WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 416

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Elder, Ain, Yeiling, and Human - 3

It landed without any dramatic impact. But it landed cleanly. Cabilah had a cold heart, like any vampire, so instead of reeling she assessed it with quiet precision.

"...Unni suspects me?"

"To be exact, she suspects 'an Elder.' What Yeling could possibly kill an Elder alone? Either another Elder helped, or the killer framed her afterward. That possibility... would be difficult for Tyr, as sovereign, to ignore."

"The suspicion itself is fair. But did unni actually say that?"

Sharp. That's a vampire for you. Getting her to jump to conclusions on her own wasn't going to be easy.

"No. Tyr doesn't want to suspect the Elders she trusts as her closest allies and treasured companions. But it's better to clear up doubts than let them fester, isn't it? So I stepped in to take that worry off her hands."

"Aren't you afraid of dying? The nerve of you...."

Whatever I'd said, confirming it was my own initiative seemed to put Cabilah at ease. If anything, she looked pleased.

"I was wondering what kind of blood pouch unni had picked up somewhere. Turns out you actually earn your keep as a concubine. You're right. Unni has a hard time suspecting us."

"Exactly. I expected a vampire to track down a culprit with cold logic."

"Not being swayed by emotion is different from being suspicious of everyone. And above all, we Elders were unni's hands and feet. You don't suspect your own hands and feet. Your limbs treasure your body above all else, but...."

Cabilah murmured the last part quietly, then answered with a more serious air.

"Fine. Insolent little concubine. What do you want to know?"

"The grudges the late Luscinia held."

"Same as I said before. We Elders are vampires. We don't act on emotion. Killing in a fit of feeling is an excuse humans grab out of thin air. No Elder would plan an uncertain, risky, profitless murder just because they felt some resentment."

Cabilah spoke with complete conviction. She genuinely believed every word, and she was right, Cabilah was not the culprit behind Luscinia's death.

Well, I already knew that from mind reading. I hadn't come here for the answer; I'd come for clues.

"Tyr probably thinks along similar lines. But I'm here to consider even the worst case, aren't I? Let's try a different angle."

"Different how?"

"Let's say there is a culprit among the Elders. So, who?"

Assuming it's true makes things visible that weren't before. Change the premise, and the perspective shifts, and Cabilah might offer new leads. She might not know the answer now, but any conclusion drawn from eleven centuries of firsthand experience is a clue in itself.

I didn't have to wait long. Cabilah shook her head.

"I genuinely don't know. It's such a spectacularly stupid thing to do that Lungken is the only one who comes to mind, but Lungken's too dim to hide evidence. He wouldn't even think to. So I really have no idea."

"The late Luscinia had a reputation for handling humans roughly."

"Hmph. Yes. That bat clearly thought humans grew out of the ground if you dug long enough. He'd work his own humans to death and then go looking for more. Kept asking me to sell him some of mine, hand them over.... Must have gone genuinely blind from all that bat behavior. Do you have any idea how many centuries I spent feeding, housing, and raising those people? And he expected me to just hand them over because he asked?"

Cabilah talked the way a rancher might talk about a head count on the livestock, and she wasn't far wrong from that.

Cabilah the Bone Weaver was gentle with humans. That was partly her nature, and partly the wisdom pressed out of her over eleven centuries of experience.

Humans posed no threat. A few more of them didn't make managing things any harder. She had charge of the coastline, so resources came easily. Her thralls worked with blood and bone, and simply setting more traps along the shore was enough to feed several hundred.

Don't get the wrong idea. Cabilah did not see humans as equals. Her gentleness was the coldly calculated result of a meticulous mind.

...But does that make it any less gentleness? By that point, you could just call it love.

"Anyway. Understood."

"You're not going to suspect me?"

"I came to you first precisely because I suspect you least."

"What's your reasoning?"

Seeing how she fought in Claudia, she looked the weakest in a one-on-one... not something I could say. I came up with something reasonable instead.

"Because you're devoted to Tyr. Lady Cabilah wouldn't do anything that would make Tyr worry."

Cabilah let out a small snort.

"Hmph. You've got a talent for flattery."

"It's what got me the Progenitor's concubine spot."

"I'm sure the real reason is something else entirely. Anyway, I have nothing more to say about the culprit...."

Hmm. I'd already read her thoughts and known this, but Cabilah was not the culprit. That didn't mean the visit had been fruitless.

The late Luscinia had apparently made enemies in more than a few places. If even a fellow Elder treated him like that, one could only imagine what he'd been like with humans.

There was a reason nobody had thought to ask about Lir Nightingale's motive. Luscinia himself was the motive.

Hmm. So then who actually did it.... I was scratching my chin when Cabilah stood up from her seat and asked:

"Humans are hungry at all hours, aren't they? Shall I get you something to eat?"

"Yes. Please."

I couldn't turn that down.

Cabilah prepared a dish of fresh seafood. A bear doll she operated herself stood at the cutting board and used a sharp bone knife to remove scales, then sliced the fish into sashimi. Meanwhile, bone soldiers in aprons dropped a large crab into a pot and steamed it.

The preparation was neat and quick. Within minutes, a full spread of fresh seafood had been laid out. Cabilah waved the bone soldiers off and said:

"Eat. I chose things that wouldn't alter the taste of blood too much, so feel free to eat as much as you like."

"You care so much about my health... thank you. I'll honor that concern by staying very healthy."

"As I keep saying, it's for unni, not you!"

The raw fish drizzled with fruit juice was outrageously luxurious. Fresh fish can be eaten raw, they say, but that's only when you actually have access to fresh fish. The firm flesh hit my tongue with an umami entirely unlike meat.

The steamed crab that came alongside it was, in a word, violent. Warm flesh melted on my tongue and set off an explosion of flavor.

This is what life is. I'd been living next to a cook like this all this time and never taken advantage of it? Decided. Today I restore Tyr's sense of taste first.

Cabilah watched me eat for a while, then asked, as if it were nothing in particular:

"What happened to unni?"

She'd been wondering the whole time, but it took her a while to get there. I played dumb first.

"What do you mean?"

"I can't feel unni's sovereign presence. From the very first moment I encountered her this visit, the trembling that should always be there... it's gone. She's not holding it back on purpose. I can tell.... Do you know something about it?"

Hmm. What should I do? Play ignorant and brush past it? Ask how a perfectly ordinary human like me would know anything about vampire physiology?

'There's no way unni would take on a concubine for nothing. Something happened. No, something has to have happened. I need to know what changed with unni... what happened to her.'

But that would only push the suspicion down the road. Better to say it. I'd already let slip about the King of Humanity, so this was nothing.

I put another piece of food in my mouth and said it as casually as I could manage.

"It's nothing much. She got her heart back."

"Her heart...?"

"Yes. At the end of an extraordinarily grand adventure, Tyr remembered the heartbeat she had forgotten long ago. More than that, she actually managed to get it beating again."

A dead heart coming back to life was something that had never happened before and would likely never happen again, so it took Cabilah a moment to accept it. I gave her a more detailed explanation to help things along.

"Life is what separates you from the world and keeps that separation intact. Death is the opposite, becoming one with the world. When her heart came back to life, Tyr's bloodcraft followed her heart and began distinguishing between the world and herself again. That's why her sovereign presence has weakened a little, but Tyr herself hasn't changed much, so don't worry."

"...You helped with that. That's why you're the concubine...."

Vampires are subtly perceptive. Whether from experience, or from never letting things get smothered under emotion, I couldn't say. I had no choice but to nod.

"Yes, well. Not much of a reason, really."

"...That's good."

"Tell her yourself. Tyr will be pleased to hear it."

That was that, and food was food. I cleaned my plate and stood up, satisfied.

"That was wonderful. I'll be going now. I'll look into the culprit as carefully as I can, so please don't worry too much."

I said my farewell and made to leave, and Cabilah moved her bear doll. Its mouth worked in a ventriloquist's puppet-like way, and words came out of it.

As if to insist it wasn't Cabilah speaking at all.

"Be careful of Crimson Duke Valdamir."

"Crimson Duke Valdamir? Do you suspect him?"

"Whether I suspect him or not, that's not what this is about."

Whatever anyone says, vampires are still vampires. Monsters with unbeating hearts and cold blood, who drink the blood of humans.

Their cold reason keeps their feelings at a near-flatline. Merciless, you might say. They don't hope for the best, and they don't refuse to see the worst.

"I can't say for certain who the culprit is. But if. If Crimson Duke Valdamir has been harboring a separate agenda."

Just as I had come to Cabilah first because she seemed the least dangerous of the options.

Cabilah thought along the same logic, and had her guard up for the same reason.

Everyone else could betray Tyr and it would be fine. It wouldn't be dangerous.

But there was one. The strongest Elder, and the undisputed sovereign of this land. Crimson Duke Valdamir.

If he had decided to shed the chains that had been binding him.

"...Now that unni has shed her own chains. Even unni could be in danger."

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