WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 517

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Hour of the Dog and the Wolf - 10

The ground caving in is nothing compared to the fuss people make about it. It hadn't become an Abyss, and a drop of only a few dozen meters isn't going to deal fatal damage to beastkin or wolves. Falling rocks were about the most dangerous part, but now that some force had halted the collapse, the number who actually died or got hurt purely from the ground-shake's aftermath was tiny.

For a Beast King, a drop like that or a boulder rolling by might as well be a rut in the road or a pebble underfoot. Whether Jizan came crashing down, the ground gave way, or shattered rocks rained in, to a Beast King it was no different from a light drizzle getting your clothes damp.

So Azzy and Fenrir fought right through the collapsing earth, treating it about as seriously as a drizzle. They leapt off crumbling ground and traded blows, each doing her part to help bury the other.

When Azzy toppled in a cloud of dust, the shadow lunged at her. She tried to dodge, but Fenrir got her teeth into Azzy's arm.

"Owwwww!"

"Yipe! Hngh. Yip!"

No matter how much Azzy thrashed, Fenrir's jaw refused to open. She beat at Fenrir's head and twisted her body, but the teeth only dug deeper into her forearm.

Wolves don't let go of what they bite. Knowing that, Azzy stopped trying to pull free and instead bared her own teeth toward Fenrir's neck. The moment Fenrir sensed it and shifted slightly, Azzy slapped her hard across the face.

In her wolf body, a slap to the face wouldn't have made Fenrir release. But a Beast King wears a human shape. Fortunately, the human jaw is not built to hold on forever once it bites. Thanks to the gap between essence and form, those wolf's teeth slid loose.

That didn't mean Azzy came out unscathed. A long gash opened along her arm. Blood poured from the torn flesh. Face tight with pain, she raised her arm anyway.

"A beast can do anything."

Covered in blood and dust, Azzy faced Fenrir, who snarled back at her with bared teeth.

"If you're scared, run. If you can't, bite. Scratch, bite, dig holes, bark, threaten."

"Woof..."

"You protect humans? Bark. Yeah. You can bring humans into the pack. Keep them close and guard them!"

Fenrir turned her hatred toward the presences behind Azzy, humans buried under rubble, groups picking their way toward the wreckage. Some had beastkin dogs out front helping search, darting through heaps of dirt and signaling which figures were wolves and which were people.

They had once been the same kind of beast as the wolves, and yet now they were devoting themselves to humans. Risking their own lives to do it.

"Awoooo! But you can't throw us away just to protect humans!"

Fenrir let out a long howl. The king's roar was answered from every direction. Wolves surged toward the humans again, answering their king's fury.

"The savagery will go on. It won't disappear! Humans will hurt you, kill you, abandon you, and neglect you! That's exactly why dogs need to be able to become wolves!"

Fenrir cried it out on behalf of every act of violence. Against that powerful, savage Fenrir, the bloodied and wounded Azzy answered in a small voice.

"...I don't like getting hurt."

"Then fight back!"

"Don't want to fight. Don't want to kill. Don't want to be abandoned. Woof. I'm going to be good."

"That's not your choice to make, dog!"

"Not a choice. Woof. Fighting doesn't work."

Azzy is kind and gentle. Some reason had taken away her ability to attack humans, but honestly, even if she could, it probably wouldn't have made much difference.

She is warm toward humans and accepts other beasts into her pack. Unlike other Beast Kings who keep their guard up, Azzy had always lived right in the middle of people.

"I can bare my teeth. Growl and bark. Bite. But if I hurt someone, they get scared of me. They say I'm bad. Woof. I'm good. If I stay good... they won't be scared of me. I like that."

"Even when you're used, abandoned, and worked to death? Even when they look down on you?"

Even at the front of the fight against the wolves, even soaked in blood, Azzy hadn't run. Because there were humans behind her.

"Still. Someday they'll like me more. If I keep my promises, if I protect them, someday they'll look after me too."

"Grrr. Sounds like something a sheep would bleat."

The two of them stood at opposite ends. Words were only opinions; neither would take the other's to heart. What it came down to was strength, and what remained would be written in bodies.

The peace Azzy wanted could only be won through savagery, in the end. Sadly, she couldn't do it alone. Most of her savagery had gone to Fenrir.

"A leash isn't a promise, it's domination! Humans don't keep their promises! Just like they're not helping you right now!"

"That's not always how it is."

Well. If the strategy worked, it worked. There was a human to fight on her behalf, after all. The problem was that the human happened to be me.

"Fair enough. I think I need some respect too. Emotionally, I'm with you, wolf."

One weapon: Jizan. A handful of weak Demon Gods. The enemy: the King of Wolves.

I never would have stepped in if the odds hadn't lined up this well. Grumbling to myself, I grabbed Jizan and put myself in front of Fenrir.

"Woof...?"

Azzy looked at me. Her expression said she couldn't believe I was here, but her tail gave her away, wagging furiously.

"Why did you come?"

"To keep a promise."

"Woof? You, not weak?"

"Weak enough that helping you is about my limit. I mean, you said it yourself-you're the one at the front."

That's what I said, but. This was genuinely dangerous.

The King of Wolves was a beast in a human shape. Conversation worked on her, but mind reading did not. My one real advantage, reading killing intent before it came, was gone.

And her strength was greater than Azzy's. If I picked a fight relying on Jizan alone, I'd die like an insect. The only thing keeping this remotely manageable was Azzy.

Fenrir's brow twitched at the appearance of a human. She had been about to direct her killing intent straight at me, but something stopped her. She sniffed the air and stepped closer. A tense Azzy moved to block her path. Fenrir frowned.

"...Woof? Who are you?"

"Hello. I'm an ordinary human."

I hedged in case she recognized me, but Fenrir's next words made my worry seem pointless.

"You too... had your savagery taken?"

Maybe she felt kinship with me. Or maybe the King of Wolves and the King of Dogs were the same kind of being. Either way, Fenrir read my nature at a glance.

On top of that, she seemed to have roughly grasped what had happened to me.

"Seems like it. Unlike Azzy, though, I have plenty of complaints about my situation."

Azzy and Fenrir had split apart with opposite traits, divided into the dog who protects humans and the wolf who opposes them, now fighting each other.

I had been dropped out here with my power stripped. And sometime in a future I didn't know, the King of Sin was supposed to be born and try to destroy the world.

Only an idiot would miss the connection. Unfortunately, I am not Azzy. Ah, some things are better left unknown.

"Your teeth and claws were taken? You're a human. How does a human get something taken from them?"

"Maybe it was easier because I'm human. It's hard to work up the nerve, but once you've steeled yourself, pulling out your own claws and teeth is easier than pulling out someone else's."

This had clearly caught Fenrir off guard. Almost as if she were outraged, she ground her teeth and asked:

"Human. What on earth are they trying to do?"

"No idea. I'm a victim just like you, don't ask me."

I played ignorant, but I had a rough idea.

Azzy is the King of Dogs. She cannot harm humans under any circumstances and devotes herself to protecting them. She's the ideal guardian of humanity, in every sense. Her racial limits as a dog mean she can't stop humans from hurting each other, but still.

If someone had tried the same thing with a human, what would they have wanted to make of me? Obvious enough. The plan must have been to shape the King of Humanity into a guardian of humanity. Somehow things went sideways and the King of Sin showed up first.

"Human. Are you all right with that? Can you really just be used with your savagery gone?!"

"Of course not. I'm a Beast King too. A beast can do anything, and humanity's savagery is mine as well."

That's also why I feel some sympathy for the wolf. Even as the King of Humanity, I can't be humanity's guardian.

But humanity's savagery is using everything else as a tool in service of a goal. Using dogs as a tool to fight wolves, that too is human savagery.

"But siding against you here doesn't mean I'm surrendering my savagery. For humans, dogs are better than wolves."

"..."

Because of that conceptual split, Azzy had become sensitive to human emotions while Fenrir had come to feel the beast's savagery. She probably felt humanity's savagery too.

Fenrir stared at me. She sniffed the air again and again. After sitting with it for a moment, she spoke quietly.

"I am the savagery the beasts lost. But you haven't lost your savagery. You've lost the teeth and claws to show it."

"Right. So I'm reading the room and keeping my head down."

"Humanity's savagery, using everything else as a tool, that baseness. You're savage. Plenty."

"Thanks for acknowledging it, but if you're going to put a name to it, could you say clever instead of base?"

Fenrir's savagery collides with humanity's savagery. That's why she has no choice but to attack humans. The disaster the regressor had seen in the past was probably a more complete version of Fenrir than this one.

I had entered Fenrir's field of view. The wolf, who until now had fixed her hatred solely on Azzy, took clear note of me.

"...Coming to keep an old promise without even your teeth. Bark. Unexpected."

"Woof! Not unexpected! Promise, duty!"

"Well, circumstances sometimes make it hard to keep promises. But in most cases, keeping them is the better deal."

Right. If the regressor could handle it on her own, maybe I'd be off the hook. But I couldn't let Azzy die, and nothing good would come from Fenrir running loose.

If Fenrir was the disaster that would summon the King of Sin, I needed to stop it. I had a feeling the King of Sin would not leave me in one piece.

I drew Jizan and swung it through the air a couple of times. Fenrir might not understand exactly what this club was, but she'd know by instinct how dangerous it could be.

"Here. I brought a special stick just for you. What do you think, scary? Feel like a good beast and back off?"

If Fenrir were an ordinary Beast King, she might have stepped back. But.

"Awoo-."

Fenrir, bound to something just like me and Azzy, had no intention of retreating. She stretched her neck toward the sky and let out a long, free howl.

The wolf's cry carried far, far out. Fenrir, having vented the tangle of feelings packed inside her, shook her silver-grey fur and fixed her gaze on me.

"Let's test our savagery against each other, shepherd."

Me? Against you? I'd die. At pretty good odds, probably.

The wolf's stare had grown too frightening. I dropped my gaze and edged back a step.

"No. You should be fighting Azzy. I'll be supporting from the rear."

"Woof woof! Human, weak! Don't bite!"

"Azzy. You can't just tell her I'm weak like that."

"Woof? Human, strong! Bite!"

"No. That's not helping either."

Fenrir already had a rough idea I was weak. I needed to stay as far from the actual fighting as possible.

...It didn't look like the wolf had any interest in letting me.

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