WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 99: How to Cross the Waves (5)

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Kyle's deeply sunken consciousness surged violently to the surface. Waking in an instant, he drew in ragged breaths.

"Haah... haah...."

The room had already been swallowed by darkness. Faint moonlight filtered in through the dim navy gloom. The orange glow of sunset that had been there before he fell asleep early was gone.

After steadying his breathing for a while, Kyle covered his forehead, damp with cold sweat, with one hand.

Was that a dream?

Lying still, Kyle replayed what he had just seen. If it had been one of the nightmares he often had, he could have brushed it aside. This was different.

It was not a dream. It had been a dream at first, but something had clearly changed at the end.

It was an unpleasant, alien feeling, as though something from outside had forcibly intruded into his subconscious, leaving him as exposed as if he had been stripped naked.

Kyle lowered his right hand from his forehead and rubbed his face. After some time passed, his ragged breathing had mostly calmed.

He stared at the dim ceiling for a moment, then slowly sat up. He took a pocket watch from the Inventory Pouch beside his bed and checked the time. It was one in the morning.

He had fallen asleep in the early evening, so he had slept for around six hours. Even so, his mind was in chaos.

This is driving me insane.

Kyle put the watch back into the pouch and brought a hand to his chest. Though his breathing had settled somewhat, his heart was still pounding hard.

Who was that?

He circulated a faint trace of mana from his ring through his body. There were no obvious external or internal injuries. Once that thought crossed his mind, his thoughts returned to the thing at the end of the dream.

Even after waking, Kyle could picture it clearly.

A dragon covered entirely in white scales.

In a colorless space, it had been lying down. Then it saw Kyle, rose to its feet, and looked down at him with blue eyes and vertically slit pupils.

The low voice of a woman that had echoed in his head was the same. What she had said about him coming from another world was a secret only Kyle knew, one he had never told anyone.

Not even the Knights of Ash, whom he had considered a second family. It was something he would carry alone for the rest of his life, now that he could no longer return to Earth.

"Could it be... Frisia?"

Kyle muttered without thinking.

There was only one conclusion his instincts and reason could reach at once.

Progenitor Dragon Prisia. The Empire's guardian dragon, the first dragon to be born and the last to vanish.

"No, that cannot be."

Kyle narrowed his eyes. Even after saying it himself, he could not easily accept it. Frisia had died a thousand years ago.

Born first and marking the extinction of dragons, Frisia had become a myth even within the Empire. Dragons themselves were nothing more than remnants of an ancient past, leaving behind only traces.

But Elysia has the Dragon Heart, a fragment of her heart.

Kyle rubbed his chin reflexively. Once his thoughts began, they continued one after another.

Even if it is a fragment of a dead Dragon Heart, the mana inside it remains.

Dragons were that powerful.

And the Progenitor Dragon Prisia would be beyond comparison.

Had I been affected by that mana without realizing it? Is Frisia's lingering will inside the Dragon Heart?

Then Elysia...

"Damn it."

His head throbbed as Kyle rose from the bed. In the faint moonlight, the room came into view. Clothes and belongings, including Kyle's sword, lay on and beside the bedside table.

Kyle stared at them briefly, then quickly began dressing. He put on the leather coat he had bought in Nibelmund and draped a cloak over it. He fastened the sword leaning beside the table to his waist.

He took the Inventory Pouch he had been using, along with the second Inventory Pouch Gerard had given him.

I should get out first. Check on Elysia too. And clear my head while I'm at it.

After one last look around, Kyle carefully opened the door and left his room. The inn's third-floor corridor was bathed in the same hazy moonlight as his room.

At this hour, he was the only one in the corridor.

Just as Kyle turned toward Elysia's room, her door quietly opened, as if they had arranged it beforehand.

"Kyle?"

Elysia stepped out wearing a white robe like his own, her hood pulled low. When she found Kyle, her eyes widened. Her golden eyes swept over him from head to toe.

"Are you still awake? Or..."

"I woke up. What about you?"

"Me too."

"Can't sleep?"

"A little. Perhaps because I went to bed early, my eyes simply will not close again...."

Elysia trailed off. Kyle stopped in front of her.

As he silently looked down at Elysia, she avoided his gaze as though it burdened her. Kyle ignored that and examined her closely. Fortunately, nothing seemed seriously wrong at a glance.

"Are you all right?"

"All of a sudden?"

"Any pain? Strange dreams? Something like that."

Elysia looked at Kyle with narrowed eyes. It did not last long. She considered his question for a moment before answering.

"No. There is nothing wrong with me. I ate more than enough and rested more than enough. Would it not be stranger if I were unwell?"

"Is that so?"

Their conversation ended there. Quiet silence lingered in the inn corridor in the dead of night.

Unable to stand it any longer, Elysia looked up at Kyle again. His black hair and eyes, lit by the moonlight, looked strangely brighter than they did during the day.

"Kyle, you cannot sleep either, can you? Seeing that you came out like this."

Elysia broke the silence first. Kyle nodded readily.

"Yeah. I had a restless sleep."

"You must have had a nightmare."

Kyle did not answer. He turned his gaze to the window at the end of the corridor. Pale moonlight still rested on the blackened world outside, the only light in the darkness.

"Um..."

Elysia moved her lips again, but Kyle cut her off.

"Let's go outside first. Get some air."

* * *

Kyle and Elysia went straight down the stairs to the first floor. The dining hall, noisy until that evening, was now completely empty.

They passed through the dining hall and stepped outside. The moment they opened the front door, cold night wind swept over their bodies. The wind by the sea was more humid than the dry inland air.

Leaving the inn behind, Kyle and Elysia walked through the empty streets in the late-night hush. It was an unexpected nighttime stroll.

"It is quiet. It feels as though only the two of us exist in this city."

"It is late."

"Still, I thought a city called the greatest port city in the continent's southeast would be lively even at this hour."

"The entertainment district on the outskirts probably is. This is not the center where all the important facilities are gathered."

Whether gambling dens or brothels, unlike other places, they truly opened once the sun went down. Naturally, Cadis had such an entertainment district as well. With trade so active, demand in that direction was more than plentiful.

The city center was different. The central district, packed with major facilities and high-end residences, had become quiet as a grave in the late-night hours.

The nearby shopping district was much the same. A few places still had lights on, but there was little difference when it came to the lack of sound.

"Kyle... have you ever gone to places like that?"

"What kind of place?"

"The entertainment district. More specifically... places like red-light districts."

Elysia glanced around, then asked while watching Kyle's reaction. Kyle answered firmly.

"No."

"Not even once?"

"Yeah. Not once."

"Do mercenaries not usually go there often? That is what I have heard."

Mercenaries and prostitutes were inseparable. Since they risked their lives for work, many spent the wages they earned with such hardship every day, living from one day to the next.

"Most probably do. Not me."

"I thought so. I knew it."

Elysia muttered with a strangely relieved tone.

As far as she could tell, Kyle had a personality that deeply hated anything dirty. At times, he killed people without hesitation. At other times, he had convictions so firm they seemed stubborn. Elysia could not imagine Kyle willingly walking into an entertainment district.

"Let's go toward the shore. It should be the best place to clear our heads for a while."

Kyle said. Elysia nodded in agreement.

Before long, the scenery changed. The city's buildings disappeared, revealing the open night sea and horizon. The pier they had visited that afternoon to find passage was right in front of them.

As the waves rolled unevenly, countless ships docked along the pier bobbed gently up and down.

"It is beautiful. It feels as though I have come to another world."

Elysia said as she stared blankly at the sight. After glancing at the pier, Kyle went down along the rocky shore toward the lower part of the city.

Neither spoke. Only the cold, damp breeze that occasionally blew through filled the silence.

Then the rocky shore gave way to a wide white beach. Elysia, staring at the beach and sea as if entranced, stepped onto the sand.

Crunch.

Soft grains of sand sank beneath her feet, unlike solid ground.

Crunch, crunch.

Elysia took one step, then another. At first, she walked slowly.

Then she took quick little steps. Finally, she began to skip lightly.

"Wow...."

Elysia let out an unconscious gasp and stopped at the edge of the beach where shallow waves rolled in. Looking down at the water repeatedly washing over her feet, she crouched and scooped up wet sand with her bare hands.

"Ahaha! How fascinating. This is my first time seeing something like this."

Elysia clenched and opened her hand, holding the wet sand. The receding wave rushed in again and scattered the sand from her palm in every direction.

She raised her suddenly empty hand, brought her index finger to her mouth, and immediately grimaced.

"Salty."

"It is seawater."

"Of course it is. That is such an obvious thing to say."

Yet a soft smile rested on Elysia's lips. Kyle quietly watched her.

Until yesterday, she had looked like an ordinary young woman who had just turned twenty, not the First Princess. Now she was different again.

She looked like an innocent child, delighted by a sight she had never seen before.

"Peaceful."

Elysia looked over the rolling waves, the sea lit by moonlight, the horizon stretching beyond it, and the city above the shoreline. Then she continued.

"It is so peaceful that I almost forgot and thought we had come on a trip."

"For this moment, it is all right to think that."

"Is it?"

Elysia stood from where she had been crouching and looked at Kyle.

"Just for today. No, just for this one night."

Kyle said it as though repeating it to himself.

To be blunt, they were not in a position to travel leisurely. They had killed two Wyvern Knights, but the Empire remained a threat. True rest was endlessly far away for people like them, who were covered in invisible blood and had committed countless sins.

Maybe it would never come in their lifetimes.

Even so.

"It is beautiful."

Kyle stared at the distant horizon. The full moon hanging over the black night sky shone especially brightly.

"It suddenly feels far away."

"What does?"

Kyle asked at Elysia's murmur. She looked between Kyle and the sea.

"Cadis lies in the continent's southeast. At this point, we have come almost halfway, have we not?"

"That is right."

"We have shaken off two Wyvern Knights, and the road that once seemed so hopeless is nearly halfway behind us. Yet when I look at that sea, the journey feels far away again. I do not believe in fate, but right now, I find myself wondering whether we can truly reach the Federation safely."

Will I hold you back, Kyle? Will I become a burden?

"Is my uncle doing well? Things like that...."

Elysia could not continue. The sound of wind passing by her ears blended with the repeated crash of the waves.

"Kyle."

Elysia called his name.

"Since it is just us here, what was your past like?"

"My past?"

"Someone precious to you. Someone you loved. You must have had people like that, right?"

Elysia did not know the details of Kyle's circumstances. She knew he was from the fallen Kingdom of Hylen, and that he was the last Commander of the now-disbanded Knights of Ash. Even so, she did not know what kind of life he had lived or what he saw when he looked ahead.

She only knew that he sought revenge against the Empire over what he had lost.

"I did."

Kyle answered in the past tense.

Someone precious. Someone he loved.

He had once had them. Not anymore.

"Me too."

Elysia looked at Kyle from the corner of her eye and closed hers.

"I loved my mother. The maid who grew up with me from childhood, my uncle who always looked after me, and the others with whom I shared happy memories. All of them."

"......."

"But... sometimes, I wanted to throw everything away and run like a coward. The weight on my shoulders was too heavy. It was hard to breathe. So..."

She removed the hood covering her head. A sudden gust of night wind sent her long golden hair rippling through the air.

"There were times when I wished for the rest called death. They say life is painful by nature. Even when I tried to comfort myself that way, it did not make things better. Perhaps that too is my weakness, my original sin."

Kyle looked down at his hand. His right hand, which had reeked strongly of blood until recently, had been washed clean.

"Elysia."

"Yes?"

"The Dragon Heart. Do you have it with you now?"

"The Dragon Heart? I am wearing it around my neck, but...."

Kyle urged her with his eyes. Caught off guard, Elysia untied the cord and handed the Dragon Heart to him.

"You cannot use the mana inside it anyway. Are you going to make a wish? Ask it to let us cross the sea safely?"

Elysia smiled teasingly. Kyle only glanced at her and did not answer.

He placed the pure white, pendant-shaped gem in his right palm and rolled it around.

It still contains unimaginable mana, but there is no sign of it going out of control.

Kyle's eyes narrowed.

A question he had deliberately pushed into a corner of his mind when he woke up earlier began to rise again. Even now, Frisia's Dragon Heart fragment constantly created new mana to replace the mana naturally fading away.

It was closer to a living organ than the heart of a dead creature.

Frisia. What are you? What are you trying to tell me?

Kyle asked inwardly.

The white gem under the moonlight continued to give off a clear, steady glow.

Are you connected to how I fell into this world?

His questions continued.

Were you not the Empire's guardian dragon? Why did you enter my subconscious? What is your purpose?

But no answer came, no matter how many questions he asked. Kyle had not expected one, so he clenched the Dragon Heart tightly in his fist.

If I encountered the Commander of the Celestial Knights now, would I stand a chance?

Kyle always assumed the worst. The odds were low, but the Empire might give up its front with the Federation and send the Commander of the Celestial Knights after them.

Kyle recalled the face of the man he had seen last.

Cassius Mortein.

The head of House Mortein and the Commander of the Celestial Knights.

And... the man publicly known to have killed Rowen.

Kyle had never properly crossed swords with him. He had not witnessed Rowen's death either, so he could not know how strong the man was.

One thing was certain.

He would be far stronger than Damien Carvello, whom Kyle had fought before. The black Wyvern he rode was the same. It was enormous and savage, closer to a true dragon than any Wyvern in history.

Even if I have to burn this entire body away.

If I can pierce your hearts.

"...Let's go back."

After staring at the night sea for a long time, Kyle turned around. Elysia left the white beach after him a beat later.

The crash of waves followed behind them. Kyle did not look back at the beach even once on the way to the inn.

Footnotes:

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