WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
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◈ Prince of Rage ◈
Chapter 87
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Perhaps barbarism was relative from the beginning. There was no absolute standard separating civilization from barbarism. Perhaps anything that felt alien and repulsive to me was simply barbaric.
If so, I could not condemn another people’s customs as barbaric simply because they made me uncomfortable.
Still, there were things that made me think, This cannot be right.
Giving and drinking blood when accepting guests was one thing. It only meant retching a few times. But offering living people as sacrifices seemed wrong no matter how I thought about it.
Even in this otherworldly place, the stars shone when night came.
Day and night, the four seasons, the world seemed to change without rest, yet all moved according to a single principle. Only people seemed impossible to understand.
Was the wind blowing, or was my heart wavering? Valerie wrestled between rage and reason, searching for the light.
A fire burned in the middle of the tent. As the flames flickered, the shadows cast across their faces shifted as well.
Valerie, Ölvir, and Sísrik were each resting quietly. Sharpening a spearhead, sleeping and snoring, or lost in thought.
There were sounds. Snoring, night insects outside, the crackling of the fire.
And the smell of burning wood.
Crackle, crack...
Then someone pulled aside the tent flap, and a gust of wind swept through the interior. The flames twisted uneasily.
“Valerie?”
The young voice belonged to Adrin.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
Whether that was simply how she was, or because her death had already been decided, Adrin had a bold side. She entered without fear despite there being three grown men inside.
Adrin settled down and took off her fur hat. Her neatly combed red hair resembled the flames.
She looked like a somewhat prim child, but because of the fate awaiting her, she also seemed subdued and gloomy.
“What were you doing?”
“Resting.”
“Why does that old man’s face look like that?”
“It bears tattoos of courage and honor, madness, the spirits of bears and wolves, victory at the Battle of Heldenheim, victory at the Landing of the Ocom Coast, and victory at the Landing of Cliffden, little one.”
She had asked Valerie, but Ölvir himself answered.
Simply put, they were tattoos of his achievements, proof, and wishes. Naturally, the listener could not make much sense of it.
“Huh? Are you a Norseman, Grandpa?”
“That is right.”
“My grandparents said that when they were young, warriors from the north would sometimes visit. Not anymore, though.”
“That fellow Valerie is a Norseman too.”
“Really? Did Valerie come from the north by ship too?”
“No.”
“Then how is he a Norseman?”
“Probably because his parents are Norsemen.”
“Huh? I don't really understand.”
“You don't need to. It doesn't seem very important.”
“Hmm... Valerie is just Valerie, then?”
“That is right.”
“I want to be like that too...”
“Little one, what is your name?” Ölvir asked.
“I am not little. My name is Adrin.”
“Come here.”
Adrin looked blankly at him, unsure why the old man wanted her to come over. Valerie did not know either.
When Adrin rose and approached Ölvir, he turned away and did something to his face. Then he suddenly spun back around, raised both hands as if to devour her, and bared his teeth.
“Rawr!”
It seemed he had covered his upper and lower teeth with fruit peels to look like a monster, but it was not frightening at all. Young children might have been startled.
Unfortunately, Adrin was not that young. When the girl merely stared at him without surprise, Ölvir seemed embarrassed. He removed the fruit peels from his mouth and threw them into the fire.
Silence followed for a while.
“I appreciate the effort.”
“I didn't do it to hear that. How old are you?”
“Eleven.”
“Then I suppose you might not be scared.”
“They say Norsemen travel the world. Did you too, Grandpa?”
“Not now, but I did in the past.”
“Please tell me about it. What kind of world did you see?”
“Hmm, what story would be good? Shall I tell you about a gray animal as large as a house, with an extremely long nose? A sea made of sand? The people of a fallen empire? Or a widow from Hellemas who lost her husband?”
“A widow who lost her husband?”
“Yes. Hellemas is a city you reach by sailing south for a long while, then going east upriver. Battles were always taking place there, even when we weren't around. Don't even get me started on the corpses. Eventually, the smell of rotting bodies filled the place, and it became abandoned land. This happened nearby. When we arrived, a battle had ended only recently. People from the fallen empire had been fighting each other. Anyway, corpses covered the field, and there was a woman about Valerie’s age holding onto one of them and cutting the flesh from it with a knife. I asked her why.”
The unexpectedly gruesome story made Adrin tense, but it also stirred her curiosity.
“...Why did she do that?”
“She said she had to hold a funeral for her husband, but his body was too heavy to carry, so she was removing the flesh. One of my friends laughed and asked whether she'd rather die and meet him in the next world. The woman wasn't afraid at all, and she said this.”
The story was rather brutal for a child, but Adrin was deeply absorbed, as though moved by the woman in that faraway, unknown land.
“What did she say?”
“Do you think I am doing this because I am afraid of death? I am not a barbarian like you. I am civilized.”
Retrieving her husband’s body for burial, even cutting away the flesh to do so. Was that civilization?
Valerie did not know what was barbaric and what was civilized, but Adrin was clearly deeply impressed by the woman’s actions and words. Perhaps they resonated with her because she too was soon destined to die.
“Civilized... So what happened to that woman?”
“We took her aboard our ship and brought her, along with her husband’s body, to her village. Then I asked whether that made us civilized too, and she laughed and wished us good fortune in battle. That was the end of it. She said she had children, but I don't know. Whether they lived or died.”
Adrin thought for a moment, then urged Ölvir on.
“More. Please tell another story.”
“Hmm... What would be good? How about the suicide monks?”
“Suicide monks?”
“Yes. I was a mad berserk myself, but their perverse madness frightened me sometimes.”
“What were they like?”
“They followed the Young God, and they kept telling us to stay away from violence and love one another. They said all people were equal. I didn't know what kind of bullshit that was, but no matter how many we chopped to death with axes or tortured, they kept coming and telling us to follow their Young God. Endlessly. They never gave up. Enough to make even us, the ones killing them, sick of it. Eventually, some among us really began following the Young God. Thinking, Surely they won't do this, surely they won't do that, will they keep spouting that bullshit even then? We made them do all sorts of painful things, but they did them without hesitation. Walking across burning gravel, pulling out all their own teeth. One day, we captured one and demanded a ransom from the monastery, but the captive suddenly smashed his own head against a stone and died. He said the monastery’s wealth was for the poor. They were the strangest, most bizarre, most chilling people I have ever seen. People who knew no fear. The suicide monks.”
“...There really are many strange people in the world...”
“Yes. Compared to them, Cambrians are perfectly sensible.”
“They offer sacrifices. Adrin is actually a child who will be offered as one.”
Valerie, who had quietly listened to the two of them, finally spoke.
“A sacrifice? This child? Hmm... What is wrong with that?”
“What?”
“Isn't it true? We used to choose one man of noble blood and offer him as a sacrifice before setting sail. Of course, I don't know whether it was effective, but we did it anyway. If sacrificing a few people lets everyone else live, it seems quite reasonable. If they can live, that is.”
It was not something Valerie had expected him to say. He was so dumbfounded that he could not speak. More surprising was that Adrin seemed to think the same, reluctantly agreeing.
“...Yes. I suppose so...”
“Little one, are you afraid of dying?”
“...I don't know.”
“You can't not know. If you want to live, run away. If you accept it, die. But going out into the world is not always good. If you reject death, you need a clear reason. Rather than merely running away, you must first ask yourself what you are willing to do to live.”
Adrin seemed unable to understand what he meant. Ölvir possessed a depth within his madness, and understanding his words required considerable intelligence and experience.
“Do you have another story?”
“I'll tell you stories all night.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
And so the night tales began. Stories of what an aging man had experienced in his youth.
They were an epic, a diary, and an account of things witnessed. They were also a mirror reflecting an unknown world through his own eyes.
Adrin forgot her gloom for a while and became completely immersed in the stories. Valerie listened until he fell asleep.
From morning, Adrin’s tribe packed up their tents and began moving. They were headed toward Mount Hekla. The clouds gathered over the mountain seemed thicker and more numerous.
Valerie’s group followed them, but Snow was no longer as strong as before. He seemed tired from serving as a stud. That horse.
With no other choice, only Ölvir rode him, while Valerie walked with Sísrik.
Along the way, Adrin brought her friends over. Valerie let each of them ride the horse in turn, and they all said they would be offered as sacrifices.
Valerie carefully asked one of the tribespeople whether they absolutely had to offer sacrifices.
“The sacrifices have not been decided yet. Something so sacred and glorious cannot be done by just anyone. Once all the tribes have gathered, the priests will gather too and decide who will be offered. They choose a hundred among them. So Adrin is only a candidate. It is funny how she acts as though the world has ended.”
Valerie did not know what was funny, but he still felt this could not be right.
They continued onward. The land of Cambri was truly strange. Streams ran everywhere, and there were many low waterfalls. The grass covering the earth resembled moss, and there were hardly any trees.
Mount Hekla seemed quite close, yet no matter how far they walked, it showed no sign of coming nearer. The mountain always stood tall in the same shape.
They set out in the morning and walked all day without resting until evening. At last, it seemed they had come somewhat closer. In the distant lowlands, people were gathered like clouds.
Nearly ten thousand? Twenty thousand? More? He could not count them, and he could not see where the mass of people ended. There might have been fifty thousand, perhaps even a hundred thousand.
It was a vast mass of people that seemed to fill the entire land, without a city in sight.
They too were holding a festival, though to Valerie it looked less like a festival than resignation. They slaughtered livestock freely, without thought for the future.
On one side, young girls and adult women were gathered in great numbers. There were hardly any older women, and according to the Cambrians, they were all virgins.
Adrin’s parents came over and tried to take Adrin and the other children away.
Adrin became suddenly gloomy and seemed unable to make herself move.
“Grandpa, what was that woman’s name?”
“Hm?”
“The widow. The widow from Hellemas.”
“...Adrin.”
“Yes?”
“The widow’s name was Adrin.”
“Really!?”
“Of course.”
“I understand.”
At Ölvir’s answer, Adrin’s eyes changed at once. They looked firmer, more resolute. Then she followed her parents.
Watching Adrin walk away, Valerie asked Ölvir, “Was that true?”
“It was a lie.”
“...”
Valerie could guess why he had lied. And he understood.
Whether it was fiction or not did not matter. Depending on whether one believed, one’s resolve, attitude, and future could change.
“Do you want to save her?” Ölvir asked from horseback.
“I cannot kill all these people, and they will not listen even if I tell them not to do it. I will be lucky if I do not get beaten to death by the crowd.”
“I have a good idea.”
“There is a way?”
“Of course.”
“What is it?”
“We came here to kill a dragon anyway, did we not? Then you become a sacrifice too.”
“...What are you talking about?”
“You have a pretty face, do you not?”
Valerie rolled his eyes for a moment, wondering what he meant. Then he looked coldly up at Ölvir.
“Elder, I do not know about anything else, but you should not speak so carelessly to me about that sort of thing.”
“Then what are we supposed to do? Can you not take sincere action because of a little shame? There is a way, so why can you not do it? Do you think I said it just to tease you? I am serious!”
“...No, what exactly are you suggesting?”
“Put a little face powder on and wear women’s clothes.”
“That might work,” Sísrik added from beside them.
When Valerie glared at him, he quickly turned his head away.
“No, think about it. The dragon-slayer also dug a tunnel and waited, then killed Fafnir by thrusting a sword into its heart in one blow. A dragon is not something you can defeat by fighting it head-on. You need wisdom. Wisdom. So pretend to be a sacrifice, then when it comes close, stab it through the heart in one strike. What do you think? Does it sound like a joke? It is not bad, is it?”
“...”
Honestly, it sounded plausible, so he had nothing to say. His heart absolutely did not want to do it, but his reason judged it to be a fairly good plan. The conflict was agonizing.
“If we kill the dragon, the children will live, and the people will come to their senses. That is how barbarism ends. How fear ends. They do all this because they are afraid. Because they are anxious. When people feel they have to do something but have no idea what to do, they tend to do mad things. I am an expert on madness.”
“I suppose you are...”
“I promise you. You will not die. You only need to make up your mind.”
“I am not afraid of dying. I just hate dressing as a woman more than dying.”
“You received my bracelet. Viking! Berserk! Madness! You have reached the very edge. A moment of shame, one mad act, is nothing. Compared to the hardships I have endured, it is truly nothing.”
“...Wait a moment.”
Valerie went elsewhere and sat on a rock. Then he began to think deeply on his own. No, it would be more accurate to call it a process of making up his mind.
Valerie tried to break down his own pride. Was it worth doing? He hoped it was.
After sitting like that for a long while, when the sun had fully set, he spoke the words he could not bring himself to say while the sun’s gaze still reached him.
“I will do it.”
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