WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 436: A Story from Afar. Recess

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The vampires of the Duchy possessed the ability to sense blood. It was how predators found their prey, and the one area in which vampires with dull senses remained sensitive. Writing in blood could therefore serve as an urgent summons for a vampire.

The signal Valdamir received was one such summons. Far away, a pattern known only to Valdamir's thralls, one meant to summon Valdamir alone, pulsed.

Information was precious in this rapidly changing situation. Valdamir moved to obtain the information the thrall had uncovered.

It was some distance away. Moving while avoiding the attention of the other vampires, Valdamir reviewed the trial from earlier.

Ten years passed in an instant for vampires. Before long, Valdamir's thoughts had traced back to the cause of that trial.

To the time Valdamir had killed an Elder with a pale complexion and sharp fangs.

Valdamir's thoughts stopped shortly before that death, when Luscinia had come to visit with blood flowing from the corner of his mouth.

His bloodcraft was unstable, perhaps because he had been injured somewhere. Even Valdamir could sense that Luscinia could not control the wild blood energy raging through his body. Losing control meant another Elder might seize control instead.

Luscinia had been in a very dangerous state, yet...

"Ha ha ha! Valdamir. I found it! I found it!"

He still laughed like a madman. Valdamir turned to face him.

Luscinia. The Duchy's problem child. Trace any problem in the Duchy back far enough, and about half of them led to Luscinia.

He killed so many humans that other Elders publicly protested.

He fostered fear until his thralls caused a mass escape.

Someone was executed according to the law, only for Luscinia to come days later and make a scene.

Valdamir had always been the one to resolve those problems, so the two often met. Elders had little interest in other Elders, but these two were exceptions. If they did not keep an eye on each other, the country itself might be shaken.

Certain that Luscinia had caused another incident, Valdamir asked, "What have you done this time? We need to deal with it quickly, so get to the point."

"I don't remember causing any trouble! Well, I definitely did this time! If you call revolution trouble, that is!"

If all his past incidents did not even count as trouble, what had Luscinia done now? As Valdamir prepared a response, Luscinia collapsed into a chair and shouted, "I found a way to escape the blood shackle! As expected, I'm a genius!"

This was certainly an incident. A major one, at that. Had Valdamir still been alive, Valdamir might have felt faint.

"So you finally succeeded."

"And you're an even more sinister friend for knowing and keeping your mouth shut!"

"Are you really one to say that? You calmly shared your blood with your own wife and daughter."

"What's wrong with that?"

Luscinia's question was entirely sincere, so Valdamir explained once more.

"Fine. Perhaps taking women into your bed for old memories' sake despite feeling neither love nor lust can be excused. But you even cut and scraped apart your own body to make her carry a child. You aren't in any position to call someone else sinister."

They could not empathize with each other anyway. Words were merely a means of asserting one's justification. Valdamir had not spoken with any real intent to make Luscinia understand, but Luscinia's reaction was unlike usual.

"Love? Did you say I had no love? You, a lump of stone, saying that to me?"

Luscinia had always been impulsive, but that was because he immediately acted on whatever idea came to mind. For the sake of a goal, Luscinia only distinguished between methods enough to avoid being obstructed. Making a concubine bear his child had been one such method. No one had been there to stop him.

Yet now, Luscinia seemed... emotional.

Feeling a faint sense of unease, Valdamir said, "Did you have any grounds to believe it existed?"

Vampires did not know love. They did not feel the pounding heart or excitement that came from holding someone dear. Their hearts did not beat, and they controlled every drop of blood flowing through their bodies with their own will.

That was why vampires had neither blood nor tears. If something had to be done, they did it. For example.

"Lily, your concubine, wife, and ain. Didn't you personally execute her? I distinctly remember you being enraged when she escaped."

Vampires willingly did things humans would not only refuse to do themselves, but would never ask another to do, such as executing a wife who had broken the law.

That was what vampires were.

It had also been expected that Luscinia would feel no affection for his wife and daughter. Even if a vampire somehow had a child, there was no reason to think they would feel attachment. No one found it strange when Luscinia personally executed his wife. Before she was Luscinia's wife, Lily had been his thrall, and because her blood belonged to Luscinia, he had to reclaim it personally.

Luscinia had even greedily taken every last drop of Lily's blood, as though it were too precious to waste.

No one doubted Luscinia. He was a madman who made a concubine bear his child despite being a vampire, but he was still a vampire. He behaved as everyone expected. Like a cold vampire who knew nothing of affection, Luscinia reclaimed the blood flowing from his thrall.

Yet now, Luscinia spoke of what he had felt then.

"Even a genius like me makes mistakes."

"A mistake."

"Yes. I didn't know what love was. No, more precisely, I mistakenly believed love existed and that I didn't possess it! Thoughts don't have names in the first place. You understood nothing."

There was... pity in Luscinia's eyes as he looked at Valdamir.

It was an expression Valdamir had never seen before.

"I only needed her blood. But if things continued as they were, she was bound to die someday. So I turned her into a vampire."

Valdamir had understood that as well. That was why no action had been taken. Luscinia continued.

"But she changed too much after becoming a vampire. I couldn't even taste her blood anymore, and that stupid expression she used to make when she feared me disappeared too. Every drop of blood in her body became mine, but that was precisely why she became less worth keeping close. With my own hands, I ruined what was mine."

"So you tried to fix it, even by breaking the blood shackle. I know."

"No. You still don't know."

Luscinia opened his eyes wide, showing the whites. Valdamir sensed something unfamiliar in them. Luscinia had always been mad, casually putting his ideas into practice. His actions always produced unexpected results. Valdamir had judged that madness necessary for the country and usually watched from the sidelines, almost to the point of helping.

"Emotion? It's nothing. We merely gave some grand name to the driving force that makes us do things. Seeking delicious blood is emotion. Regretting it when you lose that blood is emotion too. We didn't lose emotion, because the concept of emotion never existed in the first place."

Could madness be explained by reason?

Valdamir sensed something inexplicable in Luscinia as he was now.

In other words, Valdamir felt true madness.

"We only give up. The Progenitor controls and moves my blood, so I can't even form an impulse. There is no driving force to do something contrary to the Progenitor's will in the first place. That's why people say we have no emotions, and strictly speaking, that's true."

"Have you regained your emotions?"

"Look. You still don't understand! Emotion never existed in the first place!"

Still seated, Luscinia thrust his upper body forward. It was an unnecessary motion, but he did it. The reason was simple. He wanted to.

"We simply want to do something. But because the immense being called the Progenitor controls our blood, we can't even try if it goes against her in the slightest! This isn't some vague nonsense about being unable to feel because we lack emotions. It's power! The logic of the power that controls us!"

"Watch your words. You seem excited..."

Excited? A vampire, excited?

Even as Valdamir spoke, the strangeness of it was apparent. Then Valdamir realized it too late.

Luscinia had truly cast off the shackle.

"You really succeeded."

"Only halfway! If that foolish child had done it properly, it would have been perfect. But she failed!"

"A child?"

Luscinia snapped his fingers.

Then, from before Valdamir's office, a lump of flesh resembling a corpse floated up and moved. Valdamir, who knew the identity of every vampire, recognized the bloody figure as Lir Nightingale.

Luscinia's daughter.

And the one used to sever an Elder's shackle.

Luscinia spoke with a sneer.

"She's an inadequate child. She succeeded in controlling my body, but she couldn't dominate it. Still, even a single moment was enough. My domination formed a loop. A cycle in which the thrall I controlled controlled me. In the end, the shackle was broken within it."

"It turned out as you wished."

"As I wished... I suppose it did."

Allowing a thrall to control him. It was a dangerous and foolish thought that only Luscinia would have entertained.

What if the thrall had been incompetent? Or what if she had been capable but harbored ill will? If Lir had killed Luscinia with ill intent, the loop of control would have passed to her. It was sheer good fortune that Luscinia had survived...

"She's dying because of it, but I used her well, so it's fine. Yes. It had to be that way..."

Valdamir disregarded Luscinia's vacant muttering and said, "To summarize, you succeeded in escaping the shackle. Understood."

"You understand?"

"It's an unexpected situation, but the Progenitor is absent, so I can't make a judgment. I will postpone judgment on your escape from the shackle. No Elder seems likely to repeat what you did, but the danger remains. This method must be kept secret."

It was a flawless judgment, the kind that had always satisfied everyone in the Duchy.

But Luscinia did not agree.

"I thought you might understand, but I suppose it can't be helped."

Luscinia rose unsteadily from the chair.

"We are loyal to the Progenitor and revere her. But to the Progenitor, we are nothing. We are no more than limbs that act as ordered."

"Loyalty is not given in expectation of reward. We have already received our reward."

"Is that the best you can do? Do you truly think that is what the Progenitor wants?"

Luscinia looked briefly at his dying daughter, then sharply turned away and continued.

"Then why does the Progenitor sleep outside the Duchy? Why does she remain far from us for decades, for centuries? Why does she leave the country to you and wander the world?"

"How dare you judge the Progenitor's will?"

"That's it! That's the problem!"

Luscinia shouted with all his strength.

"You don't ask. You don't question. So there's no need for her to stay. What you do isn't loyalty. It's disloyalty, neglect, and indifference! That's why the Progenitor stays away from you, from all of us! Leaving us alone and ignoring us!"

"..."

"How fortunate! Thanks to that, we could grow distant from the Progenitor and live in our own way! Perhaps the Progenitor wanted that too!"

"Such hasty speculation..."

"It's necessary! Otherwise, nothing will ever change!"

Valdamir always judged based solely on certain facts. Speculation merely presented possibilities. Until more certain facts emerged, Valdamir prepared the means and postponed judgment. It was a little slow, but suited vampires who did not die.

Luscinia had shown signs before then. Even so, Valdamir had postponed judgment. It concerned an Elder, so Valdamir wanted to delay the matter until Tyrkanzyaka returned, if possible.

"To be truly loyal, we must first break this shackle! Loyalty while bound by the shackle has no meaning at all!"

Once something became certain, however, Valdamir dealt with it without delay.

That was Valdamir's way.

"Attacking the Progenitor is the only loyalty we can offer!"

That was why Valdamir killed Luscinia.

Valdamir looked at the pattern drawn beneath his feet.

A sword and shield.

It was the symbol of Valdamir's former self, who had sworn to become the Progenitor's foremost sword and the shield that protected her.

Long ago, Valdamir had lost everything.

It was an age when the empire founded by the King of Humanity had fallen and everyone claimed to be its successor. Heaven's fortune had been granted to the Victorious King who defeated the Conquering King, but the ruler lacked the strength to gather everyone under one banner. As more and more groups challenged kings and gods, the overwhelmed family of the Victorious King made a startling decision.

They divided their country and distributed it among the warlords.

It was a judgment that cut away their own flesh, both a blunder and a brilliant move. The blades that should have been pointed at the Victorious King turned toward one another instead. Soon, the age of warlords began, and the weak were eliminated.

Valdamir, who had inherited the duchy at a young age, was also a victim of that era. Valdamir was someone who could have become a hero, but could not overcome the flow of the times. Before a powerful enemy that invaded during a vacuum in power and military strength, Valdamir lost both territory and people. After losing even honor, Valdamir fled disgracefully, was pursued, and lost his life.

Valdamir had nearly met his end in a miserable, horrific state, with a sword lodged in his chest.

It was only natural that Valdamir mistook the pale girl who appeared then for a messenger of God. Even while dying, Valdamir prayed shamefully.

I will offer everything I have, so give me a chance to turn this life around.

The girl was not a messenger of God.

She was closer to a demon.

She did not give Valdamir a chance to turn things around. She merely gave Valdamir the chance to paint life over death.

The girl, who was neither Progenitor nor vampire at the time, let her blood flow into Valdamir's wounds.

It was an era in which too much blood flowed, enough for a vampire to drink its fill without anyone noticing.

Before anyone could even recognize the danger, Valdamir devoured an entire country.

The smallest revenge Valdamir could take.

What remained for Valdamir after that?

Loyalty? Reverence? Gratitude?

No. Vampires had no emotions. The moment Valdamir became the Progenitor's thrall, those human emotions had already faded.

What remained was duty.

Only after casting off the shackle could Valdamir face the heavy sense of duty that had driven him for more than a thousand years. Though Valdamir had not followed Luscinia's proposal, the Progenitor's casting off of the shackle had, in the end, given Valdamir freedom as well.

How to use that freedom was Valdamir's only remaining concern.

Before considering it any further, Valdamir decided to deal with the matter at hand.

"...This is unexpected."

Emerging from thought, Valdamir spoke to the shadow lingering near the pattern.

"I considered the possibility that someone had sent a false signal, but I didn't expect the person who drew this pattern not to be a vampire at all."

It was not coincidence. It could not have been a lucky guess. A human who knew exactly what Valdamir's pattern meant had used pulsing bloodcraft to write it.

A human who was said to have been struck by Dogo's blow.

It was difficult to explain in realistic terms. Considering the possibilities that might explain it, Valdamir looked at the boy before him, no, the girl, and asked, "What is your business?"

Footnotes:

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