WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 411: A Distant Tale: The Healer Sage's Principle

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Not even blood remained where the vampires had swept through. Shei and Perru buried the dead and tended to the wounded.

The leadership of an entire city had vanished in a single grave incident. The confused citizens of Claudia believed that vampires had attacked because they had tried to seek the Celestial God's forgiveness and offended them. Neither Shei nor Perru bothered to correct them. It was easier to leave people with an explanation they could accept than make everyone understand the truth.

At least the Thunder Guardians and Thunder Lord of Claudia had no families or relatives.

They were malformed children chosen by fate... children abandoned by their families, with no one but fate left to take them in.

That allowed Claudia to direct its anger entirely at the Fog Duchy instead of falling into grief.

Whether that was truly fortunate, Shei did not know.

Still, Claudia's confusion did not last long.

The Thunder God had vanished, and the Thunder Lord was dead. In their place, a new Golden Lord had appeared. The Golden Lord even possessed the Lord of Gold's power and the Thunder God's power. To the people of the Lesser States, who had lived in fear of two Demon Gods, the Golden Lord's appearance felt like a revelation sent down by a god.

They no longer had to keep fleeing the Lesser States just to survive.

Perru, burdened with expectations amid strange excitement and tension, was currently lying among the patients in the Great Lightning Rod Tower.

Shei clutched her head as she looked at Perru groaning in pain.

"Ugh. What am I supposed to do with this? What are you trying to accomplish by lying here with the patients?"

"...Urgh."

"Enough. Don't talk. Just focus on recovering first."

Sweating heavily, Perru lay back down. Shei sighed as she looked over the endless line of wounded.

The thunder trainees were helping, but their strength and experience were insignificant. Disaster had already struck, and Perru was needed to resolve it. Yet Perru herself had collapsed sick, enough to make Shei feel like she was going mad.

"My head is already a mess because of the King of Humanity..."

Shei trailed off and sank into thought.

The King of Humanity. The predecessor of the King of Sin, and perhaps the key to solving all of this.

Yet thinking about it tangled cause and effect. In the future Shei knew, the King of Sin had come from the same origin as the King of Humanity, but it was clearly a different being. A calamity that grasped countless Demon Gods in its hands, wielded them, and destroyed everything. Other than having a human form, it had nothing in common with Hughes.

Not even its appearance or gender.

"The timing doesn't match... Even if Hughes died the moment he met me, even if a new King of Humanity was born at that instant, it couldn't have happened like this. And I didn't sense any particular power from Hughes in the first place."

Even so, it was difficult to doubt that he was the King of Humanity. His actions until now had been far too bizarre. Even if she made every concession and dismissed it as a madman's rampage, the Sanctum had confirmed it. Hughes must be the King of Humanity.

"If that's true, then if I hadn't gone to the Abyss, Hughes..."

It would not be strange if Hughes survived, but... not if he remained trapped in the Abyss.

After considering the possibility, Shei soon shook her head.

"Ah, I don't know. I'll check later. First things first."

She could abandon Perru, but Perru was also someone acknowledged by the two Demon Gods. She was needed to settle Claudia's chaos and stabilize the Demon Gods.

More than that, Shei could not leave her to die like this.

Once she had finished organizing her thoughts, Shei made her decision. As long as Hughes was under the Progenitor's protection, he would not be in danger.

"I need to save the Verdigris Lord first."

Having made her decision, she had to choose a method.

Perru was keeping her ruined body going through her authority. Elixirs and energy techniques would not work. As far as Shei knew, only one person could treat Perru.

The Healer Sage, Lir Nightingale.

"At this point, she hasn't made any thralls yet, so only Lir herself can do it. Since she killed Luscinia, she'll be lingering around the Fog Duchy until Tyrkanzyaka returns... Wait."

Shei stopped speaking, her expression hardening.

Lir had killed Luscinia and taken her true blood. Murdering an Elder was a grave crime, but under the Fog Duchy's laws, an Elder could not punish another Elder. Only the Progenitor could judge an Elder.

Lir's judgment had been postponed until Tyrkanzyaka returned. She had only been forbidden from making thralls, so Lir had gone around the Fog Duchy treating people with the medical skills she had learned.

Actively enough to be called a little greedy.

That was why Shei had assumed Lir would quickly come here, where wounded people were overflowing, but...

"Tyrkanzyaka returned to the Fog Duchy!"

Lir might have encountered Tyrkanzyaka on the way here. Or she might have been detained until her judgment was complete.

"On top of that, Tyrkanzyaka is safe now! The Progenitor has no reason to show mercy! Damn it. I have to go save her...!"

Lir had only been forgiven for the grave crime of murdering an Elder because she had contributed to the Progenitor's treatment. That merit had been highly valued, sparing her from annihilation and reducing her punishment to exile.

But now that the Progenitor was safe, no one knew what would happen to Lir's judgment.

To avoid the worst future, Shei had to act.

Just as Shei gathered Skywarbler and Jizan to leave, someone strode into the ward.

Neatly pinned black hair covered by a hood. A short dress that looked like a uniform, with an apron over it. She looked like a maid from some noble household.

But Shei knew the outfit was for the sake of her patients. Blood showed clearly against white, which was why the Healer Sage always wore a white apron.

The person Shei had just been thinking about appeared before her, leaving her flustered. Regardless, a young thunder trainee stepped forward to block the barefoot Healer Sage.

"W-who are you? You can't just come in here...!"

"No. This is where I belong."

The Healer Sage, Lir Nightingale, calmly counted even in the face of blood and death.

The groaning wounded. Blood flowing from bound wounds. Resentment and fear gathering in their eyes.

Unaffected by anything that would shake a human heart, she kept her heart cold as she declared,

"Now then, you are all my patients."

A Thunder Guardian who had belatedly realized that Lir was a vampire rose with a spear in hand.

"You! Vampire...!"

One of his arms was twisted and wrapped in bandages, but in the face of rage and fear, pain meant nothing. Whether he could win was a secondary concern. The Thunder Guardian spasmodically thrust his spear.

Lir's eyes turned toward him. They were fixed not on the spearhead, but on his twisted arm. She watched until the spearhead was almost upon her, then drew the thin surgical knife hidden in her hand.

Shing.

A thin, sharp blade flashed. Lir passed behind the Thunder Guardian.

A cleanly severed arm dropped to the ground with a wet slap.

Even if he had inherited the blood, an Elder was still an Elder. The Thunder Guardian, who had lost an arm in a single exchange, writhed in pain.

"Gah, gaaah! Aaaagh! Agh!"

The thin blade had dug into his shoulder and cut off one arm. It had been twisted and ruined, but it had still been his arm. Then it was cut away, fell to the ground, and ceased to be his.

Everyone thought the cruel vampire had returned to kill them all.

Only Shei felt relieved.

The Healer Sage was always the Healer Sage.

"I will take responsibility for your causes of death. If you die, it will be because I am incompetent. Nothing more."

The severed arm twitched. The Thunder Guardian writhing on the floor... instead felt the pain fading and looked confused.

"Uh, uh... Huh?"

No blood flowed.

It was a strange sight. Blood flowed from the severed surface. The blood that should have scattered through the air instead formed a current in midair, flowing toward where it should have gone if the arm had never been cut.

Red blood connected like threads, linking the shoulder and the severed arm. Though it had been cut off, it still seemed to be one body.

No, to begin with, what was one body?

"It would be better to cut away the damaged parts and reattach it. But I will treat you after I have healed forty-four people. Your death is forty-fifth in line."

First came fear, then surprise. Finally, curiosity. That was how she took control of her patients.

In the reverent silence, Lir moved with her surgical knife. Her standard was clear. Treat the person closest to death first. To save everyone, she had to treat the patient who would die first. That was Lir's principle.

Shei cautiously approached Lir. Without paying her much attention, Lir focused on cutting open a patient's body with her surgical knife to assess their condition. She called it treatment, but to anyone else, it looked like gentle butchery performed on the living.

Shei waved off the Thunder Guardians who cautiously approached, then asked quietly,

"Do you need anything?"

Without even looking at her, Lir said,

"I'm short on blood. I only have enough blood for thirty people. Beginning with the thirty-first, I will need a new supply."

"But you can't use unrefined blood carelessly, can you? The body rejects someone else's blood. If you don't suppress that with medicine, you'll need to monitor them constantly."

Only then did Lir show interest in Shei. The fact that accepting another's blood caused rejection was no secret. It was common knowledge among vampires, and those who handled energy techniques knew it as well.

But the fact that medicine could suppress that rejection was not widely known. Not unless one was a blood energy practitioner from Luscinia's lineage, which studied the body itself.

Naturally, Shei had heard it from the future Lir.

Facing Lir's puzzled expression, Shei pointed at Perru.

"The Golden Lord is injured. If she's well, she can create homunculi. The Thunder Guardians here are people mixed with homunculi. If we have homunculus blood, we can quickly replenish blood that will cause less rejection."

Where had Shei learned that? How could homunculi be made? Would their blood really cause less rejection?

Lir could not be certain. She did not know.

But as long as they were Lir's patients, all their lives depended on Lir's judgment.

They were lives that had to be saved anyway. Even the time spent deliberating was too precious.

Lir made her decision.

"Please lead me there."

Lir had a principle. Treat the patient closest to death first. Never change the order for personal reasons. Otherwise, the chance of saving everyone would decrease.

But...

Principles meant nothing in the face of death. If twisting a principle could prevent death, Lir would twist it a hundred times over.

Lir bore responsibility for her patients' deaths.

Not her principles.

She would never, until the day she was annihilated, make the excuse that she had failed to save a life because she had followed a principle.

Footnotes:

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