WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 99: Lost Inheritance

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"You're in danger."

Callis's right hand burned. Blood ran from it and down her sleeve.

Callis could barely breathe. The razor-sharp blade had pierced her hand and sunk halfway into her throat. If her hand trembled even a little, the blade lodged in her throat would dig that much deeper into her flesh.

It was fortunate that Callis had served in the arcane division. Her familiarity with arcane energy let her sense the ominous swelling of power flowing through her bio-terminal. She could not cancel it, but she had managed to stop it in time.

For some reason, it felt as though someone had urgently warned her.

Either way, if she had failed, the blade would have pierced straight through her throat.

Her palm and the blade faced off. Callis forced strength into her pain-racked right hand and pushed the blade away. Blood ran from the wound in her throat. Once she had pushed it back far enough, the blade snapped with a crack.

The blade had been made to pierce a throat in one strike, sacrificing durability for sharpness. It was worthless as a weapon, but a tool for suicide did not need to be reusable.

Callis pulled the blade from her right hand. Blood dripped down its thin, glass-like edge. Blood from her throat ran down and soaked the front of her clothes.

She had barely survived. But this was not even a reprieve from death.

Perhaps she had turned away her chance to die without pain.

'From the beginning... I was meant to be discarded...'

Callis had received the bundle. The escape bundle was the main reason she had felt safe enough to volunteer for this mission. If anything dangerous happened, she could escape with it.

But... the bundle she had thought was her only way out had actually been despair waiting to swallow her at the end of hope.

Her thoughts came to a halt.

The despair of betrayal, the loneliness of being left alone, and the fear of approaching death.

Before her body could break, her mind collapsed first.

'Where did it all go wrong? What did I do wrong...?'

That question alone circled through Callis's mind.

As she was pushed to her limit and her consciousness began to fade, someone whispered in her ear.

"Lieutenant Colonel Callis Kritz. This is terrible. Your country suspects you, your organization has abandoned you, and now even your life is at risk."

The voice was full of kindness, yet there was amusement in it as well. It sounded like a pure child asking out of curiosity.

"Were you satisfied with Level 3? How does Level 4 look to you? Was it worth pursuing, even at the cost of throwing all this away?"

"Ah..."

Through her hazy vision, Lieutenant Colonel Callis recalled an old memory.

A story from her childhood, when she had been its protagonist. Countless memories that had made her shine. Until her mother died of illness, until cold reality devoured her fairy tale, she had been the center of the world.

After reality came knocking at her home, she had been pushed to the edge of the world. Still, at least she remained the center of her father's world.

Whenever she returned home after finishing middle school for the weekend, her father was always waiting at the front gate. On the rare days he was not there, she would habitually open the tin mailbox. Inside, a letter written in round handwriting on crisp paper waited in his place.

Then one day, neither her father nor a letter was there. Instead, two officers in full dress uniform stood stiffly before the door, waiting for her.

It was a notice of death in action.

The house with its yard, the old but expensive automatic carriage, the gilded sword, and the special military gear.

Everything filled with memories became an inheritance. She was told that if she failed to obtain inheritance rights, the military state would reclaim all of it.

Even in her grief and confusion, she understood only one fact.

To reclaim it, she had to become Level 3. That was all.

What was lost became an obsession. After losing things one by one until she was alone, the inheritance was the last rope she had left to cling to.

Fortunately, she had talent. She graduated middle school with excellent marks and entered the high officer academy. Somehow surviving through it all, she became a Level 3 citizen and inherited her father's estate.

Nothing could have compared to the joy and relief she had felt then.

But human greed had no end, and people feared having things taken from them more than they valued gaining them.

The inheritance belonged to Callis, but she could not possess it completely. She lacked the right to pass it on. To obtain those rights as well, she had no choice but to reach Level 4.

Greed and obsession. Because of them, Callis made a dangerous choice. She joined hands with the secret society she had only heard rumors of, the Lords of All Creation.

Pretending devotion to the military state, joining the Lords of All Creation, and feigning hatred toward beasts and beastkin, Callis steadily climbed toward success.

Yet every one of her actions had come from obsession with what remained.

Callis was an ordinary person.

She had neither a grand cause nor great loyalty.

"...I don't want to die..."

She had never intended to die.

There was no goal she wanted badly enough to give her life for it.

She had simply thought she could do it. Even a Level 0 laborer had managed to survive, so she had believed a Level 3 citizen like herself could as well.

Perhaps survival itself had never been such a difficult problem...

But it was now.

"Do you want to live?"

Callis nodded. She had to live. Because she was ordinary.

The voice laughed brightly and drifted away. It echoed as if through darkness.

"If it is so precious to you, protect it even if you must pour everything you have into it. Use everything you possess, be ready to throw away everything but your life, and somehow preserve that one life. It won't be easy, though. Other people don't know your desperate circumstances, and they don't care."

Before leaving, the voice added one more thing.

"Aside from ordinary people like me, who are moved by little stories like yours."

Callis raised her head. She looked around frantically, but the owner of the voice was nowhere to be seen.

Had she been bewitched by a ghost? Callis looked confused, but as always, the question hid itself away.

She forgot about the voice too. It was not important now.

To survive, she had to let go of everything.

Everything.

Even if it was pathetic and miserable.

Death allowed her no time to spare. The regressor climbed the stairs with steady steps and approached Callis without hesitation. Callis let her bleeding right hand hang at her side and faced her death.

A chilling killing intent pierced her body.

"Any last words?"

Think back. How had Callis lived until now?

The answer was simple. She had done nothing.

Before she had interfered with the Beast King and the laborer, the people here had been uncomfortable with her at most. They had never shown hostility.

Which meant...

"...The Lords of All Creation abandoned me."

They knew about the Lords of All Creation.

She did not know how mere prisoners knew the military state's most secret organization, but that was not important.

What mattered was survival, and to achieve that, she had to sell out the Lords of All Creation too.

"What they gave me, saying it was for escape, was a suicide packet."

Appealing to emotion would not help. The other side would not care much, either.

Instead, she calmly stated the facts.

Callis deactivated her clothing packet.

As the clothing packet was recalled, the medal pinned to her chest fell to the floor. The medal she had once been proud of rolled away like a pebble kicked underfoot.

Now in her shirtsleeves, she immediately dropped to her knees.

"Please... spare me."

She bowed her head.

This had clearly caught the regressor's attention. Otherwise, he would not have spoken.

"The Lords of All Creation beg for their lives? You should shut up and die with dignity. Isn't that the nobility you people claim humans possess?"

She was only a minor pawn, and she was willing to reveal everything to save her life...

As she was about to say that, she suddenly became certain he would not care.

Callis raised another subject instead.

"I received an order from my 'Sponsor' to bring back the King of Dogs. I was told there would be no one capable of interfering, that it would be no different from leading back an obedient dog."

Information about the Lords of All Creation was the only weapon she had.

With her head lowered, Callis carefully revealed everything she knew.

"But there were obstacles, contrary to expectations. Another method was needed. The King of Dogs was chained because I had been told that was how to control her."

It was fortunate she had bowed her head. A massive slash had just passed over it.

At the last moment, Skywarbler's path twisted. The regressor, who had meant to kill her at once, changed his mind after hearing unexpected information.

"Ridiculous. There's no way you can control the King of Dogs with something as trivial as a chain. All it will do is deepen her disappointment in humans... and you don't even know what happens when a dog loses faith in humans."

"Even Beast Kings each have their own way of being controlled. I came here after hearing how to control the King of Dogs."

"That's absurd."

The regressor scratched his head irritably, then spoke in a dissatisfied voice.

"Tch. Why does it sound real? If they're lunatics who put nose rings through the King of Bison... they may have thought of other methods..."

She had piqued his interest. There was a brief reprieve.

Hope that she might survive made Callis dizzy with excitement. Now it was time to drive in the final nail.

In the short time she had spent desperately thinking, she had reached one hypothesis. A secret that might be most fatal to the Lords of All Creation.

She would sell it too.

"I am expendable. Yet even to someone like me, the Lords of All Creation readily gave a World Tree leaf. Beyond that, there is no way they could secretly operate an organization within the military state without their flow of funds being discovered. The Lords of All Creation have another source of income, and it is probably..."

"Ah. I know. Those bastards are secretly cultivating World Trees."

Callis had been about to offer only the information that they were connected to the guardians of the World Tree. She shut her mouth in shock.

Privately cultivating World Trees. It was an immense matter, enough to turn the world upside down.

More than that, what was this being that could casually reveal information shocking enough to stun the entire world?

The regressor casually swept back his hair and asked.

"Whatever. Who is that Sponsor?"

"...All contact is delivered anonymously and through metaphors, so I don't know either."

"So you don't know?"

"That is... correct. I suspect they are at least two ranks above me. Ahead of this 'Sponsor' taking up a position as an instructor in Tantalus, I was sent here as a litmus test to confirm it was safe..."

"An instructor. An actual instructor."

His voice turned cold in an instant. Callis instinctively recoiled. Fortunately, this killing intent was not directed at her.

The regressor spoke as if sick of it.

"Pawns, pawns, pawns... Don't these people ever get tired of it?"

Silence fell.

Kill her or spare her. The weights swayed in the regressor's calculations.

An anxious moment passed. The air grew heavier as Callis waited for her sentence. She did not dare raise her head when the Right Arm burst through the curtain of silence.

"Haaah! O Right Arm!"

The Right Arm flew through the air and gripped the window frame tightly. The tin frame crumpled with a strange sound. The immortal's voice rang out behind it.

"Pull me in!!"

The immortal's huge body came flying toward the Right Arm that had been hanging there in advance. Crashing through the window, the immortal rolled across the floor and shouted.

"I have arrived!"

The immortal raised his head and looked left and right. Callis was kneeling on the right, while on the other side, the regressor was lost in thought as he toyed with an invisible sword. His hesitation was plain to see.

"Ha ha! I thought I was a little late, but it seems you've changed your mind! Well done, boy!"

The immortal laughed heartily and wedged himself between them.

"That's right! The deaths of those who die easily should not be easy. Flowers that bloom briefly are beautiful. Even if they bloom for only one season, their value is not brief! Is it not the virtue of an evergreen to watch over them until it is time for them to fall?"

A little annoyance settled onto the wavering scale.

The calculation was complete. Not wanting to continue fighting an immortal who would not die, the regressor put away Skywarbler and folded his arms.

"...What pointless meddling. Do you think anyone will recognize me for sparing something like this? Even gods don't care when one person dies."

"I will recognize it! I admire the boy's noble decision, and in return, I will not question you cutting my body into seventeen pieces! More precisely, I have no way to hold you accountable! Ha ha ha!"

Instead of answering that easygoing remark, the regressor gave the immortal a stern warning about Callis.

"You keep an eye on that yourself. If she does anything unnecessary... no, if I even see her walking around alone, I'll kill her without a word."

"Of course! I shall make sure we remain together at all times."

With that, Callis's death turned away and walked off. Even once its footsteps could no longer be heard, Callis could not rise.

Strength drained from her body. Cold sweat soaked through her shirt. Relief at surviving mixed with the helplessness of knowing she could no longer go back.

"Has he gone? Is he gone? He has, right?"

The immortal kept glancing in the direction the regressor had disappeared, then let out a long sigh.

"Whew. What a violent child! Raw strength alone, and he casually carved up my body! Had I not been immortal, he would have killed me at least fifteen times!"

"I..."

"No need to thank me! What are friends for? If you still feel indebted, consider it that we have each saved the other once!"

The immortal was clearly a good person. Without him, Callis would not have survived.

She should have been grateful, but Callis had lost too much to spare room for it.

Callis muttered weakly.

"...I threw everything away to survive."

Her duties had been suspended. Callis would stand before a harsh investigation team while every part of her conduct was picked apart. Flaws she did not even remember might come to light.

That would be fortunate, at least. If the Lords of All Creation noticed her betrayal, it would not end with a death passed off as suicide.

Perhaps she would die miserably and painfully where no one could see her.

"My dignity, my status, my mission, my father's inheritance, all of it. There is... nothing left for me..."

So Callis had lost everything.

Everything she had desperately built over the years.

"But you survived!"

The immortal patted Callis's shoulder encouragingly. Then he grinned and firmly held her trembling body.

"It is enough that you survived! Even if you lose everything, you can rebuild afterward in your own way. Lieutenant Colonel, you are young! You have plenty of time, enough to fill it with things far more valuable than the wealth you have built so far!"

"But..."

Callis's weak voice was drowned out by the immortal's vigorous one.

"Most of all, Lieutenant Colonel, your most important inheritance remains! The most beautiful inheritance your father left behind must be none other than you!"

Callis could not answer. Instead, tears poured from her eyes.

Callis wept without even realizing it. They said officers of the military state, that harsh country with neither blood nor tears, dried up until not a single tear remained, becoming like their nation.

Then Callis was no longer an officer. She still had pulsing blood and hot tears within her.

A book had not ended.

Because it had not prepared for an ending, it left room to continue, making use of everything it had saved to finish the story.

Now, if no unforeseen accident came crashing in, a story several times more beautiful would surely emerge.

If nothing happened.

The regressor suddenly raised her head. Looking into the distant darkness above the Abyss, her indigo eyes flashed.

'An intruder?'

Footnotes:

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