WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 72

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Another's Heart

If you accomplish something, there should be a reward to match it.

That principle does not apply only to big systems like schools, society, or nations. In tighter relationships between individuals, rewards matter even more.

After exercise, you need proper rest. When your body is exhausted, you need nutrients. After long labor leaves you drained, you crave sugar. If one side helps another, they should be rewarded with a positive response.

That kind of reward system is what strengthens the body, the mind, and relationships.

So I had to reward Azzy.

Jingle jingle.

"All right. Barbecue party."

"Woof!"

Azzy's eyes sparkled as she wagged her tail. It was so strong that the wind pushed all the flames and smoke straight at me. If she wagged any faster, she might actually take off.

I stabbed the meat deep with a skewer. It went in without resistance, so it seemed fully cooked. It had turned half-boiled from soaking in water too long to bulk it up, but I was not the one eating it, so I did not care.

I lifted the flat slab of meat with the skewer and spun it over my head. Azzy lowered her stance, eyes full of anticipation. A strand of drool trailed from her open mouth.

I drew my arm back, then swung wide and hurled the meat far away.

"Catch! Special meat disc!"

"Woof! Woowoof! Woof!"

The meat disc soared through the air, giving off an overwhelming aroma and looking delicious. Azzy went wild and chased it at full speed. She snatched it out of the air and tore into it with a happy grin.

A play-meal, playtime and dinner at once. For Azzy, it was probably the best reward yet.

I did not usually put in this much effort, but a dog that fought vampires for me had earned the right to eat meat.

As I set another chunk on the grill, I shouted,

"Keep listening to me from now on!"

"Woof woof! Okay!"

Azzy's happy laughter from that simple but solid reward carried all the way over here. Dogs really were great friends. She fought a desperate battle against the blood horse, and a few chunks of meat made her happy.

I snorted, then suddenly realized something was off.

"This is weird. I worked hard too and got good results. Why don't I get a reward?"

Huh?

I clearly knew results needed rewards, so why was I the only one not getting one? The person who understood rewards better than anyone was out here handling everyone else's and not his own?

This was unfair. Something, something was...

"Woof woof woof! Tasty! Woof woof woof!"

Azzy had already finished the meat and came over, tail swishing. While more meat cooked, I petted her and muttered,

"Azzy. Praise me a little."

"You, good! Give meat!"

"Not praise for food. Praise from your heart. Something sincere."

Azzy put her hands on her waist, puffed out her chest, and shouted,

"You, good!"

"Right. My fault for expecting metaphors, idioms, or anything metaphysical from you. Thanks anyway."

"Give meat!"

"So you are still trying to make a living off praise."

I skewered more meat and flung it. Azzy abandoned me on the spot and sprinted after it. Right, she was a beast that knew nothing, so all she had to do was secure her own share.

I was just starting to feel irritated by how carefree she looked.

"Is something the matter?"

The need for reward also worked in the negative direction, and that was called punishment.

A vampire who had been controlled by someone like Finlay and caused that whole mess had faced my stern fury. As punishment, she was ordered to clean up the destruction she caused first.

So she tamped down the shattered concrete and gathered the mangled flesh pieces of the immortal's right arm. Since a vampire's authority could not touch an immortal, she had to use her own hands for once and pick everything up one piece at a time.

Lifting a box full of the immortal's arm, or rather the chunks that used to be an arm, she said,

"But was it not you who actually destroyed the soil-kin's arm?"

"Now hold on, it takes two hands clapping to make a sound. If trainee Tyrkanzyaka's Black Knights had not been there, would the immortal's arm have ended up that damaged? So responsibility is shared, and especially heavy on trainee Tyrkanzyaka, who acted on her own!"

Trying to dump blame on me? Not a chance. I glared and pressed her.

At that, the vampire lowered her gaze and spoke softly.

"I was not trying to evade blame. It is only that saying even this horrific sight, with someone scraping flesh with skewers and scattering it everywhere, is my doing as well feels a little unfair."

I could not say I felt no twinge there, but plenty of people in this world had more to feel guilty about than I did. Compared to them, I stood tall.

"You are complaining over something only a little unfair? Do you know how unfair this is for me right now? I worked myself to the bone, and all I got was cleanup afterward. Like I cooked the meal, could not eat it, and got stuck with all the dishes too!"

"Does that anger you so much?"

"Of course it does! What did I do wrong in this whole situation? Nothing. I worked and worked, and I got no reward at all! At least somebody could have said I did well!"

"You did well."

Huh? What?

While I stood there with my mouth hanging open at that sudden line, the vampire stared at me and continued.

"Thank you. You all did very well. Thanks to you, I was able to avoid making a much greater mistake. It is all thanks to you."

I got unexpected praise, but if people felt better from praise like this, there would not be a proverb about bowing only after being forced to kneel.

I frowned.

"The dog praised me for food, and now what are you trying to take from me, trainee Tyrkanzyaka?"

"Do you take me for such a vulgar creature? That praise came from sincerity. I said thank you, so what is your complaint?"

"Of course you should be grateful. I saved you from being controlled by some idiot nobody has heard of. That part is a given."

"You seemed starved for praise, so I gave it, and all I hear are complaints. Then what do you want me to do?"

"Show me through action. If, as trainee says, those words really came from your heart, you do not need an electric massage, right? Right?"

I turned to leave, and the vampire grabbed my arm in a hurry. She hesitated for a moment, avoided my cold gaze, and said,

"...I did not say I do not need it."

"Wow. You are truly addicted."

"Addicted? No poison can affect my body. I simply wish for a beating heart, even for a moment. Just a little."

"When someone keeps wanting something even as it wrecks their body, that is called addiction. You do not even realize you are addicted, and that is why you were so shamefully controlled by a thrall. You are living fine, so why are you so desperate to make your heart beat?"

I kept answering in a blunt tone, and in the end, the increasingly restless vampire looked up at me with resentful eyes.

"It is because of you."

"Excuse me?"

What was that supposed to mean? I was so dumbfounded I could not speak. Was this a late April Fool's joke?

Sure, I had grumbled that it was my fault for teaching an old-timer a stimulating game as a joke, but I could say that because I was the one who actually suffered for it. If she said it, that was pure ingratitude.

The vampire still had more to say. Gripping my arm tightly, she spoke.

"My heart does not beat. No matter what emotion I feel, it soon fades. So desires, emotions, and memories are all blurred to me, as though painted over in grayscale. Even this very moment with you all, right now."

Azzy came over with her mouth stuffed full of meat. She saw the vampire, then simply sat where she was and started tearing into what remained.

The vampire looked at Azzy with distant eyes, as if recalling an old memory.

"I do not starve, so I need no food, and so even when I smell and taste it, I am not happy. Even if the finest delicacies of mountain and sea are before me, I cannot rejoice like the King of Dogs."

"You still taste blood, though."

"Do you believe that is truly tasting? Taste is only a metaphor. I only seek and consume blood closest to my own. The more similar the blood's nature is to mine, the more it satisfies me."

After lightly scolding me, the vampire looked into the distance again.

"That is why there is no warmth in my emotions. They only glimmer in my mind like starlight. Starlight in a dim night sky is faintly beautiful, but it cannot warm the cold earth. My emotions also flicker for a moment without warmth, then vanish."

The reason this infamous vampire was kinder than public rumors claimed was surely partly her nature, but another reason could not be ignored.

Humans were naturally generous toward things that could not harm them.

More precisely, they grew numb.

A vampire took no wounds of the body, and no wounds of the heart either. Even if someone thrust swords and spears into her, even if they cursed and hated her as they died, she could let it pass like birdsong from the previous night.

Cruel? No, humans should be grateful for that fact.

If Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka had not been a girl sensitive enough to find beauty even in the same daily routine, if she had not been the type to gaze at quiet starlight and sink into thought,

humanity would have had to face a vampire queen many times colder and crueler than now.

"Even if Finlay resented me, I did not mind. Even while killing him, my heart felt as though I were organizing an old chest of drawers. It was like that before, and it will remain so. I like you fairly well, but even if you suddenly died, I would not blink. I would think, such a man existed, feel brief regret, and turn away."

No, wait a second.

Even as an analogy, why are you killing me in it? That is terrifying. You can skip blinking all you want, just let me live.

Unaware that her casual analogy had scared me, the vampire brought the hand holding her parasol neatly to her chest.

"But in that short moment when a finger touches my heart, I can feel emotions flowing through my body. At that time my body is mine and yet not mine. My heart leaps on its own, and though it has no need to, my lungs draw in air on their own. A chest that was cold all my life turns warm."

Even when she held her chest with both hands now, all she could touch was chill. The vampire opened her hands and looked down at them, lonely.

"If I had never known it, that would be one thing. But once known, I cannot return. It has been a long night. Dawn came and a faint warmth shone on me, and now I am told to turn back the clock and return to dark, freezing night. Is that not too cruel?"

Then her eyes met mine again. Eyes red like blood slanted up at me from below.

Calmly unfolding an old thought, in her heart and out loud, the vampire voiced one wish.

"Please, become my heart."

In darkness where the sky could not be seen, in the Abyss abandoned even by the ground, a long-held wish flowed out.

I was terrified.

The words were romantic. The feeling inside them was so desperate it was hard to believe it came from a vampire with a stopped heart, and even I almost got swept away for a moment.

But I had mind reading.

I read what the words truly meant, and my tongue clicked at the brutal intent behind them.

Become her heart?

That literally meant I should be an externally attached heart, someone who stuck fingers into her chest whenever she wanted and ran electricity through it!

"Come to think of it, I still do not even know your name..."

"That is enough."

Before anything else could come out, I cut her off. Her words stopped as if stabbed by a knife. For a moment, her gaze at me was full of resentment.

"After getting burned like that, are you still not awake? You keep handing your heart out carelessly and you will get into big trouble again."

"Then you can do it."

"No, seriously. How can you trust me? What if I just control you right away?"

I made a hard threat as part of a roundabout refusal, but her response was nothing like I expected.

"If it is you, I do not mind."

She said it so calmly that even I, who had mind reading, lost my composure for a moment and reread her thoughts.

Did the vampire somehow learn jokes in the meantime? I read again to be sure.

'If I must trust someone anyway, if I must place myself on the scales no matter what, then I would rather entrust myself to the side I prefer.'

No. Was she out of her mind? I had seen suckers before, but this was a whole new level.

Everything had limits. Even gamblers with no blood and no tears did not go out of their way to take money from a runny-nosed child. At this point, she was such a sucker that fleecing her would feel shameful.

So I firmly pushed back her plea.

"It matters to me. I do not want to become anyone's heart. Even if that someone is trainee."

At that refusal, which left no room at all, the vampire was deeply disappointed.

But even that miserable feeling lasted only an instant.

Disappointment faded quickly, and what came next was resignation. Not surrender, just a current that let everything drift away like a river brushing past her.

Mind reading was awful at times like this.

I had to reject her, just let it pass.

But when I watched it right in front of me, I was the one left with lingering feelings.

"But even so, you are not going to give up on this heart, right?"

At my words, the vampire closed her mouth. Silence did not always guarantee yes, but if I put it on a scale, it clearly leaned that way.

She probably would not do something as stupid as entrusting her heart to trash like Finlay again. But I expected she would still do something only slightly less stupid.

Hoo. Seriously.

I rubbed my forehead and sighed.

"Then it is better if I do it."

"Did you say... you will do it?"

For a moment her face brightened, like flowers blooming.

I was sure now. She was so easy to read that she might let some con artist take her liver and gallbladder next time too, literally.

Could not be helped. I reached out and took her hand.

"The reason hope keeps slipping through your fingers is not because trainee Tyrkanzyaka's hands are absurdly large, and not because hope is that tiny and delicate."

Even when I openly took her hand now, she did not scold me. What crisis sense. She had grown a little fond and now ignored even simple rudeness.

I took each small, cold finger and lined them up neatly.

Pinky and ring finger, ring finger and middle finger, middle finger and index finger, then index finger and thumb.

"You just were not putting enough strength between your fingers."

What you needed was a desperate wish.

Press. I squeezed all five fingers together, then pushed them to the vampire's chest. With both hands gathered at her chest, she looked at me with eyes full of expectation.

Hoo. I really, really did not want to do this.

"I am not trainee's heart. I do not want to be. Because I do not want to run hard every moment, I will not run when I do not feel like it, and most of the time I will be away from trainee."

When you faced someone's wish this close up, there was only so much you could do.

Like those who saw the future and were destroyed by being bound to it.

Those who saw inside hearts could not be free from other people's hearts either.

"Instead, I will teach you how to make that heart beat again."

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