WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 462

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The Actor Is Not the Role

Right now, Hilde was playing no role at all. Her acting was meant to deceive someone. But I was watching from outside the stage, and Hilde couldn't fool me. Who sits in the audience and takes every word the performer says at face value?

That said, the person on stage isn't only ever playing a character.

"You're still acting right now, aren't you?"

"Acting~? 'I' am doing no such thing."

"Yes you are. You've been calling me Father. How could that be sincere? It couldn't become true even if you died and came back to life."

Hilde had already been wandering the world by the time I was born. If parent and child means what I think it means, that's causally impossible.

Hilde protested at that.

"This face, this name, this identity! Father gave them all to me! You gave birth to the true 'me,' so you are my father!"

"You meant the role's father? That's a bit extreme as far as concepts go, but... fine, I'll grant you that. Still, it shows."

She probably already knew, so she wouldn't deny it. When Hilde is acting, there's a weight behind that 'I' of hers, not in the words, but in the heart.

Hit where it stung, Hilde narrowed her eyes and asked back.

"Hee~. My acting really doesn't work on Father at all~. Aah. I've failed~."

"Failed at what?"

"'I' tried to become the kind of girl Father likes this time~. Since Father helped me out, I figured I'd ask a small favor while I was at it, so I tried to tailor myself to you~."

Hilde let out a long sigh and shook her head.

"Maybe it's because I had no clear motive. It's far trickier than playing a specific someone~."

"And what were you planning to do once I liked you?"

"Filial piety, of course! It's a natural wish for a child to want to look good in their father's eyes, isn't it? And... I need to escort Father to the military state."

"The king of the military state you mentioned before?"

"Yes~. The king of the military state that Father roughly threw together and abandoned."

Roughly threw together? I didn't make anything. They awakened on their own and took it up themselves. Hilde caught my expression and shrugged.

"True. Father had AB make all the observations and decisions. Yuel, who manages things, resisted Father, but 'I,' who handles the practical work, agree with Father's stance. Though... even so, AB can't manage it alone."

"Captain AB isn't alone. There are hundreds of communications officers."

"It wouldn't matter if there were thousands. Hundreds of untainted girls modeled after a convent can't run a country. The Sanctum doesn't leech off the Empire for nothing, you know. Even with the power to handle fate, you can't govern people without getting your hands dirty."

A convent. I thought that was selling the communications officers a bit short, though. Unlike nuns, they'd even gone so far as to replicate some of the farsight ability. Well, the Holy Maiden seemed just as poor at governing a country as any nun, so maybe the comparison held.

"You got what you wanted out of it either way, Hilde."

"That's only because Tyrkanzyaka went berserk and things happened to flow that way. The goal of getting Father to like me, that one I didn't achieve."

"You already achieved that goal."

"What?"

"If your goal was to win my favor, it was already a success. I like Hilde. Not just because she helped me escape, either."

That accounts for a significant portion, but still, even without that.

It's only natural, when you think about it. Someone openly trying to look good, wagging their tail and pressing close, how could I not like that? Flattery works on both parties. You get taken in even knowing what it is. The very effort to win me over is what makes me pleased.

Hilde tilted her head as if surprised.

"Even knowing it was an act?"

"What of it. Everyone in the world wears many masks. They read who's in front of them and swap faces accordingly. Even I act completely differently with Azzy than with Tyr."

"But the moment you know it's a mask, it stings. The way Tyrkanzyaka felt about Father."

"Maybe. She might, yes. I know Hilde values my usefulness as the King of Humanity more than she genuinely respects me, and I'd keep that in mind. But... so what?"

Who truly knows their own real self, their own real heart? No one except a sage who has spent a lifetime in meditation, or a mind reader like me. And a sage and I would probably arrive at the same conclusion.

That the distinction isn't worth making.

"Would it even change anything to know what your true self is, what your true heart is? We're nothing but ordinary humans. We make judgments and act moment to moment within limited time and limited choices. Whether the attitude you took in that moment was sincere or performed for the other person's sake, is that not sincerity? Hilde acted sincerely."

After years of performing, Hilde's sense of self had grown dim, and she'd been searching for something to anchor her existence. And yet she cherished acting more than anyone. Even now, even in this state, she hadn't let it go.

"Hilde said that all her past lives were roles, but... isn't a filmography something really important to an actor? You weren't saved by a god, yet you're still using divine power. Yuel summoned you and worked you half to death, yet you're still attached to the military state. Whether it was acting or something else entirely, you held it all dear inside your heart."

Someone who disliked acting wouldn't carefully preserve every old role inside their mindscape and bring them out as needed. Hilde genuinely loves acting. So much so that she could lose even herself in it.

Then fine. Live as the incarnation of acting. I think that's just as good.

"Father is fine with it even if it's acting?"

"I'm an audience member outside the stage. No matter what role Hilde performs, no matter how convincing it is, I'm not going to forget it's a performance. I'll be ready to watch and be moved."

"An audience..."

What Hilde had been searching for wasn't a true self, or a life without performance. She was an actor through and through, and what she'd wanted was an audience. An audience to watch her performances and judge them.

First an almighty Celestial God. Then a Holy Maiden who saw the future. Hilde had poured herself into performing for them, but the Celestial God had been nothing but a prop on the stage, and the Holy Maiden had been the designer trying to build that stage. Neither could ever be her audience.

The next one she found was me, the King of Humanity. Fortunately, I could give Hilde exactly what she truly wanted.

"Hee. I see. Only Father could say something like that~."

Hilde stretched out languidly and closed her eyes for a moment. In her mindscape, she stood backstage choosing a role, what costume to wear, how to speak and move. She would fit herself into a role suited to her scene partner.

But I was sitting in the audience. A viewer who knew her full filmography and watched with that knowledge in mind. No chance of being taken in. Even if part of me might want to be.

'...I see. Our first meeting was so sudden that I went into it without shedding that 'me' from back then. What a blunder... To perform something new, I should have emptied out what I'd been doing before.'

It couldn't be helped. At the time, the regressor, Tyr, and Ria were all traveling with us. For Hilde to stay by my side, she had to be in the identity of one of the military state's Six Generals. To cross over onto my stage, she had joined while still performing as Zikhrund.

But there was nothing at my side now. No military state, no regressor, no Tyr. The previous stage had already come down.

'I am...'

She turned it over quietly inside, then opened her eyes again. Her face was the same as before, but I could tell Hilde had changed roles.

"Pheww, what a relief. Even a vampire who has lived a thousand years would never dream there'd be a tunnel this far underground. Vampires who never sleep can't dream, but... anyway, we should be safe here for a while."

Danger pressing in from every direction, and they'd stumbled onto a hiding spot by chance. They couldn't stay forever, but they were safe for the next few days at least. In this paradise with an expiration date, Hilde turned her eyes away from despair.

"The day is getting late, so let's stay here until a better plan comes to us, Father."

The military state had vanished from Hilde's thoughts. Divine power, too, was gone. The role she now wore was that of a daughter and father fleeing from vampires together, carrying one thin thread of hope.

It was a strange thing to pull, but I'd agreed to go along with this sort of thing. As long as we got out of the duchy, it didn't matter anyway. I nodded without complaint.

"That works. The sun is setting, so let's get some sleep and sort things out tomorrow."

"Agreed! So then..."

Hilde said it like she'd been waiting for exactly that, then slipped smoothly under my blanket. It wasn't fast, but the movement was so natural I hadn't felt a shred of suspicion until she was already inside. I lifted the edge of the blanket to find Hilde wriggling against me. She poked her head up.

"W-what. Why did you suddenly crawl in?"

Hilde tilted her head as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Hmm...? It's cold at night, so I thought we could share body heat..."

"What body heat? You can change your body temperature whenever you want!"

Someone who had mastered the energy-sensing ability could handle their body however they pleased. The degree varied by level of attainment, but immunity to heat and cold, immunity to all poisons, those all came from the energy-sensing ability. Someone who could change her own face and body surely couldn't fail to control something as simple as her temperature.

And yet.

'Goodness, Father. When I was little, we slept together without any trouble... Is he put off now that I've grown so much? Keeping warm is so important on a difficult journey.'

For 'Hilde,' it was truth and sincerity. She was performing right now, after all.

This absolute method actor. She'd gone and rewritten her own beliefs from the ground up! I'd been so swept up in the performance that I hadn't felt suspicious until she actually crawled in. Because Hilde herself wasn't feeling suspicious!

Remarkable, truly. I was freshly amazed, but then the warmth from inside the blanket shifted my thinking.

She might not need it, but I do. I'd gotten a Demon God by now and could use something close to the energy-sensing ability, but concentrating my mind was more trouble than just using Hilde as a furnace.

"Does Father... dislike sleeping with 'me'?"

I shook my head.

"That's not it, you just smell a bit."

"You idiot! Of course I smell after walking without rest for days! I was going to wash up tomorrow!"

Sulking, Hilde puffed out her cheeks and snapped her face away. She was still pressed tight against my body, all the same. Her body, at least, was honest.

'Father's body is so big after all... 'I' have grown quite a bit too, but I'm still so much smaller compared to Father. If only I could keep... being held like this in Father's arms.'

A daughter with a father complex. What a wild setup. What on earth had possessed her to perform something that unhinged.

'Wh-what am I thinking, 'I'! Even if he isn't my real father...! He's the one who raised me! For now, getting out safely comes first!'

Truly a complicated set of internal rules she'd given herself.

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