WeTried Translations

Translator: Nemui

Editor: Nemui

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Scum of the Brave

Chapter 3

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Every freelance Brave had a "garage" protected by security they could trust.

You could also call it an armory. Even with a Brave License, plenty of weapons were illegal to own or carry. Heavy firearms, explosives, poison, that kind of thing. The weapons Braves were allowed to use were limited to blades and small handguns, and sometimes those were not enough to kill a Dark Lord.

Any Brave worth their salt usually had several "garages" hidden around their operating area, places to stash those illegal tools. In my case, one of them was the storeroom at Ed Cyrus's bar. Incidentally, Ed squeezed a little pocket money out of us as storage fees for this room.

"So?"

Ed Cyrus opened the garage door with a mean-looking lock. The smell of mold and iron drifted out from inside.

"What are you doing this time? You've got a plan to murder that Thorn bastard, right?"

"I wouldn't do it otherwise."

Ed's tone told me the rough outline of what had happened.

"Ed, you bet on me, didn't you?"

"I went for the long shot. Sure, you'll claim, 'I'm amazing,' but even so, killing him in one night is a harsh condition."

"Rude bastard."

I laughed and stepped into the garage.

"I actually am amazing. I don't take jobs with no chance of winning."

The lockers and steel shelves were packed with weapons and bombs. Not only mine, but "Salt" Joe's and Ishino's too.

First, a few obviously dangerous heavy firearms. Then a lot of bombs. Even more poisons. The 《E3》 was inside an electronically locked locker. And the most numerous items were blades, swords and knives and things like that.

"Especially with Thorn. The trick behind his Ether Perception is already known. He's no match for me."

More accurately, almost nobody had an Ether Perception that could shut me down completely. I would not call myself the strongest, but against almost any opponent, I could respond with the advantage around eighty percent of the time. That was me.

"Hey, Jogamine? Was that it?"

"Yes!"

The answer was crisp, but crispness was all it had. At the entrance, Aki Jogamine snapped into a salute.

"Did you make contact with Thorn himself? Fight him?"

"Yes! After establishing his travel route, we set an ambush and launched an attack."

"Right. Well, an ambush itself wasn't a bad idea. The target was shit, though. What happened?"

"Lord Amber Thorn moved his hands in some manner, like this."

Jogamine fluttered both hands like fish swimming through the air. A weird gesture. Maybe something about it felt off to her, because she immediately frowned and adjusted the motion slightly.

"Hm? Was it like this? Or perhaps like this?"

"Those tiny details don't matter."

"No, I believe there was a vertical movement. Truly."

"You're the type who's too serious to adapt."

I gave up on expecting anything from Jogamine's explanation.

"And? When he did that, what happened to you?"

"When the Dark Lord moved his hands, intense pain ran through my entire body, and I could no longer move."

"Right. And what did you think that was?"

"Some form of paralysis, I assumed."

Jogamine seemed to be expecting an explanation, but I did not answer. I was not a teacher. Instead, I picked up a short cylindrical object from the steel shelf and turned back toward Ed Cyrus.

"That's settled. Just like the rumors. I can kill him."

Ed Cyrus let out a thoughtful breath.

"But the problem is the route to get there, isn't it? Thorn will be holed up in his castle, and his Followers will have security locked down. Especially tonight."

"Because some amateur idiot Braves screwed up and failed to kill him. But this time, that's actually lucky. We can make it work."

Next, I opened the locker in the corner of the room. Several swords were displayed inside. It looked like an antique fair.

For a Brave, the most reliable and practical weapon was this.

In other words, a sword.

There were two reasons Braves could not trust guns or bombs.

First, civilians might be present at the assassination site. If a stray shot or accidental blast injured or killed a civilian, you could be sued by the person or their family and have damages wrung out of you. Even if both jobs involved killing people, unlike Dark Lords, Braves were a legal profession.

The other reason was that bullets were not especially effective against Dark Lords. Dark Lords, who constantly reinforced their Ether, could dodge bullets easily enough. At point-blank range you might hit them, but even if you did, the wound was unlikely to be fatal.

Dark Lords had an organ transplanted into their bodies, near the heart, through surgery. An organ that artificially strengthened and amplified Ether. That thing gave Dark Lords disgusting durability and monstrous recovery. A gunshot wound healed in a matter of seconds.

What worked against a Dark Lord like that was physically severing the transplanted Ether amplification organ, or the neck or limbs. If you cut the part off completely, regeneration did not reach it. Therefore, if you had to choose, you chose a sword. Since we could move faster than bullets, if only for an instant, there were not many weapons better than that.

"Good."

I reached into the locker and grabbed the sword I was most used to.

It was a plain-looking sword, practical to the bone. Blade length and grip length somewhere between a one-handed and two-handed weapon. This was called a bastard sword, a hybrid sword. It was said to be a type of sword born in medieval Europe and then quickly abandoned because of how difficult it was to handle.

My master taught me how to wield this thing freely.

"As long as I have this, I'm invincible."

"You never use it, and you never pay your tab, so I was thinking of selling it off next month."

When Ed Cyrus said things like this, he was completely serious. It was not a joke or a threat. I had probably been in real danger there.

"It's fine. Wait a bit. I'll earn with this."

I hooked the sword onto the sword belt at my waist and turned around. Jogamine was standing ramrod straight, at attention.

"So? What's your weapon?"

"Yes! During the battle earlier..."

"You lost it because you're too stupid."

"Yes!"

"Good, as long as you know."

At this point, all I could do was shrug.

"Take whatever you like. If you die, collecting my money gets difficult. Rental fee is fifty thousand yen for the night."

"Yes. However, that rate..."

Cheeky little thing, Jogamine actually looked thoughtful.

"Is that a reasonable market price? Judging from your behavior, Master, I sense that you are constantly trying to squeeze as much money as possible from worldly ignorant students such as ourselves."

"Then don't take anything."

"Yes! Understood!"

Jogamine's eyes suddenly shone. Or rather, widened.

"This is what people generally call 'being taken advantage of,' isn't it?"

Again, I had no reply. Too honest.

"Your words are educational, Master."

"Stop that."

She's going to force this through, I thought. Was she planning to establish a master-disciple relationship one-sidedly? Not a pleasant idea. Was there no decisive way to reject her? I started squeezing my prized wisdom for an answer.

Just then, a skinhead abruptly poked into the entrance of the storeroom. For some reason, that skinhead was covered in blood. "Salt" Joe. He looked unbelievably displeased.

"Hey, Yashiro."

At his low growling voice, Jogamine turned and froze. I was used to it, so I was fine. How many times had "Salt" Joe shown up to a meeting place soaked in blood? Among our group, this man killed in the flashiest way.

"Some stupid-looking gang boys just barged in. I killed them, but they ruined the game. Those bastards were trash."

"I see. That's... poor things."

Obviously, I was not talking about Joe. In my heart, I prayed for the souls of the dead gang members, almost certainly Followers of Lord Amber Thorn. They had interrupted a game between "Salt" Joe and Ishino. They must have died in terrible pain.

"Thing is, they seemed to be looking for that brat there."

"Salt" Joe pointed at Jogamine, who was still frozen.

"Hurry up and clean this up. Pain in the ass. I bet on Yashiro getting sent to the hospital."

"What did Ishino bet on?"

"Yashiro dying. I get it, honestly. It's probably impossible. Too sudden, this whole thing."

"Figured! Good, I'll make you both eat those words."

That was, in other words, the only reason I had accepted Aki Jogamine's request.

I was sick of how simple my own personality was.

In short, the principle behind my life, or my hobbies, or my actions, was probably right there. I knew it myself. A primitive desire to do something impressive in front of my friends and make them respect me. But simple people were the ones with humanity, weren't they? The likeable sort?

So I kicked Aki Jogamine in the shin.

"Don't fall asleep. We're leaving now."

Jogamine let out a protesting groan.

We needed to handle things quickly. Kill the Dark Lord tonight, then come back here. "Salt" Joe and Ishino would surely be stunned by the new legend I had established. I would drink beer, gloat, and show off the promissory note for my twenty-million-yen reward.

Nothing was more fun than counting profits before the catch. I could use the twenty million yen I had not yet seen and plan a trip to Hawaii. If "Salt" Joe and Ishino got down on their knees and begged, maybe I would arrange their flights too.

With that, my fun Monday night would be reborn into something even better.

I thought it was a perfect plan.

The castle of Dark Lord, Lord Amber Thorn had already been identified.

From Shibuya Station, south toward Ebisu, across Shibuya Bridge, in a corner of the office district.

"Castle" was industry terminology. It meant a Dark Lord's hideout. In reality, it could be one floor of an ordinary multi-tenant building, a fortress disguised as a private house, an underground facility, all kinds of things. In Lord Amber Thorn's case, it was a small, completely ordinary office building. He rented the entire building and used it for business.

Incidentally, unless they were extraordinarily powerful, a Dark Lord whose castle location had been exposed did not have long left. They would be raided and killed. In Lord Amber Thorn's case too, Braves after the bounty were already watching for a chance to assassinate him, so you could even say tonight's situation came at a convenient time.

In short, it was a trigger.

When killing a Dark Lord whose guard was up, it was best to introduce an unexpected element and throw everything into confusion.

"We, or rather Sara, has circumstances."

Aki Jogamine said that while we walked quickly through the back alleys of Shibuya.

"Those circumstances are difficult to counter."

Walking beside me, Jogamine was wearing the ski mask over her head as instructed. A one-handed sword and small round shield hung from her belt. Considering her build, not a bad choice. Combined with a shield, the techniques available with a one-handed sword increased dramatically.

Maybe because Jogamine was extremely nervous, she often gripped the sword's handle while walking, as if checking it was still there. While doing that, she spoke with a wrinkle between her brows.

"No, strictly speaking, it belongs to a personal aspect of the individual, so perhaps it should be called improvement rather than countermeasures. No, not improvement, mitigation, limited response, something of that sort. That is why we cannot ask the Academy."

"You're bad at explaining. Or maybe you're too obsessed with accuracy. I don't understand a thing, so first do something about that nightmare of a tangent."

I told her my honest impression. Jogamine frowned slightly, looking dissatisfied.

"Is that so? Yukine points this out quite often as well."

"No question. Your presentation skills have a fatal defect."

"I cannot see it myself."

Jogamine sounded unhappy, but of course she did. It could not be helped. I had to ask the questions myself.

"What circumstances? Sara is the abducted friend, right? Is that her real name?"

"Yes. Sara Kashiwagi Pendragon."

Aki Jogamine looked at me like that should make everything clear. Then she repeated herself.

"That is why we cannot ask the Academy."

"Huh?"

You're kidding me, I thought.

I knew the unusual surname Pendragon. More accurately, anyone in this industry would have heard it.

It was the surname used by King Arthur, chairman of the Round Table Foundation.

Also known as the most famous Brave in the world.

Godslayer.

To begin with, this international Brave support organization was said to originate with the famous British legend of King Arthur, Arthur Pendragon. To be honest, that theory itself sounded suspicious, but every person who inherited the chairmanship of the Round Table Foundation was given the name "Arthur Pendragon."

The current King Arthur was the 507th.

He was from Wales Academy, a prestigious Brave training school in Britain, and was known for marrying a Japanese woman. If Jogamine's story was true, apparently he had a daughter.

"Sara Kashiwagi Pendragon."

I repeated the name. Before I knew it, I had stopped in the middle of the alley.

"The 507th had a daughter. That's what you're saying?"

"His only daughter."

"That's a scandal."

And for Japan's Academy, a fairly fatal one. If the Academy learned that King Arthur's daughter had been abducted, the first thing they would fear was losing support from King Arthur, who controlled the Round Table Foundation. Which meant...

"Yes."

Jogamine nodded. Her face was disgustingly serious.

"If what you say is correct, Master, there is a high possibility a ransom will be paid."

"A hundred million yen would be easy. They'd settle it and bury the whole thing before the media or the Round Table Foundation hears about his only daughter's kidnapping."

"Most likely. However, I believe at minimum, Yukine and I, and perhaps Sara as well, would receive punishment equivalent to expulsion."

"Expelling his only daughter? Well, it is a dangerous job."

"Yes. Even as it is, her father, King Arthur, was apparently strongly opposed to her enrollment. And the grades of all three of us at the Academy are low enough to justify expulsion. The Class E we belong to is the lowest level among the five-rank class system."

"That's good. No, genuinely good. Good thing idiots like you aren't the Academy's top level."

"Master, is that not somewhat rude? We are training so that one day we may become great Braves second to none."

"Right. Dreams are good. Daydreams especially are fun."

In other words, they had been shoved into the class where the so-called failures gathered. I had been about the same in high school. I would be lying if I said I felt no kinship. As a minimal courtesy, I decided to laugh through my nose.

"So you want to cover it up somehow before you get expelled."

"Yes. No matter what."

Jogamine nodded without any intention of hiding it or feeling ashamed. That suffocating earnestness was exactly the sort of thing I was bad with, and hated.

"I will endure any hardship to save my comrade and protect citizens. Because we will become great Braves. We absolutely will."

"Good luck with that. By the way..."

I cut off the conversation there and stopped walking.

In front of us stood the office building Lord Amber Thorn used as his base. You could tell some things just by approaching. Tonight, it seemed a little noisy. Every window was lit, and a man in a black suit was standing in front of the building with a cell phone in one hand.

From inside the building came the faint sound of sporadic gunshots. A window suddenly shattered, and a screamlike voice echoed out.

"Looks like your friend already got started. And she's still alive. Just as I read it."

"Yes!"

Jogamine nodded crisply and tried to step forward.

"We must hurry as well. Let us support Yukine and save Sara! Master, I look forward to your guidance!"

She started to draw her one-handed sword. I grabbed her arm in a hurry. Somehow, I had known she would do that.

"Are you stupid? What are you doing?"

"Yes. We will launch an assault and hurry to join isolated Yukine!"

"What part of that is an assault? What does the Academy even teach?"

With one hand, I pulled Jogamine off balance and moved forward quickly. The target was the man in the black suit shouting into his cell phone in front of the building. He was probably the only one watching the entrance.

Because an emergency was happening inside right now, and their forces had been pulled toward that.

"First, don't draw your weapon."

"Yes! Then I will use 《E3》!"

"Don't, idiot. Waste of supply. Just take your hand off the sword."

I slapped Jogamine's wrist and made her let go. The Academy's education was getting very worrying. Or maybe, as Jogamine said, these girls really were bottom-level.

"Listen. That Indo girl already went in first and caused confusion. Obviously we use that. Jogamine, follow from behind me on the right. Got it? Behind me on the right. You know right from left, don't you?"

"I also understand that you are insulting me quite severely, Master."

"Glad you understand. Good, let's begin."

As we approached, the black-suited man noticed us. He ended his phone call and pointed his gun at us.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Good evening."

Perfect timing. Once I was close enough to the man in the black suit, I raised one hand in greeting.

"Sorry for the wait. Reinforcements. Is His Majesty Thorn safe?"

"Reinforcements?"

The suited man gave me an openly suspicious look.

"Fast. Did Fujiwara's crew send you? Just you? What's with the brat? And what's with those faces?"

Those faces. Meaning our masks. We must have looked like an extremely suspicious pair.

But for now, while he was wary, we had stopped him from firing immediately. Good enough. Only someone who lived in a truly terrible environment could shoot a person they had only just seen. Normally, there was a pause.

And I had also learned that he was not used to fighting Braves. If he had looked at the weapons hanging at our waists, someone who understood would have been much more cautious. The ski masks were useful here too. If you were not used to killing Braves, even the swords probably looked like part of some weird costume.

So I smiled pleasantly.

"We're on our way back from a bank robbery. The cops chased us all over. It was awful. His Majesty Thorn comes up with the strangest things."

"Huh? I don't get it. What did His Majesty do? Bank robbery?"

"Lots of things going on. This situation is bad, right? Truth is, King Rob is in the neighborhood right now, and that's the problem."

"King Rob? Who? What are you talking about?"

"You don't know? Hey, explain it to him, Jogamine."

As ordered, I pointed to Jogamine waiting behind me on the right.

"Yes?"

Jogamine blinked. A natural reaction. At that moment, the suited man consciously focused on Jogamine for the first time. The angle of his face shifted slightly, and his eyes moved toward her.

That was the point.

For only a moment, the left side of my body, the area around my waist where my sword hung, entered the suited man's blind spot.

The attack took an instant.

With my left hand, I grabbed the bastard sword's grip in a reverse hold and drew it hard.

I aimed around the suited man's solar plexus. Into that soft vital point, I slammed the end of the grip, the part called the pommel. Because this movement was in the man's blind spot, he could not see it until the attack was already connecting.

As a result, the end of the grip swiftly struck his lower abdomen.

"Oof?"

The man lost his balance and groaned. But he did not fall. Instead, he curled over, pressing his left hand against the struck part of his stomach. At the same time, he tried to aim the pistol in his right hand at me. As a reflexive action from a human being hit by sudden pain and damage, it was more or less exactly as expected. Not bad. Which meant it was already over.

Before the suited man could fire, I finished the drawing motion. I added my right hand, drew the bastard sword, and stepped straight forward. Point-blank range. In the process of pulling it fully free, I let the blade touch the side of his neck. Then I tore open his carotid artery.

Even without 《E3》, any decent Brave could do this much. Killing at close range with weapons was the basics of the basics.

At first glance, the bastard sword I used looked too long for this distance. The blade was around one meter and twenty centimeters. A weapon meant to be swung with proper range, or so someone seeing it for the first time might mistakenly think. A smart wielder knew how to use that misconception.

"See you."

I kicked the suited man away. Blood spilled from his neck and spread across the asphalt. His eyes opened wide, and he tried to communicate some kind of message to me. The effort did not bear fruit.

"Master."

Jogamine was looking at me as if accusing me of something.

"He was not a Dark Lord. I do not believe there was any need to kill him."

"I see."

I tightened my grip on the sword and checked the feel of it. From here on, we would need to act faster. I had no time to deal with Jogamine, so I pulled 《E3》 from my pocket and prepared to inject it. I lightly shook it to agitate the 《E3》, then pressed the tip to the side of my neck.

"I'm not going to make excuses. A more skilled Brave might be able to handle it better without killing him. But this is what I call a reasonable method. If you don't like it, try stopping me next time."

"I do not believe that is the important point."

Her tone sounded polite, but I could clearly tell Jogamine was glaring at me.

"What we should do is protect public order. But in the course of that, can human lives be treated lightly? However difficult it may be, I do not wish to compromise on that aspect."

"Wonderful speech. Like I thought, you should quit being a Brave and go live as a decent person. Drop dead."

I drove the 《E3》 injector into my neck.

"Jogamine, wait here. What I do is this kind of work."

"No."

Jogamine shook her head with a face far too serious.

"I will go as well. My comrade is waiting to be rescued. And next time, I will make an effort to stop your killing, Master."

I almost told her, you can't. But I stopped. Explaining why she could not seemed difficult, and somehow, I felt Jogamine could no longer return to the path of ordinary decent people.

Then do whatever you want.

Suppressing the exhilaration brought on by 《E3》 and the dizziness from my overstimulated senses, I broke into a run.

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