WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 473: A Story from Afar. A Reunion Gone Wrong

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A land shrouded in thick fog, wedged between the mountains and the coast. A little farther south, the mist cleared, revealing a broad plain.

A plain without a single shadow was terrain vampires disliked. Having nowhere to hide from sunlight was part of it, but there was also a more historical reason.

The blessed Enger Plain. It was a land of milk and honey for humans, but a wall of lamentation for vampires. Sunlight shone upon it, mild breezes drifted through it, and nutrient-rich rivers ran across it. On those open battlefields, countless vampires had spilled their blood into the soil.

No matter how powerful they were or how remarkable their regeneration, vampires had too many weaknesses. On battlefields where everything was at stake, they could only be tossed about.

Running water, blazing sunlight, and distances they could not close. Their prey seemed close enough to kill with a touch, yet always remained out of reach. Those who pressed forward recklessly to seize it found their arrogance judged by blades of holy light.

The undead vampires retreated, carrying the pain of a defeat that would remain carved into them forever. It was hard to fear those who had lost. Their weaknesses had been exposed for all to see, and the vampires were driven back again and again, all the way to one edge of the continent, to the Sea of Leviathans.

The misty coast was their paradise, but just as the world could not be inhabited by vampires alone, the Duchy could not consist solely of foggy shores. There were places where mountain ranges that charged roughly across the land finally fell quiet, and where rivers that found a gap fled to the sea.

The Eastern Plain, bordering the military state.

The greatest number of humans lived there, and so did the greatest number of vampires. Since the plain received plenty of sunlight, the vampires of the Eastern Plain lived in the traditional way. They slept during the day, woke only at night, and ruled over humans.

Yet the broad, abundant Eastern Plain reminded them of the nightmare of the Enger Plain. Vampires of Ain rank or higher had little desire to remain there.

There were many humans, but few high-ranking vampires. It also bordered the military state. If the fugitive escaped, he would surely pass through the Eastern Plain.

Both vampires and humans thought so.

"...He's putting up quite a struggle."

Erjebeut, sent on the Progenitor's orders, clicked her tongue. Even if vampires had duller senses in certain areas, she had not expected anyone to shake off hundreds of humans and vampires and cross half the nation.

Stamina alone could not explain it. His skills were impressive enough to deserve admiration. Creating false trails to throw pursuers into confusion. Breaking through checkpoints and blending in among people. Surviving in forests and fields while finding a route. Had he failed to master even one of those skills, he would have been caught long ago.

"Madam Erjebeut. We found him."

Skill could only delay the inevitable for a few days. Upon receiving the report, Erjebeut opened her crimson folding fan and hid her mouth behind it.

"But this is as far as he goes. If the destination is limited, driving him into a corner is easier than twisting an infant's wrist. Now that he has headed for the plain, there is nowhere left to run."

Dogo had already gone ahead near the border. The Progenitor's consort was not strong enough to defeat an Elder and a force of Ain before escaping. With the fence firmly in place, Erjebeut only needed to calmly herd in the livestock and catch it.

As she finished arranging the operation in her mind, Erjebeut murmured.

"I must present the consort to the Progenitor and earn forgiveness for my sins..."

She had spoken without thinking, but stopped midway and closed her mouth.

Erjebeut was now free from the Progenitor's control. She had found complete freedom while retaining her power.

That meant the fear Erjebeut felt now belonged wholly to her.

The reason was simple. Erjebeut recalled the form of fear. The shadow of calamity created by the Progenitor's authority. A servant of the Progenitor, made by combining the power, history, authority, and fear of vampires.

It remained by the Progenitor's side like a shadow and followed behind like a child. Yet its strength and cruelty surpassed even an Elder's.

Erjebeut could not attempt anything against that shadow. It was Tyrkanzyaka's servant, yet it stood above every other vampire.

The primal fear of a living creature. The conviction that no struggle could ever overcome it. Erjebeut felt the same fear a field mouse might feel before a tiger. An instinct that had long since worn away crawled back to life and screamed at her that that shadow was something beyond common sense.

"...What could that have been...?"

She thought about it for quite some time, but no answer came. Carrying an unexplained unease, Erjebeut headed for the place where the consort had been spotted.

A windmill stood alone in the broad field. Unlike other sea winds that gathered after being blocked by the mountains, the wind of the Eastern Plain blew without obstruction, gently sweeping over everything in the fields. The windmill was the work of audacious humans, who had turned even nature's caress into labor.

The Progenitor's consort was inside that windmill. According to the report, after noticing the pursuers, the consort had let out a long sigh, entered the windmill, and begun resting as though nothing had happened.

Erjebeut nodded.

"They called him the King of Humanity, did they not? It seems he still has the dignity of a former king. I like that he does not make himself pathetic with pointless resistance."

"What will you do?"

"I will escort him. He is the Progenitor's consort, so see that he is attended to without the slightest deficiency... No."

The Progenitor might be different, but the consort was human. There was no harm in making a good impression. Since she had committed a sin, Erjebeut dismissed the Ain and decided to approach the consort herself.

"I will escort him personally, so withdraw."

"By your command, Madam Erjebeut. I will take my leave and report to the Duke of Crimson Blood."

Count Erte, the Duke of Crimson Blood's Ain, bowed deeply and withdrew. Nothing about the gesture violated etiquette, but Erjebeut found Count Erte, a minion of the Duke of Crimson Blood, unpleasant. Count Erte was supposedly there to assist one of the Duchy's great Elders, but was really there to watch Erjebeut.

"How dare..."

Still, Erjebeut had rebelled against the Progenitor, so she could hardly raise her voice over it. She shot Count Erte a small glare, then strode toward the windmill.

Deliberate signs of life still came from within. The consort did not seem to intend to flee. Certain the conversation would go smoothly, Erjebeut paused in front of the windmill to straighten her clothing before speaking.

"Consort. I have come to escort you in person."

There was no answer, but the presence inside remained. Taking the silence as agreement, Erjebeut moved her blood energy. Blood flowing across the floor seeped into the wood.

Having taken control of the door, Erjebeut opened it without lifting a finger.

"Please forgive my intrusion. I hope the consort will also..."

The sight inside the windmill was somewhat different from what Erjebeut had expected.

The consort was there. But he was not alone. A mage stood before him without making a sound. The mage had been frowning deeply, evidently irritated by something, but glanced at the uninvited guest, relaxed his expression, and muttered.

"So I wasn't the only one fooled by a fake. Another idiot has crawled in."

Erjebeut felt a moment of confusion. The Ain who had kept watch reported that only the consort had entered the windmill. Yet now some mage was sitting inside as if he owned the place.

Perhaps unaware of who Erjebeut was, the mage spoke with utter arrogance.

"I can't decide whether to be grateful that there are so many idiots in this world or despair that I became one of them. Ah. Am I destined to be nothing more than the king of the right-handed, a conventional top student?"

The lamenting man did not seem to care about Erjebeut in the slightest. He appeared to have no idea where he was or in whose presence he stood.

To fail to recognize an Elder in the Duchy. Even for an arrogant mage, was that not too ignorant? Erjebeut decided to carve a lesson into his body. He would never have a chance to reflect upon it, of course.

"Bow your head. I have no business with you."

The blood spread throughout the room bloomed like flowers. Before the mage could respond, blood flowers burst forth in a swirling rush, wrapped around him, and exploded. Without even watching the red pulp fall, Erjebeut turned her gaze to the consort.

"Please forgive me for showing you such an unsightly scene. Still, I could not let a human get away with behaving rudely before both myself and the consort..."

"Consort? I don't know what you're talking about, but that guy is a fake who copied Hui's appearance. He's not the human you're looking for."

The mage's voice came from behind Erjebeut. He should have been crushed to death by the blood flowers, yet Erjebeut doubted her ears and looked back toward where the bloody flowers had bloomed.

The mage was perfectly unharmed. The blood flowers had bloomed around him and tried to take his body as nourishment, but had not injured even a single hair.

No, they had not touched him in the first place. The buds that had risen while coiling to the right seemed less like they were attacking him and more like they were protecting him. As though they were obeying him.

The red-haired mage remained utterly relaxed, without the faintest hint of danger.

"If an Elder was looking for a doppelgänger that had copied someone else's appearance, that would be one thing. But that isn't why you're here, is it? You're an ordinary person like me, after all. Well... I am better than you."

The mage had not failed to recognize an Elder. He knew exactly who she was and had ignored her anyway. However arrogant a mage might be, no one was foolish enough to throw away their life so casually.

Which meant this mage was certain he could protect his life from Erjebeut.

Erjebeut opened her folding fan. He had blocked the blood flowers, but that had only been a light greeting. Even if the mage was troublesome, could he be more troublesome than an immortal vampire? Erjebeut reached out toward him.

That was when the consort stopped her.

"Don't attack him."

Holding her folding fan, Erjebeut asked.

"Do you know him?"

"We are acquainted... though he doesn't know 'me'."

"Then you are not close."

The folding fan that had paused moved elegantly. Following its tip, a vast current of blood coiled like a serpent. Now that the Progenitor had broken free of the blood shackles, no one in the world surpassed Countess Erjebeut in the ability to control blood energy.

With enough blood energy gathered in her hand to fill the windmill, Erjebeut stared at the mage.

"Then it should be fine if I kill him."

After Erjebeut swung her folding fan, blood flooded the room. Power excessive for use against a single person targeted the mage.

The windmill shook violently. The blood current brushed past the gears and set them spinning, causing the windmill, which should have turned from catching the wind, to generate wind instead.

The blood current swept over the pillars and gears before wrapping around the mage and washing over him. The blood spun around him as if it were a serpent and crushed him.

A waterfall whirled and ground a body apart. If the goal had been destruction, it was more than sufficient.

"...Hm?"

Yet the mage was still unharmed.

The blood current continued swirling with great force. Its power remained unchanged. But it could not touch the mage.

It was as though an invisible force surrounded him. Erjebeut understood what power the mage possessed.

"Innate arcane... So you had something to rely on."

A mage who completed their own ideology gained innate arcane. It was the power to impose one's own rules upon the world. Difference generally meant separation, so innate arcane usually possessed the power to block outside attacks.

That was only the result, though. Since every innate arcane was different, the means to overcome them were equally varied. Erjebeut drew up enough blood energy to fill the windmill.

The consort stopped her again.

"Stop, Madam Erjebeut. Attacking him is pointless. In his innate arcane, the Right-Handed World, every attack will miss and strike somewhere else."

Remembering the consort's presence, Erjebeut hurriedly withdrew her power.

The windmill was already on the verge of breaking. If she used more strength, even the consort would be caught up in it. If she so much as injured the consort here, Erjebeut would become a meal for that shadow.

'...But even if it is innate arcane, this is no ordinary barrier.'

Even so, Erjebeut felt a strange sense of discord. It did not feel as though something was blocking her blood energy. Rather, it felt like a hopeless expanse where it endlessly traveled toward a distant emptiness it could never reach.

It was different. Not merely in power or rank. It felt as though the space in which he existed was different from the beginning. With an unpleasant feeling, Erjebeut glared at the red-haired mage.

'He cannot harm me. But can I pierce that innate arcane and harm him...? It seems impossible in a short time. Where did someone like that come from? And why did he appear exactly where the Progenitor's consort is?'

The person who could answer was right nearby. Erjebeut turned to the Progenitor's consort and asked.

"You keep a strange being at your side. Consort, who is that person who came for you?"

Hilde, disguised as Hughes, was not the consort Erjebeut sought. Still, Hilde had served as the Shadow Casket in the military state and could reveal the red-haired mage's identity. Looking at the mage who had once thrown her country into chaos, Hilde repeated the words to herself.

"The hope of the military state. A comet that burned brighter than any other. Then... the worst criminal, who eventually fell to the earth."

Several years ago, three talented people who could become the military state's hope had appeared in Hamelin. They were not remnants of the Kingdom, nor servants of the Holy Maiden, but pure strength of the military state. As talents who seemed to foretell the military state's brilliant future were born, everyone's attention turned to him.

He was the one who drew the most attention in Hamelin.

A physically weak genius was of no use to the military state, and a woman skilled in qi arts was not as rare as one might think. But a magical genius born in that barren land was powerful and precious, someone born with the potential to change the history of the military state.

He was expected to achieve more than anyone. A rising star who had mastered standardized magic to its limits in a military state without mysteries, then pioneered innate arcane on his own. A mystery reborn.

Yet his overwhelming talent had become poison, and he ultimately betrayed the military state and left, becoming its worst criminal.

"Colonel Lankart, the Fallen Comet. He was once 'my' classmate and friend... a mage."

Footnotes:

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