C seen by some for a long time as a "high-level" assembler :D, and if you choose a safe subset.. and given also e.g. how the LLVM pipeline and other compiling works, and how old and widespread C is, I think it is a clever portability and reuse a lot approach, and the fear of too many parts is exaggerated and not much different from other transpiling&compiling (that difference is also very blurry one and depends on viewpoint, don't think there is one precise definition for that?) pipelines... also not the first to do so.