Volume Five: Returning from the Other Shore - Homecoming (II)

Stepping through the long-vanished wooden door, passing through the dust dancing in the twilight sunlight, I entered the home that Blood Fiend had been away from for two hundred years.

"... I'm back"

For some reason, I blurted out this sentence.

Then I saw two skeletons.

They were already rotten beyond recognition, but you could still tell that they were tightly embracing each other before they died.

Several longswords engraved with crosses and Divine Word pierced through their chests, which were now only ribs, and were stuck diagonally in the ground. The surrounding floor and furniture still showed signs of being burned.

It can't be wrong.

They died in this house where the memories of Blood Fiend completely overlapped; they must have been Blood Fiend's biological parents.

If her parents had known that this child would become the most vicious and heinous criminal in the history of the Vatican, would they still have given birth to her?

What were her parents thinking when they learned that their incredibly revered, Saintess daughter had brought them misfortune?

Did they scream and curse their daughters as the swords of the Papacy's Inquisition were brought before them?

Really--

"--This is incredibly boring."

I shook my head, stepped over the two corpses, and walked deeper into the house without looking back.

"Hey, Luo-chan."

"Oh, oh, oh? My Husband has finally called upon me? My body has been itching unbearably for so long~"

"Sinai, who asked you that?"

"So you want to continue playing the idle game? Tsk tsk tsk, what a perverse taste my Husband has."

"Stop talking nonsense. I wanted to ask you—what do you know about Blood Fiend?"

"Eh..."

Rakshasa True Word tilted his head, revealing a slightly troubled expression for the first time.

Even if Husband ask me that, my husband, I still...

"Didn't Blood Fiend snatch you away from the Rakshasa Divine Sect back then? And when you two transmigrated to my Earth, you stayed in her body for a few days, right? So you should know each other a little bit, right?"

"Well, it's hard for me to say... because that guy is really strange."

"Even you find it strange... Can you tell me the specifics of the Blood Fiend's invasion of the Rakshasa Divine Sect?"

"Hmm... First of all, that guy was very strong, really strong. When she stormed into the Rakshasa Divine Sect alone, she was invincible. The garrison outside the sect and several small cities were all wiped out in no time. However, the Rakshasa Divine Sect reacted quickly. Seeing that things were going badly, they actually used me, distributing the ferocious power that their bunch of idiots were not fit to control to the sect's army. But even that only resulted in her getting a few scratches. In the end, she faced the Grand Sect Master and one of the two Sect Masters, who were father and son. Together, they were comparable to the Heavenly Law... Then they fought and fought and fought, and the two sides were evenly matched—"

"--Wait, evenly matched? Then even if father and son join forces, wouldn't they only be 'comparable to the laws of heaven'?"

Something's not right.

Two hundred years ago, Blood Fiend was able to completely suppress the Heavenly Law at that time, and it's impossible that Blood Fiend hasn't made any progress in these two hundred years... But even so, she can only be "evenly matched" with the father and son? Then the father and son joining forces should at most be "comparable to the Heavenly Law".

"Although I didn't realize it at the time, it does seem a bit strange now that I think about it."

"Let's continue. And then what?"

"They got carried away in the heat of the battle, and seeing that the fight was at a stalemate, the father and son forcibly unleashed all of my power, transforming me into an irreversible Rakshasa form, completely drying up my rationality. At the same time, that guy also went all out, unleashing a barrage of powerful attacks. The final, intense clash made me extremely uncomfortable—and so, my basic functions from when I was still part of the 'gate' were reactivated after thousands of years."

"... And so, the father and son died, the passage to Earth was temporarily opened, and you and the severely injured, bodyless Blood Fiend were transported to Earth."

"I was quite surprised too! I never expected that after all that dizziness, I would end up in such a powerful place!"

"You've also experienced time travel... Wait, 'impressive'? Earth isn't that impressive. Although its technology is a bit more advanced than Spirit Star's, its overall strength is nowhere near as good."

"No, my Husband's hometown is amazing, absolutely amazing! This is the first time I've ever been to such a powerful place! It's completely different from Spirit Star, they're not even in the same league!"

"...?"

I suddenly realized that the "powerful" she was referring to probably didn't mean the residents' fighting ability.

"... Tell me, specifically, what makes it so powerful?"

"Hmm... it's hard to describe... it's like, infinite possibilities? Or a template for everything, a benchmark for everything?"

"..."

It seems I've come across some very important intelligence again.

Important -- but meaningless.

It's like a diamond can't save someone who's dying of thirst.

The world I once lived in, the one that's despised in almost every time-travel novel, my hometown, was actually a very important place... but that has absolutely nothing to do with me now.

"--Is it really unrelated?"

I think I heard a sound.

I looked at the Rakshasa True Word.

"What did you say?"

"Hmm? What's wrong, my Husband? I've said everything you asked me to say."

"..." Tsk.

Following my hazy memory, I arrived at a room at the very back of the house.

The room was extremely small, excessively small.

It was less a room and more like a closet, crammed full of a small bed and a pair of tables and chairs. Due to the passage of time, the tables and chairs were long since rotten wood, and the bed was reduced to a mere rectangular plank. The walls were old wood and stone, and beside the bed was a narrow window through which one could see mountains several kilometers away from the village. Logically, this room should have remained unchanged from two hundred years ago when Blood Fiend left the village to become a nun, reflecting the life of a girl in her early teens. But I couldn't see anything like it.

"That Blood Fiend guy really doesn't have any girlish sentiments..."

I looked around—actually, I didn't even need to look around, as the entire room was so small that I could see it all with just a glance.

There is no shortage of land in the countryside. If others saw such a small room, they would probably think that Blood Fiend suffered abuse from her parents in her childhood. But having inherited some of her memories, I know very well that Blood Fiend likes narrow spaces and does not like overly bright environments. When she became Saintess, she gave up a large room of more than 50 square meters and chose a stone room that was much smaller in comparison as her bedroom.

It seems she's had this habit since she was little...

That said, aren't there any valuable clues here?

"My Husband, look, there are books piled up in the corner."

"Ah, yes, uh."

I didn't even notice it before. This pile of books was shrouded in the shadow of the bed, and it was hard to spot without bending over. I guess it's only because Luo-chan is short that she noticed it.

"Husband, were you thinking something very impolite just now?"

"You have no right to call others rude."

"Tch~"

Too lazy to pay attention to her, he snapped his fingers, and a cluster of Blood Flame shot up from his fingertips, dispelling the darkness of the shadows.

"Let me see... huh?"

Suddenly I realized something was wrong.

These... are they all books?

If it were in a library, that would be one thing, but how did these books manage to be preserved for so long in an environment and climate so unsuitable for book preservation?

But this question was answered immediately.

Although it was rescued in the past, I can still feel the Blood Energy emanating from the pages. This book was soaked in the blood of the Blood Fiend, which is why it has remained intact for centuries.

"This book... <Metaphysics>?"

I and Rakshasa True Word looked at each other in bewilderment.

This book... it doesn't look like something a ten-year-old girl would read.

"The following are... <Logical Investigations>, <The Goodness of Human Nature>, <Existentialism and Humanism>, <Reason and Emotion>, <General Treatise on Psychological Philosophy>, <New Era Sociology>?"

This small pile of books isn't much; they were probably bought by caravans passing through. Surprisingly, they're all difficult and obscure books, mostly about psychology, society, and philosophy. As I turned the pages, I noticed that each page had very careful annotations and explanations. It seems they weren't just piled up to show off.

"What? That guy's a little genius? That's disgusting."

"What's disgusting is you... Sure enough, there's a hidden secret inside. Take a closer look at these pages."

"Huh... huh? There's a bloody smell inside? And the location is weird?"

"As expected, she soaked the pages in blood not just to prevent decay. The first layer of blood was a 'base,' and then the blood seeped in to form the writing. Luckily, this book is of very good quality, with thick pages..."

I placed my hand on the pages of the book, and with a slight pull, many red lines immediately surfaced—the so-called "Blood Script." The Blood Fiend seeped blood into the pages, then combined the blood to form words and patterns, thereby hiding or preserving certain information.

"... But what are all these?"

The first page features a very blurry image: a long vertical line with several short lines at the top, and the word "Dream①" written next to it.

Did she draw something based on her dreams?

Turning to the second page, it's similar to the first picture, but the vertical lines have a slight curve, as do the short lines, and it's marked "Dream ②".

The curves of the lines on the third page are more pronounced, and the short lines at the top have varying thicknesses.

As I turned the pages, the images became clearer and clearer until, after about ten pages, I finally recognized what it was.

"Flower... the Lycoris radiata."

Next to the clearest picture was the word "flower". Turning to the next page, there were two circled words and punctuation marks. "Life? death".

I picked up other books, and the illustrations on them were even more incomprehensible. Some had many small red dots like raindrops, while others had stained the entire page red. One of the clearer ones had a large hole drawn on it, with several long things clinging to the edge of the hole, and in the middle of the hole, a large, indescribable stalactite-like thing hanging limply down.

Two other books had no illustrations, only scattered, hastily written words like "blood," "soul," "coming and going," "life," "transmission," and "vessel." What was she trying to express? Is blood the vessel of life?

"It's all a mystery..."

Blood Fiend is even more mysterious than I thought.

"If you ask me, this guy is totally out of his mind. He's clearly not a superhuman, yet he's researching these things, and he never says a word when he's with me..."

"I think she just looks down on you."

"Tsk tsk tsk, is my Husband transforming into a sharp-tongued man? Not bad at all~ Would you like me to teach you the proper way to insult others?"

"Your words are going to drive people crazy... huh?"

That's when it dawned on me.

"Wait, wait, wait! What did you just say!?"

"I'll teach you how to insult—"

"No! The previous sentence!"

"The previous sentence... he remained completely silent when he was with me..."

"No! Go further ahead!"

"You're clearly not a superhuman, yet you're researching these things... What's wrong?"