As the sun began to set, the walled city melted into the violet of twilight. Liev and Irina passed through the pungent pine woods, exiting into a well-lit avenue lined with birch trees.
“I don’t think that you’ll try to run away, but please walk near me.”
Liev ordered Irina to walk within a short distance of him. He couldn’t leash her like a dog, so she had to stay within his sight.
“I will not run away, but I will not walk behind a human, so I will walk beside you.”
Her words were sharp to the point of being refreshing. But on the other hand, it would have been scary for her to give a bright cheerful response so her straight forward reply may have been for the better.
As Irina passed by, an old tobacconist wearing eyeglasses, who turned their head to look. His expression was not that of unease, but more so trance-like. They didn’t realize she was a vampire but were attracted to her beauty. If they knew who this girl was, what kind of reaction would they have?
In this restless situation, he headed toward the communal dormitories in the residential district.
The city was separated into two districts— the residential district, and the development district; cadets were sent out every day to the development district located at the city’s outer circumference.
In addition to the training center, there were also special training facilities, research institutions where technicians worked and so forth, various large and small buildings scattered about, 80-meter tall watchtowers were on the outskirts of the town assigned as parachute training facilities as well as monitoring services.
The development district was surrounded by the residential district with standard housing complexes, which were surrounded by schools, hospitals, libraries, marketplaces, and restaurants.
As a counterpart to the “stick” of confidentiality, a “carrot” had also been properly prepared in the form of items unavailable to the general public such as televisions, washing machines, or refrigerators. Regardless of the small scale of the city, there was an abundance of leisure establishments such as theatres and football fields, and at the corner of town, there was a man-made lake where one could ice skate.
Liev and Irina walked to the residential district without exchanging any words. You could see the steeple of the church from above all of the houses. The blue, onion-shaped roof with a golden cross on top stood out in the city due to its magnificence.
“Aah…”
Liev suddenly realized something extremely important and stopped.
“What?”
With a reluctant expression on his face, Liev spoke to Irina who had a puzzled look on her face.
“To get to the dormitories, we can avoid passing through the church ahead, but it’d be dreadfully roundabout…”
Before he was even finished speaking, he was hurled a cold gaze.
“Do you think that I am worried about crosses?”
After vampires, Liev wondered whether he had stepped on another landmine.
“Then by perchance, is it not a weakness…?”
Irina nodded deeply.
“Long ago, to strengthen the authority of the church, rumors and hearsay were propagated.”
“Are you really all right…?”
“Truly…”
Not a second after she said that, Irina, without warning, plunged into Liev’s bosom and glanced upward with a glare, licking her revealed fang with her tongue.
“?!”
He fell on his back. This was different from Korovin’s overbearing aura—a ghastly chill came from within his body.
“Liev.”
“W-what is it…”
If one were to receive such a gaze from those crimson eyes in the glow of twilight, they would be left completely immobile.
“From now on, it will be troublesome to repudiate everything each and every time. Thus, to begin with, I want you to start telling me everything that you are aware of concerning bloodsuckers.”
The more she sighed and brought her head closer, the more flustered Liev got as he panicked.
“I u-understand…! I understand, so could you back off…?”
“Why are you so frightened? I won’t bite.”
He was not discomposed because of that, but because of her face; he felt fear from looking at a beauty of the opposite sex drawing near which was causing him to get flustered, but it didn’t seem that Irina understood.
“T-too close…!”
Liev’s body had grown hot, and he worried whether his cheeks had already grown red.
“I understand. I’ll move away.”
Irina took a step back, crossed her arms, and put her chin up.
“Come on, speak.”
“N, aah…. Well, you know, that you uh…”
After the trembling had subsided, Liev composed himself and began to pull bits of authentic and ambiguous folklore from the bottom of his memory.
“… Bite into the napes of necks and use thorny tongues to suck blood.”
“Thorny…?”
Irina stuck out her tongue.
It wasn’t thorny, just a fair pink color.
“It’s a misunderstanding…”
“Next?”
“… A Bloodsucker can augment its retainers by drinking their blood… is that not a thing?”
“Impossible. Next.”
“You cannot ‘enter’ someone’s abode unless you’re granted permission.”
“Would you enter at your own convenience?”
“… No, I wouldn’t come in.
Irina distorted her mouth with evident displeasure.
“Besides that?”
“… When lots of millets or seeds fall to the ground, you want to count them over completely.”
“Why would we count it?”
“Well…”
“Next.”
“Weakness to garlic.”
“It just smells. Asparagus is a true horror[6].”
He couldn’t endure the feeling of continuously stepping on landmines. However, in order to avoid future slip-ups, he had to clarify what was right and wrong.
Liev was about to break but still continued on.
“The ability to transform. To change into bats, wolves, fog.”
“Are you trying to make a fool of me?”
“Being unable to die unless your head is lopped off or you’re staked through the heart.”
“Don’t be absurd. Either one is more than enough to kill me…”
Up until now, Irina’s expression had been distinctly cloudy, and now Liev felt a little regretful of how insensitive he had been.
“… That’s true. My bad.”
“Humans are the worst. Eternal life, immortality, and other such fantasies…”
“Hm…?”
When Irina averted her gaze from Liev, she began to look up at a twinkling star in the night’s sky, muttering a soliloquy.
“… To be born normal, and die normally…”
As Liev stepped in front of Irina, her light pink eyes seemed to tremble sorrowfully.
“What did you say just now?”
Although he asked to hear what she said, Irina only shook her head.
“Nothing. At any rate, if I get injured it hurts and I can get sick too”
Liev couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more there, but—
“Next-”
As the conversation continued with an unyielding force, he gave up on pursuing this and recommenced stepping on landmines.
“A fear of flowing water and the sea.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Incurring damage from silver.”
“I use the silverware.”
“Having no reflection in mirrors—”
“I have a reflection.”
“Having no shadow.”
“Do you have bad eyes?”
Irina pointed towards her feet. A shadow was formed by the illumination of an overhead streetlamp.
“Ah…”
“Haa…”
Irina became fed up and let a sigh escape.
“I’m truly sorry. I was an idiot to believe in legends without doubting them. I’ll be more careful from now on.
Liev deeply bowed.
Then he heard Irina’s disappointed-sounding voice.
“… In spite of being a human, you’re rather honest and humble.”
“Eh?”
When Liev looked up, Irina wore a look of surprise.
“No, after all, it’s because I misunderstood.”
“Correct, but you are not the source of the misunderstanding.”
Irina looked up to the cross of the church.
“When the Black Death was widespread back during the sixteenth century, the human church treated us as the source of the infection. If you can create a target, you can divert the criticisms of God.”
Many legends actually stated that the bloodsuckers had been born out of that age, bloodsucker hunting had been carried out stemming from the belief that the “Cursed Seed” was borne from the disease.
Irina dropped her gaze from the cross and focused on Liev.
“The numerous asinine ‘special characteristics’ were propagated by the church, as well as through novels and films. Thus, you yourself are not particularly in the wrong.”
Although he was allowed to have individual slip-ups, Liev felt pain in his chest as he was confronted by the err’s perpetrated by humankind. When he looked into Irina’s eyes with pity, the bloodsucking girl looked forward as if avoiding his gaze.
“Take me to the dining hall.”
Just as they reached the stone-paved plaza in front of the church the bell rang, it was time to give the evening prayer; the hymn of the pipe organ’s performance could be heard from within the church. As they passed through the plaza Irina closed her mouth and made a firm expression as if she didn’t want to breathe. There was only the regular peaceful routine of a flock of pigeons pecking at bread crumbs, but Liev thought that Irina might find the air intolerable and sped up.
When they passed through the plaza, Iruna, who was strangely silent, pointed to something on the side of the path.
“What’s that over there?”
In a corner in the grass, there was the statue of a rocket surrounded by clove pink (Dianthus caryophyllus). In the body of the rocket, there was a small open window with the bronze statue of a dog was enshrined.
“According to the plaque, it’s the Parushni?”
“That’s…”
Irina, who had questioned Liev, was at a loss for words for a moment, but the truth of the matter couldn’t be hidden.
“It’s the tombstone of the dog who flew into space.”
It was customary in the Republic to announce successes, but hide the failures, that is to say, there were many more dogs launched and sacrificed than what was officially announced.
For example, in 1957, the Republic had announced that the experimental rocket launch into space of the dog Marui in the “Parushni II” model. However, as a matter of fact, Marui was barely breathing as they penetrated the atmosphere. The cabin became unbearably hot because the heat shield and cooling systems failed to operate, and before long it perished from the heat.
The truth is that only a small portion of the personnel in the space program were aware of this fact, and Irina, who had resided within the deep recesses of the mountain, had no way of knowing.
Irina, with a clouded gaze, glared at the monument and walked towards it. Standing in front of it, she put her hand on her chest and bowed.
Liev, who looked at Irina paying her respects from behind, had a dark premonition that this girl would end up dead like the dog welling in his chest.
“… No. Not this girl…”
Liev shakes his head and gently murmurs.
“Even if we have to risk our life…”
Manned flight programs were chock full with some tens of thousands of drops of sweat and tears, but development was a continuous set of failures.
Prior to Liev becoming a spare, every cadet went to the rocket launch site to observe the launch of a dog. Their hearts were big with anticipation that they would see the form of the rocket taking far off into space, but immediately following the launch, it blew up into smithereens. Liev, who had personally witnessed this hell, was left with the feeling of shock and heartbreak, and for a while afterward, he couldn’t stomach anything.
Even though one could picture a magnificent dream, science and technology couldn’t catch up, and success was extremely difficult to grasp. Even if it had passed through the atmosphere, if it had gone out of orbit, then it would be lost in the void of space, and upon re-entry, it might become a fireball and burn up.
In fact, the experiment’s success rate was less than fifty percent.
Liev and many others were aware of the perils ahead continued to train. Now, the girl before him was brought as an experiment to enhance his safety.
“… but why was this girl chosen?”
Suddenly, he had more questions as soon as that left his mouth. Were the numbers of bloodsuckers so small, and had no others passed the inspection/examination?
Liev wanted to ask Irina but stopped at the last moment.
‘Experiments should be treated as objects.’
This callous way of thinking spoken by Lieutenant General Victor in the Director’s room had become a common perspective for everyone. However, it was not out of cold-heartedness.
Rather, it was the opposite, it was a lesson learned from the death of Maly.
Maly, which had been chosen as the experiment’s dog, was adorable and loved by the personnel of the space program. Then, a couple of months later, when the ‘Purushni II’ model launched, the technical operators parted with tears. They knew that with the current technology, a safe return was impossible. The responsible caretaker, Dr. Mozhaysky did everything for Marui, such as giving her water to drink, until right before the start, unwilling to say goodbye until the last moment.
As a result of Maly’s tragic death, even Korovin and First Secretary Gergiev grieved.
Since that event, a line was drawn and experimental bodies were no longer to be seen as “comrades”, but as “objects”.
Liev thought.
Likewise, should I treat Irina as an ‘object’ like a dog?
Whether he should treat Irina the same as a dog, as an object?
“… No, there is no need to force myself to think of her like that.”
Thoughts went around in his head a few times before he came to that conclusion. Treating them as ‘objects’ was in order to prevent mourning and maintaining morale.
On the other hand, Liev was assigned as Manager to “let the experimental body smoothly take part in the training and safely send her off into space”. Unlike a dog, not only can Irina hold conversations with humans, but she also harbors bad impressions of them. In other words, if treated indifferently she might become more and more hostile, refusing to take part in the training or even plotting to escape. Although being kind to her was an outrageous proposition, he had to at least build up a minimal relationship between them.
But, Liev was certainly no stranger to love. He knew the rules, and he knew Irina did as well. He was thinking of a complete commitment. He wanted Irina to know that, as a whole, she wouldn’t get this from just any other guy. Liev just wanted to tell her how he was feeling—he had to make her understand.
Thus, if the launch failed, they could swallow the sadness on their own.
That’s all.
You have to draw a proper line and only hear as much as necessary.
Liev decided to take a look at Irina, who had finished paying her respects and looked up at the sky. He couldn’t see what sort of expression she had on her face from where she stood.
✦✦✦
As the sun began to set, the walled city melted into the violet of twilight. Liev and Irina passed through the pungent pine woods, exiting into a well-lit avenue lined with birch trees.
“I don’t think that you’ll try to run away, but please walk near me.”
Liev ordered Irina to walk within a short distance of him. He couldn’t leash her like a dog, so she had to stay within his sight.
“I will not run away, but I will not walk behind a human, so I will walk beside you.”
Her words were sharp to the point of being refreshing. But on the other hand, it would have been scary for her to give a bright cheerful response so her straight forward reply may have been for the better.
As Irina passed by, an old tobacconist wearing eyeglasses, who turned their head to look. His expression was not that of unease, but more so trance-like. They didn’t realize she was a vampire but were attracted to her beauty. If they knew who this girl was, what kind of reaction would they have?
In this restless situation, he headed toward the communal dormitories in the residential district.
The city was separated into two districts— the residential district, and the development district; cadets were sent out every day to the development district located at the city’s outer circumference.
In addition to the training center, there were also special training facilities, research institutions where technicians worked and so forth, various large and small buildings scattered about, 80-meter tall watchtowers were on the outskirts of the town assigned as parachute training facilities as well as monitoring services.
The development district was surrounded by the residential district with standard housing complexes, which were surrounded by schools, hospitals, libraries, marketplaces, and restaurants.
As a counterpart to the “stick” of confidentiality, a “carrot” had also been properly prepared in the form of items unavailable to the general public such as televisions, washing machines, or refrigerators. Regardless of the small scale of the city, there was an abundance of leisure establishments such as theatres and football fields, and at the corner of town, there was a man-made lake where one could ice skate.
Liev and Irina walked to the residential district without exchanging any words. You could see the steeple of the church from above all of the houses. The blue, onion-shaped roof with a golden cross on top stood out in the city due to its magnificence.
“Aah…”
Liev suddenly realized something extremely important and stopped.
“What?”
With a reluctant expression on his face, Liev spoke to Irina who had a puzzled look on her face.
“To get to the dormitories, we can avoid passing through the church ahead, but it’d be dreadfully roundabout…”
Before he was even finished speaking, he was hurled a cold gaze.
“Do you think that I am worried about crosses?”
After vampires, Liev wondered whether he had stepped on another landmine.
“Then by perchance, is it not a weakness…?”
Irina nodded deeply.
“Long ago, to strengthen the authority of the church, rumors and hearsay were propagated.”
“Are you really all right…?”
“Truly…”
Not a second after she said that, Irina, without warning, plunged into Liev’s bosom and glanced upward with a glare, licking her revealed fang with her tongue.
“?!”
He fell on his back. This was different from Korovin’s overbearing aura—a ghastly chill came from within his body.
“Liev.”
“W-what is it…”
If one were to receive such a gaze from those crimson eyes in the glow of twilight, they would be left completely immobile.
“From now on, it will be troublesome to repudiate everything each and every time. Thus, to begin with, I want you to start telling me everything that you are aware of concerning bloodsuckers.”
The more she sighed and brought her head closer, the more flustered Liev got as he panicked.
“I u-understand…! I understand, so could you back off…?”
“Why are you so frightened? I won’t bite.”
He was not discomposed because of that, but because of her face; he felt fear from looking at a beauty of the opposite sex drawing near which was causing him to get flustered, but it didn’t seem that Irina understood.
“T-too close…!”
Liev’s body had grown hot, and he worried whether his cheeks had already grown red.
“I understand. I’ll move away.”
Irina took a step back, crossed her arms, and put her chin up.
“Come on, speak.”
“N, aah…. Well, you know, that you uh…”
After the trembling had subsided, Liev composed himself and began to pull bits of authentic and ambiguous folklore from the bottom of his memory.
“… Bite into the napes of necks and use thorny tongues to suck blood.”
“Thorny…?”
Irina stuck out her tongue.
It wasn’t thorny, just a fair pink color.
“It’s a misunderstanding…”
“Next?”
“… A Bloodsucker can augment its retainers by drinking their blood… is that not a thing?”
“Impossible. Next.”
“You cannot ‘enter’ someone’s abode unless you’re granted permission.”
“Would you enter at your own convenience?”
“… No, I wouldn’t come in.
Irina distorted her mouth with evident displeasure.
“Besides that?”
“… When lots of millets or seeds fall to the ground, you want to count them over completely.”
“Why would we count it?”
“Well…”
“Next.”
“Weakness to garlic.”
“It just smells. Asparagus is a true horror[6].”
He couldn’t endure the feeling of continuously stepping on landmines. However, in order to avoid future slip-ups, he had to clarify what was right and wrong.
Liev was about to break but still continued on.
“The ability to transform. To change into bats, wolves, fog.”
“Are you trying to make a fool of me?”
“Being unable to die unless your head is lopped off or you’re staked through the heart.”
“Don’t be absurd. Either one is more than enough to kill me…”
Up until now, Irina’s expression had been distinctly cloudy, and now Liev felt a little regretful of how insensitive he had been.
“… That’s true. My bad.”
“Humans are the worst. Eternal life, immortality, and other such fantasies…”
“Hm…?”
When Irina averted her gaze from Liev, she began to look up at a twinkling star in the night’s sky, muttering a soliloquy.
“… To be born normal, and die normally…”
As Liev stepped in front of Irina, her light pink eyes seemed to tremble sorrowfully.
“What did you say just now?”
Although he asked to hear what she said, Irina only shook her head.
“Nothing. At any rate, if I get injured it hurts and I can get sick too”
Liev couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more there, but—
“Next-”
As the conversation continued with an unyielding force, he gave up on pursuing this and recommenced stepping on landmines.
“A fear of flowing water and the sea.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Incurring damage from silver.”
“I use the silverware.”
“Having no reflection in mirrors—”
“I have a reflection.”
“Having no shadow.”
“Do you have bad eyes?”
Irina pointed towards her feet. A shadow was formed by the illumination of an overhead streetlamp.
“Ah…”
“Haa…”
Irina became fed up and let a sigh escape.
“I’m truly sorry. I was an idiot to believe in legends without doubting them. I’ll be more careful from now on.
Liev deeply bowed.
Then he heard Irina’s disappointed-sounding voice.
“… In spite of being a human, you’re rather honest and humble.”
“Eh?”
When Liev looked up, Irina wore a look of surprise.
“No, after all, it’s because I misunderstood.”
“Correct, but you are not the source of the misunderstanding.”
Irina looked up to the cross of the church.
“When the Black Death was widespread back during the sixteenth century, the human church treated us as the source of the infection. If you can create a target, you can divert the criticisms of God.”
Many legends actually stated that the bloodsuckers had been born out of that age, bloodsucker hunting had been carried out stemming from the belief that the “Cursed Seed” was borne from the disease.
Irina dropped her gaze from the cross and focused on Liev.
“The numerous asinine ‘special characteristics’ were propagated by the church, as well as through novels and films. Thus, you yourself are not particularly in the wrong.”
Although he was allowed to have individual slip-ups, Liev felt pain in his chest as he was confronted by the err’s perpetrated by humankind. When he looked into Irina’s eyes with pity, the bloodsucking girl looked forward as if avoiding his gaze.
“Take me to the dining hall.”
Just as they reached the stone-paved plaza in front of the church the bell rang, it was time to give the evening prayer; the hymn of the pipe organ’s performance could be heard from within the church. As they passed through the plaza Irina closed her mouth and made a firm expression as if she didn’t want to breathe. There was only the regular peaceful routine of a flock of pigeons pecking at bread crumbs, but Liev thought that Irina might find the air intolerable and sped up.
When they passed through the plaza, Iruna, who was strangely silent, pointed to something on the side of the path.
“What’s that over there?”
In a corner in the grass, there was the statue of a rocket surrounded by clove pink (Dianthus caryophyllus). In the body of the rocket, there was a small open window with the bronze statue of a dog was enshrined.
“According to the plaque, it’s the Parushni?”
“That’s…”
Irina, who had questioned Liev, was at a loss for words for a moment, but the truth of the matter couldn’t be hidden.
“It’s the tombstone of the dog who flew into space.”
It was customary in the Republic to announce successes, but hide the failures, that is to say, there were many more dogs launched and sacrificed than what was officially announced.
For example, in 1957, the Republic had announced that the experimental rocket launch into space of the dog Marui in the “Parushni II” model. However, as a matter of fact, Marui was barely breathing as they penetrated the atmosphere. The cabin became unbearably hot because the heat shield and cooling systems failed to operate, and before long it perished from the heat.
The truth is that only a small portion of the personnel in the space program were aware of this fact, and Irina, who had resided within the deep recesses of the mountain, had no way of knowing.
Irina, with a clouded gaze, glared at the monument and walked towards it. Standing in front of it, she put her hand on her chest and bowed.
Liev, who looked at Irina paying her respects from behind, had a dark premonition that this girl would end up dead like the dog welling in his chest.
“… No. Not this girl…”
Liev shakes his head and gently murmurs.
“Even if we have to risk our life…”
Manned flight programs were chock full with some tens of thousands of drops of sweat and tears, but development was a continuous set of failures.
Prior to Liev becoming a spare, every cadet went to the rocket launch site to observe the launch of a dog. Their hearts were big with anticipation that they would see the form of the rocket taking far off into space, but immediately following the launch, it blew up into smithereens. Liev, who had personally witnessed this hell, was left with the feeling of shock and heartbreak, and for a while afterward, he couldn’t stomach anything.
Even though one could picture a magnificent dream, science and technology couldn’t catch up, and success was extremely difficult to grasp. Even if it had passed through the atmosphere, if it had gone out of orbit, then it would be lost in the void of space, and upon re-entry, it might become a fireball and burn up.
In fact, the experiment’s success rate was less than fifty percent.
Liev and many others were aware of the perils ahead continued to train. Now, the girl before him was brought as an experiment to enhance his safety.
“… but why was this girl chosen?”
Suddenly, he had more questions as soon as that left his mouth. Were the numbers of bloodsuckers so small, and had no others passed the inspection/examination?
Liev wanted to ask Irina but stopped at the last moment.
‘Experiments should be treated as objects.’
This callous way of thinking spoken by Lieutenant General Victor in the Director’s room had become a common perspective for everyone. However, it was not out of cold-heartedness.
Rather, it was the opposite, it was a lesson learned from the death of Maly.
Maly, which had been chosen as the experiment’s dog, was adorable and loved by the personnel of the space program. Then, a couple of months later, when the ‘Purushni II’ model launched, the technical operators parted with tears. They knew that with the current technology, a safe return was impossible. The responsible caretaker, Dr. Mozhaysky did everything for Marui, such as giving her water to drink, until right before the start, unwilling to say goodbye until the last moment.
As a result of Maly’s tragic death, even Korovin and First Secretary Gergiev grieved.
Since that event, a line was drawn and experimental bodies were no longer to be seen as “comrades”, but as “objects”.
Liev thought.
Likewise, should I treat Irina as an ‘object’ like a dog?
Whether he should treat Irina the same as a dog, as an object?
“… No, there is no need to force myself to think of her like that.”
Thoughts went around in his head a few times before he came to that conclusion. Treating them as ‘objects’ was in order to prevent mourning and maintaining morale.
On the other hand, Liev was assigned as Manager to “let the experimental body smoothly take part in the training and safely send her off into space”. Unlike a dog, not only can Irina hold conversations with humans, but she also harbors bad impressions of them. In other words, if treated indifferently she might become more and more hostile, refusing to take part in the training or even plotting to escape. Although being kind to her was an outrageous proposition, he had to at least build up a minimal relationship between them.
But, Liev was certainly no stranger to love. He knew the rules, and he knew Irina did as well. He was thinking of a complete commitment. He wanted Irina to know that, as a whole, she wouldn’t get this from just any other guy. Liev just wanted to tell her how he was feeling—he had to make her understand.
Thus, if the launch failed, they could swallow the sadness on their own.
That’s all.
You have to draw a proper line and only hear as much as necessary.
Liev decided to take a look at Irina, who had finished paying her respects and looked up at the sky. He couldn’t see what sort of expression she had on her face from where she stood.
✦✦✦
