[V11C8] Even if There is No One to Praise Me
Translated by Jodas 11: Envoy of the AbyssThe day his fang was stolen still remained fresh in Finn’s mind.
By human reckoning, it was somewhere around eight years ago. Humans came knocking to a forest near the Crystal Territory, Wedge Tower mages on an extermination mission.
The Extermination Office’s mages went around killing one Monster after another, and before long they felled one of Finn’s brothers.
‘How dare they, those foolish humans! Those weaklings!’ Boiling with rage, the Werewolves moved to take their revenge.
However, Finn was so scared he couldn’t help himself. Despite everything he had been taught about his pride as a Werewolf and the way of battle; he felt there was no chance that he, the smallest of his brothers, would stand a chance.
But he could not just run away. Finn was already of the age where he had to join in on all hunts.
Since Finn had yet to catch any prey on all his hunts so far, his brothers had stern words for him. “This time it’s on you to show your pride as a Werewolf,” they said.
So Finn made his way to the hunting grounds and faced the human’s whip. A single touch from that lightning mana-infused whip sent convulsions through his whole body.
“Gyauuuu… urgh… Gah, gahhh…!”
The whip-wielding human looked down at Finn as he drooled and convulsed on the ground.
“Perfect. You know, I hear the materials you get are way better for imbuing mana if you extract them while the source is still alive.”
The man pried open Finn’s gritted teeth and brandished a knife.
He felt a piercing pain, followed by the taste of blood seeping through his mouth. The only thing he remembered vividly was feeling like he was about to choke on all that blood.
According to his brothers, apparently the human had ripped out Finn’s fang. Just as the man was standing there debating whether to pull out his other fang or to skin him alive, his brothers came running and drove the human away.
Thanks to them, Finn made it out with his life, but his fellow Werewolves treated him coldly from then on.
A fang was a Werewolf’s pride. A stolen fang meant a stolen pride. Furthermore, to live on after having one’s fang stolen meant to live on in shame.
If his brothers’ attitudes towards him were cold to begin with, their attitudes only got more intense now that Finn had lost his fang.
—You’re useless! Spineless! You’re embarrassing us just by being alive!
Until Finn was able to take back his fang with his own strength, there would be no place for him among the pack.
But each mage at the Wedge Tower was a formidable foe. On top of that, they wouldn’t always hang around within reach of the Crystal Territory. Once their expedition was finished, they would head right back to the Wedge Tower. Finn, who couldn’t leave the Crystal Territory, had no way of chasing after them.
He would live out the rest of his life shunned by his kin, denied his share of the food, and ridiculed as a living shame. Finn naturally thought there was no other way.
And yet one day, a servant of the King of Monsters visited from deep within the Crystal Territory. Calling himself the ‘Chancellor,’ this man made a suggestion to Finn. He wanted him to impale himself with one of those Crystal Rivets and sneak in to the Wedge Tower.
According to the Chancellor, the King of Monsters had laid a plan to take over the Wedge Tower and destroy the Western Wall. In doing so, they would fulfill the desperate pleas of all Monsters.
And he was asked to play a vital role in this plan. He, Finn, the useless Werewolf who lost his pride.
If he took part in the plan to liberate all Monsters, no one would ever call Finn useless again.
And, if he took his fang back from that mage while he was at the Wedge Tower, then Finn would completely regain his pride!
“Give me back my faaaaaanggg!!”
The area beyond the Wedge Tower’s northern wall was mired in chaos.
Saint Helena had activated ‘Eurydice, the Cackling Foam,’ and it wiped out Monsters one after another.
However, Finn knew how it worked. That Ancient Magical Artifact prioritized targeting strong mana presences. As weak as he was, Finn knew he was unlikely to be targeted.
Dammer smirked and lifted his whip high. Immediately, Finn leapt to use a nearby tree as a shield.
He’d watched the Extermination Office’s training enough times to know. Even if Dammer swings his arm straight down, subtle movements in his wrist can send the whip snapping every which way. And since the whip is imbued with lightning magic, even a glancing blow from the whip would be enough to cause some serious damage.
“If it isn’t that weak little wolf from back then! This time I’ll rip off your pelt for sure!”
Finn howled. He howled as a werewolf should, in a way humans could not. His message was clear, with all the murderous hostility he could muster: I’m going to rip your throat out.
He broke into a sprint. No longer did the Crystal Rivet in his foot bother him.
“Don’t hesitate to get in there.”
It was not any of his brothers that taught him that lesson. Those were the words of Sevil, on the eve of the magic battle as she reviewed their positioning and coordination.
As he ran, Finn’s mind recalled the words Sophie and Rose said to him when he was knocked out from the magic battle.
“Roswitha was telling the truth when she said Finn’s not a coward.”
“Finn, you were so cool, dude!”
And when dragging him into the Library Office, Roswitha had said:
“Weren’t you the one who stood in the way when Dammer was about to attack me? You were so brave during the magic battle, too! Why would you be intimidated by the Library Office of all things!?”
Strange. Even though Finn was in the middle of fighting to take back his honor as a Monster… For whatever reason, the only things that came to his mind were the words of humans.
Undaunted at the sight of Dammer’s whip, he kept up the attack. Even as his body tingled from contact with the whip, he would not stop.
He had withstood months with that Crystal Rivet implanted in the sole of his foot. A little tingle like this was nothing in comparison.
—He was not a coward!
“GAHHHHHH!!”
Finn howled, and Dammer took a short step back.
In that moment, Finn lashed out with his front paws.
After slashing across Dammer’s face, his claws sliced through a leather strap around his neck. Deftly, Finn pawed that strap towards himself and caught it in his mouth. At the other end of that strap dangled Finn’s stolen fang.
(I got it back… My pride…!)
Finn fought fearlessly. However, he wasn’t the only one to fight without fear of pain — Dammer was a mage with considerable combat experience himself.
“You… piece of shiiiiittt!!”
Dammer lunged at Finn with a mana-imbued shortsword. The mana-imbued blade cut deeply through the tendons of Finn’s front legs.
“GYAH… Oohh… Eugh…!”
He leapt and opened up the distance. As soon as he drew away from Dammer’s hands, the lightning magic imbued in his blade had disappeared. Most human magic sword techniques lost their effect as soon as they let go of it.
Finn pulled the shortsword out from his body. So long as he was in an area with high mana density, this kind of wound should heal up in no time.
Suddenly, he heard a screaming. Along with it, he heard a terribly crude laugh.
“KYAHAHAHA!! AHAHAHA! DIEDIEDIEDIE!! ALL OF YOU, DIE! KYAHAHAHA!!”
The bubble attacks from Saint Helena’s Ancient Magical Artifact ‘Eurydice, the Cackling Foam’ created a scene that could only be called a massacre. Monsters who came in contact with the bubbles blew apart one after another.
And while Helena took out those Monsters, Rikard Oks used his earth magic to bring down the walls. He controlled the mound of earth with finesse, getting the fragments of the wall out of the way to open a path for humans to enter.
“The north wall is down! Everyone, watch out for attacks from the crystals and advance! Poppo!”
Following Rikard’s strange call, Helena whined “You just can’t cure stupid… Ah, how sad.”
(The humans are getting in.)
Still, it wasn’t like they would make it all the way to the center right away.
The mana density inside the Wedge Tower’s campus was still high enough to be potentially fatal to humans.
But due to those rose vines sucking up the mana, they were now able to cross the outer walls and make their way inside. With time, the rose vines would absorb more and more, and the humans would be able to proceed further towards the center.
(For now, I need to get somewhere with denser mana…!)
Brushing past the remains of other Monsters, Finn made his way past the ruined wall and towards the center.
The sensation of having taken back his pride — his stolen fang — felt remarkably anticlimactic.
After how desperately he wanted to take it back, doing so didn’t give him any real sense of satisfaction or accomplishment.
(I tried hard; I was brave; and I won it back.)
And yet, his heart felt unfulfilled. Because none of the people he wanted to praise him — his fellow Apprentices — weren’t here to witness it.
(Even though I was the one who betrayed them…)
If he was being honest, he had already known. The only reason he wanted to take back his fang was because he wanted the others from the pack to acknowledge him.
And after being driven out from that pack, he pretended to be a human. He made human friends.
Julius taught him how to read.
Sophie recommended a book for him.
Ella thought up a way for even Finn to participate in the magic battle.
Gerald helped carry heavy things for him.
Sevil praised him in the wake of their magic battle.
Wren invited him to play cards.
Roswitha gifted him socks, saying all those things about the ‘Socks to Bed Party’
Rukiye gave him that beautifully-colored turban.
Rose taught him the rules of that card game.
Oliver let him try all those delicious foods.
None of the Apprentices ever laughed at Finn’s failures. They all listened to whatever Finn had to say as if it was only natural.
They ate meals together, played games together, fought in a magic battle together, and laughed together.
All of the memories they made felt so fresh, so fun, and so thrilling to him.
Tia, a Harpy and a Monster just like Finn, had said she wanted to learn to fly. That itself was probably no lie, but every time he saw Tia, Finn wondered ‘Is that really all you want?’
And every time he asked that question of Tia, he knew he could ask himself the same thing.
— Is taking back your fang really all you want?
And deep inside, Finn already knew the answer.
(Thank you for everything, Ms. Röhm… And I’m sorry.)
The Hundred-Eyes Witch Anneliese Röhm left him with a secret.
If he surrendered and offered that secret to the humans, Finn might just make it out of here alive.
However, Finn could not forgive himself for betraying his fellow Monsters and siding with humans.
Nor, for that matter, could he forgive himself for betraying his human friends and choosing to live on as a Monster.
(There is no more Apprentice Mage Finn Nohl anymore. All that’s left is Finn, a fence-sitter who’s betrayed both humans and Monsters. So, if nothing else, at least…)
Finn took the fang pendant out of his mouth and tied the strap around his neck. Then, he dove into the gardener’s hut before him and looked for a pen and paper.
He tore off a small shred of paper he found, wrote in his clumsy handwriting, then folded it up into a ball smaller than an acorn before wrapping it in oiled paper. This way it wouldn’t get wet — that was another lesson he had learned here at the Wedge Tower.
He took the ball wrapped in oiled paper and pressed it into the space where his missing tooth should have been. Then, Finn dashed outside.
Even with blood dripping from his face, Dammer’s will was unshaken.
“That weak little wolf… I’ll kill you! I’ll gouge out your fucking eyeballs…!!”
Dammer knew of no way to live other than in the Wedge Tower. He knew of no way to gain honor other than by making a name for himself killing Monsters.
And because he knew of no other way, he obsessed over his position within the Wedge Tower’s hierarchy.
“Ya know, we don’t really know any other life… so why don’t you just take it easy?”
So his childhood friend, Meine, had said.
That slobbish, worthless woman who had no talent for magic nor for medicine.
(The only reason you’re fine taking it easy is because you’re weak, you damn bitch. I’m different…)
There was an Ancient Magical Artifact designed for killing Monsters and nothing else, ‘Ignatius, the Slayer.’ He would find that and this time he would kill the Primordial Beast for sure.
He would kill the other Monsters too. Up to and including the King of Monsters.
And then, the title of the Wedge Tower’s Headmaster would be his.