WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Alyo
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◈ Surviving as a Warrior in a TRPG World ◈
Chapter 61: Ancient War
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Although Gerik could not move as he wished, he could vaguely read the memories of the being he had possessed.
Thanks to that, he naturally learned who this being was.
Braktul. The avatar of the World Tree and the demigod who guarded all beneath it.
The enormous body Gerik inhabited sat on a throne in a temple built of stone beneath the World Tree. Behind Braktul stood a great tree that seemed to pierce the sky.
Everyone in the world revered and held Braktul in awe, but only one thing mattered to the demigod.
Protecting the great tree that supported this world.
Countless people had prostrated themselves before the throne with their own petitions, but Braktul had never once answered them.
'The affairs of mortals belong to mortals.'
It was the principle Braktul had upheld for countless years as a demigod.
Then one day, a man wearing an ornament shaped like the head of a pure white deer prostrated himself before the throne. He pleaded for aid, saying that some of his people had begun claiming they had been chosen by the stars and worshipping some unknown thing as a god.
Braktul did not answer. The affairs of the living were for the living to resolve.
The man withdrew with heavy steps, and the demigod, left alone, closed their eyes once more. The turmoil of the world would soon settle down, as it always had.
'Is it really okay to just let that go...?'
Gerik, possessing Braktul, felt frustrated by that single-minded attitude.
He instinctively tried to move, but he could not even move one of this enormous being's eyelids.
Then, for some reason, Gerik vaguely sensed that this memory would soon end.
'For now... I can only watch.'
Gerik steadied himself and gave himself over to the scene unfolding before him.
* * *
Not long after falling into a deep sleep, Braktul suddenly opened their eyes.
An ominous sensation was seeping through the roots of the World Tree.
The land was sick. The life upon it was losing its original forms and becoming twisted.
And it was spreading rapidly, like a wildfire.
Braktul soon issued an oracle and summoned the High Druid. The one who hurried over explained everything that had happened.
While Braktul slept, those who claimed to have been chosen by the stars had grown into a vast empire. They called themselves the Ascendant Empire, but those crushed beneath their hands called them the Black Empire.
They cursed all living things in the lands they occupied, reshaping them into tentacled monsters whose forms could no longer be recognized. Those who refused to submit had their minds broken through torture, then were cursed again until they were forcibly absorbed into the empire.
What was even more terrible was that fighting them itself brought disaster.
If a battle dragged on, even those who had been fine would be tainted by the power shrouding the enemy, mutating or falling into madness. It was a battle where victory was not truly victory.
Braktul silently closed their eyes and traced the corruption spreading through the world through the roots of the World Tree.
Then the demigod confirmed it clearly.
This was not some petty struggle for power between the living. It was a calamity gnawing away at the very foundation of the world.
『I shall stand with you.』
At last, a heavy cry flowed from lips that had not opened for ages.
As everyone trembled, the massive demigod finally rose from the throne.
* * *
Craaaash!!
Each time the giant god's axe cut through the air, the civilization of the corrupted was torn apart.
City walls ripped like sheets of paper, and towers collapsed like sandcastles. Even monsters stitched together from flesh were no more than insects before Braktul. The power of corruption that had consumed the living was utterly powerless beneath the demigod's blessing.
Everything Braktul touched broke, and everything that resisted was crushed.
It was less a war than one-sided destruction.
'This is... a demigod.'
Watching the sight unfold, Gerik felt a chill run down his spine at axe strikes he was not even swinging himself.
Braktul advanced with unstoppable force and soon reached the heart of the enemy's territory.
At the center of the imperial capital stood a massive altar made of bizarre crystals glowing with blue light. Upon it stood a huge gate resembling a triumphal arch.
Braktul sensed twisted power and warped causality leaking from that gate, but simply adjusted their grip on the axe.
The one called the emperor of the corrupted empire stepped forward to stop Braktul. It was a twisted being, as though stitched together from tentacles and flesh.
The emperor cried out, asking why Braktul rejected the blessing of the stars. As if the fall of the emperor's own power did not matter, the creature looked with pity upon one who refused the hand of salvation.
Braktul answered with an axe swing.
Craaaash!!
The emperor endured the blow.
Dozens of tentacles burst from its back and lashed out in every direction. Blue light flashed from its forehead, sending out waves that crushed the mind.
It was a power that twisted the form of all it touched from within. Every enemy Braktul had faced until now must have had their mind collapse before their body was even destroyed.
Boom!!
But the wave could not stir even a ripple in the demigod's soul. It scattered uselessly, like raindrops striking a great boulder.
The emperor layered Psionic Barriers around its body, while its followers supported it with prayers. Braktul stepped forward, breaking them one by one as if they meant nothing.
Crack...!!
When the final barrier broke, the emperor and its followers collapsed at once, coughing up blue blood.
Then, with defeat close at hand, the emperor ordered its believers to perform a ritual.
The moment the order was given, the corrupted who had been fighting Braktul suddenly lowered their weapons. They all turned toward the altar, knelt, and clasped their hands together.
Braktul's axe fell into their midst.
Boom...!!
Dozens were crushed in an instant.
Yet not a single one screamed. Even as they were pulverized, they merely prayed with blissful expressions, as if that death was the salvation they had desperately longed for.
'Those bastards are insane...'
Gerik felt goosebumps rise as he looked at those peaceful faces, even as their companions scattered into bloody pieces beside them.
A strange radiance rose from the bodies of the fallen.
It was clearly light, yet somehow dark, a contradictory glow that seemed to mock the order of the world.
The lights that had left their bodies tangled together in the air, then were slowly drawn into the gate above the altar. When the last one fell, even the emperor spread its arms and threw itself into the flow with a face full of joy.
The moment that light too was sucked into the gate, the empty gate began to release a deep cry.
Whimper... Whimper...
It sounded like something endlessly mourning a loss.
But the tone was not of this world. It was a horribly alien sound that seemed to scrape at the soul just by being heard.
Crack...!! Crack...!!
A massive fissure spread through the center of the gate.
Beyond it, an alien and ominous world appeared.
Things resembling transparent corneas and endlessly piled mountains of flesh formed the horizon. Yet, from a certain point onward, that horizon twisted upward into the sky, making it impossible to tell what was above and what was below.
Between them flowed rivers of yellow pus. They ran along the ground, only to suddenly rise into the air and curve as they pleased, mocking gravity.
Clouds made of blood drifted through an orange sky locked in eternal sunset. Yet for some reason, the shadows they cast were distorted in directions entirely different from the clouds themselves.
Even Braktul, who had remained calm through everything, paused for a moment.
It was not the revolting sight that stopped the demigod, but the laws flowing beyond it. Every rule that should have supported the world had been warped. Not a single normal form remained.
'A dimensional gate... Then that gate is...'
Gerik felt Braktul's shock, but a completely different thought crossed his mind.
He suddenly remembered the feel of the key tucked inside his clothes.
Soon, countless bizarre things began pouring through the torn gap between dimensions.
The first to emerge was a floating creature large enough to cover the sky. It had a squid-like head, while its body became a hard spherical shell like an ammonite.
Below it, tentacled giants walked out, thud, thud, stomping on the earth.
Then the floating creature's side split open like a mouth. Countless tentacled humanoids poured out as if being vomited forth, filling the sky.
Humanoid monsters with octopus-like heads and dozens of hanging tentacles.
'Cthulhu...?!'
Gerik shuddered without realizing it.
Aside from their smaller size, they looked remarkably similar to the bizarre monster he had seen in a novel in his previous life.
Among the group, one dressed in especially splendid clothing looked down upon Braktul's forces from higher in the air.
Its voice seeped stickily into the minds of all living beings.
Why did they reject true salvation?
Why did they side with a false order and thereby refuse to ascend together?
The disgusting telepathy that burrowed directly into their brains made Braktul's followers kneel in pain. Looking down at the World Tree with the eyes of one gazing upon lost lambs, the creature sincerely mourned this world.
Craaaack!!
Braktul did not answer.
It was not worthy of an answer.
Grabbing a burning section of city wall nearby, the demigod threw it hard at the creature shouting such nonsense.
Boom...!!
Once that vile mouth had been shut, Braktul raised their axe and charged into the enemy lines, as if there were no reason to wait any longer.
Boom...!! Crash...!!
Beneath the World Tree's blessing, the life force of every living being in the world flowed into Braktul's heart. The power that erupted from the demigod instantly turned the monsters pouring from the dimensional gate into blood.
But the number of enemies pouring out was beyond imagination.
Whenever Braktul crushed a hundred, the torn dimension spat out a thousand more.
The demigod's might remained steadfast, but those who followed Braktul were still mortals. The children of the World Tree were gradually pushed back until they had retreated beyond the borders of the empire.
Even so, Braktul continued swinging their axe in silence, without changing their expression even slightly.
There were times when the enemy's tricks placed the demigod in danger. Yet each time, Braktul recovered through the blessing of the World Tree as though they had never been injured, then swept through the battlefield again.
Inspired by that unshakable figure, the children of the World Tree followed Braktul even if it meant their deaths.
No matter how vast a world might be, the forces beyond it could not be endless. While Braktul steadily ground down the enemy, the number of foes pouring from the dimensional gate finally began to visibly decrease.
The battlefield, which had been tilted completely to one side, at last reached a tense balance.
* * *
An immeasurably long time passed.
Gerik could not even guess how long Braktul and the children of the World Tree had fought. He could only endure the weight of those grueling years pressing down on him in the form of memories.
At last, the children of the World Tree succeeded in driving the powerful enemies back before the dimensional gate where every disaster had begun.
If they could simply close the crack that supplied reinforcements, the tentacled humanoids left in this world could never win.
Knowing that well, the Wild God called every follower scattered across the battlefield to the dimensional gate. The enemy also hurriedly gathered before it to defend it.
Just as both sides gathered all their forces for the final battle, Braktul sensed an ominous disturbance run down their spine.
It did not come from the enemies before them.
It came from deep beneath the World Tree, in a place hidden beyond anyone's reach. It came from the altar where Braktul's heart, the source of the demigod's immortality, had been concealed.
Crack...!!
Braktul extended roots from their enormous body, connected them to the World Tree, and looked down upon their temple.
Evil beings had entered the sanctuary that had been thoroughly guarded for so long.
For the first time in ages, the fierce emotion of anger appeared in Braktul's eyes.
'Don't tell me...'
Gerik felt a chill run down his spine as well.
The enemy had planted corrupted children of the World Tree within the sanctuary long ago, secretly prying into its secrets.
At the decisive moment when everyone's attention was focused on the final battlefield, they had finally drawn the hidden dagger aimed at the undefended heart.
In the end, Braktul could only helplessly watch from afar as the impregnable sanctuary was breached.
Creak...! Crunch!!
The intruders were the finest among the tentacled humanoids.
The guardians were no ordinary beings either, so a fierce battle erupted within the sanctuary. Many tentacled humanoids lost their lives, but that was not enough to stop them.
At last, after trampling over the corpses of countless guardians, three survivors reached Braktul's heart.
While two desperately held back the final guardian, the one least injured drove a sword deep into the center of the sealed heart.
Craaaash!!
The life force trapped deep within the heart erupted from the wound. The storm-like power swallowed the entire sanctuary. Even the tentacled humanoid that had thrust in the sword was left as nothing more than a corpse whose shape could barely be recognized.
Thud...!!
Far away, Braktul slammed one knee into the ground as terrible pain surged through their chest.
The demigod felt the spiritual link connecting them to the World Tree break.
At the same time, Braktul felt their immortality damaged, reducing them to a mortal being.
'Ah...'
Sharing that same agony, Gerik instinctively understood how this great being's end would unfold.
Braktul was enraged.
But with the final battle ahead, there was nothing the demigod could do. If Braktul spent time restoring the shattered heart, those invaders would surely corrupt everything in this world.
In the end, there was only one choice.
Fight the final battle with a body that had lost its immortality, and win.
Soon, Braktul and the demigod's followers entered the final battle.
Each time Braktul's axe fell, groups of evil beings were still crushed.
But that was all.
Wounds began to accumulate on the body that had lost its endless life force. The loss of that power returned in full as harm suffered by Braktul's followers.
In the end, the forces following the demigod fell one by one. Braktul alone remained on the battlefield, kneeling with a body covered in wounds.
Tentacled giants and tentacled humanoids drifting through the air surrounded the Wild God in layer after layer.
Enemy tentacles pierced the great god's body like spears. Countless bindings wrapped around that massive form.
The final moment was finally approaching for a god who had once been denied even death.
Even so, Braktul did not submit.
Drawing out the last of their strength, the demigod pleaded with the World Tree. Braktul begged that the world they had protected not be defiled by those evil things.
When the World Tree accepted that wish, Braktul released a roar filled with both rage and sorrow.
Rumble...!!
Immense power burst from the roots that covered the entire world.
The power that had nurtured and blessed life changed into the power of hatred and destruction.
The sky turned black, and a destructive storm swept beneath it. The sea that had once blessed the world rose as enormous tidal waves and swallowed every living thing. The land split apart in endless earthquakes, and lava flowed from those cracks, burning what remained.
'Don't tell me this is...'
As he looked upon the collapsing world, Gerik vaguely realized the true nature of the land where he now stood.
The World Tree, having poured out all its power, now offered even itself as a sacrifice.
The World Tree, whose roots reached the deepest point of the planet, had finally seized its core and begun to destroy it.
Rrrrrumble...!!
Then the world tore apart.
The planet shattered from its deepest layers, and the end came to every corner of it.
Even the invaders were powerless before that raging destruction. Fearing that the collapsing world would damage their own homeland, they hurriedly closed the dimensional gate.
They abandoned their own kind left behind in this world.
The invaders who could not escape in time fell in groups along with the collapsing world. Only near the World Tree, like the eye of a storm, did a faint trace of life remain.
Ironically, that protection allowed a tiny group of invaders to survive.
And they were lucky.
Near the sanctuary remained a temporary dimensional gate they had secretly created in order to target Braktul's heart.
With the end right before them, the few who remained forced open that gate and threw themselves beyond the dimension, turning their backs on the collapsing world.
And with that final sight, Gerik finally opened his eyes from the vision.
* * *
"No wonder... I couldn't find anything."
Gerik woke and trembled as he realized the truth.
The truth pointed to one thing.
This was not the Aldrun Continent where Gerik lived.
'So it was a key that opened dimensional gates.'
Gerik felt every contradiction he had sensed until now resolve itself.
Why there had not been a single trace of people in such a vast and fascinating ruin. Why the forest's ecosystem had differed endlessly from what he knew.
No, why there had not even been ordinary animals.
'Come to think of it, I never even heard birdsong.'
With his questions answered, Gerik held the Goddess's Key and turned toward the dimensional gate that had brought him here, his face filled with fear.
Perhaps he had fallen into the middle of a great destiny.
'I'm sure of it. The people who attacked Lugos must be connected to those evil invaders. Even if they aren't, they at least knew what this key was.'
Having sorted through the situation, Gerik let out a breath and slowly rose to his feet.
Then he felt an intense heat rising from his chest, unlike anything he had felt before.
'My heart...?'
Puzzled, Gerik carefully unfastened his armor and clothes.
Then an unfamiliar sight entered his eyes.
The very symbol that had represented Braktul's immortality in the memory was clearly carved above Gerik's heart.
"Don't tell me...?"
A powerful premonition flashed through Gerik's mind.
Without hesitation, he opened his status window and checked its contents.
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