WE TRIED TLS
Is It Bad That the Main Character’s a Roleplayer
Chapter 255 | If (3)
“…No wonder the Temple was trying so hard to have me executed.”
> [What?]
“Nothing.”
Enough, there’s no point feeling hollow about what’s already happened. Even if I’d known, I wouldn’t have stayed there or something like that.
Brushing those thoughts aside, I quietly asked another question.
“If they can offer up their own kind as sacrifices, why do Demons leave each other alone?”
> [Well, it’s like… people know they could just kill each other and take their things, but they don’t, right? Wouldn’t it be something like that?]
“…That’s because of enforced social norms, though. Do Demons have laws or customs to maintain order?”
> [I don’t think they have any social norms they all agree on. But you know what they do have?]
A mad king who succeeded in connecting two dimensions, even though he had to use himself as a wedge to achieve it.
> [If someone like that prohibited infighting among Demons, they’d all have to follow it.]
“So that’s the logic behind it…”
I tried to imagine Satan gathering all the Demons in one place and declaring, “No fighting each other, okay?!” That was a bit funny, actually.
> [Anyway, it’s still a mystery how that body’s original owner hid all that Demonic Energy. Judging by how he collected sacrificial corpses for five years straight, the contract must have been made long before that… but is that even possible? Making a contract with a Demon and then hiding your Demonic Energy? If it were that easy, Demon Contractors wouldn’t have such a hard time staying hidden, right?]
However, laughing about it felt difficult, given the harshness of my reality.
We steered the conversation back on track. There simply was no clear answer in sight.
> […Could it be the Demon itself hid it?]
“What did you say?”
> [Like I said before, it’s nearly impossible for a normal person to conceal Demonic Energy on their own. However, if the Demon wanted to hide the Demonic Energy itself… that changes everything. Yes. If the Demon hid the Demonic Energy itself, then it all makes sense!]
The Land Turtle, like Archimedes shouting Eureka, suddenly raised their head.
> [Yes, yes, that’s it! This must be the answer!]
“…I still don’t really get this.”
So please just calm down and explain it to me. That’s what I meant indirectly, but it didn’t seem to have landed.
> [But why? What would the Demon gain from cooperating?]
“…I’d like to understand this stuff as well.”
> [Ah, sorry.]
This time, I spoke more directly, which got through to it. The Land Turtle lowered its head and started tapping the moss with its flipper.
> [Great Demons like the one inside you don’t suffer side effects from changing their body composition. So, unlike people, they don’t end up deformed or suffer from the regenerative properties of Demonic Energy. After all, the Demonic Energy is theirs to begin with.]
Of course, it added that there were still some side effects, such as being vulnerable to external attacks or suffering internal damage if the state were sustained for too long.
> [So, if the Demon did this itself, hiding the Demonic Energy wouldn’t be impossible. But…]
“There’s no reason for it to do this, right?”
> [Exactly.]
I tapped my fingers in response to the new question laid out before us. Now that we’d come this far, I felt like something was gnawing at me, but I couldn’t quite place a finger on it.
“…First, the contract between this body’s original owner and the Demon must’ve been made more than five years ago. Correct?”
> [He probably wouldn’t have been gathering all those sacrifices if he hadn’t made a contract, so… yeah, probably, right?]
“And they used those sacrifices to bring me here. That much is certain.”
> [Right?]
“…Why did they do that?”
> […?]
“I’m not lamenting why it had to be me or something. That’s something I’ll have to ask them myself. What I mean by this is… why didn’t they settle things between themselves, but instead brought in an outsider like me?”
A contract was ultimately an agreement between parties. And agreements were usually reached through negotiation and compromise. In other words, they both agreed on the plan to “bring in a third party.”
“If they wanted to achieve something through me, they never told me. I didn’t even hear why I was put into this body to begin with.”
The Main Quest appeared after I took action, so it was hard to call that a clear directive. If anything… it was more like they’d used it to keep me from realizing this was reality, not a game. If they really wanted me to kill Satan, they would’ve just blatantly given me the Main Quest to kill Satan.
“On the other hand, I was given some conveniences that seemed useful for survival. For instance, a bag that can hold more than it appears capable of, or gear that doesn’t break.”
There was more that was harder to explain, like the Status Screen and skills. Those were also things meant to convince me that I was inside a game, while undeniably helping me survive in this world.
So, maybe… maybe these things were all clues in and of themselves?
> [But what benefit would they get from having you live your life and move around?]
Like someone who’d just realized something was buried in the ground they were digging in, I began feeling around for the rocks blocking my way one by one. Would I see the answer if I successfully cleared them all away? That faint hope made my lips move on their own.
“Had I just lived my life without recognizing the Demon, I would’ve acted as a suppressant for that Demon… The owner of this body might’ve been aiming for that. You saw what happened in Bemurchen. The aftermath caused by this thing running wild is just too great.”
> [That kind of feels contrived… but it’s not nonsense. Keep going.]
Contrived? No. I was pretty sure this was the correct answer. I thought back to the opening video, which had faded significantly in my memory. I didn’t want to believe even that was a lie.
“And as for the Demon…”
I didn’t really have any clue what it was thinking. What could a Demon possibly gain from giving up control of a body to a third party and just standing by to watch?
Well, maybe it was aiming for my special trait—the Veil of Ignorance—acting as a shield?
But that shield was far from perfect. It had still led to all sorts of misunderstandings, incidents, and crises. I mean, even while I was being treated as a Demon and about to be executed, it was forced to stay back and watch nervously.
Was that really beneficial?
“…I don’t know for sure, but there must be some benefit in this for it. It wouldn’t have agreed to this kind of compromise or cooperated otherwise.”
> [Is that so?]
“But what exactly that gain is, that’s the issue…”
I racked my brain, trying to figure out what the Demon could possibly gain from all this, when my eyes suddenly returned to the documents.
If my being alive provided them some kind of benefit… then what about the opposite?
“…I was thinking about this all wrong.”
> […?]
“It’s not about how the Demon could benefit from me—”
I thought back to what I’d researched with White Wind regarding my unnaturally tenacious life force. I also reconsidered all the conveniences I’d been given, things that made it easier for me to stay alive.
“What matters is what they stand to lose if I die.”
At the very least, I could be certain that if I died, they would be troubled by it.
“If I die.”
> [H-huh?]
Then maybe I could use that as leverage, right?
“Please send my body to Inquisitor Daniel in Dorfmine.”
I picked up my dagger.
* * *
WE TRIED TLS
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Berserk gently touched the metal shard the turtle had given her. She couldn’t understand the turtle’s words, but she’d guessed it had given her this out of gratitude and so accepted it… but she still had no idea what this was.
“…It’s cold.”
However, not knowing what it was didn’t mean that she couldn’t recognize its value. Especially so since that shard was continuously radiating a chill and wind.
This metal seemed to symbolize her homeland, the land filled with glaciers that would never melt.
“…Hmm.”
Now that she thought about it, she had no idea what had become of her homeland. Berserk’s eyes slowly lowered as she recalled memories she’d thought long forgotten.
Back when she still lived there, the snowy plains had seemed as if they had been frozen in time, never changing.
Then, was that land still filled with relentless cold, littered with death, and slowly approaching its ruin? Were warriors still locked in their endless, meaningless battles, fighting and dying just to survive?
The weak were culled, the strong broken, and blood flowed endlessly, yet the land itself remained pure white.
『…You were sentenced to pass through the Trial of Glaciers twenty times. That was the punishment we gave you. And you completed it perfectly. You’re free now.』
Still.
『You’re leaving? Well, fine. There’s nothing binding you anymore, so if that’s what you want, go. We have no right to stop you.』
Would that land still cradle her sister?
『But remember this. If you fail to die, you’ll surely return. Just as we cannot leave this land, even as it grows barren and prey vanishes, you too will eventually return to this place.』
Berserk gripped the piece of metal tightly, which only grew colder the longer she held it.
“They say Norda warriors are bound by shackles.”
The wise Virgir had already known this. As long as her sister remained buried there, Berserk would inevitably return. Her escape had always been destined to end someday.
“So it was true after all.”
But she didn’t feel any needless defiance about it. She’d long since realized that the more she tried to turn away from the truth, the heavier it would bear down on her.
“It really was true.”
So there was only one choice remaining.
It was time to return.
Berserk got up. Within the heart that had wandered the south in search of meaning, coldness began to build up once more.
* * *
Before I stabbed myself, my mind continued working, thinking about various things.
Things like, what if, at the brink of death, the Demon decided to come out again? A worry that, contrary to my expectations, the life or death of this body might not actually be tied to their profit or loss. And what would really happen if I died here?
Most of my thoughts circled those kinds of things.
> [Wait, hey, stop!]
But like a bird already perched on the tip of a branch, there was nowhere left for me to retreat.
I steeled my resolve.
> [H-hey. I mean, how could it still be like—!]
“Please, take care of this.”
More than anything, I was confident about one thing.
That even in the worst-case scenario, I might end up dying, but the Demon would never be able to take control of my body again.
Of course, looking back at everything that had happened so far, I knew there were certain limitations placed on the Demon so that it couldn’t fully possess this body.
For example, maybe [Rage] had to be fully activated, or my Madness Gauge had to be completely filled, or it could only take over in completely doomed situations, like a deus ex machina kind of deal. Anyway, there was some sort of restriction placed on it.
By the way, the “doomed situations” I just mentioned weren’t based solely on situations where I might end up dying. My life had been on the line plenty of times already, but the Demon had shown up twice, so that seemed to be a fair conclusion.
So, when did the Demon descend?
It wasn’t just when my life was in danger, but when the lives of many others were also at stake. When saving them required the real Demon Knight to compromise and let the Demon take over, perhaps only then did it show up to take action.
The clues collected in Bemurchen—honestly, what reason would a Demon have to save people, let alone a Hero? Unless they were forced to—made that point nearly certain.
“Please just fulfill the request I just made.”
Anyway, that’s why this gamble wasn’t as reckless as it might seem. Even my death wasn’t really that much of a loss.
Sure, in the best-case scenario, I’d die and get sent back home, but even if I died without being able to return… wouldn’t the result be the same? If I couldn’t hide this Demonic Energy within me, I’d be hunted and hated for the rest of my life, and I wasn’t confident I could handle all that. If that was the alternative, it might be better just to cling to this shred of hope and die.
> [You really…]
“I’m sorry.”
That’s why I believed using this method wasn’t actually crossing any lines.
『…Please, don’t do that ever again.』
I’m sorry. That apology, never to be heard, sank quietly into the abyss.
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