Chapter 440: Intermediate Recess
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 440: Intermediate Recess
A single day's recess might seem insufficient to a human. Trials demand deliberation, but to the impatient, even one day feels like an eternity.
To a vampire, however, a day was little more than a short break to step out for a drink of blood. Promising to reconvene soon, they leisurely departed the hall, though a few of the Elders lingered.
“Progenitor. I must take my leave for a moment. Please permit me to depart first.”
“It seems you have urgent business. Go and see to it.”
“Your grace is boundless.”
Following Valdamir's lead, the other Elders also withdrew, looking somewhat displeased. Before long, only Tyr, Lyre, and I remained in the hall.
Tyr surveyed the empty hall, her stern expression softening as she spoke.
“You navigated that predicament splendidly.”
“It was hardly a predicament. If things went wrong, would it be me who suffered? Lyre would be the one to die.”
The moment you shift the risk to someone else, it's just entertainment. With no stakes of your own, there's no tension.
Despite my frank reply, Tyr smiled faintly and praised me.
“Huhu. You speak so casually, but I know. I know why you tried to save her. As the King of Humans, you are fond of those who save other humans.”
“No? I'm not particularly fond of them.”
“There you go again. You were difficult about it, but did you not help Shei a great deal? And it's the same with Lyre; you offered to help her though you'd only just met. How long have I watched you? Do you think I wouldn't know?”
Did I? It wasn't that I liked her for saving humans; it was more that I wanted to watch her wish play out a little longer. Even if she were a murderer instead of a healer, as long as she didn't try to kill me, I would have watched her. The problem is, they usually try to kill me first.
It seems Tyr is misunderstanding something… What should I do about this? Should I clear it up?
“…Or is there another reason? Could it be you harbor… ulterior motives?”
“No. On second thought, I think you're right.”
Yeah, better not to clear this one up.
Her expression relaxed, Tyr turned her gaze to Lyre. Lyre was still prostrated alone in the hall. No one had ordered her to be taken away or to move, so she had remained perfectly still.
“Lyre Nightingale.”
“Yes, Progenitor.”
“This upcoming session will be a stage to test your qualifications. Everyone will test and judge whether you are worthy of receiving my original blood, whether you possess the strength for it.”
“However,” Tyr trailed off, glancing at me.
“If I could know your abilities beforehand, the evaluation might become a little easier.”
She was speaking indirectly, but it was an offer: I'll help you live, so let's get our stories straight beforehand. Because I was taking Lyre's side, Tyr was backing me up. You can't distinguish between the magnanimity of the powerful and a dirty backroom deal. In fact, they're the same thing.
Of course, I wasn't the only reason. Tyr must have felt a bit of kinship with Lyre, who used Bloodcraft to heal humans, as she had once walked a similar path. If Tyr still possessed her dominion over blood, a trial like this might not have even occurred. Every vampire under her dominion would have felt a similar sentiment toward Lyre.
Hmm. I see. So there was a reason the Doctor Sage survived in the future the Regressor saw.
At this point, it was safe to say the Doctor Sage would survive. Yet Lyre seemed devoid of emotion.
“…I have no particular talent to speak of.”
“No talent? I heard your ability to save humans is unmatched by any Elder.”
“I don't save them. I have no interest in their lives. I merely intervene in their deaths. It's similar to killing.”
“Killing?”
“Yes.”
Tyr gestured with her chin, demanding an explanation. Lyre answered.
“I have no interest in their lives. Humans live and die as they please anyway. I decided I wouldn't care how they lived or how they died. I will only involve myself in their deaths.”
“But preventing death is the same as saving a life, is it not?”
“Progenitor. Do you know the easiest way to save people?”
“What is it?”
“To kill murderers. Or, to vow to kill murderers.”
She's young, but she's grasped the core of it. It seems like a unique perspective, but it's surprisingly a universal truth. It's also why murder is considered a sin in every country and society.
Kill the murderers. That firm promise creates order. Within that solid order, humans can live.
“However, I won't care even if they are murderers.”
Lyre vowed, devoid of emotion.
“Even if the ones I save become my father's toys and suffer, screaming for me to kill them. Even if they become material to fatten my father, or mere entertainment. I will heal my mother.”
Her father saw humans as objects to be fixed. His profession was to drain blood, tear flesh, and cut bone. Elder Luscynia wasn't content with modifying his own Ain; he laid his hands on humans as well. Even his consort and his own daughter.
Lyre, who inherited the Elder's blood and learned from his actions, unwillingly came to possess outstanding medical skills. Those skills were primarily used to treat her mother.
Something only possible for a bloodless, tearless vampire. From there, Luscynia conducted the forbidden experiment to break the Shackles, and as a result, he was killed. So that's what happened….
But.
The culprit is Valdamir. Everyone is pinning the crime on Lyre, and she herself believes it. But something happened in the gap between their perceptions.
“She's a strange one.”
Perhaps now, I can figure out what happened in that gap.
“How is that the same as killing someone? You're just a soft-hearted person who can't accept death. Why attach such a grandiose reason to it? Are you going through puberty?”
Tyr, who felt similarly, nodded in agreement. It would have been simpler to explain it as simple human compassion, but by plastering all these reasons onto it, the picture had become strange.
However, the Doctor Sage was a far more cold-blooded person than I had thought.
“I did become a vampire around that age. I suppose some influence remains.”
“Your honesty is making the picture even weirder!”
“It's the truth. Besides, I was in a position where I had to harbor such questions. The humans I saved would soon end up in the same state again.”
True. If an ordinary child in the Military State had such worries, I would have told them to wake up and face reality. But she happened to grow up as an Elder's daughter, where reality was drenched in blood, so it was understandable.
“If you had told Mr. Luscynia, wouldn't he have listened?”
“When I protested to my father about it, he said he would get rid of my worries and turned me into a vampire.”
“My apologies. Your family is more of a dysfunctional mess than I could have imagined.”
The more she talks, the deeper into the gutter it gets. Does one have to be pushed into such an extreme situation to create a twisted being like the Doctor Sage?
“The old me might have felt differently, but the current me can no longer feel sympathy. That's why I must establish a principle to guide my actions. If I don't attach a reason to it, I'll eventually forget why I'm moving at all.”
Just as Tyr hates the Sanctum, she has established it as a principle. That's how she can provide equal treatment to any human, regardless of who they are.
This must be why she became the Doctor Sage in the Regressor's future. She must have gone around saving humans with unchanging stubbornness.
Which raises an even bigger question. Once again, I read her memories as I spoke.
“Are you really sure you're the one who killed Luscynia?”
“Yes.”
Surprisingly, she was sincere. Which means it's the truth. After Luscynia's long efforts, she broke free from the Shackles, and she attempted to do the same to him.
But Luscynia was killed by Valdamir.
There's only one reason for this discrepancy in perception. Lyre failed to kill Luscynia.
“And you had the ability to kill Luscynia?”
“Yes. I'm certain.”
…It's not impossible.
Because the Blood Shackles had been twisted and distorted, Lyre was ejected from them. If Luscynia had resisted, she never would have succeeded, but with his tacit approval, it might have been possible. After all, even the strongest person will die if they don't resist.
However.
“I'll ask one last time.”
If you had the ability but failed, there can only be one reason, right?
“Do you truly hate your father? A person like you?”
Lyre couldn't answer this question easily. No matter how coldly one introspects, it's possible to not even know oneself.
Vampires are beings who prioritize reason over emotion. They are not fickle. The fact that they do not die or get injured makes them more like a phenomenon than a human.
The same was true for Tyr and Lyre, who were free from the Shackles and no longer bound by the Lord of Lords' commands. They needed a reason to act.
Still, they are human.
“Humans are more consistent creatures than you'd think. It's hard to be kind to all other humans while hating only your own father. It's also strange to try and kill only your father while vowing to heal all who are dying.”
I read the minds of humans. It sounds impressive, but it's limited to ‘humans’. I can't reproduce everything they saw, the smells they smelled, the tastes they savored, the textures they touched. Those things aren't left in memory. Only a filtered portion remains to be read.
Since the mind is not perfect, my ability to read it is not perfect either. If it were, I would know everything about how Luscynia thought, acted, and died.
But I do know the mind of the Lyre before me.
“Did you really want to kill Luscynia?”
Where her stubborn, twisted kindness came from.
“…I don't know.”
Lyre calmly faced her own heart. The cold rationality of a vampire allowed her to gaze dispassionately even at the deepest emotions within her.
“Even if I had craved affection, he made me a vampire. So I can feel no affection.”
Lyre impassively gathered her belongings. A bag containing sharp scalpels, forceps, and scissors. The things needed to sew up humans. In Luscynia's hands, they were used to create pain, but in Lyre's, they were tools used to alleviate it.
“Even if I had wanted to save him, he wished to die himself. So I had no choice but to kill him.”
One must be alive to feel pain. Luscynia was surprisingly adept at keeping humans alive. All of the Doctor Sage's detailed knowledge of the human body and its functions came from her father.
What is a parent to a child? They can be hated, they can be resented. But it's certain that they occupy a significant portion of one's life. Even if it's unwanted.
“Even if I had loved him. He commanded me to hate. So I hate him.”
And Luscynia, her father and her Lord of Lords, was most of Lyre's world. She walked unwanted paths because of him. The life of a vampire, the life of an Elder-killer. And now, the life of an Elder.
“He never gave me anything I wanted. In that case, I have no choice but to hate him, do I?”
After packing her things, Lyre bowed deeply to Tyr.
“Thank you for your help, Consort of the Progenitor.”
“Don't mention it. Let's just say I saved a person.”
“No. I'm talking about how you revealed every detail about my father. I'm satisfied that everyone now knows he was a man who deserved to die.”
It might have been different back then, but her hatred now seemed real. After offering her sincere thanks, Lyre departed, leaving the two of us alone.
“…So in the end, we didn't get to see what abilities she possesses.”
“I know. An ability to heal humans probably isn't very useful to vampires.”
“How about we bring someone in and injure them?”
“In front of all the vampires? Is this a slaughterhouse?”
“But she'd be bringing them back to life. If you think about it, wouldn't that be similar to a veterinarian?”
“Her ability is being a vet? That makes her qualifications seem a little lacking.”
I wonder if the Doctor Sage can prove her worth among Elders who are a menagerie of monsters with heinous titles like Puppeteer and Bloodweaver. It won't be easy.
Then, Tyr spoke as if to reassure me.
“Why would they be lacking? As it happens, my consort is also human. It wouldn't be a bad idea to keep a skilled doctor by his side.”
…The Doctor Sage ought to be grateful to me. If it weren't for me, she wouldn't have survived this easily.