WeTried Translations

Translator: Nemui

Editor: Nemui

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◈ Scum of the Brave

Chapter 5

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The Dark Lord reacted quickly.

He thrust one dead-branch hand toward me and muttered in a low voice.

"Where did a stray dog like you sniff this out?"

"Heard a rumor on the wind."

I answered carelessly while looking around the room. As expected, it was huge. And old-fashioned. Fireplace, paintings on the walls, a splendid round table, rows of chairs. The chairs had fallen over or broken. Apparently a small battle had taken place.

Followers lay dead all over the room.

Behind Lord Amber Thorn, a girl in a white uniform lay on the floor. Long blond hair, probably natural. A Western face far from Japanese features, with a look that went past strong-willed and into hot-blooded. No doubt, this was Sara.

She noticed me, or rather Jogamine, and shouted.

"Aki!"

Her voice carried a lot of exhaustion. Sara lifted her head and seemed to struggle to get up, but after changing position by only a few centimeters, she stopped. Apparently she was restrained by some method. I guessed it was because of Lord Amber Thorn's peculiar power.

"What are you doing here?!"

Sara was frighteningly aggressive. That spitting tone was proof she had long belonged to that kind of culture. Meaning the culture of delinquents. The answer derived from this was clear: King Arthur had failed spectacularly at educating his daughter.

"I told you to leave me alone!"

Sara yelled like a barking dog.

"I never asked you to save me!"

"But you are our comrade."

Jogamine returned an utterly serious, flat-faced answer with nothing interesting about it.

"I told you we would definitely come to save you. We are Braves. This is only natural."

"That's not the point. Don't do anything extra! This is my responsibility! That's why I..."

"Ah! Exactly! Don't do anything extra. What a wonderful quote."

I cut into their shitty conversation and interrupted it in a loud voice.

"You got captured instantly, you idiot. Did your father never teach you not to follow strangers? What kind of education did you get?"

"Who are you?"

Sara turned eyes full of hostility on me.

"What the hell are you talking about? Did my old man hire you? Acting on his own again!"

"No, Sara. It was Yukine and me!"

Jogamine declared it proudly.

"To bring you home safely. You can rest easy now. We have come."

"What?"

Sara's voice and face were packed with suspicion.

"I don't know who that guy is, but I never asked you to save me!"

"Oh, you didn't ask? Doesn't look cool? If you don't like it, stop us."

I decided to sneer at Sara. I must have been making an incredibly irritating face, because her cheek twitched violently at once. Mocking people made me feel a little better. I was that type.

"You don't have the ability anyway. Your opinion is completely meaningless."

"Master is the type to say hateful things. There is no need to worry. We will save you."

As she spoke, Jogamine put her hand on the one-handed sword at her waist. I did not miss it.

"Seems like you've already forgotten that I told you to do nothing. Are you screwing with me?"

"Yes! I thought I would ignore you and act so I could be of even the slightest help!"

Jogamine's answers were always refreshing and dignified.

"Because my comrade is captive. If I do not stand against this, I am unfit to be a Brave."

"You'd be better off unfit to be a Brave. Anyway, don't move."

I closed another half step toward Lord Amber Thorn. The Dark Lord showed a reaction of tension. A tiny movement of the muscles in his face as he clenched his back teeth.

I could see every sign like that.

"I'm very disappointed, Lord Amber Thorn. You should've stuck to your station and kept running your cheap little business."

"...Where are you from?"

Lord Amber Thorn, who had been silently watching me for a while, suddenly asked a strange question. He had never taken his attention off me, trying to read some advantageous information from our conversation. Third-rate or not, he was still a Dark Lord. If his attention shifted to Jogamine for even an instant... no.

Right now, the Dark Lord's question snagged at me.

I suppressed any change in my expression as much as possible.

From where?

A strange question. Was he asking about my affiliation? Of course I was only a freelance Brave, a stray. But why had he asked that?

Would it be inconvenient for him if I had been hired by someone specific? The Academy, for example? No. Would dealing with the Academy make him that shaken? A man about to make a fortune on ransom? Or was it just a bluff?

But while I wondered, Lord Amber Thorn mumbled something like a soliloquy.

"So you were the one sent? Why? Could it be... was that truly..."

"Simple."

I had no intention of asking stupid things like "what do you mean?" or "what are you talking about?" For reasons I did not understand, Lord Amber Thorn was shaken. There was no reason not to use that.

"Because you're a fool, Lord Amber Thorn."

Truthfully, I had already finished preparing for combat. Inside my pocket, my left hand was gripping a cylindrical object about the size of my palm. A slightly special thrown weapon. With my thumb on the pin, I could pull it at any time.

While doing that, I continued, or pretended to continue, with meaningless talk.

"Honestly, I'm surprised too. Sudden job, after all. You know? Ishino bet on me dying."

"What are you talking about?"

Of course he did not understand. Lord Amber Thorn twisted his face slightly and tried to listen more carefully. Lucky. This guy had mistaken me for something.

"Ishino. Is that the one? Is that a name?"

"A name, huh. If that means something, then sure. Did you know Ishino's hobby is..."

There, without drawing it out at all, I pulled my left hand from my pocket. I was gripping a small cylindrical container.

"What is that?"

As expected, Lord Amber Thorn noticed instantly.

But he was a few tenths of a second too late. Before Lord Amber Thorn could do anything, I leisurely pulled the pin and threw the cylindrical weapon. Its true identity was, in fact, a perfectly ordinary hand-thrown smoke bomb. One that used black powder.

It spat grayish smoke, mainly to block the opponent's vision.

Indoors, the effect was even stronger. Though in this case, blocking vision was not the main purpose. Rather, it was to make things clearly visible.

"Stray dog!"

Dark Lord, Lord Amber Thorn stretched out his right hand and moved it broadly. It was a gesture like pulling something in, reeling something close. I knew what that caused. As a Dark Lord, Lord Amber Thorn was third-rate in the extreme. He had used his power too much in front of people, and its traits had already been exposed.

Lord Amber Thorn's Ether Perception was exactly what his name suggested.

Apparently, he saw thorny plant vines scattered through space.

Grabbing, moving, and manipulating those vines was the mechanism behind Lord Amber Thorn's magic. Vines touched by Lord Amber Thorn affected actual objects and living things. That was how he moved things without touching them and restrained other people.

In any case, only Lord Amber Thorn could see those vines.

Dodging or defending against them was difficult.

Normally.

When everything was covered in smoke, things were a little different. Through the smoke filling the room, I could indirectly see the movement of the vines Lord Amber Thorn sent out. And if it was me, I had enough time to measure their trajectories.

In a sensation almost like time had stopped, I calculated a route to dodge the vines and approach. There were several obstructing vines. Therefore, accelerating to a speed only slightly slower than a bullet, I gripped my sword with both hands.

If the vines physically interfered with this side, then in that instant, this side could interfere with them too. I had predicted that as well. Lord Amber Thorn had relied too heavily on his Ether Perception and shown it off too much.

"Do not approach."

A low, growling, one-sided order. Lord Amber Thorn moved the vines for defense, his face plainly showing anger and fear. That made their movement even clearer. The only truly frightening thing about his vines was that they could not be seen. Once visible, they were not much of a threat.

I accelerated a little more and moved around the cluster of vines. I plunged into the disturbed smoke screen and cut down an invisible vine. A faint response. By then, the distance to Lord Amber Thorn had shrunk to only two steps.

"Do not approach!"

Lord Amber Thorn shouted. He tried to move the vines broadly. That was where an opening appeared. It meant he became vulnerable to simple feints.

If you divided attacks with a double-edged sword very roughly, they came in two kinds: front-edge and back-edge.

The front-edge was the side of the blade facing the opponent when you held the sword in front of you.

The back-edge meant the side facing yourself.

Switching between these two edges while attacking was a basic way to feint. Pretend to cut from the front with the front-edge, then twist the wrist and cut a different place with the back-edge. There was a trick like that. My master called it, very lazily, a twisting technique.

That was what I used then.

First, I raised the sword as if to split his head straight down and stepped forward. Naturally, the opponent tried to respond to the lethal attack that should have been coming down from above. Lord Amber Thorn tried to do exactly that. He thrust out his left hand and tried to draw in a vine.

In my case, I could use this feint more effectively than anyone. I could watch the opponent shift to respond, then move after that.

I could use the time between seeing, thinking, and acting ten or twenty times more effectively.

My thoughts accelerated.

From the high stance, I quickly twisted my wrists. I changed the blade's trajectory and dropped the back-edge toward the opponent's arm. A cut that simply let the blade fall. It was an extremely simple feint, but when a master used it, it was highly effective. Yes, master. Meaning me.

"Ah."

Jogamine's voice probably reached me a little late.

The back-edge of my sword tore through the vine and easily cut off Lord Amber Thorn's left arm.

The Dark Lord's scream rose. It had an unpleasant sound, like metal being ripped apart by force. Dark blood contaminated by Ether sprayed out, and Lord Amber Thorn rolled, trying to escape the spot.

As if I would let him.

I reset my sword and pursued. With only one hand, he should not be able to operate the vines in any complex way. I decided to take his head right there and stepped in. That was when something strange happened to Lord Amber Thorn.

There was a slightly wet sound. My ears caught it. I heard it and even had time to think about what it meant.

From where?

The base of the Dark Lord's left arm, the arm I had cut away. From the clean severed surface. I saw the wound writhe.

What?

I focused and tried to think through the meaning. I could not guess at all. In the next instant, some dark shadow spilled from the wound of the Dark Lord's arm.

An arm, I thought as I watched it.

A thicker, larger, blacker, twisted Dark Lord's arm.

I did not understand what was happening.

Regenerating a limb.

No matter how many Ether organs you installed to increase regenerative power, that kind of trick should be impossible. It was completely different from simply closing a wound. That was why we Braves went out of our way to fight with old-fashioned weapons like swords.

And I had never heard that Lord Amber Thorn had an Ether Perception capable of such a thing.

Lord Amber Thorn could perceive invisible vines, touch them, and manipulate them. That should have been all. No, wrong. The reason and cause could wait. In reality, his arm had regenerated and was attacking me.

Dodge.

That was what I thought, but at the very last moment, even my 《E3》-enhanced reflexes were late.

It was that fast.

"Master!"

I heard Jogamine shout. Blown away by Lord Amber Thorn's new black arm, I recognized myself rolling across the floor. The pain came late.

"What?"

Lord Amber Thorn muttered with confusion instead, glaring at his own grotesquely regenerated arm. More than that, he tried to grab and stop it.

"Stop."

The Dark Lord even spoke a word of restraint to his own arm. But the arm seemed to have completely betrayed its master's will. The black arm moved like its own separate creature, like a snake, and swelled further. It thrashed and writhed.

It blew away the round table in the center of the room, crushed chairs, then stretched toward the girl still lying on the floor. Sara lifted her face and struggled to roll away somehow. But it amounted to only a slight movement. The vines were restraining her body.

I did not think Dark Lord, Lord Amber Thorn had realized his time was up and deliberately targeted Sara. The Dark Lord's own corpse-like face, with almost dead facial muscles, was expressing his unwillingness.

"Shit."

I cursed. The situation had gotten worse.

In that instant, someone reacted. The air in front of Sara rippled like a heat haze and formed a vortex. That was the only omen. Indo Yukine's composed face, despite being covered in wounds, immediately appeared there. She had placed herself between Sara and Lord Amber Thorn's black arm.

I accelerated my thoughts. I focused my awareness until I could perceive things almost as if time had stopped.

The first thing that passed through my chest was anger and an urge to attack Indo Yukine for moving so carelessly.

True, I had forgotten to warn her not to move. She had been battered from head to toe, so I let my guard down. I wanted to break Indo Yukine's ribs and soccer-kick her face over and over. But this impulse had been amplified excessively by 《E3》. I needed to calm down. Think within one second.

What should I do?

The movement of the huge black arm had plainly left Lord Amber Thorn's control. The chance that its attempt to crush Sara was a bluff was extremely low. Sara herself could not dodge. Indo Yukine, who had slipped in to shield her, had taken too much damage, and just standing there looked reckless. Maybe her leg bones were broken.

Even with bodies strengthened by 《E3》, the result would be both of them crushed together.

Could I accelerate from here and finish Lord Amber Thorn himself? Cut off his head, or sever the base of that black arm. But even then, the huge black arm would not lose its momentum, and it would crush Sara and Indo. If I meant to save Sara and Indo, I needed to do both at once.

They were strangers anyway. For now, the two stupid girls could die.

Then I would take Lord Amber Thorn's head.

If I could do that, this would be a much simpler story. At least I could kill Lord Amber Thorn safely.

The problem was collecting the loaned amount, the possibility of being sued by King Arthur or the Academy, and other things too. Something my master had told me while he was alive: what separates a bastard from something below that is when your own life or health is in danger.

When it is not, anyone can pretend not to be below a bastard.

My overly clear head could judge what the correct choice was in moments like this. I had that much time. Right now, there was one way Sara and Indo might survive. Someone a little sturdier and uninjured compared to them had to take the damage for them.

From there, it was time for action, not thought.

"I can't stand this shit."

I truly thought that.

But there was no other way I could do it. This was the way I had lived my life.

Full acceleration was necessary. Bullet speed. I closed in, grabbed Indo by the scruff of her neck, dragged her down, knocked her over, and pressed her to the floor together with Sara. I ended up covering them with my body.

"Wha..."

Indo tried to say something, but I grabbed her jaw and shut her up. I hoped every bit of my anger got through to her. The impact hit my back in the next instant.

The blow was so intense I could not even curse. Somewhere in my body, something cracked, or rather, broke. There was that kind of pain.

I was used to it, so it was fine. I told myself that desperately. Used to it.

Nothing wrong.

The problem was what came after.

How was I supposed to kill Lord Amber Thorn from this position? The black arm would hit us again. Nearly checkmate. If it kept hitting me, I would die. I needed to attack. By what means? Indo Yukine's Ether Perception. Instantaneous movement. Could I use it? Could she?

I looked at Indo Yukine pinned directly underneath me.

She looked up at me with a terribly confused expression.

"Indo."

I called her name. No response. What was she doing, spacing out like that? I was unbelievably angry. Before I could call her name again, another impact struck my back. I could not make a sound. I did not know where or how I had been hit, but the inside of my head felt like it was burning.

This was bad. Too powerful. There was no time to give Indo instructions and fire her up. Maybe I had chosen wrong. If one more hit came, it would be dangerous.

Was I going to die? Me, in this stupid situation?

To be honest, at that moment, I was starting to brace myself a little.

Brave work was always next to death. If you tried to kill the other guy, there was nothing strange about you being killed at any time. That was the necessary mindset. If I could at least meet that moment as something not below a bastard, maybe it would feel a little better...

But the third impact never came.

Instead, Lord Amber Thorn's grating scream rose again.

"Huh?"

I think I made a slightly ridiculous sound. When I looked back, I saw the black arm flying through the air as it thrashed, then rolling across the floor. Someone had stepped on Lord Amber Thorn's back and pinned him down. Long black hair flipped up, and she, Aki Jogamine, smiled.

"Truly, that was a perfect master-disciple combination."

Apparently, she had cut off Lord Amber Thorn's arm again.

Because of the pain and impact, I could not move right away, but I did have an extremely powerful question, and anger. Even after I had told her so many times not to move on her own.

"Yes."

Aki Jogamine nodded. Even though I had not said a word, she responded with an entirely too serious face.

In other words, that was her Ether Perception.

"Yes."

Jogamine answered honestly.

"I can hear people's thoughts."

I felt dizzy. Not only from the pain.

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