EP.76 Loss of Self
Thump, thump.
An unfamiliar sound echoes in the quiet room. A small, frail beating like that which a newborn bird might play, too faint to hear even if one strained their ears.
The most primal music offered by the heart.
A unique beat possessed by a living being, with a rhythmic pulse and the unique variations branching out from it.
Within that rhythm, Tirkanjaka opened her eyes.
Tirkanjaka hurriedly raised her body like a child who had slept for far too long. Staring blankly at the darkness, Tirkanjaka soon fumbled over her own body and face with a flustered expression.
"When... did I fall asleep?"
She was definitely awake until the middle. Before her eyes, she saw him sitting with his eyes gently closed. He was clearly doing something, but even with all her experience, Tirkanjaka could not fathom what he was doing.
So Tirkanjaka lay still and watched him.
Tirkanjaka was accustomed to waiting. If she hadn't been, she couldn't have endured such a long time. She had spent entire days quietly watching the flowing night sky for no reason at all, and when she felt like it, she would burrow underground and sleep for about a hundred years.
Quietly staring at a person's face for just a few hours or a few days was no problem at all.
Examining his face from every angle wasn't all that boring, either.
At some point, he, who had been sitting as if dead, moved. While Tirkanjaka briefly wondered at the unannounced action, his hand slowly reached toward the card she was holding.
His fingers touched the card, and then Tirkanjaka's body.
At that moment, Tirkanjaka lost consciousness.
She didn't know how long she had been asleep. What woke her was the rhythmic beating of a heart felt within her body.
Like a wanderer returning home after a long time, it was a flutter that felt unfamiliar, yet naturally melted into the scenery at some point....
"He...art?"
The moment she realized that, Tirkanjaka hastily brought both hands to her chest. Cupping her palms and quietly feeling the beat, she soon let out a gasp of sheer dismay.
"That's... impossible."
Her heart was beating. Undeniably, without a shadow of a doubt.
It wasn't slow. Nor was it mechanically regular.
It was so natural that even Tirkanjaka failed to notice it for a moment, and at the same time, it was a tremor so longing that it evoked nostalgia from the distant past.
It wasn't a fleeting spark that flared up and then died down, like when electricity was sent through the heart. This was, unmistakably, her own beating.
It had beaten in the past, and it would continue to do so in the future. Tirkanjaka knew this by instinct.
"No way. He actually did it... How on earth."
Tirkanjaka inspected her body. Having reached the pinnacle of the Blood Manipulation Art, capable of controlling every single drop of blood in her body, she carefully traced the traces back, making sure not to damage the heart.
An ordinary person would never have noticed. But Tirkanjaka, who had honed her Blood Manipulation Art for 1,200 years and even manipulated blood outside her body, quickly figured out what had happened.
And then, she was engulfed in questions.
"Blood Manipulation... Art? How, when he's not even a vampire? I only taught Shay..."
Learning the Blood Manipulation Art was not impossible if one set their mind to it. Tirkanjaka in her lifetime had comprehended it on her own, and Shay had quickly mastered it in just a few weeks.
Judging solely by its roots, the Blood Manipulation Art was a type of Qi Gong based on understanding.
However, no matter how much one learned the Blood Manipulation Art, normally the limit was controlling the blood within one's own body. Shay knew this too, and focused only on stopping blood loss or reinforcing her own body. Unless talent, coincidence, and experience united to bloom like they did for Tirkanjaka, extending the Blood Manipulation Art into another person's body was nigh impossible.
Yet he had changed Tirkanjaka with the Blood Manipulation Art. And not just that.
"The things I threw away... The things I discarded to survive in the past..."
Long ago, the things she had to discard just to survive.
Things she pushed to a corner of her memory and neglected for eons.
Things so ancient that she eventually forgot they even existed.
All of that was contained within a single card in her chest. Like an old diary kept safely in the corner of a drawer, like a treasure box buried deep in the earth holding memories.
A profound nostalgia brushed Tirkanjaka's heart.
Tears fell.
This too, was surely something Tirkanjaka had lost.
Shedding tears of joy and longing, Tirkanjaka repeated in a moist voice.
"Thank you. Truly, thank you. You really did it for me..."
Naturally, she had many questions.
How he knew of such memories, the memories of her body that even she herself had no choice but to forget.
How he could contain them in a single card and imprint it into Tirkanjaka.
How he could use the Blood Manipulation Art when she hadn't even taught him.
She was curious about all of it... but those were secondary matters.
"Thank you. How I should repay this grace... just say the word."
Tears welling up. With the tears she had once forgotten pooling at the corners of her eyes, Tirkanjaka smiled brightly and spoke to him.
"If it is something I can give, I will give you anything. Tell me."
He had his head sunk low as if exhausted, and was nodding off to sleep.
She wanted to let him sleep like this, but he wouldn't be able to sleep well in a place without even a proper bed. Tirkanjaka reached out with the intention of waking him.
Her hand touched his shoulder. Reacting to that, he raised his head. Unfocused eyes met Tirkanjaka's.
"...you."
Tirkanjaka waited for the words to come from his mouth, ready to willingly accept whatever demand he might make.
Because what he had given her was something that precious.
"Who... are you?"
However.
The tender moment was fleeting.
The words that came from his mouth left even Tirkanjaka aghast.
Shay had been keeping watch over the underground armory for days, unable to sleep properly.
It had already been three days since the Instructor said he would perform some kind of ritual with Tirkanjaka. Since that day, that solid steel door had not opened even once.
Not even the slightest sound came from inside, and since the interior was solid steel, she couldn't peer through it either. She just had to wait outside for whenever the door would open.
'What on earth are they doing? He's not doing anything weird, is he...?'
Shay shook her head.
It was a pointless thought. In the first place, vampires couldn't feel any desires other than the thirst for blood and reverence for the Blood Lord, and he hadn't shown any suspicious attitudes so far. That would be a leap of logic.
However, honestly, the Instructor was partly to blame for Shay's growing suspicions. What kind of ritual required him to act so deviously?
'Tch...! If it's going to take three days, he should have explained it more in detail! I couldn't even sleep properly because I was so curious!'
Around the time she was pointlessly blaming him out of frustration, unable to relieve this stifling feeling.
"Woof!"
Azhi approached with a ball in his mouth. While the Regressor sat in the courtyard watching the door, the bored Azhi considered it a prelude to playtime and would demand Shay to play ball with him.
Shay, wanting to maintain a good relationship with Azhi, always obliged whenever such requests came.
However, the process and results of her playing with him were a bit different from how he used to do it. Shay, holding the ball, lifted Cheonaeng with her other hand.
"Thousand Sword Art: Tailwind."
"Woof?"
Before Azhi could even react, Shay swung Cheonaeng and sent the ball flying. Wrapped in wind, the ball soared and dropped on its own, flying all over the courtyard.
It was when Shay, having gained a brief moment of respite, went back to glaring at the closed door.
Azhi didn't even think about chasing the ball and flopped down, slapping the ground at Shay's feet. Shay's gaze turned back to Azhi.
"Azhi? What's wrong?"
Then Azhi cried out with a face full of dissatisfaction.
"Woof! You're not playing! Only I'm playing!"
"Huh?"
"Woof! Woof woof! You're no fun!"
"No, no, wait a minute."
It seemed his complaints had piled up quite a bit. Azhi, who usually played by himself and occasionally slipped away, barked at Shay incessantly this time, as if he had firmly made up his mind.
The Dog King, endlessly benevolent to humans.
Faced with the king's dissatisfaction, Shay couldn't easily respond.
"No, I was just. Um, trying to make it a bit easier."
"Woof woof woof!"
Did she take the Dog King, benevolent to humans, too lightly?
It seemed this approach wasn't going to work. Shay sighed and called the ball back. The ball, flying through the air on the wind, was caught in Shay's hand.
"Alright. From now on, I won't use any tricks and will throw it with my hand. Are you satisfied now?"
"Arf! No! Arf arf!"
Azhi barked loudly once and whipped his body away from Shay. Rejected by the supposedly good-natured Dog King, Shay could only foolishly stare at his retreating figure.
Shay muttered, messing up her own hair.
"...Ugh. I don't get it. How on earth did that guy get along so well with Azhi?"
She felt a bit reluctant to admit it, but Shay was secretly hoping for his return. Because there was no one else to resolve the numerous scattered questions, nor anyone else to solve the immediate problems.
She would never admit it, but she might have even grown a bit fond of him.
It was then. The door opened.