Chapter 406: An Elder is a Person, Too
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 406: An Elder is a Person, Too
An Elder was dead. Elder Luscynia, a high-ranking noble of the Duchy of Mist and a warrior whose power rivaled that of an entire city. I didn’t know how it happened, but they said the impossibly strong Qi Practitioner had been annihilated, given no chance to even regenerate…
But what did that have to do with me?
All humans die eventually. Elders are human, so of course they can die. Since he was Tyr’s subordinate, I put on a show of mourning out of courtesy, but I felt nothing for the death of someone I’d never even met more than a decade ago.
Right now, my stomach was the bigger problem. Ugh. It felt like it would take a long time to heal naturally. What to do…
“Knock, knock, Father. Is your stab wound okay?”
Just then, Hilde arrived. Carrying an armful of food, she set it down on the table. I raised a hand in greeting from my spot on the sofa.
“Where have you been?”
“Don’t even ask. Unlike you, Father, who came with the Progenitor, I got the cold shoulder! They gave me a room about this big and told me to keep quiet! The difference in treatment is just too much!”
“Well, we were bound to be treated differently. I’m a guest Tyr brought herself.”
If you don’t like it, you should’ve picked the right side from the start. As I said this, Hilde narrowed her eyes and shot back.
“Are you sure you’re a guest? Not her consort?”
Ugh. She had me there.
Even vampires, with their stopped hearts and muted emotions, had preferences. I wasn’t a vampire, so I didn’t know the details, but apparently, there were certain humans whose blood was particularly delicious or alluring. Even vampires who saw humans as less than livestock would take such a person as a consort and cherish them.
My blood was publicly declared to be disgusting, but… I couldn’t deny that I was Tyr’s favorite plush toy. At this rate, I wondered if I’d actually get bitten and become an Elder myself.
I deftly changed the subject.
“Shouldn’t you be more worried about yourself, Hilde? You may have abandoned your faith, but the moment they find out you were part of the Crusaders, this entire country will become your enemy.”
“Right. I came to talk about that! Father, hurry up and show me your stomach!”
“Why my stomach when it already hurts… Wait. Why are you holding a knife?”
A sharp dagger was aimed at my abdomen. I, who was about to be vivisected, threw up my arms in terror to block it. Hilde stared at my barely-healed stomach and said.
“I have to cut it open again! So no trace of the healing art is left!”
“What are you talking about?! No! My stomach isn’t a piggy bank you can just cut open and tape shut!”
“I fixed it, so I get to cut it open!”
“By that logic, do children owe their parents their lives?! Once you give something, it’s theirs!”
“If I don’t erase the traces of healing art from your stomach, my blood might be the one getting sucked dry!”
“You call me Father all the time, so how about showing a little filial piety! Getting a little blood sucked is a small price to pay!”
“It’s the law of nature! The older generation has to make way for the new!”
“You’re older than me! Do you get cognitive dissonance from calling me ‘Father’ so much that you actually think I’m your dad?!”
As we were grappling for our lives, the door burst open. Sensing a presence, Hilde and I froze, the dagger still clutched between us.
The uninvited guest who’d entered without knocking was stark white. Her hair, black as if dipped in ink, was tied up and wrapped in a kerchief. A short garter skirt was partially covered by a white apron. Her pale blue eyes, standing out against her bloodlessly white skin, were chillingly cold.
The stark white guest stood before us, her face expressionless, and spoke.
“I was told there was a patient. Where is the patient?”
Even without using my mind-reading, her pale skin screamed that she was a vampire. And when I did use it, I learned that this uninvited guest was the physician Valdamir had been searching for.
Nice work, Lord Sanguine! To think you’d find and send a doctor this quickly! You saved me!
“Perfect timing! Over here! This person is attacking me!”
The physician simply watched my urgently outstretched hand… and shook her head.
“He is not yet a patient. Therefore, it is not my concern.”
Huh? What did she just say? As I stood there dumbfounded, the physician turned to Hilde.
“What are you doing with that knife? Please cut his stomach open quickly. So that I may treat him.”
So, she was ordering an injury because she needed to treat it now? Wasn’t that putting the cart before the horse?!
I shouted, dumbfounded.
“What the hell are you talking about?! You should be stopping her before she cuts me, not rushing her!”
“I am a physician, not a mediator. And a physician cannot exist without a patient.”
“So you’re just going to stand by and let a patient be created?!”
“The creation of a patient is of no concern to me. I have no interest in such causality. Nor do I have the ability to stop it.”
Right! If you asked a doctor to stop a knife-wielding robber, they’d obviously hesitate! But that’s for a normal doctor!
“You’re an Elder! You have the ability to stop her! If you can, then do it!”
The physician, who had been impassively pulling on white gloves, showed a slight reaction to my words. But it was only for a moment. She finished pulling the gloves up to her wrists and said.
“I have yet to be acknowledged by the Progenitor. For now, I am neither an Elder nor a Yeiling… merely a physician who came when called.”
The physician asked calmly.
“More importantly, I am waiting. When will you be proceeding with the laparotomy?”
Urged on, Hilde relaxed her grip on the dagger and shrugged.
“Oh my. You didn’t think I was serious, did you? This was just an act, you know~?”
“An act? You mean it was a pretense?”
“Yesss~. As if I’d cut Father’s stomach open without a plan, right? Father was just playing along with me~.”
I had read her mind, yes. But if I read it too early, my mind-reading would be exposed, so I had to at least pretend to resist. Besides, a prank from one of the Six Generals was a threat in itself; if I didn’t resist with all my might, I might actually get stabbed.
“…Is that so. A pity.”
“A pity? What is?”
“Give me that dagger and I will show you.”
Hilde readily let go of the dagger. The physician took it. As if she had some skill with a blade, she made the dagger dance through the air.
Aimed right at my stomach.
Uh, wait a minute.
Before I could even react, the sharp dagger sliced through my stomach like it was paper.
My reaction was slow because I hadn’t read any killing intent. No, that didn’t explain it. Right up until the dagger slit my abdomen, and even after it had, I couldn’t feel a single speck of hostility.
No, in fact… even now, with the dagger embedded in my stomach, the physician was trying to save me.
“Oh my? What in the world?”
While Hilde was rendered speechless by the sudden turn of events, the physician literally ‘pried open’ my stomach and said.
“From this moment on, you are a patient of mine, Lyre Nightingale, and you will be placed under my strict supervision. You will follow my instructions diligently. Failure to comply will result in…”
The unacknowledged Elder Tyr had mentioned. The vampire who inherited Luscynia’s original blood.
…And perhaps, though this was just my guess, the one known in the Regressor’s future as the Doctor Sage.
The figure at the center of the rumors surrounding the Duchy of Mist spoke with a cold, dispassionate, yet obsessively benevolent tone.
“Your safety cannot be guaranteed, so I will force you to comply.”
Or maybe not? She doesn’t seem like a Doctor Sage! What part of this crazy psycho looks like a Doctor Sage? Serial killer is more like it!
I have a strong stomach. I can watch someone’s guts spill out in front of me and just lose my appetite a little, but I can handle it. But it’s a different story when it’s my stomach! A wave of horror and pain, all mixed up with nausea, washed over me!
“Aaargh! My stomach! My stomaaaach!”
“Patient, please relax. Your muscles are tensing up.”
“Would you be able to relax if your stomach was sliced open?!”
“A delicate woman such as myself can. Can you not manage even that, patient?”
“Delicate woman my ass, you’re an Elder! Of course you can do it!”
“Tsk. Your mind is still sharp. The anesthetic must not have fully spread.”
“What anesthetic?! You haven’t even used any yet! Gyaaaargh!”
A sharp pain shot through me as I spoke with my stomach split open! She really cut me! My skin is split and the inside is showing!
Lyre glanced between my stomach and her hands, then let out a small “Ah.”
“Oops.”
“‘Oops’… my ass…! Hurry up and do something…!”
Lyre reached for her thigh. From a holster holding several ampoules, she pulled one out and shattered it between two fingers. A crimson liquid floated in the air around her fingers. Lyre manipulated the blood-red substance, pouring it into my wound.
A cold sensation flowed through my veins. As the foreign substance passed through me, something seemed to subside. The pain hadn’t been that great to begin with, but now my body felt distant, as if it weren’t my own.
Lyre suddenly asked.
“How is it?”
“Huh? What is?”
“I was pinching your stomach. Since you did not notice, the anesthetic has spread nicely.”
I could see her pinching my already-gaping stomach. I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t even speak. I wanted to just get up and run away, but where could I go with my stomach cut open and my intestines exposed?
Completely helpless, I watched Lyre rummage around inside me and muttered stupidly.
“Uh, uhh.”
“A piercing wound from a sharp blade. There are scorch marks on the wound, and blood from the unhealed internal organs has pooled in the abdominal cavity. This bleeding… had you not learned Qi Arts, this would have been critical.”
It’s critical now! My stomach is open! Wide open!
I couldn’t even speak anymore, afraid that if I exerted any force, my guts would spill out. I may be sensitive to malice and dull to goodwill, but no matter how benevolent her intentions, I didn’t want to comply to the point of having my stomach sliced open. Groaning under the effects of the anesthetic, I looked at Hilde, pleading for help.
But Hilde wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were fixed on Lyre’s hands, which were rummaging through my wound.
Hilde watched the ‘treatment’ with a fascinated expression before speaking.
“You made such a large wound… but there’s no bleeding?”
Through my hazy consciousness, I looked down at my stomach.
Hilde was right.
My stomach was cut open, but no blood was flowing out. To be precise, the blood that was about to scatter was gathering and hovering in mid-air. The clumped droplets of blood then seeped back into my body somewhere, just as they usually did.
Vampires who were skilled in Bloodcraft and had reached a state of complete mastery over their own bodies could even regenerate shattered flesh. Valdamir himself had dismantled and reconstructed his own body.
But that was, in the end, their own body.
Even a vampire, who was already dead and had a blurred boundary between inside and outside, had a physical form. The body they remembered as their own was an anchor that fixed their existence in a vast ocean. It was a set form to return to, ensuring they remained ‘themselves’ and didn’t stray too far and transform into something else.
That was why they maintained that form even when reconstructing their bodies. Because it was the image of ‘themselves’ that they had drawn.
And yet… this Elder before me was reconstructing my body.
She cut my stomach and drew blood. The inside and outside of my body became one. In that momentarily blurred boundary, she forcibly caught my blood that was about to scatter into the world and sent it back.
It was my body, but she seemed to know it better than I did. She looked with her eyes, felt with her Bloodcraft, read the flow, identified the problem, and fixed it. She cleaned the wound with Bloodcraft and drained the dead blood. My blood moved in an orderly fashion, following Lyre’s guidance.
Before I knew it, the procedure was over. Lyre gathered the flaps of my stomach and reached out to pluck a single strand of my hair, ignoring the belated scream that escaped my lips. Imbuing the hair with blood energy, she drew a zigzag pattern with her finger. I felt a pain like a needle pricking my stomach. When I came to my senses, only a thin, stitched line remained on my stomach, making it hard to believe my body had been wide open just moments before.
“The procedure is complete.”
Even after the surgery, not a single drop of blood stained Lyre’s gloves. Her mastery of Bloodcraft was so absolute that it wouldn’t even allow the blood of another to touch her.
“Get absolute rest. You will be short on blood for a while, so do not offer it to any vampires, and I recommend a diet centered on meat.”
From her Bloodcraft to her manual dexterity, she had evolved in a completely different direction from other vampires. Reading her skills, her knowledge, and her almost dogmatic beliefs with my mind-reading, I was certain.
“And please refrain from using healing arts if possible. That is a power of reversion. It could undo some of the treatment I have performed.”
The ‘Doctor Sage’ I had seen in a fleeting glimpse of the Regressor’s memories was this very person.
Having been seen through by Lyre, Hilde spoke awkwardly.
“Oh my~. I wanted to hide it, but I’ve been found out~.”
“The flow of blood is clearly unnatural, yet there is not a single wound on the body. The only way that is possible is through healing arts. Anyone, not just myself, would have noticed.”
“Now that the scar is back, no one will know, right? Except for you, the one who treated it, of course~.”
Was she planning on killing the witness? But trying to kill a vampire was an error in itself. This was a being who could grab someone knocking on death’s door by the scruff of their neck and drag them back.
One would expect her to scoff and fight back, but Lyre just shook her head and packed her things.
“I have no intention of telling anyone.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Hilde flatly denied it.
“You know of the long-standing conflict between vampires and the Sanctum, don’t you? As a vampire, you should kill me, a Crusader, the moment you realize what I am. Isn’t that the duty of an Elder who has received the Progenitor’s original blood?”
It was a natural reaction. The Progenitor and the Sanctum had fought for so long. It was becoming common sense, almost a universal truth, that the two would hate and try to kill each other on sight.
But there were no absolutes in human affairs. Just as there was a Crusader who had come to the Duchy of Mist of her own free will, there was an Elder in the Duchy of Mist who showed goodwill to a Crusader.
“I am a physician. As I said before, the creation of a patient is of no concern to me. Only the disappearance of the patient is my concern.”
Was it because she was a vampire, or was she just born that way? Lyre looked at Hilde with that same cold, yet obsessive benevolence and said.
“Above all, healing arts are also just one method toward the goal of a patient’s disappearance.”
It was a statement unbecoming of an Elder. If anyone else in the Duchy of Mist had heard it, they would have called it blasphemy and led the charge for her execution. And Hilde’s, too, for that matter.
While Hilde, startled by the bombshell statement, instinctively checked their surroundings, the packed-up Lyre asked one last question.
“More importantly, I have a question for you who have come from the Fallen Dominion.”
Having regained some of my senses, I asked back.
“…What is it?”
“Are there patients there?”
Her sky-blue eyes were filled with a resolve that said she would run there at once if there were. I let out a hollow laugh.
There are many mad people in the world. But the one before me was mad in a different way. To try and control not the lives of others, but their deaths.
It’s been a while since I’ve read such an interesting person. I groaned and answered.
“More than you can count.”
“Excellent.”
With that, Lyre’s destination was set. I didn’t know if the Regressor had foreseen this, but she would probably have her long-awaited meeting with the Doctor Sage in Claudia.
“The procedure is finished, so I will be going. Do not die without my permission. You are my patient.”
“I’m not going to die whether you permit it or not, you know? I can’t permit my own death either. Life is too precious.”
What is she, some kind of death controller? Still, I felt much better thanks to her, so I was grateful.
After observing my condition for a moment, Lyre seemed convinced I was fine and strode out without a hint of hesitation.
Kind of a shame. Reading a crazy person’s thoughts is pretty fun.
‘Wait. Where did the knife I used to cut his stomach go? It disappeared at some point.’
Of course, I didn’t know either. Mind-reading was the power to read what a person knows; if they don’t know, I don’t either. It’s not like someone ate the knife, so it must be around here somewhere, right?
Lyre’s thoughts, after she briefly glanced around for the knife, continued.
‘…Don’t tell me, back there. No, it must be my imagination. I’m sure it’s not. Probably.’
Huh? What? What imagination? Why are you thinking of my stomach when you say ‘back there’? Don’t tell me?
“Hey! You crazy woman! Get back here! What do you mean ‘probably’?!?”