WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 73

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Homunculus Dilemma - Continued

Inside the training room on the fourth floor of Tantalus, the regressor was preparing to revive the immortal.

Even for an immortal who did not die easily, a curse that ate away at the body was fatal in a place like this, where the connection to Mother Earth was cut off. If things went wrong, the immortal corpse golem that had swallowed dozens of villages in the past could appear again.

She still did not know where that many corpses had come from back then, but they could not leave the immortal alone just to solve that mystery.

So the regressor decided to use up her recovery items, lift the curse that had consumed the immortal's arm, and restore his body.

'If I interfere and wake the immortal now, I'll drift away from the original history... but things are already twisted enough. Knowing how the immortal was cursed is enough.'

Just learning that immortals and vampires could be tied together like this was a huge gain.

She could dig deeper if she wanted to... but right now, the regressor was fixated on a different question.

'What the hell is he?'

Even while following a recipe she had learned from the healer in the previous cycle and brewing a precious recovery potion with even a leaf from the world tree, the question would not leave her head.

'He's definitely hiding something. Deflecting Skywarbler, seeing through my disguise, dodging Finlay's attack like a trick. None of that is normal skill. But still.'

Her instincts told her he had something. Something even she, who had seen almost everything across thirteen regressions, still did not know.

But.

'How do I put this... why do I feel zero pressure from him? At a glance he just looks weak!'

Wait, time out.

Weak? Even if it was true, did she have to put it that way?

'He's slow when he runs. Sometimes his reactions are so fast they even creep me out, but compared to that, his movements are yawn-inducingly dull! Is he strong? Doesn't seem like it. He's never shown swordsmanship. Even with the immortal's right arm, he only tapped around with it like a rapier. He's never really swung it!'

Huh? At the end, when I smacked Finlay, I put my whole strength into that one. I even knocked out one of Finlay's teeth.

You saw the best swing of my life and you're saying I never really swung?

'Ughhh. I'm so curious I'm going insane. If I could spar with him once, just once, I'd know! Or if I at least got a chance to examine his naked body!'

What exactly was she thinking all day?

Before she could sink into even stranger thoughts, I could not hold it in anymore. I ran down the corridor and threw open the door.

"Trainee Shei. Are you done preparing?"

"Huh? Yeah, mostly."

The regressor answered lazily and looked me up and down. Her eyes narrowed as if she thought staring hard enough would let her see through my clothes.

'Standard-issue shirt... hmm. Yeah, I still can't see his body through the upper part of the shirt... damn military state. They made the clothing packet way too well.'

Seriously, people should thank heaven they cannot read minds. If they could, you'd be the first one locked up somewhere. I'm merciful, so I let this pass even after reading it...

'My see-through eye only shows bones on people... and the downward-looking eye can't see covered places... then the only way is to spy from far away while he changes or bathes...'

Never mind. I could not let that pass either.

No good. Before this peeping regressor's thoughts shot into orbit, I needed to apply some shock therapy.

I shouted at the regressor, who was still staring holes through me.

"Trainee Shei!"

"Huh? What? Why all of a sudden?"

After calling her name, I crossed my arms in an X, shyly looked away, and said,

"Um, well. I'm embarrassed, so could you please not look at me like that? I feel dirty just from being looked at."

The regressor's head jerked. Too much information had hit her at once and short-circuited her reason for a second.

'...What kind of nonsense is that? Why is his face red? What is that creepy pose? What? Embarrassed? My gaze makes him feel dirty? I was only trying to peek at his body. Huh? Wait. Was my gaze too obvious...?'

She pieced together the fragmented information, connected her situation to what I had said and done.

Then, finally understanding what I meant, the regressor snapped and shouted.

"What kind of absurd bullshit is that!!"

"You were just looking at my body! From head to toe, every corner, with a lewd gaze like you wanted to strip me if you could!"

"I wasn't looking with a lewd gaze!"

"So the part about wanting to strip me is true? Everyone! Look over here! Trainee Shei is trying to take off my clothes!"

"Hey!"

The moment I yelled and bolted, the regressor still barely understood what was happening, but chased me on instinct like a cat hunting a mouse.

"Wait! Stop!"

"No! Stay back! Help!"

"Stop shouting things that cause misunderstandings!"

"Waaaaaaah!"

When I still would not stop yelling, she gritted her teeth, closed in, and grabbed Skywarbler.

'Fine! I'll cut the air first so the sound can't leak out, then deal with him!'

Hey, dirty move! Trying to use force in the middle of a fair and honest public opinion campaign.

If she drew a sword, I'd lose, right? While running, I stopped dead and spun half a turn in place. The regressor, who had almost collided with my chest while trying to cut the air, hurriedly stopped.

"Come on. Don't overreact to a joke, Trainee Shei. People will think I was serious."

"...What? All of a sudden?"

"No way you were really trying to peep on a shabby body like mine, right? Trainee Shei is at least a person with basic morals."

"R-right."

"No matter how much you like men."

"That's not true!!"

The regressor screamed. I tilted my head and asked back,

"Huh? Didn't you say you liked men last time? Then you bathed Azzy."

The regressor had accidentally trapped herself in a bizarre persona and could not deny it, so she scrambled for an excuse.

"No, I mean, it's not that! It's not that I like you! To me, you're... right! You're like a toilet bowl!"

"...No, that sounds suggestive in several ways."

"That's not what I meant! I meant you're that filthy! Damn it, how am I supposed to say this?!"

'A passerby? That makes it sound like I care! A pebble on the roadside? There are no pebbles in the Abyss!'

"Um, maybe what you compare me to isn't important at all."

"Anyway, you're some worthless thing!"

"Yeees, yes. Let's head back to the training room first. We should revive Rashy-ssi, who helped us by lending his arm, right?"

"Us? You used it!"

I soothed the fuming regressor and led her back to the training room.

Only then did she notice the recovery potion boiling in the huge cauldron and remember what she had been trying to do.

"Oh, right! The immortal's right arm?"

"Here."

I handed over the box full of collected flesh. The regressor checked the contents and frowned deeply.

"Ugh. Horrible. This might be the first immortal in the world to end up like this."

"Can it regenerate?"

"It can. If we just lift the curse, the rest should reattach on its own once we supply the essence of earth... though I don't know how long that'll take."

The regressor took the box and set it down beside the cauldron, then looked around.

"Where's Tyrkanzyaka? Didn't she say she'd come pick this up?"

"Trainee Tyrkanzyaka has gone back to the underground armory."

"Really? Tired, maybe? Well, that could happen."

"And, Trainee Shei, I have a favor to ask."

At the word favor, the regressor looked puzzled.

"You? What is it?"

"This."

I handed her the note I had prepared.

"I'm going somewhere for a bit, so read this while I'm gone."

By the time I finished speaking, she had already unfolded the note and started reading the first sentence. Looking a little guilty as she glanced between me and the letter, she grumbled.

"That's because you talk too slowly. You should've warned me before I read it."

"Isn't your personality just too impatient? It's nothing huge anyway, so now that you've opened it, read it."

'What. You handed me a note, so I thought it was super important.'

She glared at me sourly and started reading the rest.

'Feed Azzy three meals. Regenerate the immortal. And important, until someone comes out from inside, never open the underground armory door... ?'

That was the end of the note. She fluttered it in her hand and asked me,

"What does the last sentence mean?"

"Ah, exactly what it says. A very important ritual will take place in there, so you absolutely must not open the door or interfere with it."

"...You said Tyrkanzyaka is in there right now."

"Yes."

"What ritual?"

"A heart revival ritual."

"And who's doing it?"

"Me."

Mm. The regressor gave a small nod, then instantly sharpened her gaze and pressed me.

"What are you trying to do?"

So she would not just let it slide. As expected.

I had expected her interference anyway. No way she would calmly watch me and the vampire go into an isolated place alone.

On top of that, I needed someone to keep others from approaching, because I could not be disturbed during the ritual.

Persuading the regressor was essential.

I had no choice, so I lowered my voice and began.

"Trainee Shei. If I said I'd make Trainee Tyrkanzyaka's heart beat again, what would you do?"

"I'd call you a fraud, you fraud."

As expected, the regressor shot back immediately.

"Because of that dilemma?"

"...You know and you're still asking? You know too. All vampires are homunculi. The most famous kind in the world, dead people whose stopped hearts are replaced by the Progenitor's blood that forces their bodies to keep moving."

"That is why they are bound by many restrictions. Like being unable to defy their blood lord, or being unable to use magic other than blood magic."

The answers came smoothly out of my mouth. The regressor stared at me with a confused expression and pushed further.

"You knew all that and still made that offer to Tyrkanzyaka? Are you serious or joking? I really can't tell what you're after anymore."

"I sincerely wish for Trainee Tyrkanzyaka's revival."

"That attitude of yours is exactly what I don't get. How am I supposed to believe you?"

'...But he has touched Tyrkanzyaka's heart regularly all this time and never pulled anything. He even warned about the danger and protected her from Finlay.... He probably doesn't have bad intentions. If he did, he'd have moved before Finlay did.'

Maybe it was her nature. She still kept her edge, but even then her wariness toward me had thinned. Fighting together against Finlay seemed to have worked in my favor.

Having dropped her hostility, the regressor told me what she knew.

With an ambiguous tone that sounded like persuasion and simple information at the same time, even she did not know which it was.

"The moment death is overcome by magic... that's the end. It can never be reversed. The moment the mystery that keeps life stitched together ends, that body meets delayed death... it turns to dust and disappears before any treatment or revival can even begin. With another person's magic, you can never save yourself...."

"Yes. Exactly that."

She had said it to stress impossibility, but Trainee Shei. Good point.

Because the clue was right there.

"The Homunculus Dilemma contains the truth that with another person's magic, one can never save oneself."

"...? Why are you saying what everyone knows?"

"As with all old sayings, advice is hidden inside the warning."

"That means be careful with magic, doesn't it?"

"Haha. No. If everyone in the world thought as simply as Trainee Shei, what use would dilemmas and proverbs be?"

"...Are you picking a fight?"

Of course not. I'd lose.

I raised one finger and emphasized.

"With another person's magic, you cannot save yourself. Put differently, the only one who can save you is yourself."

"That's obvious."

"I'll tell you one more thing."

I raised another finger and smiled leisurely.

"Among all the countless vampires, there is exactly one being who is not a homunculus. A being who revived a dying body not with someone else's power, but with her own. Who is it?"

The regressor might not know everything, but she knew how to absorb unfamiliar knowledge.

After thirteen regressions and information beyond imagination, she had become the kind of person who accepted even hard-to-believe information first, as long as it made sense.

"The first vampire, Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka?"

Correct. Reward time. I clapped for the regressor, who had answered perfectly.

"Very well done. That's right."

"So when death came, she moved her body herself, so reviving again is possible...? It's definitely not impossible. If it's your own power, it's still yours even when returned...."

But her muttering lasted only a moment. After calculating for a while with a dark expression, she finally shut her eyes tight and shook her head.

"But just because it's not impossible doesn't mean it's realistic. It's so hard it's almost impossible. Even if you return power, the destination to return to vanished twelve hundred years ago. And Tyrkanzyaka's power is bloodcraft. With it she has obtained, ruled, and controlled countless things. Tyrkanzyaka has blurred the boundary between herself and the world so much that she can take her heart out of her body with no issue...."

Death meant the boundary between oneself and the world growing thin.

Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka was the closest thing to death among those not yet dead.

The Queen of Blood, who had scattered her blood across the world, increased her thralls, and dominated everything it touched. No life had approached conceptual death more than she had.

That was why the distance the Progenitor had to travel to reclaim life was farther than any other being in the world.

"It won't work."

Even without being a regressor who had seen the end and returned, anyone would turn pessimistic in this situation. Practically impossible, that was how everyone saw this plan.

But me?

"I'm going to try. So guard the door until then. Don't let anyone in."

"...Do it, then."

The regressor was about to accept, then paused and asked,

"By the way, how do you even know this stuff?"

'I never thought of this, but he's just a military state instructor, not even a magician, and yet he knows this...?'

Why was she always treating herself like the center of the universe? Just because you don't know something doesn't mean nobody knows it.

A soul trapped in the valley of ignorance. Let me correct that.

I recalled the old days, copied the most irritating expression I could, gave a little sneer, and scratched my temple.

"Th-that is something only the top student of middle military school can know. An elementary school graduate could die, wake up, and die again, and still never know it."

"Hey!"

As expected, the regressor instantly blew up in anger, and I ran off at once. She was holding the cauldron, so she only growled and did not chase me.

This should get the message across. As I left the training room through the back door, I waved.

"It'll probably take a day or two. Please take care of things in the meantime. Ah, and don't stare at the note too hard!"

"Tch. Finish quickly!"

After closing the training room door, I headed to the underground armory, where the vampire was waiting.

*****

'If Finlay came in the previous cycle, did he succeed or fail? From here on out it's completely unknown territory.... But Finlay and the instructor clashed. And since war eventually broke out after that, the instructor probably failed. Hmph, he looked unreliable anyway.'

'Then was this attempt to revive Tyrkanzyaka a solution he came up with after feeling threatened by Finlay's appearance? It probably won't work... but still, it's not zero percent. There is a chance.'

'If, not likely, but if somehow.... If that works, then from the next cycle onward I'll be able to win Tyrkanzyaka over a little faster. I'll trust him and watch.'

'...By the way, what did he mean by don't stare at the note too hard? Another one of his cryptic lines. Huh? Pressure marks?'

'...No way, this bastard!'

'The eye that sees depth. If I use it on the pressure marks, hidden writing appears. Why does he put this much effort into such useless tricks...? Damn it. Fine, let's read it first.'

'Do not go to the cafeteria, do not touch me carelessly even if my condition becomes strange after it's over, and if supplies happen to arrive, use them on me...?'

'What? What exactly is he plotting?'

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