WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Order
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Chapter 168: Bella-Style Combat
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The bluish passage Niserath had opened was barely fifteen paces long.
Niserath gestured from the other side for them to come through, but Elbridge's group couldn't bring themselves to step in so readily. Sonia's warning that spatial teleportation magic was dangerous came to mind.
Sure enough, Sonia looked somewhat uneasy as well.
As everyone hesitated, Rombel spoke.
"It looks like the south. It's far, but should we just walk?"
Everyone's eyes turned to Rombel.
Their looks held no particular meaning, but Rombel interpreted them differently.
'Are you scared?'
It was the sort of atmosphere that made it hard for a man to back down. Still, Rombel answered honestly.
"I'm not afraid of spatial teleportation magic. But I don't want to finish my journey without Ascending."
"You've nearly died in battle plenty of times, haven't you?"
"I don't mind dying because I wasn't skilled enough. But I have no intention of taking risks unrelated to my abilities."
Elbridge nodded. It was a very Rombel-like answer.
Realizing why they were hesitating, Niserath wrote something down and showed it to them.
- If you leave the silver coin over there before crossing, it'll be almost safe. It's an artifact that fixes spatial coordinates.
Elbridge, Marcus, and Rombel still didn't step into the passage. The phrase "almost safe" usually just meant it was dangerous.
Sonia was different.
"If someone as skilled as Niserath says it's safe, then it's safe. I'll go first!"
Sonia crossed to the other side in an instant.
It would have been one thing if nobody had gone through, but Elbridge couldn't keep hesitating after Sonia crossed. Elbridge stepped into the passage as well.
Once he passed through the rippling blue passage, the humid air unique to the southern Great Forest wrapped around him. His body, chilled by the winter air, seemed to thaw at once.
Marcus crossed after him, but even after they waited a little longer, Rombel didn't appear.
Elbridge looked through the passage. Rombel waved him off, then slipped the silver coin bearing Niserath's face into a pocket. The passage closed after that.
"Rombel must really hate spatial teleportation magic."
"Maybe it worked out for the best. Since Rombel stayed behind, we didn't have to abandon a valuable artifact."
Elbridge looked at Niserath. Niserath's left arm was still gaunt, as though only bone remained, a trace of the battle against the Master of the Central Magic Tower.
"Have you not been granted Healing Authority?"
"That's part of it, but this isn't an injury Healing Authority can heal in the first place."
"...There are injuries like that?"
"Very rarely."
Though it hadn't been healed through divine power, Niserath's left arm seemed to be recovering little by little. Color had returned to the grayish-brown skin that had once been dry as an old tree. It looked as if the arm would eventually return to normal, even if slowly.
"By the way, why did you call us over instead of coming through the passage?"
"As I said, plenty of gods don't like me. I could go to the royal capital, Leodel, but going to the Holy City Solenion is a little burdensome."
Elbridge grew curious again about what Niserath had done to earn the gods' hatred. As he wondered whether to ask, Niserath spoke first.
"Anyway, why did you call me?"
"To finish what we couldn't finish last time."
"The Master of the Central Magic Tower? If a fight breaks out, I'm willing to lend a hand. Winning the fight aside, though, there's no way to find where the Master is... No, there is."
As expected, asking Niserath for help had been the right choice.
"How can we find them?"
"Sonia. You still have the Master of the Central Magic Tower's eye I gave you last time, right?"
When they fought the Master of the Central Magic Tower in Leodel, Niserath had taken one of the Master's eyeballs and tossed it to Sonia. Elbridge thought there was little chance Sonia still had it.
'No reasonable person would carry something that creepy around this long.'
His expectation was completely wrong.
Sonia took a small glass bottle from inside their clothes. The Master of the Central Magic Tower's eyeball was preserved inside it as if it were new.
Marcus took a step back, clearly unsettled by the eye.
"...Why are you carrying something like that around?"
"It might come in handy. Wouldn't it be stranger to throw it away?"
"What does that... Never mind. What are you planning to do with that eye?"
Niserath answered Marcus's question.
"We're going to Lake of Eternity."
Elbridge had been there before.
Lake of Eternity had shown Rombel memories of his dead wife, Leonhardt's Ascension, and Marcus's older female neighbor. Elbridge couldn't understand what it had to do with the Master of the Central Magic Tower's eye.
"Isn't that the lake that shows old memories?"
"That's what people usually think. But if you know how to handle it, you can see much more. That lake... wasn't made just to let people look at memories."
"Made? Wasn't it a naturally formed lake?"
Niserath looked as though that question was impossible to understand.
"Marcus. Maybe you're still too young to know, but ordinary puddles don't have the ability to show old memories."
"Ah, yes. That's true. Of course, it's not that I didn't know that..."
"If you knew, why did you ask?"
"..."
Marcus looked as though he had bitten into an insect.
Elbridge thought Marcus and Niserath didn't seem to get along very well. The God of Fox Rain was probably laughing at Marcus too.
Elbridge asked, "Then who made Lake of Eternity?"
Niserath didn't answer.
"Come on. Shall we get going?"
* * *
Thanks to the silver coin Niserath had given them, traveling south had been quick.
Still, even a Great Mage like Niserath had no special way of reaching Lake of Eternity. The four of them walked diligently southward.
"Wait here. I'll go check whether we're headed in the right direction."
While Niserath was away, Marcus spoke.
"Sir Elbridge. Is Niserath someone we can trust?"
"Why do you ask?"
"The Master of the Central Magic Tower said they had come down because they had no believers. They said their goal was to gather believers and Ascend again... But it was a complete lie."
Elbridge asked, "Do you think Niserath is deceiving us?"
"It's possible. Niserath hides a lot, and is a Great Mage just like the Master was."
The reasoning was so thin that it was almost interesting.
"What about Sonia?"
"Sonia is a mage, but they're still a long way from becoming a Great Mage."
Sonia pouted.
"Did you have anything to do with me not becoming a Great Mage?"
"I'm just saying."
Elbridge smiled faintly.
"Even if Niserath intends to deceive us, we don't have many options. We need Niserath's help."
All they could do was keep Niserath close while staying alert.
If Niserath tried to stab them in the back, they had to be ready to pull away before the blade went too deep.
"And this is only my opinion, but... I think Niserath is different from the Master of the Central Magic Tower."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because Niserath simply stays quiet and moves on when there's something they don't want to say."
Someone determined to deceive another person hid the fact that they were concealing something. That was how they avoided suspicion.
Niserath was different. Whenever there was something Niserath didn't want to say, Niserath simply fell silent, as if being suspected didn't matter.
"Let's trust Niserath for now."
* * *
The journey to Lake of Eternity took several days.
They began walking as soon as they finished breakfast in the early morning, then continued without rest until they ate dinner late in the evening.
They weren't crossing level ground, but dense forest paths, all while keeping their senses sharp. It was an exhausting journey.
Elbridge still didn't skip his training.
After dinner, he would sit quietly and meditate for a long time. His goal was the Bella-style Combat Art the elves had taught him in Thornbush Forest.
'Perception, concentration, release.'
He had reached the first stage, perception, without much difficulty.
The next stage, concentration, was different.
He needed to move the divinity in his body before he could concentrate it, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make it move.
It felt like trying to move a third arm that didn't exist.
He had been trying for three or four months already.
Yet today, Elbridge finally felt the movement of divinity.
'...!'
It was only a faint movement, nowhere close to concentration.
Still, the movement held great meaning. Well begun is half done.
When Elbridge opened his eyes and clenched both fists, the Goddess of the Rusted Shield delivered an oracle.
- Elbridge. It seems you have made progress.
"Yes. Only a little, but I definitely have."
- Wonderful. Since the night is deep, your goddess will sing you a lullaby to celebrate.
The Goddess of the Rusted Shield cleared her throat for a moment and began to sing.
- The sky is heavy, the earth is quiet, so put down your sword and close your eyes. The wind passes over you, across the distant fields...
As Elbridge was preparing his bedroll, Niserath spoke to him.
"Elbridge. What sort of training do you do every evening?"
"It's the Bella-style Combat Art."
"That name sounds familiar."
"It's probably the Bella you're thinking of."
"Really?"
For some reason, Niserath looked somewhat displeased.
"It seems you and Bella don't get along."
"I'm not the one who dislikes Bella. Bella dislikes me. The Sentinels and the Goddess of Thornbush hate mixed-bloods. When I tried to Ascend, the Goddess of Thornbush even voted against it. Anyway, what is this Bella-style Combat Art?"
"Well..."
- Sleep, my child. Tonight, even your enemies will forget you, and my embrace will hold you without end...
Since Elbridge wasn't going to bed, the Goddess of the Rusted Shield sang her lullaby even more passionately.
Elbridge ignored it and explained the Bella-style Combat Art to Niserath.
The explanation wasn't long. The Bella-style Combat Art was simply recognizing the divinity bestowed by a god, concentrating it, then releasing it.
After hearing that, Niserath's expression became strange.
"What's wrong?"
"Are you sure you're allowed to use that Bella-style Combat Art?"
It was an odd question. Allowed?
"If we're talking about permission, I suppose I received it. I learned it from Orion, a Sentinel. Bella, who has now Ascended to heaven, must know about it as well."
"That's not the kind of permission I mean. The problem is whether it's possible for you to use a combat art like that."
Marcus and Sonia, who had been lying down to sleep, quietly sat up and listened to Elbridge and Niserath's conversation.
Niserath frowned and scratched their chin.
"Elbridge. You must have known countless Paladins two hundred years ago."
"That's right."
"Back then, was there a Paladin who used a technique similar to this Bella-style Combat Art?"
"There wasn't."
"Why do you think that was?"
"Because they hadn't been taught the Bella-style Combat Art."
Niserath shook their head.
"No. Human Paladins have waged war against demons for dozens of generations. If it were possible, the occasional genius should have invented a technique like that. But Elbridge, have you ever seen a Paladin use the Bella-style Combat Art? No, have you ever seen even one Paladin directly sense divinity?"
Paladins knew divinity existed.
That didn't mean they directly felt it. They only sensed its existence indirectly through physical abilities strengthened by divinity.
"Of course you haven't. Sensing divinity and moving it directly isn't an ability permitted to beings on earth."
"But..."
Niserath cut Elbridge off.
"Jin and Bella? They're different. Where is Bella now? Bella Ascended. If Bella Ascended, Jin must have Ascended too. The reason Jin and Bella could use such a combat art was because, though they remained on earth, they were beings close to gods. They should have gone to heaven, but they remained on earth because of the stake the Chief God had driven in."
The goddess's lullaby, which had continued out of sheer stubbornness, quietly stopped. It was as though she had realized something strange too late.
"No, that's not..."
"Elbridge. What do you think you would call a being that can perceive divinity itself, move it, and project it outward?"
Marcus answered in Elbridge's place.
"Someone incredibly skilled?"
"No. You'd call it a god. Divinity literally means a god's power, power imbued with divinity. This isn't simply a matter of skill. Elbridge, the reason you never saw even one Paladin who had mastered the Bella-style Combat Art is that it cannot be done. No matter how much you practice the Bella-style Combat Art, you won't achieve anything."
Niserath finished speaking.
Elbridge, finally getting a chance to speak, said, "But I perceived divinity. What I found just now wasn't a clue to perception, but to concentration."
Niserath's expression became even stranger.
"What are you becoming?"
Footnotes:
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