WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 424

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Is It Always Beauty That Topples a Nation?

Those who govern are busy. Anyone who takes on the duty of managing those under their rule inherits as many problems as there are people beneath them. Even if Tyr was a "god" and a figurehead ruler, the work was more than enough to fill her days. Factor in an absence of over a hundred years and you had to credit Valdamir for winnowing it down to a manageable load.

"Opening the Castle of the Full Moon to guests? This place is open to the public?"

"The Castle of the Full Moon was originally built as a fortress where vampires could gather and live together. As their numbers grew and the land to govern expanded, they scattered, and it became my domain. But what use is a castle this large when I live alone? When vampires have occasion to gather, I open the guest rooms."

That made sense. Even counting every vampire down to Yeling rank, there were barely fifteen hundred of them. Packing them into the castle was more practical than building separate lodgings.

"None but Elders would dare come up to this floor. You will not encounter anyone by accident, so put your mind at ease."

"I'm not particularly worried. Meeting new people would be fine. I have someone watching my back."

"That would be me. Heh heh. Yes. As long as I am in this country, there is nothing for you to worry about."

"There's one thing. You changing your mind, Tyr. They say a favored concubine gets treated like a spy the moment the love runs dry. That sounds about right for my situation."

Tyr put on an expression of exaggerated displeasure.

"Do you think that after a thousand years of life, I would abandon you over something trivial?"

"Who knows. The heart is unpredictable."

"I am a vampire. I carried a deep and dark hatred for a thousand years. Do you think the affection I have for you cannot last even a hundred?"

"Those thousand years had no heartbeat and no sensation. But the hundred years ahead will have both, won't they? I would know, I was the one who gave them to you."

"Even so, the debt of having restored my heart and senses will remain. Just as I carved my grudges into my heart, I will repay what I owe. That is not the same as my feelings changing."

I reached back into old memories from my days at the host bar and shored Tyr's feelings up a little further. Show a hint of fear at being abandoned by an older woman, and she tends to hold on tighter. Whether that applied to someone a thousand years your senior was another question, but apparently the only thing that mattered was that she was older. The gap in years turned out not to matter much.

"I suppose so. To finish repaying that debt properly, I'd have to restore your senses completely. How are you feeling, Tyr? Is your shoulder better?"

"Yes. There is something strange about it, cool and ticklish at once. I find myself wanting to hunch my shoulders without meaning to. Is this normal?"

"Perfectly normal. When people are young, their bodies are softer, so it tends to feel ticklish. The older you get, the more the muscles firm up, and touch starts feeling more like relief."

"Ahem. It seems to be rather more on the ticklish side."

"Your body is just following its age. Your shoulder is done now. I've finished all the exposed areas."

Since the head was at the top, restoring sensation had to work downward from there-the face, the neck, parts of the shoulder and upper back. Tyr turned her awareness inward, testing what she could feel. Unlike taste or smell, what remained in the body was only touch, and Tyr, who had once had nothing at all and had broken and split her own body without a second thought, grew faintly unsettled by the unfamiliar sensation.

"Hyu kept asking if I was all right, and now I understand why. Sensation will make me into something entirely different from what I was before. I will seek out more comfortable textures, crave sweeter tastes. If sensation changes me, then I too will become bound by it."

But Tyr's worry ended there. Things changing on their own, shifting in ways she hadn't planned, was exactly what she had truly wanted.

Nothing lasts forever. Even the great truths that have existed since the beginning of time change as it flows on. And we, who live within it, are swept along too.

Tyr had grown weary of watching the world transform while she alone remained unchanged, and somewhere without realizing it, she had begun to hunger for change. That longing had become a hope for her heart to beat again.

She didn't know what kind of change lay ahead. But she trusted it would be for the better.

"Nothing to worry about. The Duchy is still standing, and Hyu is by my side. Rather than that, though..."

"Rather than that, Hyu."

"What is it?"

Tyr had started to say something, then trailed off, her mouth moving without words. She turned her head sharply away.

"...No. Never mind. Forget I said anything."

"What? You can't just stop in the middle of a sentence."

"Did I not say it was nothing?"

"Tyr. There are two ways to annoy someone. The first is starting something and not finishing it."

Tyr, who had been listening quietly, pressed me to continue.

"Why only the first? What's the second?"

"I'll tell you once you finish what you were saying. What is this nothing of yours?"

"Did you fabricate that just to draw it out of me? I said it was nothing!"

Tyr snapped, and not without cause. I had chosen that approach to give her a taste of her own medicine, but she was too stubborn for the point to land through words alone. I had no choice but to fall back on mind reading.

Sorry, Tyr. Privacy isn't something I have much of.

"To restore sensation to the body, it requires touch. The threads of lightning I send out have to be woven in, and a thin layer of cloth in the way reduces the effect considerably. The fibers catch the smaller arcs and absorb them."

She had been on the receiving end of this often enough that Tyr understood the principle at least roughly by now. Demon God or not, once something becomes familiar, even a technique stops feeling like magic and turns into common sense.

"Then, to restore sensation across the whole body, Hyu would have to run his hands over every part of me. Without so much as a thread."

She had shown her heart without any embarrassment, but something about old habits made the girl from the twelfth century balk at the idea of baring her skin.

Honestly, I understood. When the Healer Sage cut open my stomach, what I felt wasn't embarrassment but fear. Vampire or human, it turned out there wasn't much difference.

"I could never bring myself to say such a thing out loud. But if Hyu were to bring it up, that would look strange too. I don't know what to do."

Ah. That. Well. Yes. That's a tricky one.

Being a mind reader means the other person's sense of importance matters quite a bit to me. Value follows the person, you might say. If there's reluctance, I won't force anything.

And if there isn't? I'd be more than willing.

"If Hyu were to ask whether I dislike it, the answer is no. But isn't this too soon? I want to go a little slower, more calmly, sharing enough words and feelings first. I don't want something that precious, a first, to be rushed through for the sake of a task."

But Tyr's feelings were more complicated than that. The reluctance was real, yet beneath it was an equally strong wish for someone to break that wall down.

Tch. At this point, there's no need to push any further.

"Tyr. I think this is enough for now."

"Hm?"

"You're human enough already. Equal to me, or more."

I pulled my hands away cleanly.

"Actually, there's no strict need to restore sensation below the neck. What we have now is plenty. Taste, smell, and some sense of touch, that covers it."

"E-excuse me?"

"There are people who aren't vampires and still have no feeling in parts of their body. Tyr can move freely, which already puts her ahead of them. On top of that, you can taste, you can smell, and you've had your first taste of a stiff shoulder. You got everything you needed."

"Is... that how it is?"

"Yes. And think about it, if I restored full sensation and you started feeling pain, what then? There are still fights ahead. Better to keep suffering to a minimum."

"I... suppose you are right."

It was a splash of cold water on the warmly restless mood Tyr had been in moments before. Feeling oddly put out, she stood and said,

"Then why on earth did you sit me on your lap? If I had known it would end this quickly, there was no reason to be in that position in front of Cabilah."

"I wanted to restore your senses as fast as possible."

"Hmph. Like roasting beans in a lightning flash. I could barely even tell my shoulder was regaining feeling."

"And also because Tyr is exactly the right size to sit on a lap. It was pleasant."

"Flattery will get you nowhere..."

Tyr snorted, then paused. She was weighing whether being called small and soft and good to hold was a compliment or not. Either way, the task was finished.

"That's all from me. If you want to try anything, just call. I've only been using this for restoring sensation, but the applications seem endless."

I stepped out, working the stiffness from my own hands as I went.

Ah, that felt good. A bit of an effort, but easier than when I restored her heart.

That time, it had looked simple enough, but the danger was real. I had turned all of my mind reading toward Tyr, and I, as the King of Humanity, had become the sole voice of one single person, Tyr alone, taking the image of my past self and carving it into her heart. You could say I overwrote her childhood memories wholesale.

It was only possible because the Abyss had almost no one else in it, and because Tyr was still frozen in the same body she had when she died. Even then, the side effects had been severe enough that I nearly lost myself, nearly forgot who I was and became that girl.

Or maybe it was possible because I had lost the power of the King of Humanity. Representing only the one person right in front of you, that's something the Beast King could manage. The King of Humanity can't afford to be so narrow.

Anyway, with the Demon God's power in hand now, it was easier. I had cards left to play, so I didn't have to sync with Tyr the way I did back then.

So, what next. One task down. Should I look into the other thing? Every grave has its story, I found who killed Luscinia, but the background still has gaps I want filled.

Lir Nightingale, who had received the true blood, had been a Yeling. Naturally that meant someone had turned her, and that someone was one of Luscinia's Ain. The very Ain who turned out to be Lir's own mother: Rillis.

Rillis had been executed. For desertion.

Something about that didn't sit right. An Elder alive and well, and an Ain runs away?

Jazra, one of Luscinia's Ain, had said that Lir cut the blood shackle. The way he asked for Lir's death held something beyond simple rage at a maker's murder. He had died too quickly for me to read his thoughts fully, and I still regretted it.

The dead don't only stop talking. They stop thinking. If there's something in human affairs my mind reading can't reach, the missing clues are buried with the dead.

I came down one floor from Tyr's level and turned toward the presence that had been following me.

"Count Erte."

"You called."

"Is there anyone among the late Luscinia's Ain who might be willing to meet with me?"

The Duke of Crimson Blood's assigned watcher looked mildly thrown by the unexpected request. But for Count Erte, an Ain, the Duke of Crimson Blood's orders were absolute, and he had ordered compliance with me. Count Erte was not permitted to object, whatever I asked.

Even if what I asked was rather dangerous.

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