WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 78: What Was Recovered

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After barely calming the King of Dogs, Tyrkanzyaka helped him to his feet and headed for the dining hall.

Despite rolling across the ground, he had not screamed or even so much as winced. He simply followed Tyrkanzyaka slowly, his eyes unfocused.

"Are you all right?"

Nod.

He gave a small nod. That was all. He offered no other answer or reaction.

Tyrkanzyaka muttered, looking worried.

"He can hear sounds, and he seems to understand what people say... Yet it is as though he has become a simpleton."

There was still no response. Tyrkanzyaka could only feel sorry for him.

He had always spoken cheerfully, chattering smoothly about even the most pointless things. Yet now he had become like this. It was as though everything had been taken from him.

"Let us go to the dining hall for now. If there is something there, it should reveal itself soon enough."

Even if nothing appeared. Even if he spent the rest of his life as a simpleton, that would be fine. Tyrkanzyaka intended to take responsibility for him.

He was her benefactor, and the patience she had cultivated over eons would not vanish simply because her heart had started beating again.

"The dining hall... should be near the education room on the fourth floor."

Tyrkanzyaka briefly frowned as she guided the coffin with bloodcraft. Normally, the moment she willed it, the coffin moved as smoothly as her own body. Since her heart began beating, though, she had felt a subtle resistance whenever she controlled something outside herself.

It was not difficult to control. There was simply a faint sense of weight.

Perhaps it was like the difference between moving one's hand and moving a bag held in that hand.

"Is it because I regained my heart? Bloodcraft does not move as freely as it once did."

It was an incense-cedar coffin that had been with her for nearly a thousand years.

It had been Tyrkanzyaka's bed, her nest, and practically her limbs. Now it behaved stiffly, like an independent child, and she could not help feeling a little disappointed.

Yet when she remembered the warmth of the person seated beside her, along with the pounding in her chest, that disappointment soon faded.

"Yes. If one gains something, one must lose something as well."

If one tried to grasp everything in the world, something small and precious that should never be forgotten might be pushed aside and lost. Tyrkanzyaka decided to consider it the price of gaining emotions.

The coffin carrying them side by side rose smoothly into the air. They reached the fourth floor in an instant and soon arrived at the dining hall.

A plain table with four chairs sat in one corner, as though it had been provided out of obligation. A large stockpot and around five smaller pots were arranged by size on a shelf. The room was narrow but neatly kept, giving it the lived-in feel of a place someone had cared for.

Tyrkanzyaka looked around the dining hall and muttered.

"This is my first time coming to the dining hall... Then again, I had no need to come here."

Vampires consumed only blood. Tyrkanzyaka had never visited the dining hall before. Someone else's loss of blood was a vampire's sustenance.

That remained true even now, but Tyrkanzyaka had another mouth to care for.

After helping him into a chair, Tyrkanzyaka looked around.

"They say one should eat before taking in the sights. You must be quite hungry after going without food for three days, so let us have you eat something first."

As she prepared to cook, Tyrkanzyaka realized anew that she knew nothing about it.

Her body had not needed food. Naturally, she could not remember cooking from over twelve hundred years ago. All that remained was the basic knowledge that putting ingredients in water and boiling them produced something like stew.

"...It would be best to find the ingredients first."

Tyrkanzyaka looked around and spotted a high cupboard. She managed to open it by standing on tiptoe, but at her height, she could barely see into the lowest shelf.

That shelf held only cups, plates, and similar items. Tyrkanzyaka floated upward to inspect the higher shelves.

The middle shelf held stored oil and partially used ingredients. Tyrkanzyaka made a mental note of them and looked higher.

What she saw on the top shelf was...

A small golem, bound and wriggling.

"Hm?"

The golem's posture was strange. No, calling it merely strange did not do justice to the malice and mischief behind it.

As though it dreamed of being an organic creature, the golem sat with its legs spread one hundred and eighty degrees apart, its buttocks planted on the shelf. It looked as if it were doing yoga.

A closer look revealed that it was not voluntary. Its ankles had been tightly tied with wire, so it could not close its legs no matter how much it wanted to.

A speaker removed from its mouth had been placed just beyond the reach of its hands. With its legs bound, the golem desperately stretched out its arms to retrieve the speaker, but it could not quite reach it.

Whoever designed this had calculated the distance perfectly.

Too mild to call torture, yet too cruel to call a prank. A position perfectly suited to drive someone mad.

Watching the golem squirm, Tyrkanzyaka muttered.

"Is that not the toy golem I saw before?"

Noticing Tyrkanzyaka's gaze, the golem desperately waved both arms. It could not make a sound without its speaker, but anyone could tell it was asking to be rescued.

"Are you asking me to untie you?"

Nod nod.

Unable to speak, the golem nodded all the more fervently instead.

Tyrkanzyaka untied the wire binding it. The golem slowly and carefully brought its legs together, then clutched its thighs with both arms and rolled around for a while, seemingly writhing in pain.

Before long, it stood back up and reattached the speaker to its mouth. A broken, intermittent voice came through it.

『That damned... XX had the nerve to overstep his authority...! This is treason...!』

Something between words and curses crackled out. Once the golem had barely calmed down, it quietly cleared its throat and faced Tyrkanzyaka.

『...Thank you for your cooperation, Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka. Under these circumstances, this office humbly requests your cooperation.』

"I had questions as well. I shall hear your request first. Let us exchange one answer each."

Tyrkanzyaka made the offer calmly.

『This office will answer only if the information may be disclosed.』

"Is that not only natural? I too will remain silent when asked something difficult to answer. How could one speak secrets aloud? And even if one did, how would the listener distinguish truth from lies?"

『That was a foolish question. I accept. In that case, this office shall ask first.』

The golem clenched its fist and raised its head. Emotions should not have been perceptible from its rigid body, yet Tyrkanzyaka somehow felt that it was swallowing an indescribable fury.

Soon, the golem spat out its question.

『Where is that man?』

"That man?"

If there was someone the golem could mean, it could only be him. Tyrkanzyaka understood at once and hesitated.

"If you mean the instructor you sent, then... Hmm. Well, I... There has been a slight problem."

『Is that information you cannot answer?』

"Not exactly. He is here for now. But..."

She could tell it that he had lost his memories while trying to restore Tyrkanzyaka's lost heart, omitting the circumstances around it.

Yet would that not be far too irresponsible?

He had said he was an instructor. Considering his boundless abilities, he must have been an excellent talent entrusted with the future of the military state. By breaking someone like that, Tyrkanzyaka had inflicted a great loss on the military state as well.

Thinking about it, she had caused trouble for so many people. Tyrkanzyaka felt guilty anew.

"There is much to discuss. Could I speak with a representative of your military state for a while?"

She would need to negotiate with the military state, both to compensate them for hurting him and to take custody of him. Tyrkanzyaka spoke with that intention, but...

『Did that reactionary cause some sort of trouble?』

The answer was so unexpected that Tyrkanzyaka blinked.

"A reactionary...?"

『Affirmative! That reactionary who restrained this unit!』

The golem answered in a higher voice than usual.

Was it because she could feel emotions again? Tyrkanzyaka realized she had become better at recognizing the emotions carried in someone's voice than before.

The Progenitor, who had regained her emotions, found the unfamiliar sensation interesting and focused on the golem's words.

『This office has a duty to observe the interior of Tantalus! Yet that man, no more than a laborer, interfered with this office's duties! This constitutes obstruction of official duties at a Level 5 security facility and is recognized as at least a Level 4 crime depending on its severity! Furthermore, he has already committed a crime once and received a Tantalus labor sentence, so there will not even be the slightest reprieve this time!!』

He had restrained the golem, then fled. He had obstructed official duties and committed a crime.

He had already committed a crime once? Did that mean he had fallen out of favor with the military state?

Without realizing it, Tyrkanzyaka defended him.

"Do not be so angry. A ruler must respect the judgment of a commander. He must have had some deeper intention."

『I can state with certainty that he had no such intention. This is not even a battlefield to begin with, and he is not a commander!』

"Did your country not send him here? As the lord of this territory. A knight responsible for an entire territory may be called a commander..."

『Negative! He is not even a butler, let alone a knight! If anything, he is a being beneath a slave!』

Was it not too cruel to treat someone loyal to their country as a slave?

And calling him a slave, no less.

Tyrkanzyaka was about to scold it, half out of reprimand and half out of an anger she could not explain.

『Because he! Hid it from you and everyone else! Is in fact a criminal who committed a crime and received a Tantalus labor sentence!』

Had the golem not revealed that unexpected fact, she surely would have said it aloud.

Footnotes:

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