WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Order

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 35: Mountain City Barquntol (5)

──────

"I bestow sealing authority upon Paladin Elbridge."

With that final line, the goddess's form scattered into motes of light.

Then two huge pillars appeared in midair and crashed down.

Thud-

The two pillars did not topple. They struck the ground and held fast.

They were round pillars, the kind one might only see in a temple. They were larger than those of an ordinary temple too. It looked like it would take two people just to wrap their arms around one pillar.

That was only the beginning. Huge pillars kept appearing in midair and dropping down one after another.

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.

They were not falling at random. The pillars planted in the ground formed a giant rectangle.

The structure was almost like a huge temple, with a single entrance cut into the front as the only way in or out.

And at that lone exit stood the paladin who had been granted that authority, all alone. The meaning of the sealing authority was clear enough.

If anyone wanted to break out of this seal, they would have to get past Elbridge.

Elbridge lifted his shield-bearing left arm and said,

"Come."

* * *

In the past, there had never been a shortage of people who wanted to become paladins of the Order of the Rusted Shield, because the death rate among its paladins was high.

It sounded contradictory, but it was true.

Back then, the Goddess of the Rusted Shield had to split a quantity of divine power equivalent to a little over twenty seats among as few as five paladins, and no more than ten.

By contrast, other orders with a similar number of seats had around a hundred paladins.

The seat count was similar, but the number of paladins was pitifully small.

That meant one thing. If someone survived in the Order of the Rusted Shield, they were guaranteed enormous divine power.

Not two or three times as much. At minimum, ten times, and at most more than twenty times the normal amount of divine power. For paladins who constantly felt the limits of their strength, that was a huge temptation.

Because of the nature of the Order of the Rusted Shield, Elbridge was a little short on experience in situations like this.

He had never used divine power when the church had been this weakened.

Immediately after unleashing the sealing authority, Elbridge felt regret.

'...This is a little tighter than expected.'

63, 62, 61...

Anyone who used the sealing authority could instinctively tell how long it would last.

When all the allotted divine power was exhausted, the sealing authority would disappear too.

And the divine power allotted to Elbridge right now was not generous.

In the past, even when he manifested other divine powers at the same time, he usually had hundreds, sometimes thousands, of seconds to spare.

57, 56, 55...

Thinking back on it, the Goddess of the Rusted Shield had clearly warned Elbridge.

She could grant him divine power, but how long it lasted depended entirely on Elbridge.

It was only natural for the finances of a tiny church with no seats at all to be tight.

52, 51, 50...

Elbridge glanced at Rombel.

Rombel was an exceptional warrior, but he could not cross to the other side and cut down the distortion-type demonic beast's neck in such a short time.

Still, just as the Goddess of the Rusted Shield had said, Elbridge had a way to buy time.

Elbridge raised his shield-bearing left arm and said,

"Come."

In answer to Elbridge's words, the demonic beast reacted at once.

Its shape vaguely resembled a deer. But it was too large, too imposing, and its antlers were far too sharp to be a deer.

47, 46...

The demonic beast kicked off the ground and charged Elbridge.

'Metallic sheen. Enhancement type. The shine isn't uniform. It's still a weak specimen that hasn't left the early stage.'

The beast lowered its head. It was clearly trying to ram him and impale him on those sharp antlers.

Anyone else would have blocked the antlers with a shield, but Elbridge did not raise his shield straight up. He tilted it at an angle, as if he meant to use the side of it.

Divinity drove into Elbridge's waist and both legs, and he braced hard.

45, 44...

Then came the impact.

If this had been the past, he might have been thrown back without being able to absorb the force of an enhancement-type demonic beast.

But Elbridge's physical ability had now recovered to about half of what it had been in the past. He could manage the raw strength of an early-stage enhancement-type demonic beast well enough. Thanks to the gauntlet enchanted to boost his grip strength, there was no need to worry about losing his hold on the shield.

Elbridge's shield, tilted at an angle, caught between the beast's antlers.

The beast's antlers and Elbridge's shield pressed together, then slid.

Grrrrrr-

'Now!'

The muscles in Elbridge's left arm, chest, and shoulders bunched to their limit.

43.

When Elbridge flung the shield upward with all his strength, the beast's head, caught on the shield, was also jolted upward. The beast's neck was laid bare right before Elbridge's eyes.

Elbridge swung the sword in his right hand.

As expected of an enhancement-type demonic beast, the feel of the blade hitting home was solid. But it was not enough to stop Elbridge's sword.

Slash, hot blood sprayed out.

42. 41.

Thud.

The beast collapsed onto the ground.

Without the slightest hesitation, Elbridge drove his sword through the beast's heart in one clean motion.

"I dedicate this heart to the goddess."

The beast's corpse scattered like sand and vanished.

74. 73. 72...

That meant the time allotted to Elbridge was now longer than it had been before he dealt with a single demonic beast.

'Good.'

Elbridge's remaining task was to repeat that process until the battle ended.

As if nothing had happened, Elbridge took another step back and waited for the next enemy.

"Next."

* * *

The dwarves of the mountain city saw a new possibility amid despair.

A divine power they had never seen before, and Elbridge's movements as he casually cut a beast's neck and pierced its heart like he was twisting a child's wrist.

The dwarves let out a roar at full volume.

"Ohhh-!"

Then the dwarves standing close to Marcus turned their eyes to him.

Their eyes seemed to say, "Hey, you came here with that paladin too, didn't you? You can do that much too, right?"

...That was not just his imagination.

Marcus had never faced this many eyes and this much expectation in his entire life. Who expected anything from a shabby mercenary?

By now, he was unable to move not because he feared the demonic beast, but because the dwarves' excessive expectations were weighing him down.

While Marcus was hesitating, a stern oracle came down from the high heavens and reached his ears.

"- Idiot. Get it together..."

This was the second oracle Marcus had received from the God of Fox Rain.

Marcus jumped in surprise and snapped back to his senses, and the God of Fox Rain began to scold him.

"- If you dither here and get noticed by Elbridge, what do you think will happen? He'll tell you to get lost on the spot. Fight bravely, now. If your skill is lacking, then at least work hard..."

Marcus did not know what to do with himself as he asked back,

"But, God of Fox Rain, I have never beaten a demonic beast once on the way here to the Red Mountains."

"- You got complacent..."

"Pardon?"

"- You had strong companions watching your back, so you became lazy. But right now neither Elbridge nor Rombel can help you, so you might actually win instead. Your victory is already decided, so don't worry."

"Really?"

"- Yes. I can see the future that awaits you."

A disloyal suspicion rose in Marcus's heart.

The oracle given by the God of Fox Rain sounded like a scammer's bluff.

Scammers always said things like, "This time it's really certain."

As if sensing Marcus's distrust, the God of Fox Rain added one more line.

"- Besides, unlike the demonic beasts you've fought so far, the one you're chasing right now looks like a pushover at a glance..."

Marcus could agree with that oracle. After all, among the demonic beasts that had burst out when the iron gate collapsed, he had followed the one that looked the easiest.

The demonic beast, which looked like a clump of soot, had no sharp claws or teeth.

"- I'll take care of the rest, so fight bravely. Move!"

Marcus drew his sword as if pushed from behind.

But the oracle had calmed him down.

'Take responsibility. Does that mean he's planning to grant some amazing divine power if things get dangerous?'

Marcus studied the beast's appearance the way Elbridge and Rombel had taught him.

One tiny eye. Its body was pitch-black, round, and fluffy. At most, it barely reached a person's waist.

Marcus thought back to the demonic beasts he had met on the road to the Red Mountains, and to the stories he had heard from Elbridge and Rombel.

'It definitely isn't enhancement type. It doesn't seem like element type or distortion type either. Irregular type? Plague type? Or was it special type? No. It might just be some weak thing that doesn't fit into anything. They said not all demonic beasts were strong.'

So that he could retreat at any sudden change, Marcus swung his sword from a slightly awkward stance.

The soot-like demonic beast tried to dodge Marcus's sword, but it was not quick enough. Marcus's blade cut across it.

Slice.

Because it was a demonic beast, it felt tougher than an ordinary animal.

'It was cut that easily?'

A lion would not find it strange to beat another animal to death with its forepaw, but a rabbit would feel wrong using its front teeth to bite another animal to death.

Marcus clearly belonged to the latter group, so he sprang away to the side.

Tsk-

Bodily fluid shot out of the beast's wound.

It skimmed past Marcus's shoulder and the side of his head before hitting the ground. At once, the ground began to bubble, and smoke rose from it.

"..."

Just imagining what would have happened if that fluid had hit him made him shiver.

If Elbridge or Rombel had been there to help, Marcus wouldn't have been tense enough to dodge the fluid either.

Marcus kept thinking.

'It can't spit that fluid forever. Looking at how it keeps leaking even now, it probably only gets one or two shots out of it...'

Marcus watched the fluid carefully and swung his sword at the beast.

As expected, the beast spat the fluid one or two more times, but the amount was nowhere near as much as before.

After the fourth time, it could not spit any fluid at all. Marcus grew bolder and kept swinging his sword, adding more wounds to the beast.

'It's over!'

Just as Marcus was about to swing for one final, wide strike, he saw the beast's one eye flash.

'Is that its last-ditch effort?'

Last-ditch efforts were the most dangerous of all. Marcus immediately twisted his body hard.

But Marcus was not as fast as Elbridge or Rombel.

Sharp spikes shot out from the black body of the beast and pierced Marcus's side.

"Guh!"

With his side pinned through, he could not move an inch. If another attack like that came his way, he would have to surrender his life right there.

But he did not feel fear of death. Anger and frustration surged up instead.

'I was almost done winning, and I'm losing like this?'

Marcus looked up at the sky. He remembered the God of Fox Rain's boast that everything afterward would be taken care of.

But there was no sign of a god's form or a halo of light.

Then a fact suddenly came to him. Anyone who said things like "I'll handle everything. Trust me," was nine times out of ten a scammer.

"..."

Then unexpected reinforcements appeared.

One of the dwarves who had been watching Marcus's fight with the beast rushed in with a pickaxe and smashed the beast flat.

Crunch-

Dwarves were born with far greater strength than humans. The pickaxe swung at full force by the dwarf pierced straight through the beast, whose condition was already poor.

Only then did the spike that had pierced Marcus's side slowly retract and slip out of his body.

He could also faintly feel divinity being drawn from the beast's corpse.

When Marcus staggered a little, the dwarf who had swung the pickaxe cried out in alarm.

"Hey, buddy! That's a bad wound!"

"I just got pricked a little because I let my guard down. It's nothing."

Marcus's answer was unusually calm.

There were too many dwarves watching for him to act injured.

The only saving grace was that, perhaps because he was too worked up, he could barely feel the pain.

Marcus said in a loud voice,

"Anyway, remember that the brand's already been etched on you! Run and you'll only die! And-"

Marcus took a deep breath again and shouted with all he had.

"The demonic beasts that have come into the city aren't strong! If you aren't afraid and go at them, you can bring them down! Anyone who can fight, lend even a little strength!"

If someone won with Elbridge's overwhelming skill, people would only be amazed and look up to him.

But when they saw someone half-decent like Marcus win, it somehow made them think they might be able to do it too.

In that sense, Marcus's middling victory clearly meant something.

Quite a few dwarves steadied their hearts because of Marcus.

Then they went back inside their homes and came out carrying things that could be used as weapons.

Only a tiny handful of dwarves had proper weapons. Most of them carried shovels, hammers, or pickaxes.

But that was enough. Hadn't a pickaxe just killed a demonic beast a moment ago?

The dwarves gathered in small groups and moved toward the iron gate.

* * *

Rombel watched Elbridge's battle.

Elbridge was swinging his sword like a madman.

His motions were concise, and he never missed an opening.

'He's holding up well.'

Given the scale of the Order of the Rusted Shield, there was no way the sealing authority would last long. Yet right now, it seemed like it was about to end, and then somehow it wasn't. The reason was that Elbridge was killing the demonic beasts and offering their corpses to the goddess so quickly.

'He fights just as well as he always did...'

But Elbridge's stamina was not infinite. Before it was too late, Rombel climbed the stairs beside the iron gate and moved quietly toward the side door.

The wall had broken part of the stairs when the gate collapsed, but they were still usable.

Creak-

Rombel carefully opened the iron gate and looked to the other side.

A great many of the demonic beasts had been trapped by the sealing authority unleashed by the Goddess of the Rusted Shield and Elbridge, and most of the ones that weren't trapped had their attention fixed entirely on Elbridge's battle.

Rombel looked to the far side of the battlefield, toward the edge of Bronzimmar.

There was the distortion-type demonic beast that had acted as the demon's conduit, slumped there and resting.

'That son of a bitch.'

Rombel touched his forehead.

When the demon's eye appeared from the mouth of the distortion-type demonic beast, no brand had been burned onto the foreheads of Elbridge or Marcus. The two were under their gods' direct protection.

But Rombel had a brand on his forehead much darker than any other dwarf's. Unlike the other dwarves who served the God of the Iron Anvil, Rombel had lived for nearly two hundred years without any connection to a god.

Holding his large double-bladed axe tightly, Rombel slipped carefully through the side door.

As he lowered his presence and walked quietly through the streets of Bronzimmar, all sorts of thoughts came to him. The most memorable, of course, was Elbridge's display.

'Divine power.'

He remembered Elbridge's offer to join the Order of the Rusted Shield.

How much help would it be, if he could use a god's divine power the way Elbridge did?

Long ago, Rombel had quietly envied the divine power of combat churches, and what he had admired most of all was the overwhelming divine power of the Order of the Rusted Shield. He still felt the same now.

But he could not pray to the Goddess of the Rusted Shield. That would be no different from stealing the divine power meant for Elbridge.

It did not have to be the Order of the Rusted Shield. Rombel remembered many combat churches.

The Order of the Bloodstained Spear, the Order of the Laurel Wreath, Antlers, the Chain and Axe Church, the Echoes of War Church...

Any of them would do. If a warrior like Rombel prayed, any god would gladly grant him divine power.

'No. I can't.'

Rombel steeled his heart.

The moment he depended on a god, he would no longer be able to fully achieve the goal he had kept repeating to himself for over two hundred years.

He had not lived as an unbeliever for over two centuries just for an outcome like that.

Rombel did not go straight at the distortion-type demonic beast. He approached quietly from the edge of Bronzimmar.

He drew closer and closer to the distortion-type demonic beast.

Fortunately, the beast did not seem to notice Rombel's approach.

Its pale skin. Its unnaturally long arms. And its slumped posture, as if it had grown tired from projecting the demon's power, were all clear to see.

The distortion-type demonic beast's physical ability was pathetic compared to the others.

One swing of the axe should cut it down easily.

That was what Rombel thought as he lifted his gaze a little higher.

Then he felt something was off.

The beast was still slumped over.

But the direction of its mouth had changed. Just a moment ago, its mouth had been pointed toward the collapsed iron gate.

But now Rombel was facing the beast's mouth head-on.

He could see the corners of the beast's mouth lifting.

Rombel muttered,

"Crafty bastard."

The beast opened its mouth wide.

From inside that mouth, a huge demon's forearm shot out and flew straight toward Rombel.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried