The undying one, whom I had expected to come rushing out immediately, failed to appear even after quite some time. The Regressor said she would keep an eye on them, making the world's most brazen declaration of stalking before leaving.

That left me with a little time to spare.

I sat in a corner of the yard and took out a deck of cards. Holding it slightly bowed between my thumb and forefinger, I ran a fingertip along its edge.

FLUTTER.

The cards, oppressed by my right hand, sprang out in search of freedom.

FLUTTER.

One after another they fled, until even the last card escaped my right hand's tyranny and nestled safely in the embrace of my left.

But there is no paradise waiting where you flee.

The left hand, which had cradled them so tenderly, soon revealed its true colors and became a monster just like the right. The deck's spine bent like a bow. Desperately struggling to escape once more, the cards seized an opening and returned to the right hand they had only just left.

I was passing the deck back and forth between my hands like that when a voice spoke.

“You are quite deft with your hands.”

It was Tyr. Still resting her pitch-black parasol against her shoulder, she sat demurely atop her large coffin as it glided to a halt before me. She alighted lightly and approached.

With a small chuckle, I snatched the cards up in one motion. Fluttering like butterflies a moment before, they folded their wings and lay still as chrysalises in my hand.

“You call this deft? Sorry, but this is as easy as making a five-year-old cry when they're darting their eyes around after stealing some candy. You might faint if I got serious.”

Tyr covered her mouth with a loosely curled hand and chuckled at my glib reply.

“Why would a grown adult go about making children cry?”

“Huh? Don't you get that urge sometimes? Is it just me?”

“You should not do it either.”

“Really? When you see a kid darting their eyes around, trying to wriggle out of immediate trouble with a completely transparent lie, don't you want to call them out, if only because they're being so annoying?”

Though I had asked in jest, Tyr gave the question serious thought.

How would she react if a small child tried to fool her with some hopeless deception? After earnestly imagining one scenario after another, she reached a conclusion.

“I would not.”

“Wow, really?”

“Of course. What would I gain by exposing a child's lie beyond some base pleasure? With age, one ought to conduct oneself with a little more dignity.”

Oh-ho. Base pleasure. Base...

Base?

“Wait. Is that a roundabout way of saying I have a nasty personality?”

“Well, yours is hardly a gentle disposition, is it?”

Tyr smiled as she teased me, her words brimming with mischief at my expense.

Oh? So now we were comfortable enough for her to poke fun at me?

All right, then. Let's see.

“Tyr. Let's make a bet.”

“A bet?”

“Yes. I'll hide a card, and you try to find it.”

Without even looking at the deck, I drew a card and handed it over. Tyr accepted it with an interested look and examined both sides.

The back bore the same regular pattern as every other card. It was symmetrical, too, making top and bottom indistinguishable even when turned upside down. On the face were two bright red hearts and the numeral 2.

Tyr even rubbed the card with a finger to see whether anything was hidden there, but there was nothing unusual about it. Turning it this way and that in the light, she spoke.

“There does not seem to be any trick to it.”

“That card is perfectly ordinary. I swear on my honor as a magician.”

“There is no need. If I failed to notice something beforehand, that would be my own shortcoming.”

Long ago, when knowledge was not freely shared, knowledge was power, and people took it for granted that ignorance would leave them at another's mercy. Having lived through that era, Tyr meant what she said.

Of course, so did I.

“No. The tools, at least, ought to be fair. Where's the fun in betting with a trick only I know about?”

“If you insist.”

Nodding, Tyr handed the card back and asked,

“Very well. A bet must have a prize, surely. What shall we stake?”

“One wish. How does that sound?”

“... A wish?”

'A wish... anything at all? In that case.'

For an instant, Tyr's eyes turned blood-red. A shiver ran down my spine, and I hastily added,

“Within reasonable limits we can both agree to, of course! Obviously!”

“... Ah. Naturally. Understood.”

... Thank goodness. For a moment there, I could have sworn a wish to turn me into a vampire had flickered through her mind. Someone who would not die even when killed, who could stay by her side forever...

Anyway, Tyr accepted my proposal.

“Very well. Go on, then.”

“Heh heh heh. Excellent. Prepare to gape in astonishment at the sleight of hand of a new generation.”

“And you must not be disheartened if I find it all too easily. You simply chose the wrong opponent.”

“I'll say the same to you. Don't feel too cheated, even if you think you've been swindled.”

I set the rest of the deck on the ground and spread both hands wide, emphasizing that I had nothing concealed in them. Having checked, Tyr nodded.

Then, moving only two fingers, I picked up the two of hearts.

“Now, here we go.”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

Tyr's eyes glowed an even deeper red. She was enhancing her eyesight so as not to miss the slightest movement I made.

I'd live up to her expectations. Smiling confidently, I began to move the card about.

From left hand to right, from right hand to left.

The card spun round and round, busily flitting between my hands.

Like a drunken butterfly, or a fallen leaf caught in a whirlwind. As Tyr watched its dizzying movements, her expression grew increasingly peculiar.

'... I can see it far more clearly than I expected.'

Her red eyes moved ceaselessly. They weren't trembling; they were following my card. Whether it wavered, suddenly darted out of her field of vision and back, or briefly disappeared behind my hand, her seemingly all-seeing red eyes tracked it every instant.

'It certainly is flashy... but remarkably easy to follow for all that. It is not especially fast, and though bewildering, the movements themselves are simple.'

“... Ngh!”

I let out an anxious groan. My fingers trembled with tension, and now and then I nearly dropped the card. Each time, I barely managed to catch it and kept desperately moving it about.

Then, at one particular moment, I briefly crossed my hands. Taking advantage of the instant her view was blocked, I concealed the card in my grasp and thrust my hands forward.

With an awkward smile, I cried,

“Ta-da! Where is it?”

“Ah...”

Tyr sighed softly. Her red eyes flicked up at me, then glanced at my left hand.

She looked terribly troubled, not because she had lost track of the card... but because she had followed it all too perfectly.

'I feel sorry for Hugh... but I saw everything. He crossed his hands and pretended to conceal it in his palm, then slipped it into his left sleeve.'

Vampires could control even their eyes with blood energy. Aided by blood manipulation, those swiftly moving red eyes had tracked every last dazzling movement that ordinary eyes would have failed to follow.

Tyr hesitated, unable to bring herself to answer for fear of embarrassing me.

'Should I have refrained from enhancing my eyesight? The promise of a wish tempted me into taking this too seriously...'

“Heh heh. A little difficult, was it? It's all right. Don't be discouraged. Nobody can beat aging eyesight.”

'... But that insufferable boasting does rather grate on me. Perhaps I should show him the world is not so easily bested.'

One remark was all it took to change her mind. Bristling, Tyr pointed at my left hand.

“Show me your left hand.”

“Left! You said left, right? No taking it back! Now, let's see! Is it the left hand? Time for the reveal! Ta-da, ta-da-da, da-da, da!”

I immediately opened my left hand. Naturally, and just as Tyr expected, it was empty.

“... Oh dear! What a shame! There was nothing in the left hand! It must have been in the right! Well, you guessed wrong, so I win the—”

“No, I mean your left sleeve.”

“Gasp!”

Tyr pinpointed my sleeve, and I drew a sharp breath.

Sweating profusely, I averted my eyes.

“L-l-left sleeve? What's that?”

“Here. Can you not see?”

Tyr helpfully seized my left hand and twisted my arm so that the inside of my sleeve was fully visible. A single card could just be seen farther up it.

Irrefutable evidence. Had this happened at a gambling table, someone would already be looking for a hammer.

In that situation, I merely chuckled and shrugged.

“See? A transparent lie. You just can't help calling it out, can you?”

There were plenty of reasons, of course.

To teach someone how harsh the world was. Because their behavior was ridiculous. Out of some base desire, or simply a dislike of losing out.

You could justify it however you pleased, but when people witnessed a lie right before their eyes, they naturally wanted to expose it. It was almost an instinct everyone shared.

Tyr asked, looking incredulous,

“Did you make this bet merely to make that point?”

“More or less. How ridiculous did I look, Tyr? Brazenly hiding it right in front of you, then stubbornly playing dumb? You couldn't resist grabbing me like this and showing me, could you?”

She couldn't deny it. That was exactly what she had just done.

Tyr gave a bemused laugh and answered,

“You have quite caught me out. But you are not a child.”

“Compared to you, I might as well be. If we put a human lifespan at a very generous hundred years, then under the Tyrkanzyaka Comparative Age Conversion, I'm only a two-year-old, even though I'm twenty-four. Goo goo, ga ga.”

Tyr shot me a glare, pursed her lips primly, and pulled the card from my sleeve.

“Very well. You are right. Apparently, I am not quite as dignified as my words would suggest. I admit it. In any case, I discovered where you hid the card, so this bet is my vic—”

It happened as Tyr turned the card over while speaking.

Her eyes widened in surprise at its face.

“... Huh?”

The two hearts on their white background were gone. In their place, as though someone had drawn her anew, a solemn queen held a flower and gazed straight ahead.

The queen of hearts.

It was unmistakably a different card from the one I had picked up.

When Tyr turned to me after staring at it as though bewitched, I pointed at my still-closed right hand.

“Let me finish what I didn't get to say earlier. It must have been in the right! Ta-da!”

Providing my own sound effects, I opened my right hand. The two of hearts Tyr had been supposed to find lay curled into a tube in my palm.

Tyr looked back and forth between the card in her hand and the one in mine, bewildered. As she continued to grapple with her confusion, I took a deep bow, savoring a dignified pleasure.

“Well, I suppose you have to overcome that instinct to call yourself a magician.”

Looking utterly flummoxed, Tyr asked,

“H-how did you do that?”

“I'm not telling. A magician must never reveal his tricks to the world.”

When blood rushes to your head, your vision narrows. That held true even for Tyr.

To gain one thing, you must give up another.

Prey animals had developed a wide field of vision to detect predators approaching from any direction, but in exchange, they could no longer clearly distinguish even something coming right up in front of their noses.

By contrast, predators, whose two eyes faced forward to pursue a single chosen quarry to the very end, suffered the penalty of being unable to see behind their heads without turning.

Humans were predators in every sense of the word. Tyr, a predator among predators who fed on those humans' blood, had concentrated blood energy in her eyes to track my card. Her ability was so impressive that even I could not completely elude her gaze.

So I had deceived her from the outset.

While the queen of hearts personally lured the Queen of Shadows away, the two of hearts had simply lounged behind my hand before making its leisurely appearance.

“Someone who can't deceive others can hardly boast about seeing through other people's deceptions, can they?”

Well, most of that was thanks to mind reading, but never mind.

By now, mind reading was me, and I was mind reading. Having spent my entire life with it, how could I separate the two?

Besides, if I couldn't read other people's thoughts, I wouldn't be able to spot the tricks they kept so deeply hidden in the first place.

“That is... remarkable. To be honest, I still do not quite understand what happened. I was certain I was following it.”

Tyr clasped her hands together in admiration. I liked how honest people here were with their reactions.

Feeling rather pleased with myself, I rubbed beneath my nose and replied,

“Ha ha. Start thinking about how you'll grant my wish.”

“But, Hugh.”

“Yes?”

Tyr cautiously raised her head and pointed to the queen of hearts she held.

“This may not be the card with two hearts on it... but it was still a card you hid, was it not?”

“Huh?”

“In that case, I believe I won the bet.”

“What?”

Hold on. What exactly had I said?

'He certainly said he would hide a card and that I should find it. This may not be the card with two hearts, but it was hidden nonetheless. And I did find a hidden card. In that case...'

Huh? She was right.

“Why did I phrase it that way?”

“Why are you asking me?”

Good question. What was that about? Had I wanted to grant her a wish?

After carefully recalling the conditions, I finally nodded.

“Now that you mention it, you're right. I can't refute that logic.”

“Then you will have to grant my wish.”

“Oh, come on. What about your pride as the Progenitor? You were completely fooled, and you're still going to claim a wish on a technicality?”

A nod.

Tyr nodded without hesitation. Her spirits apparently restored, her eyes were lively once more.

Well, did it matter? Tyr, with all her pretensions to dignity, wouldn't ask for anything strange. If she did, I'd shut it down immediately.

Just then, I sensed people moving inside the prison. I gathered up my cards and rose.

“I'll hear your wish later. The person I've been waiting for is here.”

A moment later, the undying one and the officer emerged from the prison. The undying one was rubbing his belly after a hearty meal, and the officer came out into the yard with him in the lead.

Good. Would Lieutenant Colonel Callis be able to be honest with herself?

The preparations were complete. All that remained was to watch.