Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 9 - Chapter 4.05

Side Scarlet

My bride slept in the coffin, her face as beautiful as ever.

She was pale. So incredibly fair: her face, her limbs, everything.

It was an immaculately pure white, even more refined than it had been before I’d brought her to this castle.

Of course, that was merely how it seemed to me, from my perspective as a vampire.

Being suspended between life and death like this, however, was the condition for becoming a proper “bride.”

“I knew this was your destiny all along, Daydream.”

The girl who had rejected my marriage proposals again and again was now here, in a spotless white dress.

“…………”

I moved to touch her pale cheek, but my fingers hesitated. The canvas was unblemished. I didn’t have the right to dye it red with my blood.

“I suppose it’s too late for that. I’ve already poured the blood of vampires into you.”

With that self-deprecating smile, I sat down right there, putting one knee up.

It had been a little less than a month since I’d cut my ties with the Federation Government and stolen the Daydream away. I hadn’t taken a single step outside the castle since we’d arrived. I didn’t need to.

I had to use my remaining life to lift the curse of the vampires’ short lifespans by creating as many offspring as possible with a bride who could tolerate my blood. To that end, I could not allow the Daydream to die here. I had to delicately adjust the amount of blood I was sharing with her, which meant I could not leave her, even temporarily.

However, for the past month, there had been constant artillery fire outside the castle. My undead comrades were doing battle with the Federation Government forces. Neither side paid any heed to the small sacrifices they made.

“Regardless, they won’t attack in earnest and overrun this castle.”

As long as I had the Daydream as my hostage, the Federation Government couldn’t do anything rash. If, by some error, she happened to die now, there was no knowing what the Singularity might do.

Naturally, some of their number were probably reformists. The Singularity would destabilize the world, they’d say, so why not kill him and be done with it? No doubt secret talks to that end were being held somewhere at this very moment, but no answer would present itself. That was the sort of organization they were.

“Soon. Very soon, it will all be over.”

Fifteen years ago, my hometown had burned. I had nearly died countless times, but never completely. I’d gotten back up to live out the mere fifteen years that remained to me. I’d had no choice.

Then a masked bureaucrat had saddled me with the role of Tuner and told me to use my remaining life to destroy all vampires. He’d said that, in exchange, he would grant one request, no matter what it was.

So I had made that request. I’d asked his group to protect the life of the girl I’d thought of in that moment, no matter what it took. I’d told them to watch over her from afar in my place and let her live out her natural life. That had been my only wish.

They had accepted that contract, and I had spent fifteen years slaughtering my own kind. If it would make that wish come true, I didn’t care what I sacrificed. I engraved the resentful voices of those I killed into my body as punishment. As long as that girl was alive somewhere, I had no complaints.

However, those days were nearly over. These thirty years of mine, riddled with contradictions, would come to an end. I was about to accomplish my final task.

“It’s very quiet.”

All of a sudden, I realized that the artillery fire had stopped.

I couldn’t hear anything outside the castle walls. The sun had already set, making this the time of day when the undead were usually most active, and ordinarily, the fighting should have grown fiercer.

“What are they doing?”

I got to my feet.

Just then, the door opened.