WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 636: Ritual Cleansing

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"Haah. This is exhausting."

I wasn't exaggerating. I was genuinely exhausted. Ritual magic was still magic. I had only taught people with a basic foundation, but stimulating their nerves, pouring mana into them, and forcibly imprinting ritual magic onto them was no easy task.

Had I been running around outside too much in this cold weather? Still, ritual magic wasn't something I could perform in front of everyone. Sneaking around to do it in secret made it much harder.

"Teacher. The bathwater is ready."

"Really? I can finally loosen up."

The maid suddenly came in to tell me. Delighted by the news I had been waiting for, I got up.

The Arcane Federation had a cold climate, but its magical tools allowed people to enjoy all kinds of luxuries. Bathwater was a prime example. Elsewhere, you had to chop firewood and stoke a fire to heat water, but here, warm water came out with the press of a button on a magical tool.

Magical tools required a substance capable of holding mana steadily, such as alchemized stone or high crystal. The Arcane Federation was the place where high crystals were easiest to acquire in the world. Its stable atmosphere and mana allowed high crystals to be preserved longer.

Highly stable alchemized stones were too valuable, so they were used as currency. An economy had formed around using high crystals as fuel instead.

In other words, becoming a mage who could produce high crystals practically meant gaining financial freedom. There was a reason people were so desperate to become mages.

Ritual magic probably couldn't create them, but who knew? Ritual magic was magic too. Perhaps someone might reach that level and even awaken white magic.

"Good grief. What wealth and glory am I chasing that I have to live so busily? I must be the busiest person in the Arcane Federation."

As I sighed and prepared for my bath, the maid puffed out her cheeks.

"Wrong! I'm the busiest one, following you around and taking care of everything for you!"

"You only use your body. I have to teach ritual magic, give lectures, and order the maid around. I have it harder because I use my head in all sorts of ways. Why do you think jobs that use your brain pay more?"

"I use my body more! Baths relieve physical fatigue, so I should get to bathe first too!"

"Now, now. Know your place. If you're the maid, act like one and take care of me."

Using my authority to dismiss her complaint, I entered the bathroom and soaked in the steaming water.

Celsius territory overflowed with clean water. In this land, where crystal-manipulating magic had developed, they drew pure moisture from the air and used the territory's rule, anomalous freezing and boiling points, to control the water's temperature.

Under ordinary circumstances, the freezing point was zero degrees. In Celsius territory, though, it changed depending on one's distance from the magical family blessed by the great Celsius. I had heard it could rise to around eight degrees. By drawing in and draining water, they used that to control the temperature throughout Celsius territory.

Of course, that was still a luxury available only to those with mana or high crystals.

"With ritual magic, I should at least be able to heat a bucket of water, if not bathwater."

Compared to white magic, ritual magic was child's play. Even so, it would be something someone desperately wanted...

I was thinking with half my head submerged when the bathroom door suddenly flew open and the maid poked her head inside.

"Teacher! You received a message!"

"It must be Senior Avant-garde. Bring it here."

"Yes!"

The maid covered herself with a gown, hurried over, and handed me a resonance crystal. I reached out with one hand and took it. The moment I inserted the resonance crystal, Avant-garde's voice rang out.

[Hughes! Are you all right? Are you safe?]

"I'm fine. Did something happen? Your greeting is a little different from usual."

Avant-garde usually asked whether my research was going well or whether I had learned much magic. Why was she suddenly asking after my well-being? Had something happened?

[Uh, um. It's nothing! As long as you're safe, that's enough.]

"It doesn't sound like nothing."

[It really is nothing! You don't need to worry!]

The way she stubbornly insisted made it seem like something serious had happened. Well, fine. I couldn't know what she refused to tell me. My mind-reading didn't work on her, either.

"I'm curious, but I'm too far from the floating castle to find out, and knowing probably wouldn't help anyway. All right. I'll hear the rest when I climb the Dragon Gate myself."

[...Right! That's the spirit, Junior! Get up here quickly!]

I couldn't see her face, but I could easily picture her brightening up and chattering away. I really should get up there soon.

After we finished talking, I removed the resonance crystal. Beside me, the maid, wearing nothing but a gown, was shivering from the cold. I handed her the crystal and asked,

"Why are you standing there shivering?"

"...Why do you think? Because I'm cold!"

"Then you should've put on clothes before coming in."

"You've taken yours off too, Teacher. It would look strange if I were the only one dressed!"

"And it looks better if you're wearing nothing but a gown? What kind of picture are you trying to paint?"

Were we painting a genre scene? Not that I would mind.

"Since you're already wearing a gown, do you want to come in?"

"C-come in?"

"If you're okay with it."

"I-I'm not saying I dislike you, Teacher... But I'm not ready yet..."

What did she mean, not ready? She had already come in wearing only a gown. I spoke indifferently to the maid as she hesitated and watched my reaction.

"Think of it as attending to my bath. Otherwise, there's no reason for you to stand there."

"...You told me to!"

Clutching her gown, the maid carefully stepped into the bath.

Even the sturdy, healthy maid seemed to have accumulated considerable fatigue. Her stiff body loosened as though melting the moment it touched the hot water. Droplets trickled down her slightly flushed skin.

"It's unfair that you've been enjoying such luxury all by yourself, Teacher!"

"What can I do? I'm just that impressive."

At my answer, the maid spoke as though she found it absurd.

"Wow, look at that shamelessness. Your acting is so outstanding that even an actor would weep!"

"The actor I know doesn't weep."

When I said that to the actor before me, the maid's demeanor changed slightly.

She had been a bold maid, innocent and tenacious, with an occasionally impudent side. Freckles befitting a country girl lightly covered her pretty face, and her braided hair had the air of someone used to daily work.

Anyone would have thought she was a maid who had willingly taken on hard work.

Yet when she let down her hair and spread it across the inside of the bathtub, she seemed like an entirely different person.

"Teacher."

"Yes?"

"Since when did you know?"

Hilde, setting aside her role as a maid for the moment, asked me. I answered honestly.

"From the beginning."

"I wasn't even pretending to be someone specific. I came here acting like an ordinary maid. You should've been fooled!"

"Even if you say that, what could I do when I already knew?"

"Haaah. I thought that might be the case. My disguise feels rather pointless now."

Hilde scooped up water with a dipper and poured it over her head. As the water flowed down, the color washed from her hair, and the freckles covering her skin melted away. She looked as though she were shedding her skin and emerging as a butterfly. Soaked through with water, Hilde bloomed like a flower.

With a displeased expression, Hilde shed her disguise and splashed water from the other side of the bath.

"It seems Father has been living comfortably all this time. I was barely scraping by in this distant Arcane Federation."

"I'm glad you seem to have been doing well in your own way."

"Aren't you curious what hardships I went through?"

"I am. I was thinking that once things settled down a little, I should hear about them."

"Tch. You weren't curious at all."

That was because I had already read her thoughts.

Lankart, who had come to the duchy looking for me, found Hilde disguised as me and brought her to the floating castle. Hilde had then been expelled from the floating castle just as I was, and came all the way to Celsius territory, where we were supposed to meet.

"Lankart was looking for Father, so I came to see if following the floating castle might lead me to you. Yet here you are, playing teacher, keeping a woman at your side, and living in luxury."

"What did I do? I only hired one maid, yet you make it sound like I've been indulging in extravagance and pleasure."

"Hmph. It seems you found yourself a local mistress at the floating castle too, besides me?"

"Senior Avant-garde? She's a very helpful senior. I've relied on her a lot."

"That's what makes me mad! You're so slippery, always ready to escape and never crossing the line!"

Hilde stretched out her leg and poked my stomach repeatedly. Beneath the clear water, her pale leg, extending from beneath her gown, swayed faintly.

"So, Father. What are you doing that made you leave the floating castle?"

"I'm teaching people ritual magic."

"That's what you're doing now. I mean your ultimate goal."

"My ultimate goal? I don't really have one."

At that, Hilde raised her eyebrows slightly, pulled her gown tighter, and crossed the bath toward me. The water rippled around her chest. In the narrow bathtub, it was difficult to turn my gaze away from the glimpse of skin visible through her damp gown.

Hilde came right up to my face and asked,

"Really? You're simply doing volunteer work teaching ritual magic, with no goal at all?"

"That's how it is for now."

"You know ritual magic is black magic, the kind the Arcane Federation despises, don't you?"

I knew very well. But that was from the perspective of order.

"Hilde, I'm not as deep or calculating as you all think."

"Hmm. That's the hardest thing I've ever heard to believe."

"No, it's true. The reason I taught ritual magic to the foolish was because I thought they needed it."

Hilde, who had come right up to my face, tilted her head.

"Talented children needed education that suited them. So I gave it to them. They awakened mana detection and came one step closer to white magic."

"Yes, you did."

"But children without talent will never understand it through such brief instruction. If I put in effort over a long period, perhaps they could become white mages too, but I won't do that. They don't desperately want it, so forcing that change on them would be wrong."

That would be modification, not education. Changing others according to my wishes without caring what they wanted was putting the cart before the horse.

"Still, magic is necessary to survive in this cold, harsh land. They need magic to operate magical tools. At that point, ritual magic can be a fairly good alternative."

In the Arcane Federation, where magical rules governed the territory, even minor magic could produce great results.

The more tools you had, the better. Even if one of those tools was ritual magic. Hilde understood when I said something so obvious, but there was another problem.

"But, Father, the Celsius family and the floating castle won't allow it."

It was a natural question.

Ritual magic was black magic. It was considered taboo in countries around the world, including the Arcane Federation. It was a technique allowed only by a nation as rootless as the military state, and elsewhere, merely learning it could result in execution. Hilde pointed that out.

"The Arcane Federation is a nation of white magic. To them, black magic is a stain on magical civilization. They'll seek out and exclude not only you, Father, but everyone who learned ritual magic. Ritual magic is a technique this order cannot tolerate."

"Then it can tolerate it."

"What?"

I wasn't trying to challenge the order. Nor was I trying to deny it and usher in an age of barbarism.

I was only saying that order was a tool too.

"Why should I be the one to change? Shouldn't the order change instead? Order isn't an eternal, unchanging thing. Compared to the order that has changed by region, country, and the flow of history, humans have changed less."

I was the King of Humanity, but also a petty criminal. There were countless rules I had broken, and I crossed the fences of laws with a sneer.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I remained the same while laws arbitrarily drew their lines.

Though I had lost my power and become insignificant, I was a conceptual being. I might change if humanity changed, but no human could change me. That was the resistance and homeostasis of the human race. I lacked the power to defend it, but even so, I remained purely human.

Because I was the King of Humanity, not the King of Order.

"Hmm."

As though she found me amusing, Hilde smiled an utterly annoying, audacious smile. Then she came even closer and whispered into my ear.

"You know, Father, after meeting you, I developed a wish."

I knew. I had read it. And I was still considering it.

Whether it was a wish I could grant, and whether it was one I should grant.

"Father, you are profoundly human. You don't care about values that never fade or virtues that never lose their shine. You only consider people's hearts."

Of course. Values were assigned by humans, and beauty was judged by humans. Without humans, there was nothing.

It was terribly difficult to say something so obvious.

"Yuel gathered every good thing in the world and built a nation. Yet that nation lacked one thing: faith in people. Was it because Yuel possessed farsight? Because she saw all of humanity's filth and ugliness? If they weren't watched and bound, they would become twisted and ruin everything."

Hilde's playful smile faded. Thinking of something precious, she murmured softly, a gentle curve on her lips.

"But Father is full of faith in humanity. What would the nation such a person creates look like? What would happen if you restored what the military state excluded most?"

With a voice heated and damp like bathwater, Hilde embraced me. Through the thin gown clinging to her body, I felt Hilde's burning desire. It felt as if I could feel her heart beating.

"I'll help with all my body and heart, Father. I'll offer everything, soul and body alike, to the King of Humanity."

She was clinging to me desperately. She desperately wanted something from me.

Otherwise, she would not have lured the Elder in my place at the duchy.

Nor would she have stayed in the Arcane Federation and waited for me, rather than returning to the military state.

"Please show me."

What did it feel like to become someone's wish?

Hilde was sincerely anticipating what I would do. What I intended to do was her wish. It would be very easy to give her what she wanted.

* * *

"Th-there has been no confirmation from the guest rooms either."

The mage belonging to the Celsius family answered with a troubled expression.

He was an excellent mage, skilled enough to belong to a magical family. He was one of those who stood at the top of the pyramid. With his superior intellect, he was full of confidence and arrogance.

"Elisha said he would be here. She said she arranged a room for him in the Celsius family's estate. A man named Hughes. Have you really never seen him?"

Yet the true chosen one from the floating castle was different.

The girl who called Elisha Celsius, the Cyan Tower Master's greatest achievement, by name. Before Shei, who had descended surrounded by immense mana, he had no choice but to lower himself.

The gap between the person he believed himself to be and the person who had to bow his head seemed unfamiliar to him. The mage's attitude was awkward.

"Forgive me, no, I apologize. But the Celsius family knows the identities of every mage who visits from the floating castle. If there is no record, then he has never visited."

"Is that so...? All right. If Hughes comes looking for you, send word to the Cyan Tower."

"But I don't even know who that person is..."

Ignoring the grumbling mage, Shei leaped into the air. Wind rising from Skywarbler lifted her upward.

In an instant, Shei rose roughly a hundred meters into the air. Looking down at Celsius territory spreading out below, she murmured,

"Strange. He should be here."

She had taken a short break from the floating castle to come down, only to be unable to find Hughes. The Cyan Tower Master Elisha had said she prepared a room and facilities for Hughes, but he seemed to have gone off somewhere else. Having made the trip for nothing, Shei looked around.

"What is Hughes doing? He should've at least left a way to contact him."

For a moment, she considered looking for him.

Shei had the Seven-Colored Eyes. If she searched Celsius territory using them, she could find him quickly. It would be a little troublesome, but still.

Or she could scatter money around. Celsius territory was full of mages, as well as merchants and wanderers who had come for the descent. If she paid them enough, she could quickly learn Hughes's whereabouts.

Or she could ask a sound mage to create a sound loud enough to cover Celsius territory.

Several methods came to her mind at once. Her body moved to try one immediately. Just as seven colors began to fill her eyes, Shei suddenly stopped herself.

"...Tch. What useless thoughts. That would make it seem like I really want to find Hughes."

She had no immediate business with him. She had simply come to see him on a whim. Shei, who was contacting the Temple of the Demon God at the floating castle, was doing far more important work than Hughes, who was preparing for the Dragon Gate.

The floating castle was noisy right now. Because of the descent? That was part of it, but there was also a visitor who had arrived with it.

An envoy was stirring up the floating castle, demanding the return of Saint Rene's relics.

It was something Hughes would be curious about, so Shei had come to tell him herself. Yet he had not left any way to contact him. Shei turned away with an uncomfortable expression.

"Hmph. It'll be his loss if he doesn't hear about it."

She wanted to find him. She wanted to see him. But she shouldn't look for him. Hughes was busy. To become whole, he needed wishes even more. More people's hearts...

Complicated, scattered thoughts crossed her mind. Before she could even reflect on them, Shei muttered stubbornly,

"If he can't even climb the Dragon Gate, he'll answer to me. I won't let him off."

After glancing over Celsius territory, Shei returned directly to the floating castle.

Footnotes:

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