WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Is It Bad That the Main Character’s a Roleplayer

[Translator – Aren]

◈Chapter 285 Something Convincing (1)

Truth.

The moment that word appeared, I both nearly laughed and cried. Was it relief from finally holding the chance to find the answer I was seeking, or was it reassurance that I no longer needed to turn a blind eye to all of this?

“I’m sorry.”

“…S-sir Wizard. This isn’t your faul–”

“I now have a reason to go out.”

At the very least, I no longer had a reason to hesitate.

Swiiish. My body returned to its original form now that I had turned off my Disguise skill. Since I was wearing gloves and a long-sleeved shirt, the soldier didn’t scream or anything. He seemed to just focus on my words, 'To go out.’

“I cannot allow that……!”

But there was no way a mere soldier could stop me. I gathered strength in my legs.

Bang!

Even while slightly weakened due to the penalties, my leg strength was still far superior to any ordinary person’s. Using the window frame as a foothold, I launched myself off and vaulted upward. Tap. I instantly landed on top of the opposite building’s roof.

“What the—!”

As soon as I put my foot on the roof, I could hear the faint voice of a soldier echoing behind me. I really hoped he wouldn’t be punished too harshly for this. Well, I doubted it, though.

“Hmpf!”

But I had no time to worry about others right now when my situation was pretty dire already.

Enjoying a brief glide after my leap, I pulled several items out of my subspace bracelet: combat boots, an enchanted chest guard, and a spare longsword.

Of course, I wasn’t about to stop like an idiot to put all of this on. The bracelet only needed me to have “sufficient space” to pull out the item. Where they’d appear was completely up to me.

In other words, as long as my calculations were right, I could instantly equip my gear the way a game character could change gear.

And so, without having to slow my pace, I completely geared up. Just in case, I avoided removing the wig or putting on the Demon Knight’s coat.

My actions now would undoubtedly lead to me being hunted either way, but I wanted to hide the fact that the Demon Knight could disguise himself so completely for as long as possible.

Given my height and strength, suspicion would be inevitable, but there was a clear difference between suspicion and certainty.

With these last measures in place, I slipped past the startled crowd and reached the walls. I could feel the penalty on my gradually lifting the longer I ran, which made my strides longer and more powerful. I could cover several meters in a single leap.

Tap. Instead of taking the stairs that were intended to be used to ascend, I simply jumped onto the wall. There, my vision was completely filled with red.

“So die.”

It was the crimson erupting from the bodies of soldiers as they fell.

“That will serve this world better.”

And within that bloody storm, turquoise hair swayed. Before those emerald threads was another figure, sprawled on the ground, seemingly having fallen, his dark navy hair scattered beneath him.

As absurd as it was, I knew both of those people’s faces.

「Ah, no.」

However, there was no question which one of them was my enemy and which one I had to save. 「Not Him. Anyone but him.」 A certain screaming voice echoing in my ear designated my target.

“Keep your word.”

Clang!

With the sun at my back, my shadow was cast across the wall as my sword intercepted the emerald-haired Knight’s strike. My loosely tied brown hair fluttered across my shirt.

“…Atya?”

“Yes, I thought you might show up sooner or later… But you are……?”

The Emerald Knight’s eyes widened. Whoosh! At the same time, she reacted like a flash of light, slashing at me with her other dagger. With the Young Lord collapsed on the ground nearby, I couldn’t step away or swing my longsword since it was already locked against her main-gauche.

Clang!

But I had that godlike item, the subspace bracelet.

A dagger instantly materialized in my hand, knocking aside her blade. Now gripping my longsword tighter, I spun my wrist, nullifying her follow-up attack. A trick I had learned back in Mannafeld.

My legs surged forward as I swung my longsword in a sweeping arc.

“How?”

My foe avoided the horizontal slash with a light backstep. Judging by how intentionally she was treading and her awareness of the nearby soldiers, this was far from a desperate dodge.

“How can it be……?”

And yet, her expression was anything but composed. The smile she always seemed to wear was completely gone, leaving only the icy look in her eyes.

“How can you be Wrath? I know that you first held the title of Deceit and Trickery, yet how can you bear the virtue of temperance……?”

I didn’t really know the details, but from the fact that she called me Wrath so easily, it was pretty clear that she was somehow connected to a Great Demon. Perhaps one of the 72 Knights beneath them.

“I knew the presence I sometimes felt was yours, Wrath. I even considered that you might come here to ruin our plans. But… But why……?”

‘That shady bat-like bastard made something strange again.’

Even if she wasn’t one of them, she obviously wasn’t an ally, seeing that she had attacked the Young Lord moments ago.

So I lunged before she could recover from her confusion. The dagger slid back into my bracelet as I gripped the longsword with both of my hands.

“Wait, could it be?”

‘Something neither mortal nor Demon, that’s what that bastard made.’

One step. The distance between us shifted close enough for me to unleash a flurry of strikes. My blade, which I had been holding over my shoulder, swept downward in a vicious half-circle.

I was aiming for her head. Assuming she would parry the strike with her dagger before counterattacking, I had already moved.

Clang!

As expected, her blade deflected my longsword.

“Hah.”

The moment I heard her sharp laugh, I spun my longsword in a reverse arc, cutting in from her side. Chaaaang! Again, she blocked my attack with the dagger in her other hand.

“Yes… Now it makes sense. Indeed, like this, it all makes sense. Every contradiction in your actions has found its explanation in this.”

Though my longer weapon and my greater height should have given me an advantage, a smile appeared on her lips once more. I, narrowing my eyes, was reflected in her emerald eyes.

“It wasn’t only you who deceived them all, Wrath.”

Clang! Both her daggers crossed, instantly trapping my longsword in their guards. Unable to do anything with my blade stuck like this, she slid closer, her arm swinging out. I released one hand from the hilt, ready to block her strike barehanded.

Clang!

“Even the vessel was a deceiver.”

“Traitor!!!”

But that was no longer necessary. The dagger that would have slit my throat turned to parry a strike that came from behind her.

The smirk that had been adorning her lips soured slightly, showing a flicker of irritation, as she stepped sideways. I couldn’t let her slip away.

I pushed away my longsword, which had been kept in place with her daggers. At the same time I twisted my free hand toward her collar.

I only hoped to grab her sleeve somehow.

If I could somehow manage that, I would gain two advantages. I could stop her from swinging one of her daggers, and I could keep her body in place so that she wouldn’t be able to dodge my longsword any more.

However, my attempt failed. She reversed her grip on the main-gauche and slashed at my wrist. I narrowly managed to avoid it, but the strike had torn off a bit of my gloves. Had she cut just a bit deeper, my thumb tendon would have been severed.

Chaaaang!

On top of that, my long sword, which I had swung to somehow cut into her no matter what, was deflected using the side-ring and blade of her dagger. The precision with which she had blocked it, as if she were threading a needle, was disgustingly artistic.

“Tsk!”

And it wasn’t just my attack she had countered. Even the honey-blonde Knight (at least I presumed she was a Knight) failed to land a blow on her.

Or more precisely, the Knight cancelled her attack mid-motion, seeing that her dagger was aimed for her chest.

“Forbidden One.”

Then, while our attacks all failed to land, she pressed her free hand against her chest.

A radiant light burst between her palm and her chest, and something began to emerge. It was a rapier with a platinum blade and a grip carved from jade.

Slash!

In the same moment she drew it out, her main-gauche swung out to ward off the blue-haired Knight who had tried to stab her. The fully drawn rapier lunged forward, piercing straight through the spear-wielding soldier’s eyes with its nearly three-meter-long blade.

Just how was she able to catch all of this in her field of vision? I clicked my tongue and hastily closed in. Having already brushed aside my strike, there wasn’t much distance between us.

My blade fell down toward her just as she finished off the soldier. With her offhand occupied with the blue-haired Knight, she shouldn't have any other choice but to parry my strike with her rapier.

Clang!

But she pulled her left arm back, crossing her blades in an X. My longsword crashed into them. Crrrrrk. Metal scraped against metal as the distance between us shrunk.

My attempts to break free using the wrist-twist technique I had learned in Mannafeld were prevented by her twisting her blades at just the right timing.

“Damn it!”

Furthermore, since she was at my right flank right now, I unintentionally found myself between her and the blue-haired knight. They were completely blocked from attacking since my body was covering our enemy.

Whack! She pulled out her rapier, dragging an eyeball with it, before aiming it at my head.

Grab.

However, rapiers weren’t designed with cutting power in mind. Well, all swords that stood still didn’t have much of it.

So I gambled on that as I grabbed her rapier’s blade, twisting it to change direction. With her main-gauche still blocking my longsword, she couldn’t move carelessly.

“Does the one who sought to climb the heavens even realize?”

If not for the time I had spent receiving proper swordsmanship training in Mannafeld, I would have already been skewered. In this moment that made it feel like each second was more like 100 seconds, I watched her lips move slightly.

“That even the vessel that seemed so unyielding was, in truth, a skilled liar, adept at deception?”

It seemed pretty much certain now that she was convinced that I was the ‘Demon Knight’. Well, it wasn’t such a stretch. There couldn’t exactly be more than one person walking around with Wrath sealed inside their body, so this conclusion was pretty much obvious.

As long as she could accept the fact that ‘The Demon Knight could play out entirely different personalities’, that is.

“I’m quite curious. Where did your deception begin? Was it that iron will? Or the hatred and wrath that underpinned it? Or was everything about you nothing but a lie?”

But I had no intention of answering her or giving her any form of assurance. Instead, I tugged at her rapier, pondering over the person she called ‘The one who sought to climb the heavens.’

If she abandoned her grip on my longsword, I would simply slash her waist. If she kept at it, I would somehow pull the rapier from her grip and snap her neck.

Of course, in the latter case there was a considerable risk of her decapitating me. Contrary to what most people believed, the rapier was a weapon that could both cut and pierce.

But she had drawn in far too close now. By the time I grabbed her neck, her guard would catch on to something, failing to cut deeper even if she tried. If it had been a normal sword, she might have been able to twist the sword to break free, but with a rounded guard like hers, that option was ineffective.

“You, and the one you harbor within you, are nothing but phantoms.”

The corners of her lips curled slightly as our faces drew close enough to invade each other’s personal space, the rapier taut between us.

“Wearing masks that never come off.”

Then she let go of both her rapier and main-gauche, leaping backwards. The blond Knight, who attempted to surprise attack from the side, narrowly missed with her sword. Had I reacted a second later, it would have gone clean through my side.

Shhhhk!

While both the blonde Knight and I were greatly taken aback, something shot out from our foe that had retreated.

The dark, serpentine thing sliced through the air and snatched the hilt of the rapier I had been about to throw away.

Swish!

The blade was pulled back into her hand as she steadied herself on the battlement. In her other hand was a black leather whip, reflecting not a speck of light. Slice! With the newly retrieved rapier, she immediately slashed across the eyes of a nearby soldier in a fluid motion.

Having wasted not a single second, blood ran along the steel as she smiled.

“And you who carries Wrath yet does not feel rage.”

And from behind the Emerald Knight, standing atop the battlement, something else rose.

“Can you truly save this city?”

A beast of rotten flesh lifted its head.

The Demons had begun their advance.

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