WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Wizard's Memoir ◈
Chapter 33: Holy Relic
──────
Neither side had expected this turn of events.
The three demons and one dark elf froze at the sudden arrival of a party of humans, a halfling, and a mule.
“Why...”
“How?”
Both sides spoke at almost the same time. Then both fell silent. They needed time to understand and accept the situation. The other side needed rather more of it.
“Didn't we raise the first level's danger to the maximum?”
“...We did.”
“And they broke through it?”
Their tone suggested they could control the dungeon. It was hard to believe. Of course, one of the adventurers had more important concerns than understanding.
“No number of lousy zombies could stop us!”
Dahlia showed off that familiar bravado. They had only run for their lives and shaken off the pursuit with their tactical weapon, Etran, but the halfling sounded perfectly confident. The others seemed to know what halflings were like and barely reacted.
“What resourceful adventurers.”
Olivia stepped forward. These weren't races humans were friendly with, but they were still intelligent beings. That meant they could try talking before stabbing them with swords and burning them with magic.
“What are you doing here? Are you after treasure?”
“Treasure?”
It was a natural question for an adventurer, but the demon warrior reacted as though it were absurd. Etran caught that brief reaction.
“Yes. You could call it treasure.”
“Then we'll have to divide the shares according to Guild rules. If you're caught hiding anything to sneak it out, you'll be expelled from the Guild... Hmm. You're not Guild members, but you'll still have to face an appropriate penalty...”
“Olivia. Olivia.”
Etran stopped the warrior, who hadn't quite grasped the situation. But the demons were already laughing.
“Do we have any reason to follow Guild rules?”
“Uh... Well, no, but...”
They seemed to be the butt of the joke, but laughter meant the mood wasn't bad. With luck, they might settle this without any bloodshed.
With luck.
Things rarely went that smoothly in this world. Especially when you made your living by the sword.
“That blade...!”
The dark elf gave a sharp cry. There were plenty of blades here, but only one worth singling out. Dahlia glanced at the shotel in their hand, then at the dark elf.
“Oops.”
@
They had suspected it from the start.
The northern margrave's murder and the sudden increase in zombies in the underground cemetery had happened around the same time. There had been a dark elf there, and there was a dark elf here. They might not know the goal, but they could understand the intent. These people weren't doing anything good for humans.
“You'll pay for that!”
The dark elf drew a bow from a case at their waist. Though small, it was an M-shaped composite bow, a powerful weapon far beyond a self bow.
“Mommy!”
Ever the dutiful child, Dahlia screamed for their mother, but didn't run. They knew the safest place was beside their companions. Olivia raised the round shield and stepped in front. Clang!
An unusual crescent-shaped arrowhead bounced off the shield. It was meant to cut undead, so its piercing power was weak. The adventurers, on the other hand, were experts in war. Rolf fired back almost by reflex. Thwang!
The crossbow was a weapon of war, and its quarrel had an awl-shaped head. Designed for maximum penetration, it was deadly to living creatures. The dark elf's pupils grew about three times wider.
But the other side had a tanker too. Thud!
The demon warrior blocked the quarrel with a tower shield called a scutum. Its design looked like something a soldier of the ancient kingdom might have used, and it was so sturdy that the quarrel failed to pierce it at all.
“So it comes to this after all.”
Now that they had tried to kill each other, a fight was unavoidable.
The demon warrior drew a sword, and the demon Wizard began casting while tapping a staff against the ground. It was an outdated method. Etran snapped their fingers and drew a magic circle with their magic rings. Compared with staff magic, it activated like lightning.
“Lux sagitta!”
Etran copied the magic circle into sixteen and fired a volley at the greatest threat, the demon Wizard.
The demon warrior tried to block the arrows with the shield again, but they weren't called Homing Arrows for nothing. They swerved up, down, left, and right, moving into blind spots.
But the most dangerous enemy wasn't the warrior, the archer, or the Wizard. The demon woman at the very back waved a strange silk-wrapped rod through the air.
“Ancestors, grant us your protection!”
On closer inspection, it wasn't a rod but a symbolic object, a totem. Translucent souls came rushing from every direction and began blocking the Homing Arrows.
“A Sorcerer too?!”
If ranged attacks couldn't settle things, they would have to fight at close quarters. Fimmel, the axe warrior, roared like a bear and charged.
“It's four against six!”
Ash lowered their head sadly. Even without their four-legged friend, they still had the advantage in numbers. That was something to be hopeful about.
“Vocatio.”
The demon Wizard finished casting. The magic circle drawn on the floor shone brightly. Etran, who knew the ancient language, warned everyone.
“It's summoning magic!”
They had underestimated the caster for being a demon, but this was advanced magic. That level of skill would put the demon on par with a distinguished Wizard at a magic college.
“What are they summoning...”
“Bard, a wind servant!”
Something suddenly struck the charging axe warrior. Thankfully, Fimmel blocked it with those bizarre targes worn on both arms, but the impact was strong enough to lift the warrior off the ground.
Then a blue, ten-foot-tall monster appeared, standing proudly with its arms crossed. Its head was absurdly large compared with its body, and swirling wind took the place of its two legs.
“You said the theory of the elements was wrong!”
“That's a magical creature, nothing to do with spirits... Watch out!”
The wind servant glided forward and swung a fist. The axe warrior swung a two-handed axe to meet it, but couldn't cut the wind. The blade passed uselessly through empty air, and the second fist struck home.
“Olivia, please help!”
“What? Even I can't handle a monster like...”
“No. Not the wind servant.”
Etran stared at the demon warrior. That tanker was protecting the artillery with a large rectangular shield.
The problem was that Olivia was a tanker too. Olivia glanced at the party members under that protection. Wesley, the archer, fiddled with an arrow's fletching and nodded.
“We'll be fine.”
They had to use their four-against-six advantage. Etran and the Sorcerer had canceled each other out, as had Fimmel and the Wizard. The right move was to have the shield warriors face each other and the archers face each other, then overwhelm the enemy with numbers. Someone might get hurt in the process, but if they hesitated, they would lose their numerical advantage. Now was the time to take risks.
“Good luck! Don't die!”
Olivia raised the shield and charged. The dark elf quickly drew the bowstring, seizing the opening. But there was an archer on this side too. The longbow's long arrow and the composite bow's short one crossed in the air, each grazing its target.
“Guh...!”
“Hng!”
At the same moment, the two shield warriors collided. The round shield and the rectangular shield slammed together with a powerful shock wave. Neither side backed away, turning it into a contest of strength at point-blank range.
Race and sex, or rather, size and weight, put Olivia at a serious disadvantage. The momentum from the long charge pushed the demon back a couple of steps, but soon Olivia was being driven backward instead.
“Nnnngh!”
“Hrrrrm!”
The Sorcerer, a totem mage, sent souls to help the warrior of her own race. This time, however, Etran intercepted every one with Homing Arrows.
The Sorcerer's expression twisted. Apparently, she had never faced magical arrows fired in rapid succession from multiple magic circles. This was the price of failing to realize that the youngest boy was the most dangerous member of the human party.
“Rolf!”
Having finished reloading, Rolf aimed at the unprotected Wizard and squeezed the trigger. The demon warrior, who had been pushing Olivia back, hurried into position to protect the Wizard. That let Olivia go on the offensive, but the battle as a whole remained unsettled.
“Honestly, you'd be lost without me!”
Even in all this tension, there was something they mustn't forget. This fight wasn't four against five. It was four against six.
While no one was paying attention, the halfling seeker had circled around behind the demon party. The target was the Sorcerer, who was gathering souls with sweeps of her totem.
“Nobody move!”
Dahlia pressed the shotel against the Sorcerer's throat and shouted. The demons knew very well how sharp that blade was. Every living member of every race stopped moving.
“Gah!”
The wind servant, which was neither alive nor a member of any race, was an exception. The axe warrior finally took a clean hit and rolled across the floor. Dahlia shouted in alarm.
“Get rid of that monster too! Or I'll kill this woman!”
The Wizard wasn't foolish enough to dismiss the servant. Still, the caster couldn't let a party member die, so the creature was called back instead. The human archer, the dark elf archer, the human axe warrior, and the demon Sorcerer were now out of the fight.
Etran increased his Homing Arrow magic circles to thirty and surrounded the demon warrior and demon Wizard. With the Sorcerer's spirit magic sealed off, they had no way to stop his spells.
“...Very resourceful indeed.”
The demon warrior muttered while looking at the magic circles packed tightly around them.
The warrior, archer, and crossbow wielder were all highly skilled, but the mage was the most astonishing. The demon had never expected a young Mage to unleash enough insane firepower to hold his own against spirit sorcery, especially sorcery strengthened by being used in a cemetery.
“What do you intend to do now?”
The demon warrior set the shield on the floor and asked. Even then, it was so large that it reached the warrior's chest. Considering the demon man's build, it really was an enormous shield.
“Since you haven't killed my friend, I assume you're willing to negotiate?”
The demon warrior glanced at the Sorcerer. Dahlia hesitated, flustered. There was no way the halfling had thought that far ahead. They had probably only been thinking about stopping the magic.
Still, the result wasn't bad. Beneath the brilliant magic circles, Olivia pointed the mace at the demon.
“We've won. What is there to negotiate?”
“If we keep fighting, at least two of you will be coming with us.”
Etran looked from the archer who had taken an arrow to the axe warrior who had taken a blow from the wind(?). As it happened, both belonged to Fimmel's party. In other words, if they hardened their hearts and sacrificed those two, Olivia's party would suffer no losses...
“If you want to negotiate, you need something to offer.”
Olivia spoke coldly. Despite the tone, the words meant that negotiation was the preferred option, if possible. The demon warrior glanced at the dark elf, whose blood was beginning to pool on the floor, and didn't waste time.
“I'll tell you where to find what you're looking for.”
“What are we looking... Ah?”
Olivia was wondering whether they had been looking for anything when something suddenly came to mind.
“The Hero's holy relic?”
The Guild commission was still valid. Just reporting the relic's location would earn them a hundred thousand dena. If they recovered it themselves, they might negotiate three times that amount. No, perhaps even ten times.
“You tried to kill my friend, and all you're offering is...”
The friend who had nearly died shook their head fiercely. What a generous race, never letting a mere grudge stand in the way of greed.
“...A mere holy relic will be plenty. Indeed.”
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
