WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Spring Never Comes to Stolen Fields ◈

Chapter 27: Yuri (2)

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I needed to think about the word order again.

“Raven’s. Victory, it is?”

I didn’t know where Raven was from, but I’d never met anyone who spoke like that.

Still expressionless, Raven held Yuri’s handkerchief between her thumb and forefinger like a pair of pincers as she looked at us.

It seemed I wasn’t the only one caught off guard.

Yuri looked like he was panicking over being caught, while Cain wore the expression of someone staring at an unknown life-form.

When none of us said anything, Raven tilted her head slightly to the right.

Apparently, she was waiting for our reaction.

“Uh... right... Yuri... Raven won, didn’t she?”

I snapped Yuri out of his daze.

“Ah... yes! That was amazing, Raven. It was Raven’s victory.”

Yuri finally seemed to come to his senses after I spoke.

It seemed he had set up this game to show off his skills, but once he was caught, he seemed embarrassed.

“Still, that was incredible, Raven. I couldn’t sense you at all after you disappeared. What was that just now...?”

Raven paused before speaking.

Of course, I couldn’t actually see her mouth move because of the mask.

“...A trade secret, it is...”

Wow. I really couldn’t get used to that.

If that was how she normally talked, it was reasonable to suspect that was why she didn’t speak much. Holding a conversation with people had to be difficult.

Still, she was our party member, so Yuri and I forced smiles and tried not to point out each other’s quirks.

Our homeroom teacher had emphasized it, hadn’t he? Getting along was important.

Cain looked at us as if he pitied our efforts.

Hey. You should join in too. Don’t just stand there watching.

“So, do we hunt now?”

Whether he had read my mind or simply wanted to change the mood, Cain asked Yuri.

“Oh, right! Then I’ll show you a little of what I’m good at too. Since we’ve warmed up, let’s start hunting!”

Cain must have handled a bow quite a bit back in his hometown, because he looked fairly impressive as he drew the string.

Raven and I, on the other hand, were complete beginners who had never even held a bow.

When Yan had trained me in the Demon World, he taught me how to use swords and spears a few times, but never a bow.

Honestly, with magic at my level, I thought I was threatening enough at long range without knowing how to shoot one.

Yuri kindly began by teaching Raven and me how to hold a bow.

We spent about an hour learning the basics with our clumsy stances, but neither of us showed much improvement.

Cain, meanwhile, ran around on his own and kept firing arrows. It seemed he had successfully hunted a fawn about the size of Raven.

“Ha ha. Did you see that, you idiots? This is the difference between you and me.”

My head already hurt as I watched Cain boast at us with a deeply satisfied look.

Could we really become friends? I didn’t think so.

“Ooh, Cain. You’re pretty good, just as I expected. That looks like it’ll make a fine dinner tonight.”

“You’ve got a good eye! I like you!”

The two of them got along surprisingly well.

Watching them talk like that made me feel like I was the socially awkward one.

Honestly, if the sole purpose had been hunting, I could’ve just burned this entire area to the ground with magic.

But since Yuri had prepared today’s outing, he asked us to refrain from using magic or our other specialties, at least for today.

I agreed that it suited the point of the trip better, so I kept struggling with the bow.

After letting out a deep sigh, I watched Raven shoot beside me.

Unlike Yuri’s arrows, which sliced sharply through the air, Raven’s traced weak arcs before dropping to the ground.

No matter how I looked at it, she didn’t have enough strength.

Raven had the slender build of a delicate young girl.

Her small, fragile hands, which looked like they had never properly thrown a punch, proved it.

“...Not going well, it is...”

Seems that way, it is.

Her strange way of speaking was oddly addictive.

I should try it in front of Luna later. I could already picture her looking disgusted.

After laughing and chatting with Cain for a while, Yuri came back to teach me how to shoot.

“Okay, Sirius, I’ll show you again! Once you’ve clearly spotted your target like this, pull the string back with all your strength. Then shoot!”

I did as he instructed, but my arrows kept missing the target.

My competitive streak flared up.

“This time, for sure...!”

After several failed attempts, Yuri stepped behind me.

He placed his hands over mine and corrected my posture.

I thought his hands were small for a man.

But... I felt something strange against my back.

Yuri’s chest pressed against me, and it was much softer than I expected.

I had assumed he had a body packed with firm muscles, but this feeling through his uniform...

Having him guide me by pressing against me made it harder to focus, not easier.

Too distracted by that unfamiliar sensation, I stopped the lesson for a moment.

“Yuri, wait a second.”

“Ah, okay.”

Yuri looked as though he wondered if something was wrong.

“Can I check one thing?”

“Of course~ We’re party members, after all.”

Right. That’s what we were. In that case.

I raised my hand and grabbed his chest.

Oh, just as I thought. Soft...

Yuri froze in place as though his brain had stopped working.

When he didn’t react, I stopped kneading and honestly shared my opinion.

“Mm. Not bad.”

Good. If I acted like nothing happened, then nothing would happen.

As if he had been released from petrification, Yuri’s skin rapidly turned bright red.

His pale complexion made the contrast even more dramatic.

“Y-You shameless bastard...!”

He screamed so loudly it echoed through the forest. No, she did.

Cain, who had been eyeing his next prey some distance away, and Raven, who had been blankly holding her bow, both stopped and looked in our direction.

Fortunately, it seemed neither of them had heard what she said.

“Follow me!”

Yuri grabbed my wrist and dragged me beneath a large tree, out of the other two’s sight.

After glancing around, she confirmed that Cain and Raven were nowhere to be seen, then stepped closer to me.

“How did you know?!”

How could I not know when you did that?

“Ah... um... I felt something...”

I thought it would be rude to explain exactly what had touched where.

Though I had already done something much worse while supposedly checking.

Yuri looked like she was about to cry.

“I’d never let anyone touch me before... Hic... Damn it...”

She stomped her feet as if the injustice of it all was killing her.

Maybe because I had figured out she was a woman, but her voice seemed two pitches higher now.

This had to be her real voice.

Even with Yuri glaring at me furiously, there was one question I absolutely had to ask.

It was this.

“Why are you pretending to be a man?”

I was too curious to hold it in.

Honestly, her skills were more than good enough to earn recognition.

She probably hadn’t shown us everything yet, but her archery was excellent, and her speed was incredible.

She was nowhere near the level where she would be looked down on just for being a woman.

Her answer was completely unexpected.

“Because the Hero is a girl.”

“Huh?”

“Because the Hero is a girl! Wouldn’t it be better to be a man if I want to join the Hero’s Party?!”

I sorted through that logic.

Celia was a girl.

Girls usually liked boys.

Boys had a higher chance of joining the Hero’s Party.

Mm. It really was miraculous logic.

Too dumbfounded to let it go, I asked again.

“So, since Celia is a girl, you’re going to become a boy, seduce Celia, and join her party?”

Hearing it from someone else’s mouth seemed to embarrass her.

“M-My family head told me to do it!”

It wasn’t even her own idea.

Then again, I hadn’t known her for long, but considering how airheaded she could be, she didn’t seem like the type to solve things with a strategy.

Still, that family head was being too much.

Had they told Yuri to do this without considering she might get found out?

“Haah... Yuri, let me ask you one thing. What are you going to do when Celia, who thinks you’re a man, finds out you’re actually a woman?”

“Huh? There’s no way I’ll get found out...”

Ha. Go on, say it confidently.

She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Of course she couldn’t. She had been found out only three days after the ranking assessment.

Since she was my party member, I decided to give her some sincere advice.

“Yuri, I don’t think pretending to be a man is a good idea. You’ll get found out, two hundred percent.”

If Luna or Celia had been here, they might have figured it out even faster than I did.

“Ugh...”

She grabbed her head with both hands and sank to the ground.

It seemed she agreed with me too.

“...What are you going to do about it?!”

“Me? What am I supposed to do?”

I didn’t see why I had to do anything.

“You... you...! You touched my chest! You shameless bastard!”

Ah. That was what she meant.

A fun idea suddenly came to mind.

“What should I do for you?”

“I don’t know! Take responsibility!”

She seemed extremely sensitive about it.

“Yuri, how about this? I won’t tell anyone that you’re a woman.”

“...Really?”

She looked at me suspiciously.

Of course, I couldn’t do it for free.

“But I’d like you to help me with something.”

I smiled slyly.

Her body trembled like an aspen leaf.

For the first time, I thought I might actually be acting like a demon.

Footnotes:

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