WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: nemui
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◈ The Forgotten Curse Knight ◈
Vol. 4 Ch. 13: Welcome Home, Curse Knight
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Theo had the bleeding from both legs stopped, then left Timbergum Minor Palace on Hulk's back.
Stella Garnett, captain of the Fourth Knight Order, knew Carla and Beryl were at the scene, but she did not know Theo and Hulk were there. That was why Theo and Hulk had to slip away before the holy knights arrived.
At a glance, the remaining Termea wreckage showed no signs that it had used Carla's torso. Beryl would likely collect it under the Gray Knights' name and send it to the Adcock Research Institute.
Theo was dozing on Hulk's back. He had grown quite used to Curse Armament Manifestation, but using it together with 〈Designated Oblivion〉 still exhausted him badly.
Lenny sat on Theo's shoulder, rubbing against his cheek while crying, "Meu, meu." The cry somehow sounded unhappy.
"Lenny, are you... angry?"
"Meuuuu."
It was an unusually low growl for Lenny.
Hulk muttered, "It's angry because you went and did something reckless, Theo-boy."
"Uh..."
That last move had certainly been reckless and made on his own.
If Theo, Hulk, and Beryl had continued attacking together, they would have won for certain. But Theo had rushed ahead alone and injured his legs like this.
There were several gashes below both knees. They were not bad enough to tear his legs off, but they were not injuries he could simply leave untreated.
"I'm sorry for acting on my own..."
"You didn't want Carla to see that?"
"...Yes."
A red-black girl's arms, fashioned after Carla's body.
Termea used humans as hosts, but they could not take human form. The moment a Cursed turned into a Termea, they lost their human shape and became an amorphous mass. Then they took in creatures other than humans and copied their forms.
Yet the Termea born from pouring a Curse into Carla's torso had tried to imitate not only Carla's regeneration and Curse Armament Manifestation, but her body as well. If Theo had not cut it down there, would the Termea have taken the form of a red-black girl?
"It was already unforgivable that Carla's body was used as experimental material, but... a Termea that looked like her..."
It was simply horrifying. That was why Theo had hidden it beneath his cloak and cut it down.
Hulk let out a quiet breath.
"I can't praise you for getting hurt doing something reckless, but I don't hate fools who stick to their beliefs. That's very gentlemanly... no."
Walking down the nighttime road, Hulk looked back with a grin.
"That's very knightly. A Curse Knight is no less than a Paladin."
It was half a joke, but there was warmth in his words.
Theo turned those words over in his mind.
Of course, he regretted what he had done. But for now, he wanted to savor the warmth of those words.
"......Heh."
Before long, Cinder House came into view.
Guards in the red uniforms of the Erington Army always stood at the gate of the iron-fenced estate.
They were not there to protect Cinder House from outside enemies. They were there to respond if a Gray Knight became a Termea.
Even now, two young guards stood beneath a lantern.
When they noticed Hulk and Theo, one of them called out.
"Oh, Hulk. What's wrong with Braid Boy? Ah, he's bleeding!"
"He injured his legs. Can you open the gate?"
"Sure thing."
The carefree-looking young man opened the gate. The other, quieter guard looked at Theo's legs and muttered,
"You won't be able to come to training tomorrow... I'll tell the captain. Take care."
Theo was a little surprised. The guards belonged to the Erington Army and were not Blessed.
That meant they were people who would eventually forget about him.
"You remembered that I come to training...?"
Theo could not help asking. The two guards answered as though it were obvious.
"I remember. I lost to you in a sparring match."
"I haven't faced you in a sparring match, but Braid Boy, you always greet us really loudly."
The quiet young man spoke flatly, while the carefree one made a gesture as though pinching a braid.
Neither remembered Theo's name, but they recognized his presence.
Theo clung to Hulk's back and lowered his face. If he smiled at a time like this, they would think he was strange.
Hulk passed through the gate, and the two guards called after him, "Take care," and, "Good night."
"That's good, Theo-boy."
"...Yes."
As Hulk approached the entrance, thudding came from inside, and the door flew open.
The one who opened it was the tall woman with pinkish hair, Rosé. She must have heard the gate opening and rushed over.
Rosé's voice caught several times as she said, "A-ah..." She looked like a completely different person from the one who had rampaged before the Termea. The eyes that had blazed so fiercely in battle now watched Theo anxiously through the gaps in her bangs.
In a hoarse, alcohol-roughened voice, Rosé mumbled,
"...W-welcome back."
"I'm back!"
Still on Hulk's back, Theo answered as cheerfully as he could.
He did not want to make the person who had kept her promise to welcome him home worry.
Rosé immediately noticed Theo's injured legs. Seeing blood soaking into the cloth tied around his wounds, her face changed.
"Y-you're hurt!?"
Rosé paced anxiously around Hulk and Theo, as though she did not know what to do. She was like a restless large dog.
Hulk said,
"A Blood Tail tore up his legs. We killed the Termea, so the Curse shouldn't be progressing, but I want Gertrude to take a look. Is she back?"
"Y-yes... I'll get her...!"
Rosé threw her pinkish hair about as she ran up the stairs.
Hulk muttered, "Good grief," then spoke to Theo on his back.
"You're sleepy, aren't you, Theo-boy? Go to sleep."
Amazing. How did Hulk know Theo was so sleepy he could hardly stand it?
As though he had read Theo's mind, Hulk said,
"I can tell. Your body's all limp."
"But I have to report our return to the Captain..."
"I'll handle that. Just sleep. You won't grow if you don't sleep, boy."
"Ugh..."
Lenny pressed its fluffy fur against Theo's groaning cheek.
Mff, mff. The tickling against his cheek felt strangely pleasant, and Theo let his consciousness slip away.
The fluffball, crushed against Theo's cheek and covered in drool, cried, "Meuu..."
* * *
Gertrude, the self-proclaimed Termea Doctor, spoke to JJ in the cleared-out captain's office.
"One researcher from the Adcock Research Institute had gone missing."
Only Gertrude and JJ were in the room.
Administrator Archibald belonged to the Royal Feather, which answered directly to Crown Prince Richard, so they had asked him to leave just in case.
Gertrude believed it should be left to JJ to decide whether what they were about to discuss should reach Crown Prince Richard through Archibald.
"I took Rosé to the missing researcher's residence and found a Termea there. It seemed to have only recently turned... The researcher's clothes were tangled around it."
"Ah, so that researcher-turned-Termea..."
"Rosé cleanly cut it in two with a single stroke. We'll send the remains to the Adcock Research Institute later."
Researching the implantation of a Termea into immortal Carla's torso was interesting and useful in itself.
If they could learn how the Curse infiltrated its target and what conditions stopped Curse Progression, they might even find a way to halt it.
But there was the fact that, at the very time the test subject escaped, a researcher had vanished and turned into a Termea. JJ seemed to understand what that implied. He shuddered.
"That researcher... let the Termea escape?"
"The reason is unknown. It is also possible that they were stung by the Blood Tail due to a management failure. Apparently, some people who become Cursed hide their Curse because they fear execution."
Suppose the researcher had been stung by the test subject's Blood Tail, implanted with a Curse, and turned Cursed. Suppose the test subject had escaped at that time.
The only way to remove a Curse was to kill the Termea, but the researcher had no such power.
More than anything, if others learned that the researcher had become Cursed... Cursed people were killed before they could turn into Termea. At this rate, the researcher would be killed. Frightened, the researcher fled, holed up at home, and turned into a Termea.
At first glance, it seemed to fit together. But Gertrude sensed something strange.
Gertrude waited for JJ to speak. A small murmur came from inside the paper bag.
"...Could someone have intended for the Termea to enter Timbergum Minor Palace too...?"
"Oh, Captain. If a Termea appears at Timbergum Minor Palace, who loses and who gains?"
At Gertrude's probing words, the paper-bag-covered head rustled.
JJ answered vaguely with his usual unreliability.
"Well, who knows? Politics are difficult, so this old man doesn't really understand..."
It was hard to tell whether he was playing dumb or truly knew nothing.
When it came to making people lower their guard, no one could match JJ. That was because he really was just an ordinary man.
(Not outstanding, but not incompetent. Neither sharp nor foolish... ordinary among ordinary people... except for how vicious his Curse is.)
As Gertrude considered what to say next, hurried footsteps sounded from the hallway.
The pounding on the door overlapped with the creak of its hinges.
"Doctor Gertrude! Theo's back! His legs are hurt, so hurry and look at him! Th-th-there's blood!"
"I'll go see him, Captain. At this rate, Rosé is going to break the door..."
Before Gertrude could finish, the door tore loose with a crack.
The paper-bag-covered head looked up at the ceiling and lamented,
"Repair costs..."
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