EP.71 The Puppet Progenitor and the Unpleasant Puppet Show - Final
Bzzt.
An electric current stretched out from the tip of the skewer. It flowed along the True Blood, pierced into the Progenitor's heart, and then spread throughout his body following the blood vessels.
Thump.
The vampire's body reacted greatly to the familiar electric shock. His mouth opened slightly as a groan slipped out. The thrilling pleasure flowing through his heart, which his body had now learned.
It pulled the vampire's reason up from beneath a deep sleep,
and at the same time, Finlay began to scream like crazy.
"Uwaaaaaah!"
Blood squirmed all over Finlay's body. It looked as if thousands of earthworms were crawling beneath his skin. Blood poured from his nose, and the capillaries in his eyes burst, dyeing them red.
The blood throughout his body scattered in all directions. While Finlay crawled on the ground in extreme pain.
The vampire's heart beat again.
Focus returned to his hazy eyes. His pupils were dyed a deep red, like a sunset. A little life returned to his doll-like face.
While the surging blood and darkness all fell silent, waiting for the Progenitor's return.
The vampire began to move slowly.
"I had a dream."
The fight was over.
Rallion suddenly stopped fighting. The enraged Azi had torn Rallion's flesh into dozens of pieces, but this time, instead of regenerating, Rallion chose to flow toward the vampire's vicinity. Returning near the vampire, Rallion slumped down as if drained of strength.
"For a brief moment, I thought my dream had come true. However, it quickly slipped through my fingers. I wanted it so, so badly that I sought a way to have it."
"Your sleep-talking was a bit much, you know. That's what happens when you sleep in a coffin instead of a bed."
The True Blood that had settled in every corner of the Regressor's body slipped out. And then, it floated gently in the air and flew into the vampire.
The Regressor, who had gathered himself, walked through the stopped Black Knights and approached here.
"Was it a delusion? A lost life—did I overreach for something I shouldn't have dared to desire? I merely wished for it, so did I sin against the gods?"
"No. You just caused me trouble. I taught you so hard, but did you ever think how devastating it feels for me to see a trainee doing everything they were told not to do? You sinned against me before you sinned against any god."
The vampire muttered with darkly sunken eyes.
"Tell me. What did I do wrong? Dreaming a dream? Desiring a wish?"
"Well, there are many things, but the biggest one."
I raised my finger and pointed at his chest, which was exposing all his ribs, and said.
"How can someone who claims to be modest walk around with their chest fully exposed? It's embarrassing to look at. Please watch your conduct."
My answer was completely outside the vampire's expectations. I must have read his mind right.
Startled, the vampire's eyes widened round, but soon he smiled faintly.
"Hehe, I've seen it countless times, why make a fuss."
"It's fine if you only do it in front of me. That's a charm point."
"Ahaahaha!"
The vampire laughed loudly. He roared with laughter until it looked as if unshed tears were shimmering in his eyes, then belatedly covered his mouth.
"I'm sorry. I will restrain myself from now on."
"You'll have to put in a lot of effort. You've already lost an enormous amount of points with me. And not just with me, but with others too."
For a moment, the vampire looked around.
The small sun floating in the air, the scattered blood energy and darkness, the crumbled Black Knights, and the wounded, limping Rallion.
The Regressor walking with difficulty while clutching his chest, Azi with her clothes in tatters, and even Toyn's arm that had turned completely black.
Having surveyed everything once, the Progenitor murmured with a cloudy smile.
"That is a bit... regrettable."
And the vampire flicked his finger.
Finlay's severed scream resumed. The reason Finlay's screams hadn't been heard until now was that the vampire hadn't allowed him to scream.
Looking at Finlay writhing on the floor, the Progenitor spoke coldly.
"It seems a lot of time has passed. Now even respect is judged arbitrarily. So, how was the experience of moving me, even for a brief moment?"
"O Progenitor..."
The panting Finlay raised his head. A jaw sunken from missing teeth, cheeks discolored pitch-black, and veins still bulging erratically.
Looking a dreadful mess, Finlay desperately shouted as he looked up at the returned Progenitor.
"It is true that I have committed a crime I cannot bear, O Progenitor! But please listen! You must go to the surface! We desperately need you! The deepest blood, who will lead everyone to one place!"
"I will not go."
"Why, why is that?"
"There were a few reasons, but recently one more was added."
The vampire, who had gathered his parasol again, looked down at Finlay with eyes glowing red.
Eyes that used to show a brief light of warmth when facing kin, were endlessly cold when facing a traitor.
"Because a subordinate who desired such a thing deceived me, that wish will not come true."
Finlay's already dreadful face became dyed with even deeper despair. Briefly denying the situation, he soon spewed out his dregs of emotion as rage.
"Why!! O Progenitor! Why do you not help us!!"
Facing that unreasonable rage, the vampire showed no emotional agitation. The Progenitor, with a stopped heart, replied coldly without a sliver of wavering.
"I am not a being that helps you. You did not help me, either."
"Everyone is waiting for you! You who made us, who created this blood, our very root! You must lead us! To victory, to glory!"
"What I gifted you was merely an extension of life. Victory, glory. I have no memory of promising such things."
Finlay's expression turned idiotic.
What one gains by becoming a vampire is a reprieve from death.
Instead of a stopped heart, they receive the Progenitor's power and move their blood with Blood Control. That is why all vampires, despite having met death once, can walk the earth.
The vampires whose numbers increased like that sneaked among humans, worked in the shadows, and came to be called the nobles of the night. Some great vampires even became masters of a principality.
However.
The Progenitor never promised that.
"We revered you!! Then why, why do we not receive any reward?!"
However, reason does not always follow logic, and the more one is driven to the brink, the more thinking tends to rush to extremes.
Finlay spat out words haphazardly without any logic. As if demanding to be hit by a randomly thrown stone.
Of course, to the Progenitor who had lived for 1,200 years, it didn't work at all.
"You are noisy."
Snap. Finlay's voice was cut off. He opened his mouth wide, but no sound leaked through the gap.
"Even your breathing grates on me."
His breath was severed.
"Even moving your body with my authority grates on me."
His blood flow, which had been returning via Blood Control, also stopped just like that.
For a single moment, Finlay, whose life-sustaining activities had all ceased, could only roll his eyes. Fear arrived a little late simply because he couldn't comprehend the situation.
Only then did Finlay face his death more objectively.
'No. If I die like this. My blood lord, our kin, and the race of vampires.'
"Everything from you not knowing your place and running wild, all of it."
Click. As the vampire snapped his fingers, the blood in his shoulder blade began to swirl.
The blood fiercely rotating inside the blood vessels, at some point became even more intense and sharper, and then ground away the flesh as it grew larger and larger.
And at some point, Finlay's right arm burst open with a bang.
Not even allowed to scream, Finlay could only glare his eyes and writhe in agony.
'Keok, keuhhhh. W-why. It hurts so much. I am, a noble of the night!'
However, the pain was not over yet.
Because he still had one arm and two legs left.
Click.
The blood pooling in his left arm ground through his body like a saw blade. Finlay tried to twist his body as he let out a mental scream. However, since he wasn't even allowed to move, Finlay's body only trembled violently.
Click.
This time it was the left leg. The blood vessels snapped strand by strand and ran wild. The blood vessels running wild like whips tore his entire body apart. Droplets of blood leaked out from between his skin.
'It hurts aaaaagh! Cough, heok! It hurts, it hurts!'
Click.
The last right leg. This time, the blood droplets turned sharp like needles and raked through his body. At the pain of needles roaming through his blood vessels, Finlay's mind half-snapped.
Eventually, when all his limbs had fallen off.
Finlay, with half his spirit gone, repeated only one thought.
'I... was not wrong... Something someone had to do...'
The last dying words to protect his mind. A single rope he clung to in order to preserve his dignity at the very end.
The vampire didn't feel even a shred of pity seeing Finlay writhing like a bug. He simply did what he had to do, indifferently.
"-And even your living. It is extremely annoying."
I stepped forward to stop the vampire, who was about to kill Finlay right away.
"Wait a moment, Trainee Tirkanjaka."
I felt a bizarre craving.
Why, in childhood, doesn't one have a slightly devilish mischievousness?
What reaction would a marching ant show when it falls alone?
A spider coming down hanging from a thin web, how hard must it be shaken to fall?
A frayed and worn rope, how much more must it be pulled to snap strand by strand?
"Hello, Finlay."
Sorry, Finlay.
Even if you must go, you should at least be honest with your own heart.
"I gave you a chance, too. Everyone here had a chance to choose. But you, you made the most stupid choice."
'...I, for the kin...'
"But you know, right? There was a chance to turn back in the middle. And you clearly realized that. Even if you had gone up to the surface with Tirkanjaka and returned to the Mist Principality... The fact that a lowly Yeirling dared to try to control the Progenitor is a grave sin that would never be forgiven."
'...I know. My life... is not, worth...'
"The excuse that you did it for the kin. That's really nice. But let's be a little more honest, shall we?"
The last rope he barely holds onto even at the brink of death.
But knowing its true nature, I couldn't bear not to touch it.
"When you deceived and tried to control the Progenitor. The safety of the blood lord you so revered and served, and the kin you wanted to make great even at the cost of your life... you didn't think about any of it, did you?"
'...What?'
You're finally looking this way.
I smiled and asked the vampire with an exaggerated attitude, as if putting on a play.
"Trainee Tirkanjaka! Finlay has committed the grave sin of daring to covet the Progenitor's power! This is the first time in vampire history, an atrocious insubordination that will never happen again! Then, how should Finlay, who committed that grave sin, be punished?"
To my question, the vampire retorted with an attitude as if asking why I was questioning the obvious.
"Extinction of the clan."
'...Ext, inction?'
The two words carved clearly into his fading reason.
Extinction of the clan. A terrible and harsh punishment containing the malice to completely annihilate a bloodline, to sever it from its very roots.
What only existed in the principality but was never actually carried out, the Progenitor Tirkanjaka casually brought up.
"A mere subordinate dared to overstep and try to control me. The sin of a subordinate against a higher bloodline must be paid by their blood lord."
But what Finlay didn't know.
1,200 years? No, even just a few hundred years ago, clan extinction was a very commonly used punishment.
'Wait, a moment. Don't tell me.'
It seems he finally realized what he had done.
This is why the generation gap is scary.
To tell him a more accurate story, I asked the vampire.
"Then what happens to someone like Count Erte?"
"Is he not Finlay's blood lord?"
The vampire had a non-beating heart. 1,200 years ago, in that era of chaos and darkness, the vampire was born. Once as a human, and then once as a vampire.
The Progenitor sympathizes with the fate of those he created. He sympathizes with those who cannot face the sun and are despised by humans.
However, sympathy does not lessen the sin. The punishment is not commuted.
"Then, he must disappear. Valemir will be disappointed."
A chilling declaration. Finlay trembled as he felt the coldness steeped within it.
'No.'
Finlay glared and shouted. Since his mouth was closed, it was only in his mind.
'Even if you are the Progenitor, you can't just kill that person so freely! He is a meritorious retainer of the Red Blood Duke! It was, it was entirely my own arbitrary decision! My blood lord...!'
Denying.
'How can a Progenitor who never even showed his face! Do as he pleases with a meritorious retainer of the principality!'
Getting angry.
'Please! This is my own arbitrary decision. The kin have no sin!'
Begging.
However, those desperate thoughts were only conveyed to me.
I crouched beside him and said.
"Finlay. You knew the answer. When you fabricated your lies, you rationalized that it was all for the blood lord and the kin."
A mind for others, that's really good, but there's one problem.
It's often used as a reason to justify oneself, and yet, for something so cherished, it's surprisingly often neglected.
In other words, saying it's for the blood lord is just a psychological tool. Like a saw or a hammer.
"Then why didn't you think about what would happen to the blood lord and the kin when you got caught? Did you not have time to think? Was it such a terrible future that you refused to think about it? Or was it simply not that important?"
It wasn't that important. Because, Finlay's true intention was.
"Because I am an awesome vampire who can control the Progenitor. Because I became a god for a moment. I couldn't even think of the likes of the kin."
His body trembles. Fear drifts in Finlay's eyes. His limbs have all fallen off and are gone, yet his mind, which still hasn't accepted that fact, is reaching out to me. In his illusion, a desperately trembling hand stretches out. That hand grabs my hand and begs.
'No! N-no! You can't!'
"Goodbye, Finlay. Your love, your reverence, your loyalty was the kind of emotion you briefly forget. Well, it can't be helped. People have a very good ability to erase unimportant things from their minds."
'Ah. I am.'
"Still, you achieved a feat no one else could. A mere subordinate controlling the Progenitor. It will definitely remain in history. Even if your kin won't."
'Was I simply blind.'
"Please let him go, Tirkanjaka."
And Finlay's thoughts stopped.
As the vampire took back his remaining authority, the extension of life met its end today.
I closed Finlay's eyes. It didn't mean much. Because his flesh would soon crumble like dust.
Still, to the soul that barely became honest at the very end. I expressed a small mourning.
Silence flowed. The light of the pseudo-sun shining in the air also faded, and the sun began to set.
The untimely funeral was over, and I rose to my feet. The vampire, who had quietly waited until I moved, spoke to me.
"I will pass the punishment on Finlay's kin slowly. I cannot go up to the surface right away, can I."
Punishment?
Who cares about that.
It wasn't that I particularly wanted to kill all of Finlay's kin. I just wanted him to acknowledge his true feelings.
Rather.
"Um, but Trainee Tirkanjaka. Do you happen to know that?"
I'm on the side that opposes things like guilt by association.
"Guilt by association was recently abolished."
"What?"
"These days, there are hardly any cases where the family is punished just because someone committed a crime. Even if there are cases of repaying money with joint liability."
The vampire was greatly surprised. While he was always experiencing other skills, changes in moral views were hard for the vampire to easily accept.
The vampire, encountering new knowledge anew, opened his eyes wide and asked.
"Then how can you punish crimes, and if someone runs away cutting off their tail like Finlay, how will you hold them accountable?"
A pure question expressed with sparkling eyes.
I felt like if I answered each one, I'd have to explain for days, so I answered roughly.
"I'm not the one who abolished it."