WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
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Chapter 166: It Takes Great Resolve
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* * *
Precognition was an extraordinary power.
Simply knowing what would happen in advance gave one an informational advantage no one else could imitate.
That was why Players held Prophecy Skills in such high regard and dreamed of possessing them.
But those who could simply use a Skill to learn the information they wanted did not know.
They did not know the terror of precognition.
To read the future was to feel the emotions meant for the future ahead of time.
They foresaw a breakup while on a date and cried.
They saw a future nephew at a funeral and laughed.
They grew angry during a conversation over an insult they would suffer later.
To others, they looked like lunatics, crying, laughing, and raging all on their own.
That was why those with precognition grew accustomed to controlling their emotions, until eventually they no longer showed any feeling even when family died before their eyes.
And that was not even the end of it.
Just as it was hard to enjoy even the greatest mystery novel when one already knew the ending.
No matter how intensely a vision made them feel, they felt little when they actually experienced it.
They had already experienced it once, after all.
The more they saw the future, the more their emotions wore away, until even the meaning of emotion itself grew faint.
Unable to feel emotions.
Even if they did feel them, unable to show them.
Living only by imitating emotions according to their visions.
That was the fate awaiting most of the White Dragon Clan.
Even the White Dragon Princess was no exception.
No, because the White Dragon Princess possessed the greatest precognition of her clan, her emotions deteriorated faster than anyone else's.
That was why White Dragon Princesses always died young.
And why their ends were usually suicide or death by wasting away.
Having lost all emotion and knowing every future, they could not even find meaning in living, and so they easily gave up their lives.
“Tata served three generations of Princesses.”
A member of the clan who had attended three generations of Princesses.
“And Tata witnessed the deaths of two Princesses.”
A close attendant who had seen the deaths of Princesses from that near.
“Tata also saw how they lost their lives.”
Yet Tata could not accept those deaths.
A faint sorrow and anguish crossed Tata's usually impassive face as she continued.
“Both lost their emotions at far too young an age, found a suitable prince consort out of duty, married, and then gave up on life.”
It was not only the previous Princess and the one before her.
Most White Dragon Princesses throughout history had been the same.
“Simply because they could not find their destined partner.”
The exceptions who could escape that miserable fate were exceedingly few.
Only Princesses who formed a bond with their destined partner and endured the erosion of their emotions.
That was why many White Dragon Princesses searched for their destined partners, but few truly achieved that goal.
For a White Dragon Princess who knew every future, finding a destined partner who could make emotion well up within her was that difficult.
In the end, White Dragon Princesses throughout history had no choice but to immerse themselves in something to preserve even a little of their emotions.
Painting, sculpture, dance, literature, music.
Mostly artistic hobbies that stirred the heart or evoked emotion.
That was also why the White Dragon Clan had developed around arts and cultural businesses more than any other part of the Seven Dragon Group.
But even that was only a small comfort.
No matter how much they loved art, the Princesses eventually lost all their passion and met their fate.
“But the Princess is different.”
Knowing the ends of the previous Princesses better than anyone, Tata looked at Ainsha and Rimon with shining eyes.
“The Princess has already found her destined partner. A companion who can make the Princess happy.”
“...”
“So please do not stop Tata. Tata no longer wishes to watch the Princess become unhappy.”
Unlike the Princesses of the previous two generations, who could do nothing, Ainsha still had a chance.
To fall in love like an ordinary girl.
To live a life where she laughed, cried, and grew angry.
To become happy.
And if giving Ainsha that chance cost Tata's life, then it was no price at all.
Watching Tata declare that without the slightest hesitation, Rimon thought to himself.
‘So that was what this was about.’
The reason for the betrayal that had remained unknown until the end.
Though the explanation was so out of place, Rimon found himself accepting it rather than being surprised.
Before it was a corporation, the Seven Dragons Society was a criminal organization, and at its core, a religion.
Even in the days when it had been called the Demon Cult, they had been tightly united around the Seven Princesses. A betrayal on this scale had never made sense.
There was only one situation where it could.
When the betrayal was for a Princess.
In that respect, Tata's actions were thoroughly characteristic of the Seven Dragons Society.
“Ainsha, what are you going to do?”
So Rimon shifted his attention from Tata to Ainsha.
He knew Tata would never stop or give up for Ainsha's sake.
All that remained was Ainsha's choice.
Ainsha now had three choices.
One was to accept the earnest plea of the nurse who had raised her and look the other way.
Another was...
“... The reason does not matter. Betrayal is betrayal. It must not be tolerated.”
As the head of the criminal organization known as the Seven Dragons Society, she would do what duty demanded rather than what emotion desired.
Regardless of Tata's intent, plotting something like this and even attacking without Ainsha's permission was betrayal.
She would punish Tata according to the Seven Dragons Society's rules.
With an expressionless face, Ainsha made her choice known.
“So I will kill her.”
* * *
“Princess, you have grown up wonderfully. Tata is proud.”
Even after hearing those words, cold enough to be cruel, Tata was neither disappointed nor saddened.
As if Tata had expected it.
Or as if that was only proper.
Tata merely smiled faintly and raised one hand.
“But Tata cannot die quietly either.”
At that moment, more than twenty warrior monks draped in white cloth embroidered with dragons appeared throughout the studio, from the ceiling where the lights were installed to the corners of the audience seats and behind the stage where the broadcast was being prepared.
The Divine Dragon Corps.
The White Dragon Clan's strongest combat unit, composed entirely of division-head rank experts, revealed its formidable presence at Tata's command.
“Punish Tata if you must. But Tata will at least ruin this broadcast program before dying.”
“It does not matter. I will kill Tata regardless.”
Tata and the Divine Dragon Corps were prepared to risk death to carry out their plan, like bomb-strapped fanatics.
Ainsha intended to ignore everything like a machine and execute Tata and the traitors from her clan.
Their psionics intertwined in the air, and the resulting shockwave was about to shake the studio.
“This is why the Seven Dragons Society is like this.”
Thump.
Rimon set down the duffel bag on his back, drawing their attention and disrupting their psionics at the perfect moment.
Everyone turned to look at Rimon.
But he ignored every gaze and looked at Ainsha with sharp eyes.
“So this is your choice? To kill the nurse you said you absolutely wanted to save?”
“It is.”
“Yeah, is that so.”
Seeing Ainsha answer bluntly, as if there was not even a need to reconsider, Rimon let out a sigh.
Then he spoke.
“Then get past me first.”
“...?”
Perhaps the words were too unexpected.
Ainsha merely blinked with an expressionless face, as if she could not understand what they meant.
Rimon stated it plainly.
“I'm going to change the future now, if only because this pisses me off. I'll stop you from killing your nurse too.”
“... I do not understand. I am confused. Perplexed.”
Half because Ainsha had not foreseen a future where Rimon stepped in like this, and half because she could not understand his actions.
Ainsha murmured blankly.
Tata, on the other hand, smiled.
“Truly, you are worthy of being the prince consort the Princess chose. You show such steadfastness that you would even stand against the Princess for her sake. Tata can now rest easy and...”
“Don't get the wrong idea.”
“Wrong idea?”
“I said I'd stop your Princess. I never said I would not stop you.”
“...”
“Want me to put it simply?”
Tata's earlier smile was gone, leaving Tata with a face that seemed to bear a question mark.
Rimon spoke lazily to Tata, and to the even more confused Ainsha.
“Come at me together.”
He would not tolerate Ainsha killing Tata.
Nor would he tolerate Tata and the White Dragon Clan harming people and ruining the program.
So he would smash them both.
Tata's mouth opened and closed like a nutcracker as she stared at Rimon's bold declaration. Only after a long while did Tata ask, as if to confirm it.
“... You mean you intend to face both the Princess and us at once? Alone?”
“Yeah.”
At that utterly absurd answer, Ainsha and Tata came to their senses and spoke at the same time.
“You are insane. You are not in your right mind.”
“It seems the prince consort does not know much about our Seven Dragons Society.”
“What, you think I can't do it?”
“Of course.”
“Certainly not.”
For a pair who had just been talking about betrayal and execution, Tata and Ainsha answered side by side without hesitation.
Naturally.
The White Dragon Princess was one of the Seven Princesses of the Seven Dragons Society, whom only a Sword Master could face.
The Divine Dragon Corps was one of the seven combat units created to stop Sword Masters, permitted to bear the name of the great Dragon.
Facing both alone was something that would make even a Monarch, an absolute being of this era, pick out a coffin in advance.
After Sword Wave Billy the Kid had gotten into trouble for acting up, even Sword Masters had avoided facing a Princess and one of the Seven Dragon Corps together.
There had been only one exception.
The Mad Dog, who had fought the Seven Dragons Society more fiercely than any other Sword Master.
That was why Rimon smirked and took something from the duffel bag he had set down.
“Yeah? Then how about this?”
“What do you mean, how about...?”
“...?”
Just as Tata was about to look at Rimon with a puzzled expression, wondering what he was talking about.
Tata fell silent without thinking.
Ainsha's pupils trembled.
For what Rimon had taken from the duffel bag was a single sword.
Of course, it was merely a sword.
Though it looked antique and strangely pristine, it was still no more than a weapon.
Yet they were shaken because it looked far too much like a sword every member of the Seven Dragons Society knew.
Shhhh.
Even then, they might have accepted the situation if that had been all.
Tata would have muttered, “What an ominous imitation,” and Ainsha would have readily agreed.
But Rimon's hair lost its blackness and turned white, as though ink had drained from it. His features subtly changed, and a scar appeared beside his eye.
More than anything, those cold golden eyes froze not only the two of them, but the entire Divine Dragon Corps.
“I told you. If you want to get in my way, you need that much resolve.”
Ainsha had not known because she had not foreseen it.
And even if she had foreseen it, she could not have believed it.
Faced with an unimaginable reality, there was only one thing Ainsha could do.
“... Hic.”
She stared at Rimon Aspelder, both her destined partner and the Seven Dragons Society's living calamity, and hiccupped with an expressionless face.
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