WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Magic-Eating Wizard ◈

Chapter 2: Toward the World Beyond the Alley

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Facing death was an everyday occurrence on Elmin Street.

People starved to death, froze to death, or were beaten to death by guns, knives, or bare fists.

Haren had seen countless deaths like that. More than once, he had faced those same dangers himself.

But what stood before him now was unlike any of them.

It was death by a method whose principles he could not even begin to guess at, and therefore could neither stop nor escape...

Haren forced strength into his trembling legs and remained standing. Cardin, who had been watching him, closed his eyes, then opened them again.

His snake-like pupils had returned to normal. Cardin pulled out several banknotes and held them out.

“Take these. This is payment for guiding me here.”

There were ten twenty-rant notes.

It was a huge sum, equal to several months’ wages for a day laborer, but Haren was not happy at all.

It would mean nothing if he died here.

Haren gathered up the money, tried to keep his voice from shaking, and carefully asked, “It looks like you found the person you were looking for. May I leave now? I have an urgent appointment.”

“That would be a little difficult. I still have one thing to do with you. Wait until I am done speaking with young Kishasha.”

As Cardin turned, the large boy cried out through foaming lips as if having a seizure.

“I-I’m sorry! I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry! Really! Please spare me! I’ll do anything!”

“Kill you? Why would I? I have no intention of killing you, young Kishasha. I came to take you as my disciple.”

Cardin smiled kindly.

Kishasha’s face, streaked with tears and snot, filled with confusion.

A disciple? At a time like this?

“A disciple...?”

“It would take too long to explain properly, but I have an enemy I cannot easily face alone. I am raising talented children to help me. You are one of them. Are you interested?”

Kishasha remembered how the old wizard had deflected a bullet without lifting a finger, then killed the gangsters.

If he could gain such powerful magic...

For a moment, Kishasha imagined ruling the back alleys. Then he realized something and spoke in a frightened voice.

“B-but I heard becoming a wizard is dangerous. That you can die.”

“Usually, yes. But those who have lived as long as I have possess many ways around such things. For example... by passing the risk onto someone else.”

The moment Cardin turned his head after saying that, Haren was already running toward the mouth of the alley.

Only an idiot would fail to understand that the “someone else” Cardin meant was him.

“Urgh!”

But his escape was useless. With a light flick of Cardin’s finger, Haren was dragged back.

An invisible rope wrapped around his waist. No matter how hard he struggled or pounded at it, it would not budge.

“I’m sorry it came to this, young Haren. Sacrifices are best when they are around the same age, but the gunshots scared off all the useful children. At my age, my knees ache too much to run around looking for new ones.”

Cardin’s voice remained soft and refined.

It was hard to believe it belonged to someone who had just murdered four people.

After struggling until he was panting, Haren spoke.

“Sir.”

“Yes?”

“I’m fine with being used as a sacrifice, but could you stand farther away... Your breath is awful.”

Silence fell over the back alley.

Kishasha stared wide-eyed, wearing an expression that seemed to say, Is this bastard insane?

Of course, Haren had not gone mad from fear.

The old wizard was clearly the sort of villain who had left conscience and pity in his mother’s womb. Begging meaninglessly for mercy would be useless. It was a gamble. Haren hoped to provoke Cardin into leaving an opening.

His arms were still free. If Cardin came close enough to slap him, Haren might get a chance to stab him with the knife hidden in his clothes...

Of course, it would all be pointless if Kadin used that bizarre magic to kill him. Still, trying something was better than sitting still and waiting for death.

“Is that so? My apologies. I’ll change the toothpaste I use from now on.”

Instead of getting angry, Cardin snorted with laughter and casually waved a hand through the air.

The blood spilled by the dead gangsters gathered together, drawing a large circle and an impossibly intricate pattern on the alley floor.

Once the blood magic circle was complete, Cardin ordered Kishasha, “If you wish to follow my will, stand here.”

“Y-yes! Of course, Master!”

How could Kishasha dare disobey?

Kishasha stepped onto one side of the circle, then glanced at Haren, who had been forcibly placed across from him.

Serves you right, arrogant bastard.

Kishasha had always hated Haren.

They were both trash from the slums, yet Haren acted like some noble, as though he alone were better than everyone else. Kishasha also hated how Haren groveled before people from the shopping district and outsiders, and how he had monopolized the attention of the girl Kishasha liked.

Most of all, Kishasha could not stand that Haren was not afraid of him.

Kishasha ruled over children their age like an all-powerful tyrant. Haren was difficult to touch because he could fight well and had a decent reputation, but otherwise Kishasha would have beaten him to death long ago.

[“□■■■, □□□■□, ■□■■□----”]

Cardin’s chant echoed strangely from deep in his throat, as though several people were speaking at once.

The words were in a language Haren could not even guess at. As they rang through the alley, the blood forming the magic circle began to boil.

Damn it, I can’t get free...

Sensing that something was wrong, Haren twisted his whole body again, trying to escape. The invisible rope still bound him tightly.

After several seconds, Cardin stopped chanting, took out a glass bottle filled with scarlet potion, and handed it to Kishasha.

“Here. Drink.”

Kishasha hesitated briefly, then gulped it down.

The instant he did, a line of blood-red light stretched out beneath his feet.

When it reached Haren, he doubled over as if punched in the stomach.

Ghk...!

Instead of a scream, only a sound like air being squeezed from his throat escaped.

An unknown heat rose from deep within his body and raced through his veins.

It burned his muscles and flesh, dried out his marrow, and roasted his organs one by one. The sensation was horrifyingly vivid.

When the heat reached his head, agonizing pain swept through him as if his brain were boiling. Haren rolled on the ground, eyes rolling back.

“Gah, aaah, aaaaaah!”

Though the restraints had somehow vanished, running never even crossed his mind.

He could only clutch his head with both hands, pressing down as though trying to crush it, desperately trying to end the pain.

If someone could stop it, Haren felt he could pay any price.

Would death be easier?

The moment that thought came to him, the boiling pain in his head calmed for a moment.

The word death had brought back memories from a past he had once buried.

I can’t die... Never.

Haren knew.

No matter how terrible the pain was, it was still better than death.

* * *

When Haren’s first life ended, neither heaven nor hell waited.

There was nothing after death.

There were no angels or demons, no grim reapers or kings of the underworld, not even ghosts.

There was only an endless prison of time, where no sensation could be felt, yet the self remained painfully clear...

The only thing Haren could do there was revisit memories of a previous life that had never been particularly happy.

Had it been decades? Centuries? He remembered the past again and again until it faded like old color.

Please kill me.

At some point, he stopped even remembering and began muttering those words endlessly.

The blank time, filled with nothing, was so terrible that it made him want to feel even the pain of death again.

So when Haren finally received a new life after an infinitely long time, only one thought came first.

I never want to die again.

I never want to return to that horrible prison of nothingness.

“Uuugh!”

With burning agony throughout his body, Haren’s consciousness returned from the past to the present.

Even through the pain that felt as if it were burning him alive, Haren realized a strange new sense had awakened.

He did not know it was Spirit Sense, the ability wizards used to observe their inner worlds, but instinctively, using it was not difficult.

The first thing Haren saw after turning his awareness inward was a translucent Fire Lizard.

It was wrapped around a scarlet mass of light in his inner world, gnawing at it. The heat and pain flooding his body seemed to come from there.

Then was that scarlet mass of light his soul, or something similar?

Before Haren could think further, he noticed something strange.

Like a Russian matryoshka doll, another mass of light lay within the first one.

What is this...?

The instant Haren focused on and moved the inner light, the heat burning his body flowed into it, and the pain lessened.

More precisely, the area that felt pain had grown wider, but its intensity had fallen.

Perhaps it was like saying that putting an arm into sixty-degree water hurt less than putting a hand into boiling water.

“Hmm?”

For the first time, Cardin’s eyes widened at the sight of Haren gradually calming down.

A moment later, Haren regained enough strength to rise, breathing heavily.

At the same time, a desperate scream sounded beside him.

“Gyaaaah!”

Kishasha, who had been standing there perfectly fine moments earlier, suddenly rolled across the ground with his eyes rolled back.

Just by looking, Haren could tell Kishasha was in too much pain even to scream properly.

Haren had been exactly the same moments ago.

Cardin watched them both and muttered in disbelief, “This is troublesome! I never expected this to happen.”

“What... happened...?”

It was less a real question than words spilling from a brain half-paralyzed by pain.

But Kadin seemed to take it as a question and explained in an even tone.

“The curse that transfers the potion’s corruption has rebounded. You succeeded in enduring it. This curse was designed so that someone must pay the price.”

Kishasha’s body writhed like a worm. Orange scales sprouted across it, while his bones twisted grotesquely.

The sight was so horrible that it was hard to call him human.

Had Haren looked like that moments ago?

He checked himself. Thankfully, no part of him seemed to have changed in that way.

Soon, Kishasha stopped moving. Grayish brain matter flowed from his ears.

At that moment, Haren felt an unknown power surge up from inside.

“Ah...”

Unlike before, when it had felt only like dreadful heat, this power filled his entire body with immense vitality.

The pleasure flooding through a brain worn raw by the earlier agony felt many times more exquisite.

What was this mysterious power?

Before Haren could wonder, his mind, numbed by the rapid shifts between pain and pleasure, gave an instinctive order.

Burn the wrinkled face of the old wizard who had inflicted that terrible pain on him.

Burn him? How?

The moment Haren asked himself that, a growling sound echoed from within his throat.

Instinctively, Haren understood it was the ability of the Fire Lizard that had tainted him moments ago.

Suuup-

As Haren inhaled, the power within immediately changed into heat and gathered in his mouth.

Then the heat became a violent blast of flame like a flamethrower, swallowing the motionless Cardin.

Die!

The flames were hot enough to burn an ordinary person to ashes in an instant, but the elderly wizard stood in them without changing expression.

Cardin even smiled at Haren with ease.

When the flames died down, Cardin asked leisurely, “Have you finished venting your anger?”

“...Yes.”

The excitement vanished as Haren realized the overwhelming gap between them, like being splashed with cold water while drunk.

Thinking about it, attacking immediately after gaining magic was incredibly foolish.

Would a wizard who could deflect bullets really be hurt by the attack of a novice who had just awakened, the equivalent of a level-one character in an RPG?

Fortunately, Cardin did not seem particularly angry about it.

Perhaps that was the ease born from an overwhelming difference in strength.

“You’re polite again. I preferred you when you were being insolent.”

“If you want, I can insult you as much as you like. That must be your preference. Do you also enjoy being hit?”

“Regrettably, no. If I had to choose, I much prefer doing the hitting!”

Cardin laughed heartily, then suddenly grew serious.

“I have one question. How did you digest the Fire Lizard Potion?”

The moment Haren heard the question, his mind began calculating furiously.

Should he reveal what had happened in his inner world?

Perhaps this unusual trait would interest Cardin enough to keep him alive. Or perhaps, once Cardin’s curiosity was satisfied, he would lose interest and kill Haren...

If he lacked the information to judge properly, guessing was best.

Hesitating would make Cardin doubt him. A wrong answer was better than a late one.

“How did I do it... I can only say I screamed and endured.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Cardin stared at Haren with an unreadable expression, then nodded.

“If you say so, then that must be it. One truly does live long enough to see everything. I never thought this ritual would fail. I’d like to study this seriously. Will you become my disciple?”

“What if I say no?”

“Then, regrettably, you’ll have to die. The potion inside you was rather expensive, and there is no way to retrieve it while you’re alive.”

Before Cardin had even finished speaking, Haren threw himself flat before him.

“Please take care of me, Master!”

What Haren really wanted was to ask who had said he wanted to drink that thing.

But if he could not win, he had no choice but to bow for now.

Of course, once he got out of here, Haren planned to report that damned murderer to the police somehow.

An elderly wizard wandering alone through back alleys could not possibly be the world’s strongest wizard, powerful enough to shake an entire nation. A skilled officer who handled criminal wizards, the so-called dark mages, should be able to take Kadin down.

As if Cardin had read those thoughts, he suddenly raised an index finger and tapped Haren just above the solar plexus.

“Urgh.”

A stabbing pain ran through him, and something like a red tattoo appeared where Kadin had touched.

When Haren looked up after checking it, Cardin was using magic to return the blood from the circle to where it had been before.

“This is...?”

“The Mark of Subordination. No matter where you are or what you are doing, I can burst your heart whenever I wish. Follow me.”

Cardin spoke those terrifying words as casually as if discussing lunch, then immediately began walking.

Haren followed, staring at the back of Cardin’s head as he thought.

Is this real?

With his limited magical knowledge, Haren could not tell whether Cardin truly could crush his heart as easily as pressing a button on a remote.

If Cardin really did raise him as a disciple, Haren could gain the knowledge needed to judge later.

Though it seemed more likely that he would be treated as an experiment.

As they walked through the quiet street, Haren asked with false concern, “You killed five people. Won’t the police come after you? I heard magical murder is a serious crime.”

“Magical murder? Those gangsters died because they mixed poisonous substances into their alcohol. Young Kishasha failed while attempting to awaken magical power through an illegal potion.”

Cardin’s shameless answer left Haren speechless for a moment.

Come to think of it, every dead gangster had bled from every opening without a single visible wound.

Kishasha had also died from the side effects of a drug meant to awaken magical power, so it would not look like murder.

More than anything, considering that bodies turning up on Elmin Street was nothing new, the deaths would probably be buried without even a proper investigation.

Did Cardin think of even that?

If so, Cardin was far more cunning than Haren had thought.

As they left the alley, lost in thought, Haren’s face stiffened at the sight of someone approaching from ahead.

It was Kort, who had gone out earlier to find food.

“Are you okay, Haren? I heard there were gunshots from inside! And who’s this old person beside you?”

Kort must have heard about the shooting and come looking, worried about Haren, who had been inside reading the newspaper.

Haren’s gaze flicked between Kort and Cardin.

If he could somehow hint that Kort should report this to the police...

After a brief moment of thought, Haren grinned and shook his head.

“This person said there was someone inside they were looking for, so I showed the way. Then we suddenly heard gunfire, so we hid together and only just came out.”

“What? That’s all it was?”

“Yeah.”

The police were unlikely to take a report from an orphan of Elmin Street seriously.

At most, a few ordinary officers armed with guns would come. Considering Cardin’s power, it would only create more meaningless victims.

More than anything, if Kort failed to act calm and showed fear, Cardin would surely act without hesitation.

Haren did not want to put a friend who had saved his life, and whose life Haren had saved in return, in danger for his own safety.

“Then I’ll walk this person out.”

“See you later! Bring Luksan and Abeka tonight, and let’s play this together.”

Kort made a gesture suggesting a card game.

Haren answered with a grin.

It was his own way of saying goodbye, because he might never see them again.

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