I'm fucked.

That was the conclusion I reached after careful consideration.

I appeared to be thoroughly fucked.

Regret washed over me the moment I stepped into the underground armory. I probably would have felt more comfortable walking into a whale's mouth. At least whales didn't live on human blood.

This was a domain of night where a vampire, a monster that sucked human blood, had dwelled for decades. From the moment I set foot inside, the blood circulating through my body no longer belonged to me. It churned beneath my veins, surging in one direction. The very thing that should have been breathing life into my body kept twitching, trying to break free.

Mind reading couldn't solve this. If the vampire decided to kill me, the instant she formed that murderous intent... my body would become a shriveled mummy before I even had a chance to resist.

Was the Regressor all right? With her keen sensitivity to energy, she must have been feeling even greater pressure.

'What tremendous energy. Her power is practically the same as in the previous run... But this is before [that incident]. Will she be more violent, or more gentle? Will Tyrkanzyaka lend me her strength before [that problem] is resolved?'

What was [that incident]? What was [that problem]? Please, couldn't you stop thinking things only you understood and at least recall something?

'No point worrying. I haven't recovered enough strength to fight Tyrkanzyaka yet anyway. If I die, I die.'

All right. That was far enough. It was now clear that staying out of the Regressor's affairs was the best policy. For some people, this was just one of countless lives they could rewind, but for me, it was the only life I had.

If I die, I die? Ten lives wouldn't be enough to keep up with someone who thought like that.

I spun around and headed for the door.

"Well, Trainee Shei. Since you're the only one with business here, I'll be taking my lea—"

SLAM.

The iron door shut right in front of my eyes. The sigil flashed with an eerie red light, as though telling me not to even think about it.

The Regressor snorted at my devastated expression.

"Sure. Goodbye. If you can leave, that is."

My retreat was cut off. Pitch-black darkness enveloped me, so complete I couldn't even see my own body. With a sigh, I followed the Regressor.

"What? I thought you were leaving."

"On second thought, I ought to determine why you visited the underground armory, Trainee Shei. May I accompany you for a while?"

"Suit yourself."

Now that we'd come this far, our fates were tied together anyway. The Regressor readily nodded. I felt my way forward through the pitch darkness with a hand against the wall. I couldn't see the ground beneath my feet, and it was slightly slippery, so even taking a single step required considerable concentration.

Damn it. There should be stairs up ahead. What if I slipped all the way down? If a supposed Military State instructor slipped in the armory, I wouldn't just be laughed at. I'd arouse suspicion.

More importantly, how was the Regressor going to handle this darkness?

'Seven-Colored Eyes, open. Blue Eyes.'

Just then, the Regressor poked her own eyes with her fingers. Glittering tears welled up and began to burn blue. Even in the light-devouring darkness, those blue flames traced the outlines of objects.

'The fifth color of the Seven-Colored Eyes, Blue Eyes, sees depth. It can see through even the darkness gathered by a vampire.'

She really did have a trick for everything. How was someone whose only ability was mind reading supposed to live without feeling deprived?

Blue Eyes saw a world of lines and planes. It wasn't good at detecting fast-moving objects or rounded surfaces with indistinct outlines, but it could discern the overall structure even in darkness. The Regressor cast her blue gaze about. Solid ceiling and walls blocked her view. The only passage led downward. Faint trapezoidal lines appeared in her vision, narrowing closer together like the rungs of a ladder stretching into the distance. They were stairs leading underground.

Without the slightest hesitation, the Regressor stepped toward the stairs. After descending a step or two, she suddenly glanced back at me.

'Now, let's see whether you can find your way through this darkness.'

Thanks. For looking my way.

I hadn't noticed, but the stairs began right in front of me. Worse, the corner of the first step was broken, leaving it half gone. If I'd stepped forward carelessly, I would have tumbled straight to the bottom.

Whew. What a relief. I carefully stepped around the broken stair. A tongue clicked ahead of me.

'He saw through the darkness gathered by a vampire too? There's simply no getting to the bottom of this man. He looks so vacant, yet he's overcome both my Sky Cherry Blossom and the vampire's darkness...'

This was why people needed some experience down at the bottom. She spent every regression meeting extraordinary people like the Sword Saint and the Saintess, so she couldn't even recognize a genuinely ordinary person when she saw one. This was why people needed to experience commoner life.

At any rate, the Regressor and I headed underground side by side.

'Why is he walking so close? It's annoying.'

My proximity seemed to make her uncomfortable, but I stubbornly stuck to her. I was borrowing her vision, after all. If we got too far apart, I might not be able to see the ground beneath my feet. Feeling almost as though she were carrying me on her back, I followed her down the stairs.

Once we reached the underground armory, she surveyed the bunker with her blue eyes.

The armory, which could double as a bunker in an emergency, had a long corridor flanked by spacious rooms. They were spaces built for people to hide in those cramped quarters and await rescue if an emergency occurred, but someone had already taken up residence.

The Regressor glared with her blue eyes at the faint shadows peering out at us from within. A huge horse, its head nearly touching the ceiling, was staring back.

'Her familiar? I heard she lost most of them during the Great War... It looks like the blood steed Ralion is still alive and well.'

What on earth was she doing with the underground armory? Why did one huge horse get an entire bunker to itself? More importantly, how come a mere familiar had a better room than me? Respect human rights.

After briefly looking at the blood steed, the Regressor turned and resumed walking. I hurried after her.

At the end of the long corridor stood a door that looked out of place.

The Military State valued efficiency and practicality, and didn't mix art into its doors or walls. Its logic was that doors existed to open and close spaces, and walls to divide them; anything more was a luxury. They might attach a separate ornament to a door or hang a framed picture on a wall, but inefficient, unproductive acts like engraving an iron door or painting a mural on a wall were treated almost as sins.

Yet even the Military State apparently felt the urge to pray to a god when faced with the Progenitor.

Cast from solid steel, the door bore an engraved image that would have looked at home illustrating a holy scripture. A beautiful angel with enormous wings was painted on the wall, blowing a trumpet. The trumpet pointed toward the door farther inside, as though ready to deliver immediate punishment should some ominous being emerge.

Sculptures and murals one would expect to see in a church. Though the underground armory was dark, I could see them clearly with my own eyes.

Because, here in the darkness, those majestic carvings and sacred paintings were soaked in fresh blood and glowing red, as though holding a festival of blood.

Confronted with that image, I stiffly turned my head.

"... Excuse me. Trainee Shei."

"What?"

"Shall we head back now?"

"Are you scared or something?"

"Yes."

The Regressor looked puzzled by my honest answer.

Come on, this was terrifying. I would have been better off unable to see it.

If the Holy See saw this, they would call it blasphemy and send inquisitors. But upon hearing that the culprit was the Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka, they would hastily cancel the dispatch and pretend they had seen nothing. All they'd be doing was giving her a gift of inquisitor blood.

That was the kind of being the vampire Progenitor was. Strong or weak, anyone had reason to fear her.

The Regressor shot me a sideways look.

"You're more of a coward than I thought."

"That's why I'm still alive. Fear of danger is an indispensable part of survival."

"Is it?"

'Maybe that's why I've died thirteen times.'

Oh. Now that I thought about it, yes. It didn't matter if she died. Suddenly, I felt cheated.

"You're scared, yet you call her an elder?"

"But she is an elder, isn't she?"

"Ugh. Forget it."

Forget it meant she was going to do whatever the hell she pleased. The Regressor strode forward and placed her hand on the door. Though she barely pushed, it opened of its own accord. Just like the jaws of a beast waiting for prey.

"Oh, damn it. Mother Earth."

There was no helping it. If I'd already been eaten, being inside the mouth or past the throat couldn't make much difference. Before the door closed, I followed the Regressor into the final room.

Torch holders hung on the walls, somewhat anachronistic in this modern age of everyday lamps and electric lights. These elegant holders had been fashioned by carving stone with iron spikes and chisels into birdcage shapes, then turning them upside down. The painstakingly carved, nest-shaped ornaments held a craftsman's soul; at any moment, a phoenix might spread its wings and soar from within.

Blood-red flames surged upward, yearning for the sky. But their flight did not last. This was the lowest place in the world: the basement of a prison in the bottomless pit. Far too cruel a place from which to fly to the heavens. The flames struck the ceiling and crumbled, scattering the corpses of light in every direction.

Cruelly enough, light found meaning in its own demise. In the dimly illuminated final room, light scattered against the ceiling cast red shadows.

Thanks to that, I could see what the room looked like.

The flames weren't the only reason everything was red. Blood. What must have been thousands of liters of blood coated everything. The ceiling, the floor, the walls. An immense volume of blood pulsed and flowed as though the room itself were a giant heart.

Yet despite all that flowing blood, there wasn't even a bloody smell. Its scent was part of the blood too, and thus fell under the Progenitor's power.

Unless Tyrkanzyaka permitted it, the Regressor and I wouldn't even be able to smell blood.

["For what reason have you come to see me?"]

A pitch-black wooden coffin stood in the center of the room. A masterpiece, its body crafted from precious incense wood and carefully lacquered, then engraved with a winged red cross. A voice drifted out from within.

My blood went wild. The blood in my veins, which ought to have devoted itself to keeping me alive, tried to rush out barefoot to greet its long-lost beloved.

Overwhelming power. Faced with it, the Regressor addressed the vampire boldly.

"Tyrkanzyaka. I've come to propose a deal."

"Teach me blood manipulation."

She had shown up unannounced and asked to be taught a technique. It would have been natural to find that absurd, yet the vampire wasn't surprised at all. She was used to it. Over more than a thousand years, the number of people who had visited her seeking something had exceeded four digits.

The power to control blood. Hearing that name for the first time in a long while, the vampire quietly asked:

["Do you wish to become one of my kind?"]

Becoming a vampire, accepting the Progenitor's blood into one's body, naturally granted the power to govern blood. Countless people had coveted or demanded her blood in pursuit of eternal youth and immortality. Finding the situation almost tiresomely familiar, the vampire asked whether the Regressor was one of those countless people.

But the Regressor had no intention of becoming a vampire. Instead, she demanded something deeper and more fundamental.

"No. I don't intend to get it that way. Teach me the technique you learned before you became a vampire."

For a fleeting instant, emotions surged. Intense bewilderment and confusion arose inside that coffin. For a moment, all the blood in the room drew inward, as though contracting.

But this was a vampire who had lived for over a thousand years. Something this minor wouldn't make her blood run hot. She calmed herself and replied.

["How did you learn of that?"]

The Regressor faced the vampire, thinking something only a Regressor could think.

'You told me in the previous run.'

Smiling, the Regressor sank into recollection for a moment. A very brief moment.

Before the vampire became a vampire, when she had been a human being, that girl had been able to control blood. Many people had benefited from the little girl who worked diligently to run a clinic alongside her physician father. As a human, her ability had amounted to little more than stopping bleeding. But that alone had been enough to earn people's smiles.

In the previous run, the vampire had hinted at that fact and advised Shei to learn from her... then quietly breathed her last, with no one to mourn her.

The recollection ended. Feeling as though I'd been hurled out of the deep sea, I pressed a hand to my throbbing head.

So that was a recollection. The memory had been terribly brief and fragmentary, but it had yielded something.

Not only had I read a little of the Regressor's memories, I'd also learned a little about the 'catastrophe.'

Apparently, a catastrophe really was coming. One so powerful that even a monster like the Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka couldn't withstand it and had died.

["I shall ask again. How did you learn of that?"]

"Teach me, and I might tell you."

["... You are bold."]

A brief silence. Slow thoughts. Hundreds upon thousands of reflections passed through her mind and vanished. Then, at some point, the vampire's attention turned toward me.

["And you. What do you think?"]

Wait, why me all of a sudden? I'd been keeping quiet. Why single me out? I answered reluctantly.

"Do as you wish, venerable elder."

["... Elder?"]

Huh? The blood just twitched. Had I struck a nerve? I hurriedly spoke.

"Duty takes precedence over age, so I'll address you as a trainee. However, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka, you are, er, rather advanced in years. The Military State generally refrains from issuing specific instructions or orders to elderly trainees. As do I. You're free to do as you please as long as you don't leave the training facility, so there's no problem with you continuing to lie here."

Something black whipped past my cheek. A hair-thin cut opened. Through the gap, my newly liberated blood slowly flew toward the vampire, fluttering like a swallowtail butterfly.

I hadn't even seen it. There had been no killing intent, so I hadn't dodged, but trying to dodge wouldn't have changed anything.

Chilled, I sucked in a deep breath and stopped talking.

A voice tinged with subdued anger came from within.

["... I am old, so I should stay shut away in my room?"]

"No. That's not really what I meant. If you'd just carry on as you have been—"

["I have heard enough."]

The black coffin's lid opened. Like its exterior, its interior was filled with pitch darkness. A slender white hand rose through that darkness.

My blood, flying through the air, settled onto her hand. Then it soaked in like rain falling on dry earth.

I sensed faint displeasure from the vampire who had harvested my blood.

["... As I thought, even your blood tastes foul. You are utterly incompatible with me. There is not a single thing about you that I like..."]

But precisely because of that.

Then the coffin rose upright. Pushing itself up on surging darkness, it turned to face the Regressor and me.

["I ordinarily take only the blood of pure maidens. The blood of men like you is usually... used as material."]

The inside of the coffin remained dark. Only a lifelessly white hand protruded through the opening. Now, different blood flew toward that hand. It was the Regressor's blood, spilled to open the door.

The vampire moistened her hand with it and spoke.

["But your blood was quite good. For a man's... This has never happened before. To think I would willingly drink a man's blood in my lifetime..."]

Because she was a woman... Even with that pathetic male disguise, the vampire apparently couldn't entertain the possibility that the Regressor was female. At this encouraging sign, the Regressor clenched her fists.

The vampire spoke languidly.

["Very well. I shall teach it to you."]

"Thank you."

["... Receiving guests for the first time in so long has tired me. You may leave now."]

With that, the vampire closed the coffin lid. Having received a favorable answer, the Regressor desperately controlled her expression, resisting the urge to jump for joy.

'Yes! I did it! I never thought it would go this smoothly!'

Suppressing her excitement, the Regressor cautiously asked:

"When do we start? I'd like to begin as soon as possible."

["Then... shall we begin when the moon next wanes?"]

She meant in about a month. Naturally, that was unacceptable to the Regressor, for whom every moment counted.

"What? That's too late. Start tomorrow."

["What is the hurry? Whether we begin now or a month from now makes little difference..."]

"It makes a difference! A difference as great as heaven and earth!"

["Have patience. The waxing and waning of the moon is the goddess of night slowly closing and opening her eyes. One needs at least that much time to see things properly."]

The two were arguing about something again. Was it time for me to step in and resolve the conflict?

"Now, now! Trainee Shei!"

Feigning a stern reprimand, I stepped in to stop the Regressor.

"A month may seem long to you, but to Trainee Tyrkanzyaka, who has lived for over twelve hundred years, it is no more than a fleeting instant! Please show more consideration for the other person! Time may seem fair to everyone, but in truth, nothing is more relative. For this lady—"

"... Why don't you show some consideration yourself?"

Huh? What? I was already being plenty considerate. How much more solicitous could I be, when I was going to such lengths to humor her?

As the two of us bickered, a slow voice drifted from the coffin.

["... I see. So my actions are slow because I am far too old?"]

"No, I'm not criticizing you. I'm just trying to teach this ill-mannered brat the difference in your years of experience."

["Very well. Then we shall begin tomorrow without delay."]

As the Regressor rejoiced at getting what she wanted, the vampire fixed her attention on me and added:

["Both of you, that is."]

"Pardon?"

Wait, why was I suddenly involved?

I was just about to protest.

["You may go now."]

The world receded. That was the only way to describe it. The Regressor and I moved of our own accord. No, we weren't the ones moving.

The walls, the floor, the doors.

The corridor, the ceiling, the rooms, the stairs—all were pushed forward. The world swept past us from behind. Like watching a rushing river from a moored boat, dark, yielding liquid flowed past us, retracing the exact route we had taken—

Before I knew it, we stood at the underground armory's entrance without having taken a single step. The steel door slammed shut, jolting me back to reality.

"Fucking hell."

No wonder I'd felt like I was walking into a tiger's jaws from the moment I entered.

Literally, the inside... was practically the vampire's body. She had just spat us out.

The Regressor dusted herself off as though used to this and spoke.

"Heh heh. What a pathetic sight. Did that scare you?"

"... Not particularly."

I'd merely realized that the fucking terrifying monster was, in fact, a transcendently terrifying monster. At my answer, the Regressor covered her mouth and laughed at me.

"Let me give you some advice. Don't mention Tyrkanzyaka's age in front of her. That's how a woman's heart works."

Full of herself, the Regressor turned lightly and walked away. I watched her retreating figure with a cold gaze.

It wasn't as if I'd done that because I didn't understand women.

Well, whatever. She hadn't explained anything to me, so I wouldn't bother explaining myself either.

I shook out my hands and feet and turned around. Oof. I'd been so tense my back hurt. Maybe I'd turn in early and rest today. I ought to check the cafeteria for any leftover canned food...

Just as I turned with that thought:

"Woof."

I heard a sound I should not have heard. Slowly, I turned my head.

There stood Azi... who, driven by the single-minded desire to play fetch, had followed my scent, dug through the pile of concrete rubble, and retrieved the leather ball.

No way. No way...

"Woof!"

The ball dropped with a soft thud, right at my feet. Wagging her tail gently, Azi nudged it with her nose.

The meaning was obvious.

Throw the ball, human.

"Um, Azi."

I attempted a negotiation unlike any other in history. The King of Dogs and a human. Across the boundary between species, I made a grand attempt at a dramatic compromise.

"Today, well, I'm really tired, you see? So, um..."

"Woof! Woof!"

"... If we could just... put it off a little..."

"Woof! Promise!"

Azi swiped her forelegs in apparent displeasure. The gusts ruffled my clothes. Those paws were getting steadily closer, as though she were saying that if I wouldn't throw the ball, she'd smack me with them.

When had she learned the word promise? Sigh. Who on earth had taught a dog something as useless as promises? You shouldn't drill promises into a child who couldn't take responsibility. If she broke a promise, I couldn't get anything out of her, but if I broke one, it gave her an excuse to make unreasonable demands.

"Grrrr."

Like this. I looked up at the unseen sky and sighed.

"Whew. Sorry, shoulder. I'll try to keep it under 250 pitches today."

Was this what it felt like to be forced onto the mound? I picked up the ball. Azi's beaming face was unbearably irritating.