WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 63

──────

The Homunculus Dilemma

Skin burned, and blood boiled. Shei narrowed her eyes and watched the lightning she had created. Tyrkanzyaka's small body looked like a lightning rod as bolts pouring from the storm clouds ran through her and sank into the ground. It almost looked like training beneath a waterfall.

But the pain was nothing like a waterfall. That torrent of lightning did not just rake across skin, it coursed through the entire body.

Blood vessels, muscles, flesh, blood, nerves. It tore through all of them, a violent surge racing down a straight road.

Was it like being stabbed all over by tens of thousands of needles? Even that comparison fell short. A single bolt was faster, finer, and stronger than any needle.

"If it hurts, scream! If you keep enduring this...!"

Even Tyrkanzyaka, who was used to pain, would not last long. Shei was sure of it, and gripped Skywarbler tightly so she could cut off the spell at any moment.

But then.

"I can certainly feel pain."

Tyrkanzyaka stayed calm.

Skin burned. Nerves scorched. A massive current from Skywarbler used the vampire's body as a conduit and bored into the earth.

"And yet it is only pain."

The lightning could not injure the vampire.

Bloodcraft, the power to control blood, had already reached the edge of heaven. It went beyond simply moving blood. It could shape flesh and regenerate the body.

As long as blood touched her, as long as blood remained, no one could harm her.

And a sea of blood built up over 1,200 years was not something as trivial as lightning from a single cloud could damage.

The lightning ended. Fragments of charge still spat and crackled in the air. Yet Tyrkanzyaka did not have a single wound. No lightning-shaped scar that should have formed, no foul smell of scorched skin, no blackened blood burned to cinder.

Before any of that could happen, Tyrkanzyaka had already contained it.

"It is certainly stronger. But something is lacking."

Tyrkanzyaka coolly assessed the lightning that had passed through her, almost like an inspector.

"It does not reach my chest, my heart. I feel only slight pain."

She spoke with clear disappointment. Shei felt a strange unease.

Was it because the Progenitor had endured her lightning? No, that was not it. It had not even been Shei's full power, and Tyrkanzyaka had taken no defensive measures either.

The discomfort came from somewhere else.

Her tone, as if she had been struck by electricity before. The way she compared it. That was what felt wrong.

"...Did that man do something to you, by any chance?"

"That man? Ah, you mean the instructor."

Tyrkanzyaka spoke as if she had not just been struck by lightning.

"Come to think of it, we do not even know his name. There are so few people in the Abyss that I did not bother to ask, but perhaps it is time we learned...."

"Don't change the subject. Did you ask him to run electricity through you too?"

"You are sharp."

Tyrkanzyaka gathered darkness again to form a parasol, then slung it lightly over her shoulder as she answered.

"Yes. I have asked him several times."

"Several times?"

"He was skillful and delicate. Not strong, but deft. When he touched my heart with his finger, the heart that had stopped would beat again for a brief moment."

"...We are talking about electric shock right now, right?"

Shei asked, then caught something in Tyrkanzyaka's words and asked again.

"Wait, what? Your heart beat again?"

"Yes. Briefly, but clearly, and for a moment too short to mistake."

"What did he do?"

"Hmm. It is a little embarrassing to say, but now that I have said this much, there is no point hiding more."

Tyrkanzyaka briefly explained what had happened. She had sought out the instructor after seeing a soil-kin revive, asked him to send electricity into her chest, then requested the massage again and again just to feel her heart beat for a moment.

Shei pieced it all together and replied.

"Then all those times you met him alone were also..."

"To ask for that massage. I troubled him often."

"Ugh. So that means..."

Shei pressed a hand to her forehead.

Where was she supposed to begin explaining this? She could not decide where to start.

No matter how strong a vampire was, showing her heart to someone who was both an alchemist and a mage? How could she have so little caution? It almost made sense that the instructor had taught those lessons on danger awareness.

And that instructor too.

Even if it was a request, how could he do something like that? Manipulating another person's body with magic was taboo.

So far, he did not seem to have done anything outright malicious. Level 0 arcane barely sat outside that taboo, and a being as powerful as Tyrkanzyaka was not easy to exploit.

Still, Shei could not fully trust the instructor.

Because the terrible event that was bound to come in the future still had not happened.

"Tyrkanzyaka. If you meet the instructor again, ask him this."

That was why Shei had to test him.

The one currently closest to the Progenitor's heart, the instructor of Tantalus.

Did he have ill intent, or was it simple goodwill?

"Ask whether he knows the Homunculus Dilemma."

If he answered plainly, then at least he had some awareness.

*****

"...You show up out of nowhere and ask me that? The Homunculus Dilemma?"

"Yes."

The Homunculus Dilemma was a kind of warning tale.

Why did the regressor tell me to hear it from you?

They could have told me directly, so if they sent me to someone else, there were only two possibilities.

Either they were not confident they could tell it well and dumped it on me.

Or it was a warning aimed at me.

Hmm. In the past, I would have assumed it was a warning and kept my head down. But these days, the first option feels a little more likely too. You have to be pretty bad at talking for that.

This is why first impressions matter. Seriously.

"It is not exactly a cheerful story. The origin is unclear too, more like a ghost tale. Still want to hear it?"

"Can a listener pick and choose the story's content?"

"If you say so. Alright then, I'll tell it."

I threw the disc far away and began.

There was a father with a sick child.

He went all over the city looking for famous doctors, but none could properly diagnose the child. It was what people called a rare disease. Back then, some called it a curse.

If there was a difference between those words, it was this: one made physicians uneasy, the other made them afraid. Even renowned doctors slammed their doors in his face, and each time, the father's head drooped lower.

As the child grew, the symptoms worsened. Night after night, the child whimpered in pain. At last, the father ignored everyone's pleas and went to a magician deep in the forest.

The road to the magician was long and brutal. Trees and brush rooted anywhere there was the slightest gap, more like loose walls than plants. Every step through them scratched his entire body. The father hacked branches with an axe, held a small lamp, and kept moving in the direction the smoke drifted.

After hours, a tiny cabin appeared beyond the dense woods. The father found the magician's dwelling and pounded on the door.

The magician heard the father's desperate story and fell silent. When he finally spoke, he told him in an ominous voice to bring the child.

Maybe because it felt like the last rope left to grab, the father nodded at once when promised his child would be returned healthy, without much suspicion.

He went home, carried his sick child on his back, and took the path again. Not once or twice, but a third crossing of that long, brutal route, this time with a feverish child groaning against him. It was a forced march that should have broken him, yet even in exhaustion, one thought stayed in his mind. He was glad he had already passed this road before.

If he had not trimmed branches on those earlier trips, every scratch on his own body would have landed on the child.

He arrived at the magician's dwelling with the child on his back. In the dim night, the magician laid the child on a bed, told the father to return in three days, and shut the door. The father dragged his exhausted body back home.

Clearing the remaining branches as he went.

As promised, the father returned three days later. The moment he stepped into the cabin, he saw something he could hardly believe.

The child ran into his arms with a lovely smile. The clear signs of sickness were gone, and so was the face twisted in pain. Seeing that pure, childlike smile, the father was happier than he had ever been. He paid with money gathered by selling everything he owned, held his healthy child's hand, and walked home together.

Then one day, a year later, the father looked at his recovered child and decided to visit the magician again. He wanted to say, The child you healed has grown this well, and all of us are grateful to you. He held the child's hand once more and returned to the magician's dwelling.

A full year had passed. The branches had grown back thick, as if mocking his past effort. But the father did not worry. Unlike then, the child was healthy enough to endure a few scratches.

Maybe because the father led the way, the child passed through the brush without even the tiniest wound.

The magician happened to be away. The father waited, but when the sun dropped behind the hills, he grew uneasy. The child still looked lively, yet worried the child might be tired, the father set manners aside and opened the door to go inside.

That was when he heard a faint groan. At first he wondered if there was another patient, then a sudden foreboding hardened his face.

Sadly, premonitions of ruin are often dead on. Life is more sensitive to danger by nature.

That groan sounded far too much like the sound his child had made a year before while writhing in pain. The only difference was this one sounded weaker, and more agonized.

As if bewitched, the father followed the sound, opened a thick iron door in the basement, and saw it.

A child hanging by a few strands, trembling in pain without even the strength to scream.

The child he loved more than anything had been crudely taken apart with saws and knives, as if parts had been removed for use elsewhere....

"That is the story. A plain old ghost tale. Later, magicians who loved naming things gave it a grand title, saying it contained the truth of magic."

Azzy came back with the disc in her mouth. I took it calmly, threw it far away again, and continued.

"Magic is the manifestation of self-will. It lays your own world and your own principles onto reality. So it cannot help being deeply personal."

I could read thoughts, but the only magic I could use was the standard Level 0 arcane granted to everyone. Magic built from personal experience could not be reproduced even with mind reading.

"That is why you cannot heal someone else's body with magic. If you claim to heal them, then like the old story, it is no different from discarding the original body and making a new homunculus. That is the meaning behind the grand principle called the Homunculus Dilemma."

I figured that was enough explanation. A vampire was not stupid.

Or maybe she was? Who asks someone to fire lightning into their own body? Thunder cracked out of nowhere and startled me so badly I dropped flat before I realized it.

I watched the disc fly back and finished speaking.

"You have a good disciple. She was obviously worried about you, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka."

"...Yes."

The vampire accepted that, then withdrew without another word. I watched her leave, then had to throw the disc again because Azzy started pestering me.

Hmm, strange. Is using a disc really helping? It feels like all it does is make my workday longer, without improving much else.

"Bark!"

Right. If I build goodwill now, maybe it will be useful someday. I should put up with it for that future. This is like savings.

No idea whether it will ever mature, though.

"Oh, come to think of it, she did not ask for a massage today."

What kind of wind blew through her? She seemed a little sulky after yesterday's lesson, so I was going to smooth things over before she stayed moody.

I hope she is not sitting alone in her room spiraling into weird thoughts.

She will be fine, right? No matter how dumb she is, she would not do something even stupider than getting blasted by lightning, would she?

The disc came back again. I stared at it for a moment, then rolled it along the ground.

Azzy barked in complaint.

*****

"I have made my decision, Finlay."

"Progenitor...."

A voice full of emotion rang out from the darkness. Finlay let out a cry thick with awe. If he had not been a vampire incapable of tears, they would already have been falling.

Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka sat quietly and watched him. Stern words came from her bloodless lips.

"The two of them could not show me a path. They only said it was impossible. In the end, it is clear they cannot accomplish it."

"That is because they are not nobles of the night. What would commoners bound to life know?"

"I do not trust it either. How can one who has died regain a heart that beats of its own whim? That is why I am only half convinced by your claim that my thralls have a method. You move by my authority, so how are you to revive me?"

It was a fair point.

Faced with the Progenitor's doubt, Finlay bowed again.

"Progenitor, time has passed. The world has moved on, and all have found their own methods. Blood magic has grown stronger than ever before. Unlike ordinary magic, it is sorcery shaped from life and blood. With that, with that thing those ignorant commoners cannot know and must never know, we can restore the Progenitor's heart."

It was a lie.

A lie never permitted to a thrall, and Finlay spoke it without changing expression.

He felt no tension, no excitement. He too was a vampire with a stopped heart. Of course he felt guilt for deceiving the Progenitor, but that could be repaid later with death.

And Finlay was certain. This lie could lure the Progenitor outside.

And who knew? If the Elders and Ain of the Fog Duchy, those powerful and wise vampires, were there, they might find a way to restore the Progenitor's heart.

Could commoners ever grasp the secret mysteries of bloodcraft? They knew nothing. Leaving this place and standing with vampires outside would be a hundred times better than remaining here with those people.

So this was loyalty. Finlay deceived the Progenitor, yet remained loyal to her.

He could deceive himself that way.

The Progenitor, who had been silently looking down at Finlay, spoke a beat later.

"I will trust you once. Use that method, and restore my heart."

"Yes! If you would only come up to the surface, I will personally take responsibility..."

"Now."

"...Pardon?"

Finlay asked, stunned.

"Use that method you know. Failure is acceptable. I am your root, and my authority is stronger than all of theirs combined. If your blood magic is valid, I will sense that possibility."

This was bad.

If Finlay could sweat, his entire body would have been soaked.

Right now? Recreate it here?

Impossible. It was a lie he had improvised.

His flimsy lie was about to stand naked before proof.

Finlay bowed deeper and pleaded.

"But, Progenitor. I have no great mastery of blood magic. I fear my poor spell may wound you."

"It does not matter. Did you not say we were testing only possibility? If you have seen that magic, then surely you can imitate it."

The Progenitor's command was absolute. Finlay had to obey. But he had lied, so he had no power to carry it out.

What should he do? Confess now and pay for deceiving her?

No. If that had been his intention, he should never have lied in the first place.

He was already riding the tiger. All that remained was to race forward, wherever it ended.

Clouded eyes flashed in the dark.

"I obey, Progenitor. But my power is meager. If your authority remains intact, mine cannot exert any effect at all. Therefore."

In truth, Finlay was deeply skilled in blood magic. His specialty was domination. The authority to carve the Brand of Crimson Blood and control something with his own blood.

He might only be a lowly Yeling, but if, just if, the Progenitor granted even the slightest opening.

"Please set down all your authority for a moment, and reveal your heart before me."

It was irreverent, but not impossible.

As the Progenitor wished, she would gain a heart that did not follow her will, one that beat as it pleased.

It certainly would not beat according to her command.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried