WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 412: The Culprit Is Among Us

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The Progenitor's return kept Castle of the Full Moon abuzz for days. The elderly, who had lamented that they would never see the Progenitor in this lifetime, were so moved that they kept dabbing their tears away with handkerchiefs. Curious children lingered near the castle, hoping to catch even a distant glimpse of the Progenitor's face.

There was none of the fear humans ought to feel toward vampires, nor the helplessness of living under their rule. The humans felt only peace.

Perhaps this was how sheep felt as they looked beyond their fence.

The vampires rejoiced, but the feelings beneath that joy were somewhat different. Those who knew of the Elder's death feared that something might happen.

And the vampires who had not heard of the Elder's death...

"The Progenitor's..."

"...concubine!"

They stared at me in fascination, then clamped their mouths shut and whispered whenever I passed.

Seriously. Stop calling me a concubine. It made the human hearing it feel awful. I wasn't a concubine. I was simply a guest who had shown Tyr goodwill and was staying here...

"Hyu!"

Tyr spotted me from the other end of the corridor and approached happily. Her gentle expression was full of affection, and her slightly quicker steps betrayed her excitement.

The vampires serving in the Progenitor's castle covered their mouths in shock at the unfamiliar reaction.

'The Progenitor is smiling at a mere human!'

'For a thousand years, she has never even put her mouth to a human body, let alone kept a concubine...! Just how delicious is his blood?!'

No, this made it impossible for me to deny being her concubine. Please show a little more Progenitor-like dignity. And stop making it so obvious that you like me.

My inner voice did not reach her. Tyr was dressed in comfortable everyday clothes rather than the dress she usually wore, and she approached me with the same ease as her light outfit.

"You woke early. Did you sleep well? Is anything bothering you?"

"It was dark everywhere, so I didn't even know morning had come. Sorry for oversleeping... Huh? Early?"

"Opening your eyes after only a day is early. Vampires often sleep for a month before waking up."

"That's by vampire standards. If we sleep more than twelve hours, we start wondering whether we've died. If it goes past twenty-four hours, we just hold a funeral."

"By your standards, we are already dead."

"Exactly. Vampires are the very example that proves those standards right."

"Hehe. I see."

'Is it because my heart has come back to life that conversation alone makes me happy, or is it because it is Hyu...? Do I need to distinguish the two? Every tremor of emotion is a gift Hyu gave me.'

Listening to her thoughts, I really was her concubine. Still, it didn't sound good. It made me sound like some kept man.

"We agreed to look through the records together today. I felt bad enough that it seemed delayed because of me. You should've woken me."

"How could I wake you when you were sleeping so soundly? We can take our time reviewing the records. It isn't a matter of urgency."

"Huh? But it's a murder case. Isn't it urgent?"

"It is the highest-priority matter. Still, Luscinia died more than ten years ago. Hurrying now won't change anything."

Was that really something the Progenitor should say?

Even in the Abyss, Tyr's words and actions had carried a leisurely air. She never rushed anywhere and spoke as though a week or a month would pass in an instant. I hadn't noticed it much while we were in the Abyss, but after coming to the Fog Duchy, I understood.

The whole country was leisurely.

Nothing was urgent. Vampires lay about without being pressed for time, occasionally wandering the streets to toss out red gold coins and drink blood. Humans used the red gold coins, their payment for blood, in their economic activities. They traded them for food at ranches and fisheries or looked over goods brought by traveling merchants before making purchases.

The red gold coins spent that way returned to the vampires in all sorts of forms.

Before I saw it for myself, I had thought it a hell on earth. The Fog Duchy I saw firsthand was a pastoral land of livestock.

Like drifting clouds. Like growing plants.

With a vast fence between humans and vampires.

"All the evidence must be gone by now. That's a problem. How are we supposed to investigate this?"

"Is there not evidence? Vampires who remember what happened then are still alive and well."

"Testimony always needs physical evidence to support it."

"Physical evidence... as well?"

Tyr tilted her head, and I got an ominous feeling. Physical evidence. Objects that explained what had happened, something naturally needed to render a verdict.

Asking for it was only natural.

Yet Tyr, the judge, was tilting her head?

"I'm honestly curious. How were you planning to hold the trial?"

"I will hear both sides. Then I will choose the suspicious one and punish them. That is all."

"That's all? Is that enough?"

"What more must be done? Would a vampire of the duchy dare tell a lie before me?"

"What if they do? Do you have mind-reading or something?"

When I immediately asked that, Tyr seemed to lose a little confidence and asked back,

"...Is that not how verdicts are reached these days?"

'Has the way verdicts are rendered changed while I was unaware? I do not know what has not changed.'

"It's still similar these days, but you seem to be investigating rather carelessly for such an important case."

Military state judges might hand down punishments disproportionate to the crime, but they still required evidence. They might burst in without warning after hearing a neighbor's report, but if they found nothing, they simply moved on. If they arrested people indiscriminately even when those people obeyed the military state's orders, people would ignore any policy of harsh punishment and commit crimes anyway.

A verdict was the state's right to exact vengeance. It did not prevent an incident from occurring. Whether it was justice or the rule of law, what mattered was the trust that it would be upheld.

In that sense, the Elder's death also had to be approached carefully, in a way people could trust.

"It isn't a squabble between children. It's the death of an important figure, so we should uncover as much of the truth as possible. We should hear the testimony but not blindly trust it, investigate whether there are contradictions, and then pass judgment. Don't you think?"

"...Hmm."

'I had intended to spend some pleasant time with Hyu before handling this. We could have had a peaceful daily life for about a year.'

A year wasn't a short while. At that point, shouldn't we start worrying about the statute of limitations?

I had agreed to stay, but I had no intention of just killing time. I said to Tyr,

"I agreed to help, so let's put our heads together and think this through."

"Together... If that is so, let us put our heads together and think... Together, that is. Hehe."

"Yes. Before we look at the records, though... I'd like to hear it from you first. Who was Luscinia, and who could have killed him?"

"The records should be in my audience chamber. Let us speak as we walk there."

Tyr led the way. Two vampire maids stood bowing in the corridor with their mouths covered, but Tyr passed them as though they were folding screens.

Castle of the Full Moon was a huge old castle more than ten stories high. Its hard floors and high ceilings would have made a human worry about their joints, but they posed little problem for vampires who could swim through the darkness.

More importantly, the castle's bricks had been hardened by pouring human blood into them while they were molded. The darkness filling the corridors was not the absence of light, but the Progenitor's power. In this ancient castle, formed by all sorts of powers held in balance, vampires could find their way with their eyes closed like bats in a cave.

Tyr took me to the Progenitor's audience chamber at the very top of the castle. I thought we might have to walk all the way up, but fortunately, a red carpet supported me and floated gently upward.

It was comfortable, at least. Though this red color was probably... Hmm.

As the carpet moved, Tyr began explaining.

"Luscinia was a blood energy practitioner. That may be difficult to understand, so to put it more clearly... He combined bloodcraft with energy techniques to repair and improve the human body."

"Repair and improve it? The human body?"

"Yes. Breaking down and regenerating muscles, splitting bones and reattaching them. He gradually made the body stronger piece by piece in that manner. He also recreated energy techniques through bloodcraft, pioneering the field of blood energy arts. He was the Great Master of that school. His knowledge was exceptional in many fields, and I often learned much from him."

"If he broke muscles and split bones... Would it be fair to say he was similar to Lady Cabilah?"

"No. They might appear similar at first glance, but they were opposites in every way. From their abilities to their dispositions."

Tyr pondered for a moment over how to explain it, then said,

"Cabilah combined her art with black magic and devoted herself to puppetry that used control. To Cabilah, puppets are both her works and objects of affection and care. Humans under Cabilah's protection are no different from her puppets."

"That's a little scary. Thinking of humans as puppets."

"You may find it difficult to accept, Hyu, but Cabilah is one of the kindest Elders toward humans. She does not kill humans for personal reasons, and she earnestly grants what they desire. Cabilah's dragon-tooth soldiers were also created to take on dangerous work in place of humans. They are used in the Fog Duchy's most dangerous workplaces."

Was that so? Come to think of it, she had used dragon-tooth soldiers to cook in the carriage on the way here. Cooking was for the living. At the very least, Cabilah had been considerate enough to care about human taste.

In Claudia, Cabilah alone had taken the trouble to kill the Thunder Guardians one by one. Someone could ask what was kind about that, but compared to Lungken, who wandered about seeking strong enemies without caring who was beneath them, or Valdamir, who treated them only as military strength... Cabilah had been relatively human.

That was why she had the least presence.

As I recalled those memories, a thought suddenly occurred to me, and I asked,

"Wait. You said the late Luscinia was the complete opposite of Lady Cabilah, right? If Lady Cabilah was the kindest Elder, then the late Luscinia was...?"

"Your guess is correct. Luscinia was the harshest Elder toward humans. If it helped him train in blood energy arts, he would not hesitate to cut humans open alive. He often ruined bones and muscles in the name of improvement."

"Wow. It feels a little wrong to say this, but should I be glad that he was the Elder who died? I might have been dissected too."

"Unless he wished to die, would he have dared do such a thing to my honored guest? In any case, Luscinia was deeply resented even among vampires. He killed so many humans that blood became scarce."

"The more I dig, the more horror stories I find..."

It was ironic that the one who inherited his true blood became the Healer Sage. No, perhaps it was because she learned from his negative example that she became even more focused on saving people.

"That is why his bloodline has the ability to manipulate their bodies in unusual ways through blood energy arts. Like the Ain Jazra you saw before, they can flap their cloaks like wings and fly, or twist their leg bones and muscles to leap high into the sky. If you see someone using their body strangely, remember that they are of Luscinia's bloodline."

"I don't really know where to draw the line for strange. I know a vampire who split open her chest and showed me her heart."

"There were circumstances then, were there not? Thanks to that, you and I formed a connection as well."

Tyr lightly chided me, then continued.

"Still, no matter how much resentment he earned, an Elder was an Elder. Luscinia's power could shake heaven and earth, and his regenerative ability was unmatched. Neither vampires nor humans would have dared even think of harming him."

"But someone did, right?"

"...That is true."

"Since it already happened, assumptions like that are meaningless. Someone killed an Elder. Then the culprit must have possessed the means to kill one. Tyr, how can an immortal Elder be killed?"

Even Tyr needed a long time to think about that. As the blood-red carpet carried us to the front of Tyr's audience chamber, she thought deeply before finally speaking.

"Even an immortal Elder can be annihilated if their very existence grows faint. For instance, though I do not believe this was the case, if one were subdued and thrown deep into the Sea of Leviathans... Their body would scatter through the sea and vanish forever."

"That makes sense. Once a vampire's body touches the saltwater, blood would seep out, and the sea-beasts that smelled it would swarm from every direction. The sea itself is like one enormous beast. If someone were swallowed by it... they would be fully digested and impossible to find."

"Or if their entire body were torn to pieces and left beneath terribly powerful sunlight for about a week, they would suffer irreversible damage."

"Sunlight changes all things. If a vampire's body were left to dry in the sun, even an Elder would be in danger."

Vampires were immortal, but not invincible. Sunlight, garlic, running water. Vampires had reasons to hate those things. Taken to extremes, they could threaten a vampire's very existence.

Still...

"That wouldn't be the cause of death, would it?"

Tyr gave an appreciative hum, then looked at me with expectant eyes.

"Remarkable. Why do you think so?"

"Because a vampire who inherited his true blood appeared."

Luscinia had died, but a new Elder had appeared who inherited his true blood. Lir Nightingale. Though not yet, she was the Elder who would be called the Healer Sage in the regressor's future. Lir commanded bloodcraft well enough to confidently call herself an Elder.

There was no doubt that she had inherited the true blood. If that was so...

"The fact that his true blood was passed on means he didn't fall into the sea or burn in sunlight... Someone must have attacked and defeated the Elder, then taken his true blood using bloodcraft greater than the Elder's own."

Dun dun.

The culprit was a vampire.

That was the bloody truth I had reached.

I, Hughes, the King of Humanity, could make such deductions from so few clues. Tyr was genuinely impressed by my reasoning.

'As expected of Hyu. I thought that even as the King of Humanity, it would be difficult for him to grasp vampire affairs. I am pleasantly surprised... Perhaps Hyu may uncover the truth behind Luscinia's death.'

...Uh, I'd read it through mind-reading, so I hoped she wouldn't place quite so much faith in me.

Footnotes:

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