WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 46: Heartbeat

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What was the greatest difference between day and night?

Naturally, it was the presence of light.

Light illuminated the world and gave us the ability to tell what lay ahead in this harsh world. Without light, we could know nothing. Even if death stood right before our noses, we might innocently stick our faces out like three-year-old children.

The unknown was not courage, but fear. When we took a step into the darkness and unseen fangs did not tear into our throats, that was not an accomplishment born of bravery. It only meant we were lucky. Ordinary people who understood that instinctively avoided the dark.

They took those who acted rashly and never returned as a lesson.

"Wake up."

That was why night had always been something to fear. The unknown was fear itself.

The houses people built and the fires they lit were also measures meant to drive away the darkness. They filled their surroundings with familiar things to ease their fear.

"Wake up."

"Haaah!"

So when someone broke into my room in the middle of the night, I jerked upright and lit the lamp by my bed.

Who would sneak in during the night without making a sound? All the way into my room, too. They clearly had to be here with ill intent...

That was what I thought, but the figure before me was utterly unexpected.

She was a beautiful girl with an impression of pure white. Rather than being white, she seemed to lack pigment altogether.

A pale face, silver hair without a trace of color, an expression devoid of warmth, and a chest that did not move.

She looked frail, as though she lacked several things that made up life itself.

She possessed an aristocratic, classical elegance, yet looked young compared to her mysterious air. Still, it was not that she had yet to mature. It was more like her growth had been stolen away at some point, leaving behind a fleeting fragility.

Was she a ghost? Her hair and limbs were impossibly thin. She looked as though she might break if touched, making it difficult to approach her carelessly. She gave off the precarious impression of white porcelain just before it fell to the floor.

Yet anxiety itself could be alluring. When would she fall? How would she shatter? How beautiful would the red liquid flowing between the broken pieces be? Such thoughts stirred dizzying, immoral urges.

The blood throughout my body was drawn toward her. I felt faint. It was a dizzying sensation, like falling. Without realizing it, I reached out and...

"Ah."

I read her.

She was a vampire.

Why was she here?

Surely not.

"Have you finally come to cut open the belly of the goose that lays golden eggs?"

Her red eyes gleamed even in the darkness, filled with confusion.

"What kind of nonsense are you babbling after waking up?"

"Are you that hungry? But please think about this for a moment. This would be an extremely foolish choice. There are about 5 L of blood flowing through my body. Even if you catch me now, that's all the blood you'll get. But I can make blood every day, and if you squeeze me to the limit, I can provide around 300 mL of blood each week. In seventeen weeks, roughly 120 days, keeping me alive will become more profitable. Remember that. Become a monster of interest rates. Someone who lives as long as you do will always benefit from compound interest..."

Teaching forbidden knowledge to a vampire who would live forever unless the world ended. Maybe I was creating a monster...

The vampire silently looked down at me as I spouted nonsense, then said, "Are you fully awake now?"

"Yes. Moving my mouth a little woke me up."

"Good. May I sit?"

"Ah, yes."

When I nodded, the vampire created a black chair in midair and perched on it.

I sat on the bed and rubbed my face a few times. I could not feel any hostility or hunger from her. It seemed today was not the day I was destined to die.

I hoped she would not find it too strange that I had been frightened. A vampire quietly visiting in the middle of the night. After man-eating tigers and smallpox, that was one of the world's three greatest horror genres.

It was fortunate that the vampire did not intend to harm me. Otherwise, I would have been sucked dry like a fallen coconut.

"What brings you to my room this late at night?"

I asked partly to read her thoughts, but I did not even need to use mind-reading. The vampire answered honestly.

"Yes. I came because I have something urgent to say to you. It may have been hasty, but I thought I would not get another chance unless it was in the middle of the night..."

She trailed off and looked around for a moment. Then she covered her face slightly with her parasol and lowered her head.

"I called for you outside, but you would not wake at all. I had no choice but to enter your room... How could you sleep so deeply? I had to come inside myself."

'A woman secretly coming to a man's room at night is something unimaginable.'

Look, before worrying about being a woman, could she please acknowledge that she was a vampire? She had scared the hell out of me. My heart was still pounding with the terror one felt upon meeting a natural predator.

I was the one who had suffered, so why was she acting like she had lost something...?

Whatever. I grinned wickedly and stuck out my tongue.

"Heh heh heh. If you secretly came here in the middle of the night, you must be prepared... Did you miss me that much? Fine. I'll treat you however you want..."

"Do not joke. I am serious."

Irritation colored her red eyes. She broke into my room at night, yet I was not even allowed to joke. Unfair.

Then again, the age difference between the vampire and me was even more unfair. I immediately tucked my tail and changed the subject.

"That's because you keep trailing off. You're normally so relaxed, but you came all the way here in the middle of the night because you were so restless. Why can't you say what you want? Why are you only twisting your hair?"

"That is... It may be sudden for me to say this, but... I have an urgent request for you."

"Hurry up. I'm only a human, so I can't read Trainee Tyrkanzyaka's mind. If you don't say it, I won't know."

Actually, I knew. I had just read it.

No, perhaps I had sensed this might happen from the moment I attempted the cardiac resuscitation today. Even after a thousand years, the vampire's longing to revive her stopped heart and reclaim her stolen life still remained tightly knotted within her.

Sure enough, the vampire made up her mind and looked straight at me. In her red eyes, the yearning of someone clinging to a thread of hope burned fiercely.

She looked like a novice gambler holding a good hand.

"It is about the heart. With what you did today, you made a stopped heart beat again."

"Yes."

"There is a stopped heart inside my body as well. A furnace that has broken after remaining unlit for so long."

A vampire's heart did not beat. Their hearts remained frozen and cold as blood simply flowed through them. A vampire's heart was merely the place where countless streams of blood converged.

Then how did their blood move? By what principle did that red liquid, the source of life, flow...?

The answer was surprisingly simple.

Bloodcraft.

The vampire technique the regressor had wanted to learn, the art of controlling blood.

With it, they controlled every drop and every stream of blood directly, spreading it throughout their bodies. They pushed it one by one through the gaps in their muscles and beneath their skin. Blood wholly controlled by their own will could move the body without a heartbeat.

That was why vampires could continue living even after they had died.

"Will you revive that furnace with your flame?"

That was why a vampire's heart did not beat. Their hearts remained stopped. Blood flowed regardless of the heart, as naturally as a river.

The intense blood flow that seemed to squeeze the body did not exist for vampires. They did not become excited or sad. Even if they felt such emotions, they had no effect on their bodies whatsoever.

"Please. I want to die while still alive, with a heart that beats of its own accord."

Their faces did not turn red. Their veins did not bulge. Their vision did not narrow.

Their eyes did not redden. Tears did not fall. Their hands and feet did not tremble with tension, nor did sorrow constrict their entire bodies.

Excitement and sadness both ended as flickering thoughts in their minds. Emotions without hormones did not last.

Over the past thousand years, some people had envied vampires. They envied the immortal bodies they could not possess, even their cold serenity. The only emotion vampires could possess was reverence for their Blood Lord.

Yet Tyrkanzyaka, the Progenitor herself, had never liked it for even a moment.

That was why the vampire had come to me, carrying an earnest wish she had held for a thousand years, yet also a hollow regret she could not truly feel in her chest.

When I only looked at her in silence, the vampire smiled sadly.

"...It is a little ugly, is it not? I have already lived for over a thousand years, yet what lingering attachment could I possibly have? I have lived several times longer than others, yet shamelessly wish for more life."

I shrugged.

"What of it? The fact that you've lived until now can't diminish your desire to keep living."

The vampire parted her lips slightly at my unexpectedly kind response.

"I thought you would mock me. How unexpected."

"When have I ever mocked Trainee Tyrkanzyaka? I've always been considerate. No one respects the elderly as diligently as I do."

"...Have I been mocked after all?"

She had always reacted strangely whenever I brought up her age. Had she felt guilty about wanting to live longer?

The vampire lowered her gaze and muttered, "I am not afraid of death. I have already died once. Nor am I afraid of pain. I have experienced countless pains over a long time. But the experiences, emotions, and pain I have felt in this body... They have all been filtered once. I observed them through slowly flowing blood. It is dreadful to think that all my years might have been false..."

The vampire suddenly grabbed my arm. Her cold hand clutched me like a final lifeline. There was not much strength in it, but I could not shake her hand away.

Filled with cold sorrow, the vampire pleaded with me.

"I will do anything. Please. Revive my heart."

Tsk. This was not good.

The faint expectation seeping from faded hope. A dream that had set. Lost innocence.

All of that was enough to drive a magician mad.

When someone craved hope they did not even believe in themselves, how could you not want to astonish them somehow?

It was a magician's duty to plant illusions.

I asked once more.

"You'll do anything?"

"Yes. It is a wish of a thousand years. What could I not do?"

"Then."

I rose from the bed. The vampire's gaze followed me. Sitting in her chair, the vampire's head barely reached my waist.

After neatly straightening the bedding, I patted the hard mattress and ordered her, "Open your chest and lie down here."

The vampire's eyes trembled, as though she had never expected such a response.

"Open my chest? That is..."

"You said you'd do anything."

This attitude, this look in her eyes.

Desperation, and the hope she had found within it. It was familiar. At the same time, my mouth watered as though I had spotted delicious prey. My instincts, honed from living as a back-alley card shark, were shouting.

This was a sucker.

A sucker holding a good hand, ready to keep betting if I raised. A sucker I could suck completely dry, down to the marrow and blood.

If I let a sucker like this go, the gambler in me would weep.

"You need to lie down if we're going to do this. Come on, hurry up."

I ordered her firmly. The vampire flinched as though she could not bring herself to move. Her pale hand clenched at the air, then released it. Finally, as if she had made up her mind, she stood and adjusted her collar with her small hands.

Footnotes:

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