WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 519

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My strongest card was Jizan. That club, carrying the power of a Demon God, was something even the King of Wolves could not simply push through. I had to hold Fenrir off with that one weapon alone.

How? Damn it. If I could do that, I would have been a regressor myself.

There was only one thing I could do. I angled Jizan diagonally, planting it like a wall stretching from her shoulder to her flank, forcing her to shift her center of gravity if she wanted through.

That split Fenrir's options in two: go around Jizan and attack, or plow straight through it and hit me anyway.

The first option would have been a disaster. Elixir or not, trading more than two blows with a vastly superior fighter meant dying. Unless Azzy or someone else arrived in time to help, but that was out of my hands.

What I trusted was a wolf's savagery.

"Yelp!"

She crashed into Jizan without bleeding off a single bit of speed. All that momentum converted to impact in an instant, rattling Fenrir's whole body.

At the same time, a vicious shock slammed through me. Fenrir's outstretched foreleg had caught my shoulder past the side of Jizan. That image burned itself into my eyes, and then my vision went black.

Pain like something had beaten my back and spine to pieces. A rib must have punched into my lung, because the spasms started immediately. When the world came back, I was upside down, crumpled in the dirt far from where I had been standing.

I had anticipated it. I had reacted. The mind game I had played with Jizan, I had won.

But the stakes were so wildly unequal. Fenrir had absorbed what amounted to a scratch and delivered a blow that broke me. My ribs felt like they had burst open, and the feeling in my left arm simply was not coming back.

At least I still had Jizan in my grip. Small mercy. If Fenrir pressed for more, though, win or lose, my life would be the wager on the table.

"Woof! Woof woof!"

Azzy came in barking and threw herself at Fenrir. She pressed in as close as she could, giving Fenrir no room to shake her off, and attacked without letting up.

"Fight me!"

Fenrir was cagey now. She waited for a gap to open between herself and Azzy, then sprinted straight at me. Azzy, startled, cut in between us to shield me, but that was the bait. She whipped her head around and pinned Azzy to the ground before she could recover her footing.

"You are unnecessary, dog. Without your savagery, you are nothing but an obstacle."

"Woof woof! Don't run away!"

If Fenrir got past her, I was dead. Azzy understood that. Even flat on her back she dug her claws in and grabbed hold of Fenrir. But with Fenrir pinned, Azzy could not counterattack. The moment Azzy's claws sank in, Fenrir brought a foreleg down across her face as if she had been waiting for exactly that.

Thud. Azzy's body sank a hand's breadth into the ground. Still sitting on top of her, Fenrir spoke.

"Humans try to make dogs into tools. That is their savagery. They want to make me a dog, tame me, use me."

"Woof! Woof! Whimper!"

"If you would make me a tool, you must first surpass my savagery."

Thwack, thwack, thwack. Every strike made the earth shudder. Azzy was being driven into the ground inch by inch, but she would not let go of her claws. If she let go, I would die.

Fenrir knew it. She kept hammering down.

"Awoooo! Savagery is not something humans alone possess!"

Blood ran from Azzy's mouth. She was in a terrible state, and Fenrir was raising her paw to hit her again without a moment's hesitation, when Jizan spun through the air.

Not a threatening throw, but one she could not ignore. As Fenrir ducked to dodge it, Azzy heaved her off and scrambled free.

She had lost the advantage, but Fenrir had already figured out where the throw had come from. Along with that, she had figured out there was nothing left standing between her and me.

She met my eyes. I was gasping, weaponless. Nothing stood between us now. She barked like she meant to devour me and lunged.

"Yes. This is what fighting for life looks like."

Then a shadow appeared out of nowhere, ghostly and blurred. Two blades like fangs closed together, one above Fenrir's skull, one below her chin.

Fenrir's tail snapped rigid as instinct screamed danger. She wrenched her own body sideways in midair and cleared the blades. But Gruel's daggers stretched like snakes and carved lines across her anyway. Two trails of blood scattered through the air.

"Grrrr!"

Fenrir bared her teeth at the new threat. Gruel's ambush had failed, but he was grinning as he shouted.

"This suits me far better than all that political posturing and diplomatic nonsense! Fighting to survive, simple, clean, easy to understand!"

Gruel of the Beast Faction. He had reached his principle, and yet he had spent who-knows-how-long lurking on the sidelines. He had finally entered the fight. He was late, and he was acting triumphant about it, which took some nerve.

"You're late..."

"You held on, didn't you? Still breathing, that's what counts."

He answered without a care, and Fenrir came charging straight at him. The speed was worthy of a Beast King, difficult to react to with ordinary energy alone. But Gruel simply vanished, gone like a mirage.

"Against the King of Wolves, even I have to smooth the ground in advance or things get dangerous."

Calling it fast felt like the wrong word entirely. No matter how quick a person's reflexes, movement still requires pushing off the ground and driving with the legs. But Gruel moved without lifting his feet or extending his stride, doing nothing more than sliding them slightly, and still outpaced Fenrir.

"While you and the King of Dogs were fighting, I smoothed all the ground around here. In this area, right now, I am faster than anyone."

Gruel shifted his footing. He vanished from sight as though the earth had pushed him, then reappeared behind Fenrir. Fenrir twisted around to cover the threat, but Gruel had anticipated exactly that. He angled in alongside her and slashed with his daggers.

By any ordinary logic, a lone human should not have been able to stand against a Beast King. But those who have reached their principle surpass ordinary logic. Fenrir, who had fought Azzy and barely taken a scratch, was now accumulating wounds.

'Energy-coated daggers are still barely cutting through. That would have taken an arm clean off if this were an ordinary wolf.'

Even pressing the offensive, Gruel did not drop his guard. Against a person he would have had ten clean kills by now, but Fenrir took slash after slash and kept those sharp eyes fixed on him.

'She is not even flinching from the pain. Not even spooked. This is trouble.'

The moment a brief lull opened in the exchange, Fenrir came in like lightning. Gruel reflexively used smoothing the ground to get clear, reappearing about thirty meters away, and nearly stumbled from a shock he had not expected. Fenrir's claws had grazed him in that tiny sliver of time.

'Without smoothing the ground there is no keeping up with that speed. Without reaching a principle, you would just be a meat shield. And even this...'

"Awoooo!"

Smoothing the ground covered short distances fast, but it required the ground to be prepared in advance, which made it poor for long-distance movement. In rough terms, the ground Gruel had prepared covered roughly five hundred meters. He needed to end this before he burned through it all.

But the raw gap in strength was significant. He wrapped energy around his whole body and thrust his blades out toward Fenrir as he came in. Fenrir dropped low and drove in underneath.

Gruel brought a knee up to catch her, then tried to bring his blade down as Fenrir rose from the impact. Fenrir was faster. Those teeth snapped shut on the rising knee. A wolf's jaw is brutally strong, everyone knows it. Gruel, badly rattled, used energy to shake her loose and smoothed the ground to create distance. Cold sweat broke out on his skin.

'No technique, just a brainless charge. But effective in its own right.'

The moment that thought formed, Fenrir whipped her head around and came right after him. A chill ran down Gruel's spine.

This was already the third time Fenrir had watched smoothing the ground in action. She had learned from all three instances and tracked exactly where Gruel had retreated to. Gruel was bracing for the collision.

"Woof woof woof!"

Azzy burst in and sank her teeth into Fenrir. Fenrir immediately grabbed Azzy by the scruff and slammed her into the ground, but that opening was enough for Gruel to come rushing out, and Fenrir was pushed back four or five steps.

'Without the King of Dogs, this would have been a difficult fight. Now I understand the reluctance to fight without the King of Dogs.'

Gruel was better off than I was, at least. He still had the strength to hold his own.

The Beast Faction warriors were fighting wolves all around us. The Baskervilles or the priests had run into the regressor.

There was no better window than right now. I dragged my shaking body upright. It hurt, and my head was swimming, but the elixir was still doing its work, my arms and legs snapped to when I told them to.

Tomorrow was genuinely going to be terrifying. While those two kept Fenrir busy, I retrieved Jizan and started setting the last trap for her.

The fight went on. Gruel with his smoothed ground and Azzy drove Fenrir into a corner. When Fenrir was occupied with one of them, the other came barreling in from the other side to exploit the gap. Under their combined assault, Fenrir was taking damage, little by little.

But everyone felt it in their chest.

'We lack a decisive blow! This fight will never end at this rate!'

I could not read a beast's thoughts, but Fenrir and Azzy were surely thinking the same thing. That was why Fenrir had used me as bait to catch Azzy earlier.

Right. What was missing was a single blow that could tear through hide and shatter bone, something that would land even on a Beast King. A powerful principle, or magic, or the force of a relic like Skywarbler.

And Jizan was in my hands.

I was the one who had to do it.

"Wolf. Admit defeat and be done with it."

You used me as bait to catch Azzy, didn't you? Fine. Then I'll return the favor.

I would use myself as bait and draw Fenrir in.

"You are the Beast King. You gained your strength by embodying the savagery of the other beasts. But you know it, don't you, wolf. The world already belongs to humans."

Fenrir's ears pricked up. The Beast King had taken human shape to communicate with humans. I kept that in mind as I went on.

"One pig-kin who has reached a principle fights you almost on equal terms. Even without energy, humans can build magic and devices capable of bringing you down. A single city's fighting strength rivals your entire pack. If a single nation's king decided to march, your wolf pack would be wiped out in an instant."

My words, of all things, brought a brief lull to the fight. Fenrir fixed those sharp eyes on me even with a more dangerous enemy standing right beside her.

"If you cannot win, adapting is one option. Azzy looks foolish, but she's actually the wise one."

"Woof? Foolish?"

"Yeah. Being foolish is exactly how she became a friend to humans."

Azzy was floating a question mark over her head at that unprovoked insult when Fenrir bared her teeth and howled.

"You're telling me to run because they're strong? To keep my teeth sheathed and hide? Human, will you adapt, then? Will you kill your own savagery?"

"No. I don't need to. I'm human."

If humans are strong, that strength is mine too. And I have adapted, in my own way. Dying a pointless death is not something I can afford.

"But you are a wolf. Your strength could never beat humans no matter how many times you tried. Savagery or whatever else, surviving comes first. If it's life you want, pulling your teeth and cutting your claws and shedding that savagery is the better choice."

"If that is what you want..."

Fenrir's paws hit the earth. She moved so fast and so clean that both Gruel and Azzy lost track of her for an instant, and drove straight at me.

"Then try it! Pull my teeth, cut my claws, grind away every last shred of my savagery and tame me! Break me with your savagery and make me your dog!!"

Footnotes:

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