Tenshi Translations

Volume 2 Chapter 3 Part 1

 

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You can grab the PDF here.

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Shin and Schnee ran Indian file across the Plains and into the forest.
Detouring around the adventurers heading towards the Plains, they set a course straight for Tsuki no Hokora. Along the way, they came upon the base that had been left untouched, and retrieved everything, including the interception items. Apparently, Wilhelm and Rashia had decided to prioritize escaping. Which was not surprising, as Wilhelm would not have been foolish enough to waste time on the items in that situation, so everything was still where they had left it.
For Shin, leaving the items where they were would have been no loss at all, but then the place posed the danger of being utilized as a fort or fixed artillery battery, so the two of them took care to completely dismantle everything. There were traces of the interception magic having activated, which proved that several Skull Faces had actually been sacrificed to the contraption. As the base wasn’t that far removed from the Plains, several of them had made it all the way over here.

“Oh by the way, didn’t you accept some work? Are you done with that?”

Shin asked Schnee when he was almost done with collecting the items.

“I’m not completely done, but my role is pretty much over.”
“What is your role?”
“The safekeeping and redistribution of items. The current job involved an international unit formed by several countries, so I was assigned the role to prevent countries from stealing a march on the others.”
“...... Is it perhaps related to the uproar just now?”
“Of course.”
“Are you serious ......”

Shin sighed at how he had just stuck his nose into another large incident, unintended though it had been. Not knowing that it was something big enough for countries to make a concerted move against, he had impulsively went all out. He was regretting it a bit now, but hindsight was 20/20.
While asking Schnee for the full details behind the current situation, he wracked his mind trying to remember if there had been any eyewitnesses of the battle. After making conversational noises for a while, he finally concluded that to the best of his knowledge, there hadn’t been anyone else aside from Schnee who had been close enough. There were those knights and adventurers that he had helped out with the fireballs, but they should only be able to confirm the direction from which the fireballs had come from.

“Getting back on topic, don’t you have to go distribute those items? Since your role is over, it might be appropriate to head back to wherever their base of operations or meetup point is.”
“I’ll be fine for a while. Though I’m supposed to split everything fairly and evenly, if I start early then it’ll become a case of first-come-first-served. That’s why I’m waiting for all the squads to get back first. Considering the distance of deployment, it would take roughly a whole week for everyone to reconvene. There is not much need for me to hurry.”

Deciding to give up on the issue of the eyewitnesses, as there was nothing that he could do about it at this point, Shin asked Schnee about her schedule. If Schnee ran at full speed, she would arrive much earlier than the agreed upon time, so she could afford to spend this time with Shin.
Both Shin and Schnee had so much to ask each other about. While heading towards Tsuki no Hokora, the two of them continued filling each other in on their own current situations.

“I have a ton of stuff to ask you, so it might be better if you went first. It’s not like I’ve a whole lot to say anyways.”

In light of the amount of time that they have together, they decided that Shin would be the one to answer questions first. In actuality, Shin had been in this world less than a month, so there wasn’t much to talk about.

“Understood. In that case, please allow me to go straight into asking several things on my mind.”

Schnee asked Shin three things.

Firstly, where he had been up to now.
Secondly, why his battle power was so much higher.
Thirdly, what his plans are from now on.

She wanted him to go into detail for each and every question.

“Alright, let’s start with number one. Though you ask me where I’ve been up to now, to be honest, for me it’s been less than a month since I left for that last dungeon.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“As it sounds. You remember when everyone saw me off and I set off to defeat Origin, right?”
“Yes.”
“After that, I defeated Origin. Everything was supposed to have ended then, but there was this gigantic door in the boss room at the lowest level of【Gate of the Otherworld】, you see. It opened after Origin died.”

Explaining everything to Schnee brought his memories of that time to the surface. How the door that he had thought was just decoration had opened with a heavy, grinding sound, and the scene beyond it.

“The door ...... you say.”
“Yea. Then that’s where I lost consciousness. When I came to, I was lying in the middle of a really big meadow. After that, I went to Tsuki no Hokora and heard a bit about the current times. I was so surprised when I realized that more than 500 years had passed since my time! So in summary, I haven’t actually been anywhere these past 500 years.”
“I see, so that’s how it was.”

Schnee looked like she believed what Shin was saying. A look that spoke of a reassurance that had not been present during heir initial reunion came over her face.

“Schnee?”
“Fufu, it’s nothing.”
“Oooook then.”

Question marks were dancing above Shin’s head as to why Schnee was in a strangely good mood, but he didn’t want to pour water on her parade, so he decided to not press further.

“Well then, the next one. My battle power, or to be specific, my stats, have risen because of the Gifts that I received from defeating Origin.”
“Gifts, you say? What kind of Gifts are they?”
“There were three in total:【Limit Breaker】,【Accomplished One】, and【Liberator】. The boost to my stats is because of the first two. It was my first time coming across these Gifts, but have you perhaps any knowledge of them?”
“No, all three are Gifts that I have never heard of before. What effects do they have?”

Shin explained the Gifts succinctly and briefly.【Liberator】was not relevant to his stats, but he explained it as well, feeling that there was also some sort of significance to it.

“...... That sounds crazy.”
“I know right. When I first saw my stats I thought it was some kind of a joke.”

Shin understood completely the current feelings of the Schnee who had just interrupted him. If a Chosen One got their hands on even one of these Gifts, the power balance of the entire world would be destroyed.

“However, I don’t think there is much to worry about on that count.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the achievement requirements. Though monsters do exist in this world, there has never been the phenomenon of the exact same monster spawning in the exact same location. There will probably never be another Origin again, so it would be impossible for anyone else to defeat it. In addition, the dungeon that Master went to has completely disappeared.”
“I see. Then that would be impossible, you’re right.”

From Schnee’s point of view, after Shin had left for the dungeon but failed to return even after several days, all of Shin’s support characters had headed together to the dungeon themselves. However, when they reached the place, the place was completely barren, and there wasn’t even a single trace of anything having been there previously.
When they later decided to temporarily halt the search and returned to Tsuki no Hokora, they heard reports from other support characters of their own masters disappearing too, and realized that Shin most likely had been successful in clearing the dungeon. That led to the question why they themselves had not disappeared, as was the plan. They decided to split up to investigate. Some held out hope that the fact that they had not disappeared as proof that Shin might still be in this world.
However, the changes in the earth’s crust had thrown all of the continents into chaos and confusion, so they turned their efforts towards helping those in need. Gradually, with the exception of Schnee, who decided to remain at Tsuki no Hokora, the rest of the support characters split into two groups, one which decided to continue searching for Shin and the other which decided to go back home to help and protect their own race.
Somehow, Shin was able to visualize who went to which group.

“But then, wait a second. Does this mean that the Dusk of the Majesty did not occur right after me defeating Origin?”
“Master, considering where Tsuki no Hokora was placed at that time, it wasn’t strange at all that the information didn’t get to us immediately. Do you remember where we were?”
“...... True.”

Shin had noticed a strange time interval before the ruckus caused by the support characters, but as Schnee then pointed out, Tsuki no Hokora had been set up right next to a boss monster area in a remote region. As the support characters were incapable of using the Chat function, it was normal for some time to have passed before information made its way over.

“Thus, I don’t believe anyone else possesses the same Gifts that Master mentioned. But in the off chance that I’m wrong, please take care of them, Master.”
“Gonna shove it all on me, huh.”
“Naturally. If someone as strong as us came into possession of those Gifts, Master would be the only one who could stand a chance against them. Therefore, please allow us to leave it all to you if it ever happens.”
“Well, you do have a point.”

The greater a person’s original strength, the more effective doubling their stats would be.【Limit Breaker】aside, if a Chosen One with high stats got their hands on【Accomplished One】, even several Schnees working together might still not be enough to oppose them.
With all this said, with the achievement requirements being as impossible as they are and Shin being someone who had already maxed all his stats before the Gifts, Schnee did not believe that anyone strong enough to be a threat to the two of them would ever appear.

“By the way, Schnee.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Umm, the way you keep calling me ‘Master,’ can you change that somehow?”

Though it was completely unrelated to the conversation so far, it was something that was really bothering Shin. It was alright back during the game because there was a clear distinction of her being an NPC, but it was extremely embarrassing being addressed so in the current circumstances.

“What’s wrong with calling Master ‘Master’?”
“I mean, it’s not exactly a problem ...... OK yea it’s a problem. Schnee is someone pretty famous in this world, right? If someone like you calls me ‘Master,’ there will definitely be a huge commotion.”
“Mu, I see your point.”

Even Shin fully understood the influence of the name of Tsuki no Hokora. The reason for that was undoubtedly Schnee herself. If someone suddenly appears that she would revere as ‘Master’ appears, there’s no way it wouldn’t cause waves in the world.

“Right? I would like to avoid being the center of attention if possible. Therefore, please stop calling me ‘Master.’”
“But then what should I call you by?”
“Eh? Can’t you just call me by name like normal?”
“?! Th-That’s ......”

For some reason, Schnee was looking downward and squirming about while opening and closing her mouth silently. After a while, she looked like she had readied herself for something and raised her face to look straight at Shin.

“Th-Then ...... ‘Shin.’”
“Ye, yea.”

Schnee said it almost as a whisper. Her cheeks were a faint shade of pink, and her ears were completely red.
On Shin’s part, he was thinking “Eh, what is up with this reaction?!” while embarrassment filled him from head to toe.
Schnee’s reaction was something very commonly seen in manga and games. Shin was very familiar with this kind of situation, but his ability to handle it was a different issue altogether.
If one was being objective, this situation could be glossed over with a “Ah, this always happens, I know this,” but it was very hard to do that when it actually happens. It wasn’t that Shin didn’t have any experience with love, but he didn’t have so much of it to be unaffected by this.
In additional, Schnee’s expression had rarely changed back during the game, so this gesture of being so obviously embarrassed while looking at himself with upturned eyes and calling his name so softly was extremely, exceedingly, exceptionally ———— moe.

“Such ...... destructive power ......”
“Eh?”
“Ah, don’t mind me. Un, really, don’t mind me. So yea, let’s go with ‘Shin’ from now on.”
“Understood. From now on, I will be calling you by ‘Sh-Shin.’”

Schnee was trying really hard to act calm, but the blush in her cheeks and ears betrayed her. Being so familiar with her normal calm self, this sharp contrast was causing a very intense agony in Shin’s chest.

(So this is the famous ‘gap moe.’ I get it ...... because I am so familiar with her normal self, this is proving so much more powerful than when Selica-san does it.)

For a while afterwards, neither of them said anything, busy trying to calm themselves down. The one having the most trouble with it was Schnee, though.
After confirming at the corner of his eye that Schnee’s ears had returned to their normal color, Shin resumed the conversation from before.

“Ah, we kind of digressed quite a bit, shall we return to the questions from just now?”
“Yes, let’s. I apologize for showing you such an unsightly side of myself. I’m fine now.”

Shin felt that her voice was still a bit on the squeaky side, but he let it go in order to continue the conversation.

“So, I was pretty much done explaining about my battle strength. So, the last question. For now, I plan on just going to different places and prioritizing information gathering.”
“Information?”
“Yep, before I do anything else, I need to know more about this world first. I’m going to do some more research at the kingdom’s library, but I do also want to try going to one of those Holy Sites. Have you been to one yet, Schnee?”
“Yes. However, it was a shallow investigative mission, so I still don’t know what the center of it is like.”
“I see.”

He didn’t know if the key to returning to his former world laid inside those Holy Sites or not. The only way to make sure was to go there in person.

“Umm ...... Shin.”
“Nn?”

Schnee called out to Shin as he was thinking about going to Holy Sites. Slightly different from before, her voice was now a bit stiff.

“If you really do find the way ............ Are you really going to go back?”
“............ Yes, I am.”

He was silent for a while before finally answering. He had noticed how Schnee was, and had been pondering over how to best answer her, but covering it up here was not going to change anything. As long as the possibility existed, he did not intend on giving up.
There would be no meaning in giving a vague answer.
As for lying ...... there was no way he could lie to her.

“...... I see, yes. That makes sense, I suppose.”
“...... Sorry.”
“Please don’t be. From the way you were talking just now, I had already sort of realized that that is what you had decided.”

Schnee nodded with an understanding smile on her face. Though it greatly resembled the reassured look from just now, Shin felt a twinge of something being off.

“So, Schnee. How much do you remember from before, from back when this was still a game?”

Shin asked this to put his finger on the sense of unease. Based on several words that Schnee had used in the conversation just now, he kind of saw it coming.

“Everything.”
“Everything ...... ?”
“Yes. From when I first came into that place with you by my side. Starting from that time.”

All the way up to the current moment.

 

 

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