WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 445

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Heaven-Defying Trial - 13

The Castle of the Full Moon had grown unexpectedly busy. Those who had come for the Night Ebb were camped out near the castle grounds. They had no real idea themselves why they'd shown up when they were supposed to be preparing for it, but at any rate, the ones expecting to make a killing were busy spending their future earnings in advance.

Thanks to that, Hilde and I were sitting in a lively market alley, filling our empty stomachs. Hilde paused between bites to glance toward the Castle of the Full Moon and said, "Father, there's a war going on in that castle right now. Aren't we being a little too carefree?"

"Getting worked up about it won't do much for what's happening inside. For now, let's just make the best choice available to us, shall we?"

"The best choice being to sit in a restaurant and fill our bellies. That feels a little underwhelming~."

Hilde muttered the words while staring at the old castle wrapped in darkness.

Something had gone wrong inside the ancient stronghold where the Progenitor resided. No one needed to say it out loud, they felt it instinctively. Even the thoroughly drunk were casting sidelong glances at the castle with darkness churning around it.

They just weren't curious enough to go investigate. The big things that happened in the castle were all vampire business. The humans turned their heads and went on enjoying their peaceful daily lives.

"We don't need to worry, do we? It's a fight Tyrkanzyaka can't possibly lose. If she wins, that's the end of it. And even if she loses, she can stop her own heart, take control of the other vampires, and then ask you again later to bring it back~."

"I can't do that."

"Excuse me?"

I set my utensils down on the table, having scraped the plate clean to the very bottom.

"It wasn't me who brought her heart back. How would a complete stranger revive someone else's heart? Tyr revived it herself. I only helped her remember memories from a past she had forgotten."

"But the result is that you did it for her, isn't it?"

"It's hard to explain, but it's a little different from that. I'm the King of Humanity, and Tyr is human, so I represent her. Tyr had a powerful will to reclaim her heart. On top of that, she made one dangerous attempt to get it back."

The order she gave Finlay to dominate her. At the time it was unclear whether that was the right answer, but it turned out to be a genuinely valid attempt. Luscinia had escaped the shackle through that same method, after all.

"That was nearly the right answer, but whether it was or not didn't matter much to me. She had the will and she made the attempt, that was enough. And as it happened, I had the means to resolve it. I revived Tyr's heart on her behalf."

"Oh my. So you do have the ability to do it."

"What I'm saying is that my ability and will depend on Tyr. If Tyr ever chose to give up her heart for a smoother exercise of her dominion, I would respect that choice."

I took a long drink of water and wiped my mouth with a napkin. Hilde watched my newly clean face, then said, "...You're strict, Father."

"Me? I'm a generous person. Especially toward myself."

When have you ever seen a beast live strictly? Just look at Azzy. As long as there was food, she lived in the most comfortable and happy way in the world. The only beast that shackles its own life is humans.

"Well, it's not as if I'm the only option. Tyr could escape the shackle through Luscinia's method too, but... with a subordinate Elder staging a revolt right now, that would be difficult as well."

Commanding a thrall to dominate you. Now that she knows a rebellion breaks out the moment the shackle is cast off, how could she possibly attempt it? Ordering an Elder to dominate her is out of the question now. And the Ain and Yelings simply lack the raw bloodcraft ability.

"Going by what you said, Father, Tyrkanzyaka has no choice but to give one thing up. Either her life or her heart."

"There's another possibility. Becoming a Demon God."

"A Demon God? Is that something you can just become by wanting to?"

"It's precisely because you can want it and still not become one that there might be a chance. Tyr died once, and because she spread through the world, the vampire race was born."

The birth of vampires was a tremendous event, both on a global and historical scale. But Hilde tilted her head and asked, "But that doesn't make her a Demon God, does it?"

"No, it doesn't. Because she clung to life through the power of bloodcraft, and because she kept going on nothing but her fierce hatred of the Sanctum, Tyr's dominion power couldn't extend any further, it stayed as a force meant only for vampires. The bloodcraft that stopped the moment Tyr died was no longer something all of humanity could claim."

To become a Demon God, that power and knowledge had to become every human's. Because Tyrkanzyaka survived and led the vampires, the power became something special, given exclusively to vampires and their thralls.

What is special cannot change humans. Specialness itself is the reason and the force. Only what is ordinary can change people.

"But if Tyr's heart stops now because of her thralls' revolt... she might find a way to make it beat again on her own. She's traveled alongside so many and seen and experienced all manner of things, after all."

"Ah! So you were planning for a Demon God all along, Father! That's incredible...!"

"I don't know about planning. It's more like..."

A test, if anything.

Just then.

Thoom. A heavy sound rang out, something massive and forceful slamming into a castle wall. People walking the streets startled and looked around.

"What was that?! An earthquake?"

"The sound came from the old castle...?"

"What's happening?"

The answer made itself clear moments later.

Crack. A pitch-black arm burst through the castle wall. A jet-black giant wearing the castle like a garment let out a pained howl. The darkness encircling the castle shuddered and sent that howl rolling outward.

『SCREEEEEE-!』

A shriek saturated with hatred, as though it meant to tear everything in the world apart. Only now did the people grow afraid, staring up at the giant that had broken free from the Castle of the Full Moon.

"Kyaaaah!"

"What is that? An Elder's dominion power?"

"Sh-should we run?"

The people of the Duchy were something else. I would have fled the moment I saw that. Maybe living alongside monsters like Elders day in and day out had dulled their sense of danger.

Then again, livestock kept inside a pen would have a hard time even conceiving of the option to run.

"That giant looks oddly like Tyrkanzyaka~. Is that the Demon God you mentioned, Father?"

"No. That's..."

A thunderous crash from inside drowned out my murmur. The arm swung wildly and darkness spiraled inward around it. Breaking sounds, shattering sounds, howling sounds. Every dark omen spread outward from the castle at its center. Dark crimson energy surged through the gaps. The Castle of the Full Moon looked like it was bleeding.

Boom. Sections of broken wall tumbled down to the ground. Dust billowed out, different from the darkness. A fierce battle was underway.

If Tyr had dominated all of them again, none of this would have happened. At any rate.

"...It looks like she wants to remain human."

"That thing? It doesn't look remotely human!"

"You can feel the will to live in it. She chose to fight. Hah. Strange. I would have thought Tyr, having done nothing but wield her dominion power for nearly a thousand years, would stop her heart, take it back, and resolve things that way..."

To choose to fight rather than give up her heart. And she would be in pain right now, on top of everything else.

Reviving her heart and recovering her senses had been what Tyr wanted. But desires always meet obstacles. The desires of the Elders, rekindled because of Tyr's own desire, were now clashing with hers, I had wondered what the outcome would be.

More than I expected, Tyr's desire was precious and fierce.

"She didn't stop her heart. She's fighting directly. Ha. That's unexpected."

The Tyr I had read was a weaker person than I'd thought. She had already lost everything, and had simply been unrestrained in a world where everything resolved itself with a thought. She had gone searching for something to lean on and wanted something she could hold dear.

I had granted Tyr's wish. She had reclaimed her life and been thrown out bare-handed into an ordinary world where her body, her strength, and her circumstances refused to cooperate. In a world that rough, I had figured Tyr would take the easier choice. The opposite, as it turned out.

Maybe it was because it was a heart I had brought back. Humans are hard to figure out, even calling yourself one.

"Father, why are you smiling?"

"Hm?"

"By your own reasoning, isn't this bad? Tyrkanzyaka chose to meet things head-on, and whether she wins or loses, her power will take a heavy blow. Either way, it's a bad outcome."

"Why? It's good. It's human."

Hilde's mouth opened and closed as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. Well, anyway. I felt something oddly buoyant rising in my chest as I pushed my plate aside.

'Her' words, then, I must have grown ordinary too. Reading all these thoughts from all these people around me. Dissolved into the crowd... blown about by other people's desires, while a quiet expectation had taken firm root inside me. My heart was thudding.

Ordinary life is strange. To think I could find one particular human special.

"Father, then what about 'us'?"

"Besides cheering for Tyr, is there anything else to do? Go grab some snacks from over there. We can watch how things unfold while we eat."

"You just ate all of that, and now snacks...? You have a beggar living in your stomach."

Rude as the words were, Hilde followed through without fail. She paid and came back with a heap of nibbles, and I chewed dried meat alongside her.

At that moment the arm reached out from the hole in the castle again. This time the massive shadow, fist clenched tight, hurled something in our direction. The darkness of the night sky rippled, and a vampire came tumbling down like a meteor, scattering crimson blood energy as it fell.

Crash. The vampire punched through a building wall and scraped down its side. Something red, blood energy or bloodstains, hard to say, drew a long streak across the wall.

"Aaagh!"

"The giant threw something!"

"Run!"

Only now, sensing genuine danger, did the humans scatter in every direction. The vampire that had smashed through the wall rose from the rubble, shaking off the debris.

At that instant Hilde grabbed my face and pulled it toward her. She pressed her own face against mine to block my face from view and whispered urgently, "Father, don't move."

"...You could be a little gentler about it!"

One vampire came bursting out of the rubble. The most graceful and noble of all the great Elders, Countess Erjebeut.

Her white skin was without a single scratch, but her dress, which had endured the friction of a building's outer wall, was not intact. While the humans swallowed at the figure revealed beneath her torn clothing, Erjebeut spread her fan with a look of indignation. Blood energy rose like a wave and bore her upright.

"Surely she knows that savagery like this, with no dominion power to speak of, is no match for us... To subject me to such humiliation."

About to take to the air immediately, Erjebeut paused and looked around.

People stood gaping at the Elder who had been hurled from the sky. Like livestock watching a human flung into their pen.

"E-Erjebeut-nim?"

"What has happened?"

To livestock, humans are not something to be wary of. Vampires, who always sheltered and tended to them and gave something back proportionate to the blood they took, were beings to revere and follow. Not unlike sheep following a shepherd.

Even having just watched her hurled through the air and into a building, the people were startled and frightened, but it never crossed their minds that the vampire would harm them.

And yet.

"...Since things have already come to this. I may as well take a little something while I'm here."

Erjebeut snapped her fan open with a sharp crack. A bead of blood formed at its tip and shot forward like a bullet.

The people's curiosity became screams in equal number. The blood bullets punched through one person after another, raising a spray of blood in their wake. Quite the efficient harvest, by the look of it, a few drops of her blood, and she could fill a bathtub with theirs.

The blood that spilled outside human bodies flowed toward Erjebeut in obedience to her bloodcraft. With the Progenitor having lost her strength, the most powerful bloodcraft practitioner in this land was Erjebeut. Even from a small wound, over half the blood flowing through a person's veins would drain out. Drinking deeply of the blood energy she had gathered, Erjebeut murmured, "Hmm. Lacking, but this will do for now."

"Erjebeut-nim...! Why are you doing this to us!"

A shop clerk sitting beside their fallen manager looked up at Erjebeut and cried out. Erjebeut looked down at them the way one looks at an insect and answered, "I'm collecting blood from the livestock I raised in order to take their blood. Is there a problem?"

"B-but! We pay our blood tax faithfully every month! The manager paid just yesterday...! Taking it like this, so violently, it could kill us!"

"Is that something I need to concern myself with?"

"Wh-what?"

Erjebeut spoke between drawing beads of blood through her fan, as idle entertainment.

"I raise livestock to take their blood. Normally I would consider the livestock's health and take only so much as won't kill them, but... when the hour is urgent, even a goose's belly must be cut open."

"That's..."

"I've gathered a sufficient amount, but I'm not looking merely to wet my throat, so I'll need a little more."

Elders didn't especially intend to kill humans. They simply needed blood. That was why they were generally quite kind, but they could become all the more vicious and cruel when necessity called for it.

Without a glance at the people groaning on the ground, Erjebeut turned her predator's gaze toward the other livestock.

"Ugh, urgh!"

Even the humans of the Duchy understood it now. The vampires who had been their masters and protectors were, in the end, beasts that craved blood. Life beneath them was comfortable and safe, but it demanded a price.

The quick-witted and quick-footed fled first. But even that sharp judgment came too late. Erjebeut fired blood at every human still remaining. That category of 'still remaining' included Hilde and me.

Damn it.

She spotted us.

I kicked the table over, and Hilde knocked the blood energy away with a plate charged with internal energy. Mere drops of blood shot at her were useless against bullet-deflecting energy. The droplets bounced off miserably.

We had defended against the attack without trouble, but in truth it hadn't been an attack. It was simply the harvesting process. Her work interrupted, Erjebeut turned her fury on the humans who had dared to resist her, then caught sight of my face and let out a short scoff.

"I wondered how far you'd gotten after you ran... The light never shines under the lamp, as they say. There you are, hiding so casually right under our noses. My sweet concubine."

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