WE TRIED TLS

Is It Bad That the Main Character’s a Roleplayer

Chapter 222 | This World Is (7)

「…Even if you wake up now, all you’ll feel is pain. It’ll hurt so much! Because of that seal, I won’t be able to control it, so really…!」

The sobbing voice started almost shouting as if trying to scare me. Did this person really hate the idea of me waking up so much?

* * *

Demonic Erosion was really insidious. At first, there was no pain at all. Even as your eyes began turning red and black veins appeared all over your body, you wouldn’t feel a single thing.

However, by the time it started to erode your mind, the story changed.

It would hurt. Not the kind of pain that would knock you unconscious, but the kind that gnawed at you slowly. Like having your flesh peeled away layer by layer. An accumulating pain that came in relentless waves

“Hah!”

But so what? If she could endure Flowing Fire pouring over her body, then this kind of pain was nothing.

What was important to her right now was this moment.

“Die!”

She wouldn’t mind if she broke. She also wouldn’t mind if she died. She’d already accepted that the moment she set foot on this land.

But if she were going down, she wouldn’t be going alone, especially if her enemy was a Demon!

“Wahahaha!”

Completely ignoring the flesh torn from her shoulder by a Merfolk’s claws, she swung the stone in her grip.

Instead of her fist, which she could never make harder than rock no matter how much she trained, she shattered the Merfolk’s skulls with a chunk of stone.

It was just like when she’d crushed her master’s head: the scalp split, bones fractured, and brain matter and blood came spilling out.

She then twisted her waist slightly, just enough to avoid the next attack coming from behind. Even filled with eggs, these Merfolk weren’t slow, so one actually managed to scratch her side, though not deep enough to spill her guts.

And as if to get revenge for the wound, her empty left hand shot out, her fingers jamming straight into the Merfolk’s eye. She bent her fingers as she pulled it right out.

“This isn’t even as hard as the Glacier Trial!!”

If she were to compare the Glacier Trial, which only the strongest warriors of her tribe could take on, to these mere Demons, the latter was clearly nothing… but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t mock these things with it.

She sneered, then drove her foot into the Merfolk’s stomach. Bam! The Demon that had tried to turn her into a nest fell lifeless to the ground before more rushed in to take its place.

But, well.

Crack!

Not that it mattered. She splashed the blood covering the ground as she hurled another stone. Even without a proper slingshot, her raw strength made it a deadly projectile.

The slick fluid covering the Merfolk’s body made it slip, but the impact was completely dissipated, so it stumbled once or twice.

If we really die here.

She didn’t miss the chance to grip the Merfolk’s hand and snap its wrist backward, stabbing the Merfolk with its own claws.

Having been stabbed, it choked on its blood, its tongue lolling out before it collapsed backward.

Which of us will you mourn, Vidr?

Slash! And it was torn into five pieces. It had been aiming for her, but due to poor positioning, the Merfolk ended up butchering the corpse of one of its own kind instead.

Bam. But Merfolk weren’t the only ones to attack their own. Her movements paused for a brief moment, just barely avoiding another strike.

Rip! Those she failed to dodge left fresh wounds on her body as proof.

Me? Or…

“Stop.”

Her fingers hooked into a Merfolk’s mouth.

Tear! Cleverly avoiding its teeth, she caught the edge just right. Before it could bite down and sever her fingers, she tore its mouth wide open.

“We promised not to talk about that.”

We are moments away from death, aren’t we?

“Sister.”

Berserk.

Her body twisted flexibly.

As her upper body arched back like a bow, her core muscles momentarily supporting her entire body, the Merfolk’s claws sliced through the air just above her abdomen.

Whoosh! And the moment its claws passed, she snapped forward. Aside from her core, her serratus muscles, which had also been coiled taut, instantly unwound to launch her shoulder forward.

The Merfolk, struck squarely in the jaw by her palm, was sent flying.

Or should I call you Weapon Master?

“Sister…”

Yeah. Either is fine. I just… want you to face it.

Her abdominal muscles coiled like a vortex, narrowly dodging the claws. As her waist twisted, the arm that had swung upward came crashing down, gripping the Merfolk’s neck.

Unlike people, its neck was thicker than its head, filling her entire forearm.

You keep contradicting yourself, mourning her, yet insisting she’s still alive.

Crunch. But when a neck was trapped between an arm and a chest, there was usually only one outcome.

She tightened her grip and snapped its spine. It thrashed, claws leaving marks across her thigh and hip, but it wasn’t anything serious. Probably.

Instead, she used her free hand to grab the corpse and swing it like a club. The next few incoming attacks were blocked by that meat shield.

Calling me “sister” when I’m just a part of you… I want you to stop it.

She couldn’t afford to grow complacent just because she’d stopped one wave of attacks. The moment she spotted an opening, she lunged forward.

As soon as she tensed her thigh muscles to propel herself forward to a relatively safe place, blood sprayed everywhere. The enemy waiting for her at her landing spot was irrelevant, its skull getting crushed beneath her heel as soon as she touched down.

She had a moment to catch her breath.

Let’s stop this already.

“Haah.”

Did it happen? She exhaled a hot breath.

She didn’t know if it was hot because she’d taken several steps without breathing or because the Demonic Erosion was about to consume her completely.

If this keeps up, I won’t even be able to mourn Vidr properly, not even at the moment of my death.

She just wanted to run away.

Even though she knew there was nowhere left to run.

“Goddammit!!”

She clutched her spinning head, tormented by the corruption creeping through her mind. Or perhaps she was crying in defiance at the choice being thrust into her face right this second, one she refused to accept.

Crunch! Her fingers crushed a Merfolk’s eye, shattering the socket in the process.

“I know, I also know!!”

…Berserk.

“I know it better than anyone!!”

Crunch!

But she was reaching her limit. The Merfolk kept coming, and the erosion kept clouding her mind.

With her blurred judgment wavering, she was pierced through the side, dangerously close to her lungs.

“I know you’re dead!!”

And for a moment, everything stopped.

No. Time still continued moving forward. Even the time she’d frozen that day when she was thirteen started to move again.

“I know you’re dead, Sister—!!”

Boom!

“…!”

The moment that seemed frozen in time shattered like the ground beneath her. The rotten flesh gave way, unable to support the weight of dozens of Merfolk, dropping them into the empty space below.

Bam, bam.

The uneven terrain dropped her, rolled her, and dropped her again.

Her massive frame tumbled over the slippery flesh, completely covered in blood. Berserk. She sure lived up to that name.

Roll, roll.

But as if even that wasn’t enough, her body kept tumbling down until she reached the largest pit of blood.

Splash!

Rather than stopping herself, she used the fall to extricate herself temporarily from the situation. Only after sinking fully into the pool of blood did she finally rise.

Swish. Even at the edge of the pit, the blood was deep enough to reach her shins, sloshing around as she moved.

It almost looked like a lake.

“Hah.”

The Merfolk hadn’t followed her down yet, and it would be a long while before she came across anything.

She stumbled once and leaned against the nearest rock—she wasn’t sure what it actually was, but at the very least, it wasn’t flesh. Drip. Blood that had soaked deep into her hair and skin streamed down.

“I know… I know as well…”

A murmur, almost like a sigh of lament, escaped her mouth and echoed through the pit. Like the last words of someone who knew their end was near.

“I know, but… how am I supposed to stop?”

She remembered. She’d always remember the one who shone like the sun, brightening the frozen wasteland. The one who’d raised her, who’d held her up in place of parents. Those arms that had felt so impossibly vast…

“H-how could I ever?”

My sun. My world. My giant.

My…

“Sister…”

In fact, it had been a long time since she realized her sister was dead.

The reason she’d asked the Demon Knight for a duel, yet never once asked him to kill her. The reason she’d obediently listened to her master’s final wish instead of destroying it outright. The reason she hadn’t ended her own life that day on the snowfield.

If she died, then mourning her sister would become contradictory. Would she mourn the one she created or the one she’d ignored even after dying long ago?

In the end, she would be forced to face it.

Let go of this stubbornness already.

“Please, Vidr.”

I’m fine. We were always one and the same anyway.

“My poor sister.”

I’m just returning to where I belong. What’s so wrong about that?

She hated it. She hated it more than anything else.

『I challenge you, Great Warrior.』

She didn’t want to accept that her sister had died in a place where the sun would never rise, that she’d walked to her death just to save her.

『One condition. If I so much as wound you in the slightest, you will take in my sister.』

She didn’t want to believe her sister’s final resting place would be nothing but miserable, that the world she’d once lived for had discarded her so easily…

So… for Vidr’s sake, for our sake, let’s stop this.

“Y-you’re being so selfish…”

But all things, even a child’s stubbornness that lasted for over thirty years, must come to an end someday.

Just as the halberd, passed down from master to master for a hundred years, has finally been shattered.

What must break will break eventually.

Like a child who refused to grow up, she sobbed as she forced himself to stand. Splash, splash.

And at the same time, something else rose from the blood lake. It was the largest, most vicious Merfolk she’d ever seen.

> [Y-you… sh-shouldn’t… b-be here.]

And honestly, if I’m going to die and reunite with Vidr, wouldn’t it be better if it’s as a whole person instead of two shattered halves?

> [Th-this… mortal… can’t.]

Right?

Was she afraid? If she were asked that, there would only ever be one answer: No.

“…Yeah.”

Berserk finally admitted it.

“You’re right.”

Weapon Master, the yoke she’d inherited upon killing her master, was also her name.

> [D-di-d-die.]

The voices inside her fell silent.

It was painful.

* * *

WE TRIED TLS

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* * *

「That Demon might seal you, leaving you unable to move, unable to do anything but suffer. And even if you do manage to break free, your body might be so damaged that you won’t be able to move at all. Do you still want to get up? Even knowing all that, will you still choose to get up…?」

But I didn’t feel so bad about their words because I could hear the worry beneath them.

* * *

“Huff, huff.”

The Inquisitor sucked in a deep breath, forcing herself to continue breathing despite the air clawing at her throat.

Even through her nose, it wasn’t enough. She gulped down air through her mouth, scorching her windpipe as it passed her throat.

> [Almost over?]

But before she could fully recover, a projectile made of lava slammed into her right side.

The lava burned through her chainmail, searing her flesh and blood to a golden brown. “Argh.” A choked cry slipped through her cracked lips and then stopped.

Her pride would not allow her to scream before a Demon.

Crackle.

In the meantime, the hardened lava still clinging to her armor crumbled to dust.

It showed that even the power with which she could Purify corruption was running thin.

> [So stubborn.]

Even so, she refused to release the barrier.

The Inquisitor swallowed the bitter taste of ash coating her tongue, her fingers twitching faintly. The heated armor rattled against itself.

Despite having worn such armor for half her lifetime, it had never felt heavier on her. She could barely move.

Her vision blurred, bleeding white at the edges.

“…I.”

I will not fall. She couldn’t even finish her sentence, her mouth forced open as pain pierced her side.

By now, she should’ve become numb to the pain, yet her body felt every last bit of it. Her fingers trembled before finally relaxing completely.

> [Still clinging to that stubbornness? Just give up already.]

But, but…

“O Lord.”

She still prayed, battered as she was.

Look upon this city with mercy. Look upon these forsaken souls with grace.

Look upon the one who has been consumed by darkness yet has given more of themselves than any other.

> [Seriously. Mortals…]

…And if there must be a next Hero, please choose someone better than my inept self to give this world a better chance.

> [It seems the title of Hero is just given to whatever vessel can somewhat bear it.]

Someone who can save more lives than I ever could…

“Do not… insult the Lord…”

> [Hah, you really can’t stand hearing your God mocked, huh?]

“He is holy, noble…”

> [So what? After all, he’s just an entity on par with our King.]

Perhaps certain of its victory, the Great Demon of Greed approached and stepped on her.

As a leg of stone and flame pressed down on her body, her armor grew blisteringly hot, searing her skin.

Trapped inside, the heat circulated through the armor, further burning her and adding to her agony.

> [We don’t even respect our King, so why would I honor your God?]

“Demons…”

But not yet, not yet.

“Are all the same…!”

> […!]

The Inquisitor straightened her haggard gaze, summoning the last fragments of strength she’d desperately scraped together.

A strike with the edge of her Divine barrier sliced into the Demon’s body, forcing Pandemonium to leap back.

> [Fine, that was my mistake.]

“…Degenerates who don’t even know the meaning of the word ‘reverence.’ Our God never asked for your worship. Just die.”

All the while, the Inquisitor worked to restore her physical body. However, the lava still pooling around her proved problematic. It reacted to even the slightest amount of recovery, sprouting spawns and spikes…

Boooom!

Swoooooosh!

> […?!]

Just as she was about to speak, something rushed in from the distance. She wasn’t sure how, but someone had ruptured the waterway, sending a torrent crashing through the city and flooding the streets.

Wherever the seawater touched the lava, it cooled, solidifying instantly and snuffing out the oppressive heat.

> […I let you scurry around like a rat long enough, thinking you’d just die all on your own, but this is how it turned out?]

Pandemonium scowled.

> [You, go kill he—]

Boom!

Before Pandemonium could even finish the command, a blinding force tore through the sky. A colossal wave of Arcane Power swept over them as a meteor-like blast of pure light crashed down upon the earth. It accurately targeted the structures and Demons in its way.

Kwooom. The portal that had been spewing out endless waves of Demons was erased, leaving only the structure remaining.

The Demon that had been standing guard before it was also decimated, with only its lower half left behind.

> […]

Pandemonium fell silent.

“This is…”

The Inquisitor, on the other hand, seemed to realize something instinctively. Her lips curled into a wry smile.

Somewhere out of sight, she could almost picture a certain troublemaker waving at her.

> [Foolish mortal…!]

“Stupid idiot…!”

Strangely enough, strength returned to her lips once again.

As lava surged again with Pandemonium’s rage, golden light rose to block its path once more.

* * *

And so, I smiled and accepted their worries.

But just maybe, I could still save at least one person.

____

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