WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 461: I Lived the Life of a Bug

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Vampires had no need for food besides blood. Paradoxically, that made them more reliable than anyone when it came to storing food. If you were hesitant to leave fish in a cat's care, you could leave it grain instead. It would eat every bird drawn to the flour and keep it perfectly safe.

Village Elder Biritear's cellar was full of food that kept well. Barrels of alcohol, round wheels of cheese, hardtack, even sausages. There was not much, but it was enough for two people to live on.

"Did you get everything? Let's go!"

"Yeees."

Hilde gathered her arms full of food and slid down into the hole. After sending her in first, I followed and pulled the lid shut behind me. It looked as though the earth itself had been sliced away with a sharp blade. I dragged it into place with difficulty, covered the passage, and ran my hand along the edges.

The earth was naturally one whole. Even if it looked separated for some reason, to Mother Earth, it was all the same. Once I filled it in with earth arts, the cellar floor became flat again, as if there had never been a hole there.

Now that was skill. Did a skill have to shake the world and split the wind? The real thing was a skill woven into daily life.

Hilde set down the food in the middle of the burrow.

"Vampires really are dull, aren't they? We're stealing all their food right beneath them, and they have no idea."

"It's because their senses are dull. If we'd shed blood, they would've noticed immediately."

"Which is good news for us, since we got food out of it~."

Though we were inside a tunnel, I had made the place reasonably livable with earth arts. The ceiling was barely high enough for me to raise my hand while seated without touching it, and the space was wide enough for blankets and even a small table.

If we had more time, I would've widened it properly and made it into a home... But since it was directly beneath the house, I couldn't make it too large in case it collapsed. What a shame.

"You're surprisingly skilled at civil engineering. When did you learn to do this?"

"It's a basic skill. It's stranger that humans forgot it. If you wanted to live, making a shelter was something you had to learn."

Grumbling, I tossed a card onto the floor. The Nine of Spades. A trunk sprouted from the False Idol Containing the Tree of Origin, and thick, soft moss spread low across the ground. I laid a blanket over it and sat down, satisfied with the cushion beneath me as I picked up some food.

"Here. We've worked too long without a break, right? This is a vacation from me. Let's rest properly here, get ourselves in order, and then leave."

"Wow~. A vacation spent eating moldy cheese in a cramped tunnel. How wonderful~."

"Haha. Seeing how happy you are puts my mind at ease too. Make yourself at home."

Even in such poor conditions, Hilde and I ate our simple meal without complaint. It was not particularly uncomfortable. Both of us had been through situations like this countless times.

Where?

The military state.

"Eating cheese in a tunnel makes the military state, where they fed us canned beans in even smaller single-room lodgings, seem impressive all over again."

"Munch munch? All of a sudden?"

Provoked by my sudden insult toward the military state, Hilde swallowed what was in her mouth and protested.

"If this cramped tunnel is better than the military state, why are there runaways in this country at all? They could live peacefully while offering their blood to vampires. Why do people keep trying to escape even though they're prepared to die?"

"Because there are insane vampires like Elder Luscinia. Anyone would run rather than live under someone like that."

"Then what about you, Father? You could become the Progenitor's concubine and live comfortably here. Why did you run away?"

Hilde suddenly struck at the heart of it.

She was right. If I wanted to live comfortably, staying at Tyr's side would have been best. Even by human standards, Tyr had no major flaw that would cause anything bad to happen.

"Well..."

The Duchy was a country of contented livestock. An immortal, emotionless ruler cared for humans there. The vampires were diligent, needing neither sleep nor rest, and in terms of pure quality of life, the military state could not even come close. If heaven existed, perhaps this place was it.

And yet... I had chosen to leave.

"I think Tyr wanted me to remain with her forever as a concubine, but it wasn't a wish I could grant. Tyr would have bound me even by force, so I had no choice."

"You explained that well~. Then you understand why humans want to run away too, don't you?"

Hilde wiped her mouth with the edge of the blanket and spoke confidently.

"Humans are powerless, yet they think they are special, so they can't easily accept being treated like livestock."

"Still, there are people who stayed in the Duchy besides me."

"One of two things. Either they don't know they're livestock, or they've given up and accepted it. No matter how cynical someone is, they wouldn't accept being told that they're nothing but livestock, that their value is no more or less than a dairy cow's."

It was an open secret. Strictly speaking, the Duchy's humans were livestock. Yet nobody tried to say it aloud, or even think of it. They simply treated vampires as those in power.

In truth, there was not much difference between them and ordinary rulers except that they collected blood instead of taxes... But blood was rather important.

"For humans in the Duchy, being food is enough reason to run away. Do you know why the Sanctum still towers over the world despite all the nonsense it pulls? At the very least, God gives humans dignity and peace, even if it's a lie!"

The message was correct. If only the messenger had not been Hilde, a former member of the Holy Sword Corps.

"It's hard to sympathize hearing you say that. You ran away from the Holy Sword Corps yourself."

Hilde shrugged.

"Well~. You could say there were circumstances. You could say I tasted the bitterness of truth~. A lot happened."

"What circumstances?"

"Are you curious?"

"Yes. Tell me."

"Where should I start?"

"From the beginning."

"It'll be a long story."

"I won't be bored."

Hilde smiled for a moment, then closed her eyes and closed off her mind, as though lowering the curtain on a stage.

At times like this, Hilde's inner world was dark and quiet. Having briefly lowered the curtain on the stage called the world, she calmly chose a role. It was all taking place in her mind, but if I had to compare it to something, it was like taking clothes from a mannequin and putting them on.

''I' am a holy knight. A sacred believer who devotes herself to God and carries out God's will. Only God watches over 'me.' Glory to the Celestial God.'

Having changed into her oldest, most worn armor, Hilde raised the curtain again. The person before me now was the holy knight she had once been, lost and wandering after losing herself.

Hilde, no, the "Nameless Holy Knight," began her story in a solemn, heavy tone.

"There was a time when 'I' wandered. 'I' broke the rules and disturbed the order until 'I' eventually killed someone and fled. Hired assassins, bounty hunters, mercenary companies. Countless people pursued 'me.' 'I' could not even think of paying for 'my' sins and could only keep running endlessly."

"Are you acting right now? You sound like you're in a play."

"It was one of 'my' few talents. A paltry talent that only brought trouble... Yet it saved 'my' life again and again. Pretending to be one of the assassins, pretending to be a fellow bounty hunter, pretending to be a mercenary captain. 'I' infiltrated, acted, betrayed, and miserably dragged out 'my' life... Until 'I' no longer knew who 'I' was or what 'I' lived for."

The "Nameless Holy Knight" fiddled with a necklace. Hilde did not wear one, but the motion she made was that of a holy knight holding a rosary.

"Then God chose 'me.'"

"God?"

"Yes. God said, 'I have watched you. How you lived, how you ran, and what roles you performed. I pitied the sight of a lost lamb pretending to be a goat.'"

This was acting. Yet it was not only acting. If she had continued acting while resting and sleeping for nearly five years, it had already become no different from life itself.

"The Celestial God watches over 'me.' God is the shepherd who tells a lost sheep where to go. Naturally, 'I' should follow and serve my parent..."

"Then why did you stop acting that role?"

"But~. You see, he couldn't even tell it was acting and just gave me power without thinking~."

The actor casually threw off her role. Hilde returned from being the "holy knight" and lightly shrugged as though nothing had happened.

"Everything 'I' did was an act. 'I' was found and appointed to the Holy Sword Corps, but... It was a mistake from the moment the Celestial God allowed an actor standing on a stage to use holy power! Even the shape of the Holy Sword changed depending on what kind of holy knight I acted as!"

Hilde changed the shape of her faith. A noble, steadfast greatsword. A sharp spear that pierced through malice. A shield that defended faith. Hilde, who had an exceptional talent for acting, could freely alter the form of the Holy Sword.

"They appointed 'me' to the Holy Sword Corps, but the moment they realized the form of holy power changed with 'my' acting, they sent 'me' away immediately! Like this wasn't what they wanted at all! Honestly, it was ridiculous!"

"But you said God noticed you while you were acting."

"That wasn't the Celestial God! It was the Holy Maiden, looking for powerful people abandoned by fate, a member of the Holy Sword Corps who would devote body and soul after nothing more than a whispered word! It wasn't God who was amazing. It was the farsighted Holy Maiden who could see the future!"

I tilted my head and asked.

"The Sanctum and the Holy Maiden are the same thing, aren't they?"

"They're different~. Yuel turned her back on the Sanctum, but she's still the Holy Maiden!"

That was true. Of course, a Holy Maiden turning her back on the Sanctum was nearly unheard of, so Yuel was an exceptionally unusual case.

"The Celestial God was just a generous old man who shared power when you flattered him. The Holy Maidens who wanted to preserve the faith gradually kept 'me' at a distance. All 'I' needed was someone who would watch over 'me.' Then Yuel, the excommunicated Holy Maiden, called 'me,' whom even the Sanctum avoided, to the military state. 'I' was a member of the Holy Sword Corps nobody liked, but put another way, nobody needed 'me'! That made 'me' the perfect member of the Holy Sword Corps for an excommunicated Holy Maiden!"

After shouting self-mockingly, Hilde soon approached me with a friendly smile. She poked me repeatedly and grinned.

"That was how I worked as the Shadow Casket and met you, Father~. It's a job that treats me terribly despite keeping me endlessly busy, but I was lucky to meet you!"

Her tone was impossibly light. In that voice, as though she had been freed of every chain and might float away, there seemed to be no worry or anguish at all.

But this, too, was probably acting.

"What role are you acting now?"

Footnotes:

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