WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ SSS-Class Revival Hunter ◈

Chapter 312: The Next World (2)

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The events following were, in a way, simple.

Those who were angry gave vent to their anger. Those who owed an apology apologized. Those who felt they lacked the decency to add even one word about this world held their silence all the more stubbornly.

"......This is shitty."

The [Assistant Writer] muttered a curse.

In front of the drawbridge, the Grey Spider was still kneeling, her forehead touching the ground. Over her body, the Anti-Magic Alliance's followers threw rotten fruits and debris, their emotional vomit.

Thud.

A dark mass hit the Grey Spider's back and slid off.

"Ah."

The [Assistant Writer], who had been frowning, opened her lips. A sharp dagger sliced through the air at the end of her gaze.

"Wait, that thing.”

But midway, the dagger was deflected with a clear ‘ting!’ as I knocked it down with an orb-like Aura.

The dagger fell without force and lodged in the ground four meters from the Grey Spider.

"Tch!"

Someone in the crowd of thousands clicked their tongue.

The [Assistant Writer] seemed to have heard it too.

"You there! What kind of disgraceful stunt do you think you're pulling...?"

"Don't stop it."

The [Mahos Army Commander] grabbed the [Assistant Writer]'s forearm to halt her.

"Stopping it will only make them angrier. I know this from experience, having dealt with aftermaths on the battlefield multiple times."

The Assistant Writer looked at the Mahos Army Commander, then at me.

I said nothing. Before the dagger fell, after it fell, I just stood there, arms crossed, silently observing.

Though no one else could know, this was also the stance adopted by the Guardian Spirit right beside me.

Seeing my lack of reaction, the Assistant Writer turned back to the Mahos Army Commander. Her glasses peaked sharply in frustration.

"Still, how can they attack someone who's surrendered? If you've been on the battlefield, you should know that's basic!"

The Mahos Army Commander didn't blink an eye.

"Did the Magic Tower ever adhere to that basic principle?"

The Assistant Writer clenched her teeth.

"You yourself were imprisoned alongside Hamusutra's followers, were you not? I heard you suffered brutal torture until the King of Death rescued you."

"......"

"The world you were born and raised in is now a colony dominated by the Magic Tower. It's hard to imagine the Magic Tower governed its colonies any wiser than the 50th floor."

For a full millennium.

The grudges built by the Magic Tower were vast and deep.

"The Magic Tower was not wise. So, Assistant Writer, act wiser. Aren't you ascending the tower representing your world? If you have the luxury to sympathize with the world's enemy, perhaps you should prepare for conquering the next floor instead..."

"Thank you."

The Assistant Writer spoke in a low, cold voice.

"Anyway, you're saying this for my sake, right? So, thank you. I have something else to say though, so listen."

"Hm. I'm glad you appreciate it. So, Assistant Writer, I have a proposition. If you haven't decided on your team for the 51st floor, how about joining me......"

"Fuck off."

The Mahos Army Commander closed their mouth.

After speaking, the Assistant Writer's eyes widened. Her glasses followed suit.

After a moment, she flapped her arms.

"No... that... I didn't mean 'fuck off' to the offer to accompany you. Don't get me wrong. Why would you make such an offer now... Ah, forget it! Just be quiet! ...Damn."

The Assistant Writer coughed several times. Then, after giving the Mahos Army Commander a glance, she turned around.

She began to walk.

The Assistant Writer stood in front of the Grey Spider, more precisely, in front of the crowd surrounding the Grey Spider.

"Hey, you bastards, stop making such a pathetic scene!"

The Assistant Writer exclaimed.

The crowd immediately bared their teeth.

"What the!"

"Isn't that the Assistant Writer? It's the Assistant Writer, right?"

"The one always messing up grammar?"

"Why's the hamster Apostle who devours books suddenly popping up? Got too full of herself for helping out with the Magic Tower raid plan?"

"Everyone, shut up!"

With a voice that didn't lose to the murmuring crowd, the Assistant Writer shouted.

And then immediately continued.

"First off, whoever said I mess up grammar, let's see later. I can't tolerate such distorted information spreading. But more intolerable than that... you bastards, aren't you ashamed?"

The Assistant Writer raised her voice.

"If you want revenge, plan it yourselves, gather your strength and take your revenge! If you want to lord over someone, do it to those you hunted yourselves!"

The Assistant Writer gritted her teeth as she looked at the Grey Spider lying down and the various trash scattered around her.

"But what is this? If you had hunted the Magic Tower, the witches and the Grey Spider yourselves, do whatever you want. However, you didn't. What the hell are you doing to someone else's prey?"

There was silence among the crowd.

Some among the crowd fell silent. A few, that is. Apart from those few, the overwhelming majority flushed red. One person whose face was hidden by a mask even turned the mask itself red.

A masked warrior stepped forward, carrying on their shoulder a massive spear shaped like a horn torn from a dragon.

"Well said, Miss Assistant Writer."

The masked warrior spoke in a metallic voice.

"Really impressive. A true hero! Full of righteous, proper, and beautiful words. It'd be perfect if we all ran to hide in shame now, but what to do? I'm just getting pissed off. Heh. Is it because I'm a blockhead?"

"Yes."

"Do not agree so bluntly... Good grief. I suppose someone as proud and confident as you cannot even see the people who have no way to stand proud."

The masked warrior slammed the butt of their spear on the ground with a thud.

"For a thousand years. The Magic Tower ruled this 50th floor for a full thousand years! The oppression grew stronger, and this 50th floor, along with the towers that reached it, were drained by the roots of the Magic Tower!"

Voices of agreement erupted from all around.

"Miss Assistant Writer. Can't you see the pain and suffering?"

"Right!"

"The people who had to sneak through alleys to avoid the Magic Tower's notice! Those who lost their families or something even more precious to those witches and had no choice but to remain silent! Can't you see or feel those people?"

"Right! Right!"

"Miss Assistant Writer. You're speaking the truth, but that's because you have the power to speak such! What about those without such power! The weak! Even at this moment, should they just bite their tongues, stay silent, and act as if they don't exist?"

"Right! Right! Right!"

"How dare you try to gag the mouths of such utterly weak victims! Isn't that truly unjust and cruel!"

"Right! Right! Right! Right!"

As the masked warrior's rebukes continued, the crowd erupted like a wildfire. Even regular hunters who hadn't participated in the Anti-Magic Alliance raised their voices. "Wooo!" The square turned into a cauldron of ecstasy.

And the Assistant Writer doused that cauldron with cold water.

"I've heard enough of the shitty rant of an extra."

The masked warrior paused. The crowd momentarily fell silent.

The Assistant Writer walked slowly through the silence.

She stood in front of the masked warrior, directly looking into the two holes in the mask.

"Listen, you bastard."

The Assistant Writer, bending her back like a stretching cat, raised her head and whispered into the masked warrior's mask, bringing her face close.

"Even if you were ten times, or a hundred times stronger; even if you were as strong as the entire Magic Tower combined, I would have stood in front of you like this, and I would have said you were spewing bullshit."

The Assistant Writer pressed the tip of the masked warrior's nose with her finger.

"That's why I was dragged to the Magic Tower."

The masked warrior's mask heated up. "Ah, hot damn," the Assistant Writer flinched back, her fingers scalded.

The masked warrior spoke with a sound resembling magma overflowing down a mountainside.

"No, that's not it. You were dragged away because Hamusutra suddenly disappeared. Because you lost your backing, your power weakened! It's the same now. Now that you've got the King of Death or whatever as your backer, you're all high and mighty..."

"Ah. And one more thing."

Actually, it's two things, how do you even wear that mask, it's freaking hot, she murmured, then licked the tip of her scalded finger lightly.

"Even if you were a thousand times, or ten thousand times stronger; even if you were as strong as the entire Magic Tower multiplied, you would've just been a one-off extra introduced to show how strong the protagonist has become."

The masked warrior closed their mouth.

The Assistant Writer shifted her gaze away from the masked warrior. Her sharp-edged glasses turned towards the surrounding crowd.

"Stop making a fool of yourselves."

As the masked warrior raised their voice, the Assistant Writer's voice did the opposite. It gradually diminished.

"You are [Hunters], aren't you?"

It was a soft voice.

"Didn't you decide to climb the tower on your own feet because you wanted to go to a place bigger than where you were born and raised, because you wanted to see something different than the scenery you always saw?"

Her diminishing voice turned into a lament.

"I did. There might be bastards who climbed up because they had nowhere else to be, or dumbasses who climbed up representing their world at the worst timing, but I don't know about such grand things. I always only knew about myself, only thought about myself."

The Assistant Writer muttered that this was probably why, even when choosing a Constellation to believe in, the Assistant Writer had chosen someone like the Director. People were naturally drawn to those who resembled them.

She said,

"I came here to write my story."

Her drooping glasses scanned the crowd.

"Aren't you the same?"

The gaze that returned from sweeping the crowd turned towards me.

In that gaze, not anger but regret, the twilight of the heart that sometimes seeps out when recalling conversations we once had, lingered.

Turning back to the still prostrate Grey Spider, the Assistant Writer said,

"Does this seem like something [Protagonists] would do?"

Once.

Hamusutra's Apostle, who had once muttered, [I'm not the protagonist of this story anyway], now murmured with slumped shoulders,

"No, it's not."

"......"

"Let's be protagonists now."

And.

There was an echo to those words.

"Well said."

It was the voice of the followers of the Sword Emperor Sect.

The Sword Emperor Sect must have suffered more cruelly at the hands of the Magic Tower than anyone else. However, they paid no attention to the witches of the Magic Tower's First Branch, who were awkwardly standing still on the glass bridge. Nor did they look at the prostrate Grey Spider.

The followers of the Sword Emperor Sect walked up and stood beside the Assistant Writer.

"It's true."

"They are also words that make one want to hit the speaker. Many people will feel like throwing a punch, and frankly, so do I."

"But... still, a true word remains true."

The followers of the Sword Emperor Sect turned around in unison.

Standing in line beside the Assistant Writer, the followers crossed their arms and said,

"Without the King of Death, this hunt would not have been successful."

"That being so, it would violate the basic etiquette of the hunt for us to keep arguing over the spoils here."

"The Emperor himself would have said the same."

The crowd hesitated and shrunk back.

-Hmm.

The Guardian Spirit spoke.

-Well, it took 150 years, but there's been a little growth.

That was the beginning.

"I think the same! This isn't fair!"

The jester who had managed to kill me on this 50th floor came out and stood beside the Assistant Writer and the followers of the Sword Emperor Sect, voicing her opinion.

"Damn... There is no stopping this now."

The Berserker followed suit. Paparazzo and other high-ranking members of the Anti-Magic Alliance followed behind.

Finally, the Mahos Army Commander walked over and took a place at one end of the human barrier separating the Grey Spider from the crowd.

The Assistant Writer wore a slightly incredulous expression.

"Why did you come? You were the one telling me to act wisely."

"Because the winning side is here. Mahos is said to prefer a victorious fight over a righteous one, but in truth, Mahos favors a fight that is both righteous and victorious above all."

"You know what? Not only are you an idiot, you are garbage too."

"Yet, I'm garbage that fights well."

"Right. That's why I'll accept your proposal. Let's go to the 51st floor together."

"It would be an honor."

As the human barrier solidified, the fervor of the crowd slowly subsided. But it wasn't dispersing; it was more like settling down, like steam gathering under a pressure cooker.

The masked warrior exploded.

"Damn it! Your argument is absurd! Are you saying victims who lack the strength to take revenge themselves must keep their mouths shut for the rest of their lives?"

"That's not what we said. I'm one of those victims myself."

One of the followers of the Sword Emperor Sect spoke up.

The speaker raised his head.

"You there. The spokesperson for the Magic Tower."

The spokesperson for the Magic Tower, who had been nervously watching the situation, hiccupped.

"Yes?!"

"You killed my junior fellow disciple."

Anger can be hot, but it can also be cold.

The anger of the follower of the Sword Emperor Sect was not devoid of heat but was so filled with anger that it turned cold.

"He was talented and lighthearted, the sort who passed easily through life. Perhaps for that very reason, death did not come easily to him. For nearly ten days, he died an atrocious death inside a glass tube while every bone in his body was compressed."

The spokesperson for the Magic Tower looked away and mumbled.

"Ah, ah... um. That's truly, a regrettable incident... um. But why bring this up now...?"

"Prepare yourself."

"Excuse me?"

"Once I am prepared, I will seek you out in the Lion World and challenge you to a duel. That is acceptable, is it not, King of Death?"

Hmm.

Yes.

And so, I finally spoke up.

"Hey. Who would stop a fair duel, and how could they?"

I humbly smiled.

"I'd stop an invasion led by an army, but a duel? I have no right to stop that. ...However, if you were to die in such a duel, I couldn't do anything for you under the same principle, could I?"

"That's only natural. Who would dare to kill another without being prepared to die themselves?"

The follower of the Sword Emperor Sect nodded and glared at the spokesperson for the Magic Tower.

"Wait for me."

"......Ah."

The spokesperson for the Magic Tower gnashed their teeth.

"Well, this is something. It seems you have underestimated me and think you can win one-on-one. I will thoroughly teach you how mistaken you are. A junior and senior fellow disciple both dying to the same person would be quite the celebration for your school. Yes! I will give you cause to celebrate with a truly astonishing death!"

"You may indeed do that. Then my disciple will come for you. After that, my disciple's disciple will seek you out in turn. It will continue until my lineage is severed or you surrender your life."

"Ah, damn... no, no, let's not do this. Mercy! Peace! Oppose war! Blood only begets blood, and revenge only leads to more revenge. Can't you just forget and forgive?"

"I'm sorry."

The follower of the Sword Emperor Sect smiled, baring his teeth.

"I'm not strong enough for that."

The spokesperson for the Magic Tower hiccupped.

And that, too, was a beginning.

In this way, the witches of the Magic Tower each received a [Notice of Reckoning] for how they had spent their lives.

Some received none, but most received three or more. The spokesperson, in particular, groaned under the weight of receiving as many as 107 challenges.

"Damn it. This is all because you guys dumped the spokesperson role on me. Being in the forefront drew that much aggro. Look here, other branch heads. If you have any conscience, you should share some of this burden. But do you even have a conscience? Ah, no... Damn bitches..."

Watching the spokesperson, Charumu, who had escaped with me, heaved a sigh of relief.

"Phew... It's a blessing I was buried deep just cleaning... This is the big picture..."

"Be careful, Charumu."

I patted Charumu on the shoulder and offered a warning.

"You can't run away from the life you've lived."

"Uh, what could it possibly be...? Why do your words carry this strange sense of lived experience, Mr. Gong-Ja...?"

Thus, fifteen days passed.

Krrrrrrrrung!

The sound of the last remaining spire collapsing on the 50th floor.

[The Whip that Descends on the Self-Abuser has been released from her seal.]

The pillar that had been supporting the center of the spire tilted and fell. From afar, it looked like a giant nail. That nail shattered like glass upon touching the ground.

"Ugh...?"

Within the shattered pillar, a red-haired woman opened her eyes to narrow, drowsy slits.

“Where is this...?"

"Sister!"

The Berserker rushed forward at supersonic speed. Bang! An unnatural sound, like that of two humans colliding, rang out, but fortunately, one of them was a Constellation.

The red-haired Constellation caught [Berserker] lightly in her arms.

"Oh. Oh my...?"

"Sister! My Constellation sister! Sob, I'm sorry I'm late! I told you to wait just three years, but 300 years have passed! I'm a fool, an idiot, a piece of trash! I should have died! Should have died but couldn't! Coward! Sob, I'm sorry!"

The Constellations sealed by the Magic Tower were being released.

"Ah... this damned self-abuse, yes. That's definitely my Apostle..."

The red-haired Constellation patted the Berserker's back.

The Berserker, having finally reunited with the god she served, buried her face in the constellation’s hair, crying "Sob," shedding tears, "Wah!" sniffling, and finally, "Sniff!" bawling her eyes out.

"Um..."

The red-haired Constellation slapped [Berserker] across the cheek with a troubled expression.

"You're damn filthy, so ease up a bit..."

"Thank you, King of Death!"

With her cheek now as red as the hair of the god she served, [Berserker] spoke to me.

"It's all thanks to you! If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been able to meet my sister again! Thank you, sob, I thought you were a damn shitty bastard, but turns out you're a damn good son of a bitch!"

"My word."

I sheathed the Holy Sword.

My shoulder was aching, not fully recovered yet, just from chopping down one pillar of the spire.

"Is that the only adjective you know how to use...?"

"What! Puppies are cute, aren't they!"

Hmm.

To that, I concede.

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