WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 567

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A Story Left Behind. A Dog Doesn't Abandon Its Person

When the battle between the two absolutes ended, only silence remained in the forest. No chirping of insects, no birdsong. The hastily conjured forest had been given no time to grow life. Deep inside undergrowth so thick that nothing three meters away was visible, Rashy, revived by the power of immortality, roused his companion where she slept in his arms.

"Callis. Callis. Are you with me?"

Callis did not answer, only groaned. Rashy watched her burning with fever, his face tight with worry.

Having consumed the patron deity's remains, Callis had gained the power of immortality. The bleeding had already stopped, and every wound on her body had vanished without a trace. Rashy felt it instinctively: Callis had taken on the patron deity's power.

The problem, though, was not Callis's body. It was her mind. What effect the patron deity's power might have on her, he could not begin to guess, and so he shook his head and pushed the worry aside. Worrying would not solve it.

"Teacher? The boy? Are you there?"

No answer. They seemed to have disappeared along with Nevida. He was a little worried about them, but that too was not a problem worrying could solve.

Instead, Rashy went looking for his own kind.

"Hey! Pull yourselves together!"

He tore through vines with both arms, yanked out roots, and pulled the immortals free one by one. Their condition was not bad. Unlike mortals, they were immortals, even wrapped in thorned vines and buried under tree roots, they had come through intact.

'...The aftermath is bigger than I expected. This must have reached all the way to the Mortal Village.'

The fight between the two absolutes had gone beyond any natural order. Light had set trees ablaze and birthed a storm; the forest had drawn in air and swollen with it. Two forces of nature had clashed, and the world bore the scars. Nevida was gone, but the green explosion still writhed and consumed everything around it.

Only then did Rashy remember something he had forgotten until now.

'Wait. The mortals. Where are the mortals?'

Even immortals had nearly died. So what of the mortals, who could die for the smallest reason?

'There was nothing I could do, I was busy keeping myself alive! But now I have a bit of room to breathe. I should go check on them!'

He could not leave Callis in this strange forest anyway. Rashy got the immortals roughly on their feet, then set off to get out of the forest as fast as he could.

He walked for a good while. Before long, something felt wrong. The undergrowth and trees slowed him considerably, but even accounting for that, the end was nowhere in sight. The terrain had been completely overtaken by forest, and he had no way to get his bearings. Rashy shoved through the undergrowth bearing down on his line of sight and kept walking with no particular direction, just onward until an end appeared.

Then he stopped. Something had caught his eye. Artificial decorations that had no place in a primeval forest were showing through the tangle of vines. Rashy stared at them and muttered.

"This is... where the Mortal Village was?"

The bad feeling had come true. The explosion of trees had swallowed the Mortal Village after all. Being on the outskirts, the tree density was thinner here than at the center, but if the mortals had been caught in it, they would have died without any chance to resist.

"Hello! Is anyone there!"

He called out at the top of his lungs on the off chance someone was alive, but only sound bouncing off the trees came humming back. Rashy headed toward the nearest building. Vines had coiled around the main beam and snapped it, leaving the structure sagging at a tilt. He tore the rattling door off its hinges and immediately regretted it. The inside was packed so full of grass and trees it looked ready to burst.

Even recovering the bodies seemed like it would be difficult. Rashy grimaced and threw the door aside. If the mortals had all been swept up and killed in this explosion...

"Woof!"

Rashy spun around. A bark half-forgotten, yet somehow familiar. A faint hope stirred in him, this was different from any other animal's cry, full of goodwill toward humans.

He ran toward the sound. It was easier to move than before, and not just his imagination. Claw marks, bite marks on tree trunks, gouges torn in the earth. Something stronger and more violent had been eating through the great forest, leaving its traces everywhere.

Rashy adjusted his hold on Callis and followed the trail at a run, and before long he found the mortals sitting around a campfire.

The vigilante group, such as they were, armed and equipped, spotted Rashy and called out.

"Rashy-ssi!"

"You're all alive!"

"We nearly weren't! If it hadn't been for her, we would have been swept right up and killed!"

The vigilantes pointed at Azzy as one. Azzy was finishing off a piece of meat and barked at the attention, as if joining in.

Her claws, once hard and strong, had worn down short. She had not stopped clawing even then; dried blood crusted the dirt around her. Her fur and skin were a mess of twigs and leaves. She had a scratch across one eye and was squinting on that side with clear discomfort.

If she had only run, she would not have a single scratch. These were the marks of someone who had fought the forest to save people.

"She woke us all up in the middle of the night and dragged us out!"

"After that, light fell from the sky and the forest caught fire, and then the forest came roaring down on us in its fury."

"But anyway, Rashy-ssi. What happened? Was it really what people are saying?"

"What are people saying? I need to know what it is before I can tell you whether it's right."

"...There's a rumor that the patron deity is furious because the forest burned. So people are saying the ones who pushed for setting the fire need to be offered as sacrifices. I talked them down for now, but..."

It was entirely wrong. But Rashy was not gifted at explaining things, and what had just taken place was so enormous an event that explaining it at all was its own challenge.

He scratched his chin, looking troubled. The people who read that as confirmation shouted out roughly.

"We knew it! They dared to burn the forest and now the Earth Mother is furious!"

"The World Tree burned itself, so this is payback!"

"Offer up a sacrifice! That woman who set the fire too!"

The crowd's anger turned toward Callis, and Rashy's expression went hard.

"Knock it off. That's not what happened."

"Then! Why did the world tear open and the forest rage at us!"

"How would I know?"

"It must be the patron deity's will! You're just trying to let your wife off the hook!"

No. The patron deity had been a wretched god, killed by an ill omen and turned into a tree. Callis, who had eaten that fruit, was the patron deity now.

But how was he supposed to explain any of that? Even Rashy, who had watched it all happen in front of him, still did not fully understand it himself. While he was choosing his words, a few mortals who had found someone to pin the blame on let their jeers fly.

"That's just what you'd expect from people who came from beyond the plains! I knew it from the moment they pushed to start the fire out of their own greed, a woman who was practically sold here!"

"...What was that?"

Immortals are generous and gentle because they cannot be hurt. But attack their honor rather than their body, and no one could promise your safety.

Callis was his companion, and she also carried within her the god he was meant to serve, she was a shrine maiden. Hearing Callis insulted like that, Rashy's eyes went cold for just a moment. Under normal circumstances he might have held back a few more times, but he had crossed the threshold of life and death more than once already, and he was raw.

"Woof."

That was when Azzy gave a long bark. She walked in front of the people working themselves toward a fight and barked in clear displeasure.

"Patron deity not angry!"

The further a land is from laws and morals, the more it prizes loyalty. Because saving someone is not simply a given, it becomes that much more precious. The mortals respected Azzy, their rescuer, and listened to what she said.

"You angry! You want to let it out! But you should not be angry!"

It was not the god who was furious. It was the humans who had nearly died. They were worked up from fear and confusion, and they were looking for somewhere to pour all of that feeling.

Azzy had seen through every one of their emotions, and she pressed them like she was calling them out.

"I saved you! No one lost! Nothing to be angry about!"

She was the one who had saved them all, so she had every right to say it. The mortals felt a rush of shame and lowered their heads.

And so did Rashy.

For one moment, Rashy had thought them ungrateful. He had felt that people who had settled in the village through his goodwill were daring to insult him. Yet Rashy himself had done nothing for them, and he had been taking their respect as something owed.

Immortal or not, he was still human. Rashy had only wanted to release his own confusion and fear, just like the mortals.

'No different. Me, and the mortals, and the patron deity too.'

Rashy laughed emptily and took a slow breath. Was there any need to hold back his words just because they were hard to explain? He would have to try, even with his poor gift for it.

That was when a circle of light appeared above Azzy's head, and at the same time a figure made of light took shape.

She was a girl, slight yet dignified. Her face was beautiful in the way of a painting, and there was something faintly unreal about it. Her eyes were closed as if drowsy, yet she looked directly at Azzy, her lips holding a quiet smile.

[This dream is.... no matter when I have it, it is always so happy and warm....]

The Holy Maiden of Heaven was sudden, but she was too beautiful and sacred to look upon with fear. The mortals who saw her appear from nowhere could only stare in surprise.

Rashy, though, had encountered that presence once before, and he could not keep the fear from rising.

"You!"

[Hmm? Have you seen me before?]

The Holy Maiden of Heaven tilted her head, covered her mouth briefly, and murmured.

[It seems the possibilities have crossed. To be observed twice in one branch of the future, even if that is not what I wished, perhaps the flow of the future converges toward this side regardless. I wonder what has happened here.]

Rashy tried to speak, but no sound came out. Startled, he reached up to touch his own throat. His throat was moving normally, but no sound escaped beyond it.

The voice of the Holy Maiden of Heaven rang in his bewildered ears.

[I apologize, but I have sealed your voice. Now that I have appeared at two points in time, I must not observe too much information at this one. The more precisely I hear the time and the events, the greater the variance in my own existence becomes. Please allow me to piece together the rest on my own.]

'What does that mean? Just now, that radiant figure fought with Nevida. Why does she act as if she has never been through any of this?'

It struck Rashy suddenly that the Holy Maiden of Heaven looked younger than before. She was made of light, so it was hard to be certain by how much, but she seemed purer and more vibrant now.

[Even so. In the end, it was I who was defeated on this land.]

The Holy Maiden of Heaven smiled faintly and walked toward Azzy. Azzy only gazed steadily at the mysterious presence before her.

[Even so. Having a good friend who always stands for humans is a truly joyful thing. This one is kind, and powerful, and tireless. Ahh. If only humans were even half as much like her....]

Her words grew softer toward the end, barely audible. Whatever was weighing so heavily on her mind, Azzy had no way of knowing and no need to, and she barked happily at the figure all the same.

"Woof! I'm a friend!"

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