WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 437

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Heaven-Defying Trial - 5

For humans, sleep is a chapter break. A body that has spent an entire day seeing, hearing, and feeling countless things, forced to make its best call at every turn, reaches a point where it must drop dead and sleep. All sensation shuts off, the nerves go slack, the hard day ends, and the person is born again tomorrow.

"Hyu. Wake up. The moon is bright."

"..."

"This is serious. You're not even whining for ten more minutes, which tells me you have no intention of getting up at all."

Deny the body the rest it's owed, and what begins as dragging through the day while a little tired will gradually break down, then give out entirely. That was exactly where I was.

"You collapsed after a mere few days without sleep? In my time, we waged war for days and nights without rest."

"That's... why the ones who made it... were the survivors..."

"To think my companion would be so fragile."

"A vampire who doesn't even sleep saying that is hardly fair...! Ugh."

I'll admit I'm fragile. I do want to argue, though, that I had no choice given the circumstances. I was already a patient to begin with, then spent my time wandering all over the Duchy getting thoroughly drained, and still dragged myself to the trial hall on top of it all. If someone went through all that and didn't collapse, they'd be a new breed of humanity, second only to vampires.

And on top of that.

"Who holds a trial in the middle of the night... Good children are supposed to be asleep."

"The night is the vampire's hour."

"Sounds like vampires are all bad children, then..."

"Listen to you. You're hardly a good child yourself."

At any rate, once Tyr noticed my state, she didn't badger or push me. She rose from her seat at an unhurried pace.

"Then what shall we do about Lir's verdict? Do you think a few days' delay would be all right?"

"Hmm? We said we'd do it today. Can that really be pushed back?"

"It's only a few days. A few days passes in the blink of an eye, doesn't it."

"Even with a bug in your eye, you'd probably manage to blink again after a few days."

Is this the vampire way of thinking? No hesitation at all about postponing a commitment. Then again, this was Tyr, who had returned to her own country for the first time in three hundred years, perhaps that was only natural. She went a step further and declared it outright.

"And I am this country's Progenitor. What is there that I cannot do."

"Of course..."

Power itself. Living, or rather dead, or rather alive again. I was lying face-down on the bed and raised a thumb.

"Please... I think a little rest will set me right..."

"I see. Rest well. But, Hyu..."

Tyr lowered her voice slightly, sounding just a touch bashful, and poked me in the back.

"...When can we spend the next night together? The nights are long and I am a little lonely."

"It hasn't even been that long since last time!"

"Even then it passed in such an instant I couldn't tell what was what. I think if we took it slowly once more, I could appreciate it better."

"Saying it like that makes me sound like some King of Rabbits or something! Tyr, three days is not an instant! Go ask anyone you like, they'll be shocked by my stamina!"

You would have died several times over if you weren't a vampire! That fight was that grueling, I'm telling you! Ah, wait. Getting worked up is making my head hurt again. It might be a little shameless, but next time I'll have to try using the Demon God's power too...

"Your color doesn't look good. I can feel your blood running thin. Mmm. I cannot push you any harder than this."

Tyr left me alone and made ready to go. She drew her coat around her shoulders and gathered up the darkness she had scattered through the room, shaping it back into her parasol. Lightly dressed and ready, she looked at me lying in the bed with a smile and said,

"I'll send for the healer, so rest up. I'll let the others know to wait a while."

"A little rest should do it... you go on ahead..."

"I still don't quite understand what counts as 'a little' in ordinary time. I'll be off, then."

The door closed slowly. Because Tyr had gathered all the darkness away with her, a faint evening light reached even the top of the Castle of the Full Moon. Until the door clicked shut, Tyr stood looking at the room, just barely tinged with red, and sank into thought.

'When two people's time runs at different speeds, the gap between them is this wide. Closing that gap is one of its own pleasures, but we will need to arrive at the same place someday. Whether I live on ordinary time, or Hyu becomes a vampire.'

She stepped out with a small thread of regret trailing behind her, but tilted her head as though something puzzled her.

'Strange. I used to think living on ordinary time would be fine. But now, with Hyu here, I want to enjoy this time forever. Perhaps when one's situation changes, one's wishes change with it... Next time we have enough time, I should talk it over with Hyu at length.'

Well, indeed. What will come of it.

I'm not really the type to set plans for the future myself. When the situation changes, wishes change with it. My wish to track down every last Demon God hasn't changed, but I'm satisfied enough that my life right now is comfortable.

'...That too will be its own pleasure. Hehe. To think a time like this would come for me.'

Especially because Tyr is beautiful and powerful, and above all devoted to me. It isn't easy to acquire an absolute authority who grants your every request and receives your every desire. Being a concubine is a fine profession.

It really is. For an ordinary human, it would be enough to make a final destination of.

So long as the final destination stays put, that is.

I had been drifting between sleep and waking with my face buried in the bed, still carrying a faint trace of Tyr's scent, when the door suddenly swung open. Lir Nightingale walked in carrying a small doctor's bag, not caring in the least that this was the Progenitor's room, and looked around.

"I was told there was a patient. Where is the patient?"

"Ugh..."

"...? Not even close to patient territory this time. You seem fine, aside from your energy being a little low."

Lir diagnosed my condition in an instant, set the bag aside, and turned a small ampule over in her fingers.

"Would you like some nutritional blood supplement?"

"I'm not a vampire..."

"It's been refined so humans can take it. It tricks the body into thinking blood volume has briefly increased. Excellent for recovering energy quickly."

"A little rest is all I need, so please just leave me be..."

"A wise choice. There is no better remedy for recovering energy than time itself."

Lir nodded, pulled a chair over to where she could see me, and sat down.

"...What about the trial?"

"The Progenitor entrusted the concubine's health to me. I was informed I need not attend the trial in the meantime. Though they are discussing what to do with me in my absence, of course."

"What do you think will happen?"

"I don't know. The Progenitor does not seem to intend any punishment for me, but then again, one never knows. Perhaps someday I too will be attacked by someone and killed, as my father was."

"Saying 'someday, one never knows' tells me you won't be dying immediately... I can breathe a sigh of relief. Then I'll rest for a bit."

She seemed to have only just realized she had survived. Lucky her. Then I could sleep soundly without worry.

I buried my face in the bed and dropped off for a short while, and then..."I'm up!"

When I came to, my head was considerably clearer. I sat up with recovered energy and looked at Lir, still sitting in the exact same position as before, and asked,

"You're awake."

"How long was I asleep?"

"About three hours."

Three hours. In Tyr's reckoning, barely enough time to finish a blink. But for a human, three hours is enough to drag a wrecked condition back up to something workable. My body had been run ragged, not genuinely ill, so I came back to myself quickly.

I stretched a little and checked my body's condition.

"Mmm. Refreshed. I might even feel a bit healthier than before, somehow."

"The concubine was healthy to begin with. You were likely the healthiest patient ever brought in with an abdominal puncture wound."

"I never had much in the way of minor ailments, but I wasn't this robust. Is this what hitting a physical peak feels like."

Not really a peak, though. It was probably because there were exceptional bloodcraft practitioners nearby. Hundreds of vampires all around, apparently even a little of that had seeped into my body.

I checked my cards once over, slid what remained into my pocket, and asked,

"The Duchy is fairly quiet even with an Elder dead. I figured word of an Elder's death would turn everything into utter chaos."

"The Duchy is a state that exists under the Progenitor's power."

"But Tyr has lost her power now, hasn't she. Wouldn't things get a little noisy over that?"

Lir answered plainly.

"The Progenitor's power has not gone anywhere. Her dominion is simply circulating and dwelling within her own body. Rather than what my father intended, she broke free of the shackle by turning it inward, feeding dominion back into herself in a loop. The Progenitor has reached a new level entirely on her own."

"On her own? Someone could have helped her, couldn't they. Like your father."

"My father never helped anyone. Setting that aside, helping the Progenitor would be impossible."

"Why are you so certain?"

"Who could wield bloodcraft equal to or greater than the Progenitor's, and how would they help the Progenitor perceive and dominate her own blood objectively? It would require two Progenitors."

In other words, if anyone had helped, it could only have been Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka herself. But since that was impossible, Tyr had awakened on her own, that was the conclusion Lir had drawn.

...What? Is this the discernment of the one who would later be called the Healer Sage? Without even rummaging through a body, she reads the flow of blood just by looking. Not bloodcraft, sheer perception.

Wait, hold on. If she's this capable... maybe it was possible for a blood Demon God to be born even without Tyr.

But how would that have worked?

"Hold on. Lir Nightingale. You seem to possess a remarkable ability for diagnosing others."

"Diagnosis only needs to go as far as it needs to."

"No, beyond that. Lir Nightingale. You broke free of the blood shackle, didn't you?"

"As it happened. Though it's lost most of its meaning now that the Progenitor has shed the shackle as well."

"Tyr is a different matter, the bloodcraft and the blood shackle are her own power. But how did you break free of the shackle?"

Luscinia had ordered Lir to kill him.

Following that order, Lir had tried to kill Luscinia.

But she failed, and Valdamir killed Luscinia instead. The reason, as best I had read, was that Luscinia had broken free of the shackle and was plotting rebellion against the Progenitor.

I had thought Luscinia's actions cleared up most of my questions, but the biggest one I had carried was still unanswered.

How had Lir broken free of the shackle?

"...That is classified. I cannot reveal it without the Progenitor's permission."

"Tyr has already shed the shackle. With the Elder now at the top of the chain, there's no particular harm in saying so. Besides, I'm the concubine."

"I suppose... that's true."

The Progenitor had already broken free of the shackle. The method even bore some resemblance to the one Luscinia had found. Deciding there was no reason to hide it from Tyr and me, Lir opened her mouth.

"It is the circulation of dominion. Whatever the outcome, it is sufficient if one can exercise dominion over oneself through bloodcraft. Being able to loop dominion inward as the Progenitor did would be ideal, but... for a vampire who gained immortality through the external power of true blood, achieving that alone is next to impossible. So my father used me as a medium and created a circle of circulation. The dominion..."

No, I have a rough idea of that part already. I'm a mind reader; I read her thoughts and Valdamir's and pieced together most of the truth.

What I want is the final piece.

The heart of Luscinia, who is dead and can no longer be read.

"What about you, then?"

"...Yes?"

"You also broke free of the shackle, didn't you? What was your medium?"

There is only one thing I want to know.

What was it that Luscinia felt, in that brief moment he broke free of the shackle?

Dead and unknowable? I don't need to know that. I can read his actions instead. The heart is nothing more than the force that drives action.

"Why did Luscinia free you from the shackle?"

What Luscinia's actions had brought about, that was what mattered.

Just as Lir startled into the realization of what I was pointing at,

I felt thoughts from outside. Something was approaching with no subtle presence to announce it.

I knew perfectly well that vampires were rather quiet by nature, low on presence. Which was exactly why they usually made a deliberate point of letting their presence and footsteps be known when approaching. Because they owed proper deference to the Progenitor and her concubine.

But right now... the intent was unmistakably hostile.

Tch. So it was going to be like that. The world was never going to leave me alone. This was going to be rough.

I drove my hand deep into my pocket and closed my fingers around my cards.

-----

"...I have heard everyone's views."

As Tyrkanzyaka had thought, a few days was no great span of time to a vampire. These were beings who had accepted without complaint that the trial for an Elder's murder was held ten years after the fact. A few days' delay gave no one cause for impatience.

"Then let Lir's punishment be decided after witnessing a demonstration of her abilities. Today's discussion ends here. No particular objections, I assume."

"Progenitor. I have a word I would offer in your stead."

...The 'Elder murder case' was.

The door swung open and one of the Elders walked in. Blood Monk Dogo. The fighting monk who had set out in search of truth and become a vampire after being promised endless suffering. The same Dogo who had supposedly needed to recuperate due to his injuries appeared, not long afterward, without a single mark on him.

Taking the place that happened to be empty in Valdamir's absence, Dogo stepped forward, pressed his palms together in a respectful bow before the Progenitor, and looked out across the assembled company.

"There is a matter that must be judged before Lir's case. One that is several times more grave and pressing."

"What is it?"

A mere Yeling shedding the shackle and killing an eccentric Elder was nothing compared to this. Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka had unmade the blood shackle herself.

"Tyrkanzyaka. Our Progenitor, who bears the name of calamity. Our maker who is our beginning and will be our end."

"...?"

"That we were bound to the blood shackle and promised suffering was because that shackle was powerful and absolute."

The vampires exchanged glances. Some closed their eyes and pretended not to notice. Conspiracy, scheming, silent complicity, watchful waiting. A great many political stances passed back and forth behind pale, expressionless faces.

Vampires are cold. Their blood moves in quiet currents.

Vampires are rational. They have no emotions.

Vampires are mechanical. They do not act on whim.

Vampires are blind. They cannot defy their maker.

"Yet in you as you are now, I can feel nothing. No surprise, no fear, no joy, no pain. Not even power."

"Insolent. Do you know what you are saying right now?"

, All of those qualities exist because there is a maker who exerts suppression.

"I, humble Dogo, hereby call before this gathering for a trial into your qualification."

A thrall daring to stand against a maker.

The dead daring to stand against the living.

A devotee daring to... place a god in the dock and call for judgment.

The Reverse Heaven Trial had begun.

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