EP.73 The Homunculus' Dilemma - Continued
The training room on the 4th floor of Tartarus. There, the Regressor was preparing for the Immortal's resurrection.
Even for an Immortal who does not die when killed, the curse eating away at their body in this place disconnected from the Earth Mother Goddess is fatal. Perhaps the immortal corpse golem that devoured dozens of villages in the past might appear again.
It was still a question where such a quantity of corpses came from, but they couldn't just leave the Immortal alone to solve that question.
Therefore, the Regressor decided to empty out her recovery items to lift the curse consuming the Immortal's arm and restore her body.
'If I intervene and the Immortal opens her eyes now, it means deviating from the original history, but.... It's already twisted enough. Knowing how the Immortal was cursed is sufficient.'
Discovering the fact that the Immortal and the Vampire were entangled in this way was a huge harvest in itself.
She could dig deeper if she wanted to, but.... In the current situation, the Regressor's mind was distracted by another question.
'Just what is his identity?'
Even while making a precious recovery potion, referencing the recipe learned from the Medicine Immortal in the previous round and even adding the leaves of the World Tree, the question did not leave the Regressor's mind.
'He's definitely hiding something. Deflecting the Cheonaeng, seeing through my disguise, dodging Finlay's attack like a sleight of hand. None of that is ordinary skill. But.'
According to her intuition, there was something about him. Something that even she, who had seen all sorts of things during thirteen regressions, did not know.
However.
'How should I put this.... Why doesn't he feel any sense of intimidation at all? At a glance, he just looks like a weakling!'
Wait a minute, time out.
A weakling? Even if it's true, still. You really say that?
'His running is slow too. His reactions are sometimes so fast that even I find it creepy, yet considering that, his movements are so sluggish they make me yawn! Is he strong? That doesn't seem to be the case either. He's never shown any swordsmanship. Even with the Immortal's right arm, he only tapped it lightly like a rapier, never properly swinging it!'
Huh? When I smacked Finlay at the end, I really hit him with all my might? Even one of Finlay's teeth came out?
You saw the best swing of my life and you say I didn't properly swing it?
'Uuuugh. I'm so curious I'm going crazy. If I could just spar with him once, just once, I'd know! Or even if I just had a chance to examine his bare body!'
Just what kind of thoughts are you walking around with.
Before she fell into even stranger thoughts, I couldn't hold back and ran down the corridor, throwing the door open.
"Trainee Shea. Are you ready?"
"Huh? Yeah, roughly."
The Regressor answered half-heartedly, looking me up and down. Her eyes narrowed into slits, as if she thought she could see through my clothes just by looking like that.
'Standard-issue shirt.... Umm. As expected, the body isn't visible at all above the shirt.... Damn military state. They made the clothing packet unnecessarily well.'
Really, you should be thankful that people in the world can't use telepathy. If they could, you'd be the first one locked up somewhere. It's only because I'm benevolent that I'm just reading your thoughts and letting it slide....
'The piercing eyes only see bones when used on a person... The looking-down eyes can't see the hidden parts either... Then I guess I have no choice but to peek with farsighted eyes when he changes clothes or takes a bath...'
Cancel. Even I can't let that slide.
This won't do. I need to administer some shock therapy before this peeping Regressor's thoughts fly off into space.
I shouted loudly at the Regressor, who was still staring at me intently.
"Trainee Shea!"
"Huh? Why? Suddenly."
Having called the Regressor, I immediately crossed my arms in an X shape, shyly averted my gaze, and spoke.
"Um, well. Could you please refrain from looking at me with such eyes? It makes me feel dirtied just by you looking."
The Regressor's head creaked. It was because an excessive amount of information rushed in momentarily, paralyzing her reason for a moment.
'...What kind of bullshit is that? Why is his face blushing? What's with that creepy pose? What? Shy? Dirtied by my gaze? I was simply trying to peek at his body. Huh? Wait. Maybe my gaze was too overt...'
Piecing together the fragmented information, and connecting her own situation with my words and actions.
The Regressor, who finally realized the true meaning of my words, flared up and yelled.
"What kind of nonsensical bullshit is that!!"
"You just looked at my body! From head to toe, every corner, with lustful eyes that said you wanted to strip me if you could!"
"I didn't look with lustful eyes!"
"Is it true you want to strip me? People of the world! Look over here! Trainee Shea is trying to take off my clothes!"
"Hey!"
As I ran away screaming, the Regressor, without even properly grasping the situation, instinctively chased after me like a cat hunting a mouse.
"Wait! Stop!"
"No! Don't come! Help me!"
"Stop saying things that cause misunderstandings!"
"Waaaaah!"
When I didn't stop screaming, the Regressor gritted her teeth, closed the distance, and gripped the Cheonaeng.
'This won't do! Let me cut the air first so the sound can't leak out, and then use my hands!'
No, cowardly! Trying to use force despicably in the middle of a righteous public opinion campaign.
If you draw your sword, won't I lose? I stopped abruptly while running away and spun half a turn on the spot. The Regressor, who was about to cut the air, hastily stopped her steps, almost bumping into my chest.
"Geez. Don't react so big to a joke, Trainee Shea. I might think you're serious."
"...What? Suddenly?"
"You're not really trying to peek at a unsightly body like mine, are you? Trainee Shea is a person with at least a minimum of morals, after all."
"T-That's right."
"Even if you say you like men."
"That's not it!!"
The Regressor shouted at the top of her lungs. I tilted my head and asked back.
"Huh? Didn't you say you liked men last time? And you washed Aji too."
The Regressor, who had unknowingly gotten stuck with a bizarre concept, couldn't bring herself to deny it and made excuses.
"No, it's not that I don't! I don't like you! To me, you are...! Right! No different from a toilet bowl!"
"...No, that's a bit suggestive in many ways."
"I didn't mean that! It means you're that filthy! Ugh, what should I say?!"
'A passerby? That makes it sound like I care! A stone on the road? There are no stones in the Bottomless Pit!'
"Um, what you compare me to isn't important at all, is it?"
"Anyway, something worthless!"
"Yees, yees. Let's go back to the training room first, okay? We have to revive Mr. Rash, whom we owe for lending us his arm, don't we?"
"Our? You must have used it!"
I coaxed the fuming Regressor and went back to the training room.
Only then did the Regressor's thoughts reach the recovery potion bubbling in the large cauldron, and she finally remembered what she was trying to do.
"Ah, right! The Immortal's right arm?"
"Here it is."
I handed over the box filled to the brim with flesh. The Regressor checked the contents and contorted her face.
"Ugh. Horrible. This person must be the first Immortal in the world to suffer such a fate."
"It can regenerate, right?"
"It's possible. If only the curse is lifted, the rest will attach itself as long as the essence of the earth is supplied... Though I don't know how long that will take."
After packing the box and setting it down next to the cauldron, the Regressor suddenly looked around.
"Where's Tirkanjaka? Didn't she say she'd pick this up?"
"Trainee Tirkanjaka has returned to the underground armory."
"Really? Is she tired? Well, that's possible."
"And Trainee Shea, I have a favor to ask."
At the word 'favor', the Regressor showed a questioning reaction.
"You? What is it?"
"Just this."
I handed the Regressor the note I had prepared.
"I'm planning to go somewhere for a bit, so read it while I'm gone."
By the time I finished speaking, the Regressor had already unfolded the note and was reading the first sentence. The Regressor alternated looking at me and the letter with a slightly apologetic look, and said in a sullen voice.
"It's because you talk too slowly. You should have warned me before I read it."
"Isn't it just that your personality is too impatient? Well, there's nothing much to it, so since you've opened it, might as well read it."
'What. I thought it was some incredibly important content since you gave me a note.'
The Regressor, who glared at me sullenly, began to read the remaining half.
'Prepare three meals for Aji. Regenerate the Immortal. And important, until someone comes out from inside, absolutely do not open the door to the underground armory...?'
The note's content ended. The Regressor fluttered the note and asked me.
"What does the last sentence mean?"
"Ah. Exactly as it sounds. I'm going to perform an incredibly important ritual in there, so you absolutely must not open the door or disturb the ritual."
"...You said Tirkanjaka is in there right now."
"Yes."
"What kind of ritual?"
"A ritual of heart resurrection."
"Who's doing that?"
"Me."
Hmm. The Regressor, who nodded slightly, immediately sharpened her gaze and interrogated me.
"What are you trying to do?"
As expected, she didn't just let it go. I anticipated it.
The Regressor's interference was expected anyway. She wouldn't just stand by and watch me and the vampire be isolated together in a place.
Besides that, I had to be undisturbed during the ritual, so I needed someone to guard against the approach of others.
Persuading the Regressor was essential.
Having no other choice, I lowered my voice and began to speak.
"Trainee Shea. If I said I would make Trainee Tirkanjaka's heart beat again, what would you do?"
"I would firmly call you a fraud, you fraud."
As expected, the Regressor immediately pointed it out.
"Because of that dilemma?"
"...Why ask when you know? You know it too. All vampires are homunculi. The most famous kind of homunculus in the world, who, despite being dead, receive the blood of the Progenitor instead of a stopped heart and move their bodies by sheer will."
"So they are bound by various restrictions. Like not being able to disobey the Blood Lord, or not being able to use magic other than Blood Magic."
The answer flowed smoothly from my mouth as well. The Regressor interrogated me with a puzzled face.
"You made such an offer to Tirkanjaka knowing that? Are you serious, or is it a joke? I really don't know what you're after anymore."
"I am genuinely hoping for Trainee Tirkanjaka's resurrection."
"That attitude of yours is what I don't get. I need to be able to believe you at least."
'...But, while periodically touching Tirkanjaka's heart up until now, he hasn't done anything. Rather, he warned of the danger and even protected her from Finlay.... He probably has no bad intentions. If he did, he would have moved even before Finlay.'
Whether it was her nature or not, she was still sharp, but even so, her wariness towards me had thinned. It seemed that fighting alongside Finlay had worked somewhat positively.
The Regressor, having dropped her hostility, conveyed the facts she knew to me.
With an ambiguous attitude, not knowing herself whether she was persuading me or giving me information.
"The moment you overcome death with magic... it's over. That can never be reversed. The moment the mystery of attaching lives together ends, that body meets a delayed death.... Without even a chance for treatment or resurrection, it will crumble into dust and disappear. Because with another's magic, you can never save yourself...."
"Yes. Exactly that."
I said that to emphasize the impossibility, but Regressor. Good point.
Because that's exactly where the clue lies.
"The Homunculus' Dilemma, containing the truth that you can never save yourself with another's magic."
"...? Why are you saying something everyone knows?"
"As with all old sayings, within a warning hides a piece of advice."
"Isn't it telling you to be careful of magic?"
"Haha. No. If everyone in the world thought as simply as Trainee Shea, what use would dilemmas or proverbs be?"
"...Are you trying to pick a fight right now?"
Of course not. I'd lose.
I raised a finger and emphasized.
"You cannot save yourself with another's magic. In other words, the only person who can save you is yourself."
"That's just an obvious statement."
"Now I'll tell you one more thing."
I raised another finger with a relaxed smile.
"Among the many, many vampires, there is exactly one who is not a homunculus. A being who revived their dying body with their own power, not the power of another. Who would that be?"
She might not know everything, but the Regressor knows how to digest even unfamiliar knowledge.
The Regressor, who had encountered information beyond imagination during 13 regressions, had developed a personality where, no matter how hard the information was to believe, as long as it made sense, she would accept it first.
"The first vampire, the Progenitor Tirkanjaka?"
Correct, a reward. I clapped for the Regressor who got the answer perfectly.
"Very well done. That's the correct answer."
"Since she moved her body herself when death came, reviving again is possible too...? Certainly, it's not impossible. Even if her power is reversed, it's still her own..."
However, the Regressor's murmur was brief. Calculating for a while with a dark expression, the Regressor eventually squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
"But it's only not impossible, it's so difficult it's close to impossible. Even if you reverse the power, the target to return to disappeared 1,200 years ago. On top of that, Tirkanjaka's power is the Blood Ancestral Art. With that, she has obtained, dominated, and ruled countless things. Tirkanjaka, whose boundary between herself and the world has blurred to the point where taking her heart out poses no problem at all..."
Death is the thinning of the boundary between oneself and the world.
The Progenitor Tirkanjaka is the being closest to death among those who are not yet dead.
The Queen of Blood who spread her blood all over the world to increase her vassals, and dominated everything that touched it. No life has approached conceptual death closer than her.
Therefore, for the Progenitor to reclaim her life... the distance she must return is farther than any other being in the world.
"It won't work."
Even for someone who isn't a Regressor who saw the end and returned, it's a situation that would make anyone a pessimist. Virtually impossible—that's the prospect of this plan that everyone sees.
But what if it's me?
"I'm going to try. So please guard the door in the meantime. Make sure no one comes in."
"...Try if you want."
The Regressor, who was about to accept it, suddenly had a question and asked.
"By the way, how do you know about this?"
'I didn't even think of it, but a mere military state instructor who isn't even a mage knows this...?'
No, why does she think she's the center of the world. Just because you don't know it doesn't mean no one else does.
You soul trapped in the valley of ignorance. Let me correct you.
Recalling the old days, I picked and imitated the most insufferable expression I could think of. Then, letting out a smirk, I scratched my temple.
"That's something only the top student of the entire Central Military Academy can know. An elementary graduate wouldn't be able to figure it out even if they died, woke up, and were beaten to death."
"Hey!"
As expected, the Regressor flared up in anger, and I quickly ran away. The Regressor, who was holding onto the cauldron, only growled and didn't chase after me.
This should have conveyed it. I left the training room through the back door, waving my hand.
"It'll take about a day or two for now. I leave it in your hands. Ah, don't stare at the note too hard!"
"Tch. Finish it quickly!"
After closing the training room door, I headed to the underground armory where the vampire would be waiting.
*****
'If Finlay had come in the previous round, would he have succeeded, or would he have failed? From here on, it's completely uncharted territory... But Finlay and the instructor clashed with each other. Seeing that a war eventually broke out afterward, it seems the instructor failed. Hmph, I somehow didn't trust him.'
'Then is the attempt to resurrect Tirkanjaka a countermeasure devised after feeling a sense of crisis following Finlay's appearance? It's probably impossible, but... Certainly, it's not 0%. There is a possibility.'
'If, although it's highly unlikely, but just in case.... If that is possible, from the next round onward, I might be able to win Tirkanjaka over a bit faster. Let's trust and watch.'
'...By the way, what does it mean not to stare at the note too hard? Another meaningless remark. Huh? Indentations?'
'...Don't tell me, this bastard!'
'Eye of Depth. Looking at the indentations with this, hidden letters emerge. Why put so much effort into such a useless thing...? Tsk. Let's just read it for now.'
'Do not go to the cafeteria, do not carelessly touch me even if my condition becomes strange after it's over, and if by any chance supplies arrive, use them on myself...?'
'What? What the hell is he plotting?'