WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 429: A Distant Tale: The Demon God, Sin, and Blood

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Golden Lord Perru had taken on the fate of ruling the Lesser States, whether she wanted it or not. To someone who valued human worth above all else, death ran counter to the very principle of value. Her philanthropy was rational, so she could not help but be kind.

Healer Sage Lir Nightingale bore a burden. Having broken the bonds of life and death, she had to involve herself in everyone's death. That was why the Healer Sage treated the wounded, so no one would die for any reason other than her own inability, indifference, or laziness.

The regressor Shei wanted to save the world. Whether she was doing it to live or to die, even Shei herself did not know. Whatever her state of mind, she was working toward the noble cause of saving the world.

Three people who wished to save humanity had gathered. All of them were connected to Demon Gods. They were highly capable, and their intentions were noble. If three saviors put their heads together, they would surely come up with an incredible solution.

And they had.

Inside the glass coffin, the corpse of Thunder Lord Elkid continually spewed blood.

Like an inexhaustible well, it never stopped.

Elkid's body had been made through the Lord of Gold's authority. The power Perru wielded used her body as a factory, continually producing blood.

"..."

"..."

"..."

They had watched the sight for hours, yet each time they passed it, all three fell silent in distress. One looked away, another clicked her tongue, and another stared straight at it. Their reactions differed, but the feeling in their hearts was the same.

A subtle sense of guilt. The unpleasant feeling of having touched a taboo.

Even knowing it could not be helped, an instinctive aversion held them in its grip.

Lir Nightingale, the vampire most accustomed to such sights, did what needed to be done. She gathered the blood in the glass coffin with bloodcraft and placed it under her control. It would not clot before it was used for treatment.

Shei, who had the least to do, followed her and asked,

"Did you collect it all?"

"Yes. Thanks to the emergency treatment we performed with this blood, no one has died from blood loss."

She spoke as though trying to defend where the blood had come from. Perhaps Lir's feelings had slipped into her voice without her realizing it. If even a vampire felt that way, how would Shei, with ordinary human sensibilities, feel? Especially when the corpse trapped in there had once been a vague sort of companion to her.

Shei glanced at what had once been Elkid and cautiously asked,

"Then should we stop making blood now...?"

An ordinary human might have sympathized, but Lir was a vampire. She firmly shook her head.

"We can't. Some patients require invasive surgery, and that will require several times more blood. Stopping the transfusions here would only increase the danger."

"...Ugh. I suppose so."

Elkid had been a companion Shei could trust to watch her back; Healer Sage Lir Nightingale had been a lighthouse. In the future where war swept across the continent, tragedy became commonplace, and sin spread among humanity, the Healer Sage was a single red flower blooming from the ashes. A couple of wars had stopped because of her, and even a devout temple had made room for her despite her being a vampire.

...Like every flower that bloomed amid tragedy, Lir too had been ruthlessly trampled and extinguished.

That had not happened yet. Shei shook her head and spoke to Perru instead.

"Verdigris Lord. Isn't there another way that doesn't involve using Elkid's corpse? I'm not criticizing you. It's just unpleasant to look at."

If humans had value, where did it lie? In their great minds? Or in the body that harbored energy?

Perru's belief in value had not changed. Yet the needle on the scale that measured that value kept wavering, just like her trembling eyes and unsteady heart.

She had restored the Thunder Lord, a being little different from a creation of the Lord of Gold, into a state neither dead nor alive, then used her as a factory for producing blood. Could this truly be the rational philanthropy Perru pursued?

There was no answer until Perru found one for herself. She answered without confidence.

"...It's impossible."

"Why?"

"...The Lord of Gold's power isn't creation. It's restoration and replication. If I don't know what something is, I can't make it."

"There's plenty of blood now, isn't there? Can't you just copy this directly?"

"...No. Blood isn't a material. It's a structure. Without the process, its function becomes too simple."

Perru's explanation was still too brief for Shei to understand at once. It was not a problem unique to Shei. Anyone else standing there would not have understood either.

"You respected Elkid too, didn't you? Does it have to be her corpse? Is there really no other way?"

Blood played many roles within the body. To faithfully carry out all those roles, it had to be recreated by at least indirectly reproducing the process through which it was formed. It was difficult enough to be called miraculous, but the Lord of Gold's authority made it barely possible. The Thunder Lord's body had also been exceptionally suitable for alchemy.

Even so, the Lord of Gold's authority had limits. This was not a matter of Perru's ability, but a structural issue with alchemy itself. A structure that was too perfect could not easily mix with anything else. Just as crops created by the Lord of Gold had destroyed imperfect human bodies, blood made without a host body would reject a patient's flesh.

That was why Perru had to use Elkid's body as an abrasive, contaminating the blood.

Perru did not have the ability or the strength to explain all that. She was saddened by it too.

So she muttered darkly,

"...I want to do that too."

Perru's words were too brief to convey an explanation.

But they were enough to convey her feelings.

She wanted to. But she could not. Perru suffered in the gap between intent and ability, so Shei could not say anything more. Leaning against the wall, Shei let out a deep sigh.

"So we can't escape sin in the end..."

Feeling fate slowly converge, Shei recalled the past.

A past that had not happened yet, but had certainly happened before.

The King of Sin.

It wielded every kind of Demon God's power. It shattered the earth, split the sky, hurled lightning, fired beams of light, and twisted perception. Before the King of Sin, humans had to doubt everything. Illusions blinded their eyes, and demonic whispers deceived their ears. With their sense of direction confused and even up and down hard to distinguish, no one could know what was real.

Not even the companions standing before them.

One of Druid, Nevida. A priestess who served the King of Sin. The only living Demon God.

Her power was to bear fruit from the Tree of Corruption, fruit from which beasts were born.

The King of Sin bore humans at the top of the tree.

There was no life or death. Everything one saw was both truth and illusion. Those who had died yesterday waved and laughed the next day. People who preached faith abandoned their gods and sought the King of Sin instead. Unable to distinguish what had been made from what was real, humanity went mad.

The only way to resist was to attack the King of Sin.

...Though they had never won even once.

That was probably why Shei felt even greater aversion to this method. The King of Sin was completed by blurring the boundaries of humanity.

And Perru and Lir's joint creation would surely be a shortcut to the King of Sin.

"But it can't be helped. We have to do it."

She could not stop something that had already happened. Destroying the glass coffin, cremating Elkid, and silencing Perru to ensure nothing like this happened again, that was the Sanctum's way, not Shei's. If she failed anyway, she would have to regress. It was better to watch how this future unfolded.

Instead, Shei compared it to the past and looked for what had changed.

The answer was obvious.

Hughes, the self-proclaimed King of Humanity.

He had claimed to be an ordinary petty criminal dragged into the Abyss, but he was actually the King of Humanity hiding his identity. He must have come to the Abyss to search for Demon Gods.

In any case, once he became involved, Demon Gods began appearing as if by magic. Mother Earth, Nevida, the Lord of Gold, the Thunder God. He had crossed paths with all of them in that short time. Whether he sought out Demon Gods or they came to meet him, he would probably keep becoming involved with them.

...He would surely pass through the Arcane Federation's floating castle and the Sanctum's Silver Branch Forest as well.

"My instincts weren't wrong. I knew it from the beginning. He was suspicious."

If Shei had been an ordinary person, saying that now would have meant nothing.

But Shei was a regressor. She had no regrets. She could turn back what had already happened. For her, regret over the past became a step toward the future.

Still.

"Why did it have to be the Fog Duchy... What should I do?"

The Fog Duchy's power was on an entirely different level from the military state's. In the Duchy's darkness, which rendered most of the Seven-Colored Eye useless, vampires who were mysteries simply by existing were everywhere. Even Shei could only face one Elder at a time, and if that Elder specialized in martial combat, she could not even gauge her chances of victory.

Shei was a strategist. She held an overwhelming advantage in fights where she could exploit differences in power and compatibility, but when someone confronted her with pure martial talent, as Absolute Spear had, she was at a disadvantage. Strip away her overwhelming strength and techniques, and Shei was only an ordinary talent who had stumbled across many fortunate encounters. If not for the Heaven-Reversing Boundary she had learned from the Swordmistress, even twelve regressions would not have been enough.

...And even the Heaven-Reversing Boundary was not enough against Crimson Duke Valdamir, who possessed both overwhelming talent and authority.

The current Shei had neither the foundation nor the power to oppose the Fog Duchy. To forget the horror before her eyes, she focused on something else.

"Ugh. The Fog Duchy should remain intact until the great tidal wave hits. Now then, when was that supposed to happen...?"

At that moment, Shei brought a hand to her waist and straightened. Her body reacted before her mind did. Trusting her instincts, Shei extended her senses.

Far away, at a distance where one would not notice without paying attention, an immense presence was slowly approaching.

Openly, without any attempt to hide its identity.

Shei recognized the visitors with her Seven-Colored Eye and muttered,

"Erjebeut and Dogo?"

Elders were monsters capable of destroying a city alone. Elders had already torn through this place, and now two more Elders were visiting?

Looking on the bright side, perhaps they had hidden their identities to avoid causing trouble. If it had been Lungken or Cabilah, people who remembered their appearances would have caused an uproar.

But who would fail to recognize the Countess, whose portraits had spread across the continent by the tens of thousands, or the mummified high monk? Only thirteen Elders had ever existed in history. People might not know their faces, but everyone knew their traits.

At the very least, the Elders would not avoid conflict. They might even secretly hope for it.

If that happened, Claudia was finished. Shei clicked her tongue.

"Erjebeut alone would be one thing, but Dogo too? I can't beat that one."

The resurrected monk. An immortal sage who had chosen corruption over ascension. An ascetic who walked with their own skin burned by sunlight.

They had been called immortal even while alive. After becoming a vampire, their martial arts had reached a new realm. They were somewhat old-fashioned, but that very crudeness suited a vampire. The Blood Battle Demon Art had become famous as a martial art that was invincible when it could be used. In technical skill, they ranked only below Valdamir.

One Elder was difficult enough, but two? Shei could not win now.

But.

"Wait. If it's Erjebeut and Dogo... This might be possible."

If it was those two in particular, people whose arrogance was unmatched, Shei could handle them.

Not by winning, but by resolving the situation.

Shei would have difficulty saving anyone with her strength anyway. So she decided to do what she did best.

Shei jumped over the railing of the lightning rod tower.

Footnotes:

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