WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 71

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Puppet Progenitor and the Unpleasant Puppet Show (Finale)

Crackle.

Current shot from the tip of the skewer. It ran along the true blood, bored into the Progenitor's heart, then spread through her entire body along her veins.

Thump.

Her body reacted sharply to the familiar shock. Her lips parted slightly, and a groan slipped out. That tingling pleasure flowing through her heart, her body had already learned it.

It dragged the vampire's reason up from deep underwater sleep.

At the same time, Finlay began screaming like mad.

"Aaaaaaah!"

Blood churned through every part of Finlay's body. It looked like thousands of worms were crawling under his skin. Blood streamed from his nose, and the tiny vessels in his eyes burst, staining them red.

All the blood in his body scattered in every direction. While Finlay crawled on the ground in unbearable agony,

the vampire's heart began to beat again.

Focus returned to her blurred eyes. They turned a vivid red, like sunset sinking into her pupils. A little life returned to that doll-like face.

The raging blood and darkness both fell silent, waiting for the Progenitor's return.

Then the vampire slowly began to move.

"I had a dream."

The fight was over.

Rallion abruptly stopped fighting. Enraged, Azzy tore Rallion's body into dozens of pieces, but this time Rallion chose to flow back toward the vampire instead of regenerating. Once it returned to her side, Rallion sank down as if all its strength had left it.

"For a moment, I thought I had achieved my dream. But it slipped through my fingers at once. I wanted it so, so badly, and I tried to find a way."

"You were talking in your sleep pretty badly. Who told you to sleep in a coffin instead of a bed?"

The true blood lodged throughout the regressor's body seeped back out. It drifted quietly in midair, then flew toward the vampire.

After steadying himself, the regressor walked over through the motionless Black Knights.

"Was it delusion? Did I reach for what I should never have desired, that lost life? I only wished for it, yet did I sin against God?"

"No. You just caused trouble for me. I taught you so thoroughly, and then you went and did everything I told you not to do. Have you thought about how miserable that makes me feel? You sinned against me before you sinned against God."

The vampire muttered with dark, sunken eyes.

"Tell me. What did I do wrong? Dreaming? Wishing?"

"First, there are many things you did wrong, but the biggest one."

I raised a finger and pointed at her chest, where her ribs were fully exposed.

"You claim you're modest, so why are you walking around with your chest hanging out? It's embarrassing to look at. Mind your conduct."

My answer was completely outside what she expected. I had read her thoughts, so I knew that for sure.

Startled, she widened her eyes, then soon gave a small laugh.

"Heh, you've seen this sight countless times, so what is this now?"

"I don't care if you only do it in front of me. That's one of your charm points."

"Ahahahaha!"

She burst out laughing. She laughed so hard it almost looked like tears were gathering in eyes that could not cry, then covered her mouth a beat late.

"My apologies. I will be more restrained from now on."

"You'll have to try very hard. Your score already dropped a lot with me. And not just with me, with other people too."

For a moment, she looked around.

The little sun floating in the air, the blood aura and darkness strewn everywhere, the shattered Black Knights, and the wounded, limping Rallion.

The regressor walking over with a hand over her chest, Azzy with her clothes in disarray, and even the soil-kin's arm blackened to char.

After looking over everything once, the Progenitor gave a faint smile and murmured,

"That is... regrettable."

Then she flicked a finger.

Finlay's cut-off scream resumed. The reason his screams had vanished until now was simple. The vampire had not permitted him to scream.

Looking at Finlay rolling on the floor, the Progenitor spoke coldly.

"Times must have changed a great deal. Even reverence is now judged however one pleases. Well then, how did it feel, moving me even for a moment?"

"Progenitor...."

Panting, Finlay lifted his head. His jaw looked sunken where his teeth had fallen out, his cheeks were blackened, and his blood vessels still jerked on their own.

In that horrific state, he looked up at the restored Progenitor and shouted desperately.

"I did commit a sin beyond what I could bear, Progenitor! But please hear me! You must go to the surface! We desperately need you! The deepest blood, to lead everyone to one place!"

"I will not go."

"Why, why not?"

"I had several reasons, and recently one more was added."

She gathered her parasol again and looked down at Finlay with glowing red eyes.

Those eyes sometimes held a brief warmth when turned toward her own kind, but toward a traitor they were endlessly cold.

"The thrall who wished for that deceived me, so that wish will not be granted."

Finlay's already terrible face filled with deeper despair. He denied the situation for a moment, then spat out his scraps of feeling as rage.

"Why!! Progenitor! Why won't you help us!!"

Even facing that irrational anger, she showed no emotional reaction. The Progenitor with the stopped heart answered coldly, without the slightest tremor.

"I am not an existence that helps you. You did not help me either."

"Everyone is waiting for you! You made us, and made this blood, you who are our very root! You must lead us! To victory, to glory!"

"What I gave you was only an extension of life. Victory, glory, and things like that. I do not remember ever promising them."

Finlay's face went blank.

What one gained by becoming a vampire was a stay of death.

In place of a stopped heart, they received the Progenitor's power and moved blood through bloodcraft. That was why vampires could still walk the earth even after death had claimed them once.

As their numbers grew, they hid among humans, worked in the shadows, and came to be called the nobles of the night. Some great vampires even became lords of duchies.

But.

The Progenitor had never promised any of that.

"We held you up in worship!! Then why, why do we get nothing in return?!"

Reason does not always follow logic, and when people are driven to extremes, their thoughts rush to extremes too.

Finlay spat words wildly with no logic at all, like throwing stones at random and hoping something gets hit.

Of course, it meant nothing to a Progenitor who had lived 1200 years.

"You are noisy."

Cut. Finlay's voice stopped. He opened his mouth wide, but no sound came out.

"Even your breathing irritates me."

His breathing stopped.

"Even making your body move with my authority."

His blood flow, which had been running through bloodcraft, stopped as well.

In a single instant, every activity that sustained life halted. Finlay could only roll his eyes. Fear came a moment late only because he had not understood what was happening.

Only then did Finlay face his death more objectively.

'No. I can't die like this. My blood lord, my kin, and the vampire race...'

"From not knowing your place and rampaging, to all of it."

Snap. She flicked her finger, and blood began swirling at his shoulder blade.

The blood spun violently inside his vessels, then grew sharper and more intense, and soon it ground through flesh as it expanded.

Then, in an instant, Finlay's right arm burst off.

Not even allowed to scream, Finlay could only stare wide-eyed and writhe in pain.

'Ghk, nghhh. W-why. It hurts this much. I am one of the nobles of the night!'

But the pain was not over yet.

He still had one arm and two legs left.

Snap.

The blood pooled in his left arm shredded the inside of his body like a saw. Finlay tried to twist while letting out a mental scream. But even movement was not permitted, so his body could only tremble.

Snap.

This time it was his left leg. Blood vessels snapped in strands and lashed wildly. Those whip-like blood vessels tore through his body. Drops of blood seeped through his skin.

'It hurts! Khk, hhk! It hurts, it hurts!'

Snap.

Last was the right leg. This time blood droplets sharpened like needles and raked through his body. The pain of needles roaming his vessels erased half his mind.

At last, when all his limbs had come off,

Finlay, half out of his mind, repeated only one thought.

'I was not... wrong.... Someone had to do this....'

The last dying fragment protecting his sanity. One final rope he clung to, trying to preserve his dignity to the end.

The vampire looked at Finlay writhing like a bug and felt not even a speck of pity. She simply did what she had to do.

"-And even the fact that you are still alive. It is unbearably irritating."

As she moved to kill Finlay right away, I stepped in to stop her.

"Wait a second, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka."

I felt a strange urge.

In childhood, everyone has a little mischievous streak, right?

If one ant falls away from a marching line, how does it react?

How hard do you have to shake a spider hanging by a thin web before it drops?

How much more can a frayed rope be pulled before it snaps strand by strand?

"Hello, Finlay."

Sorry, Finlay.

Even if you're going, you should at least be honest with yourself first.

"I gave you a chance too. Everyone here had a chance to choose. But you picked the stupidest choice."

'...I, for my bloodline....'

"But you know this, right? You had a chance to turn back midway. And you clearly realized that. Even if you had gone up to the surface with Tyrkanzyaka and returned to the Fog Duchy... trying to control the Progenitor as a mere Yeling is an unforgivable capital crime."

'...I know. My life... isn't, precious.'

"An excuse that you did it for your kin. Very nice. But let's be a little more honest, shall we?"

That final rope he was barely clinging to even at death.

But I knew what it really was, and I could not leave it alone.

"When you deceived the Progenitor and tried to control her, the safety of the blood lord you worship so much, and the kin you wanted to make great even at the cost of your life... you did not think about them at all, did you?"

'...What?'

Now you finally looked this way.

I smiled and asked the vampire with exaggerated theatrics, like I was acting on stage.

"Trainee Tyrkanzyaka! Finlay has committed the grave crime of coveting the Progenitor's power! A horrible act of insubordination never seen before and never to be seen again in vampire history! So how do we punish Finlay for that grave sin?"

At my question, she answered as if I had asked something obvious.

"Extermination of the bloodline."

'...Extermi... nation?'

Even through his fading reason, those two words engraved themselves clearly.

Extermination of the bloodline. A horrific and brutal punishment carrying the malice of wiping one bloodline out completely, severing it at the root.

It existed in the duchy, but had never actually been carried out. Yet Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka said it with ease.

"A thrall dared to overstep and try to control me. For a thrall's crime against a higher line of blood, that thrall's blood lord pays the price."

What Finlay did not know was this.

1200 years ago? No, even just a few hundred years ago, extermination of the bloodline was very common.

'W-wait. No way.'

Looks like he finally understood what he had done.

This is why generation gaps are terrifying.

To hear it clearly, I asked the vampire,

"Then what happens to Count Erte?"

"Is he not Finlay's blood lord?"

The vampire had a heart that did not beat. Twelve hundred years ago, in that age of chaos and darkness, vampires were born. Once as humans, then once more as vampires.

The Progenitor pitied the fate of those she created. She pitied those who could not face the sun and were despised by humans.

But pity did not lessen sin. Punishment was not reduced.

"Then he must disappear. Valdamir will regret it."

A freezing declaration.

Finlay felt the coldness in it and trembled.

'No.'

Finlay opened his eyes wide and shouted. His mouth was shut, so only in his mind.

'Even if you're the Progenitor, you can't kill Ain that freely! He is a meritorious subject of the Crimson Duke! Th-this was entirely my own decision! My blood lord...!'

He denied it.

'How can a Progenitor who never even showed her face say she can do as she pleases with a meritorious subject of the duchy!'

He raged.

'Please! This was my own decision. My bloodline is innocent'

He begged.

But those desperate thoughts reached only me.

I crouched beside him and said,

"Finlay. You knew the answer. When you made that lie, you soothed yourself by saying all this was for your blood lord and bloodline."

Caring for others is good, but it has one problem.

People often use it to justify themselves, and for something they claim is so precious, they leave it neglected surprisingly often.

So saying it was for your blood lord was only a psychological tool. Like a saw or a hammer.

"Then why did you not think about what would happen to your blood lord and bloodline if you got caught? Did it never cross your mind? Was the future too horrible, so you refused to think about it? Or was it simply not important?"

It was not that important. Because Finlay's true heart was this.

"Because I am an insanely great vampire who can control the Progenitor. Because I became a god for a moment. You could not have cared less about your bloodline."

His body shook. Fear filled Finlay's eyes. His limbs were all gone, but his mind still had not accepted it, and stretched a hand toward me. In his hallucination, that trembling hand reached out desperately. It grabbed mine and begged.

'No! No, no! No!'

"Goodbye, Finlay. Your love, your reverence, your loyalty, they were the kind of feelings you forget in an instant. Well, it can't be helped. People have this very useful ability to erase things from their heads when they are not that important."

'Ah. I.'

"Still, you achieved what no one else did. A mere thrall controlled the Progenitor. Your name will definitely remain in history. Your bloodline will not, though."

'Was I simply blinded.'

"Send him off, Tyrkanzyaka."

And Finlay's thoughts stopped.

The vampire withdrew the authority that remained, and his extended life ran out today.

I closed Finlay's eyes. It did not mean much. His body soon crumbled like dust.

Even so, for that soul that had barely managed to become honest at the very end, I offered a small mourning.

Silence flowed. The pseudo-sun that had shone in the air dimmed, and dusk began to settle.

That untimely funeral ended, and I rose. The vampire, who had waited quietly until I moved, spoke.

"I will impose punishment on Finlay's bloodline slowly. It is not as if I can go up to the surface at once."

Punishment?

Who cares.

I did not really want to kill off Finlay's bloodline. I only wanted him to recognize his true feelings.

If anything.

"Uh, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka. By any chance, did you know this?"

I am on the side that opposes guilt by association.

"Collective punishment by association was abolished recently."

"What?"

"These days, even if someone commits a crime, punishing their family too is very rare. There are cases where people pay money together as shared liability, though."

The vampire was deeply shocked. She encountered new technology all the time, but changes in moral standards were much harder for her to accept.

Having encountered a new piece of knowledge once again, she widened her eyes and asked,

"Then how do you punish crime, and if someone cuts off their own tail and runs as Finlay did, how do you hold anyone responsible?"

A pure question, eyes glittering.

If I answered one by one, I would be explaining for days again, so I answered roughly.

"I was not the one who abolished it."

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