WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 654: Belief Is for Those Who Cannot Live Without Relying on It

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They say rumors have no legs, yet they travel a thousand li. Even the ice castle's thick walls could not stop word from spreading.

News of some incident within the Celsius family spread far and wide. In particular, those who had been imprisoned in the ice castle and barely escaped with their lives bragged about their miraculous survival as if it were an accomplishment.

Not raising your fist at all was one thing. Raising it, then quietly lowering it again, only made you look more pathetic. There was a reason people said that once you drew a sword, you should at least cut a radish with it. No one feared a sword that returned to its sheath without cutting anything.

The Celsius family's prestige was on the verge of crashing to the ground.

So the Celsius family decided to put on a show with the sword they had drawn.

The exchange meeting between the floating castle high in the heavens and the magical family on the ground should have taken place much earlier. It had been postponed by the battle between two Tower Masters within the floating castle, but now it began with even greater splendor, as if to make up for the delay.

Fireworks made of ice burst across the sky.

The idea that fireworks needed fire was a prejudice. Shards of ice drifted down more gently than flames, yet glittered for longer.

Unlike fireworks, which had to be set off at night to avoid competing with the sun, ice reflected sunlight and gleamed beautifully even at noon. It was not dangerous, either. Glowing particles with a sweet fragrance settled softly around the crowd.

"It looks like fireworks. What did they use?"

"It's not hot. It isn't gunpowder or flame magic."

"What kind of trick is this? What are those lower-world mages up to?"

Mages from the floating castle also attended the exchange meeting. Some were too busy with their own work to bother, but most came down in search of new experiences and inspiration.

Usually, lower-world magic was too crude to offer even a moment's entertainment.

This time was different.

"There's no way we, the floating castle's elite, can't figure this out."

"Block the fireworks' mana and bring samples back with preservation magic! Don't even think of returning before you've analyzed it!"

For a mage, failing to understand magic was the same as defeat. The mages who could not unravel the lower world's magic gave up on returning and buried themselves in analysis.

Meanwhile, another event unfolded on the main stage.

A Celsius family mage brought out something thin and glossy as silk. It was cloth woven from chilled wheat starch drawn into threads. Technically, it was dough, but Celsius's secret arts had made it so thin and delicate that one could see straight through it.

They stacked hundreds of sheets of dough inscribed with sugar magic circles. Celsius mages gathered before the pile, which rose to calf height.

"Freezing Point Control."

When Elcia, holder of the key to the Heritage Vault, cast the spell, the dough swelled into a grand confectionery castle.

Magic circles drawn in sugar and chocolate glowed. The circles were blueprints. Mana bound within sugar crystals changed the confectionery's shape.

The walls rose like bread, then melted chocolate flowed over them. Sugar sparkling like stars became chandeliers. Whipped cream full of air settled lightly on top as a roof.

The spectators unconsciously swallowed at the fantastical, enchanting sight.

Dough turned into paper, magic circles made from sugar crystals.

It was less grand than fantastical, magic that stirred a child's heart.

Put unkindly, it was little more than child's play, but the Demon King delighted in it like a child.

"Bread baked cold! What a fresh idea!"

The Demon King had casually descended to the ground, still dressed without a shred of formality. His shirt hung loosely open like a sailor's, and he walked barefoot over the ice without a care.

"Cooking is essential to human life. It may seem trivial, but that is precisely why it is woven into daily life. The floating castle's disciples, who find even eating bothersome, would never think of magic like this! Hmm. Though I wonder whether they'd actually eat it. They're the sort who can't even be bothered to consume milk crystals."

The Demon King had the manner of an older person one might casually meet around town. In truth, he probably saw himself that way. Even on the day of the exchange meeting, he had flown in without warning and wandered the venue alone, without a single attendant.

Had they noticed the Demon King even a little later, it would have caused a serious problem. Realizing this belatedly, Elcia silently cursed her blood relative.

'After becoming the Cyan Tower Master, Elisha still cannot even tell us when Lord Demon King is coming. Are you planning to contribute nothing to the family?'

Yet Elcia was both an excellent mage and a child of a prestigious family. Without revealing a trace of her thoughts, she placed a hand over her chest and bowed.

"Your praise is more than we deserve. I am only ashamed that we can show nothing but such trifling tricks."

"Trifling tricks? Not at all. Was handling ice crystals not both your fear and your long-cherished wish? You put ice crystals into both the fireworks and the confectionery. Are you saying you did not make this to show me?"

The Demon King bit into an ice confection and casually struck at the heart of the matter.

The fireworks and confectionery were both misdirection.

The true point was the ice crystals inside them.

Ice crystals remained stable only for a very short time before returning to a gaseous state. They had used the resulting explosion to create imitation fireworks.

The dough swelling worked the same way. Ice crystals were extremely difficult to handle, but if used well, they could make bread rise without fermentation.

Since they turned to gas and disappeared, no evidence remained. The floating castle mages now gathered in small groups, racking their brains, would not reach the truth even after years.

Magic had created the ice crystals, but the ice crystals themselves were not magic. Distracted by the brilliant fireworks and fantastic confectionery castle, people failed to notice the key.

Yet the Demon King had seen through it with absurd ease.

For a moment, Elcia felt a dizzying sense of distance. The Demon King. The king of all mages. A teacher who mastered every kind of knowledge, handled it, bestowed it, and taught it to others.

There was no distance in him. Though he lived in the floating castle soaring through the distant sky, he would appear in a territory at any moment before vanishing again.

Space magic.

Magic so close to omnipotence that it freely crossed and controlled space, an absolute barrier.

That was why Elcia suddenly became afraid. Even if the Temple of the Demon God was not openly rebelling against the Demon King, was it not being far too reckless in trying to challenge him?

As Elcia's worries deepened, the Demon King spoke as though it were nothing.

"I commend you for finding the courage to handle ice crystals. Taking a step toward the unknown is the attitude an explorer must possess."

"...Thank you."

"Still, if you have put up the name of an exchange meeting, should you not explain it to those who came? Is that not proper?"

The exchange meeting was, in effect, an event for presenting magic to the Demon King. The presenters had to justify their existence that way. Elcia naturally had to do so too, but this time she was in a difficult position.

'Ugh... He developed that magic...!'

The Celsius family had been busy repairing the floating castle's facilities while resolving the standard-issue magic incident in their territory. They had prepared something, but it was unfinished and needed to be adapted to the newly changed rules.

Elcia had dumped the work on the Temple of the Demon God to give them a little trouble. Still, she had only expected some advice and variations from them...

'They developed magic that handles ice crystals so easily. I knew the Temple of the Demon God was infamous even in the floating castle, but was it really to this extent? Is the gap between them and the Celsius family truly this great?'

They carved crystal structures into ice, filled them with ice crystals, and created fireworks that exploded without heat.

They scattered finely crushed ice crystals through dough, making it rise without yeast.

Using the coldness of ice crystals, they froze and shaped all sorts of things besides snow and ice.

Once they had decided to handle ice crystals, the centerpiece of the exchange meeting had to be magic that highlighted them. Since it was so polished as well, it had claimed the center of the event.

'Ice crystals may be unfamiliar, but we have encountered them and accumulated knowledge for more than a hundred years. So why does he handle Celsius's rules and ice crystals better than we do? What kind of conflict have we stepped into?'

"I can hear your brain turning from here. Tch. Do you think keeping your mouth shut hides your stupidity?"

Lankart rebuked Elcia in the distance as though she were an insect.

"So what? Being a little stupid is what makes someone cute."

"Is that why you only chase after stupid women? No, there are no smart women to begin with, so every woman in the world must look cute to you. That explains why you go around meeting every sort of woman."

...As I always say, that was Lankart's personal opinion. I do not agree with him.

I decided to give him a chance to correct himself and survive.

"Why? All five Tower Masters are women."

"They are stupid, which is why they serve as figureheads like Tower Masters. Look at the Green Tower Master and the Black Tower Master. They are nothing but bitches craving the Demon King's attention while calling themselves his disciples. What contribution do they make besides blindly wielding innate arcane with no potential whatsoever?"

Listen to the way he talked. If I lived like you, I would be stabbed to death within days.

"Not just those two. There is the Red Tower Master too."

"I see the Red Tower Master as a man. There is no way a mage that outstanding and bold is a woman."

Was this not bordering on denial of reality? Then what about...

"The Cyan Tower Master and White Tower Master?"

"Those two..."

Lankart furrowed his brow for a moment. A small conflict rose in his mind. His beliefs and knowledge were colliding. I was not sure misogyny was impressive enough to call a belief, though.

Lankart gave his answer with obvious displeasure.

"They are unfortunate cases born with the wrong gender. I acknowledge the captain's ability. But in the end, the captain is still just a bitch. Timid and fickle."

"Fickle because the captain left the Temple of the Demon God? Calling her fickle over something like that is strange. People's thoughts can change as they live."

"No. It was fickleness. The captain did not change her beliefs. She got scared and ran away. If she had held her position for just a few days, the Temple of the Demon God would have been hers."

It seemed there was something I needed to learn here too. I would remember it for now.

"Oh, right. I have not met the White Tower Master yet. What is she like?"

"...The White Tower Master? Ah. There was something like that."

Something like that? Was the White Tower Master not one of the Five Tower Masters?

"She supposedly climbed the Dragon Gate. Isn't that similar to you?"

"That one is strange. Even I have not figured it all out. She rarely appears in public."

"A Tower Master? Aren't those exactly the sort of events Tower Masters are supposed to attend?"

"She does attend. It is not as if she is passive at events, either. She is active in many ways. Yet despite that, nothing is known about her. Not even her innate arcane."

Another strange person. The Tower Masters all had their own personalities, but she could become a variable. I should meet her sometime.

"You two. You dumped work on me, then sat around slacking off?"

Shei suddenly appeared behind us.

She wore a white apron and a headscarf. To anyone who did not know better, she looked as though she had just finished cooking and rushed over. In reality, there was little difference. The only correction was that Shei's "cooking" was dangerous work that could cause a massive explosion at any moment.

"Someone is going out of their mind cutting up and adding ice crystals! And you're sitting here comfortably, eating confectionery?!"

Tch. As if I was resting because I wanted to. I put the rest of my ice confection into my mouth and spoke.

"Munch, munch. It can't be helped. Only you can handle Skywarbler and Pocket, Shei. You're the only one who can process and transport ice crystals."

"Besides, Hughes used his brain to design the magic. That means the physical labor is your share. Be grateful you can at least do that. If you could not even do this, your existence would have no purpose."

"You haven't done anything, so shut up!"

Shei threw off her apron and shouted.

"There's just too much work! You want me to finely crush and separate every ice crystal, then put them into fireworks. What kind of magic is that? It's manual labor!"

"Highly concentrated manual labor is indistinguishable from magic. Ancient ruins and temples look like magic, don't they? In truth, people built them one piece at a time. They only seem mysterious because of the enormous amount of labor involved."

"The problem is that I have to do all of it!"

The Celsius family still had not found a way to handle ice crystals. The only way to crush, separate, and use them was through space magic.

That was why every spell presented at the exchange meeting had to pass through Shei's hands. Without Skywarbler and Pocket, the crystals could not even be processed or transported.

"Wait a little. They saw what you can do, Shei. They must feel the need for space magic much more keenly now."

"Will they? They flinch every time they see a shard of ice crystal."

"If handled wrong, they can stick to the skin and freeze the flesh. Large chunks explode if they leave the rule's range, too. Still, it all depends on how you use them."

"There are limits to that. They're far too dangerous."

"What in this world is not dangerous? They rejected standard-issue magic because it was dangerous too."

The Celsius territory's stance on standard-issue magic had settled into indifference. Its limits were clear, so they had decided not to go out of their way to stop it.

It would spread only among poor people on the outskirts who could not properly study magic. Though it might help their daily lives a little, it would not be enough to overturn the world. It would remain one useful tool.

It would end quietly like this.

It was such an empty conclusion that I wondered why they had imprisoned dozens of people and threatened to kill them over it.

Shei removed her headscarf as well and muttered.

"Even if they have changed their attitude, will the Celsius family help the Temple of the Demon God?"

The Celsius family was quite conservative. That was practically its temperament, so it would not change easily.

Perhaps they would even take back their declaration that they would help us. Shei asked that, but I answered with confidence.

"Elcia will help us in the end."

"How can you be sure? Elcia might suddenly become afraid."

"Elcia will become afraid. That is why she will follow our proposal."

Belief was inertia.

Those with much to bear found even their thoughts heavy. Countless relationships and causes were entangled in a decision once made, so they held onto it and pushed forward whenever possible. Even if they did not know where it led. Even if it led to ruin.

But.

I did not call that the courage to protect one's beliefs.

If anything, it was closer to fear.

"Because that will let Elcia shift the responsibility onto us."

Elcia was not choosing us to overcome it.

She was choosing us to run away and become free.

Just as I said, Elcia knelt before the Demon King. Her voice, carried by a subtle layer of decibel magic, reached far into the distance.

"Master of mages, who possesses all wisdom and grants teachings. A descendant of Celsius beseeches you. Please bestow Rene's teachings upon the Celsius family."

Footnotes:

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