WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 549: Finding a Sacrifice Is Also Work

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Monkeys were masters of climbing trees. Though they were not beastkin, the Hanuman tribe had made a contract with the King of Monkeys long ago and received a share of the king's power. They could run across the treetops as though they were flat ground.

They made excellent use of their talent, moving through the jungle with unmatched speed. They lived in the trees, stealing whatever they needed before fleeing.

This raid on Mortal Village was no different. The immortals might be strong, but those earthfolk were slow and lumbering. The Hanuman tribe was confident they could shake them off.

They were also sure nothing would happen if they kidnapped a Mortal Village child instead of an immortal's child.

"Ukiyak! You said nothing would happen!"

A monkey mask shrieked in panic.

"It's a wind spirit! The wind spirit is angry, so something terrible will happen to us!"

"We came prepared to make enemies of those persistent earthfolk, but who knew there'd be a spirit too?!"

"If we'd known this would happen, we never should've raided Mortal Village!"

It was not a wind spirit, but the regressor wielding Skywarbler. To them, though, there was no meaningful difference. If the regressor was angry, terrible things would happen all the same.

Perhaps even worse than if it were a wind spirit.

"Forget the sacrifice. We need to run now!"

"Then what about this? We sacrificed five of our own just to bring back this offering!"

A monkey mask pointed to the child in the sack. The monkey mask who seemed to be their leader, wearing a furry, lion-like mask, shouted at once.

"Why are you even asking? Kill it and hang it somewhere!"

"B-but what if the wind spirit really gets angry?"

"The best thing is to wash our hands of this and run! Ukikiki. If we leave for somewhere else, it won't matter whether it's a wind spirit or whatever!"

The leader monkey mask roughly threw down the sack. The child inside, who had been holding their breath in terror, let out a groan.

"Aow... Aowa..."

"It'll get torn apart by a leopard if we leave it lying around!"

The leader monkey mask reached both hands toward the child's neck, intending to snap it with those powerful hands.

But the monkey mask should have given the wind spirit more thought. No matter how cold the regressor was, she would not stand by and watch a kidnapped child be killed.

Not that she was particularly cold in the first place.

"Kieeeeeek!"

Blood burst out as the leader monkey mask's arm was knocked violently aside by an invisible blade of wind. As the leader writhed in pain, the regressor shot forward like lightning and kicked aside the monkey mask guarding the child.

She glared at the leader monkey mask.

"Looks like this is as far as the tailing goes. No complaints, Hughes?"

"Of course not. Isn't this also where the Holy Maiden's blessing led us?"

The regressor casually stirred up a wind as the monkey masks stumbled backward. The sack holding the child floated down slowly on the breeze.

Rashy leaped up and caught the child in one motion. Stroking the terrified child, he looked deeply saddened.

"How can a mortal treat the life of another mortal so carelessly? Has the Hanuman tribe lost both its pride and decency?"

"Ukiit. What would you earthfolk, who only got lucky and gained power, know...?!"

The leader monkey mask clutched their bleeding arm and shouted.

"You immortals wouldn't understand! To survive, we must offer sacrifices! We must offer sacrifices to the great spirits and the beautiful Queen, and gain power if we are to survive!"

"There are many ways to live without offering up other children as sacrifices. I've seen them beyond the Great Steppe."

"Beyond the Great Steppe? Things are only possible there because it's beyond the Great Steppe! Not here!"

The leader monkey mask wriggled their fingers as they continued.

"This land is ruled by witches, beasts, spirits, and the Queen! Without strength, without something to rely on, you're abandoned and pathetically devoured! You who were lucky enough to offer up your bodies and become immortal... You cannot understand us, who are desperate to survive!"

Then the leader monkey mask pulled a leather pouch from inside their clothes. It was filled with poison brewed from insect venom. They crushed it in one squeeze and hurled it at us.

"Kikiki! Ant venom! Die covered in poison!"

Yet the leader monkey mask's trump card achieved nothing.

Click.

The regressor sheathed Skywarbler. At the same time, dozens of tree branches were cut apart and fell all at once. Among the countless leaves was the bloody hand of a monkey mask.

The wind swept through a beat later, and the monkey masks clinging to the trees flailed as they fell to the ground.

Even the pouch of venom, their trump card, quietly fell to the ground, sealed within Skywarbler's whirlwind.

"Poison? That's outdated. Who falls for that stuff these days?"

Since aura arts emerged, asymmetric methods of attack like poison and curses had nearly died out. They could not even invade an aura practitioner's body, and even if they managed to get in, it was difficult to seize control of the body. Poison that stopped the heart? One only had to squeeze one's own heart with Water Qi Art. Poison had lost its place in the age of aura arts.

Still, aura arts were not properly known in this barbaric land, so they continued to use poison.

"Ukiki..."

"The spirit is angry..."

The monkey masks crawled across the ground, their fighting spirit gone. The regressor controlled the area with wind and looked down at them.

"Now. You have one choice. Die quietly, or tell me everything and die. What were you planning to do with the child?"

"Mr. Shei, do you really think they'll talk if you threaten them that bluntly?"

"Ukiki... It was to be offered at the altar of Ankra, the thousand-eating demon..."

"No, you're actually telling us?"

It made no sense to expect barbarians to show loyalty worth throwing away their lives for. Still, they were confessing obediently even after being told they would die?

The Hanuman barbarians bowed their heads to the regressor and spilled everything.

"W-we were asked to do it! Ankra, the thousand-eating demon, needs a thousand souls as sacrifices. They said they would give us an apple tree for every one we brought."

"The thousand-eating demon?"

"It is a powerful ancient demon that devours a thousand people! They said they would eat us first if we didn't help. Ukiki! We only kidnapped children so we could survive too!"

Because they had taken a perfectly submissive stance from the start, the regressor's killing intent toward the Hanuman tribe eased.

They called it a spirit, but their unconditional submission to someone powerful who wielded strength they could not understand was their own survival strategy.

"It must be a demon infamous enough to have a title. It really must be the ancient evil Maiél described."

"It sounds scary just hearing about it. Can you beat it, Mr. Shei?"

"Of course. Demons aren't that powerful. It's been well over a thousand years since the First Year, and their power has almost faded away. Even if it is revived through sacrifices, it will only inherit a portion of its power. It won't be as strong as it was back then."

'A demon I don't even remember couldn't be that powerful in the first place. Maiél would never send me against an enemy I couldn't possibly defeat. Let's deal with it quickly. I have no particular business in the old Kingdom of Ten Thousand's lands anyway. The only demon god there is the Tree of Corruption...'

Feeling much lighter, the regressor asked the monkey masks.

"Tell me where they are. Then I'll spare your lives."

At the mention of being spared, the monkey masks brightened and quickly answered.

"The Bone Altar! Ukiki. They're at the Bone Altar! As for where that is..."

That was when one of the monkey masks crawling weakly on the ground sprang to its feet. Giving off an ominous aura, it raised both arms and snapped both of its own arm joints.

Crunch.

With a sound sickening enough to make one shudder, the monkey masks' arms twisted all at once. Their unusually long arms bent grotesquely, creating a horrifying sight.

"Kiiiiik!"

"Kieeek!"

The monkey masks collapsed screaming from the unexpected pain. Amid the sight of their limbs twisting all at once, only the monkey mask that had broken its own arms stood there, letting out a sinister laugh as though it felt no pain.

"You monkey bastards. I knew this would happen, so I planted poison in you beforehand."

The regressor raised Skywarbler to kill the strange monkey mask, but paused after sensing something unpleasant.

"Black magic?"

Humans were most similar to humans. Therefore, to use magic that harmed humans, it was easiest and most convenient to use a human body as a medium.

That principle gave rise to black magic, magic that used the body as a medium. It was powerful and easy to use, though black magic damaged the caster's own body...

"You're a puppet? Looks like you don't have the guts to come out in your real body."

"Kiki. Isn't that obvious? There's no need to expose my true body just to clean up beasts like these."

The monkey mask smiled viciously beneath its mask.

Using one's own body as a medium made it easy to cast powerful magic. But even black mages valued their own bodies. So they devised ways to use black magic while protecting themselves.

The most barbaric method, and the first to be used, was sacrifice. The medium did not have to be the caster's own body.

"What a waste, what a waste. Those monkey bastards were stupid, so they made such easy hands and feet... But because of you, it looks like one of the puppets I put so much effort into will be lost."

"Pointless effort. Instead of making a puppet like that, you could've just hired someone with money."

The regressor spoke with contempt.

Black magic sounded convenient and risk-free, but there was no power more wasteful than black magic.

Writing with your own body was easy. Making someone else's body write each letter one by one was nearly impossible, especially if that person resisted. To properly use a sacrifice, poison and drugs were needed to take away its will and seize control of its body. At that point, any cost-effectiveness had already gone out the window.

And was it easy to find people to use as sacrifices? Unless one sacrifice could bring in at least one new sacrifice, the numbers did not work. If the sacrifice resisted and its body was damaged, its value fell sharply.

People said black mages had fallen because they wanted easy power, but that was what people who knew nothing said. Black mages had their own hardships. Small-time black mages struggled just to survive day to day.

"That may be true for people beyond the Great Steppe, but around here, people are driven by fear and desire rather than money. Puppets are much cheaper."

Still, a black mage who overcame all those hardships and got established became a monster that greedily consumed human lives. The black mage controlling the monkey mask before us was one of them.

The regressor lowered her voice.

"Are you planning to revive an evil god?"

"Of course. Isn't that every black mage's dream?"

"Stop wasting your time."

"Kikiki. Are you afraid? But what can you do? That is exactly what I want!"

The monkey mask spread its broken arms wide. Blood flowed, and twisted bones dangled from them, but it laughed madly as though none of that mattered.

"I will revive the evil god and become one with them! Then I will sweep away the remnants of the Queen still cast across this land and stand as a new god! Kikiki! This land will become great again!"

Despite that grand declaration, the regressor answered listlessly.

"No. I don't know what evil god you're trying to revive, but it'll be so weak that I'll kill it even if you bring it back, so stop."

Perhaps it had been too unexpected. The monkey mask stood frozen with its arms spread wide. It probably hoped she was joking, but the regressor meant every word.

'Thousand-eating? I never heard of it in my previous cycles. I've only been designated this time, but if Maiél foresaw it, it must have been defeated anyway. The Sanctum would never tolerate an evil god like that.'

The plainer the truth, the deeper it cut. Blood streaming down its body, the monkey mask grabbed its mask and laughed like mad.

"Kikiki. Arrogant human who crossed the Great Steppe. You people have always been like this... You laugh at, trample, and destroy everything in this land, then try to correct us... As though we are wrong!"

Veins bulged beneath the monkey mask's clothes. In an instant, immense power boiled up from the puppet. Burning all its life force like fuel, the monkey mask emitted ghostly flames and charged at the regressor like a beast.

"I'll kill you and use your corpse as a sacrifice! Can you still laugh no..."

"That's funny."

Honestly, the power the monkey mask displayed was not particularly impressive.

I had encountered legendary opponents far too often throughout my journey. Compared to them, a black mage, and not even the black mage themself but a mere puppet...

Sorry to say it, but even I could beat it.

Dozens of blades formed from wind shredded the monkey mask. If it had learned aura arts, blades of wind like those would not have worked. But it was difficult for a black mage to learn aura arts, and even if one did, they could not use them through another person's body. The blades sliced through the monkey mask's body like tofu, cutting its muscles and tendons apart.

"Kiiiit!"

The monkey mask fell with a short scream. Since it was not even their own body, the black mage tried to move the puppet, but with its tendons severed, it could only twitch.

The regressor spoke without any joy or sense of accomplishment.

"Wait there with your neck bared. I'll kill you."

"Kiki... Do you think you can kill me?"

The bloodied monkey mask shouted boldly in a voice that sounded ready to give out at any moment.

"This is only one of countless puppets to me. I failed to kill you, but the same is true for you! You will never find me or kill me!"

"I've..."

The regressor cut off the monkey mask's words, her eyes flashing.

"I've caught countless things like you!"

The third of the Seven-Colored Eyes: the Golden Eye that saw the unseen.

She drove Skywarbler deep into the puppet. A storm ground up the puppet's body, granting that pitiful body certain rest. Unable to remain in the dead body any longer, the black mage's consciousness left it...

And with her Golden Eye, the regressor clearly watched a fragment of that consciousness leave the body. I could not see it, but she could see the remnants of consciousness flying toward the dark forest.

"Found you."

The regressor muttered chillingly.

All that remained was to track the black mage down and kill them. Realizing this was more serious than expected, Rashy looked at the rescued child.

"This will be quite an exhausting battle. What should we do with the child? If we take them with us, they might get caught up in it and die."

"We should return them to Mortal Village. Rashy, please take them back."

"I cannot. Priests of evil gods are vile. An immortal like me may be fine, but the boy or you could be caught off guard by some vile trick. Why don't you take them?"

"I appreciate your concern, but just as we don't know the enemy, the enemy doesn't know us. They're not the only ones who can catch someone off guard."

And we supposedly had the Holy Maiden's blessing, too.

We could not drag things out against a black mage. Black mages always stockpiled sacrifices and resources, and the moment they felt threatened, they would burn through all of it without restraint. If we wanted to save even one more person, we had to leave at once.

"You can go too, Hughes. It'll be easier for me to deal with this alone."

Oh, that was a welcome thing to say. Go home and rest instead of working. Normally, I would have accepted that offer immediately.

But I had become a little interested in demons and evil gods. I politely declined the regressor's offer.

"No. I'm interested in evil gods too, so I'd like to fight one. And help you while I'm at it, Shei."

"...Really?"

'What? That's surprisingly admirable. He's even offering to help. What's gotten into him? Is this because of the Holy Maiden's blessing too?'

What did she think I was? Had it really been surprising enough for her to assume it was the Holy Maiden's blessing after all the times I had helped?

Well, she was half right.

Footnotes:

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