WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 583: Noise Marketing

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‘Hmm. Normally, I should be the one to stop them... But if I interfere while those two are fighting, I'll stand out too much... It looks so lively, and they have their own reasons... I'm hiding my identity too... I'll leave it to Walpurgis...’

So that was why Walpurgis had come. The great witch had called her. Calling a busy subordinate all the way here just because she felt awkward talking to me herself. Impressive.

Once Walpurgis had retrieved me, I was transported to the Domain of the Lords. Smiling awkwardly beneath the gaze that made me feel like a troublesome child, I spoke to Walpurgis's illusion.

"Thanks for helping me. You must have it rough, getting dragged all over the place."

"I'm concerned that another source of trouble has just appeared."

I could feel the illusion's sharp gaze. I brushed it off lightly.

"Maybe it's because you're too dependable for a witch. Take it easy once in a while."

"There's much to be done. Like this."

"How awful."

"This is not something you can dismiss with 'how awful.' Be careful with your actions. Many kinds of people live beneath the World Tree's shade. Aside from the tree's residents, there are people throughout the area seeking the great druid's teachings, witches' medicine, or rare plants and animals that grow only on the World Tree. Some may bear a grudge against you or have ambitions of their own."

"Like Blanca?"

The illusion flickered briefly.

"...Something like that. The difference is that Nevida supports them."

"You mean the Lords of All Creation?"

Walpurgis took so long to answer that I could feel the pause even through the illusion.

"Yes. Them."

"Them? Does that mean you aren't one of the Lords of All Creation?"

"As a human being, I have only the obligatory curiosity one should feel toward the King of Humanity."

"There's nothing you want from the King of Humanity?"

"...Of course not."

"Huh? That answer was slow."

"There is one thing I would like to ask, but it isn't grand enough to call a wish. It is only a question."

Walpurgis dismissed what I said and turned away, as if she had no intention of answering further. An uncomfortable silence lingered as we rode through the xylem vessel.

Meanwhile, the regressor was deeply lost in thought.

‘Why did Hughes do something so pointless? In the end, we got nothing from this adventure, did we?’

We got plenty. We experienced all sorts of things. You went along too, so why are you complaining?

‘Hughes does like watching people. Everywhere we've gone, he has talked with the people there. But he wouldn't do this just to watch them. What was Hughes trying to accomplish? Should I ask?’

Yes. Ask. I'll answer.

‘No. We're being watched anyway. Hughes might not be able to tell me, and even if he did, I couldn't take his words at face value. Let's just think about what will happen. What good comes from revealing his identity to Blanca...? All he did was advertise that the King of Humanity had appeared. That can't possibly have been the goal.’

Ha. She sure thinks up all kinds of things.

...I can't tell whether her instincts are good or bad.

* * *

The Kingdom of Ten Thousand had fallen, but it had not disappeared. The World Tree had burned, and the Queen and close aides had been slaughtered, leaving no center to hold it together. Still, the Kingdom of Ten Thousand had always been a loose collection of powerful clans and tribes, so its form remained. Some tribes still followed its customs and pledged loyalty to Hexia Agartha, the last of the royal bloodline.

The chief of the Anub tribe, Agartha's loyal hounds whose members were all dog beastkin, perked up at the unexpected news.

"What? The King of Humanity...? Is that true?"

"It is! I saw him with my own eyes!"

"But are you certain he is the King of Humanity?"

"Th-That, I can't say. But I overheard the night witch and the black dog talking! They called him the King of Humanity!"

The black dog meant the Baskervilles. Just as the Anub tribe had been Agartha's loyal hounds, the Baskervilles had been the imperial family's loyal hounds. The Anub tribe therefore felt a strange kinship with them.

"The night witch herself? Then the great witch must know as well. It is more than worth confirming. Well done, Cario. Your quick thinking shines through."

Cario, who had brought the news, wagged their tail proudly at being recognized. Unlike Cario, the chieftain could not smile so easily.

There was a scent in the air. The scent of flames that would burn this jungle down. The chieftain took pride in being responsible for a tribe and in being a loyal servant who had inherited the spirit of the Kingdom of Ten Thousand.

"The King of Humanity. If that is truly so, the world will be thrown into turmoil."

The chieftain could not begin to measure how great the changes brought by this news would be.

Still, even amid unease and fear, the chieftain had to act. That was what it meant to be a chieftain. Anub stroked their chin and muttered.

"Perhaps this is for the best. It may be an opportunity to wipe out every last traitor remaining in this land."

* * *

"...That is what those fools in the Anub tribe must be thinking!"

The news did not reach only the Anub tribe. The fight had drawn in more than half the people living beneath the World Tree's shade, making it far too loud to cover up. It would have drawn less attention if they had advertised it.

"They are mistaken if they think the King of Humanity will be their king. The King of Humanity is king of humans alone! He isn't Agartha. Do you beastkin think he'll become your king?"

The old Kingdom of Ten Thousand had fallen as it was, leaving behind not only tribes favorable toward Agartha, but tribes hostile to her as well.

One day, Agartha suddenly created beastkin. The beastkin, suddenly dropped into the world, needed food, clothing, and shelter. Agartha cherished them and gave them a corner of a clearing she treasured, but there was no such thing as a true clearing in this world. Neither in land nor in people's hearts.

The tribe that had secretly considered that clearing, and Agartha's favor, its own accumulated resentment and hatred.

Some of them joined the rebellion and helped bring down the Agartha dynasty. They had not wanted the Kingdom of Ten Thousand to fall either.

"If he is the true King of Humanity, he will never recognize mongrels like beastkin as human. The Kingdom of Ten Thousand collapsed because things like beastkin mixed in! This is our chance to create a true nation of humans!"

Those who had once lived under a nation knew all too well how sweet that powerful authority was and how necessary a force capable of encompassing the jungle could be. Even though centuries had passed since the Kingdom of Ten Thousand fell, they still longed for the past.

"Let's go! To where the false World Tree stands!"

* * *

"...What was bound to come has come. The land where sin took seed has borne fruit. Now the Tree of Corruption will be complete, the fruit of knowledge of good and evil will be borne, and the juice of sin will flow down."

And the vast jungle was not inhabited solely by descendants of the Kingdom of Ten Thousand.

A girl walked among dozens of trees growing on a low hill. Gently stroking branches like outstretched human hands, she whispered to the trees in a sorrowful voice.

"Long ago, Queen Agartha lay with the Beast King and bore beastkin. Every birth should be blessed, yet the Queen turned birth into a terrible corruption through personal greed and obstinacy. It was... something that should never have existed in this world..."

The vibrant, towering trees that grew in that hot and humid land were products of nature and objects of worship in their own right. To druids who revered nature, the jungle of the Kingdom of Ten Thousand had been a land overflowing with blessings.

But when the World Tree, the blessed ginkgo tree, burned away, and the Tree of Origin created by the great druid grew in its place, the druids felt only endless despair and resignation.

"...But a corrupted great druid, a mad great witch, countless witches and warriors besides... They are powerful, but we are powerless."

Great Druid Nevida. She had protected nature and passed down the druids' teachings since ancient times, and was the teacher of every druid. She loved nature and formed contracts with every kind of Beast King, making her the exemplar and pride of all druids.

When she declared that she would grow a World Tree to replace the ginkgo tree that had burned to death, every druid lent her their strength. They gathered the dead ginkgo tree's trunk and leaves and brought them to Nevida.

Yet what was born was not a World Tree that dyed the world in beautiful ginkgo leaves, but a cursed Tree of Corruption that bloomed with different flowers and crops on every branch.

Afterward, the druids turned their backs on the Tree of Origin. They became watchers of the forest and watched the Tree of Origin without cease.

"We are those who have guarded the legacy. Those who have preserved this land's sin. And those who have sworn that it shall not happen again."

There was a saying that every living thing was allotted a fixed number of heartbeats. It came from the fact that shorter-lived creatures had faster heartbeats. A mouse the size of a finger had its heart beat at least nine hundred times a minute and spent its entire life looking for food to fuel that energy.

Trees, on the other hand, had no heartbeat and did not move, allowing them to live for periods close to eternity. It was unclear whether the concept of dying naturally even applied to trees, which simply existed like features of the landscape.

Some people found fleeting beauty in beasts that burned through everything in a brief span of time. Others felt awe toward trees that silently remained in the same place forever.

Druids belonged to the latter. They revered slow, vast cycles beyond the reach of human senses. After endless reverence and study, druids came to occupy one link in that cycle.

"...Rise. For the World Tree. For nature. And for the natural order we must protect."

Druids contracted to trees could live for hundreds of years. They assimilated themselves with trees, passing time close to eternity without consciousness or sensation.

They could do nothing but remain alive, so druids did not encourage this act of twisting the natural order. But druids who needed to pass down their memories and knowledge for some reason chose that method.

The "trees" moved.

The Forest of Knowledge. Druids who had discovered and cut away the sins of the Kingdom of Ten Thousand in the distant past. To escape the great witch's pursuit, and to pass down the sins they had witnessed then, those who had chosen to become trees woke from their long slumber.

Footnotes:

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