WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 621: While the Mind Reader Slept

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One morning, Shei opened her eyes.

It had been a long time since she had slept soundly without tension. Pleasant lethargy wrapped around her. A dull ache lingered at the back of her shoulders, and every muscle in her body was sore, but that only made the restful sleep all the sweeter.

It was time to get up. Answering the alarm her body had sent her, Shei woke and turned her head at the sudden sense of someone beside her.

Hughes was asleep, facing her.

Was it because he was the King of Humanity? His face was flawlessly handsome. He had a slightly slick air about him, but that was only an impression Hughes deliberately cultivated. It was a strategy for controlling the distance between himself and others, both physically and emotionally. Something only he could do because he read minds.

Yet he could not maintain that air while sleeping. Shei had learned that through all the time she had spent watching him, and it was a subtle difference even Hughes himself had not noticed until he read Shei's mind.

Without a word, Shei enjoyed the sight of him asleep and smiled at the longing she had carried for so long.

He was kind because he understood people's hearts. But he was heartless because he understood the hearts of people other than me.

Perhaps they were two sides of the same coin. Perhaps it was a trait he could not help but possess as a Beast King...

That was probably why he could not give his whole heart to Shei.

Even so, Shei's heart belonged to him. It had remained that way through countless regressions.

I want to hold him. I want our lips to meet. I want to sleep in his embrace. I want him to touch me. I want to share the same breath with him. I want to be comforted. I want to reveal everything and let him read my heart.

But that wish...

Stop, Shei.

The Heaven-Reversing Boundary whispered to her. As her energy circulated through her body, her emotions, memories, and longing gradually went numb. The overwhelming feeling in her chest faded away.

Hughes refused to reveal his mind-reading ability. He did so to respect the thoughts of others. If people knew their thoughts could be read, they would become afraid even to think. The King of Humanity would never want that.

So whenever Shei met Hughes, she had to seal her memories and return to the Shei of the fourteenth cycle... weak and precious, the Shei who had first met Hughes. The foolish Shei who constantly bristled, did so many things she regretted, and couldn't be honest.

But it did not matter.

The Shei of the fourteenth cycle, with her memories sealed, was still Shei.

She would certainly...

Reach the same ending.

* * *

'What? What's going on? Why? Why is Hughes sleeping beside me?!'

God, so loud. Who kept shouting in their head? I couldn't even sleep.

I woke to a noisy inner voice. When I opened my eyes, Shei was still lying there with her eyes closed.

No, she was pretending to sleep. After waking up and seeing me, Shei had been startled, then shut her eyes and stayed perfectly still.

'How did this happen? Why didn't I notice him getting into my bed? No, why did Hughes crawl into my bed?! Was he tired enough to fall asleep without knowing what he was doing?'

You held onto me, so I had no choice but to sleep here. You still had a tight grip on my sleeve, and you hadn't even noticed? Hah. How annoying. Should I see how long it takes you to figure it out on your own?

'Should I get up? Hit him? Or cut him with Skywarbler? Wh-what should I do?'

Hit me? Cut me? That was way too extreme!

Nearly getting struck out of nowhere in my sleep, I deliberately stretched. Shei's hand, still gripping my sleeve, rose along with it. Only then did she notice something was wrong.

'...? Why is my hand... holding Hughes? Huh?'

How would I know? You're the one who should know! If I put it nicely, we had become close enough that you leaned on me unconsciously.

Anyway, it was your fault I had slept here against my will. To leave no room for misunderstanding, I drove the point home by talking to myself.

"Hm? Is Shei still asleep? You're still holding onto my sleeve. What kind of grip is that? It doesn't weaken even while you're asleep?"

"...Mm."

'I-I should loosen my grip first... I don't know what's going on, but...'

The strength in her hand slowly began to ease. She was probably trying to let go while pretending not to know, but it wouldn't be any fun if she got away that easily.

"Though I suppose the grip you kept on me all night wouldn't weaken now. Not unless Shei is awake. I wonder when you'll wake up."

"..."

Her grip tightened again. She must have thought it was strange too. Good. Since I was at it, I should erase Shei's doubts completely.

"Still, it might have been a little cute when you said, 'Mm, Hughes. Sleep with me...' in your sleep."

"I never said that!"

Shei sprang upright and shouted. Tch. Had I gone too far trying to distort the facts? Pretending not to know anything, I asked again.

"What? You were awake?"

"I just woke up! And there's no way I'd say something like that!"

"Huh? How can you be so sure, Shei?"

"Sure or not, I know myself! I'm not the kind of person who says things like that!"

Right. You didn't say it. But what were you going to do if I made it up?

"Then who was holding onto my sleeve and refusing to let go?"

"Th-that...! How would I know?!"

"If you don't know, then who does?!"

I couldn't get a read on this. Her favorability toward me seemed to have gone up a great deal, but even when I read her thoughts, she didn't seem particularly conscious of me. Yet she was holding onto my sleeve again?

It felt like I was being toyed with. This was hard, seriously hard.

"Shei. I'm the kind of person who doesn't turn away women who come to me, nor chase after women who leave."

"...? You've left plenty of women behind."

"Why are we bringing that up now?"

Don't call it leaving them behind. Call it a beautiful farewell. Anyway.

"If you're lonely, just tell me anytime. I would've refused if you were a man, Shei. But you're a woman now, right? That puts you just barely within my acceptable range."

"I was a woman from the beginning!!"

The brief morning commotion passed without any real trouble. Whenever Shei saw me, she hissed like a cat, but only for a moment. True to her nature as a regressor, she soon recalled something else and got to the point.

"Hughes. We need to meet the Demon King."

I hadn't been able to read much of Shei's past-cycle memories because the visions had cut off midway. I was curious about those cycles too, but rather than trying to recall twelve cycles' worth of hazy memories, Shei focused on what lay ahead.

"Above the floating castle, there is a disaster."

The moment I heard that, I had no choice but to focus too.

"What? Above it? Not the floating castle itself?"

"Right. Higher than this. The Star of Deadly Sin, 'Pride,' is floating there."

The floating castle was already a structure above the clouds and sky. It floated higher than anything else on this planet, and there was something even above that?

"'Pride' is the floating castle's ultimate weapon. If the war escalates and the floating castle comes under attack, the Arcane Federation drops Pride onto the Empire. That is the Great Descent."

Shei shuddered just remembering it. A single scene surfaced in her mind.

The Empire lay in the northwestern part of the continent. It was called the northwest, but more than half the continent fell within the Empire's sphere of influence. Still, there was no denying that it was a great distance from the military state.

Yet that enormous destruction could be seen even from the military state.

A flame fell across the sky in a steep arc. It went off the path traveled by stars and the sun, then slanted down toward the earth.

Shei could do nothing but watch as a star that sought the end of civilization fell, impossible to block or evade.

Then Mother Earth's scream shook the entire continent.

Shei later heard that both the Empire and the Sanctum had resisted it, with some success. Even so, the aftermath had brought terrible disasters. The military state, located on the opposite side of the continent from the Empire, had suffered through repeated earthquakes and storms.

After finishing a recollection she never wanted to revisit, Shei continued.

"...It would not matter even if we persuaded the Demon King or somehow stopped Pride from falling."

Naturally, Shei and the Sanctum had tried to stop that above all else. It seemed they had succeeded in some cycles too. But the problem did not end there.

Biting her lip until it bled, Shei said,

"Because the King of Sin takes control of Pride and puts the world on a countdown to destruction."

I had wondered how the King of Sin, who was still only one human, could destroy the world.

But if Shei was telling the truth, the King of Sin didn't even need to do it. The Demon King alone could destroy the world!

"We have to deal with Pride to prevent the world's destruction."

I had heard the story. Mm-hm. You had been very busy.

But still.

"Shei. How are we supposed to do that?"

What could I possibly do?

"From what I hear, Pride is the floating castle's ultimate weapon, something they would only use as a last resort. What are we supposed to tell the Demon King? 'Give up Pride and hand over its power'? If I were the Demon King, I wouldn't even listen. And apparently, the Demon King didn't."

"...That is the problem."

"If the Demon King listened, that would be a problem too. What if he decides, 'How dare ignorant rabble speak to me like that?' and execute us on the spot?"

"...That is also a problem."

Even I could not read the Demon King's power. He kept an immense amount of space around himself, putting him beyond the reach of my mind-reading. Yet the Demon King had easily nullified the Cyan Tower Master's innate arcane.

Just how strong was the Demon King? At the very least, neither Shei nor I could begin to measure it. Someone on Nevida's level would be needed to challenge the Demon King.

...Though was innate arcane really all the Demon King had? I wondered.

In the end, Shei could not offer a proper solution either. The two of us sat at the table in silence, doing nothing but think.

"Hello. Good morning."

The door opened, and the Cyan Tower Master barged in. Striding into the quarters on long legs, the Cyan Tower Master smiled lightly and held out my outer garment.

"The one you gave me then. Thanks, it was useful. I washed it thoroughly before returning it, so don't worry."

"You didn't have to wash it."

"Don't worry about it. I was preserving the minimum courtesy and my dignity as a woman."

"No, clothes that were draped over the Cyan Tower Master's shoulders are worth keeping as collectibles."

"Hehe. I don't know whether I should feel pleased or offended."

The Cyan Tower Master smiled lightly, made a chair of crystal, and sat across from me. She had not knocked, and I had not told her to come in, yet she did not seem awkward in the slightest. She had a natural talent for barging in, as effortless as breathing.

Shei, who was far from sociable, was flustered by the Cyan Tower Master's unreserved manner.

'This is strange... I'm the one who traveled with Hughes, and I knew Elisha first. Yet they both seem closer than either of them is to me.'

Well, because you... Never mind. What was the point? Leaving sulky Shei behind, I greeted the Cyan Tower Master.

"Where is Lankart?"

"Lankart went down to the lower world for a while. He neglected the investigation of the Tree of Corruption. It was good that he brought you two here, but without objective data, there is nothing to submit."

"He is smart, but not very meticulous. A genius's defining trait. They can't explain things to other people."

"I sent a few people to assist, so it should be fine."

"You've already learned how to use Lankart."

"You learn naturally. In any case, a few of my subordinates are away, so I have some free time for once. I thought I might make you two a proposal."

Resting her chin on her hand, the Cyan Tower Master looked at Shei and me for a long moment.

"You two. Would you like to learn magic from me and climb the Dragon Gate?"

Footnotes:

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