WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Wizard's Memoir ◈
Chapter 6: Dessert
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Etran worked out what it would take to carry their packs on Floating Disc, then gave up.
The fatigue of carrying a pack and the fatigue of constantly maintaining a spell were different in kind, but about equal in degree. That alone was actually impressive. Magic was usually far more tiring. There was also the question of a wizard's proper role.
“Lux sagitta.”
A wizard was artillery. Firepower meant to rain down on enemies couldn't be spent elsewhere just for comfort.
Etran fired a hundred magical arrows from ten magic circles. There were fewer than last time, but it was still overkill. Three goblins sank into darkness without even knowing what had hit them. Gweeeek!
“Just as I thought...”
Olivia lowered her shield and muttered. Those words could mean several things. She was both admiring Etran's incredible magic and acknowledging that her fears had been justified.
“Goblins on the very first underground floor? Where's Dermi's party?”
If an adventuring party had passed through, the goblins should have been cleared out long ago. They might have missed each other because Olivia's party had come down the broken stairs, but even allowing for that, the dungeon didn't feel right.
“Shall we keep going?”
Dahlia asked while fastening a lantern at their waist. It was an exploration lantern with a cover that could be opened on just one side. When Etran tried to snap their fingers to make a Light Orb, Olivia stopped them.
“Can you still hear it?”
“Yeah. That way.”
Dahlia pointed into the darkness. Whether it was too far away or simply too quiet for human ears, Etran still couldn't hear anything.
“With things like this, we can't assume it's someone friendly. It might be more dangerous than we think. Are you still willing to go?”
Olivia asked for the others' agreement. What she meant was that she wanted to see this through.
“If it were just the two of us, we'd need to pull out... But we've got an amazing little wizard here, don't we?”
Dahlia patted Etran's backside. It was unavoidable physical contact given their difference in height, so Etran didn't take it the wrong way. The excessive expectations were more troubling.
“Will I be much help?”
“Who just wiped out those goblins? I'm putting my faith in my detection skills and your firepower!”
Olivia pointed at herself and asked, “What about me? Me?” but they ignored her.
Encouraged by their lively companions, Etran nodded. But that hastily assembled confidence didn't last long.
“I smell blood.”
At Dahlia's signal, Etran quickly cast Light Orb. A light far brighter than any oil wick lit up the underground corridor. It revealed a man lying face down with the back of his head smashed in.
“Ugh...”
Etran touched the fallen man and recoiled in surprise. Cold blood stained their hand. Even without knowing how to examine a corpse, Etran could tell he had been dead for several hours.
“Do you know him?”
“His name was Jay-something... He's the support specialist in Dermi's party.”
“A seeker?”
“A trap specialist.”
Olivia slung her shield over her shoulder and examined the body. She didn't know how to perform a postmortem either, but her combat experience helped her piece together what had happened.
“He was running from this direction toward that one. Then something struck him in the back of the head around here.”
“Was it a goblin?”
“Hard to say...”
Whatever their personality, Dermi was a skilled adventurer. The party members they had chosen were all capable in their own right. They weren't people who would fall to mere goblins in a public dungeon that had already been almost fully explored.
‘The fact that they left the body here...’
Etran looked in the direction the trap specialist, Jay-something, had fled from. Deep darkness stretched beyond even the Light Orb's reach. After a brief silence, Olivia spoke.
“Let's go.”
As Olivia remembered it, Dermi's party had four members. Besides Dermi, their warrior and leader, there had been a wizard and a crossbow user.
“Finding survivors comes first. There must be party members still alive.”
She wasn't very hopeful. Still, basic humanity wouldn't let her give up. After all, if she ever ended up in this situation, she would want someone to come for her.
Underground, distance, direction, and time were all hard to judge. On top of that, goblins appeared to throw stones whenever the party had almost forgotten about them. Olivia blocked the stones in time, so no one was hurt, but the constant tension wore them down.
How long had they wandered like that? Just as someone was about to suggest a rest, a heavy thud sent a vibration through the ground.
“Was that...?”
“Oh, you finally felt it?”
Dahlia clapped silently. The sheer dullness of human senses was astonishing.
“What on earth is that? Is someone hammering something?”
“It doesn't sound like they're striking metal.”
Whatever it was, they were getting close.
Olivia adjusted her pack and drew her mace and round shield close to her body. She hoped it was a distress signal from a surviving adventurer, but it was more likely to be the monster that had killed Jay-something.
After rounding two corners in the corridor and climbing over one heap of fallen rubble, they reached a small hall.
Olivia's party had no scholar, so they didn't know it, but long ago, when people had lived here, this had been the servants' dining hall. There was a fireplace connected to the surface and a small door leading to the kitchen.
There was also a huge monster, six feet tall, or about 180 centimeters.
“A hobgoblin!”
The name made it sound like a lesser version of a goblin, but it was actually an entirely separate species of monster.
It had a large body, long limbs, and five fingers and toes on each hand and foot. Its temperament, however, was much like a goblin's: savage and cruel.
“The dungeon's master?”
“It's the boss monster!”
It hardly mattered now, but they had also found the source of the noise. The hobgoblin had been pounding on the small kitchen door with a wooden mallet. It spotted Etran and the others and turned around.
Grrrrrr...!
“Get back!”
Olivia held her round shield close and stepped into the hobgoblin's path. Her decision was both quick and sound. The monster attacked at once, as though its motto were to strike first and win.
Crash!
Wood struck wood, yet the impact rang out like a falling lump of iron. The hobgoblin was tremendously strong. But Olivia, their tank, was no pushover either.
“You bastard!”
Clenching her teeth, Olivia pushed the hobgoblin back. Though smaller, she had the steadier stance. It was a victory for the fighting techniques humans had developed.
The hobgoblin lost its balance, swayed, and stumbled back a couple of steps. Olivia seized the opening and swung her mace at its lower body. It was a surer attack than aiming for its small, quick-moving head.
Thwack!
The six-sided iron head crushed the flesh of its thigh and jarred the bone beneath. The hobgoblin jumped with its peculiar cracking scream.
Olivia gave it no time to recover. She swung her mace with a series of Whoosh! Whoosh! sounds, striking its shoulder, side, and wrist in turn. The hobgoblin tried to fight back, but every attack was stopped by the round shield, which never strayed more than seven inches from her body.
With Light Tracery and a disc ready, Etran watched the decidedly one-sided duel. Olivia displayed one technique after another that hadn't been evident when she fought the short goblins. Etran knew nothing about swordsmanship, fighting with blunt weapons, or shield techniques and couldn't judge them precisely, but one thing was certain: these were properly trained skills.
Graaagh!
At last, the fierce struggle ended. Without help from either support or artillery, Olivia had brought the hobgoblin to its knees on her own.
“You damned monster!”
Caught up in the excitement of battle, she swore harshly. Etran couldn't exactly advise her to mind her manners. A little swearing hardly mattered when a young lady was smashing a mace down on a monster's skull, scattering blood and bits of brain.
“Did we win?”
“We did.”
Etran reassessed their leader's ability. She wasn't someone to dismiss just because she was a young female tank or the leader of a tiny party with only one other member. She was also good at analyzing a situation.
“This is strange.”
“What is?”
“This monster was vicious, but not enough to tear Dermi's party apart. That jerk's personality might be awful, but they've got the skills. If I could beat it, they should've stood a chance too. So why...?”
The answer came at once. Dahlia's small, pointed ears pricked up. Then the halfling suddenly rammed into Etran.
“Look out!”
“Ghk!”
Etran fell under the unexpected attack that wasn't really an attack. Dahlia had probably meant to shove them aside, but the difference in their builds had turned it into a precision strike. Still, anyone with a conscience would be grateful. Behind the fallen Etran and Dahlia, who lay on top of them, a wooden club swept past with a Whoosh!
“Th-there's more than one!”
A hobgoblin from the next room had caught the scent of battle and come over. No, hobgoblins, plural. Perhaps it wasn't battle they had smelled, but human meat.
With a little halfling for dessert.
“Aaah!”
A hobgoblin swung its club down at the wizard and seeker sprawled on the floor. Dahlia squeezed both eyes shut and screamed.
“Floaty discus!”
Etran held the halfling close and thrust one hand upward. It was too late to draw a magic circle, but calling over an active spell was still possible. Floating Disc flew over and blocked the club like a shield.
Claaang!
If it could carry objects, it could block attacks too. It consumed mana in proportion to the mass, or impulse, involved, but that was no problem for a “genius.”
Enraged, the hobgoblin brought its club down again and again. Etran divided the disc into several smaller ones and guarded them both from head to toe. Clang! Claang! Claaang! Ripples spread with each impact.
“Etran! Dahlia!”
Olivia finally rushed over and struck the hobgoblin with her shield. Wasn't energy mass times speed? The hobgoblin dropped its club and fell. It was a chance to finish the creature off, but things weren't that simple. Another hobgoblin thrust a sharp sword at her. Clang!
“That's...!”
A metal weapon with a sharpened blade. A human weapon. Olivia immediately recognized Dermi's prized katzbalger.
“You bastards!”
Anger rose within her, and at the same time, she grew cold. One more hobgoblin appeared, bringing their number to three. Including the one she had already killed, there were four in all.
Now she understood how Dermi's party had fallen. This time, Olivia's party might meet the same fate.
Unless they had an overwhelming, effective source of power.
“Lux sagitta.”
Etran murmured, almost in a whisper. A magic circle appeared right in front of a hobgoblin's nose. Confusion spread across the ugly monster's face. And it wasn't the only one. Magic circles appeared around the other hobgoblins too.
The halfling finally understood what was happening and raised their head. Etran spoke softly.
“You said I was the best artillery, didn't you?”
“Huh?”
Etran lit up the countless discs arranged around them. In truth, only a small fraction bore Homing Arrow's magic circle, but that didn't matter. Once the enemy was mentally overwhelmed, the trick was just an extra touch.
“I'll live up to that faith.”
The magic circles shone brightly, then breathed out in violent bursts. It was a breath of destruction that tore through hide and shattered bone.
The hobgoblins tried to flee, but the mass of discs trapped them. They stumbled about in confusion, tripping over discs and banging their heads against them. The result was satisfying and brutal.
A blood-red slaughter.
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