WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Inept Mage’s Infinite Regression

Chapter 68

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Before Ethan’s second Load, while Admoel was decoding every nook of the Somi Palace so they could escape, Ethan was struck by a question.

“Mr. Admoel…”

“What is it?”

“If we manage to break through the Somi Palace in time, can we really stop the Grand Magic?”

To begin with, Tsurumosa Eurogia was skilled enough to control a dragon, even if it was only a skeleton. It would be impossible for the soldiers to handle him if he actively joined the siege instead of merely guarding the Grand Magic. In addition, Tsurumosa himself, staff or not, could freely cast high‑tier spells.

And then there was the necromancer Martisa Eurogia, who was directly involved in the Grand Magic. She was no easy foe, and there were nearly twenty other necromancers taking part besides. Though they came from varied backgrounds, they would all obey Martisa’s commands.

On Ethan’s side, apart from Admoel, they could boast nothing more than low‑grade knights and low‑grade mages. Compared to Martisa, who was chanting the Undying Church’s Requiem, their effective fighting strength amounted to Admoel alone.

Admoel kept walking as he replied, “Do you know of the mage called ‘Rudo’?”

Ethan looked at Boen, but Boen shook his head. He clearly had no idea either.

“Well, he’s not exactly famous,” Admoel conceded. “Still, I thought you’d know him, being from the kingdom of Elpado. What was his family name again? Elcashino? Alcashino?”

“I know Alcashino,” Ethan replied.

Elpado was the kingdom that included Charasen. Alcashino was a barony within Elpado.

Ethan hardly knew the Alcashino family, but regardless, he tried asking, “What era was he from?”

“Hmm, about three hundred years ago?”

“Then there’s no way I’d know about him.”

“No, some people still know of him. There’s a mage‑ballad called ‘Rudo’s Trampling.’ That one’s famous. Ask Professor Rivielton later, he’ll know. People sing it the night before battle when they’re good and drunk. The refrain goes, ‘Rudo only laughed—wah‑ha, wah‑ha, wah‑ha‑ha.’ It’s catchy.”

“…Are you going to sing it now?”

“I’d like to, but we need to stay focused, so I’ll just give you the gist.”

Rudo Alcashino had been an ordinary mage. Born to the Alcashino barony, he gave up his right to succession and enrolled at Ninosiril Magic Academy in Patala. From Elpado, Ninosiril was twice as distant as Yurmus Academy, so his resolve had earned respect, and he’d been able to avoid the family wars and study peacefully. Rudo completed his graduate studies at Ninosiril, earned recognition as a full mage, and was hired as an assistant administrator in the nearby Viscounty of Otsura. There he met a woman, married, and had children.

'That’s not so different from the life I wanted,' Ethan thought to himself, 'but nobody writes poetry about a perfectly ordinary life.'

As Ethan expected, catastrophe struck Rudo. The lord of Otsura had a grown son who was arrogant and violent. The son tried to rape Rudo’s wife, and when she resisted, he killed her, then pinned the crime on Rudo. The viscount, unwilling to punish his own blood even though he suspected the truth, threw Rudo into a cell and tacked on a litany of hidden crimes he himself had committed while amassing wealth. He needed sufficient pretext to execute a mage.

'It seems the moral fiber of lords hasn’t changed much,' Ethan mused.

Lying in his own filth, bereft of hope, Rudo ended up speaking with an eccentric prisoner in the adjoining room. The man took pity and asked if Rudo desired escape and revenge. Rudo answered that of course he did. The stranger asked again: Could he accept any consequence? Rudo agreed without hesitation.

The man taught him a spell “that can slip through the narrowest bars.” When Rudo cast it, his bones and joints became incomparably limber, but in exchange, his body grew grotesque, never to return to its former self.

Rudo squeezed through the bars and escaped, and then he faced a choice: Find his missing daughter and live together, or get his revenge on the lord and son. He chose revenge, exactly as he had promised the strange man.

“A path of ruin. But how can one mage get revenge on a lord?”

Rudo took work in Otsura as a menial laborer. Thanks to his altered appearance, no one recognized him, and his ability to enter any narrow space let him scrub sewers and chimneys better than anyone. By day, he worked, secretly inscribing magic circles all over the castle; by night, he built a toy‑sized replica of the castle at home, using bricks no bigger than fingernails. This delicate project took fifteen years. Everything went perfectly—except that the cell where Rudo had been kept had never had an adjoining room.

The day his model castle was finished, the spell was complete. He had used Homogeny Art, a spell that linked similar things. Linking one big brick to one little brick meant nothing when you could shake a single brick by hand, but if every structurally vital brick shook at once, even a castle could fall. That was the path to vengeance chosen by a talentless mage.

Rudo waited until late at night, when all should be asleep. Collateral casualties were inevitable and insignificant—after all, none had shown him the slightest sympathy. He activated the link and stomped his miniature castle flat. In the same instant, Otsura Castle collapsed.

“A story with a happy ending would stop here,” Admoel said, “but of course, this one doesn’t.”

Rudo’s revenge failed in the most absurd way: The viscount was out for a stroll to escape the heat, and the son was in town, dead drunk. Fate seemed to reject Rudo’s life. A mage attending the viscount discovered the truth behind the collapse, and neighboring knights captured the fleeing Rudo. Only on the scaffold did he reveal who he was. The viscount blustered with feigned outrage; the son snickered vilely. Rudo looked down on them all and laughed long before the rope took him, even as he twitched at the end, laughter forced its way through his throttled throat.

“Tragic,” Boen commented.

Ethan felt much the same. “The story’s good. Revenge bringing ruin isn’t a moral I like, but fine. Still, it sounds like a nightmare song for the eve of battle.”

Admoel chuckled. “Everyone loves it because of the sequel, the part not in the mage‑ballad.”

“What sequel?”

“Who do you think commissioned that poem about Rudo?”

“Pardon?”

Admoel explained. “That same year, the viscount, his son, his wife, and all their children… every last one died of illness. Thus, control of Otsura passed to the son’s concubine, barely fifteen years old. Strangely enough, she’d watched Rudo’s execution beside the son. She summoned a famous epic poet to compose the ballad.”

Ethan and Boen both let out involuntary gasps.

Admoel glanced at them. “You get it now? Why Rudo laughed?”

Lost in the story’s aftertaste, Ethan suddenly remembered and blurted, “Wait, you still haven’t explained your counter‑measure. What are we actually going to do?”

“…Good grief, you impatient lad.”

Across several Loads, Ethan turned Admoel’s story over until the answer was obvious.

“…Wh‑what? Where did you people come from?”

Martisa raised her magic rod in shock, and she wasn’t alone—the necromancers chanting the Undying Church’s Requiem wavered, their pitch and their eyes both unsteady.

Even Boen and Admoel were stunned; no one had imagined they could traverse the Somi Palace this fast.

In this flustered moment, Admoel showed his veteran poise first. “…Since you’ve done 'this' much for me, I’ll answer in kind.”

He grabbed the bottom of his bag, yanked it forward, and flung it wide. Books scattered under the central dome, each landing open to a clipped‑in page—none at random.

Martisa lifted her rod, but Boen loosed a crystal at the same instant, knocking her rod aside. The spell had already been cast, though, and skeletal knights began charging toward the central hall.

like an unseen wind.

The heart sings

with feelings that cannot be spoken.

The candle dances

as though swimming through the dark…”

Murmuring the chant, Admoel traced a magic circle on the floor with a white strand of magic thread from his staff. The moment it closed, he struck the circle’s center with his staff.

now answer me.”

At first, there was only a low woooom—a strange resonance. It grew, shaking the air until the vibration hammered their skin before it crashed upon them as a roar so massive they could no longer stand.

Admoel’s voice barely reached Ethan and Boen. “You fledglings, over here! Now!”

They lunged to his side just as Ethan glimpsed darkness rolling down from the sky—no, it was the Undying Church’s sanctuary collapsing behind them. Martisa screamed something, and the necromancers broke song and fled.

When the skull‑splitting din subsided, Ethan, Boen, and Admoel rose amid the rubble.

Dusting himself off, Admoel grinned. “Well? An old warhorse still has some worth, eh?”

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