WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 7: Blood-Red Letters

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Life is a book. A one-of-a-kind book that begins with birth, ends with death, and is filled page by page with the passing years.

If life were a book, then my mind-reading could be called reading. I could examine only the newly written parts at the end and read someone’s surface thoughts, or flip through it from beginning to end to get a rough sense of its contents.

I could also sit down and read it closely from cover to cover, but that took a long time and was dangerous for me, so I would rather skip that option.

Amitenggrad, the capital of the military state, was a great monster that had devoured the surrounding cities. As it grew explosively, it swelled by pushing everything that had been there before outward.

People, homes, money, even ideologies.

Everything pushed aside had its own story, and having lived there myself, I thought I had encountered quite a variety of people.

Yet there was always someone greater than the greatest, and beneath the bottom was somewhere even lower. As befitted the great prison the military state boasted of, the beings residing in Tantalus were on another level.

The King of Dogs.

The Progenitor of vampires.

The regressor.

Monsters capable of turning an entire city into rubble if set loose. As if proclaiming themselves to be beings beyond the norm, their books differed from ordinary ones as well.

If I had to describe Azzy’s book, it was like a book written by sounding out ancient cave paintings made of hieroglyphs. I could read it, but I could not understand what it meant.

What was this? What was that? Why did she have to distinguish between left and right by giving them names? Why was there a ball, yet nobody was throwing it? Concepts like those did not even exist in Azzy’s book. She did not try to understand them or explain them. To her, it was simply the most natural thing in the world.

In a way, that was only natural. Dogs and humans could not possibly think according to the same logic. So long as I was human, the day I fully understood Azzy’s book would never come.

If I read her thoughts closely, I could probably figure out her mood, but I would be better off looking up and reading Azzy’s expression. There would not be much difference between reading her thoughts and reading her face.

A vampire’s book could be defined in one word.

Thick.

As befitted an ancient monster who had lived for over twelve hundred years, pages numbering twenty times those of an ordinary human weighed heavily on me. Even skimming through it required mental preparation.

It would have been one thing if there had not been much in it, but her life had been turbulent enough to make it some grand epic. The day she awakened as a vampire, the history of humiliation and persecution, the long history of struggle, reign and downfall, escape and eternal slumber...

That was all I had seen while roughly flipping through it, so I could not bring myself to delve any deeper. It was difficult to understand as well, since it reflected the culture of each era.

A scholar of ancient literature would have fallen in love with that book, but unfortunately, I was the only one who could read books of the mind.

And I was not a scholar of ancient literature.

Lastly, the regressor.

The regressor’s book did not fit into any category. If I had to describe it, it was a fourteen-volume series that should never have existed and could not be allowed to exist.

She had clearly reached the end of one life. Even though she had met an ending of sorts, miserable as it might have been, her life continued like a cheat. A tiresome story dragged out by an author who could not let go. One that showed no sign of ending...

That left me deeply troubled.

I had clearly read it, yet I could not understand it.

She was living this life, but her motivations, beliefs, experiences, acquired abilities, and equipment had all been obtained in previous lives. The reasons she acted, the enemies she needed to defeat, and the events that would occur in the future were all recorded in earlier volumes.

Unlike the regressor, though, I did not possess anything as remarkable as the ability to transcend time. All I could read was the story of this era.

It was like picking up the newest volume after skipping volumes one through thirteen. I could not follow why she was doing any of this.

That was why, even though I knew I would die in the future and the world would be destroyed, I could not read what exactly had happened. I could only infer it from the memories she occasionally recalled and the actions she had taken.

To learn the truth, I had to hear it directly from the regressor...

Or make her “reminisce” about the past.

“Ugh. One way or another, I guess I’ll have to rub shoulders with the regressor...”

Once I realized my situation, I let out a sigh deep enough to make the ground cave in.

Though there was no ground left to cave in, since this was the Abyss.

In a prison without entertainment, anyone with nothing to do usually came out into the yard. I opened the iron-barred front gate and stepped outside.

Then a bizarre sight greeted me.

“Tyrkanzyaka! I came to see you! Open the door!”

The regressor stood before the underground armory with her arms spread wide, shouting.

The underground armory. It was where weapons were stored in case the prisoners rioted and had to be subdued by force. It was made from at least level-three alchemical steel, and the door could only be opened after going through three security procedures.

In Tantalus, where only prisoners too dangerous to handle were gathered, it seemed they had put “something else” inside rather than weapons. In some ways, it could be considered the strongest weapon. Either way, it was still an area ordinary prisoners were never supposed to approach. If someone carelessly got close, they would have no grounds for complaint even if they were executed, regardless of the reason.

Right in front of an underground armory where prisoners were forbidden to go, the regressor was performing something like a ritual.

What on earth was she doing? As I watched her, I suddenly remembered that I was pretending to be an instructor.

Tsk. If I was an instructor, should I stop a trainee from lurking around the underground armory? I did not want to get my head cut off for interfering for no reason.

The regressor was a terrorist holding the entire world hostage. No, she was a mad scientist repeatedly experimenting on the world itself. If things went wrong, she was the irresponsible sort who could overturn this entire run and move on to the next one.

Still, if I did not stay true to my role, she would become even more suspicious. My opponent was a regressor trying to find the best possible future by repeating runs. If she decided I was an alien presence who was neither instructor nor prisoner, she might try even harder to eliminate me.

Right. I should stop her. It was not as if she would actually kill me.

I shouted in a deliberately angry voice.

“Trainee Shei! Have you...!”

‘Tch. Someone’s come to interfere. But I can’t let anyone stop me here. If he blocks my path, I’ll have no choice but to get rid of him somehow...’

“...been sleeping well? Good morning. It’s my first time sleeping in a prison, but sleep is the same inside and outside.”

I barely stopped myself from barking at her, changed my expression, and approached with a smile.

I could not believe she had actually considered killing me. Fine, I had decided. From now on, I would let her do whatever she wanted.

“...Tch.”

As I watched with a leisurely smile, the regressor frowned, sharply turned her head, and pretended not to notice me. Still, perhaps she had some decency, since she did not spit in the face of someone smiling at her.

Yes. Thank you. Nice to see you too.

After exchanging greetings by myself, I walked toward the firmly shut armory door.

“Shouting your head off in broad daylight. What exactly are you doing?”

“None of your business.”

“Are you trying to meet the person inside?”

The regressor clicked her tongue briefly. Apparently, tongue-clicking was her way of affirming something.

“Why are you trying to wake someone who is sleeping peacefully?”

“None of your business.”

“Good grief. I can’t say a thing to you.”

The regressor was so wary of me that she would not take any action in front of me. It was truly troublesome.

How the world had moved toward destruction, what had happened here. Only the regressor could answer my questions. To do that, she had to reminisce about the past beside me.

But with her current attitude, even after a year passed, I would have no hope of digging up events from the previous run, which were the future from my perspective.

Hmm. What should I do? I turned my gaze to the underground armory.

There were no weapons in Tantalus’s underground armory. Unlike ordinary prisons, the great prison Tantalus was an isolated space where escape was impossible by normal means. Since there was no need to worry about prisoners escaping, no instructors had been stationed there, nor were there weapons to attack prisoners in an emergency.

Instead, they had put something else inside.

The first vampire, the monster who defied the heavens, the Queen of Darkness.

The Progenitor, Tyrkanzyaka.

It was a palace and prison for a vampire who rejected the light and hid underground.

And the regressor was trying to wake that ancient vampire, the Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka.

From my perspective, it was not particularly pleasant for a being that subsisted on human blood to awaken. Especially when I was the only proper human left in Tantalus.

Still, now that I needed to get the regressor talking, resolving this trivial matter would probably advance our relationship.

What should I do?

My deliberation was short, and my decision was swift. Right. I would help the regressor.

It was not as if a vampire would kill me, right? Now that most of the prisoners had escaped, I was the only “ordinary” human left in Tantalus. To a vampire, I was a precious resource that produced blood day after day. Would she really cut open the goose that laid golden eggs over a little thirst? At worst, she would turn me into something neither dead nor alive and draw blood from me forever.

...The future looked bleak. Still, that was better than dying.

Having made up my mind, I made the regressor an offer.

“Why don’t you just break down the door?”

“This door is under Tyrkanzyaka’s control.”

When I looked where the regressor pointed, a bloodstain emitting a red glow glittered where the keyhole for the security device should have been. I could not see energy, but even at a glance, it was a pattern overflowing with ominous power.

“The Mark of Fresh Blood. So long as that glows ominously and exerts its control, the iron door strengthened by her blood is no different from Tyrkanzyaka’s familiar. It will never open without her command.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t see anything, so try breaking it with everything you have. Who knows? Maybe it’ll break if you pound on it for a few days.”

“...It’s not impossible, but I don’t want to. I came to ask Tyrkanzyaka for help, not to fight her.”

Huh? I had only thrown out a suggestion. Why did she say it was not impossible?

An ordinary human could not cut through a solid steel door. That was an iron door with level-three strength, made from the military state’s specially manufactured alchemical steel. It would not break if you rammed it with a carriage or fired a cannon at it from point-blank range.

She could break that just by giving it her all? No, a steel door should not break because a single human gave it their all. It was only respectful to the people who had made that door.

“You’re more sensible than I expected.”

“Of course. Killing someone else’s familiar is even ruder than breaking down the front door of their house and barging in.”

“Seriously. The person who suddenly tried to cut off someone’s arm is talking about manners.”

“What?”

“No, nothing. I was talking to myself.”

I turned away from the regressor, whose eyes widened, and sank into thought.

The alchemical steel used in ordinary underground bunkers was level three. Hmm. If I used that, it might barely work. Should I try it?

I rummaged through my pocket and took out a chimebell. It was the very bell I had used while training Azzy yesterday.

“What is that bell?”

“A dog-call bell.”

“A dog... what?”

The chimebell was not particularly loud, but Tantalus was far too small for a Beast King whose home was the whole world. To Azzy, whose hearing and sense of smell were keen, it would sound as clear as if it were ringing right beside her ear.

Of course, no matter how much I rang it normally, even if she heard it, she would have ignored it. There were too many sounds in the world for her to care about every little noise.

But after spending all day yesterday with this bell, she would definitely hear it and come. I had kept playing with her and ringing the bell over and over for that very reason. I raised the bell over my head and shook it.

Ring, ring.

“Woof? Woof!”

A clear bell rang from the small chimebell, and I heard barking from far away. A moment later, Azzy began running down the wall from the rooftop of a building.

I was not joking. She was genuinely running down the wall. She was several times faster than if she had fallen. Gray concrete was scraped away from the building’s exterior as paw prints were carved into it. Azzy landed with a thud, then launched herself toward me before I could even feel the vibration.

It was a sudden, violent change in direction, like a rubber ball bouncing off the ground. Faster than falling. If she hit someone, they would die easily.

I hurriedly looked for the piece of meat I had prepared yesterday. Just before Azzy reached me, I barely pulled it out and hurled it at the underground armory door.

Azzy, who had been running toward me, passed me as she followed the meat.

Then slammed into the iron door at the same speed.

Boom!

A majestic, thunderous sound rang out. Not even striking the huge bell in a bell tower would have made a louder sound. The air of Tantalus trembled around me as if I were inside a percussion instrument. It might have been my imagination, but it felt as though the ground had tilted slightly from that impact.

The stunned regressor grabbed me by the collar.

“You...! What the hell are you doing?!”

“Hey, just watch.”

“I told you! I need Tyrkanzyaka’s help!”

“What can I do? My dog rammed it.”

And Azzy, who had created that impact...

“Delicious! Woof! Delicious!”

She calmly held the piece of meat in her mouth, looking blissfully happy.

I looked at Azzy, then at the iron door, and nodded.

“Hmm. That had enough force to easily smash level-three alchemical steel. The strengthening effect of the mark must be greater than I expected. At least level four.”

Even after Azzy charged at full speed, only a paw-print shape had been left behind. If Azzy got angry and used a serious woof punch, she might be able to break through it, but the gentle King of Dogs had no reason to get angry at that iron door.

Fine. I had confirmed that it would not work, so I did not need Azzy anymore.

“You came when you heard the bell. Good girl. Now go back.”

“Awoo!”

Azzy violently shook her head, wagged her tail in circles, and hopped around beside me.

“Let’s play! Woof! Let’s play!”

“We played yesterday.”

“That’s why let’s play!”

Yesterday was yesterday, and today was today. She was a truly progressive beast who did not care about the past.

“I’m busy today. We’re not playing. Go back.”

“No! Let’s play!”

Azzy made a displeased face and pretended to bite my calf. Sigh. So stubborn. Was I her servant or something?

This was all the regressor’s fault. I should have corrected Azzy’s habits yesterday, but the regressor had interfered by saying she would watch, so I could only give Azzy carrots without using the stick. I glared at the regressor resentfully.

“Wh-What? Why are you looking at me?”

“Hah. Forget it.”

Everyone was so irresponsible. Not one person who talked about protecting dogs’ rights actually took responsibility. They praised dogs to the skies, and in the end, I was the one left playing with one.

But unlike beasts, humans were animals that reflected on the past. I had prepared for this situation in advance. I could not become a ball-throwing machine like yesterday.

“Here, Azzy. Smell my hand.”

“Woof!”

When I held out my hand, Azzy immediately pressed her nose against it and sniffed. I let her smell both my palm and the back of my hand so she could remember my scent clearly. Once enough time had passed, I stretched my hand toward the prison.

“Oh no! Azzy, this is bad. I left the ball inside there.”

“Woof?”

“You remember the scent, right? Follow my scent and bring the ball back. Then I’ll play with you.”

“Woof woof!”

Without the slightest doubt, Azzy kicked off the ground and ran toward the inside of the building. I watched her retreating figure with a triumphant smile.

Heh heh. I had washed the ball clean for today and shoved it deep beneath the rubble of collapsed concrete. Even the King of Dogs would need ages to find it.

I had bought time. I turned to the regressor.

“It seems there’s a limit to ramming it. Shall we look for another method?”

Huh. That look again. She looked displeased by the way I handled a puppy.

The regressor glanced once at Azzy as she ran away, then spoke with an uncertain expression.

“...When did you get so close to Azzy?”

“Close? I only played with her for one day.”

“That’s impossible. It’s been over a week for me, and she only acknowledges me...”

That was because she had treated a dog like a human. You could wave your hand at a dog all day and say, “Hello, the weather is lovely, isn’t it?” but all it would hear was nonsense. She should train dogs with carrots and sticks like I did.

Anyway, enough small talk. I needed to think about how to enter the underground bunker where the vampire resided.

“Either way, if it won’t open even with a dog missile and you don’t want to smash it, then we have no choice but to make the person inside open it herself.”

“I’ve tried every method. I shouted and knocked. But Tyrkanzyaka showed no response.”

“Ha ha. Don’t worry. I know a way.”

“You do?”

The regressor glared at me suspiciously. Leaving her behind, I fell into thought.

When I first fell into Tantalus, the vampire had awakened for only a moment. I had definitely read her thoughts faintly then.

Why had she woken up? To welcome a prisoner who had fallen in? No, she was not the sort to do that.

Then there was only one reason.

“We need to offer blood.”

When Azzy bit my ankle and dragged me, I had fallen and scraped my skin until it bled. As naturally as water flowed downward and ripe apples fell to the ground, Tyrkanzyaka had exerted control over my blood, absorbing the blood that had pooled on the concrete.

And what, had she complained that it tasted bad? Thinking about it again irritated me. She was the one who ate it.

Whether she woke because it tasted bad or not, she had awakened in response to blood.

“We need to offer blood to wake the vampire.”

I spoke proudly, but the regressor snorted and held out her finger.

“Did you think I couldn’t come up with something that simple? I already tried it.”

Her fingertips were white and soft because she had not swung a sword much yet. A thin wound that was beginning to heal could be seen there.

“I cut my finger and offered blood. But Tyrkanzyaka didn’t wake up. The blood was only sucked inside.”

“Huh.”

“Hmph. You said that so proudly, but I guess you don’t have much of a method either?”

The regressor crossed her arms and taunted me. She seemed happy that my plan had failed. Hey, why were you happy when the plan had gone down the drain after all that effort?

If the blood she spilled was drawn inside, then it was certain Tyrkanzyaka could sense blood. But a small amount of spilled blood would not wake her. That was because absorbing blood was as routine to a vampire as breathing.

Hmm. Then there was only one method left.

“Let’s write with blood.”

“What?”

To the King of Dogs, the ringing of a bell had originally been meaningless noise, nothing more than iron striking iron. That was why bell sounds had never stirred any emotion in Azzy.

But after she played ball with me and received snacks every time the bell rang, the sound of the bell finally gained meaning for Azzy. It became a clear ringing that brought pleasant feelings.

That was the poetic explanation. A less romantic term for it was learning.

It was the same for vampires. Tyrkanzyaka would simply suck up a bloodstain, but if we wrote words in blood, her attention would surely be drawn to it.

“It seems certain Trainee Tyrkanzyaka can sense blood. But since that blood carries no meaning, she simply absorbs it without thinking. If we write with blood and convey meaning... then at least we can find out whether Trainee Tyrkanzyaka wants to meet us or not, right?”

“...Tch.”

‘It... makes sense. He’s got a decent head on his shoulders. I’ll give him that.’

If she acknowledged it, I wished she would say so instead of clicking her tongue.

“Fine. I’ll try it.”

The regressor raised a hand behind her head and grasped at empty air. Only then did an image of the sword of the sky, Skywarbler, floating behind her head enter her awareness. I had wondered where she kept her weapon, but she had left it suspended in the air with qi.

It was such an unconscious action that even my mind-reading had not detected it. I thought she was unarmed, but she had been keeping a sword above her head? Skywarbler was a weightless sword, but that only meant it required more delicate control.

That was not something achieved through talent alone. It was a skill ingrained into her body, something only a person who had carried a single sword for years, perhaps decades, could attain. Once again, I was reminded that the regressor had more experience than she appeared to have. Just how many runs had she carried that sword through to keep it floating unconsciously?

I needed to be careful from now on. The regressor’s weapon was closer than it looked.

That was what I was thinking when it happened.

Slice.

The sword swept sideways. The regressor’s finger was in its path. With skill nearly worthy of a master, she cut her own finger without severing it, then left Skywarbler floating and raised her finger.

A nearly invisible thin wound appeared on her long, white finger, and bright red blood gathered in plump beads from the cut.

Then blood poured out as if someone had opened a faucet. Enough to make me worry about anemia.

It looked painful just to watch, yet strangely, my heart felt calm, as if it had settled.

Perhaps because the injured regressor herself felt no pain at all. Drawn in by that strange calmness, I could only remain still as well.

“What should I write?”

The regressor held up her bleeding finger as if she were holding a brush. Blood dripped from her fingertip. I cleared my throat lightly and answered.

“All right. Write: E.”

“E.”

“L.”

“El.”

“D.”

“Eld...”

After writing that much, the regressor suddenly lifted her head and shouted.

“Elder?”

“Yes. ‘Elder, it’s time to get up.’ Let’s write that.”

“Wait! What the hell are you doing?”

“Huh? What do you mean? I’m literally trying to wake an elder.”

It seemed the regressor did not know much about the being known as the Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka. Perhaps she had not crossed paths with her during previous runs. I calmly explained it for her benefit.

“Trainee Tyrkanzyaka is over twelve hundred years old, and when she was active, seniority was rampant. So it is appropriate to address her as respectfully as possible.”

“No! Even so, what woman in the world likes being treated like an old person?”

Come on. If someone had lived for twelve hundred years, she was not old, she was a history book. She had lived longer than most countries. Did she really not know her own objective age?

Then it happened.

[You are a bold pair....]

A dark, deep voice rang out, and with a smooth metallic sound, the iron door to the underground armory slowly opened. Black darkness churned beyond the gap in the door.

Most of the light sources illuminating Tantalus in the Abyss were searchlights. Their sharp, focused beams did not spread, so shaded areas had no choice but to be dark.

But...

The darkness within the underground armory was on a different level from the mere absence of light.

Blackness that seemed to devour light itself. Yet within that darkness, where nothing should have been visible, a blood-red hue flickered. It was clearly pitch-black, yet red like blood. An irony that common sense could not explain.

Still, what resided inside was a monster that shattered the standards of common sense.

Days,

months,

years,

centuries...

The price of the blood of humans who had faded into legends, history, and the ages. A history of blood, desperately compressed and condensed after harvesting every one of those deaths, churned below.

What stood before me was clearly a mystery beyond any discussion of strength or weakness.

One spoken of in fairy tales, who occupied a page in history books, and had been passed down as a legend.

The Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka.

I got goosebumps. What lay inside was a monster that had lived for a thousand years by feeding on human blood. A darkness that defied the heavens and had waged war against the entire Sanctum alone.

Just as I began to worry that I had released the seal for no reason...

[Enter.]

The sturdy iron doors opened wide, and the crimson Mark of Fresh Blood looked down on the regressor and me.

Footnotes:

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