WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 420

──────

Elder, Ain, Yeiling, and Human - 7

As the Progenitor's favored concubine, I had become something of a local celebrity. Every vampire recognized me on sight, and even among the humans on the streets, a good third of them had the word concubine halfway up their throat the moment they saw my face. Half of those actually came over and struck up a conversation.

"Excuse me, are you by any chance..."

Being the Progenitor's concubine wasn't something I needed to hide, and Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka was far too towering a presence in the Duchy for secrecy to work anyway. So instead of deflecting, I announced it outright.

"Yes. The Progenitor's concubine. That would be me."

The people gathered around me let out a collective gasp.

"Oh...! Somehow I can tell!"

"He's got the look of a concubine!"

"Hard to believe, but he can't exactly be swindling the Progenitor!"

The look of a concubine? Swindling? Anyone listening would think I was the sort of scoundrel who drains a woman dry and tosses her aside. I'm not that kind of person, for the record.

"If you don't mind my asking, how old are you?"

"Shh. That's a secret. Tyr and I agreed not to count ages when we're together... Don't ask why. You'll be arrested for impiety."

"Where did you first meet the Progenitor?"

"I went searching for treasure, deep into a darkness that was cold and endless, and I found her there by chance. Or perhaps it was fate. The Progenitor was a treasure to me as well."

"What's the secret to a blood that even the Progenitor was captivated by?"

"That goes beyond privacy into state secret. I'd like to keep that one to myself."

The crowd kept growing. Curiosity that could not be contained came pouring in from every direction. Rather than shrinking from it, I walked the streets enjoying every bit of it. The crowd swelled, and even people who hadn't been paying attention began drifting over to see what the fuss was about. In no time at all, a procession had formed that filled the street from end to end.

The humans who lived in the Fog Duchy, where nearly nothing ever changed, were starved for interesting news, and the concubine the Progenitor had brought home was exactly the sort of topic worth chewing on at length. A romance between the Progenitor, who stood higher than the sky itself, and a mere human.

"Which part of the Progenitor do you find the most ador..."

"Enough."

Thud. Thud. A set of footsteps rang out sharply over the noise of the street. The humans who had swarmed around like a gathering cloud flinched and turned toward the sound. Then they hurriedly lowered their heads and averted their eyes.

"C-Count Erte!"

Ain. The noble vampires who served as thralls to Elders and had inherited their power and authority.

How old they were, how strong they were, varied enormously depending on when they had been turned. But one thing was certain: even a fairly capable human would struggle to stand against them.

"Foolish cattle. Do not obstruct the path of the Progenitor's concubine."

On top of that... ain had been renewed many times over through the ages. Only the strongest survived by natural selection. Count Erte was exactly that kind of case.

Blood that had been running along the ground crept up the humans' ankles. Red webs spread across the surface of their skin. A moment later, the people surrounding me all drew back at once, as though strings had been tied to them and yanked.

It was Cabilah's blood thread technique, applied on a grander scale, seizing a large number of humans and moving them all in an instant. Not overwhelming in raw power, but this precision was the consummate art of bloodcraft taken to its furthest extreme.

The humans seemed accustomed to being moved like this; they managed only small complaints. That didn't mean they were happy about it, and a low murmur of discontent lingered in the air.

Whether they liked it or not, Valdamir's loyal subject and the great ain who managed the Castle of the Full Moon, Count Erte, parted the crowd and approached me. A woman in a stately formal suit and hat lowered her head.

"Honored concubine. Why do you walk the streets without an escort?"

"Hold on, is concubine actually my official title? Why does everyone call me that?"

"You are the Progenitor's concubine, so I call you the concubine."

"Then what does that make you, bowing your head to a concubine?"

"Ain are thralls to Elders. Compared to you, the Progenitor's concubine, I am of lesser rank."

To Count Erte, this was simply common sense. I probably couldn't beat her even with ten of me, but the single fact of being Tyr's concubine was enough for this ain to show me deference.

"Where are you headed? Erte von Blood, loyal servant of His Highness Valdamir, will escort you."

"I was planning to head back to the Castle of the Full Moon eventually, but I came out to take a little walk around the streets first."

"I will escort you. Please enjoy your stroll at your leisure, honored concubine."

Tch. I'd wanted to look around on my own at my own pace, but the vampires weren't having it. Lungken was the same way, and now an ain too? The yelings would be no different, I was sure. Looks like there's no going anywhere alone in peace in this land.

"Do I really need an escort?"

"An escort's presence doesn't necessarily mean you are in danger. It is a sign of respect that vampires offer to the Progenitor, and it also makes your own authority plain."

"It doesn't mean I'm not in danger, either?"

"...I will guide you."

Two yelings appeared from somewhere and began directing the crowd. The humans who had gathered seemed used to this sort of thing; they followed the instructions without much fuss. The street emptied out again in moments, and I began a quiet bit of sightseeing under Count Erte's watchful eye.

I had expected as much, but there would be no pretending to be ordinary while I was Tyr's concubine. No crowd, nothing to do. Growing bored, I kept glancing back at Count Erte walking half a step behind me, and then something clicked.

Count Erte. That name sounded familiar. Where had I heard it.

Ah.

"Now that I think about it, there was a yeling named Finlay who turned up in Tantalus once."

Count Erte, ahead of me, faltered.

Surprise at a subordinate's name coming up out of nowhere? No. Vampires didn't run that deep on sentiment. The moment I said Finlay's name, she had already arrived at an unpleasant conclusion.

Finlay, who had been searching for the Progenitor, had visited Tantalus. He was no longer there. Somewhere along the journey between Tantalus and the Fog Duchy, something unexpected had happened to him.

And that something could only have happened with the Progenitor's knowledge, or by her will.

Under the Progenitor's power, vampires were immortal.

"I cannot begin to imagine what disrespect my inadequate yeling may have caused."

"Finlay wanted to start a war. He was hoping the Progenitor would return to the Duchy as soon as possible. And then he... stepped over a line."

"Ah. That blundering idiot finally went and..."

Count Erte looked mortified. Not out of fear that blame might reach her. She was genuinely, purely furious that a yeling who was practically her own hands and feet had committed such an offense.

"I humbly ask, if I may know what disrespect was committed?"

"While Tyr was in the middle of experimenting with her own heart, it seems she asked Finlay to make the heart beat in her place for a while. Then, while Tyr was resting with her body entrusted to him..."

"That, that!"

It was far worse than anything she had imagined. Bad enough to warrant the extermination of the bloodline three generations over and still have nothing to say for yourself. It was beyond disloyalty and into outright treason. Count Erte clutched her chest and looked as though she were in pain.

"...That crime. I will go to confess it in person and take my own life there."

"Is there really any need to bring it up? Tyr has buried the whole thing somewhere in the back of her memory. Reminding her for no reason will only stir up her temper."

"Then I will petition His Highness Valdamir to have my life taken!"

"Why so extreme? As long as the thralls of his thralls keep their mouths shut, Valdamir can carry on as though nothing happened. Wouldn't that be better for both Tyr and Valdamir?"

I was suggesting she hide something she knew the truth of. Thoroughly disloyal, but the best possible outcome for everyone. Count Erte had been writhing in shame, and for a moment my words tempted her.

I used that opening to ask something I had been curious about.

"There's something I've been wondering. Does it ever happen that a thrall makes a decision on their own, without any order from their maker?"

"...Cases where they misread an order and act out, those do happen."

Count Erte said it like an excuse, then added more.

"But as you said. Finlay's will is the same as my will. He received my blood, he followed what my blood directed him to do, and he shared feeling with my blood."

It was hard to say that yelings were different from ain. A yeling who has received an ain's blood feels anger when the ain is angry, and sorrow when the ain is sorrowful. The blood flowing through a yeling's body, and the power within that blood, moves their emotions. As that process repeats itself, even the yeling's thoughts, even their character, gradually come to follow their maker.

In the end, emotion is a bodily response, when you strip it down to its roots.

There is a reason thralls are, in the most extreme terms, called an extension of the body.

"Finlay wanted war, you said. Which means?"

"The struggle against the Celestial God is the Duchy's destiny."

"And?"

"...However. The Duchy has been too peaceful of late. Strength is meaningless if it cannot be used. Meanwhile, the Sanctum has been weakened by a string of setbacks. Their ambitious push to convert the Wildlands failed, and their attempts to mediate the conflict between the Empire and the Arcane Federation left them rejected by both sides. If we are going to act, now is the time."

It was true that conditions favored war. That still wasn't a reason to go to war. Let me have a read of her thoughts.

'Strength is meaningless if it cannot be used. With an Elder gone, before the Fog Duchy falls any further behind... we must use this strength.'

She's feeling rushed. Interesting.

Anyone can feel impatient when they're being chased by something. But for a vampire, that feeling is a little unusual. To a vampire who has lived a thousand years, death is a distant thing, and because of that, they have no choice but to take everything slowly and in stride.

Count Erte was an ain. A vampire for whom death was far away. Yet the reason she had come to think this way... I said it almost as a way to confirm.

"A thrall making a judgment on their own, without orders from their maker, is generally something that doesn't happen, that's what you said?"

"That is correct."

"Then that applies to you as well? Not as a maker, but as a thrall."

After I said it, quietly.

Count Erte straightened up as though she had received a revelation. She stared into the air with eyes full of awe, then glanced at me and walked on ahead.

"Follow me."

I followed Count Erte without a word.

The Castle of the Full Moon, and the streets around it. The capital of a Duchy always blanketed in darkness was, for a capital city, unusually full of shadowed places. Count Erte knew these alleys intimately, and among them were places meant for vampires alone. She parted a curtain of darkness as if drawn to it, and a study appeared inside, spare but arranged for practical use.

And there,

"You've been keeping yourself busy. Concubine. Almost as much as I have."

Crimson Duke Valdamir had been waiting for me, even in the thick of all his pressing affairs.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried