WETRIED TRANSLATIONS
Is It Bad That the Main Character’s a Roleplayer
[Translator – Aren]
◈Chapter 260 If (8)
“Is there a tool that can change eye color?”
In a corner of the city of Hudelen, a girl named Akata, who had become fairly fluent in the local language, asked her senior as she mulled over the letter that had reached her yesterday. Her arms were adorned with bracelets made of high-quality threads.
“I guess there are?”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
But when her senior asked why she asked, Akata simply shrugged all three pairs of her arms at once in response.
“A while ago, I overheard a customer say they were sick of being called ominous because of their eye color, and that they wanted to do something about it.”
“Eye color?”
“They had blue eyes, but with brown mixed in, as if they were stained.”
“Aah. Yeah, you do get people like that sometimes. It’s extremely rare, though. They must have been a pretty unique customer.”
The truth was, she had seen these types of eyes when she was still with her tribe. They weren’t rare there at all.
Leaving that fact out, Akata smiled broadly.
“So, can people like that change their eye color too?”
“Well, it’s not impossible.”
“From the way you’re talking, it seems to be expensive.”
“Obviously.”
“Is it pricier than changing hair color?”
“Yeah. Changing eye color can only be done with magic.”
“Why?”
“Well…… You can’t exactly pour dye into your eyes, right?”
“Ah……”
Akata understood right away. Well, considering how even hair dyes could cause hair loss or scalp rashes, dumping something that strong into your eyes would definitely lead to blindness.
“Hmm. That person didn’t look that wealthy, though……”
“Then it’s probably impossible?”
“It’s that expensive?”
“Hmm. Yeah. The item works by casting an illusion spell on a specific area like the eyes, so while it’s not the most expensive magic tool out there… It’ll still cost over a million gal. Especially with how things are currently.”
“Wow……”
A million gal. Akata widened all eight of her eyes when she heard that amount of money she could only dream of ever reaching right now. She had figured a magic tool would be pricey, but she hadn’t imagined she was off by so much.
“Why? Did you want to buy one too?”
“Why would I buy something just to change my eye color? If I were going to buy anything…… it would be an item that made it look like I didn’t have eyes on my forehead.”
“Uhm……”
With Demons as a shared enemy, discrimination between races had slowly eased up in recent times, but that only happened when appearances were already familiar.
This girl, with an appearance even more eye-catching than even the Shaggi tribe, had experienced every form of discrimination one could imagine after arriving in Hudelen. She had long since realized that just covering the six eyes on her forehead was enough to significantly decrease the discrimination.
“Now that you mention it, I want it even more. If you can cast an illusion on your eyes, then you should be able to cast one on my forehead, too, right? Then I wouldn’t have to cover it with cloth, and my field of vision would open up again.”
However, precisely because of that, the more she spoke, the more clearly she could understand how valuable that item was.
If one could change eye color with illusions, then one could use it to cover up scars as well, or maybe even change one’s entire face.
“…But that would cost even more, right? Since the illusion would have to cover a wider area.”
“Probably…… yeah.”
How much would one have to pay to buy it? And before that, what would she have to sell, what would she have to do to even raise that kind of money?
The girl stretched out two of her hands. Things that were now setting trends in Hudelen, had been denied even the tiniest chance due to discrimination, came clearly into view.
“Still! I don’t think you need to buy something like that!”
While she remained quiet, her senior, who had been hesitating for a little, suddenly shouted. In that brief moment, he must have been frantically looking for something he could say to comfort her, seeing that his face was completely drenched in sweat.
“If you hide your eyes…… people might accept you right now. But one day, those with eight eyes might be denied their existence completely because of it. People are the ones who need to accept this, so you shouldn’t have to hide them.”
“…Miss Chelsea.”
“Of course, if what you’re going through right now is too much, and you really feel the need to hide them to get by, I won’t stop you……”
“I didn’t really want to buy it or anything, but that was unexpectedly touching.”
She hadn’t said it with much thought, so she hadn't expected such a serious reply. When Akata said that, Chelsea’s face turned bright red.
“You scared the hell out of me, you little brat……”
“This thought comes to be sometimes, but you’re way too sensitive, Miss Chelsea.”
“What are you saying…? I’m not sensitive; you’re just strong.”
“…Is that so?”
“Of course. Most adults can’t even handle this kind of discrimination.”
That was the first time she ever heard that about her. She had always brushed this stuff off, thinking, ‘This much is manageable,’ probably because she had already been through far worse and because she had a bundle of treasures that gave her strength when things got tough. But maybe she really was a bit different.
“If that’s the case, then I’m glad.”
Akata fiddled with one of the bracelets made from the thread in her treasure bundle. It felt like Chelsea had just told her she was doing well. And that made her happy. It gave her courage to face that person again.
“Hmm. Still, I’m going to sell the bracelets while hiding my identity. Discrimination or not, I’m not about to miss out on this trend.”
“Do whatever you want……”
Everything aside, she couldn’t afford to pass up this chance to make money. She held up a bracelet she had just finished. It had a pattern similar to what was trending lately, but hers was a lot more intricate and refined. They were swaying from her hand.
“Ohohohohoh. The original has arrived.”
“Geez. Even laughing like that, you don’t look evil at all, kid……”
“But, think about it. Those jerks who said they’d never buy anything from someone with a bunch of eyes are now obsessed, just because I hid one little thing? Isn’t that funny?”
“You’re not wrong, I guess……”
“A few weeks of hard work, and I’ll be able to face the Warchief with pride.”
“Ah, right. You got a letter from the Great Forest, didn’t you?”
Chelsea, knowing Akata’s relationship with her homeland wasn’t the best, lightly scratched the bridge of his nose.
“Can I ask what it was about?”
“Of course. It’s nothing special, just ‘How are you? Things are still the same here. There’s something I’d like to ask you.’ These kinds of things.”
“…And you agreed to it?”
“It was the Warchief who asked. I’m not exactly close with the people back home, but the Warchief was always kind to me. And besides, the request itself was just…… kind of pitiful.”
“What was it?”
“They wanted me to find a wig to cover up someone’s baldness……”
“Ah……”
“I don’t know if it’s a racial trait or something, but baldness is really rare among us. So for someone to go bald of all things… is kind of pitiful, right?”
“Yeah… that’s pretty pitiful… I’d help with that too……”
As her senior absentmindedly touched his own wide head, Akata smirked.
That was the official request. The really important request had been written later in the letter, but what was the point of telling him that? Akata smiled to herself as she covered up the truth.
* * *
Did I need to use the Disguise skill just to get the hair dye to work or something?
I looked at my face, using my gauntlet like a mirror. While it wasn’t reflective enough to show my full face clearly, it was decent enough to tell if my eyebrows were dark or light.
“…I don’t have eyebrows.”
To be honest, this wasn’t even a matter of dark or light. It was more like if I could see them, they were in their natural color, and if I couldn’t, that would mean they were dyed.
That was actually a pretty reliable way to check. If my eyebrows looked invisible in the reflection of my gauntlet but appeared brown when I looked at my reflection in the water, I could be 100% sure that they were dyed. As for why they didn’t show up on the gauntlet, the only answer I could come up with was that the color was just so light that the blurry reflection ended up blending them in with my skin.
“Hah.”
Still, if my eyebrows had faded this much, wouldn't that completely change my impression? The eyepatch and scar near my mouth were still a problem, but eyebrows were surprisingly important when it came to how someone looked.
Well, if I had to pick just one thing to complain about, it would be the moment I deactivated my Disguise skill, the dye stopped working.
“Is it because of my Arcane resistance……?”
After thinking a bit about why that might be, I managed to find something that could be considered a pretty decent answer. The only real difference between my skill being active or not was the ton of debuffs that came with it. That was the only plausible reason.
The difference in the dye’s longevity between the early and middle stages of the Disguise skill also supported that theory. The longer the skill stayed active, the more drastically my Arcane resistance dropped, but the dye’s durability improved as well. So it had to be the cause.
“I didn’t even notice during combat……”
Why was it that the one time I didn’t want my Arcane resistance to work, it was the only thing that did? Grumbling, I checked the time.
If the dye somehow faded while I was walking around the city or talking to people, it’d be a serious problem, so I had no other choice but to be aware of how long the effect lasted.
Rustle.
Just then, the bushes beyond the farming area the Mountain Lord had made for me started to shake. I straightened my bent legs, having been in the middle of harvesting mushrooms, and drew my sword.
Swiiiish.
The wig I had kept wearing to get used to it gently slipped down as hairs tickled my shoulders. I had tied it loosely because of the awkward length, but it seemed like the tie had come off again.
Bang!
At that moment, the rustling bushes finally split, and a leopard burst out. It was smaller than most animals that lived in this forest, so I figured that it might have been a cub.
The hand that had been holding my sword twitched before flipping it around. Now, the part caught in my gauntlet wasn’t the handle of the longsword, but the blade itself.
Kryaaa!
Avoiding the leopard’s charge, I swung the broad side of the sword hilt, slashing at its skin. But the leopard, moving dynamically in a curved path, ended up getting grazed by both ends of the guard. Skrrk! A distinct scratch split its fur, and the surrounding area quickly began to turn red.
“Oh……”
I found myself making a strange expression as I looked at the guard, now stained with blood. Back when I played the game, I had seen animations where players killed enemies by jamming the end of the guard into the enemy’s necks as if they were using a pickaxe. But I never had a reason to use this technique, so I had completely forgotten about it. Now that I thought about it, I really felt like I was pretty much a fake swordsman. If not for the game’s combat system corrections, I probably would’ve died ages ago.
Kryaaah!
… But wait, wasn’t this system provided by either the real Demon Knight or the Demon? Then did that mean this combat assist system was their doing as well?
Feeling strange caught up in these thoughts I never really wanted to confront, I let out a groan and gave the lunging beast a light kick to its belly. I couldn’t bring myself to kill it with the blade since this felt like animal abuse and all that—if other people had been around, I would have killed it for their safety, but what reason did I have to do that now?
Still, I really hoped this thing would realize that it was facing prey it wouldn’t be able to handle and go back……
Grrrrrr……
Did my sincere wish get through? The leopard finally came to its senses. It was still circling me, clearly greedy for my delicious flesh, but at least it had stopped attacking me.
However, if I let it go like this, there was a good chance it might try to attack again later. So to thoroughly warn it, I slightly gathered my Arcane Power.
Drip. Blood instantly started dripping from my nostrils, and my fingers curled inward.
Shrrrk! Four claw marks appeared on the ground running from right before me all the way to the leopard’s paws. Startled, the creature turned and bolted away in a panic, which was good and all, but now my nose was in serious trouble.
“Sniff, urgh, seriously.”
Wow, seriously. This damn Arcane Power backflow. How did it make sense that my nose immediately started to bleed from using some Arcane Power once?
Grumbling with genuine frustration, I plopped down on the ground. The tree trunk where the mushrooms were growing was now also supporting my butt.
By the way, I had already harvested the mushrooms from the spot I was sitting on, so I didn’t crush any of the poor little guys.
[Waaah! Waaah!]
However, now my eardrums were the problem, not my nose.
“…You’re here again.”
[Why do you have another nosebleed? I brought you something to eat, so would you like to eat some of it?]
Anyway, that snake was as loud as ever. My lips curled up slightly.
[Huh? Huuuh? Where’d the lunch box go?]
And when the Mountain Lord followed up with that pitiful display, the corners of my lips finally gave in and parted. Pfft. Hearing this sound that sounded like air leaking from a balloon, the Mountain Lord whipped his head toward me.
[D-did you just laugh?]
My lips fell right back together, and my previously curved eyes returned to a flat line like nothing had ever happened.
[You totally laughed just now.]
“I did no such thing.”
[Come on……]
“I said I didn’t.”
It was a completely ordinary day.
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