WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 402: Elders Are People Too

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An Elder had died. Elder Luscinia, one of the highest-ranking nobles of the Fog Duchy, possessed combat power equal to an entire city on his own. I didn't know what had happened, but they said such a powerful energy practitioner had been utterly annihilated before he could even regenerate...

But what did that have to do with me?

Humans died anyway. Elders were human too, so they could die whenever. I put on a show of mourning because he had been Tyr's subordinate, but I didn't feel much over someone I'd never met dying more than ten years ago.

My stomach was the bigger problem right now. Ugh. It looked like natural recovery would take a while. What was I supposed to do...?

"Knock knock, Father. Is the spot where you were stabbed all right?"

Hilde came to see me at just the right time. Carrying her arms full of food, she set it on the table. I greeted her with a raised hand while lying on the sofa.

"Where have you been until now?"

"Don't even ask. Unlike you, Father, who came with the Progenitor, I got treated terribly! They gave me a room about this big and told me to stay quiet! Isn't the difference in treatment too much?"

"It couldn't be helped. Tyr brought me here herself as a guest."

She should've chosen the right side from the beginning if she was jealous. When I said that, Hilde narrowed her eyes.

"Are you really a guest? Not a concubine?"

Ugh. I couldn't exactly argue with that.

Even vampires, whose hearts had stopped and whose emotions were faint, had preferences. I wasn't a vampire, so I didn't know the details, but apparently some humans had especially delicious blood or were simply irresistible to them. Even vampires who saw humans as less than livestock would take such humans as concubines and cherish them.

They had openly declared my blood didn't taste good...

Still, I couldn't deny that I was Tyr's favorite doll. What if she really bit me one day and made me an Elder?

I subtly changed the subject.

"You should worry about yourself, Hilde. Even if you've abandoned your faith, the moment they learn you're from the Holy Sword Corps, the entire country will become your enemy."

"Right. That's why I came! Father, hurry up and show me your stomach!"

"Why would I show you my already hurting stomach... Wait. Why are you holding a knife?"

A sharp dagger was aimed at my abdomen. I nearly got cut open alive and blocked it with my arms in horror. Hilde stared at my barely healed stomach.

"We need to open it again! So no traces of healing magic remain!"

"What are you talking about? No! My stomach isn't a piggy bank you can open and close whenever you want!"

"I healed it, so I can open it too!"

"By that logic, do children owe their parents their lives?! Once you've given it, that's the end of it!"

"If we don't erase the traces of healing magic in your stomach, they might drain all my blood!"

"Don't just call me Father all the time, show some filial devotion! A little blood is a cheap price!"

"Respect your elders. The older generation should bleed first!"

"You're older than me! Have you called me Father so much that you're actually starting to see me as your dad?!"

We were grappling for our lives when the door flew open. Hilde and I sensed someone approaching and froze, each gripping the dagger.

The uninvited guest who had arrived without knocking was dressed in white from head to toe. Her hair, black as if dipped in ink, was twisted up and wrapped beneath a hood. A white apron partially hid her short garter skirt. Her pale blue eyes stood out against her bloodless white skin, cold enough to make one shiver.

The white-clad intruder stood before us expressionlessly.

"I heard there was a patient. Where is the patient?"

Even without mind-reading, that pale skin made it clear she was a vampire. Once I read her mind, I learned that she was the physician Valdamir had sent for.

Nice work, Duke of Crimson Blood! You found and sent a physician this quickly! You saved me!

"Perfect timing! Over here! This person is attacking me!"

The physician quietly watched my desperately outstretched hand, then shook her head.

"You are not a patient yet. Then this is not my concern."

Huh? What was that supposed to mean? I stared blankly while the physician looked at Hilde instead.

"What are you doing with that knife? Hurry and cut open his stomach so I can treat him."

So she was ordering Hilde to hurt me because she needed to treat me? That had things completely backward!

I shouted in disbelief.

"What are you talking about?! Don't rush her, stop her before she cuts me open!"

"I am a physician, not a mediator. And a physician can only exist when there is a patient."

"Does that mean you'll stand by and let a patient be created?!"

"The creation of patients has nothing to do with me. I have no interest in that chain of cause and effect, nor do I have the ability to prevent it."

Right! If I asked a doctor to stop a knife-wielding robber, they would naturally hesitate! But that applied to ordinary doctors!

"You're an Elder! You do have the ability! Stop her if you can!"

The physician, who had been casually putting on white gloves, reacted slightly to my words. Only for a moment. She pulled the gloves fully over her wrists and spoke.

"I have not yet been acknowledged by the Progenitor. At present, I am neither an Elder nor a Yeiling... I am only a physician who answered a summons."

She calmly asked, "More importantly, I am waiting. When will you proceed with the incision?"

Urged on, Hilde loosened her grip on the dagger and shrugged.

"Oh dear. Did you think I was serious? I was only putting on a show~."

"A show? You were pretending?"

"Yes~. It's not like I'd recklessly cut open Father's stomach. Father was just playing along too~."

I had read her mind. But if I read things too far in advance, my mind-reading would be exposed, so I had to at least pretend to resist. Besides, a prank by one of the military's Six Generals was dangerous in its own right. If I didn't resist with all my strength, I might really get stabbed.

"...I see. What a pity."

"A pity? Why?"

"I will show you. Hand me that dagger."

Hilde obediently let go of the dagger. The physician took it. As though she had a real talent for blades, she made the dagger dance.

Toward my stomach.

Wait. Hold on.

Before I could react, the sharp dagger sliced through my stomach as easily as paper.

My response had been slow because I hadn't read any killing intent. No, that wasn't enough to explain it. Until the dagger cut my abdomen, even after it had cut me, I couldn't sense even the slightest hostility.

No, if anything...

Even now, with the dagger lodged in my stomach, the physician was trying to save me.

"Oh dear? What's this?"

Hilde was speechless at what had happened in an instant. The physician literally pried open my stomach as she spoke.

"From this moment on, you are the patient of Lir Nightingale and under my strict supervision. Follow my instructions faithfully. If you refuse."

The unacknowledged Elder Tyr had mentioned. The vampire who inherited Luscinia's true blood.

...And, if my guess was right, the person called the Healer Sage in the regressor's future.

The figure surrounded by rumors in the Fog Duchy spoke coldly, with compulsive goodwill.

"I cannot guarantee your safety, so I will make you comply by force."

No? She didn't seem like the Healer Sage after all! What kind of Healer Sage was this insane psychopath? Serial killer suited her better!

I had a fairly strong stomach. Even if I saw intestines wriggling before my eyes, I would only lose my appetite a little and move on. But this was my stomach! Horror and pain mixed with revulsion and crashed over me!

"Aaaah! My stomach! My stomach!"

"Patient, relax. Your muscles are tensing."

"If your stomach were cut open, could you relax?!"

"Even a frail woman like me can do it. Are you incapable of even that much?"

"Frail woman my ass, you're an Elder! Of course you can!"

"Tch. Your mind is still working well. Has the anesthetic not spread enough?"

"What anesthetic?! You haven't even used any yet! Aaargh!"

It hurt sharply when I spoke with my stomach cut open! She had really cut me open! My skin was split and my insides were exposed!

Lir looked between my stomach and her hands, then let out a small gasp.

"Ah."

"Ah... my ass...! Hurry up and do something...!"

Lir reached toward her thigh. She took an ampule from a holster holding several of them and broke it between two fingers. Bright red liquid floated around her fingers. Lir controlled the blood-red medicine and poured it into my stomach.

Coldness ran through my veins. Whenever the medicine from outside passed through me, it felt as though something was sinking away. The pain hadn't been that severe to begin with, but now my body felt distant, as though it did not belong to me.

Lir suddenly asked, "How is it?"

"Huh? How is what?"

"I was pinching your stomach. Since you did not notice, the anesthetic has spread well."

I could see that she had pinched the skin of my already split-open stomach. I was too dumbfounded to speak. I wanted to quit and run away immediately, but where could I go with my stomach skin cut open and my intestines exposed?

Completely helpless, I watched Lir rummage through my insides and muttered stupidly.

"Uh, yeah."

"A puncture wound caused by a sharp blade. There are burn marks around the scar, and blood from your unhealed organs has pooled in your abdomen. This bleeding... If you had not learned energy techniques, it would have been dangerous."

It was still dangerous! My stomach was open! Wide open!

I couldn't even speak now. It felt like my intestines would spill out if I tensed up wrong. I was sensitive to killing intent and dull to goodwill, but no matter how well-intentioned she was, I didn't want to follow someone who cut open my stomach. Groaning through the anesthetic haze, I looked at Hilde with pleading eyes.

Hilde wasn't looking at me.

Her eyes were fixed on Lir's hands as they rummaged through my wound without restraint.

Hilde watched the “treatment” with an interested expression, then spoke.

"Such a large wound... Yet there isn't any bleeding?"

I looked down at my stomach through my hazy mind.

She was right.

My stomach had been cut open, but no blood flowed from it. More precisely, the blood that was about to scatter gathered and floated in the air. Those clumped droplets then seeped back into my body somewhere, as they usually did.

Vampires who excelled at bloodcraft and had reached the point of fully controlling their own bodies could regenerate even shattered flesh. Valdamir had even dismantled and rebuilt his own body.

But that only applied to their own bodies.

Even vampires, who were already dead and whose boundaries between inside and outside had grown faint, possessed a body. The body they remembered as their own was an anchor that fixed their existence in the vast sea. It gave them a shape to return to, so they could remain themselves instead of straying too far and becoming something else.

That was why they maintained their form even when rebuilding their bodies. It was the image of “me” that they had drawn.

But...

The Elder before me was rebuilding my body.

She cut open my stomach and drew blood. The inside and outside of my body became one. Along that temporarily blurred boundary, she forcibly caught my blood as it tried to scatter into the world and sent it back.

She seemed to know my body better than I did. She looked with her eyes, felt with bloodcraft, read its flow, found the problem, and fixed it. After refining the wound with bloodcraft, she removed the dead blood. My blood moved in orderly fashion under Lir's guidance.

Before I knew it, the treatment was over. Lir gathered my stomach skin, then reached out and plucked a strand of my hair. She ignored my delayed scream, filled the hair with blood energy, and drew zigzags with her fingers. It felt as though a needle were pricking my stomach again and again. When I came to my senses, only a thin line of stitches remained on my abdomen.

It was hard to believe my body had been wide open only moments ago.

"The treatment is complete."

Even after the surgery, not a single drop of blood stained Lir's gloves. Her bloodcraft had reached such a level that even another person's blood could not seep onto her.

"Get absolute rest. You will be short on blood for a while, so do not give blood to vampires and focus on eating meat."

From her bloodcraft to her manual skill, she had evolved in a direction completely unlike other vampires. I read Lir's abilities, knowledge, and conviction that bordered on obstinacy through mind-reading, and became certain.

"And avoid using healing magic if possible. It is a power that turns things back. It may reverse part of the treatment I have done."

The Healer Sage I had glimpsed in the regressor's memories was this person.

Hilde, whose identity Lir had seen through, spoke awkwardly.

"Oh dear~. I wanted to hide it, but you noticed~."

"The flow of blood is clearly unnatural, yet there was not a single wound on his body. Healing magic is the only possible explanation. Anyone besides me would have noticed."

"Now that he has a scar again, nobody will know, right? Except for you, who treated him, that is~."

Was she planning to silence the witness? No, silence the vampire? Killing a vampire was already an error in itself. This was a person who could grab someone by the scruff after they had died and begun knocking on the gates of the afterlife, and drag them back.

Lir could have snorted and fought Hilde here, but she shook her head and gathered her belongings.

"I do not intend to speak of it."

"I don't believe you."

Hilde flatly rejected her answer.

"You know about the long conflict between vampires and the Sanctum. If you are a vampire, the moment you realize I am from the Holy Sword Corps, you should kill me. Isn't that the duty of an Elder who received true blood from the Progenitor?"

It was a natural reaction. The Progenitor and the Sanctum had fought for so long. By now, it was practically accepted as truth that they would hate each other and fight to the death the moment they met.

But there were no absolutes in human affairs. Just as there was someone from the Holy Sword Corps who had entered the Fog Duchy on her own feet, there was an Elder in the Fog Duchy who showed goodwill toward the Holy Sword Corps.

"I am a physician. As I said earlier, the creation of patients has nothing to do with me. Only the disappearance of patients is my concern."

Was it because she was a vampire, or had she always been this kind of person? Lir looked at Hilde with cold, compulsive goodwill.

"Above all, healing magic is only one method for achieving the disappearance of patients."

It was a statement hard to believe from an Elder. If anyone else in the Fog Duchy had heard it, they would have led the charge to execute her for blasphemy. Hilde beside me too, while they were at it.

As Hilde instinctively turned her attention outside at that explosive statement, Lir finished packing and asked one last question.

"More importantly, I have something to ask you all, who came from the Lesser States."

Having recovered a little, I asked back, "...What is it?"

"Are there patients there?"

I saw determination in her sky-blue eyes. If there were, she would rush there at once. I gave a hollow laugh.

There were many mad people in the world. But the human before me was mad in a different direction. She wanted to control not other people's lives, but their deaths.

It had been a while since I'd read such an interesting human. I groaned as I answered.

"More than enough."

"Good."

That decided Lir's destination. I didn't know whether the regressor had foreseen this too, but she would likely meet the Healer Sage she had been waiting for in Claudia.

"Since the treatment is complete, I will be leaving. Do not die without my permission. You are my patient."

"I won't die whether you permit it or not. I don't permit my own death either. Do you know how precious a life is?"

What was she, some controller of death? Still, my body felt much better, so I was grateful.

Lir watched my condition briefly. Once she was convinced I was fine, she strode out without a moment's hesitation.

That was a little disappointing. Reading the thoughts of a mad person was fun in its own way.

‘Wait. Where did the knife I used to cut open his stomach go? It disappeared at some point.’

Naturally, I didn't know either. Mind-reading was the power to read what humans knew. If they didn't know, neither did I. It wasn't as if someone had eaten the knife. It had to be somewhere, right?

Lir looked around for the knife for a while, then her thoughts continued briefly.

‘...Surely not in there earlier. No, it must be my imagination. It definitely isn't. Probably.’

Huh? What? What imagination? Why was she thinking of my stomach when she said in there earlier? Surely not?

"Hey! You insane woman! Get back here right now! Is that something you can end with probably?!"

Footnotes:

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