hee, you actually know your stuff?"

To be accurate, the regressor knew it. Racing? As if I'd know anything about that. What kind of beast runs a competition like that. Run a little fast, get tired, and end up eaten in the end.

Whatever my own feelings on the matter, Teia's mood had brightened. She bounced on her feet as she answered.

"That's right! As long as it isn't long distance, I can shake off anyone, no matter who they are!"

"It's fine even if you can't shake them off completely. The only one who could even step on your shadow would be the King of Wolves, and Azzy won't let you get killed by her."

"Azzy?"

"The puppy. King of Dogs."

"Oh. Great name!"

Simple being good, you couldn't ask for better than that. Either way, Teia gave a big nod, waved her hand, and was already putting distance between us.

"Got it! Call me when you need me!"

Before I could even respond, she had sprinted off into the distance. There was no catching her.

The plan had been to pass the message through Lord Sapien so he could summon Teia himself. Lucky that I ran into her on the way out and got to tell her directly.

This was better anyway. Teia was too valuable a piece to risk as bait, so Sapien might have kept her carefully tucked away. The regressor seemed to assume Teia would help as a matter of course, probably because of some connection from a previous cycle.

At any rate, the regressor had left the communication side of the operation to me, the part dealing with Ende. Given her catastrophic communication skills, it was a sensible assignment.

Whether I could explain the regressor's plan properly, on the other hand, was another question entirely. If I weren't a mind reader, I wouldn't have understood her plan at all.

I walked into the conference room where Sapien and Gruel were waiting. Gruel half-rose from his seat.

"Magician. You're late."

"Am I? I came at the agreed time."

"The situation has changed. Scouts I sent out found bones from hundreds of sheep."

Gruel had spent his entire life hunting on the Enger Plain and knew beasts better than anyone. Even when Orcma had Ende in its stranglehold, he had kept dispatching Beast Faction warriors to gather intelligence without pause.

"Animals that store prey the way humans do are rare. Carnivores doing it is virtually unheard of. If the Werewolves hadn't been herding sheep along as a traveling food supply, the wolf pack would have collapsed under its own hunger."

"Emptying out every last one of those stores means they're gearing up for battle."

"Yes. Wolves will probably be visible from Ende by tomorrow. Today is effectively the last day we have to prepare."

I had known it was pressing, but tomorrow? That's soon.

"Let me hear your plan. I'm hoping it's not the brainless sort a public official would come up with."

"Brainless...?"

Sapien looked genuinely stung, apparently not expecting to hear that word from a beastkin. Whether I could meet Gruel's expectations was another matter, but I laid out the regressor's plan for everyone.

"We're going to break the ground."

'Last cycle. It was later than now. The King of Wolves had been wandering longer, and beastkin who couldn't endure the discrimination anymore had joined her, making her far stronger. The Sanctum couldn't stand by watching that, so they and the vassal states sent support to Ende. In Ende, the dogs and wolves fought a proxy war between civilization and savagery.'

The regressor's confidence came from having defeated the King of Wolves once before. Because she had knocked her down once, she believed she could do it again.

'Back then, it was truly a situation of fight or die. Every beastkin in Ende stood together. But by that point, sin had already spread. The wolves were far stronger than expected. The casualties kept climbing. On the brink of annihilation, I decided to flip the whole table.'

What the regressor had done as her last act of chaos before leaving the rest to the next cycle was something beyond anything I could have imagined.

'Draw out Jizan's power to the absolute limit and shatter the earth itself. It would leave a scar on the land like an Abyss, but at the time there was no other way. By defeating the King of Wolves in isolation on collapsing ground, we barely managed to restore peace. This time, since driving off the wolves isn't the end of it, we need to prepare ahead of time for the sake of those who will go on living here.'

There was no way the regressor could explain something this sweeping while leaving out every mention of regression.

Her explanation was vague and scattered, but I managed to reconstruct it through mind reading. Once I had conveyed the full outline, the two of them asked whether it was actually possible. I said nothing and showed them the earth arts instead. That was my ability alone, and Jizan, carrying the power of the earth, was far stronger. I planted that belief in them and handed over the detailed plan, and both Sapien and Gruel accepted it, at least for now.

The two of them keeping each other in check was what kept the city running at all. That's why you hitch more than one horse to a carriage, on its own, each one just turns its head wherever it wants.

Afternoon had grown late by the time I finished explaining, documentation and all. Having grasped the gist of the plan, Sapien and Gruel each moved off to organize their forces.

Then I supposed I could head back and rest a little. Tonight would be the last chance for that.

I returned to the manor. The moment I made noise coming in, Azzy came bounding over and circled around me.

"Woof! Welcome back! Welcome back!"

A dog's life is a good life, one might say, except that Azzy's front paws and tail had bloodstains on them. She must have given a scolding to the wolf scouts that had crept toward Ende. You've been busy too.

"I'm back."

"Welcome back. How did it go? Did Teia agree to help?"

"Yes. Lucky enough to run into her in person. Nothing left to do now but wait."

I gave a rough answer and started walking further into the manor. The regressor shot a glance at Azzy and padded along after me.

'It's not my imagination. Something's sharp about her. Hughes seems kind of irritated for some reason.'

What? Out of nowhere. Azzy I understand, but why are you doing that, regressor? Watching my mood? When did you ever care the tiniest bit about someone else's mood? You've been charging ahead and doing whatever you want all this time.

'She did pull through for us, and things have been going smoothly because of Hughes. So what's the problem?'

That's exactly the problem. Things are going smoothly because I pulled through. But there's no way to explain that, so what am I supposed to do...

'Maybe it's that time of month?'

As if!

I spun around, and the regressor took one look at my expression and grew even more convinced.

'Right. Definitely. Something physiologically unpleasant must have happened. Can't be an actual period since he's a man!'

Get your logic in the right order! I nearly had a heart attack. I felt like an idiot for wondering whether she had mistaken my gender or whether she genuinely believed men experienced the same thing!

That way of thinking where the conclusion comes first and the justification follows is truly terrifying. I turned to the regressor.

"What is it?"

She watched my expression carefully and brought it up with visible effort.

"Hughes, have you been in a bad mood lately?"

"Do I look that way?"

"Yeah. Everything's going well, but you seemed more cheerful when things weren't going your way."

"Saying it like that makes me sound like some unhinged person who's happiest when causing trouble."

"Right! That's exactly it!"

This one. I genuinely want to flick her on the head. She'd dodge it with the Heavenly Mirror and hit back, of course. Tch, I'll restrain myself. I talked my right hand back down from where it had twitched and said,

"No. It's just, something I said while persuading Gruel is bothering me."

"What was it?"

I had told Gruel this: if he wanted glory, he had to pursue it himself. Rather than giving pig-kin a chance and then deciding on his own to be disappointed, he should throw himself into the mud and make something glorious with his own hands.

Those words applied to me as much as to him.

Not that I wanted any part of human glory. My conviction was solid. Humans are nothing but beasts. Drive out the Beast King and build a replacement order all you want, in the end you can't escape the beast. I still believed that, unchanged.

But to keep my promise to Azzy, I had done exactly what I told Gruel to do. I stepped in directly and guided Ende toward a more ideal situation. It was possible because the individuals who wanted to protect Ende had the will to do so, but the one who coordinated all of it in the end was me.

It was something only I could have done, as a Beast King who had lost power. Tch. Which means I have no right to complain about having the title taken from me.

"Every single thing I said felt like I was talking to myself. My chest ached the whole time. It was irritating. I started wondering if that's how the people who listen to me feel."

I wasn't even sure she understood what I meant. The regressor nodded vigorously.

"Yeah. The way you talk is kind of irritating."

"Thank you. That actually helped a little."

"And that's irritating too!"

She burst out irritably, then smoothed her expression and said,

"But hey. The results are good, so it's fine. Why all the worrying?"

"I think you worry too little, Shei-ssi."

"Humans are beasts, you said. So why worry?"

"You think beasts don't worry?"

"Woof! I don't worry!"

"See."

With Azzy's assist secured, the regressor struck a pose like she was some kind of sage.

"Worrying doesn't solve the future. Even when you throw everything you have at a problem, there are so many things that still won't go your way. The situation changes every time, and things you thought went perfectly fall apart at the last second out of nowhere. All I can do is choose based on now. And hope it goes well."

Hearing that from the regressor feels strange. She's closer to a Holy Maiden than anyone in the world.

Though she's not the same as a Holy Maiden. Being a regressor makes it different from prophecy, clearly. The biggest difference being something like infinite chances. That's probably what separates the regressor from the Holy Maiden.

...But she had a point. When had I ever worried about that sort of thing. Better to stay true to what I feel right now.

"Don't start celebrating yet, Shei-ssi. The result isn't in yet."

"So stop being irritable and get some sleep for a more perfect tomorrow."

"You're the one keeping me from that."

"Stop answering back, it's annoying!"

The regressor snapped.

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