WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 601: A Wildfire Also Starts from a Small Spark - 4

──────

Even if they were priests, they were barbarians who drew power from primitive, unorganized faiths. They could not hope to match the Witch of Night, who had once made the jungle tremble in fear. The invading priests succumbed to the illusions she created and fell into eternal sleep.

They had only managed to steal a dozen or so minutes from Walpurgisnacht.

"What a waste of time when I'm busiest. Though I suppose that's why they chose this moment to attack."

There was no more time to waste. Even cleaning up afterward would be a waste. Walpurgisnacht summoned a familiar. She intended to call another witch to dispose of them, then check on the situation above once more.

Walpurgisnacht called for her bats to investigate what was happening upstairs.

"Hm?"

There was no response.

She had definitely left her familiar bats behind. Yet every one of them had fallen silent at once, as if they had agreed beforehand. While Walpurgisnacht had focused on the battle, someone had neutralized her familiars.

If they had simply killed them, Walpurgisnacht would have noticed. Whoever attacked the familiars had stopped at incapacitating them.

"Was it a distraction? These people don't seem like the sort to take orders from someone..."

Clearly unsettled, Walpurgisnacht hurried away.

* * *

A beast raced through the dense jungle foliage. A predator hidden in the brush sprang out with a roar. Nenyaph dodged the sharp claws swiping for their head and swung the holy sword in return.

A flash blazed. Holy water made of light surged upward like lightning striking in reverse. The green leaves turned white for a moment in the afterglow. Soon, where the flashing light had vanished, a leopard fled with its tail tucked between its legs, as though its soul had left its body.

"Birth is a blessing a married couple gives to the future. At the same time, it is power held by that couple. The more people gather, the more they can accomplish. Thus, the birth of one person is cause for celebration throughout the tribe. Since each person is precious, couples and families must be protected all the more."

Two enormous snakes bared their fangs behind Nenyaph. Without even looking at them, Nenyaph scattered the light of the holy sword. Thousands of rays exploded, twisting the snakes' heads aside.

"The power called birth is an equal power distributed among all humans. Because of that power, rulers came to cherish everyone. For the sake of the nation, they must cherish each individual. Only then can they gain more people and greater strength."

Light raged like a storm. Nenyaph's holy sword was a blessing to trees, but a calamity to beasts. Creatures that used light as sensation rather than nourishment could not accept the excessive blessing bestowed by the Celestial God.

Facing the Great Witch watching from beyond the jungle, Nenyaph spoke.

"But the Warrior monopolized the power of birth. She drove out all humans and filled this land with beastkin she favored. A king of beastkin who managed birth and death. No, she chose to become a god."

The Great Witch knew. What Nenyaph described was the train of thought her mother had once followed.

"Such a nation would not prosper, and it must not prosper. For every human in this land would then be born from trees. They would become children of sin, born from violating spiritual fetuses trapped inside meat fruit, their bodies alone matured!"

The Great Witch cried out breathlessly.

"I know! I know that!"

The Great Witch, creator of the meat fruit, had recognized the genius and demonic idea behind her mother's plan and felt responsible for it. So she sought help from every direction. She had not intended to stage a coup, but she had expected it might come to that.

"So what are you trying to say? That you had no choice? That I should understand and let it go? That because you're right, I should put aside my stubbornness and cooperate with you?!"

"That is correct."

"What?"

To the Great Witch, Nenyaph was both her mother's enemy and a traitor. Yet Nenyaph had the nerve to ask for her cooperation.

Nenyaph still spoke calmly, as if their face were plated with iron.

"The reason the Great Druid planted the Tree of Corruption and raised it no differently from the World Tree was to study humans at its summit. She creates human fruit up there and searches for a way to breathe consciousness into humans."

Nevida was testing witch medicine on humans made from meat fruit, searching for a way to awaken the King of Humanity. The human fruit that had burned the Kingdom of Ten Thousand still remained on the Root Tree. Nenyaph pointed this out.

"If the Tree of Corruption grows to its full height and even bears the King of Humanity, that world will come."

"That world?"

"A world where perfect humans are born from trees."

Even the Great Witch, blinded by hatred, recoiled. She understood what Nenyaph meant.

The crops growing from the Tree of Corruption had no souls. They saw nothing, heard nothing, grew as meat, and died as meat. Plants and animals alike.

Even Sorcerer King Agartha had needed to impregnate the humans inside meat fruit to produce beastkin in large numbers. But what if that limitation vanished?

"The King of Humanity is connected to the Demon God. If the King of Humanity revives with complete power, the Tree of Corruption will make humanity meaningless... It will become an attack against the human species itself."

The Great Witch pictured it in her mind. A world where no one was born from a mother's womb anymore. A world where people ripened on trees and stepped onto this land fully grown.

It was not impossible. Tyrkanzyaka had only recently awakened as the Blood Demon God. If the King of Humanity could wield the Demon God's power as well, creating humans like a creator god would also be possible.

"So that's why you came this time."

Nenyaph nodded. The Great Witch gave a hollow laugh.

"You don't think about people's feelings at all. All you care about is whether something is right or wrong."

"Right and wrong are what matter most."

The Great Witch had thought the same once. That was why she had reported her mother's plan to a respected druid. It had been the childish act of a young girl who believed it was right.

The result was a kingdom reduced to ash. It was more than a child could bear, and the Great Witch blamed the druid for it and came to hate them.

The Great Witch clenched her fist until it nearly shattered.

"If it's such an important issue, why didn't the King of Humanity go with you? Why did he return to the Root Tree of his own accord?"

"That is because the King of Humanity remains a beast, and is therefore barbaric..."

"No. He knew. He knew Nevida has no interest in any of that."

The Great Witch also knew right from wrong. With her sharp mind, she understood what they were claiming.

Still, she never wanted to follow their words. She would rather follow someone else than them.

"Nevida doesn't care about what you're saying. Nevida only cares about one thing: reclaiming the king she lost long ago. For that purpose, she can make use of meat fruit."

Whether that was right or wrong was not particularly important. Nevida was the Great Witch's teacher, and the wish to see the dead king again was something she could understand well enough.

She could not help with the research because of her trauma involving meat fruit, but she had no desire to interfere either. The Great Witch had only quietly supported Nevida from afar.

...Unlike the atrocities the Warrior had committed, she could support this.

"But that isn't very important to you either, is it? You burned the World Tree and killed my mother in the end. That was something I never wanted."

"...The Warrior was not someone who would yield to outside pressure. She would have forced it through even if she had to charm the druids who came to stop her. The only way to stop her was to attack before they were charmed."

Nenyaph meant every word. The Great Witch also knew how arrogant and overbearing her mother was. For Agartha, who had inherited the mask and won everyone's love, yielding was an extraordinarily difficult act.

Yet the knot in her heart weighed heavily upon her. Her mother had been taken from her too soon, leaving her unable to deny the possibility that things might have turned out differently. The Great Witch spat out the words.

"You don't know whether she would have or not. You killed her before then."

Casting aside the last of her hesitation, the Great Witch bit all ten fingers at once. Blood energy poured from her fingertips. Pulsing branches of blood wrapped around and crushed the surrounding trees, growing into a massive crimson tree.

It was an ominous red tree with blood flowing through it instead of sap. Large fruits formed on its branches, pulsing as if alive. They were plump fruits like ripe pomegranates, ready to fall and scatter red flesh at any moment.

"Blood in exchange for life, life as sacrifice for blood. I shall forge bonds of blood and tie the knots of beasts."

When the flesh split apart and the insides were revealed, a beast with every vein exposed was born from it. Born without fur or skin and covered in blood, the beast howled in agony.

The Great Witch commanded beasts. Having received blood from the Progenitor, she could offer her overflowing blood energy as a sacrifice to bear countless meat fruit. Hundreds of newborn familiars came into being and walked the earth in barely thirty seconds.

Nenyaph tightened their grip on the holy sword as the bloody beasts filled every direction.

"...You've made your decision."

"You made the decision. I just got dragged into it."

The Great Witch extended her hand with cold eyes. Hundreds of frenzied familiars charged Nenyaph all at once.

* * *

At that moment, the Great Witch, Blanca, and Walpurgisnacht had each left their posts for their own reasons.

The druids had infiltrated the highest level of the Root Tree.

Walpurgisnacht watched the water channels, while Blanca and the Baskerville Family guarded the trunk. The Great Witch had been drawn far away while pursuing Nenyaph.

As everyone's attention was drawn below, the druids chose to fall.

The drifting leaves obscured everyone's vision and hid the druids descending from the sky. Riding tamed owls high into the air, the druids took advantage of the distraction and successfully infiltrated the layer of apex beings.

The druids landed with feathered wings spread wide and raced down the corridors. Witches who appeared after hearing their noisy footsteps spotted them and shouted.

"Intruders!"

"Caw! Caw! Caw! Sound the alarm!"

A druid hurriedly looked at a companion.

"Brother. Can you move the Tree of Corruption?"

"Impossible. This tree is the Great Druid's authority itself. Our power is nowhere near enough."

"Ugh. We're helpless, then."

"Do not worry. We cannot control the tree itself, but the countless grasses and trees grown from it are still our friends!"

The druid shouted and fired small seeds from a slingshot. The seeds lodged throughout the tree, absorbed the energy of the World Tree, and rapidly grew into massive thickets. The witches buried beneath them screamed.

"Above the violet, to the right of the chrysanthemum, below the mistletoe! A familiar is hiding there!"

"Deal with the familiars first. Do not kill them! Every witch who senses something wrong will come running!"

"I'll throw paralysis powder!"

The druids gathered for the same mission worked together perfectly. After using precise coordination to defeat the witches and neutralize their familiars, they rushed toward the King of Humanity at full speed. They did not know the path or the layout, but it did not matter.

"How strange. This is surely our first time reaching this place..."

"It feels as though someone is lighting the way ahead for us."

"The remnants of the blessed ginkgo tree must be protecting us."

Even at every fork in the path, they chose the correct route without a moment's hesitation. Caught up in a strange exhilaration, the druids reached the room where the King of Humanity slept.

"Here...!"

Just as a druid who instinctively knew this was their destination tried to rush inside—

"Oh. Have you come to see the King of Humanity as well? If you found your way here, I suppose you are qualified."

A strange person stood in their way.

No, saying they had blocked the druids was not quite right. Like the druids, the strange person was also approaching the King of Humanity.

"Wait a moment. I was here first. I've waited over twenty years for the day I could speak with the King of Humanity alone. And I arrived here before anyone else. Please respect the order."

Even with intruders before them, the strange person remained relaxed. The druids, who had charged ahead without hesitation until now, faltered for a moment.

They wore a smooth coat and an expensive monocle, things rarely seen in the jungle. Thousands upon thousands of tiny gears interlocked and turned across the enormous cloak covering their entire body. Repeated clinking sounds came from beneath their clothes.

If there was anyone least suited to this jungle, it was this strange person. Maximilien.

"Who is this?"

One druid recalled the information they had shared beforehand.

"Isn't that the strange person she told us about? The mage who came from beyond the plains. The one who controls gears."

"An enemy. Take them down!"

The druids immediately formed up. As the leading druid wrapped their skin in old bark and charged, dozens of seeds scattered toward Maximilien from behind. The seeds flew not at Maximilien, but around them, then burst into explosive growth the instant they struck the walls and floor.

Even as green swallowed everything around them, Maximilien remained calm.

"I do not particularly like grass and trees. They are functional, but lack compatibility."

Click.

A sharp saw blade sprang from beneath Maximilien's clothes. Spinning violently, it turned the thickets into sawdust in an instant.

Amid the scattering leaves, Maximilien muttered to themself.

"An individual is complete as an individual. Its connection with other individuals is, hm, regrettably not very satisfactory. It is difficult for one plus one to fully become two. The more numbers increase, the worse it becomes."

"Hup!"

The charging druid transformed both arms into enormous logs. It was a combat adaptation of tree transformation. With roots planted through their feet to anchor them firmly, the druid launched their log arms like battering rams.

"But what of gears? The principle of gears is that their value shines brighter the more of them gather."

Boom!

The logs slammed into Maximilien's body. Their body shook from the powerful impact, and the cloak they wore was torn away.

The body hidden beneath the cloak was revealed. Countless gears crawled across it like ants, centered around one large gear embedded in the middle.

"W-what is that...?"

"Is that truly a human body?!"

Maximilien continued speaking as if the horrified druids had done nothing to them.

"Even the Great Druid, who has reached the Demon God's throne, seeks my help when making simple tools. Delicate clocks, or mechanisms that distribute fixed amounts. Combine the two, and they evolve into devices that dispense a fixed amount at a fixed time. The Great Druid uses them well. She says they are useful tools for giving medicine to the King of Humanity."

The moving gears interlocked, forming a single structure. Around a central passageway, fiercely spinning gears came together and transformed into a device that launched a long stake in an instant.

A genuine battering ram. Having completed everything from design to assembly in less than three seconds, Maximilien demonstrated the new device.

"If my gears became the standard of measurement and filled the world, it would become a world where anyone could make the device they desired."

Boom!

An impact beyond comparison to the last one swept over the druids.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried