WeTried Translations

Translator: Abood

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◈ The Saviour Embarks on a Nameless Journey

Chapter 48: Core

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We stepped into the forest in the direction where the crystals had turned black.

When an auction was held, a market rose alongside it. Tents went up and people walked about, so the grass around the auction grounds was sparse, but the forest itself was still fairly thick.

Merchants and people who came to buy from nearby villages and towns tied their horses in the woods and parked their wagons there. Those who came to sell livestock let goats and sheep loose. Branches had been cleared, and the grass had been trampled or grazed down, so it was easier to walk here than in an ordinary forest.

“Now then, beyond that cluster of trees, perhaps?”

“So it would seem.”

I agreed with Marius and moved forward.

What we could see ahead was a troublesome-looking spot where trees stood close together and their branches intertwined. Nearby was another place with a clear line of sight, where the trees did not overlap. Unless one was searching for something, people naturally walked where it was easy to walk. A simple bit of guidance.

“Grandfather, I cannot seem to calm down.”

“This direction feels, how shall I put it, gloomy.”

“Yeah, I don’t really wanna go in there either.”

Alina and the others said as much.

“It is likely meant to keep people away. A weak spell has been cast.”

Marius said this.

...So there was one.

“It creates the same degree of aversion as seeing mud, rain dripping from a roof, or smelling something unpleasant. But because it is only that much, people often fall under it without noticing the spell itself. Well, some people truly do not care.”

I felt several gazes gather on my back.

Pya squirmed, but this was not my fault. I silently brushed aside the vines twining around the way, and we emerged into a slightly open space.

“Here, then.”

“Yes. But the presences are mingled... A monster, and another from the temple.”

For once, unusually of late, Marius frowned and wrinkled his brow.

“Even someone as inexperienced as I am can sense the presence when it is this dense. But why are there opposing presences here?”

Alina tilted her head and looked up at me.

“I can make a guess, but without seeing it, I cannot say for certain. What do you think is the cause, Alina?”

I returned the question to her, though this was a little unfair. I knew what had happened here in the past and had far more material for judgment.

Alina might not reach the answer, but she should try to gather many kinds of information so she could think it through.

Well, there was also a chance my own guess was wrong.

“They are canceling each other out, are they not? The presence is dense, but it is not spreading. It is staying in place...”

Perhaps hoping for confirmation, Io looked at Marius.

“There’s a presence, but nothing there.”

Tain placed a hand on his sword and looked around.

In that place, which gave the odd impression of being both bright and dark, there was nothing at all. Yet the presence was certainly dense in that space.

“At the very least, I can detect no traces nearby of any special spellwork.”

Marius opened his mouth after closing his eyes and listening carefully.

According to him, he listened to the traces of spells as sound. He must have been ringing the soundless bell in his sleeve. I remembered him saying something about reflected sound and this and that, but in the first place, no one but Marius could hear the bell.

The fact that he ignored Io’s question gave me the sense that, like me, he intended to make the two of them think. Knowing this man, there was no chance he had failed to notice.

“Now then, if this were a space spontaneously created by a monster, we ought to be able to enter...”

Marius tilted his head, seeming to think.

“We can enter such places?”

“Aye. The goddess divides through order, while the Demon King is a being who blurs and mixes.”

This time, I answered Alina’s question.

“The followers of evil are skilled at causing people to wander into places even when they create spaces different from the human world.”

“Like you can only get in at night?”

Tain asked Marius.

“Some monsters do choose the time when they hold the advantage. But this place’s presence is different to begin with.”

Marius sounded a little troubled.

“A place not made by a monster, and one we can’t enter. What do we do?”

“It is troublesome, but I suppose we have no choice but to wait for the monster to come out.”

I shrugged at Tain. We should have brought lunch.

“Pya.”

One cry from Pya. Then something that had not been before us appeared.

“Shinju-sama... I see. This was a space created by the goddess.”

“Shinju-sama, amazing.”

Against all expectation, Pya was receiving voices of praise from Io and Alina.

My gaze, though, stayed fixed on the monster in front of us.

Where there had been nothing a moment ago, a transparent crystal floated, and a monster held it in its arms. It was a shattered monster core, once black, now turned clear, with the broken pieces beginning to return to one another. It should originally have been a double-pointed crystal, but the lower portion remained shattered and had not yet reattached.

A space created by the goddess. More precisely, we were inside the power of the goddess, meant to purify the black crystal. When the black crystal became completely transparent, that power would dwell inside it, but until then, it drifted around the crystal.

Still clutching the crystal, the monster smiled with a broad, nasty grin.

“There are pieces missing.”

“They must be inside that monster.”

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