WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 388

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Lightning Did Not Fall from the Sky - 11

"What kind of filthy son of a--! Throwing something like this---!"

A beast's howl shook the world. It sounded like blood bursting from the voice itself. Deep and thunderous, it rattled the Cloud Waterfall to its bones.

Then came the heavy pounding of footsteps. Like an elephant stamping the ground. A single person's stride sent tremors through the earth and set off quakes.

While everyone flinched with instinctive dread, a massive shadow stirred beyond the Cloud Waterfall.

What tore through the mist was a giant drenched head to toe in blood. His shaggy hair was soaked red, and his beast-sharp ears were pressed flat. He gripped a gleaming white dagger in one hand and let out a roar of pain and fury.

"Get out here--! Come out--! I'll make it quick--!"

Lungken.

The world's only remaining warthog beastkin. That alone made him remarkable enough, but he was known for something else entirely.

He was an Elder.

One of the thirteen vampires who had received true blood directly from the Progenitor's own hand. Among the Elders, he was the most savage and the most reckless.

He had earned his nickname from always being drenched in blood by the time a fight was over. But this Elder was already soaked before one had even started. The holy sword Hilde had thrown was most likely what drew the blood. Even so, the moment he laid eyes on the unmistakable form of an angel, he snorted.

"You little--! An angel---!"

Thud, thud, thud. Three strides and Lungken launched himself off the ground, driving his shoulder straight into the angel.

It was a sudden charge, but the angel was smaller than it appeared. Fooled by the lightning wings, he crashed into empty air instead, passed through the wings, took the full shock, and rolled across the ground.

"Gaargh--! You coward! Fight me fair and square--!"

He attacked first and wound up flat on his back. It was the kind of absurd display you wouldn't even see in a third-rate play. Even so, the Thunder Lord he had targeted, and all the thunder practitioners watching, held their breath.

He had crossed the distance from beyond the Cloud Waterfall in only a few seconds. If the Thunder Lord had been caught off guard, or if Lungken had aimed better, someone might have had to take that charge head-on.

The practitioners froze, with no time to regroup. A young girl's voice rang out from beyond the Cloud Waterfall.

"Hfueh. This wretched boar! Did those stiff bristles finally push through your skull and skewer your brain? Try using your head before you use your body!"

A girl carrying a small doll stepped into view. She wore a flowing black dress with white frills pinned in her hair. Her small, delicate face showed every emotion in broad strokes.

She looked like a young noblewoman out for a stroll. In truth, she was something too horrific to name aloud.

Cabilah.

An Elder and a dark sorcerer. The discoverer of blood magic and a seeker of forbidden arts. Every quality the Sanctum found most terrifying, crammed into that tiny frame. A sinner's Elder who had carved her name into history.

She planted a hand on her hip and snapped.

"We came here to welcome our Elder Sister, not because we were short on blood! No matter how much of a beast you are, show some self-control!"

The tirade erupted, and Lungken scrambled to his feet and shouted back with wounded indignation.

"What the hell! Was I supposed to just ignore an angel--!"

"If it's an angel, all the more reason to close in slowly! You think charging in with every hair standing on end gets results? Are you stupid? An idiot? No, wait, are you blind? You couldn't even hit the angel you were aiming for!"

She stamped her feet even as the insults poured out, but her expression looked oddly relieved. Like she was delighted to finally have an excuse to let loose. While Lungken stood there sputtering, a large hand cut off her view just as she wound up for another round.

"All right. That's enough. Let's think for a moment."

A young man with a greatsword slung over his shoulder raised his hand and stepped in front of Cabilah. She snapped her mouth shut at those few words. He bought a moment of quiet, stroked his jaw, and fell into thought.

"I can feel it. The Progenitor is here. We came to receive her, our beginning and our end. And yet the road is... cluttered."

A greatsword with a blood-red blade. Burning red hair. A pale, composed face that contrasted sharply with that passionate color.

Plenty of people fit that description in a general sense. But narrow it to vampires, and the number dropped dramatically.

Narrow it further to Elders, and there was only one person anyone could picture.

The moment his name surfaced in every mind present, he reached his conclusion.

"Then we clear the road."

The first Elder the Progenitor had ever made. Prince of the Fog Duchy. The Blood Knight. The Mountain of Corpses.

Crimson Duke Valdamir.

Three of them. Three of the vampire nobility, creatures that turned humans into prey, that every human had every right to fear and despise, had come in person. And one of them was Valdamir.

The thunder practitioners tensed, and so did the Thunder Lord. Who could keep their composure before an immortal monster the entire world had tried and failed to kill?

As that learned terror hung in the air, Lungken scraped the ground with his foot and bellowed with delight.

"So we're clearing all these pests out, Valdamir--!"

"We negotiate first. No reason to pass up the easy path."

"Uugh."

One line was all it took to hold Lungken back. Valdamir looked directly at the Thunder Lord and spoke.

"This road. Will you clear it yourselves? Or would you prefer I clear it for you?"

A faint smile played at the corner of his mouth as he said it. As if he already knew the answer and was simply testing the Thunder Lord anyway.

To become Prince of a duchy where the Progenitor existed as something close to a tribal god, what would you need? Strength? Authority? Wisdom? Political acumen?

All of the above.

Crimson Duke Valdamir reigned second only to the Progenitor, above all others. In essence one Elder was no different from another, and yet every Elder acknowledged him as their undisputed representative. He was competent enough to rule a nation, and he was the only one fit to receive the Progenitor when she finally returned.

The Thunder Lord sensed it instinctively. Whatever she said now, that terrifying creature had already seen through her. There was nothing left but to fight.

And besides, if they hadn't come to fight, Valdamir wouldn't have made the trip in person. Would vampires, welcome nowhere, show up uninvited in another city without reason?

"The vampires who should be inside the Duchy, why are they here--!"

"It's still daytime!"

The Thunder Lord raised her hand. The thunder practitioners, who had been scrambling for footing, fell silent and waited for her order.

[Don't be afraid. They are the Duchy's Elders. I don't know why they've come all the way here without any advance word, but this is clearly an invasion. An attack on our city and our people.]

Valdamir rested his greatsword on his shoulder and watched without moving. He had no intention of acting until the Thunder Lord was finished.

She wavered for a moment, unsure whether it was right to order an attack against a catastrophe that had descended without warning. But the hesitation didn't last long.

If they lost, it was over either way. From vampires of the Fog Duchy, who treated humans as livestock, you could expect neither decency nor dignity. She might save their lives by bowing her head, but surviving as walking provisions inside a fog that never let in a single ray of sunlight was a fate more terrible than death.

Her faith had not been wrong. Vampires had to disappear. Those horrifying creatures had no right to exist in this world, and the Thunder Lord had to stand against them to protect her city.

[The Thunder Lord calls on the city's guardians. Drive every last one of them back. Don't let these bats who think of humans as livestock set so much as a foot inside our city!]

The thunder practitioners answered with a shout. They moved against a clearly defined enemy now. Only three opponents, but three all the same.

The Elders called out as if they had been waiting for exactly this.

"Yes! Now we're talking! Let's fight--!!"

"Hfueh! Did lightning strike their heads? They've finally lost their minds! 'Drive us back,' they said! Us! Hfeh, the livestock are barking!"

Lungken charged immediately and Cabilah lifted her doll. The two of them surged forward, blood-hunger roused. Behind them, Valdamir stroked his jaw and murmured.

"The angel is trying to stop us from receiving the Progenitor. Well. At least the intelligence was right, the Progenitor is definitely here."

The vampires could not be allowed to meet the Progenitor. The Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka was the god and the heart of the vampires. The two of them together would let the vampires transcend their limits and become something without ceiling. Claudia sat beneath the sun, which kept vampires from invading, but vampires shielded by the Progenitor's darkness had once marched to the very threshold of the Sanctum.

Better to deal with them separately. That was the Thunder Lord's judgment. Valdamir saw through that calculation and lifted the greatsword from his shoulder.

"Angels make messes and never clean them up themselves. I suppose I'll have to do it for them."

***

My stabbed stomach ached. Hilde had healed me, she said, but restoring the form didn't mean a body that had been broken could simply go back to what it was. Blood had flowed and organs had been crushed, and being patched up didn't make you healthy. That was like saying a lap around the track brings you right back to where you started, so it wasn't tiring at all. Complete nonsense.

Still, I couldn't afford to rest yet.

The lightning thief. My conversation with Frang hadn't even begun.

"No. I won't do it."

A slanted ridgeline thick with clouds, thunder rolling somewhere far off. Low grass grew dense along that slope, and there a man was flying a kite.

A large kite, folded neat as a letter sent to the sky. Iron spars covered with thin cloth, riding the wind at an angle. Tied to its string, it flew high. It looked free, the way it soared like a bird on the wind.

A wind that promised rain and lightning swept hard at the kite in the open sky. The small grasses pressed flat, sheltering from the gust, while the lightning thief tightened his grip on the string and spoke.

"King of Humanity. Do you know what happens to a kite when the string snaps?"

Rude, talking down to me like that when we'd only just met. Especially coming from a dead man.

But I was the King of Humanity, who treated all humans with equal respect, so I answered politely.

"It either plummets to the ground, or it sails off into the far sky."

"That's right. It flies through the air freely, but only because I'm anchoring it here and guiding it with this string. If I let go, lose control, or the string snaps, the kite falls. It might shatter completely and never fly again."

A sudden gust hit. Reading the wind, the lightning thief quickly let out a little more string and gave the kite slack. Caught in the gust, the kite found a perfect balance and rose.

"People are the same. Humans need something to hold them. Where our roots came from. What values must never be forgotten. And in this world, the only thing that can do that is..."

"Faith?"

"...Yes."

He looked a little annoyed that I had taken his line. He muttered irritably.

"The plan was that when I died, my corpse would become a holy relic, kept somewhere no one could find it. My deeds were to be wrapped in the story of the lightning thief and passed down as legend through the Sanctum's lore. It was a glorious arrangement, and I had agreed to it. After finishing my work in Claudia, I went to the Sanctum of my own accord."

"But this is the relic, isn't it?"

"...Tch. I never thought they'd treasure most a kite I'd let fly. I only needed it to send the Sky God up into the sky."

Cold droplets began mixing into the biting wind. Small drops, the opening note of a storm, falling in growing numbers. The kite lurched unsteadily in the rain and wind.

"I was only trying to use alchemy to establish order. To use the lightning up there and help the poor people of the Lesser States who had lost everything. And then I'm called a Demon God? I was just a little more capable than most, and that makes me a Demon God? Tch. If I could go back to before I became one, I'd talk myself out of it."

"Why?"

"Never mind."

"Tell me. If you're really as remarkable as you say, you might even convince me."

"This isn't something that gets resolved by convincing someone. It's a difference in perspective and belief."

The lightning thief turned and began winding up the string. As if he had nothing more to say. Devout to the end, even in death.

But since when could a dead man hold his head high and lecture the living?

"What meaning is there in a perspective no one else can see? What nobility is there in a belief you can't pass on to anyone? If you're going to take it all with you to the grave, just be a corpse. Stop dragging it out."

The lightning thief stopped winding. I walked toward his back and kept speaking.

"At some point, belief, faith, it's all become just a way to justify yourself. Crying out that you did it for humanity, but the words ring hollow."

Drip, drip-drip. The rain thickened. Falling sideways on the sharp wind, it struck both our faces with real weight. The kite flailed miserably in the storm.

"I'm the King of Humanity. So then, if you truly acted for humanity's sake, tell me. Unlike certain others, I'll listen to any wish, so long as it comes from a human."

Lightning struck close by. Getting closer. A little more and it would reach right where we were standing. Lightning still deciding where to fall wouldn't miss the marker risen from the earth.

As if glimpsing its own fate, the kite shuddered anxiously and pulled at the string, yanking at the lightning thief's hands. The string cut into his skin.

Even so, he didn't let go. Drawing the string in bit by bit, he said:

"To preserve the purity of humanity. If I had left the people of the Lesser States as they were, they would have become something new, like the vampires."

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