WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 51: Uninvited Guest

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The Abyss was so dark at night that I couldn't see even an inch ahead.

No, this was probably what the Abyss was meant to look like. An abandoned land without a speck of light, a shred of warmth, or even room to set foot.

I took a lamp down to the courtyard to check on the idiot who had volunteered to enter such a place. To my surprise, a corpse was already out there before me.

"Trainee Tyrkanzyaka? What are you doing here?"

Though it was too dark to see an inch ahead, the parasol the vampire carried was darker still. It was pitch-black, as though the very concept of darkness had gathered around her rather than merely the absence of light.

From within it, the vampire looked at me with glowing red eyes.

"You managed to wake up. You seemed fond of sleeping through the night."

"Come on. Compared to you, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka, who enters eternal slumber, my night's sleep is a firefly flashing for a single night beside three hundred uninterrupted years of sleep."

"You certainly have a way with words..."

The vampire smiled softly and looked at me, or rather, at the golem perched on my head.

"What a cute toy. Is that a golem?"

"This is Captain AB, a military state communications officer. She's a very shy golem, so she won't be much for introductions. Please excuse her in advance."

The golem replied.

『Negative. It is not that I am shy. Direct contact with trainees is not recommended from an observer's position.... In any case, please excuse this unit's silence.』

"What? A golem can speak on its own without an operator...?"

The vampire's red eyes widened slightly. She raised a hand to her mouth, curled it into a fist, and muttered.

"Ahem. It must be some new technology. It is hardly surprising anymore."

That was a lie. She only knew golems controlled with threads. Mana communication was cutting-edge technology to her.

"Ah, yes. Let's go with that for now. More importantly, why did you really come out here?"

The vampire avoided my question.

"I have no reason to explain myself to you."

"Is it because someone will be coming down soon?"

"...That is so."

The vampire frowned slightly and grumbled.

"You already knew. Well, this is military state territory, and you said you managed it. There is no way someone practically serving as its lord would not know."

"I'm not exactly a lord. Still, did you really come out to greet the person who's coming down?"

"Yes. You said so last time. If anyone else came, you wanted Shei or me to handle it from now on."

"Oh, I just threw that out there without expecting anything. You're really going to do it?"

"That is so. Though I am an existence removed from my own time, I have entrusted my body to this place. It is only proper to grant a reasonable request from you."

After saying that, the vampire rested her parasol on her shoulder and looked up.

Hmm. She was from ancient times, so of course she was sensitive about manners like this. As a guest, she would want to fulfill her obligations.

But was that all?

I carefully read the vampire's thoughts and grinned.

"That's not the only reason, is it?"

"...Do you doubt my words?"

"Doubt you? Of course part of you feels that way. That's why you sensed his presence and came out to greet him. But."

I had a talent.

I uncovered secrets by reading minds. Yet if people learned I could read minds, everyone would naturally become wary of me. No one would welcome someone who pulled back the curtain on their shame and stared straight at it. They might even take the lead in trying to kill me.

So I developed a slightly different kind of ability.

"As you know, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka is a vampire. Her ability to sense blood covers all of Tantalus. No, if blood isn't inside someone's body, she can control it outright. It's an incredible power. But put another way, if blood isn't flowing outside the body, she can't detect it quite so perfectly. People like me or Rashy, the immortal-race trainee, for example."

I made what I learned through mind-reading sound like deductions I had reached myself.

That was why I used to work as a detective now and then. All sorts of clients came looking for me. They hired me because they wanted someone's shame exposed.

Though most of the requests involved dealing with an affair partner. Ahem.

"For Trainee Tyrkanzyaka to have already noticed the intruder, there are probably two possibilities. Either the falling intruder is bleeding, or..."

The vampire's expression remained calm. But that only meant she was refusing to face the truth that was about to arrive.

I casually shrugged and told her what I had read from her thoughts.

"He is a vampire moving under the Progenitor's authority."

The one falling now was a vampire.

A vampire had entered this place? It wasn't to avoid sunlight. These days, there were plenty of places to find shade from the sun.

There was only one reason vampire blood would be drawn here.

Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka. He had clearly come seeking her powerful blood.

'I knew it would be found out eventually. I had hoped to delay it, even a little.'

The vampire sighed softly.

"I have a request."

"Don't worry. I don't have any prejudice against vampires. If I did, would I have treated you this casually, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka? Unless the person coming down tries to kill me, I won't kill him."

"...You speak as if you entered my heart and came back out."

At my smooth reply, the vampire smiled warmly.

"Thank you. For understanding."

"It's nothing. I know a vampire, and surprisingly, she's not bad company."

"You rascal. Such nerve."

The vampire laughed briefly and clearly, then lifted her head again and waited for the vampire who was still falling. It was a heartwarming ending, one that even satisfied the vampire's heart.

Like every beautiful story, though, it was followed by hardship and pain enough to make my head split.

『What exactly are you deciding on your own?!』

Where the vampire couldn't see, the golem was yanking hard at the hair by my ear. Swallowing the scream that tried to burst out, I reached back and tore the golem's arm away.

"Am I deciding? The Progenitor is deciding."

『The other party is the Progenitor. The beginning of all vampires, their ruler, and the true master of the five factions, including the Crimson Duke's duchy! Are you going to let that meeting take place?』

"No. What am I supposed to do about it? Do you expect me to stop it? With what power?"

『Intervene and persuade the Progenitor!』

"What?"

『If you cannot, relay exactly what I say. That alone will silence the Progenitor!』

Seriously. If it was so important, they should do it themselves. What did they expect from a mere laborer?

I grumbled, but I still moved.

"Fine. I'll at least try to help from the side. But just try telling me to defeat a vampire. Military state or not, I'll dunk you in water."

『Finishing this matter properly should take priority. Unlike you, I am the actual person in charge here.』

With the golem hanging from my head, I crept over and stood near the vampire. Like her, I looked up at the sky and waited for the intruder who would soon fall.

Time passed without end. Perhaps falling took time, or perhaps some procedure was needed. Even after a long while, there was no sign of the intruder who was supposed to arrive soon. The vampire and I simply stared up at the sky, our necks craned like children waiting for a shooting star.

As the silence stretched on, a wistful voice came from beneath the parasol.

"Long ago, looking up at the sky like this in the middle of the night was my joy."

I gave an appropriate reply.

"It's the same now. Plenty of people still enjoy that."

"Yes. Whether in the past or now, the sky must still be beautiful. A night sky sparkling with starlight looked just like the Milky Way flowing overhead. I would gaze at it endlessly, forgetting the passage of time. Only at night could I look at the sky without restriction. Then the night that seemed eternal would end, and the Sun God would peek out from beyond Mother Earth's pillowing arm. I would hide beneath the ground to escape the blue sunlight spreading across the horizon."

What was this all of a sudden?

I couldn't bring myself to interrupt the sensibility of a twelve-century-old girl that would put an actual twelve-year-old girl to shame, so I just listened quietly. At least the vampire didn't particularly want an answer from me.

Words spoken in sentiment were meant to linger in the wind and disappear.

"We only wished to live, yet we could not hold our heads high. We could not raise our faces and boldly receive the light. Even when called to come forth and receive fair judgment, we had to flee if that judgment was held in a plaza at noon. In the end, we survived, but we could not become proud."

The beginning of vampires, the Shadow Queen.

Once, she pitied those who were dying and turned them into vampires, raising them back to their feet. Now, she pitied the vampires born that way.

And such feelings...

The guilt a poor parent often held toward their child led to more guilt.

Why did I let you be born?

Was it right to bring you into a world filled only with pain?

Was giving you a life that had to run, be chased, and hide a blessing or a curse?

Wouldn't it have been better for both of us if you had never been born?

A good parent felt guilty for feeling such anguish in the first place, then suffered again from that guilt. The more they suffered, the more their guilt swelled. Like a fire consuming itself, their emotions grew darker and murkier. They cried out within endless suffering, trying not to fall into the gap between what was right and reality.

That was how Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka felt now.

The little god who had created vampires, now soaked in the sin of creation, held her jet-black parasol and suffered.

"...I thought I would feel a little better if I couldn't see the sky. That was why I entered this place of my own will. Yet here I am, longing for the sky."

Then something glimmered in the starless Abyss. A periodically flashing indicator light was drawing closer. That light was approaching this place, too artificial to be called a shooting star and not particularly stirring.

It looked exactly like something falling into ruin.

"How pitiful."

Then the intruder fell to the ground.

Footnotes:

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