Queen's Blade Rebellion Illustrated Stories: Upheaval, chapter 6

Yep, I'm upping the ante. For the next while, weekly translations, yay!

So, in this chapter, taken from here, a new character appears.
Feel free to correct any mistakes, and enjoy!



Upheaval, chapter 6: Jungle

The southern jungle.
On the southern part of the continent, a dense jungle was in full leaf, many parts of it still unknown, where it was said that ancient relics and secret treasures hadn’t yet been found by anyone, and strange creatures lived.
"Gaoon…!"
Functioning without ever feeling tireness, the "Alchemy Android" Vante cut through the trackless path and kept going forward. After her, the figures of three people followed.
"Really noow, is there a secret weapon slumbering in a place like this, Yuit?"
The "Taimashi" Tarnyang had already asked that question many times over, yet she did it once more.
It could be said that friendship had blossomed after the end of the battle, and now she was getting quite familiar with the "Alchemy Strategist" Yuit.
"It’s unreasonable to ask the same thing time and time again, Tarnyang. It’s written in code on the scroll my mother left behind, so deciphering it is not easy…"
"So, you have a clue you don’t really understand, and you still lead people into a jungle like this?"
"Uh-oh, don’t start again… Besides, it’s the only clue we have, so we have to choice but to rely on it."
Looking at the pair quarreling, the "Taimashi" Sainyang sighed.
Currently, they were aiming at the ancient ruins, the "Calibara Ruins", that were said to be in the depths of that jungle.

---

Due to the attack by the Queen’s Army, Annelotte had turned into a demon and had gone missing.
But, neither Yuit nor anybody in the Rebel Army thought that Annelotte’s will had been defeated in the least.
So, what they had to do was to reinforce their military power even more by the time Annelotte returned to the war front, was what Yuit and the others thought.
And Yuit aimed at the "Mobile Fortress Bligh".
Formerly pursued by Yuit’s mother, who was once called the "Great Alchemist", it was the legacy of an ancient civilization.
Though it was a fortress, it moved on its own, and it was said to govern the battlefield.
Anyway, she had been an unreliable mother with an irresponsible nature, who would entrust her daughter to Vante and go on a journey. The only clue to the fortress Yuit had now was the suspicious scroll she was grasping tightly.
Sainyang’s divination sign had read "Good luck towards the south" and they had gone together, leaving for the southern jungle without waiting for Annelotte to rejoin them.
"So, have you made progress deciphering the scroll?"
"I’ve made progress, but not much… even if I’ve deciphered the code, its contents are like a riddle, so I’m stumped…"
"A riddle, huh… Sainyang, you like puzzles, maybe you’ll figure it out?"
"I, I don’t think you’re supposed to lump together puzzles with riddles…"
"Right, but still, we might find a clue, Yuit, let’s hear that puzzle."
"F, fine…"
Opening her mother’s notebook reluctanctly, Yuit read out loud to Tarnyang and Sainyang.
"The gate becomes the key, and the key becomes the gate."
"...."
"...."
"....Is that all?"
"R, Right."
"I see, I see… Okay, Sainyang, start solving it!"
"Eh, eeh! Is that all? Isn’t, isn’t there more?"
"The memo only has some scribbles besides that… "Child of the Peach Tree" and "Key <- Beast Cave?"… There’s much of the memo to worry about, but it barely seems connected at all…"
"There are many names like that… unless we meet a person familiar with the situation in this area, we won’t understand it…"
Said Sainyang, struggling to find a solution somehow with so few hints, and Yuit nodded in agreement.
"That’s why, we came to this jungle… inside here we could find a person from the tribe that lived here in the ancient times, the so-called "Calibara tribe", as the records state…"
"Ancient times..."
"They "lived"…?"
"Right. The records tell that the forest was taken by the "Wild Elves" as their residence and it became a war, and even though it was possibly destroyed…"
"Perhaps they might have survived, then?"
"The Calibara Tribe fell a long time before my mother was born, at the very least, but the descriptions in this scroll hint at my mother having contacted them. So, maybe... It’s quite logical for such a huge thing like Bligh to be hiding in this unexplored jungle!"
Left with a ray of hope, Yuit turned her eyes towards the jungle.
It was then that:
"Kyaaaaah!"
A scream that didn’t come from Yuit, Tarnyang, Sainyang or let alone Vante reached their ears.

"H, H, Help mee!"
Yuit and the others looked at the place they had heard the scream from, and it was a weird scene.
"W, what is… this…?"
Even Tarnyang who didn’t care about minor details, could only mutter in a daze.
"Ah! Th, there are people here, please, somehow… somehow, help mee!"
Wearing only a thin cloth, the girl, who was hanging upside down, turned towards Yuit and the others and screamed.
With the native dress of that place, the cloth barely hiding the tip of her chest, a jewel coiled around her waist as an ornament, and a decoration concealed between her legs that imitated the face of an elephant, the young girl was almost exposing her voluptuous body to the open air.
That girl had been caught and was now entangled in rope-like things with the thickness of a child’s arm.
"E, even if you say to help you…"
"Tarnyang, there! There’s some kind of animal!"
Sainyang pointed to the ground below the girl who was asking for help.
"What is that… a tiger?"
"A tiger… with, some kind of… tentacles, attached to it?"
It growled when Yuit and the others glared at it, and it certainly looked like a tiger.
But, a pair of tentacles grew on its back, with which it had lifted the young girl up in the air and entangled her.
"T, this is a tentacle tiger! It lifts up its prey and entangles it until it’s weak enough to be eaten… Ahyaa, hia, d, don’t touch me in strangle plaaces!"
The girl screamt as her body was felt up by the tentacle.
"S, she’ll get eaten… she’s in danger, help her, Vante!"
"Gaoon!"
Yuit decided to attack, and gave Vante an order.
"Wait! If you attack blindly, the beast might take the girl and run away! This one… leave it to me!"
"W, whatever is fine, just hurry up! Ahi, hyaunn!"
When she saw Tarnyang smoothly drawing her sword and getting prepared, the girl hanging in midair turned pale.
"Hya, hyauu… d, don’t cut mee…!"
"It’ll be fine, just stay still… Let’s go! Sainyang!"
Sainyang touched Tarnyang’s shoulder with her right hand.
If Sainyang made a symbol to start with her left hand, a miraculous power would begin to fill the point of the sword Tarnyang had readied.
"Tarnyang, how do you feel about this…?"
"With the holy sword technique, staying calm… and with Sainyang’s spiritual power filling my sword, I should be able to make the enemy lose its will to fight… if it succeeds."
"D, do you think it’ll succeed?"
"That’s… For such an animal we’ve just seen for the first time, I can’t guarantee it…"
"You have to be… a little more reliable, Tarnyang…!"
"Be quiet! I can’t concentrate!"
Cold sweat appeared on Tarnyang’s forehead, showing her degree of concentration. While retorting to the jeering behind her, she slowly swung her sword as if describing an arc, looking like she was cutting a pattern in the air.
"Uuuh… m, my blood is rushing to my… head, this is it…"
When the girl muttered with a beet red face due to the long time she had been upside down, a change finally showed up in the tentacle tiger’s appearance.
"Gururururu...."
Although its low growling didn’t change, it slowly turned back, loosened its tentacles and released the captured girl, dropping her back to the ground.
"Kyau!"
The girl fell on her buttocks and screamed.
"Gururu…"
While staring at the body it was reluctant to part from, the tentacle tiger stepped back, disappearing into the depths of the jungle.
"Fuu… we did it somehow…"
Relaxing at last, Tarnyang wiped the sweat from her forehead.
"That wasn’t great, Tarnyang. It was something terribly unreasonable!"
"See, I can make it if I try!"
"…As always, when I get serious, we solve the problems."
As usual, Sainyang’s murmur wasn’t heard by anybody.
Unaware as well of Sainyang’s bitter words, Tarnyang asked the released girl.
"Say, who are you? Why are you in the middle of a jungle like this, where strange animals can capture you?"
"Ah! That’s right! Thank you very much, you really saved me! I almost got eaten by the tentacle tiger back there!"
The young girl laughed, and after bowing with an earnest reverence, she straightened up and introduced herself.
"Thanks, I am Luna Luna. They call me the "Solar Dancer"."
"Luna Luna…? I, I am Yuit. This is Vante, and these two odd people connected by the necklace are Tarnyang and Sainyang."
"Yuit, Vante, Tarnyang and Sainyang, right, nice to meet you!"
"W, well, nice to meet you too, but, where do you come from? Is there any village nearby where people live?"
Becoming a little confused at the conversation that came out of nowhere, when Yuit asked, Luna Luna raised both hands overhead instead of answering, and turned around in the spot.
"Ahahah! As thanks for saving me, I’ll show you my dance!"
"D, don’t, there’s no time for dancing…"
"Eh? Which reminds me, you’re people from that tribe, right? With those pointy ears, you’re Wild Elves, right?"
Asked by Luna Luna, who had stopped dancing but still kept doing things at her own pace, Yuit replied.
"No… We come from the Margrave Kreutz’ territory."
When she heard out loud the name of the land that was the base of Annelotte’s Rebel Army, Luna Luna tilted her head.
"Mar-gra-ve Kre-utz… is it, on which side of the forest?"
"It’s not in this forest, when you leave this jungle, it’s northeast, a little further after crossing the desert of Amara."
Yuit explained while visualizing a map in her head.
Hearing that, Luna Luna put on a puzzled expression.
"Outside? What do you mean, outside the jungle?"
"Eeh?"
"Anyhow, it’s the first time I see people other than those from the tribe of the Wild Elves! How unusual!"
"…Somehow, for this child, the jungle is like the whole world…"
Yuit nodded involuntarily to Sainyang’s accurate analysis.
Somehow, they had come across a resident of the jungle. Although she didn’t seem to know about the Calibara tribe, she might have heard some clue about the fortress.
"Aah! I felt hopeless after getting caught by the tentacle tiger a while ago, but I was saved by people born elsewhere who I just met for the first time, how lucky! I need to dance to convey this feeling to future generations!"
As soon as she screamed so, Luna Luna wriggled her body and began to dance again.
"W, w, w, wait! Wait, that’s enough dancing!"
Confused when she was made to stop dancing, Luna Luna pouted with discontent.
"Eh, I thought I’d take the trouble of showing you the welcoming dance handed down by the Calibara."
"M, maybe next time… what, Calibara?"
"Eh? Right, I’m Luna Luna from the Calibara tribe. The guardian of the tribe, and the best dancer."
"It, it can’t be…"
"Finding them this easily…"
The party was overcome with surprise.
Yuit pulled herself together somehow, and asked Luna Luna.
"We, we were searching for the Calibara, that’s why we came to this jungle! Say, the name of the "Beast Cave", do you remember having heard it before?"
"Eh, "Beast Cave"…? Yes, I know it, but…"
Luna Luna answered, tilting her head to the side.
"But, the law says that it must not be told to anyone other than the tribe members…"
Although Luna Luna murmured so, frowning with a worried expression, she suddenly smiled with a bright face and continued.
"But, that’s it! You guys, you saved my life!"
"W, well… thanks, Luna Luna! Quickly, I want you to lead us to the "Beast Cave"!"
"Right, let’s go, follow me."
Luna Luna accepted merrily, and went deeper into the jungle. The party hurried to chase after her.

-To be continued-



This was more like an exposition chapter, but we can't have battles all the time. Still, it's funny that the rebel army thought Annelotte would be up and running, but it was a girl from the queen's army who got her to do just that.
We have Luna Luna acting here like a naive, spoiled kid, pretty much like Menace used to, but I didn't mistranslate her title up there, this is just a "sunny personality" of sorts.
And Calibara and Bligh are originally spelled as "Karibara" and "Burai", since they're supposed to be kind of a big deal, maybe we'll find out about their proper romanization sometime.

Next chapter, we go back to Annelotte for more battles!