WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 527: Speak of the Tiger and It Appears

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The tiger came down.

With one cry, the sky tore apart. With one step, the earth shook. With one breath, the trees and grass trembled. The Mountain Lord came down.

The undisputed Beast King, whose single strand of fur could make every creature cower, cover its eyes, bury its head, and whimper, flicked her tail and made the valley echo.

Even a king who lived in a magnificent palace would order people not to call him Your Majesty when he climbed a mountain. If they were careless, a tiger might think it was being called and come strolling down.

Then what of the Mountain Lord, the king of tigers?

Humans should be grateful that the Mountain Lord ruled only one mountain. Otherwise, they would never have dared call themselves the dominant species on earth.

She was a beast that even humans, the self-proclaimed rulers of the earth, could not confidently defeat. Even kings who threw fits whenever another king appeared had no reservations about calling her the Mountain Lord.

So why was the Mountain Lord here?

I could not sense anything from the king of tigers. Such immense power stood before me, yet everything was chillingly silent. Real tigers walked softly despite their size, but the human-shaped Mountain Lord seemed to have bitten even her own presence to death.

But I knew. My mind-reading could read humans precisely. In other words, if a human could not be properly read, they were not a proper human.

Then there was that dangerous sensation echoing through my mind. It felt like seeing desperate murals painted in blood by humans who had not yet learned to write. I did not know what it was, but only fear laced with awe reached me.

The others had not yet felt the same alarm. Marquis Lapaeno in particular had been provoked by the regressor and had his legitimacy questioned by Sapien. Though he did not show it, he was seething.

The Mountain Lord looked like a feline beastkin. Beastkin usually stood with Ende, which made her Lapaeno's enemy, another beast-eared creature he looked down on. Marquis Lapaeno made the worst possible mistake.

"What is this now? Do you want to see the dead wolf that badly?"

Could that even be called a mistake?

That was simply absurdity.

Calling someone foolish for confronting absurdity meant overestimating humanity. Even someone who had reached a principle, someone honed into civilization's pinnacle, would be crushed by the world's absurdity unless they could overturn the world.

"Answer My question with what you know."

"If you want to see it that badly, I'll kill you."

Without the slightest hesitation, Marquis Lapaeno thrust his rapier at the girl before him.

He had already given the order to slaughter. If he stopped just because someone took the form of a young girl, then he would have to hesitate every time he killed someone from then on. Killing a few beastkin to set an example would not matter.

From the Marquis's perspective, it was a rational decision.

His intent to end it in one blow out of mercy was perhaps his only emotional consideration. He could not have known that even that would be the worst possible choice.

One of the Mountain Lord's whiskers twitched.

Facing a Master's strike, the Mountain Lord merely waved her hand.

It looked as though she had swept a brush through the air. Had she soaked the fur on her forepaw in ink before swinging it? The Mountain Lord's single brushstroke cut across the trajectory of principle itself.

Then the black smear swallowed everything.

Like wiping away a drawing on paper, that absurd force crushed the sword strike and advanced.

Marquis Lapaeno felt a strange sense of loss. He had certainly thrust his rapier, but both the energy he had poured into it and the rapier itself had vanished without a trace.

There had not even been any impact in his hand.

"...What?! A Master? A mage?"

He did not know what it was, but something that seemed to defy principle had happened. Marquis Lapaeno warily leaped backward.

When he fought the regressor or Gruel, he immediately understood what kind of power they used. Yet he could not even begin to gauge the power used by the girl before him.

That was enough to make Marquis Lapaeno tense.

...Without realizing that his sharp hostility was gradually grating on the Mountain Lord's nerves.

"General! The Black Tiger Seal is ready!"

"Perfect timing!"

Marquis Lapaeno welcomed the news.

The Black Tiger Corps was the duchy's elite force, an energy-practitioner unit built around Masters. If the enemy had no Master, they were powerful enough to seem invincible. Yet if that was all they had, their role was no different from ordinary infantry.

That would make an invincible force useless.

Elite units like the Black Tiger Corps possessed other mysteries. Powerful relics and innate arcane accompanied them, ensuring no enemy could simply ignore the army.

An innate arcane specialist had not been deployed because this was not meant to be such an important matter, but the relic Black Tiger Seal remained. The adjutant, wary of Kito's innate arcane, had already brought it out.

The Marquis gave his order.

"Stamp it!"

"Yes!"

The adjutant slammed down the Black Tiger Seal.

An unseen force fell and crushed the Mountain Lord. Compressed wind rolled away with clouds of dirt. Crack, crack. Rocks were pulverized, and it looked as though an invisible seal had used the earth as paper.

A tiger pattern was engraved into the ground.

Relics were traces of innate arcane left behind in the world. When a mage died, their manifested innate arcane sometimes remained instead of vanishing. Such innate arcane became relics, retaining only power without any will.

When only power remained without will, it often became a little stronger than the original innate arcane.

Like the Black Tiger Seal.

Once, the Black Tiger Seal had only been capable of stamping several places at once. Now, it exerted immense pressure across an area with a radius of thirty meters. The space crushed by the unseen pressure trapped even the flow of wind.

Within a territory where gravity seemed to have multiplied hundreds of times, Marquis Lapaeno moved lightly.

The Black Tiger Seal was a stamp. Anyone who knew its pattern could move by following the paths of its engraving. Marquis Lapaeno could navigate the maze it created with his eyes closed.

'I didn't want to bring out the Black Tiger Seal, but that's dangerous! If it takes Ende's side, we might truly lose. I'll slaughter it at full strength from the start!'

In place of the vanished rapier, he thrust his jet-black main gauche.

The black main gauche looked short, but it was a treasured weapon concealing an invisible blade. It was the perfect move to exploit an enemy accustomed to the reach of a rapier.

The Marquis unleashed his principle without restraint and aimed the main gauche at the beastkin girl's neck.

'Duet Sword, Secret Technique! Fortissimo!'

The secret technique Marquis Lapaeno had honed for years unfolded.

His past sword strike and present sword strike overlapped. Sword strikes could not occupy the same space, but principle was coercion itself, where common sense did not apply. An irresistible blow that renewed itself without end aimed for the Mountain Lord.

Yet absurdity rendered both human relics and human qi arts meaningless.

The Mountain Lord growled softly.

"Grrrr."

No one saw it.

So neither did I.

The process vanished, and only the result remained.

The Marquis disappeared for a moment. I only recognized his blurry form flying away, folded in half, after turning my head. Broken fragments of his sword kept him company.

Then, one beat later, thousands upon thousands of sword strikes shattered like glass.

The sword strikes Marquis Lapaeno's Duet Sword had left in the air all broke apart. Remnants of qi arts glittered in the sunlight like shards of glass. Amid the shower of light, the Mountain Lord shook herself as if annoyed.

She merely shook her head once, but the shattered sword strikes flew in every direction like throwing stars.

Marquis Lapaeno's Duet Sword left sword strikes behind. Yet even a sword strike was only force poured into a sharp blade and swung. In theory, if it collided with something far stronger, that sword strike could be broken too.

Still, that was easier said than done. It was power that could easily tear through steel. His final move had even connected the past and present in a single strike. Even a Beast King should not have been able to withstand it.

But his opponent was the Mountain Lord.

The king of tigers.

Having torn everything apart with teeth and claws, the Mountain Lord turned toward her next prey.

"General! Ugh, the Black Tiger Seal...!"

The moment the adjutant raised the Black Tiger Seal again, a massive forepaw reached the adjutant in an instant and covered the adjutant's face.

That was the last thing the adjutant saw.

The adjutant's neck snapped, the skin stretched taut, and the head slid away from the body. Crack. The Mountain Lord crushed the adjutant's head into bloody pulp and shook her hand.

The soldiers screamed when their adjutant died.

"Adjutant!"

Perhaps the adjutant had died too quickly and unrealistically. Or perhaps the Black Tiger Corps were elite soldiers accustomed to death. Even after seeing the adjutant's horrific corpse, they charged toward the relic the corpse still held.

"Recover the relic! We cannot let it fall into enemy hands!"

The Black Tiger Seal was a relic, a national weapon more useful than a mage. The Black Tiger Corps faced the Mountain Lord with the single-minded resolve to recover it, even if several of them had to die.

They should have fled.

The Mountain Lord turned her head. Hundreds of humans approached with blades raised. Looking displeased, she opened her mouth.

Huuuu.

A tiger inhaled one last time before the hunt.

The tiger's inhalation was like the souls of those soon to draw their last breath. A faint mist gathered in her mouth.

The Mountain Lord opened her jaws wide and roared.

｢ ｣

It was thunder rising beneath the sky and an earthquake erupting from the earth. The mortal curse and killing cry of a beast that made all things its prey.

Though it had been directed at the Black Tiger Corps, even its aftershock shook my entire body. Fear seemed ready to split me in half and flee with one part. Tinnitus rang in my ears.

Even I nearly lost my mind, but I barely endured by anchoring my ego to the regressor.

Several beastkin beside me fainted from the sound alone. Far fewer remained standing with their senses intact.

Their souls had literally scattered in terror.

The Mountain Lord's roar had the power to throw a person's soul into disarray.

...And worse still.

"Hah!"

The beastkin behind the Mountain Lord also lost consciousness and collapsed.

Yet the Black Tiger Corps, who had taken that roar head-on...

"...Ah."

Every one of them had lost their senses.

Were they dead? Alive? I did not know. Even when I read their minds, I heard nothing.

The Mountain Lord's roar twisted their blood and energy, shook their senses, and stripped away their consciousness. They were no different from being in suspended animation. Before absurdity, only a miracle could preserve one's life.

A few members of the Black Tiger Corps who had miraculously avoided the direct hit collapsed in fear.

"A wild beast came to me. I took pity on the wolf that sought to bear my ferocity in my place."

But even that miracle was only possible if the Mountain Lord decided to stop.

'It isn't innate arcane... It's power! Overwhelming power beyond humanity! Could this be... the King of Predators?!'

Marquis Lapaeno, who had miraculously survived due to his qi arts and protective equipment, staggered to his feet. Before he could fully straighten his knees, he saw the Mountain Lord appear before him like a ghost and swallowed a groan.

Her fierce eyes pierced straight through him.

How could someone facing death remain calm?

Marquis Lapaeno trembled violently in overwhelming fear.

'No. Not me. I am the Lilac Duchy's Black Tiger General, the Master known as the Duet Sword. I can't die so meaninglessly...!'

Before he could even beg for his life, the Mountain Lord's strike caved in his shoulder.

The force was so immense that his right arm, hanging below the shoulder, snapped free and flew away. His spine twisted, his pelvis collapsed, and his limbs tore apart and scattered in every direction.

Marquis Lapaeno of the Duet Sword, who had been someone else's absurdity, met an absurd death.

"I have come to keep a promise."

Footnotes:

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