WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 446

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Heaven-Defying Trial - 14

The blood settled slowly. Countess Erjebeut, the historical Elder said to rival the Progenitor on sheer magnitude of power alone, was drifting toward us at a leisurely pace. Facing down an Elder, I put on my most dismayed expression and spoke.

"Madam Erjebeut. We've met here by fate, how about we just exchange greetings and part ways with a smile?"

"That won't be possible. The Progenitor appears to hold you in genuine esteem."

Snap. Erjebeut folded her fan and draped the overflowing blood energy around herself like a robe. A force that would crush an ordinary human at the mere flick of her fingers felt effortless to her.

Even with that much power, she seemed to feel it wasn't enough to face Tyr directly, so she was setting her sights on me instead. Well. That does send a chill down my spine.

"However. You, her consort, have shown not the slightest regard for the Progenitor yourself, I hear. Hoho. Bewitching the Progenitor for the sake of power... truly a consort of devastating beauty. Still, the Progenitor will have lingering feelings. That makes you an excellent shield against her attacks."

So she meant to take me hostage.

I'm an open-minded sort of person and have no great objection to being a hostage in principle. Someone without strength should be allowed to survive however they can.

But this case was a little different. Tyr had gotten her wish because I stepped in, and now she was caught in this situation. To become a hostage and let her miss the chance to see it through?

Not a chance. I couldn't claim to grant wishes after something like that. I fired back immediately.

"Not regard her? Who told you that? Do you have any idea how much I've given Tyr, and how much I've received in return?"

"Enough with the deception, King of Humanity. Do not assume we know nothing. The Progenitor herself may be in the dark, but we are not so naive."

"And what exactly do you know about me? You've picked up a few rumors and you think that makes you special?"

As if they were mind-readers. Knowing things is something only I get to do.

"Anyone listening would think there's no difference between humans. The Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka returned from death on sheer talent alone, created the vampire race, killed thousands upon thousands of humans and took their blood, then built an entire nation. On top of that, she's beautiful, pure, and burning with fierce desire. Does Tyr look less important than I do?"

To the King of Humanity, perhaps. But I'm only half a King of Humanity. In other words, I'm a little removed from the Beast King, who is an entirely conceptual existence.

I can only read the minds of the humans near me. Other Beast Kings encompass their entire species and carry that concept within them, but I'm ordinary and weak, and the handful of people around me is all I can claim to represent. The limits of my ability create priorities in me that don't quite suit a King of Humanity.

Which is why I can't help feeling more attached to those close to me.

"King of Humanity or not, I won't be your hostage. I might take Tyr's side, but I have no desire to be useful to someone old and unpleasant who does nothing but envy her."

"...Envy? Your handmaiden, envy the Progenitor?"

"Aren't I right? Surely you won't deny it. Your entire history is written out in painstaking detail in the history books."

Hilde was screaming at me with her eyes, begging me to shut up. But the other side had no intention of letting us go without a fight.

And I was curious. When you scratch a vampire who's supposedly without emotions, what comes out?

"Even as a human, you killed people and poured their blood into a cup to drink, didn't you? Because vampires drank blood, and you wanted to be like them. And when that wasn't enough, you went out of your way to fill a bathtub with blood and bathe in it. Because you envied their smooth, flawless skin."

"...That is mere conjecture."

"When historians spend centuries on conjecture, it becomes scholarship. Someone as set in their ways as you has been picked apart piece by piece long ago."

Erjebeut flicked her fan open with a menacing snap and raised it to cover her lips, the signal that she was pressing down an emotion on the verge of erupting. She looked about ready to blow.

So I decided to light the fuse.

"You envied Tyr, didn't you? You wanted to be like the Progenitor, beautiful and powerful and fear itself? Masterminding the betrayal, trying to claim the Progenitor's blood, that was all because her disappearance was your chance to take her place? Really. Your heart is transparent for how black it is. Immortality and ambition rolled into one, the perfect picture of a cliché."

"Hohoho. Do you think such cheap provocation could shake me?"

"I already have Tyr. What could I possibly want to squeeze out of someone as past their prime as you? Dandruff?"

My words had served their purpose. Erjebeut followed my lead exactly as I'd intended.

"I will kill you."

Vampires are said to have no emotions, but, well. Emotions are just the excuse people attach to wanting something. The reason vampires had been known to lack emotions until now was that the Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka had been ruling and suppressing their blood. If Tyr had still possessed her authority, Erjebeut wouldn't have reacted no matter what I said about her. Insulting Erjebeut wouldn't have put Tyr in a bad mood.

But now?

"I had intended to bring you in alive and present you to the Progenitor, but my mind has changed. You will die here, and I will offer up your head as a gift. A corpse will be enough to trouble the Progenitor's heart."

Erjebeut had always planned to take me. Whether to keep me alive or kill me was a matter of preference, each option with its own advantages.

And just now, my words had shifted that preference a little. Toward killing.

If that's not an emotional choice, what is?

Blood spread outward. It wound up walls, floors, and every surface like vines curling around whatever they could reach. The sight of it writhing and stretching as it snaked further and further out gave me genuine goosebumps, like new veins sprouting from the city itself.

She forced blood energy to flow outward and exerted dominion through it. Erjebeut, the incarnation of the will to rule, wielded blood energy to project her sovereignty in a way that mirrored her very nature. Red-soaked bricks, pale streetlamps, tables and chairs all came walking toward us on their own.

An army of one. Erjebeut extended her fan and swung it, alone, wielding an authority they said nothing could stand against short of the sun.

"Run, then, King of Humanity. Through a world of blood vines."

And the city tilted toward me.

I'm not joking. Every piece of furniture in the market district, and beyond that, the very walls of the buildings, were bearing down to crush me. Pure force without a trace of human technique came crashing in like a flood. I turned to flee, and in that instant the wall folded shut and sealed off my retreat.

Beings with supernatural power, like vampires, are hard to fight. Psychological warfare? That's only worth attempting when you're holding roughly equal cards. Immortal vampires play an entirely different game altogether. I could scratch and claw for every point and it would still amount to pocket change to them.

The fortunate thing was that it wasn't one-on-one.

"Oh, damn it all! This useless father of mine! I should've grabbed him and run from the very start!"

Hilde seized my hand and yanked, while simultaneously channeling energy into a hard kick at the wall. The Explosive Scatter Palm, energy with the property of explosion, sent bricks flying outward from the inside. Through the gap that opened for just a moment, Hilde and I threw ourselves through.

People running, people screaming, people with no idea what was happening who only tilted their heads in confusion. The streets were still packed with crowds. Slipping through that mass would be difficult even with mind reading.

"Should we hide in the crowd?"

"Erjebeut would kill them all and use the blood too! Somewhere with as few people as possible!"

Hilde and I pressed a hand to the wall and swung around a corner. We broke into a sprint, and something grazed the backs of our heels like a bite. Glancing back, I caught a glimpse of bright red blood surging in like a flash flood.

[This is vampire land. Even the King of Humanity is no different from livestock once he sets foot here.]

Erjebeut's cold voice rang out as blood streamed along both walls in either direction. Even if Erjebeut herself couldn't match us for speed, her authority clearly outpaced us. And the medium of her dominion was blood. Anything else, we might have blocked or cut, but blood seeping through every crack in the brickwork left us with no real means of resistance.

"Holy sword. Draw."

That was me, speaking to Hilde.

'The opponent is a vampire. In that case, what action should "I" take.'

Hilde drew light from between her hands. The flickering radiance looked less like a sword and more like a bolt of lightning. The holy sword, shapeless and wavering, gradually compressed as Hilde formed a single image in her mind.

'I am a holy knight. The sword of God, to cut away wicked light. Heaven's punishment upon the accursed vampires.'

The form she refined from her own faith was a great two-handed sword. Hilde raised it high above her head and swept it in a wide arc. The enormous slash cut through the air with a hum and cleaved the blood-streaked wall.

The wall itself was unharmed. The blood flowing along it was not. The blood energy scorched by light turned pitch black and became a charred scar. The bloodflow could push no further, it was blocked.

[...A holy knight?]

"Steadfast faith cuts only evil. It is time to be scorched beneath the light, vampire."

Hilde's bearing changed. Standing firm with the two-handed sword raised, she looked genuinely like a knight chosen by God.

The fact that she was wearing a nurse's uniform made it a little strange, but regardless.

[To bring a holy knight into this land... No, to think a holy knight had been hiding her faith here all this time?]

Hilde, who only becomes a holy knight when she chooses to, seemed to surprise even a vampire who had lived a thousand years. Caught off guard, Erjebeut spent a moment sizing up her opponent, then resumed her attack.

[There is simply one more thing to kill. I will show you that faith and holy knights are nothing but livestock in this land.]

The bloodflow changed direction. Instead of chasing us, it swirled around us as its center and swallowed everything nearby. She meant to crush us under sheer force and weight.

Against the blood energy closing in, Hilde flared her light brighter and cried out.

"A wicked vampire dares speak of faith. I will burn you with light! Celestial God, watch over me from the heights of heaven above!"

'Well, at least my time in the Holy Sword Corps wasn't entirely wasted. Haah, not that the situation's any better for it.'

Thank goodness there's no actual god. If one really existed, it would be no different from a senile old fool handing out rewards to anyone who said the right things.

A swirling torrent of blood came rushing in next, carrying everything it had swept up. Bricks, chairs, furniture, plates, and mixed in quietly among them, daggers and blades from god knows where, flying straight at me and Hilde. Hilde fought the storm with ever-brightening light. Each time it scorched the blood, dark crimson traces cracked apart and fell away.

But blocking blood energy was one thing; canceling the physical force carried inside it was another. Hilde had to take several incoming bricks with her body. Her energy kept her from being hurt, but the impacts steadily pushed her backward. Every time that happened, the space we could move in shrank a little more. Standing firm until the last moment, Hilde gripped her sword tight and offered one final prayer.

"Celestial God.... Is this all? Oh, forget it, enough! Father, this is the limit of what I can wring out of God! Do you have anything else?!"

"One moment. I'm still refining it."

"Refining what?"

"The breed."

Druidism is tricky to work with. That's why I'd barely used it. But now the conditions were finally coming together.

Underfoot: ground. To drink: blood. In place of faint sunlight, I'd draw on the magical energy in the blood energy itself.

Somewhere in the south, there are plants that grow by eating animals. Leaves shaped like teeth snap shut on creatures and send roots down into them to drink up their fluids. A vine that drank blood long before vampires ever existed.

The lush creeper learned to lean on other plants instead of standing alone, smothering their surfaces and stealing their sunlight to feed itself. Branches extending from vines.

The Root Tree of the great druid Nevida, two fruits grown from two separate branches. I would graft the two together.

Two cards overlapping: Spade 10 and Spade 9. I pushed Spade 9 forward with my fingertip.

At that same moment, a red vine drenched in blood shot upward.

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