WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 41: No Exceptions, Not Even Dogs

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"Trainee Tyrkanzyaka!"

I called after the vampire as she was about to leave. She tilted her parasol slightly and turned only her head to look at me.

"What is it?"

"The dog only barked. Don't take it to heart. I'll help you."

"Take it to heart? Hoh. Setting aside whether my feelings were hurt, what exactly can you help me with?"

It was better to bury the memory entirely than make a halfhearted attempt to smooth things over. Tsk. Covering for the regressor was no easy task.

I quickly reached out and took the vampire's hand. It was so small and slender that it felt as though I could hide it in my palm. While she flinched, I gently wrapped my hand around hers.

"What do you think you're doing?"

What did she think? I was holding her hand.

But that wasn't the answer she wanted. She was reproaching me for rudely grabbing a lady's hand without permission. Though in her case, the "lady" part had been aging for quite some time.

Either way, rather than make excuses...

"Your hand is cool."

"Cool?"

"Yes. It's the perfect temperature, like the shade of a tree you happen to find in summer. I feel like I could hold it for a long time and still feel refreshed."

It was a somewhat cheesy line. While the vampire was briefly at a loss for words, I pulled her hand. She could have shaken me off if she wanted to, but her muddled heart could not find its bearings.

My hand became a signpost for that lost heart. The vampire followed weakly after me.

Pulling the vampire along with one hand, I stretched out my other hand toward Azzy. Azzy had been wary of the vampire approaching again, but when she saw me, she raised her head.

"Hey, Azzy."

"Grrr... Woof."

"Come on, calm down. What are you, salt? It's not like a little water will kill you, so why are you so upset?"

"Woof?"

"Cheer up! Give me your hand!"

"Woof!"

Azzy immediately raised her hand. I snickered and tickled her chin. At the same time, I slowly tugged at the vampire's hand. Azzy's hand and the vampire's hand drew closer and closer.

'Don't tell me he's trying to make me touch the King of Dogs? How childish.'

Having realized what I was doing, the vampire hesitated. Her hand stopped moving. She was afraid to make contact.

Not because she was worried Azzy might attack her. Azzy was the King of Dogs, who accepted only humans. That was why the vampire had never been welcomed by any dog. Whenever she walked through a village, dogs either barked fiercely at her or whimpered and fled.

Every encounter between a vampire and a dog had therefore ended in one-sided rejection.

"It's okay. Our dog doesn't bite."

I gently guided her onward. The vampire hesitated for a moment, then relaxed as if telling me to do as I pleased. Azzy, naturally, did not reject me.

I pulled their hands closer until they overlapped.

Of course, nothing dramatic happened just because they touched. The vampire did not shed tears of joy, and Azzy did not bare her teeth.

Setting aside the fact that vampires could not cry and Azzy could not feel hostility toward humans.

What had just happened was simply that trivial.

I pointed that out to the vampire.

"It's normal for dogs to bark or avoid someone's hand. A suspicious dog barks first when it sees a stranger. So from now on, just because a dog is a little scared of you, don't attach all this meaning to it, like the King of Dogs is your enemy or you're not human."

Then I turned and glared at Azzy. She looked back at me with wide, innocent eyes.

"And you, Azzy. Don't just bark at people. Hey! Do you even know who this is?"

"Woof?"

"Try living as long as she has. Age is like dust: the more you accumulate, the more it sticks to you everywhere. Sadly, that can't be helped. How do you think she feels when you bark at her just because her age shows a little in the way she acts? Agh! Why are you hitting me again?!"

"That is the price of your insolence, rude boy."

The vampire snorted.

"You're many times more insolent than the King of Dogs or Shei. You were wrong from the moment you assumed something like this could have upset me."

"If you're not upset, then don't hit me!"

"You don't watch what you say, so why should I watch what I do?"

This time, the vampire held out her hand. Her tiny hand flicked my forehead.

Tap.

Something touched my forehead.

It did not hurt at all. It was only a little cold.

The vampire smiled pleasantly and withdrew her hand.

"And regardless of what you say, I have no intention of tending to the King of Dogs. If I were nearby, the King of Dogs would rampage without restraint. I refuse to wrestle with a Beast King putting up such fierce resistance."

"I wasn't expecting trainee Tyrkanzyaka to do labor, either. Don't you know me? As you've seen, if nothing else, I'm exceptionally mindful of manners."

"...?"

'Ah. The manners I knew must have disappeared in this era. I thought these people were especially rude, but if the times have changed, I suppose that can happen.'

What kind of ridiculous misunderstanding was that?

Me, rude? Strange. Where else would you find someone as respectful of seniority as I was?

"Anyway, to summarize, this is everyone's position, right? First, I need to wash Azzy. Trainee Shei doesn't like the idea of some dirty man other than himself washing Azzy. Trainee Tyrkanzyaka says we should do the work ourselves. Is that all?"

"Woof! Me! I don't want a bath!"

"You stay quiet!"

"Whine..."

"Listen carefully, everyone. This is a brilliant plan that will solve everything at once."

I spoke with solemn resolve.

"First, I will wash Azzy... only partially."

"Partially?"

I explained my plan to the puzzled group.

"Originally, I wanted to wash her whole body, but trainee Shei is so strongly against it that I have no choice. Instead, I will thoroughly wash Azzy's hands, feet, and hair... the parts with fur. Until there isn't a single loose hair or speck of dust left."

My biggest goal was removing Azzy's fur and dust. If that was guaranteed, I could compromise on the rest.

"After that, trainee Shei, who wants to touch Azzy's whole body, can clean the rest. I'll graciously overlook the fulfillment of his personal desires. Tell him to wash her however he likes. Unlike trainee Shei, my goal is purely hygiene and cleanliness, so as long as he uses some water and soap, I don't particularly care what he does with Azzy. Though it is a little irritating."

"Stop slandering me! I don't plan to do anything with Azzy, either!"

Ignoring the regressor's protest, I continued.

"And trainee Tyrkanzyaka will supervise trainee Shei and me from a neutral perspective. I'm one thing, but who knows what trainee Shei, whose head is full of filthy thoughts, might do."

"I said I won't do anything!"

"What can I do? According to trainee Shei, the moment a man touches a woman's body, regardless of his intent or what is in his heart, he immediately develops lustful thoughts. I want to be good, so I'll give up. Instead, I'll pass this opportunity on to trainee Shei."

"Stop framing me! I..."

Perhaps because she had been teased repeatedly, the regressor sprang to her feet and shouted.

"I'm saying I like men!"

Well, of course she did. She was a woman.

Unlike me, though, the vampire was deeply shocked.

"W-What? A man likes men?"

Her student had just made a shocking confession. The vampire's eyes went wide. She was so startled that, despite not having high blood pressure, she instinctively grabbed the back of her neck.

After staggering for a moment, the vampire waved a hand.

"I-It's fine. The world is wide, and the times have changed. Such things can happen."

"No, wait. Tyrkanzyaka, this is..."

"I understand. I do understand, but... could you step away for a moment?"

The regressor, who had finally been cut off by the vampire, made a dumbfounded face before glaring at me with a huff. I did not understand why she was looking at me like I was her enemy when she had blown herself up.

In any case, no one rejected my proposal.

"Woof! Woof woof! I don't want a bath!"

No person rejected my proposal. Three to zero. Passed unanimously.

Azzy kept barking about something, but dogs had no voting rights. If she didn't like it, she could get an ID and change the law. Of course, if she came back waving a dog ID and calling it identification, she'd be headed straight for the soybean-paste pot.

Having won the public's support, I immediately began washing Azzy.

"Whine, whine..."

Azzy stretched her arms out with all her strength and turned her head away as if she could not bear to watch. If she could, she looked ready to tear off her own hands, now covered in water and soap suds. Regardless, I firmly poured water over Azzy's hands and scrubbed them hard with laundry soap. Every time I did, Azzy squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered as if having a nightmare.

"Ugh. Look at this filthy water. Thinking about how you've been walking around with hands like these gives me chills."

Black water mixed with golden fur flowed down the drain and disappeared. I could only offer infinite gratitude to Mother Earth for accepting even this dirty water.

Azzy was a dog. She wore the shell of a human, but the nature dwelling in that body was canine. Not a single drop of sweat came from her whole body, yet her palms and soles had sweat glands, so they quickly became damp when she ran around. Sweat, fur, and dust had all tangled together into something beyond description.

I practically scraped Azzy's soft palms clean. Even when she squirmed because it tickled, I forced them open and wiped them down. It was closer to laundering or scrubbing than bathing. Beads of sweat rolled down my face, but for the hygiene of Tantalus, I could not compromise on this.

The sight of me silently cleaning away every kind of filth was practically sacred. The regressor, who had accused me of being impure, would surely reflect on herself after seeing this. My detached hands contained not even a trace of lust, moving purely for cleanliness...

"...How obscene."

"What?"

Wait. What had I just heard?

When I looked up, the vampire was covering her eyes with one hand as if she could not bear to watch.

"To fondle a moaning young woman's hand so lewdly. It is shameless. What else could it be but obscenity?"

I had forgotten. The vampire was an old fossil with the ethics of twelve centuries ago. To her, even a man and a woman holding hands had obscene implications!

"No. Setting aside why holding hands is obscene, she's a dog."

"That is why I am only watching instead of using my power to punish you. Still, obscenity is obscenity... How indecent. Shei's concerns were not entirely unfounded."

"You're insane."

At this rate, she would probably say that interlocking fingers counted as pressing bodies together. I ignored her and focused on washing Azzy.

Whenever my soapy fingers slid into Azzy's thick fur or between her fingers during the washing,

"Ahem."

"Mmm."

"Tsk."

I had to listen to those sighs.

It was miserable. I only wanted to live cleanly, yet here I was washing a dog's hands and feet while being called obscene. If I had actually done something obscene, I would not feel so wronged.

Even being nagged by a mother-in-law for being bad at housework would have been less sorrowful.

"They say that among abnormal people, the normal one becomes abnormal..."

I lamented while washing Azzy's hands.

For some reason, the regressor and the vampire nodded as if they agreed.

I was going to burst from frustration.

'That man is skilled at handling Azzy and Tyrkanzyaka.'

The King of Dogs was now having her hair washed, with soap suds covering her hands and feet. Even with her neck tilted back and a towel covering her forehead, she kept her eyes shut and mouth closed in case water splashed on her. The vampire was touching her own hair and saying things like how indecent it was.

The regressor watched them quietly, lost in thought.

'Azzy and Tyrkanzyaka do not fundamentally hate humans. Neither can exist without humans. But...'

In the previous cycle, the vampire had been destined to march on the Sanctum with her army of blood and suffer defeat. The regressor had moved a step ahead, successfully stopping the vampires' uprising and turning them into allies, but she had not resolved their old resentment.

Azzy had become a monster that tore humans apart with her claws and teeth. The regressor had not confirmed her end, but she must have died somewhere on the battlefield. At the time, the regressor had cut down countless beasts, beastfolk, and the people behind the plot.

Compared with who they were now, it was a change that should have been impossible.

'What on earth happened to them in the previous cycle? No.'

The regressor's eyes turned to the man washing Azzy. He was too frivolous in speech and manner to be an instructor, too ambiguous to be called strong, yet impossible to see through.

An outsider who had suddenly appeared in Tantalus.

And the only one who had not been there when Tantalus collapsed.

'What did that man do to them?'

She could not be certain because she did not know the future. The regressor had chased the past, but history had changed from the moment she entered this place.

'I wanted to eliminate every variable, but that man was stronger than I expected. So I changed the plan and decided to keep watching what he did... But I've already interfered, so I don't know whether this is the proper course of history anymore. Things have gone too far off track. All I have left is to piece things together from clues that existed before I regressed.'

From the rooftop with the water tank, the highest place in Tantalus, the regressor looked down.

She was trying to locate the person who was still lying low somewhere below.

'A witness who saw all of this happen inside Tantalus... the immortal. When will he wake up? If I match the time he wakes with his testimony, I might be able to learn something.'

After water was poured over her several times, the soap suds vanished from Azzy's body. Her glossy golden-brown fur shone even beneath the dim light. When she was roughly dried off, Azzy shook herself. Water droplets clinging to her fur sprayed everywhere, and the man, soaked by the sudden shower, got angry.

It was a pastoral, peaceful sight. The vampire was stable, and Azzy was healthy. If this ordinary life continued, those who had once been fragments of the end would leave Tantalus just as they were now, in peace...

It could not happen, but she wished it could.

The regressor emerged from her thoughts.

At the same time, my eyes, which had been peeking into those memories, also darkened.

Footnotes:

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