WeTried Translations

Translator: Nemui

Editor: Nemui

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◈ Scum of the Brave

Chapter 34

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I hesitated a little over the choice of car, but in the end, I settled on an inconspicuous navy minivan.

There were four of us, and we needed to load luggage too.

After thinking through various things, and after an argument, I put Sara in the passenger seat. I decided her Ether Perception for sensing threats would be useful in this situation.

The route to choose was not the expressway, but surface roads. On the expressway, we could not shake pursuers, and we would be far too easy to catch.

Even without thinking too hard, if I arrived at Ed's shop with pursuers in tow, Salt Joe would absolutely mock me at great length. "You useless bastard, you're hopeless unless I look after you," or something like that. No joke.

I had to do something about them to some degree. Carefully and boldly, I pressed the accelerator. Not bad acceleration.

"I see."

Jogamine, who kept nodding, had been shoved into the seat directly behind me.

"This means I am to protect Master's back, yes? Leave it to me. I will surely meet your expectations. Yukine, I entrust the seat beside me to you. I'm counting on you."

"More importantly, Aki should fasten her seat belt."

Indo sat neatly in the back seat. When she settled there like that, she looked exactly like a Japanese doll. If her hair were cut in a bob, it would be perfect.

"Instructor's driving is probably really rough. Somehow."

"Oh, that. It seriously is."

Sara turned back with a grimace.

"It's on the level where I think his driver's license is probably forged."

"Huh?"

"What are you talking about? I told you, I've had no accidents and no violations since getting my license."

"Teacher, seriously, that's just because you haven't been caught. Every time you took a curve, we were lightly drifting."

"Wait a second."

"We were in a hurry that time. Because you were saying something about curfew."

"Even so, you should drive safely."

"Wait! Wait, please. That is strange."

Jogamine reached from behind me toward my neck. Thanks to that, I had no choice but to slow down a little. I panicked.

"Stop, don't grab my neck. We'll crash."

"No, this is a serious problem. The way you just said that makes it sound as if you have driven Sara home before."

"Who would do something that dangerous? I dropped her near her home."

"Waaaah!"

Jogamine let out a roaring voice and tried to tighten her hands around my neck even more.

"You always throw me out at the station. Why is only Sara unfairly favored?"

"You and Indo said you live in the school dorms. And that you don't have curfew."

"That was an indirect appeal that I could receive Master's training for as many hours as necessary. Why did it not get through? What injustice."

More strength entered Jogamine's hands.

She did not seem sane. Wasn't her emotional side seriously on the level of a lower-grade elementary schooler? Was my guess fairly accurate?

"Indo, stop this strange animal."

"If you drive me to the dorm next time."

"Anything is fine. Hold her down already, we'll crash."

"Promise."

"Fine, I promise, but read the situation. Hurry up."

The moment I said that, the sensation of Jogamine's hands vanished, and I heard a scream like the death cry of some strange South American animal. I could not see well through the rearview mirror, but it seemed Indo had handled it somehow.

Coughing, I pressed the accelerator.

"We're being chased. Is this the time to play? Look behind us, behind."

It was a white sedan that looked blatantly expensive. Probably a Mercedes. It was following us with fairly sharp acceleration.

It had been sticking to us at a precise distance for a while now. Since there were few other cars on the road, I could tell clearly. They were not even trying to hide it.

Cocky, I thought.

"Sara, use E3 right now."

"Huh? Ah, me?"

"Jogamine, Indo, you too. If they attack, wait."

While talking, I turned the wheel. Since we were going at a pretty high speed, the car slid sideways a little. Depending on how you looked at it, it might have looked like drifting.

"Damn it. Anyway, handle it well. I'm focusing on driving."

"Handle it well? What does that, whoa?"

With the injector still pressed to her neck, Sara looked outside the window.

"What the hell is this?"

Right beside the passenger seat, something small and cloudy white was running alongside our minivan. I considered a Dark Lord or a Brave, but something felt wrong. It was too small, and first of all, that seemed unlikely.

Dark Lords and Braves could reach speeds faster than bullets by amplifying Ether inside their bodies. But that was only for an instant. It was not a speed meant to be used continuously. Some idiot once tried it, but after only five steps, he managed to suffer a compound fracture. Incidentally, that idiot was a drunken Maruta.

Enhancing muscle, bone, and nerves evenly with Ether and using it continuously required an extraordinary sense of balance and concentration.

"What is that, a dog? Actually, whoa, whoa, whoa. Teacher, this thing."

Sara's Japanese was not very good, I thought, but this was not the time. The whitish shadow accelerated further. It leapt in front of our minivan. Sara let out a shriek.

"Dodge!"

I saw it for only an instant.

As Sara said, it resembled a dog. But there was one decisive difference. It was made of mud, or maybe clay. I hurriedly turned the wheel. I dodged the fake dog.

More accurately, I tried to dodge it.

Two more mud dogs accelerated and cut in. Not just one. Was there an Ether Perception that created or produced these things? Was there a possibility they were illusions?

As I tried to consider that, I realized my thought speed was not enough. Without E3, this was my limit. I could not dodge. We would hit.

What would happen then?

As I began thinking that far, the two mud dogs burst almost simultaneously and scattered over the asphalt. The tires of our minivan mercilessly ran over them with a sharp sound, and we accelerated again.

"Fragile."

Leaning halfway out the window, Indo murmured. Maybe she had thrown something. A knife, perhaps. Either way, without E3, I could not properly perceive it.

"Hah! This much is easy for me, Master's first disciple."

Even Jogamine was leaning out the window and shouting. Maybe, by a one in ten thousand chance, she had actually thrown something too.

"Don't get carried away. Watch behind us."

I glanced at the rearview mirror, and felt my face twitch despite myself.

Behind us was a giant.

Mud. No, now I could tell clearly. It was a giant made of clay. Its appearance was roughly deformed, and it had nothing like a face. It was thin and gangly, but its height was easily about the size of a house.

With long strides and surprising speed, it tried to chase our minivan. With every step, the asphalt cracked, and the vibrations reached us.

But the truly dangerous part was the giant's shoulder.

A bizarre human figure was crouched there. A huge, hunched man wearing a full-face helmet. I had seen him just yesterday. Dritt.

"Are they serious?"

I pressed the accelerator. Sara screamed something, and then complained.

"Teacher, drive a little more safely."

"Shut up and navigate. Where is the threat coming from?"

"Well, that's, uh, behind us. It's getting closer. It's huge."

"I know that much. Damn it."

I saw the giant grab Dritt, who was riding on its shoulder, with one hand.

It was going to throw him.

In the back seat, I sensed Jogamine pulling out her one-handed sword.

"Master, be at ease."

She drew the sword and declared it while thrusting it out the window.

"Now is the time for me to protect Master. I will not let them lay a finger on you."

"You're a hundred years too early."

"You need not be embarrassed."

"Damn it."

I cursed.

This girl was getting carried away because I was not using E3. What annoyed me was that I definitely needed Jogamine to be motivated. I had to conserve the last E3. Why did Jogamine make me this angry? What did I want to do with her?

But now was not the time to spend thought on that. I took a deep breath and checked the route ahead. An intersection soon.

"Indo! It's Dritt. Knock him down."

"Understood."

Indo's mechanical murmur came back. Indo always committed fully to whatever she did. While throwing almost her entire upper body out of the back-seat window, she swung her right arm fast enough to blur.

A round object shining with a dull color flew out, swift as an arrow.

"Ah."

Jogamine let out a reproachful voice.

"Yukine, that was my shield. How could you?"

"It was the most stable and easiest to throw."

Indo answered calmly.

"It worked. Hit."

There was a result worthy of that.

Jogamine's shield struck Dritt's head, his full-face-covered face, with beautiful precision while he could not evade in midair.

It blew his body away.

It was like bullets colliding with each other. Since he had been accelerated, Dritt was knocked flying without even a groan. I did not know what kind of Ether Perception monster that giant was or who controlled it, but what an idiot. Throwing him into the air was like asking us to shoot him down.

Jogamine was complaining about something, but I felt like treating Indo's nice pitching to a medium mug of draft beer.

So I gave only one warning and turned the wheel hard to the right.

"Don't bite your tongue."

The lack of cars was the only luck in this situation. The road was close to being reserved for us. Our minivan made a clearly dangerous sound and drifted through a right turn at the intersection.

"As expected of me."

I praised myself. That was only natural for an excellent driver with no accidents and no violations. At the very edge of the limit, I had made the right turn in time.

Thinking that, I checked the rearview mirror. In that instant, I saw Dritt, flying off in a ridiculous direction, grab the pole of a traffic light with one hand.

"No way."

"Quite impressive. Just as I wished."

The first line was of course Sara, and the second was Jogamine.

Dritt grabbed the traffic light and controlled his posture in midair.

He tilted his body.

Kicked the traffic light pole.

Then he flew toward us again. Next he grabbed a streetlight pole, then a utility pole, a sign, a building wall. In that way, he kicked across them, visibly closing the distance. The front of his full-face helmet had cracked, revealing a little of an oddly bluish-white bare face.

He was a man with a chilling lack of expression. Like a dead person.

"What the hell is he?"

I could not help whining. Even if he was enhancing his body with E3 or something, that movement did not seem human at all.

He could turn more tightly than our minivan, and he was fast. No matter how much of an excellent driver with no accidents and no violations I was, he would catch up soon. We needed to deal with him quickly.

First, I had to shut up the noisy one.

"Jogamine!"

With one hand, I removed the sword belt from my waist. I threw the bastard sword into the back seat.

"You use this. Absolutely do not break it, and do not lose it."

"Eh."

In the rearview mirror, I saw Jogamine's eyes go round. Then she grabbed the bastard sword quickly, as if refusing to let anyone else touch it, and raised it excitedly.

"M, Master. Master, this, Master."

"You're better suited to that than a one-handed sword and shield. Think only about attacking. You're bad at this. Hit before you get hit. Understand?"

"Master. In other words, this means you do, after all, think of me."

"Answer properly. Damn it. Don't irritate me. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master."

Jogamine's suspiciously proper reply.

"Even if it costs me my life, I will show you a fight worthy of Master's sword."

Jogamine closed her eyes as if overcome with emotion and murmured something like a prayer in a low voice. Good enough.

With his absurd aerial movement, Dritt would soon leap at us from above. The white sedan behind us was also gradually closing the distance.

I looked back at Indo and pointed overhead.

"Indo, above."

"Should I intercept?"

"The opponent is him. Dritt. Can you do it?"

The words "can you do it" had several meanings.

Could she fight without losing her cool like last time, without abandoning the effort to choose the best option? That was what I meant.

Whatever was happening inside Indo, I would never be able to know, and I had no intention of trying. Counseling was a joke.

All I could do was treat Indo as a single Brave.

At least, the world I believed was good, Salt Joe, Ed, Maruta, Ishino, and the others, was built that way.

At my question, Indo fell silent for only an instant.

A particularly deep wrinkle carved itself between her brows. Maybe it was anger. Maybe doubt. Maybe some kind of excessive regret. But it lasted only a moment.

"I'll do it."

Her answer was brief.

"This time, I'll do it properly."

"Good. When I give the signal, go up."

"If it works, do I get good-job points?"

"I'll give you about a hundred. If you can do it."

Indo smiled a little. A strange smile, with only the edge of her mouth loosening slightly.

"Promise."

Then she drew a knife. She held the grip in a reverse hand. As expected, she was far more used to handling this than a one-handed sword.

The problem was that killing Dritt or the Nephilim with this was difficult. For now, even if it was only a stopgap, we had no choice but to do it this way.

Sara jabbed my arm with her elbow, fairly hard.

"Hey, is this okay?"

"Focus on navigating. Don't miss anything. At the very least, Indo is stronger than you."

"That's not what I mean. Indo is..."

Sara still seemed like she wanted to say something, but I snorted and silenced her.

"It's fine. If she messes up, I'll mock her as much as I want later. Hey, Jogamine."

"Yes, Master. Leave anything to me."

An even noisier voice than usual came from the back seat.

"Your job is offense. In that black pack rolling there. That. Yes. Hey, are you messing with me? You just read my mind, didn't you? If you can do that, do it all the time in scenes like this."

"Eh? That is, well, Master. Even I find that embarrassing. I am a maiden."

"I'll kill you, Jogamine. No. Fine. This isn't the time."

Killing intent suddenly rose in me, but I somehow endured it. The situation was pressing.

"When I signal, pull that pin. Then throw it with everything you have."

"Yes. What is this, Master?"

"We only have one chance. Smash that car's windshield with it."

"Yes. Um, then, what about good-job points?"

"You're presumptuous. At most, it cancels out the minus points you've built up so far. Got it?"

I did not wait for an answer.

Dritt leapt especially high and cast a shadow over our minivan.

At the same time, from the passenger seat of the white sedan behind us, a familiar woman's face appeared. She was called Tomoe, I was pretty sure. The girl we had run into in Hokkaido. In her hand, she gripped a long, narrow weapon. A short spear.

I perceived that much in an instant, then had no choice but to act. It was a plan with plenty of holes, but right now I did not have time to think carefully.

"Here we go."

I slammed the brakes with all my strength. True, I did not have E3 right now. But I did have a lump of iron running at nearly a hundred kilometers per hour.

Also, Salt Joe and Ed would probably laugh their heads off, but I was extremely strong and a highly skilled first-rate Brave.

Had the third-rate pursuers in the white sedan properly understood that point?

Our minivan stopped suddenly.

In that instant, the entire situation shifted in a chain reaction.

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