WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 176: The Same World

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What?

Kyle could not help but be bewildered.

Those winged-eyed monsters. Their presence, and even their appearance, felt somewhat cheap and lowly, but their form resembled the Angel who had shown Kyle affection in the Secret Realm on Beltua Island.

He had no idea why beings called Velatus's servants looked like that, but it could not be a coincidence that they possessed such a distinctive and bizarre appearance. Naturally, Kyle had no choice but to assume they would not be hostile toward him.

Yet now, the monsters were screaming in terror.

And they were not simply screaming loudly and stopping there.

Most responses to fear were similar. One either screamed and ran away, froze stiff and could not move...

Or charged forward in terror.

[Screeeeech!]

[Mother, Mother!]

Velatus's servants chose the latter.

Crying out for their mother, they flapped their wings and rushed at Kyle. Hostility and killing intent poured from their enormous, bloodshot eyes. Those emotions came from fear. The monsters were so terrified that they wanted to eliminate Kyle's very existence.

Why?

Kyle could only be dumbfounded.

He was not some intruder. He was a guest who had come at Velatus's invitation. So why were the servants meant to guide him to Velatus so terrified that they were attacking him?

The necklace given to him by the Angel was still as cold as ice. He heard no voice like the one he had heard with the Black Cube, but Kyle sensed an emotion within that frigid chill.

Anger.

There were too many things he did not understand.

Why were Velatus's servants attacking out of fear, and why was the Angel's necklace angry at them?

Could it be angry because it thinks they copied its appearance?

Would an apostle of a sky god really get angry over something like that?

Or perhaps it was the opposite. Was it because such a lofty being could not tolerate a lowly imitation? Were the servants sensing that anger and desperately lashing out in fear?

He put aside his search for an answer.

The attack rushing toward him was too fierce for him to stand still, lost in thought. Six servants charged at him from different directions, their bloodshot single eyes fixed wide on Kyle.

Crack, crack, crack!

Space froze beneath their gazes.

An immense pressure enveloped Kyle's entire body. The servants' stares had stopped mana, no, space itself. Even the air froze, choking off his breath.

Then, Kyle sensed an omen from within the frozen space.

It'll explode.

The space would burst.

If he stayed still, he would be caught in the explosion and torn to shreds. Escaping from that frozen space would not be easy for most people.

For most people, that was.

Kyle stepped out of the space with a single movement of his foot, without the slightest difficulty.

Then he spoke.

"Move."

He was not in a position to speak informally to Katarina, but the situation was urgent.

Everyone who heard Kyle's command kicked off the ground and retreated. Since those gazes were focused solely on Kyle, no one else had any trouble moving.

Kwoooom!

Space exploded with a deafening roar. Patches of blackness bloomed and swallowed the space before collapsing inward.

From a distance, Kyle stared at the servants flapping their wings.

Drip. Drip.

The bulging veins in their enormous, bull-sized eyes were grotesque. As though even daring to look at Kyle was painful, they began shedding thick, sticky tears of blood.

[Ah, ahhh!]

[No!]

[I don't want to! Don't come closer!]

[I don't want to go!]

"What the hell are these lunatics even saying?"

Their screams were ridiculous.

They had attacked first, and they were the ones who had come here. Even as they cried that they did not want to go, they charged at Kyle again.

"Kyle."

Katarina spoke quickly.

"I'm sorry for speaking informally..."

"Do we fight back, retreat, or try talking again?"

Once again, Katarina left the first decision on the scene to Kyle.

"There's no need to retreat. Talking doesn't seem possible... Let's fight back for now. Leave just one alive."

"Understood."

Katarina nodded.

Having heard the order as well, Lucia shouted loudly.

"Everyone, begin combat! Subdue only the farthest enemy on the left. You may kill the rest!"

"Wow."

She had even selected the target he had not specified.

This was why having a capable vice commander was convenient. Kyle lowered the hand that had been about to draw Fenris and leaped back.

There were plenty of people here who could fight in his place without him personally drawing his sword. Besides, the servants' gazes, fear, and hostility were all fixed on Kyle. Simply standing still made him useful on this battlefield.

There was no point in bringing his members along if Kyle had to step forward and swing his sword in every little fight. On this journey, he wanted each of them to gain something and, if possible, break through the wall called their limits.

Katarina understood his intentions as well.

She stepped back with a quiet murmur of admiration. Her nephew was only sixteen years old. He had been born with too many talents and into a family that gave him every opportunity to let those talents flourish.

As a result, his sword had far surpassed those of his peers and placed him among the strongest people on the continent.

It would be natural for someone with such an absurd sword at that age to grow arrogant and believe it was only natural to solve every problem they encountered with their own blade. At least, Katarina had been like that.

Yet this young nephew already knew how to lead others.

How is that boy sixteen years old?

Katarina could never reach the extremely simple answer that Kyle was not actually sixteen.

The battle...

No, the hunt came to an end.

Velatus's servants were powerful as individuals, but they could not properly display their strength on this battlefield. Their gazes were fixed on Kyle, and fear made their movements far too emotional.

On the other hand, the Sword Wolf Knights' Sword Formation, centered around Lucia, was precise and sharp.

"..."

Kyle looked at the members with an awkward expression.

He had already felt that they had become much stronger than they had been a few months ago, but what he had seen in that fight was not the strength of individual knights. It was the strength of a knight order as an organization.

"When did you learn something like that?"

"While the commander was wandering around outside."

Jade grinned as he put away Swordbreaker.

"They said that if we called ourselves a knight order, we should know how to form a Sword Formation. The Lord trained us brutally."

"Uh... Maybe it's just me, but it looked like there wasn't a place for me in that formation. Am I mistaken?"

"You're not."

Bruno answered.

"There's no place for you in this formation."

"Why not? I'm the commander."

"Your sword is too strong to form a Sword Formation with us."

Bruno grumbled and glanced at Lucia.

"Originally, it was a combined formation for Jade, Narua, and me without Lucia. The three of us still can't bring out its full power alone, so Lucia holds the center."

Certainly, having Kyle personally join the Sword Formation would be wasteful, and it would throw off the formation's balance.

He understood that in his head, but what was this feeling of being left out?

Kyle stood there with a sulky expression before sharply turning his head.

"As expected of you, Sister Soha."

If he voiced his sense of exclusion, he would look petty, so Kyle changed the subject to Soha.

"You struck the exact target that needed to be subdued. Today was the first time I saw your skill with a bow, and you truly are worthy of being Izelion's next Family Head."

He was not making it up.

Soha's archery was outstanding. She handled the enormous bow, larger than her own body, with ease and accurately fired arrows so large that they would be more fittingly called spears.

The hunt had ended so quickly and one-sidedly because every time Soha fired an arrow, a servant's wings exploded.

"Hmph. If you're already this impressed, Commander Kid, your jaw might fall off later."

Soha grinned and tilted the quiver hanging from her shoulder.

The various arrows lodged in the servants' corpses turned into light and returned to the quiver. They had not looked ordinary to begin with, but all of Soha's equipment seemed to be artifacts.

"Anyway, Vice-Commander Kid's designated target is still alive."

Soha frowned as she looked at the servant lying far away.

"Do you think it can talk?"

"Let's try speaking to it."

The sole surviving servant had lost all of its wings, leaving only a single eye behind.

[Mother... Mother...]

A pitiful voice flowed from the eye, swollen with veins.

It did not have a mouth, so it could not truly be called a voice. Still, the sound that vibrated through the air was like a crying child's sobs.

[Mother... P-please help... It's coming... coming... Don't come... don't come!]

"I seriously can't believe this."

Kyle stopped as he approached the servant.

"Your Mother called me here. You're here because that Mother sent you. And hell, you attacked first. So why are you crying like a child?"

[D-don't go. Don't come...]

"I'm telling you, your Mother called me. Why did you attack me? Did your Mother tell you to kill me and drag me there?"

[M-Mother didn't say that. She said to welcome you... with affection and respect...]

Kyle narrowed his eyes at its stammering words.

If its sobbing was genuine, then Velatus had neither expected nor ordered the servants' frenzy.

"Where is Velatus?"

He wanted to find that out first.

At the question, the veins covering the eye burst one after another, and the eye began turning bright red.

[Mother... You mustn't go to Mother... You mustn't go to Mother...]

Before Kyle could ask anything else, the eye turned completely red and began bubbling like a mass of blood.

Then...

Pop!

The eye burst, spraying blood in every direction.

"Huh."

Rather than dying because it could not endure its fear, it looked like it had burst because it did not want to reveal Velatus's location.

Kyle gave a hollow laugh and stared at the blood pooling on the ground.

The blood left where the eye had been began bubbling, and the mana in the surrounding space started to surge. Soon, the roiling mana was drawn into the blood.

[Squeee...]

[Squeeeek...]

Bizarre cries were born.

The bubbles in the boiling blood burst one after another, and tiny worm-like creatures wriggled out from within.

Looking closely, they were not worms.

They looked like finger-sized snakes, but they were not snakes either. Blunt horns protruded from their small heads, and their wriggling bodies had tiny limbs.

Eastern dragons...?

They were smaller than fingers, but they resembled the appearance Aia Vernes had described at the Crows' Central Branch. They also resembled the materials about Eastern dragons Agur had shown him.

[Squeeeek...]

The ten or so Eastern dragons born from the blood bubbles that had absorbed the surrounding mana did not even crawl far before melting into ash.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Explosions sounded behind them as well.

When Kyle turned around, he saw that the bodies of the five servants they had hunted had also exploded and turned into pools of blood.

The same thing happened there.

The pools bubbled as they absorbed the surrounding mana and gave birth to finger-sized Eastern dragons. A few seconds later, the Eastern dragons too crumbled into ash.

In the end, only crimson pools of blood remained.

Everyone was left speechless by the bizarre phenomenon and stared blankly at Kyle. Under their concentrated gazes, Kyle could only wear an awkward expression.

Naturally, Kyle had no idea what was happening either.

[May I have a look for a moment?]

Fragment's voice quietly sounded from within Kyle.

Since Fragment was the one who should be most alarmed and cautious in this situation, its voice could not help but tremble.

[I swear again that I will not bring you harm.]

Kyle thought, Has anything strange happened to Jor?

[There was no interference from Velatus.]

Not Velatus.

Kyle ran his fingers over the necklace, which had lost its chill.

From up there... I mean, from outside. Was there any intervention?

[I did prepare measures against that as well... but if beings of that level intended to interfere, measures of mine would be useless. Still, at least just now, there was no intervention.]

That was strange as well.

The frenzy of Velatus's servants had probably been caused by the Angel's necklace, and the necklace had shown anger toward the servants.

Yet there had apparently been no intervention.

All right. Come out.

Only after Kyle gave permission did Jor leave his Middle Dantian.

Then the flower blooming from Jor's horn, Fragment's avatar, tilted its head toward a nearby pool of blood.

[Hmm...]

A ray of light flowed from the flower and carefully scanned the pool of blood.

While Fragment did so, Jor blankly blinked and looked around.

[Um... Master, isn't this place strange?]

"Strange things have been happening since we arrived."

[Not that. It's just... this area feels strange.]

"What do you mean?"

[This... is a mountain, right? A place full of life and mana. But... I can't sense any Spirits.]

At those words, Kyle immediately expanded his senses and focused.

Jor was right.

In a place like a mountain, it was natural to sense Spirits everywhere. Yet in the surrounding area, he could not sense elemental Spirits, nor even non-elemental Spirits without egos.

How can that be?

Spirits were born from mana. Therefore, Spirits could not exist in a place without mana, while places overflowing with mana contained many Spirits.

That was the world's natural order.

Yet this area had departed from that order.

Mana was abundant, but there was no trace of Spirits at all.

[Kyle.]

Fragment, who had been examining the pool of blood, spoke in a stiff voice.

[This blood belongs to Velatus.]

Are the servants made from Velatus's blood or something?

[No... I don't know whether this is the correct way to put it, but... rather than being made from blood, it is more like the blood itself... gained a will...]

What?

[To put it simply, the servants you just saw are Velatus's cells. If the term cells is unfamiliar, you may call them flesh. Blood and flesh that fell from Velatus's body gained wills and now move.]

Then what were the things born from the blood bubbles and wriggling around?

[That... I do not know.]

They looked like Eastern dragons to me. To begin with, what is the difference between dragons and Eastern dragons?

[Perhaps... they are essentially the same? Even humans of the same race look different from one another, do they not? Their skin colors differ as well. Their traits vary within the same race depending on the environment they are born into. Dragons and Eastern dragons may be the same.]

So they are essentially the same race, but they are called dragons in the West and Eastern dragons in the East. Then why are Eastern dragons being born from Velatus's blood?

[That... I do not know.]

Fragment sighed as though frustrated as well.

Kyle was about to say more, but then he turned his head.

Presences were approaching from that direction.

"Wow..."

Kyle unconsciously muttered as he watched the approaching figures in the distance.

"I'm starting to wonder if this is really the same world."

In the distance, trees dressed in clothes little better than rags were approaching.

Footnotes:

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