Chapter 8 — Interlude: It Went So Well, It’s Starting to Go Bad
It had all been a dream. Her village had been destroyed; she had been kidnapped and enslaved. But it had all been a nightmare. None of it was real.
Euphemia awoke in her village with her family, and she was relieved to see that everyone was safe. But there were some things that seemed inconsistent. Something was wrong. The world she woke up in didn’t feel real. A sense of unease dominated the back of her mind, like the world had slid off its tracks.
She lived in a village hidden from ordinary people, a village of vampires. Even that clear and obvious fact gave her pause. Euphemia was an Origin Blood, the ruler of the vampires. Her daughter, Risley, was her successor. But those facts about her family and herself seemed somehow wrong to her.
While she was wrestling with that confusion, bizarre creatures began raining down from the sky. Luckily, there was a barrier around the village to prevent anyone but members of their own tribe from entering, so the creatures were kept out. But according to a man calling himself Sage Van, this event had taken place across the whole world.
Given the situation, she didn’t have time to entertain her delusions. She had no choice but to accept the truth before her and write off everything else as a result of that strange dream. Though they were safe within their barrier, being unable to safely leave made those inside uneasy.
One day, another message came to them. While she was eating lunch at home with her parents, her sister Theodisia, and her daughter Risley, they received a message from the Great Sage. The message was delivered to all intelligent life in the world, telling them that the world had been reset to some point from the past. He also explained that those killed by Yogiri Takatou had not come back after the reset.
That message triggered a flood of memories in Euphemia. Her people were actually a tribe known as half-demons, despised by the world. Their village had been destroyed by Yuuki Tachibana. Yuuki had taken her away, putting her completely under his control. After Yuuki’s death, the Sage and vampire Lain had drunk her blood, turning her into a vampire. After Lain’s death, Euphemia became an Origin Blood. She had then traveled the world with Risley, a girl Lain had left behind.
Recalling the details of the world before the reset, she finally realized what was different between her current and past self. With Lain’s disappearance, the reset had turned the tribe of half-demons into vampires to maintain consistency. Though the Origin Bloods had been created by the UEG, that goddess had also disappeared, but someone had felt vampires were still needed in the world. Even with the foundations of reality changed, it was as if the world didn’t want to give up on the fact that vampires existed. In truth, Euphemia shouldn’t have awakened as an Origin Blood for quite some time yet, but it had happened earlier to make everything else fit.
It had even given her a daughter despite the fact she had never been married. In their previous reality, Risley had been a clone created by Lain, but the child no longer had any physical connection whatsoever to Lain.
“This is...an issue.” Euphemia’s revelation left her bewildered. Before the reset, she had become an Origin Blood by chance. The sudden history of vampires that had been thrust onto her shoulders was more than she could bear.
“Mama... No, Euphemia?” Risley seemed similarly confused. That went for her parents and Theodisia, as well. They were all at a loss.
“It appears I am still something like a mother to you, so I don’t mind you referring to me as such...but it does beg the question.”
“Yeah. Who’s papa?”
“Exactly...” She had no memories of getting married, but that had never bothered her until just now. She had simply accepted that was how things were.
“I also have no memories of your supposed spouse,” Theodisia said. “Is it possible Risley was born through parthenogenesis? I imagine such a thing would be possible for an Origin Blood.”
Her sister’s suggestion was absurd, but Euphemia couldn’t rule it out.
“I think overanalyzing it is pointless. It feels like things were clumsily stitched together after the reset.”
Risley had been created by Lain, so it wasn’t out of the question to think an Origin Blood could create her own companions.
“More importantly, we need to think about Sir Takatou,” Theodisia said.
“Yes. I still feel loyalty to Lady Lain, so if I hope to resurrect her, I believe killing him would be the correct choice...”
“You can’t!” Risley cried out in shock, her feelings for Yogiri very much intact. Of course, it was hard to say how real they were. After all, her feelings for him may have been implanted in her by Lain in an attempt to protect her from Yogiri.
“But I also care about Risley. I understand that killing Takatou would be betraying her...” Caught in that contradiction, Euphemia couldn’t give an answer right away.
“Well, I don’t think there is any value in worrying about it. It’s not like we could ever beat Sir Takatou,” Theodisia said bluntly.
◇ ◇ ◇
“I see. It went so well that it’s starting to go bad. Is this a trap or something?”
Having killed Malna, Kouryu was in the room called Heavenly Throne. He was thinking about the message from the Great Sage.
The Great Sage had finally noticed Yogiri and was moving against him. He had designated Yogiri as an enemy of the world and was getting a huge number of people to attack him. This was not what Kouryu had been hoping for. Anyone who tried to attack Yogiri would die. Once Yogiri and the Great Sage were gone, Kouryu planned to continue ruling the world. He wanted to avoid people being killed unnecessarily before then.
That said, he had predicted something like this might happen. While Yogiri was here, it was inevitable that people would be killed by him.
“Hmm. It would be better if the Great Sage tried to deal with him directly...”
If the Great Sage tried to kill Yogiri personally, he would be killed in turn. That was the result Kouryu had been hoping for. He figured it would happen eventually, but he didn’t know when. The Great Sage would send others after Yogiri and watch intently for a time. It wouldn’t take long for him to realize that no one stood a chance against the boy. He would see that they were merely repeating the same thing over and over. At that point, the Great Sage would ideally make a move himself.
“I guess I’m stuck watching again for now?”
The Great Sage may have already been aware of Kouryu’s schemes. The fact that he hadn’t tried to stop him meant he didn’t see Kouryu as a threat. Kouryu wanted to keep things that way for as long as possible. If he drew attention at the wrong time, it would all be over.
“Not that there’s a whole lot I could do anyway.” After defeating Malna, he had reclaimed his place as god of this world. He had already done everything he could do himself. “The best I can do now is try to speed things along, I guess. If a lot of people all challenge Yogiri and fail right away, maybe the Great Sage will realize it’s pointless.”
In the end, this was just a way for the Great Sage to kill time. Once he got bored, he would try to clean things up immediately. But if Kouryu overplayed his hand, it was possible, in the worst case, that Yogiri would turn against him as well. It seemed that letting things play out on their own was really the best option.
“Oh, right, right. You wanted to finish things yourself...” he muttered to his companion.
The Hedgehog at his side seemed like it wanted to say something. It had come from another world to hunt a god. The machine had been fairly damaged when Kouryu had picked it up, but it seemed it was now raring to go.
“With Malna dead, the seal is gone. The goddess you’re after is probably back to her original form now, but she’s in Cavern Quest. I could send you there by force, but...I think it would be easier for you to take the proper way in.”
The Hedgehog was silent.
“Oh, can you not speak?” Kouryu had never heard the Hedgehog say anything. It looked every bit a machine. Though humanoid in form, its body was covered in blades. It had a face, but nothing like a mouth.
“But you’ve screamed before, right? Well, either way, let’s try and find a proper way for you to get in.”
The normal method of entering Cavern Quest was to say “Play Cavern Quest” out loud. But the actual mechanism of getting a player into the game was Van’s power, which operated through the Battlesong system. In short, if one pummeled the Battlesong interface with raw data, they could make it think someone had spoken.
As a system developed by the Great Sage, Battlesong wasn’t something Kouryu could control. But the system had a number of different interfaces, each with its own protocol, which, if followed, allowed the user to manipulate it to a degree.
Using the official interface, Kouryu sent a message indicating the Hedgehog’s desire to join Cavern Quest. The message was received, and the Hedgehog was admitted into the game.
“Oh, right. I should change your abilities to match the game too. I’ll make it so you can take quests without speaking.”
“That is...no issue. Speech...is possible.”
“Wait, you can talk?!”
“If necessary, vocal communication is possible.”
“It was necessary just now!”
As Kouryu stared at the Hedgehog in surprise, the machine vanished. Taking a look at Cavern Quest, he saw that the Hedgehog had made it there safely.
“In that case, you could have just joined whenever you wanted to...”
Even though it hadn’t been difficult, Kouryu felt like he had been tricked into unnecessary work.
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