WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Order

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Chapter 92: Cowin (2)

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Elbridge and Cowin's conversation cut off the moment it started. Sonia had fired a spell.

"Die, you bastard!"

A fireball twice the size of a human head shot toward Cowin.

Cowin swung his arm and knocked the fireball aside. That wasn't something skill alone could accomplish.

'Magic Tower-made armor, is it.'

Cowin was High Paladin of a combat church, so it made sense he'd have at least one piece of Magic Tower-made armor.

But Sonia only sank deeper into fury.

"Let's see who dies first, you or me!"

Sonia's staff leveled at Cowin again.

"Calm down. Sonia."

Elbridge tried to stop her. Sonia paid him no mind.

Understandable, really. It was hard to expect calm from someone standing in front of the enemy who'd taken everything from her.

That was when Marcus grabbed both of Sonia's forearms.

"Sonia. How about cooling your head for a second?"

Sonia immediately started retching.

"Ugh!"

"Wh-what? What's wrong with her?"

Rombel spoke to the flustered Marcus.

"You idiot. What were you thinking, grabbing a mage mid-cast?"

"You're not supposed to do that?"

"...Does this guy know anything?"

But in the end, the result was what they wanted.

Sonia was too busy gagging to finish her cast.

A fairly noisy little farce. But it didn't loosen the tension that had settled over the room.

Elbridge kept his hand on his sword hilt and looked at Cowin.

"Cowin. I'll give you one last chance. Convince me."

High Paladin Cowin spoke.

"Sir Elbridge. What kind of people do you think paladins of the Order of the Bloodstained Spear are?"

"What kind of people?"

"I mean, what reason do you think drives someone to become a paladin?"

It wasn't a question Elbridge had ever considered.

In the past, it had been people carrying rage who volunteered to become paladins.

But things were different now. Until recently, the world had been more or less at peace.

Paladins of non-combat churches held something close to an honorary post, so that was one thing. But in this current age, what reason would anyone have to live as a paladin of a combat church?

Elbridge's answer was slow in coming, and Cowin nodded slowly.

"As I thought, you don't know. Then let me ask something else. Do you know the name Alberade?"

Elbridge repeated the name to himself a few times.

Alberade. Alberade.

It didn't take long to bring the face of that old comrade to mind.

"The Singing Alberede. He complained about how hard it was to manage, but he babied that hair of his constantly. Sang as well as his nickname promised."

"So you do remember. Sir Alberade was my ancestor."

Elbridge issued a warning.

"Kid. Don't think blood ties will smooth this over. What you've done isn't something forgiven that easily."

"Of course, that isn't why I brought it up."

Cowin slowly listed off names.

"Alberade, Benedetta, Godrick, Isolde, Drogo, Tankred, and Cowin."

"Aside from Alberade and yourself, I've never heard any of those names."

"I imagine not. What I just gave you is the family line running from Sir Alberade down to me. And every one of them was a paladin of the Order of the Bloodstained Spear. Why do you think every descendant of Sir Alberade became a paladin?"

Elbridge didn't know the answer.

Cowin hadn't expected him to, either.

"Two hundred years ago, the age of hardship ended. But the old heroes had never lived through an era of peace. Naturally, they believed new paladins would be needed."

"I suppose they would."

"But with most demons gone from sight, few people wanted to become paladins. In the end, the paladins chose to pass the duty down to their own children instead. And it kept going from there. The descendants of heroes kept handing the obligation down to their own descendants in turn. Even now, most paladins of the combat churches are descendants of the heroes of that age."

Elbridge had sometimes noticed the faces of old comrades in the faces of present-day paladins.

Until now he'd written it off as simple coincidence. But if what Cowin said was true, maybe it hadn't been coincidence at all.

"That's how the duty passed down, generation after generation. At least the old paladins were respected. People back then understood why paladins deserved respect. But as time passed, things changed. People started treating us like useless fools with no purpose. Sir Elbridge. You couldn't possibly know what that feels like."

In Elbridge's life, a paladin had always been someone met with respect and reverence. Even now, freed from the seal, that hadn't changed much.

But the life Cowin had lived must have been entirely different.

Still, Elbridge couldn't accept Cowin's reasoning.

"Don't make excuses. If it bothered you, you could have just quit and walked away."

"No. I couldn't quit. If I rejected the duty and walked away, it would mean admitting that everything, my life and my ancestors' two hundred years, had all been for nothing."

Cowin let out a deep sigh.

"I didn't want my child to live the same life I did. That's why I never married. If no child exists, there's no one to carry the burden. That was the only way to make sure my child would never bear this duty. A life bound to something with no reward at all, it's that painful."

A kind of lament. But rage began boiling up inside Elbridge's chest.

He'd half suspected it while listening, hoping he was wrong.

'You really did something this enormous over a reason that petty?'

Elbridge's voice turned rough.

"So in the end, you wanted a reward. Foolish boy. I was the one who suffered through hell. Rombel suffered through hell. Your ancestor Alberade suffered through hell. So why do you think you're the one owed a reward?"

"No. I don't need a reward. What matters is role. A person can't endure a life where their role goes unrecognized."

"So just to be recognized, just to prove the worth of your role, you'd turn the world into hell? Drag enemies in just so you could find meaning in a guard dog's life? You committed something this insane out of your own idiotic obsession, Cowin."

Cowin laughed at that.

"This wasn't my obsession alone. The God of the Bloodstained Spear agreed to it as well. So did the other gods of the combat churches. The Laurel Wreath, the Antlers, several of the smaller churches too..."

Elbridge felt dizzy.

So the one committing this madness wasn't a single lunatic. And apparently there was no shortage of such fools, not just on the ground, but in heaven too.

The Goddess of the Rusted Shield delivered a flustered oracle.

- The gods of the combat churches agreed to this? Elbridge. Not your goddess. No one ever brought such a proposal to me.

Elbridge lowered his voice to a whisper.

"Goddess. Are you saying you weren't asked and refused, but that no one even brought you the proposal at all?"

- That is exactly what I mean, Elbridge.

An odd thought for the moment, but Elbridge found himself a little worried for the Goddess of the Rusted Shield.

Was she being left out up in heaven?

'No. It's more likely they never even tried to recruit her because they assumed she'd never agree...'

Cowin spoke again.

"And even if we did want a reward, even setting that aside, you have no right to condemn us for it, Sir Elbridge."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because no one enjoys a greater windfall or greater reward than you do. Instead of suffering in that seal forever, you came back out into the world and are worshipped for it. Your fallen church has risen back up on its feet. Isn't that so?"

Cowin's eyes met Elbridge's.

"It's simple, really. Just as our combat churches found their interests aligned with theirs, your interests align with ours too. As long as our interests match, there's no reason for us to be enemies."

Elbridge's ears pricked up.

'Theirs?'

It sounded as if there were people outside the combat churches who wanted this situation too.

Depending on how you looked at it, it almost sounded like 'they' were the ones driving the whole thing.

'Who could even count as an outsider to the combat churches?'

The non-combat churches? Their gods?

Whatever else might be true, it wasn't them. The non-combat churches were the ones suffering the worst under the current situation.

Someone who was neither a combat church nor a non-combat church. And someone who wanted demons to appear, on top of that.

In a world split cleanly in two, no one obviously fit that description.

'No, wait. There is one person who comes to mind.'

Elbridge glanced sideways at Rombel. Then quietly turned his head away.

'...Not him, at least, for now.'

Rombel desperately wanted to become a god. In that narrow sense, his interests did align with theirs.

Rombel had his moments of cleverness, and he wasn't without some awareness of his surroundings. But he'd never been the type anyone would call sharp, then or now. And he certainly wasn't capable of drawing up some grand scheme.

However Cowin interpreted the long pause, his voice grew gentler.

"Sir Elbridge. What you need to do doesn't change at all."

"What I need to do?"

"Join hands with the combat churches and fight demons. Isn't that what you've already been doing? It's what you'll need to keep doing going forward, too."

Elbridge let out a hollow laugh.

"You think I'm a fool? You people might set loose the very demons I sealed with my own hands. What meaning would my fight even have then?"

"We have no intention of going that far."

"How reassuring."

"I swear it on the God of the Bloodstained Spear."

"You mean the same god who's in on this with you?"

Elbridge's tone turned sharp, but Cowin only grew calmer in response.

"You can mock it now if you like, but in the end, you'll join us."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because you have no other choice, Sir Elbridge. Could you really fight alone, without help from the Laurel Wreath, the Antlers, and the rest of the combat churches? Could you accomplish everything while still holding back, playing it safe?"

Having only one paladin was the greatest weakness of the Order of the Rusted Shield.

Just as some tasks could only be done by a small number of exceptional people, other tasks inevitably required many hands.

"Sir Elbridge. I'll give you plenty of time to think it over. But in the end, you'll find you need our help."

Elbridge fought to steady his emotions as he thought it through.

'He's not wrong.'

Looking at it coldly, what was done was already done.

Whether he wanted it or not, the wheel was already turning, and Elbridge needed people to fight alongside.

There was only one problem.

He hated this situation. Hated it more than he could say.

'...Still, is there any choice but to work together, for now at least?'

Elbridge pressed a hand to his throbbing head and offered a quiet prayer.

"Goddess. What do you want me to do?"

- Your goddess's role is to watch over you and lend you strength, not to choose your path for you.

Reassuring, and a comfort. But not an oracle that would sway his judgment.

Elbridge turned to look behind him.

Sonia's face was full of anxiety, unsure what decision Elbridge would make. But there was resignation mixed in too, maybe half of it.

Rombel looked like he wasn't thinking much of anything. Not that he failed to understand the situation, more that he genuinely didn't care how it turned out.

Marcus, unlike Rombel, wore a complicated expression. No doubt he was busy calculating how he ought to act.

That was when Elbridge caught a faint flicker of emotion on Marcus's face.

'Anxiety?'

Why would Marcus be anxious right now? Was there any reason for him to be?

And then a thought flashed through Elbridge's mind.

Elbridge looked ahead.

"Cowin, descendant of Alberade. I once received an oracle."

"I imagine so. What oracle did the Goddess of the Rusted Shield give you?"

"No. It wasn't an oracle from the Goddess of the Rusted Shield."

Confusion filled Cowin's face.

"Are you saying a god of another church gave you an oracle?"

"That's right. The God of Fox Rain gave me some advice."

"The God of Fox Rain..."

"At the time, I thought the oracle was about something else I was facing then... But I was wrong. The God of Fox Rain saw through to this very moment."

"What was the oracle?"

"The God of Fox Rain said this."

Elbridge steadied his voice and answered calmly.

"If it's now, you don't need to worry about making an enemy of every combat church."

"...!"

Cowin, calm the entire time, snapped a short spear into his grip in an instant.

But Elbridge was better than Cowin, faster than Cowin, and already had his sword in hand.

Shhk.

Elbridge's shoulder blurred for an instant, and a streak of white light swept past Cowin's neck.

Elbridge drew his sword back.

Elbridge never finished the rest of the oracle aloud. But Marcus knew exactly what came next.

'For soon, everyone will kneel before you and beg for your help.'

Cowin's head slid free and rolled across the floor.

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