WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Inept Mage’s Infinite Regression
Chapter 49
“Ru, let go of that rope!” Jimonail shouted, and Ethan’s gaze flew to the professor.
Thankfully, Ru did not let go. Instead, when the skeletal wyvern lifted its head high, Ru planted both feet into the ground to avoid being yanked off her feet by its sheer weight.
“Such an action violates a higher command,” Ru said.
“You’ve seized control! Ethan, you wouldn’t know about puppetry, would you?”
“…Did I say that?”
Ethan didn’t really understand, but as long as it helped stop Jimonail, that was all that mattered. Straightening up, Ethan dashed around Leto, the skeletal wyvern, making sure to steer clear of its tail as he closed in on Jimonail.
Abandoning the attempt to climb on to Leto, Jimonail began chanting. “→You cannot step closer…”
“Great,” Ethan muttered.
Ethan’s current position, forced to run around Leto’s bulky form, meant he was basically a sitting duck. He quickly ducked behind a tree, so when Jimonail finished her incantation, she hurled the resulting attack not at Ethan but at Ru.
Kakakakang!
Despite its piercing force, Ru was unfazed, and by luck, the rope suffered no damage. Even if there were multiple impacts, it was a pinpoint attack, so severing the rope with a single linear strike would be difficult.
“Leto! Lift your head!”
As Leto planted its front legs and hoisted its hindquarters, Ru was dragged forward. She hooked both feet under an exposed, thick tree root and wound the rope tighter around her hands as it began to slip through her grip. Splintering noises started coming from inside the root, but the tug-of-war did not end immediately.
Knowing that Leto’s tail could defend her, Jimonail retreated toward it. Sure, Leto might shake free of Ru and snap the rope at any moment, but if Ethan rushed past Leto’s tail, Jimonail would be in danger.
Raising her magic wand toward Ethan, Jimonail snarled. “You think this changes anything?”
Ethan slowly edged closer, careful not to provoke Jimonail or Leto.
“What are you after?” Ethan asked. “What could the Emperor have promised you?”
“His Majesty is going to change the world.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Explaining it to someone like you—eh… urgh?!”
Seven crystal shards suddenly rained down on Jimonail. Startled, she pulled up her coat and hunched over.
Tak ta da tak!
Inwardly, Ethan clicked his tongue. That wasn’t a great way to defend herself. Boen, waiting in the forest, had aimed for non-lethal spots to avoid killing her, but crouching like that could end badly if she was unlucky.
Ethan spotted Boen concealed among the trees.
“Boen! Pull back the crystals!”
“I can’t!”
“What?”
“That coat is enchanted with protective magic!”
Ethan understood. Because Jimonail’s coat was under a protection spell, it was better to pin her in place, embedding the shards into her coat and the ground rather than removing them. Otherwise, she might slip free.
But Jimonail caught on even faster than Ethan. She tore herself out of her coat and crawled away on the ground, the end of her wand blazing with flames. She must have been chanting inside that coat the entire time.
“→…your soul dissipates in ashes.”
That chant was—
“Marrsinon’s Flame.”
At her final words, a searing fireball fully formed, blazing fiercely. On sheer survival instinct, Ethan’s body jolted. Jimonail gave a cold grin, then spun and flung Marrsinon’s Flame at Boen.
“Die!”
The fireball struck where Boen was hiding, exploding in a radius of about five meters and igniting nearby trees.
“…Boen!”
Meanwhile, Ethan had managed to close to barely within five paces of Jimonail.
‘At this distance, I can rush in—even if I have to cut near the wyvern’s tail.’
Ethan readied the Tusk Breaker stance. Jimonail ignored him and tried once again to climb up on Leto’s back.
‘She’s turning her back on me? If I can wound Jimonail right here…’
As he thought that, Rivielton’s voice called from somewhere off in the distance: “Ethan! Watch out!”
Ethan glanced over and found the dual-sword skeletal knight soaring through the air like it was flying, charging straight at him. Because he had already set up to use Tusk Breaker, Ethan barely managed to evade. He was lucky he didn’t slam into a tree.
‘I forgot. It’s perfectly natural for a necromancer to command her own skeletons,’ he reflected bitterly.
The skeletal knight yanked two swords from the ground and fixed its gaze on Ethan.
<Death…? Is it here…?>
Wounds from Rivielton still marked its armor, but even if its bones had been shattered, they would naturally restore with time. That was the terrifying thing about a necromancer’s undead. Unless they were reduced to utter fragments, they’d regain their form. It was like fighting an enemy that never truly died.
‘Without Professor Rivielton’s Hunting Sword techniques, I don’t see another way to handle this.’
Even so, the knight had already recovered a good deal. Ordinary swordsmanship likely wouldn’t be enough. And there was no time to waste: Jimonail was steadily dragging herself toward the saddle.
‘I’ve practiced those techniques, but…’
Gripping his sword one-handed, Ethan ducked down into the Bloodletting stance.
‘…using them properly is something else entirely.’
Typically, an armored knight fought with a posture that left certain openings. Being armored meant they could afford to take hits. They carried their weapon in front in a more aggressive stance, which ironically allowed Ethan to strike.
The key to Bloodletting was speed and precision. Extending his arm like a whip, Ethan sliced at the knight’s neck.
But the knight, acting as if Ethan’s move was irrelevant, barrelled straight in and swung both swords. Fortunately, having two blades didn’t double your attack opportunities; one weapon’s path of attack often blocked the other.
‘Still too fast.’
Empowered by the Undying King’s blessing, the knight was far stronger than before. All Ethan could do was avoid lethal wounds. His hands were cut, and he took hits to his shoulder and side.
‘It might be using body-enhancement magic from its living days as well.’
All Ethan knew was that high-level necromancy could replicate more and more of what the skeleton’s body was capable of in life. And while it normally depended on the necromancer’s own skill, the Undying King’s knights evidently used a shortcut by sacrificing offerings to boost their power. It was likely why necromancers prized these knights so highly.
‘They can become powerful so easily.’
Ethan parried, sidestepped, shoved, blocked, blocked, dodged—and then the knight’s foot slammed into his chest.
“Gah!”
Ethan’s body rose a full body length off the ground.
‘If I hadn’t steeled myself for something like this, I’d have blacked out.’
The knight was using swordsmanship that Ethan recognized from older teachings. The Undying King’s era wasn’t so far on a historical scale, but techniques always evolved over time, and Rivielton had called its style “old-fashioned.” With all that strength and speed, the only reason Ethan could cope was that he had a rough idea of how an old-school knight fought, and that eventually, if its sword attacks were halted, it would go for hand-to-hand strikes.
As Ethan was knocked into the air, he grabbed a tree branch overhead, swung himself around, and perched on it. Deprived of its target, the dual-sword knight hesitated a moment. If the target stepped out of the necromancer’s pre-assigned range, a skeleton could pause until returning to its default orders, that was a quirk of necromancy. Of course, Ethan wasn’t trying to flee.
He cut the branch in front of him. As the falling branch tumbled down, the knight reflexively hacked it to pieces. Exploiting that opening, Ethan kicked off the tree trunk, lunging at the knight. Sliding past the knight’s nape, Ethan used Scale Slash, and since the knight’s prior Bloodletting wound hadn’t fully healed, its helmet clattered off.
‘One more time.’
Landing behind the knight, Ethan immediately kicked the back of its knee to make it kneel. He crouched down as well and drove his sword deep into the knight’s back.
“Die!” Rising abruptly, Ethan yanked the blade upward. The knight’s torso split apart to each side, and bright light glinted sharply along Ethan’s sword.
‘Huh, what…?’
A fire burned fiercely ahead, scorching Ru and the rope. Beyond that blaze, Leto and Jimonail were both turning in Ethan’s direction. He was too late.
A crackling fireball blazed atop Jimonail’s magic wand once more.
“You’re the one who’ll die!”
Ethan frantically searched his mind to see if there was anyone left who could help him.
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“Professor Ru.”
“Mm?”
Ethan had pulled Ru aside, away from Rivielton and Boen, to show her the Gespenst V.
“This is my… automaton,” he said.
“This… is a doll?”
For a moment, Ethan was at a loss for words. “…Something doesn’t need to look like a human to be a doll, just act like one.”
“Ah, I see. If you define it that way, it might be considered a doll.”
“…That almost offended me.”
“Why?” Ignoring her question, Ethan pressed on. “Actually, I’m a dark mage.”
“It looks that way.”
“You can tell?”
“Mhm.”
Ethan shrugged, unsure why that was significant.
“Anyway, with your help, might my sponsor be able to pilot this automaton?”
Ru shook her head. “You don’t need my help to do that.”
“I don’t know the method.”
“Draw the summons you use to call your backer onto this blank paper.”
Although Jimonail was approaching on a skeletal wyvern, Rivielton was buying them time. So Ethan drew out the magic circle he’d used when he formed a contract with Demi.
When Ethan finished, Ru held out her hand. “The catalyst?”
“Pardon?”
“The catalyst you used in the contract.”
“We need that too?”
“Of course.”
“…Give me a second.”
∞
When Ethan handed over the old catalyst from his contract with Demi, Ru examined it curiously.
“Ethan. Why carry a random rock around with you?”
“…Just in case something like this came up.”
“You’re a strange kid.”
“Of all people, I really didn’t want to hear that from you, Professor…”
Ru took a vial of red fluid and copied the magic circle onto the underside of the Gespenst V. She omitted some parts and added others, and in the end, he had a completely different—and much more complex—design. Ethan would never have managed it alone.
Handing the catalyst back to Ethan, Ru said, “Call your backer here.”
Ethan addressed Demi, <So, do you think it’ll work?>
<I do not know. I am unfamiliar with this world’s magic. I doubt it will be so easy.>
<But we’ve got nothing to lose, right?>
<All right, User.>
Ethan grasped the catalyst, placed his hand over the magic circle drawn on the Gespenst V—
∞
A crackling fireball flared at the tip of Jimonail’s wand once more.
“You’re the one who’ll die!”
Ethan racked his brain for someone who could help.
“…Demi?”
“What?”
“No, just talking to myself.”
“You think someone else is lurking around? Don’t make me laugh. I won’t be fooled by such a petty trick—ack!”
Before Jimonail could finish speaking, the Gespenst V streaked in at full speed and clobbered her from behind. She tumbled across the skeletal wyvern’s hindquarters, rolling to a stop right at Ethan’s feet. As she struggled to keep her eyes open, Ethan put his blade to Jimonail’s throat.
The Gespenst V flew over to Ethan’s side.
<How were my piloting skills?>
<You were amazing, Demi.>
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