WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 8: A Monster Lives in the Basement

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I'm fucked.

That was the conclusion I reached after careful consideration.

It seemed I was completely fucked.

The instant I stepped into the underground armory, regret came rushing in. I would probably have felt more at ease inside a whale's mouth. At least a whale didn't live on human blood.

This was the domain of night where that monster, a vampire that drank human blood, had dwelled for decades. From the moment I stepped inside, the blood running through my body was no longer mine. The blood surging through my veins gathered to one side. What should have been breathing life into my body twitched, constantly trying to go astray.

This wasn't a problem mind-reading could solve. If the vampire decided to kill me, the instant she formed that murderous intent... I would turn into a shriveled mummy before I even had time to resist.

Was the regressor all right? Her senses were more acute, so she had to be feeling even greater pressure.

‘What incredible energy. It is no different from the strength she had in the previous run... But this is before [that incident] happens. Is she more violent, or more restrained? Will Tyrkanzyaka, before [that problem] is resolved, lend me her strength?’

What was [that incident]? What was [that problem]? Could she please stop having thoughts only she understood and at least give me a flashback?

‘Let's not overthink it. I haven't regained enough strength to fight Tyrkanzyaka yet. If I die, I die.’

Fine. That settled it. I had proven once again that it was best not to get involved with regressors. To someone like her, this was one of countless lives she could return from. To me, it was the only life I had.

If I died, I died? Even ten lives wouldn't be enough if I stayed with someone who lived by that philosophy.

I turned around and headed for the door.

"Well then. Trainee Shei, you're the only one with business here, so I'll be taking my leave..."

Bang.

The iron door slammed shut in front of me. The mark giving off that strange red glow flashed before my eyes as if to say I had no chance.

The regressor snorted at my stunned expression.

"Sure. Goodbye. If you can leave, that is."

My escape route was blocked. Pitch-black darkness, so deep I couldn't even see my own body, wrapped around me. With a sigh, I followed behind the regressor.

"What? You were talking like you were going back."

"Now that I think about it, I need to determine why Trainee Shei came to the underground armory. Shall I accompany you a little longer?"

"Do as you like."

Since we had already come this far, we were in the same boat. The regressor nodded readily. I felt my way along the wall through the utter darkness. I couldn't see the ground beneath my feet, and it was subtly slippery, so even taking a single step required considerable concentration.

Damn it. There would be stairs soon. What if I slipped and rolled all the way down? If a military state instructor slipped in an armory, I'd be laughed at, then suspected.

More importantly, what was the regressor going to do in this darkness?

‘Seven-Colored Eyes, awaken. Blue Eye.’

At that moment, the regressor poked her own eye with a finger. Sparkling tears welled in her eyes, then began to burn blue. Even in the darkness that swallowed light, the blue flames traced the outlines of objects.

‘The fifth color of the Seven-Colored Eyes, Blue Eye, sees depth. It can see through even the darkness the vampire has gathered.’

She had all sorts of techniques. Was someone whose only ability was mind-reading supposed to live in sorrow?

Blue Eye saw the world as lines and planes. It couldn't detect fast-moving objects or blurred, rounded areas well, but it could grasp the overall structure even in darkness. The regressor cast her blue gaze around. A solid ceiling and walls blocked her view. The only passage led downward. In her vision, faint lines appeared in the shape of a tightly narrowing trapezoid, like a ladder stretching into the distance.

They were stairs leading underground.

Without a moment's hesitation, the regressor stepped toward the stairs. After descending a step or two, she suddenly glanced back at me.

‘Let's see whether you can make your way through this darkness.’

Thanks. I appreciated her looking my way.

I hadn't noticed it, but the stairs began right in front of me. Worse, the corner of the first step had broken away, leaving half of it missing. If I had stepped down carelessly, I would have tumbled all the way to the bottom.

Whew. That was close.

I carefully stepped around the broken stair. A click of the tongue sounded ahead of me.

‘He saw through even the darkness the vampire gathered? I can't see the bottom of this man at all. He looks absentminded, yet he has overcome both my Skywarbler and the vampire's darkness...’

This was why people needed to experience life among those beneath them too. She kept meeting extraordinary people like the Sword Saint and the Holy Maiden after regressing, so she couldn't even judge a truly ordinary person properly. That was why she needed a taste of common life.

In any case, the regressor and I headed underground side by side.

‘Why is he walking so close? It's annoying.’

The regressor seemed uncomfortable with how close I was, but I clung to her stubbornly. If we got too far apart while I was borrowing her sight, I might not be able to see where I was stepping. I followed her down the stairs as though I were half being carried.

Once we reached the underground armory, the regressor surveyed the bunker with her blue eyes.

The armory, which could be used as a bunker in an emergency, had a long corridor and broad rooms on either side. They were cramped spaces meant for people to hide in and wait for rescue if an emergency arose, but one of them already had a guest.

With her blue eyes, the regressor glared at the faint shadows peeking out from within. A massive horse whose head nearly touched the ceiling stared back at us.

‘Is that her familiar? I heard she lost most of them during the Great War... It seems the Blood Steed Rallion is still alive and well.’

How exactly was she using this underground armory? Why was a huge horse using an entire bunker by itself? More importantly, how did a familiar have a better room than I did? Guarantee human rights.

After briefly looking at the Blood Steed, the regressor turned and began walking again. I hurried after her.

At the end of the long corridor stood an incongruous door.

The military state, which valued efficiency and rationality, didn't mix art into its doors or walls. A door existed to open and close a space, while a wall existed to divide one, so anything more was considered extravagance. They would rather hang decorations on a door or paintings on a wall than engage in such inefficient, unproductive acts as carving iron doors or painting murals directly onto walls. Such things were regarded almost as sins.

Yet even the military state seemed to have wanted to pray to a god before the Progenitor.

The door, cast from a single block of steel, bore an engraved image worthy of a biblical illustration. On the wall was a beautiful angel with great wings, blowing a trumpet. The trumpet pointed toward the door deeper inside, as if it would immediately deliver punishment should some ominous being emerge from within.

Sculptures and murals fit for a church. The underground armory was dark, but even I could see the carvings and paintings clearly.

Because in that darkness, those solemn sculptures and holy paintings...

Glowed red, soaked in fresh blood as though celebrating a festival of blood.

I faced the image, then slowly turned my head with a creak.

"...Excuse me. Trainee Shei."

"What?"

"Should we go back now?"

"Are you scared?"

"Yes."

The regressor made a puzzled expression at my honest answer.

No, this was terrifying. I would rather not have been able to see it.

If the Sanctum saw this sight, they would send inquisitors for blasphemy. But if they heard the other party was Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka, they would swiftly cancel the dispatch and pretend they had seen nothing.

Otherwise, they would just be gifting the inquisitors' blood to her.

That was what a vampire Progenitor was. Whether I was strong or weak, she was a being it wouldn't be strange to fear.

The regressor glanced at me.

"You're more timid than I thought."

"That's why I've survived until now. Fear of danger is essential to survival."

"Is that so?"

‘Maybe that's why I died thirteen times.’

Ah. Now that she mentioned it, that made sense. She didn't care if she died. I suddenly felt wronged.

"You say you're scared, yet you call her an elder?"

"She is an elder, isn't she?"

"Ugh. Forget it."

When someone said forget it, it meant they would do whatever they pleased. The regressor strode forward and placed a hand on the door. It opened by itself without her even applying much force.

Like the mouth of a beast waiting for prey.

"Ah, damn it. Mother Earth."

There was no helping it. Once I had been swallowed, there probably wasn't much difference between being in its mouth and beyond its throat. Before the door closed, I followed the regressor into the final room.

A little old-fashioned in this era where lamps and electric lights were commonplace, wall sconces hung from the walls. They were elegant sconces made by carving stone directly with iron nails and chisels into the shape of birdcages, then turning them upside down. The nest-shaped decorations, carved stroke by stroke, held a craftsman's soul. It felt as though a phoenix might spread its wings and rise from within at any moment.

Blood-red flames reached for the sky as they surged upward. Yet their flight didn't last long. This was the lowest place in the world, a basement level of some prison in the Abyss. It was far too cruel a place to fly all the way to the sky.

The flames touched the ceiling and crumbled apart, scattering corpses of light in every direction.

Light had meaning precisely because it faded. The final room was dimly illuminated. Light scattered against the ceiling cast red shadows.

Thanks to that, I could see the room.

Everything wasn't crimson simply because the flames were red. Blood. The place was plastered with what looked like thousands of liters of blood. The ceiling, the floor, the walls. So much blood flowed and churned as though the entire room were one enormous heart.

Even with so much blood flowing, there was no scent of blood. The smell of blood was also part of blood, and it lay beneath the Progenitor's authority.

Unless Tyrkanzyaka allowed it, the regressor and I wouldn't even be able to smell blood.

[For what reason have you come to see me?]

A black wooden coffin stood in the center of the room. It was an exquisite piece made from precious cedar, carefully lacquered and engraved with a red cross bearing wings. A voice flowed from inside it.

The blood raged. The blood that should have dedicated itself to my life beneath my veins tried to rush out barefoot to greet its beloved.

Overwhelming authority.

Facing it, the regressor spoke proudly to the vampire.

"Tyrkanzyaka. I came to propose a deal."

"Teach me bloodcraft."

She had suddenly arrived and asked to be taught a technique. It would have been understandable for the vampire to be dumbfounded, but she wasn't surprised at all. She was used to it. Over a thousand years, more than four figures' worth of people had come looking for her in pursuit of something.

The authority to control blood. At that familiar name she hadn't heard in a long time, the vampire quietly asked back.

[Do you wish to become my kin?]

If one became a vampire and accepted the Progenitor's blood into their body, they naturally gained the authority to control blood. Since long ago, countless people had coveted or demanded the Progenitor's blood in pursuit of immortality. Feeling even a slight sense of tedium, the vampire asked the regressor whether he was one of those many people.

But the regressor had no intention of becoming a vampire. Instead, she demanded something deeper and more fundamental.

"No, I don't intend to gain it that way. Teach me the technique you learned before becoming a vampire."

For a very brief instant, emotions stirred violently. Fierce bewilderment and confusion rose within the coffin. Every drop of blood in the room seemed to tighten and gather at once.

But her opponent was a vampire who had lived for over a thousand years. Something like this wasn't enough to make her blood run hot. The vampire calmed herself and replied.

[How did you learn that?]

The regressor faced the vampire, thinking something only she could think.

‘You from the previous run told me.’

The regressor smiled, then for just a moment, sank into reminiscence.

Before the vampire had become a vampire, when she had still been human. Back then, the girl could handle blood. She worked hard to help her physician father run his clinic, and countless people benefited from the little girl. When she was human, her ability could do no more than stop flowing blood.

But that alone was enough to earn people's smiles.

The vampire from the previous run had hinted at that fact, advised the regressor to learn from her... then quietly drew a final breath that no one mourned.

The memory ended. I felt as though I had been thrown out of the deep sea and held my throbbing head.

So this was a flashback.

It had been a brief and fragmented memory, but there had been some gains. I had read a little of the regressor's memory and learned some information about the Disaster.

It seemed the Disaster truly was coming. A Disaster so powerful that even a monster called Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka couldn't withstand it and had died.

[I shall ask again. How did you learn that?]

"If you teach me, I might tell you."

[...You are bold.]

A brief silence. Slow thoughts. Thousands upon thousands of notions flickered past and vanished.

Then, at some point, the vampire's attention turned to me.

[And what do you think?]

Why me all of a sudden? I had clearly been staying quiet. Why had she picked me out? I answered reluctantly.

"Please act as you see fit, Elder."

[...Elder?]

Huh? The blood just squirmed. Had she gotten offended? I hurriedly spoke.

"Rank takes priority over age, so I shall address you as Trainee. Still, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka is, ah, somewhat advanced in years. The military state generally doesn't issue special instructions or orders to elderly trainees. I am the same. As long as you don't leave the training facility, you may act freely, so it's fine if you remain lying here..."

Something black brushed past my cheek. A thin line opened there. Through that gap, blood that had regained its freedom slowly flew toward the vampire.

Fluttering like a tiger swallowtail butterfly.

I hadn't even seen it. There was no murderous intent, so I hadn't avoided it, but it wouldn't have changed much even if I had tried.

A chill ran through me. I drew in a deep breath and stopped speaking.

A voice tinged with quiet anger came from within.

[Because I am old, I should shut myself in my room and remain there?]

"No, that's not what I meant. I only meant you could continue doing as you have been."

[I do not wish to hear it.]

The black coffin lid opened. Like its exterior, the inside of the coffin was filled with pitch-black darkness. Parting that darkness, a pale, delicate hand rose.

My blood, floating through the air, landed on her hand. Then it seeped in like rain falling onto dry ground.

I felt faint displeasure from the vampire who had harvested my blood.

[...As expected, even your blood has no flavor. You are completely incompatible with me. There is not a single thing about you I find pleasing...]

But that was why.

Then the coffin rose upright. It pushed itself up with rolling darkness and faced the regressor and me.

[I originally take only the blood of pure maidens. The blood of men like you is usually... used as material.]

The inside of the coffin was still dark. Only that lifelessly pale hand protruded from the gap. Now more blood flew into it, the blood the regressor had spilled to get the door opened.

The vampire moistened her hand with the blood.

[But your blood is acceptable. For a man... This is the first time in my life I have willingly drunk a man's blood...]

Well, that was because Shei was a woman. Even a vampire didn't seem to consider the possibility that the regressor was female beneath that pathetic disguise. At the favorable sign, the regressor clenched her fist.

The vampire spoke leisurely.

[Very well. I shall teach it to you.]

"Thank you."

[...It is tiring to receive guests after so long. Leave now.]

Having said only that, the vampire closed the coffin lid. After receiving a positive answer, the regressor desperately controlled her expression to suppress the urge to jump for joy.

‘Yes! I succeeded! I never thought it would go this smoothly!’

Holding down her excitement, the regressor carefully asked, "When will we begin? I would like it to be as soon as possible."

[Then... shall we begin when the next moon wanes?]

That meant in about a month. Naturally, the regressor, for whom every moment mattered, couldn't accept it.

"What? That's too late. Start tomorrow."

[What is so urgent? There is little difference between beginning now and beginning a month later...]

"There is a difference! As much as heaven and earth!"

[Have patience. The waxing and waning of the moon is the goddess of night slowly closing and opening her eyes. One needs that much time to see things properly.]

The two of them were arguing again. Was it time for me to step in and resolve the conflict?

"Ahem! Trainee Shei!"

I stepped forward and made a show of scolding the regressor.

"A month may be a long time for you, but to Trainee Tyrkanzyaka, who has lived for over twelve hundred years, it is no more than an instant! Please be more considerate of the other party! Time appears fair to everyone, but it is more relative than anything else. This person..."

"...Shouldn't you be more considerate of the other party yourself?"

Huh? What was that supposed to mean? I was already being plenty considerate. How much more considerate could I be when I was going this far to flatter her?

While the two of us were bickering, a slow voice came from the coffin.

[...Yes. Is it because I am so old that all my actions are slow?]

"No, I'm not criticizing you. I'm simply trying to teach this rude child the difference in experience."

[Very well. Then we shall begin tomorrow.]

As the regressor rejoiced at getting what she wanted, the vampire looked at me and added one more thing.

[Both of you.]

"What?"

Why was I suddenly involved?

Just as I was about to protest,

[Leave now.]

The world grew distant. That was the only way I could describe it. The regressor's body and mine moved on their own.

No, we hadn't moved.

The walls, the floor, the doors.

The corridor, the ceiling, the rooms, the stairs moved forward. The world passed from behind to ahead of us. Like watching a rushing river from a moored ship, dark, soft liquid flowed past us and retraced the path we had taken...

Before we knew it, we were standing at the entrance to the underground armory without taking a single step. The thud of the steel door closing brought me back to reality.

"Crazy."

I had felt like I was entering a tiger's mouth from the moment we went in.

Literally, that place inside was... no different from the vampire's body. The vampire had just spat us out.

The regressor dusted herself off as though she was used to it.

"Heh heh. What a pathetic sight. Were you surprised?"

"...Not particularly."

I had only realized that a monstrously terrifying creature was actually transcendentally terrifying. At my answer, the regressor covered her mouth and laughed as she mocked me.

"I'll give you one piece of advice. It's better not to mention age in front of Tyrkanzyaka. That's a woman's heart."

The regressor swaggered for a moment, then lightly turned and walked away. I watched her retreat with cold eyes.

It wasn't as if I had said that because I didn't understand a woman's heart.

Well, whatever. She hadn't explained anything to me either, so I wouldn't go out of my way to explain it.

I brushed off my hands and feet, then turned around. Good grief. I had been so tense that my back hurt. Maybe I should go in early and rest today. I should check the cafeteria to see whether there were any spare canned goods...

Just as I turned to leave.

"Woof."

I heard a sound that shouldn't have been there. Slowly, I turned my head.

There stood Azzy, who had followed my scent with the single-minded determination to play ball, searched through heaps of concrete rubble, and found the leather ball...

No. No way...

"Woof!"

The ball dropped at my feet. Azzy wagged her tail gently and nudged the ball with her nose.

The meaning was obvious.

Throw the ball, human.

"Azzy."

I attempted a negotiation unlike any in history. The King of Dogs and one human. Crossing the boundaries between species, I made a great attempt at dramatic compromise.

"Today, I'm really tired, so..."

"Woof! Woof!"

"...Could we put it off a little..."

"Woof! Promise!"

Azzy swiped her forepaws around in displeasure. The force of the wind shook the hem of my clothes. As she crept closer and closer, it felt as though she was saying that if I didn't throw the ball, she would smack me with those paws.

When had she learned the word promise? Sigh. Who had taught a dog something as useless as promises? You shouldn't cruelly teach promises to a child incapable of taking responsibility. If she broke a promise, I couldn't collect any compensation, but if I broke one, it gave her an excuse to act unreasonable.

"Grrrr."

Like this.

I looked up at the unseen sky and sighed.

"Whew. Sorry, my shoulder. I'll try to keep it under two hundred and fifty throws today."

Was this how it felt to be forced onto the mound? I picked up the ball. Azzy's broad smile irritated me immensely.

Footnotes:

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