Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint - Chapter 141

WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Chapter 141: Perfect? Calculation?

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Shei, Tyrkanzyaka, Callis, and the immortal, who had been wandering the wasteland, made camp not far from the Abyss.

For people who had just escaped from prison, they had built a camp around a huge scarlet blaze, as though advertising their location. It looked as if they were desperately begging someone to find them.

Sitting around the bonfire that lit up the area, they were steeped in deep sorrow.

Tyrkanzyaka stared at the endlessly burning fire. Whenever a choked sound escaped her, Shei would glance at her furtively and pretend to tend the fire. Every time she thrust Skywarbler into the bonfire, the flames surged higher.

For once, Callis and the immortal sat apart. They did not even meet each other's eyes, as though they were strangers.

In response to this consideration that was barely consideration at all, Tyrkanzyaka waved a hand.

"...It's fine."

Yet the words that followed only weighed more heavily on everyone's hearts.

"I must have been burdensome. I am Tyrkanzyaka, the Progenitor. The ancestor of all vampires, a monster that craves blood... How could someone like me ever be accepted?"

As she spoke, Tyrkanzyaka suddenly grimaced and pressed a hand to her chest, as though a worm were eating away at her heart and she wanted to tear it out.

Yet she could not grasp the source of the pain.

A vampire whose every drop of blood obeyed her will writhed beneath a metaphysical pain she had never experienced before.

Tyrkanzyaka grimaced as the others watched her uneasily.

Letting out a shaky breath, Tyrkanzyaka addressed Shei.

"More importantly, let's speak of something else. Is it really true?"

"Uh, what?"

Shei, suddenly singled out, grew frightened.

If it were an enemy, she would rather fight them. Problems that could not be resolved by strength were far too cruel for Shei. Just as she swallowed hard and struggled to choose an answer, Tyrkanzyaka revealed the subject she meant.

"...That the one called the King of Sin will truly destroy the world."

"Ah, yeah. I, um..."

Shei was about to say that she regressed, but stopped herself.

People who were content with the present became anxious the moment they heard the word regression. They feared their happiness would not exist in the next turn Shei envisioned.

At that moment, Shei would be holding their happiness hostage. They would cling to her, begging her to choose them in the future too, to place the same happiness in their hands.

That was far too much pressure for Shei, who had to stop the end of the world.

That was why she did not reveal that she was a regressor carelessly.

Even when she did, people often dismissed it as her having experienced a prophecy from the Sanctum.

'If I reveal that I regress now, I think she'd believe me, but...'

Shei cautiously looked Tyrkanzyaka over.

Tyrkanzyaka was suffering from the emotions she had regained, but she did not seem like someone who would wish for regression. If she learned that these feelings, this heartbeat she felt now, could all disappear...

Shei swallowed and changed her words.

"...Yeah. I saw it through a prophecy."

"You saw it yourself? You, a man?"

"Ah, no! I know a prophet! They can't see broadly, but they're good with details! They're not part of the Sanctum, either! They're trustworthy!"

Shei hastily corrected herself. Tyrkanzyaka looked at her with slight suspicion, then nodded.

"Is that so."

Whether her suspicions had faded or she simply had no time to doubt, Tyrkanzyaka stared blankly into the distance before speaking.

"I will help you."

"...Huh? Really?"

"I don't mean that I wholly trust that prophecy. The Sanctum has always twisted prophecies to suit its own interests. Still, if this world may be destroyed, I don't wish to sit and watch."

"Um, I'm grateful, but are you sure you'll be okay?"

Shei spoke very carefully. She did not need to ask what exactly Tyrkanzyaka needed to be okay with. The answer was already woven into the mood around them.

Tyrkanzyaka nodded calmly.

"Hyu asked whether I could protect him even if the world came to an end. I said that I could."

"He said something like that too? When?"

"Before we left the Abyss. If the prophecy you know is true, then I ought to help you if only to keep that promise. Even if it isn't, shouldn't I see with my own eyes what happens?"

Tyrkanzyaka's words made Shei happy, yet the shadow Hyu had left behind in them made her frown.

How could someone be so suspicious? The end of the world? Had Hyu known that the world would end too?

"Who the heck is he? Is he part of the Sanctum? Ugh, he's suspicious. I need to catch him someday and ask him..."

Tyrkanzyaka sighed at Shei's muttering.

"Haa."

The Shadow Queen's sigh made the bonfire sway ominously. Brushing her gleaming silver hair behind her shoulder, Tyrkanzyaka scolded Shei.

"You truly are selfish."

"Huh?"

"How much help have you received from Hyu? Yet you still call him suspicious and say you need to dig into him?"

"...Huh?"

Tyrkanzyaka was angry.

It was not hostility toward an enemy, nor contempt for someone pathetic. It was more like the cold gaze one gave an immature child.

"When you first stepped into my dwelling. When you later learned bloodcraft from me. Even when he taught us under the pretense of educating us. You were the one receiving Hyu's consideration."

"Uh..."

Isn't that just infatuation?

The regressor barely held those words back. Instead, she closed her mouth and listened to Tyrkanzyaka.

'Why am I getting scolded?'

That was the question in her mind as Tyrkanzyaka let out everything she had been holding in.

"He provoked me at the right times, kept our conversations from dying out, acted ridiculous, and gave us stimulation. Yet in the end, all of it benefited you. He eased the tension that had gripped you, breathed life into this Abyss, and stirred all of us up, inside and out. Hyu has put in no small amount of effort, so why do you only call him suspicious?"

At times, though, an outsider's perspective revealed something different.

After thirteen regressions, this was already her fourteenth. Shei was busy observing how the world changed little by little, and being asked to see it through someone else's eyes was difficult even now.

Still, Tyrkanzyaka's lecture made Shei consider another perspective.

"He helped me?"

"He still is. If Hyu truly knew of the King of Sin and secured that promise from me, wasn't that also something he did for you?"

"Was it...?"

She placed a filter over her memories and traced back through the past. Shei reconsidered each and every one of his actions.

In the end, Jizan had fallen into Shei's hands because he had held Jiseon off and thrown it away.

At the final moment, Jizan had twisted its path as though choosing this side, but perhaps that too had been his doing.

Before that, when Lieutenant General Ebon had attacked, he had struck the colonel and lent his strength to this side. When Shei later heard about it while treating Callis, she learned that he had stopped the lieutenant general from sending Azzy into a rampage.

He had always been kind to Azzy, so Shei had not thought much of it... but that had been help too.

Then there was Finlay. He had taken the lead in reclaiming Tyrkanzyaka and restoring the Progenitor's heart. Thanks to that, the Progenitor had shown more humanity than ever before. It had also given Tyrkanzyaka cause to become obsessed with him, but...

Wasn't this better? Better than marching forward while scattering blood everywhere.

"Huh?"

Shei muttered stupidly. Tyrkanzyaka snorted.

"It was absurd. You received so much help, yet you say no one helps you? You are soaked in careful consideration, yet you hunger for help more than anyone and doubt him. Must you truly do that? Can you not simply accept Hyu, who has helped you?"

Everything he had done began to gain meaning, bit by bit.

Could it really be true? Making her snap at small provocations? Dragging her away from training to make her attend lessons? Playfully leading the mood whenever he pushed and pulled between Shei and Tyrkanzyaka?

"...Help?"

"If Hyu had not existed, would you be talking with me like this? Would you be sitting here peacefully with them? And the Daoist of the Church of the Earth Mother? What would have become of her?"

What would it have been like without him? How would Shei have lived in the Abyss?

Surviving itself would not have been a problem. Shei was accustomed to solitude. She had gone through secluded training several times, so she probably would have lived without incident.

But she would not have lit this bonfire and gathered with others like this. She would not have watched their reactions either.

Once the work was done, she would have left immediately. There would have been nothing to regret.

"Then... he did help me? Why?"

"It must be in his nature. The King of Dogs, myself, and you. Didn't we all help anyone who did not bear clear malice toward us?"

"Uh..."

No matter how many suspicious things Shei recalled, looking back, they had only helped her. Once the froth of suspicion was skimmed away, all that remained inside was sweet fruit.

'He did help me. I see.'

Shei honestly acknowledged it and felt a little happy at the same time.

Something gently tapped at her heart.

Like touching one strand of a tangled spiderweb and feeling a vibration from another, there was the reassurance that she was still connected, that they would hold on to one another.

She had met many good people. She had received quite a bit of help. Even if they fought, many had worked together with her toward a common goal.

The people she could call friends disappeared as she regressed again and again, but there had been many comrades, which was why Shei could continue onward. In truth, duty and a sense of debt also gave her strength to keep moving.

But this unspoken thing...

It was not something that pushed her forward, nor goodwill that pulled her tight.

It was comfort, as though it allowed her to relax completely.

"Th-then, I see."

After trailing off for a moment, Shei used the Heaven-Reversing Boundary to regain her composure.

When she averted her gaze as though embarrassed, Tyrkanzyaka snorted and turned away. For a while, only the crackling of the bonfire filled the camp.

At the end of the silence, Shei spoke.

"Tyrkanzyaka, I'm sorry, but when you restored your heart..."

"...Again?"

"No, no! I'm not doubting him! I just want to hear what happened!"

Shei waved her hands at Tyrkanzyaka, whose brow was furrowing, and continued.

"I think I understand a little of his ability."

"What is it?"

"Relics."

Shei picked up Jizan, which had been lying carefully beside her. It was a long, blunt club with no decorations, handle, or pattern.

"Relics belonging to beings this powerful always have trials. The power they unlock differs depending on how one completes the trial."

Then Shei placed Jizan against the ground and lightly lifted it with her wrist.

Something astonishing happened.

The ground Jizan had touched rose like bamboo shoots growing at high speed.

"But the relic he handed over had no trial. At the same time, all its power had already been unlocked. Originally, only its power as a club had been unlocked... but now, though only faintly, I can use earth arts through this sword."

"Interesting... But what does that have to do with my heart?"

"The Homunculus Dilemma. There is one way to circumvent it. The one making the replacement must be the person themself."

There was no guarantee that it would not destroy that person as well, but at least it was natural.

Unlike cases trapped in the Homunculus Dilemma, Tyrkanzyaka's heart was in an extremely stable state, needing no particular adjustment.

"I think he made the memories you had while you were alive into a relic, taking advantage of the fact that you were already dead."

Shei's deduction was sharp.

"He probably has the ability to draw out a relic's power. Jizan is like that, and so is your heart. There is no other explanation."

"A relic..."

Tyrkanzyaka placed a hand over her chest and felt the beat of her heart.

The single card he had driven into her heart. Had that been a relic forged from the memories of when she was still alive?

"It makes sense. Hyu lost himself after that..."

Tyrkanzyaka muttered with her hands folded over her chest. Shei also replied while turning Jizan over in her hands.

"...If we had his power, things might be a little easier."

But the world was vast. How could they find someone who had suddenly left?

Shei murmured, "I don't even know where he came from or where he intends to go. Come to think of it, I really knew nothing about him..."

"...How could you know when Hyu didn't tell you? No one would know."

"Huh? Teacher said he was going back to where he originally came from!"

Crackle, crackle.

The bonfire was the only thing making noise. Rashy's bombshell declaration seemed to have swallowed every other sound.

Shei and Tyrkanzyaka asked half a beat late.

"What?"

"...What did you say?"

Rashy answered calmly.

"I had an honest talk with teacher over drinks, but I don't know whether it was true or another lie! Still, he did say it!"

"Forget that. What did he say?"

"He said he was already a criminal, so there was no particular reason not to return!"

Shei tilted her head.

"...Where he originally came from? Where is that?"

The person who could answer was here as well. After clearing her throat loudly, Callis reported clearly.

"He was arrested in Amitenggrad's Sector 13-3 on charges of cheating at gambling. He was arrested at the scene and taken into custody without being able to take anything with him, so if he had hidden assets, he may have gone to recover them."

"Cheating at gambling? Was he really brought in for cheating at gambling?"

"If the documents I saw contained no falsehoods, yes. I came as an inspector, so I was unable to view documents with a higher security clearance, but..."

In other words, documents with a higher clearance might contain other information.

That was a rather sweet temptation for Shei.

She knew where he was from, and his destination had been revealed.

Only one problem remained.

Could they enter the heart of the military state to find someone who had left them because he did not want to stay?

"Awooooo."

That was when Azzy, who had been staring blankly at the sky, let out a small, long howl. When the silent Beast King spoke, everyone stopped talking and looked at her.

Azzy spoke while looking upward.

"I have to go."

"Where?"

"The human country. The country that promised me."

Azzy looked up at the sky. Starlight reflected in her large, kind eyes. She looked as though she were lost in thought while gazing at the stars alone in the night sky.

'How am I supposed to treat her like a dog when she looks like that?'

While Shei grumbled inwardly, Azzy spoke again.

"I kept my promise. Now it is their turn to keep theirs."

"Who are they?"

"The country of humans. It has many humans. I have to go there."

"Where is that?"

Even as she asked, Shei realized her mistake. Would Azzy know the name humans had arbitrarily given a city? She worried over how to interpret Azzy's vague, all-encompassing, dog-like words.

"Amitenggrad."

Fortunately, that concern was unnecessary. Azzy watched a shooting star with clearer resolve than ever.

"They say it is the most important city in the country. I will find the promise there."

Tyrkanzyaka and Shei looked at one another.

They knew where he was headed.

They knew how much they needed him.

And now they had an excuse to go.

"I will not disgracefully chase after someone who left me behind. But if we happen to be traveling the same path, it cannot be helped."

Tyrkanzyaka nodded, the burning bonfire reflected in her eyes.

"Fine. This time, we should turn the military state upside down. If we also uncover that man's secrets while we're there, well, that would be good."

Shei replied as she rolled her arms.

Thus, the gazes of the two women met across the bonfire.