WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Is It Bad That the Main Character’s a Roleplayer?

[Translator – Aren]

◈Chapter 288 Something Convincing (4)

Crack.

A clear crack spidered across the green gem in its glass case. Someone who noticed it quietly approached the table.

Flutter.

However, each time they moved, the loosely draped robe gently swayed. Whenever the robe slipped away around the throat, collarbone, and shoulders, skin covered in soft downy feathers was revealed.

“What is this……?”

They took a hand out of their pocket and smoothed over their faded hair. If one looked closely, the wrinkles in that hand were covered in tiny scales.

Their hooked nails gleamed faintly.

Crack.

As they carefully raked through their hair, careful not to scratch their scalp, another crack appeared on the gem. The fissure was still small, but if it kept spreading, the stone would completely shatter.

“I thought I’d never use this again anyway.”

Even knowing that, the owner took no special measures to stop it from happening.

On the contrary, they seemed excited by the gem gradually cracking.

The jewel reflecting in those ruby red eyes turned them brownish. They now looked like damp bark or wet earth.

“I wonder what the one who gazes upon the heavens thinks?”

They lifted the glass cylinder holding the gem to eye level.

“Huh? Number 73?”

Some memories flashed through their mind of the moment they had created this gem. 『This one is a failure.』 It was the moment when a Morning Star from another land had illuminated this tower.

* * *

“Got, you.”

I had aimed to sever her arm, but in the end I only managed to dig three centimeters into her shoulder. Unlike Arcane Spears, which drive in as a point, Slash cut through the body as a line. I had kept it hidden until now and used it as a surprise attack this time, yet she had still reacted and blocked most of it.

Should I have just used it from the start if I’d known it would turn out like this? Clicking my tongue at the result falling short of my expectations, I swung my empty hand. Arcane Power shot out along my nails and clawed through the air, only to be erased by the whip.

The shattered Arcane Power dissolved into the wind.

“A mere mortal.”

Yet despite that perfect defense—at least, in my eyes—my opponent voiced her displeasure. No, it was anger.

Here I was with my shirt riddled with holes and blood pouring out of me, yet she was glaring in fury just because her shoulder had been cut a little.

Like an emerald that would split from the slightest mishandling, her mysteriously gleaming turquoise eyes fractured along their cleavage planes. Light bent and reflected across the spiderwebbed cracks, giving off a sharp, icy gleam like shards of glass.

“I shall tear apart your soul and hang it upon those stars.”

“…Oh.”

I blinked at her words, which sounded impressive but could be summarized as, ‘I’m going to fucking kill you.’ Humans or otherwise, everyone's words became simpler when they got pissed off. It was a thoroughly useless realization.

“Go ahead and try.”

Separately, I would feel relieved if anger made their actions simpler as well, but it would be rather troublesome if only her words were like that while her movements remained steeped in reason.

I was already stuck in a situation where I could do nothing but take hits one-sidedly. If she started taking this seriously and raised the difficulty even further, I would genuinely be in trouble.

With an awkward smile, I properly drew up the Arcane Power I had been conserving so carefully. In other words, I began firing off Slashes in rapid succession alongside Arcane Spears.

For reference, there was no particular reason I had held back this skill until now and only started using it at this point. It was simply that Slash took the form of an area-of-effect attack whether I wanted it to or not, and if I was going to use an AOE attack anyway, wouldn’t it be more efficient to use it while the area was still packed with mobs?

Slash!

Indeed, if I could reduce the number of mobs while dealing with that Knight at the same time, wouldn’t that lighten the burden on the walls by just as much?

So dragging things out at the beginning had been a reasonably wise decision. I hadn’t known I would end up this battered, but still.

“Pathetic……!”

Boooom!

I launched myself into the air to avoid the turquoise trails. It was the sort of large movement one should never carelessly make in a fight between Knights.

Krraaaaark.

However, this was not a proper one-on-one battle. I flipped through the air, avoiding her sword and the Demons beneath my feet.

Even the opponent who should normally have been focused on me was fully occupied keeping the Demons pouring in from every direction in check. The instant I landed atop a Demon’s head and crushed it beneath my foot, I swung my sword as though bringing it down in an overhead strike.

As she sliced through a Demon in an elegant curve, my opponent raised her sword and knocked mine aside. The sword energy that flew past cut through the edge of her clothes and sliced straight through everything behind her.

“So close……!”

However, the enemy’s sword itself easily withstood my strike. I’d heard rapiers generally had poor durability, but whether her sword was exceptionally good or everything I knew was completely wrong, the damn thing was absurdly pristine in condition.

No, if anything, my sword seemed to be the one that had cracked. Looking at the slightly chipped edge of my longsword, I firmly shut my mouth before I could say how unfortunate that was.

Because if the longsword shattered, I would lose any means of fighting back against her.

Of course, I still had the Zweihänder in my inventory, and durability wasn’t much of a concern with that one, but……

What I had learned in Mannafeld was how to fight with a longsword, not how to fight with the True Zweihänder. I was already barely keeping up while using the longsword I had actually trained with. If I tried going toe-to-toe with her using the Zweihänder I handled even more crudely, my head might genuinely go flying.

Keeping my mouth shut for the moment, I poured Arcane Power into the sword embedded in the ground. Using the blade as a conduit, the Arcane Power infused into the earth began sharpening itself into spikes.

Boooom!

Aracne Power erupted around the sword as its axis and spread forward. Swish. Yet again, the veil formed along her sword cut through all of my energy, rendering it ineffective.

“You cannot defeat me.”

But that was nothing more than a cheap trick. No matter how many times I watched the swordsmanship she had diligently built up, I couldn’t imagine myself ever replicating it. Meanwhile, merely seeing that little stunt was enough for me to grasp how it worked, so it was definitely a cheap trick.

“Seeing as you’ve started running your mouth—”

With that in mind, I curled my lips into the most easygoing smile I could muster. Bzzz. Flies, flying ants, and cockroaches crawled beneath my clothes and dug into my wounds, but I roughly ignored them.

“Are you starting to get scared?”

My sword drew dozens of trajectories at random, firing sword energy in every direction, as though it meant to carve the world into hundreds of cubes.

* * *

『I believe I followed your request perfectly. A replica even a priest would regard as completely human, yet one that still obeys its original. Its lack of combat power was unavoidable, so putting that aside, are you saying there is some other defect?』

『How astonishing. To think such a question would come from one who claims to pursue wisdom. Do you truly ask because you do not know, or are you merely pretending not to?』

『…Haha.』

『O seeker starved for knowledge, had I merely wished to obtain an obedient human, I would never have come before you. Wealth, fame, knowledge. The moment I promised an appropriate reward, there would be no shortage of those willing to bow their heads before me.』

『Then?』

『There is no value in merely being treated as human by humans. It must appear human to humans and Demonic to Demons. Only then will it possess worth.』

『That is impossible.』

『Yes. So it would seem. Then this transaction is over. Now that its impossibility has been established, I have no further reason to remain.』

* * *

“How astonishing.”

Boom. The instant her foot touched the hill, the ground sank in concentric tiers around it. Mud flew upward, and the Demons were launched into the air as well.

The sword energy that had been tearing wildly across the earth failed to cut through the sunken ground, instead carving apart only the air above it.

“It should already be difficult enough to wag your tongue so frivolously.”

However, all of that was merely a secondary consequence of what she had truly intended to do.

The air, which had seemed to flow in slow motion for an instant, abruptly sped up. And her body rushed directly in front of me.

An attack from someone who understood the sword several times better than I did.

I opened my eyes wide and observed it. The surrounding terrain gave me no room to evade, so counterattacking was my only option.

Clang, clang, clang!

Our swords became entangled in an instant. Starting from a high guard, the intertwined blades spun and collided at a speed too fast for an ordinary person to follow, scattering sharp metallic clangs sounding like a chorus.

With nothing but a turn of her wrist, she smoothly knocked my blade aside, changed its angel, and slashed at my hand. When I barely blocked that and tried to cut her thigh, she slipped half a step back, avoiding the attack, and went for my head again.

Block. Attack. Block an attack. Get blocked. A ceaseless cycle.

There wasn’t even an opening to use Slash. She must have realized that sword energy would be launched along my blade’s path the moment I made a broad swing, because she eliminated every opportunity I had to swing my sword at her.

Thud!

Even then, however, neither of us had only the other’s attacks to worry about. Fluuutter. The insects that had appeared alongside the Demons and clung to our bodies, as well as the Olgoi-Khorkhoi lurking beneath the ground for an opportunity, were enemies to us both.

I swung my sword while knocking aside a moth blocking my vision. The palm-sized moth was surprisingly heavy, lending a certain weight to the sensation of batting it away.

Clang! The rapier that had skewered a fist-sized fly met my sword.

Swoosh!

At the same time, Olgoi-Khorkhoi burst from the ground. Her gaze and mine met for an instant, and as though by prior agreement, both swords dropped. Slice! Her blade took off the head of the Olgoi-Khorkhoi on the right, while Mine severed the neck of the Preta on the left. Clang! Our blades crossed once more, then separated.

We had both retreated to avoid the Slime that sprang up between us. Now. I realized this distance gave me the opening to attack.

“An obvious ploy.”

Whoosh!

However, before I could even swing my sword, the whip surged toward me like a snake.

Crack! A single lash tore through the air with a deafening sound. I saw several insects caught in it crumble apart. Pity aside, I became absolutely determined not to get hit by that.

Kieee—kak!

I plunged my sword into the belly of an approaching Ghoul and dragged it downward, then grabbed its shoulder and vaulted over it. Splat! The pursuing whip burst apart the flesh of the innocent Ghoul. It made an excellent shield.

Shing!

In any case, my sword, concealed behind the Ghoul, swept along the horizon. With a strange noise, a crescent moon crawled across the ground before fading away. Splat! Half a beat later, the Demons’ bodies were sliced horizontally, sending blood spraying through the air. Among them, only one thing remained uncut.

The rapier, standing between its master and the attack like a shield, had risen sideways like the rings of Saturn. Behind her, a handful of Demons had just barely survived within a fan-shaped area.

The radius I had cut through was probably less than 20 meters across, so there would be even more beyond it.

“Haah.”

What mattered, however, was the fact that she hadn’t suffered so much as a scratch.

Crunch. My opponent crushed the twitching hand of a corpse beneath the heel of her white boot. Splattered mud and the blood running across it stained her footwear.

It was an oddly discordant and uncomfortable sight, as though proving that no matter how lofty a being might be, they could not help but be sullied while standing in a mire.

“So why did you side with the Demons, even when they treat you like this?”

And precisely because of that, I couldn’t begin to guess why she was acting like this. If she was on the Demons' side, then it made no sense for them to attack her alongside me. Yet if she wasn’t on their side, she had caused far too much damage to the city, leaving the whole situation even more baffling.

“A reason, you ask.”

The Knight in sullied white destroyed the swarm of insects flying toward her with a single lash of her whip, then lifted her chin.

* * *

『In accordance with our agreement, I will be taking this with me.』

『…What are you going to do with it now?』

『Though it may be a failure, that does not mean it is without use. It shall be put to use somewhere appropriate.』

『In that case, could you use it where I can watch? At least let me observe.』

『What an amusing request.』

『I take it that means no?』

『I shall leave behind that emerald you secretly created. Be satisfied with that, seeker of knowledge.』

『…You knew about it?』

『Have you even forgotten where your research began?』

『…….』

『Once it has stabilized, I will return to retrieve it. That shall be our final meeting.』

* * *

“Humans always insist on assigning meaning to such catalysts. Even though most events in this world are far more often brought about by currents that cannot be explained.”

I had expected her to fly into a rage again after getting a small wound on her shoulder earlier. Contrary to my expectations, however, her voice remained calm.

Crunch! Apparently, her ability to scan her surroundings without turning her gaze had not diminished either, as her rapier buried itself in the throat of a Preta that had tried to bite her.

“However, very well.”

Then, as though swinging around a skewer, she slammed the rapier, impaling the Preta into the ground. Its head could not withstand the force and finally tore apart, leaving only its upper half to be slammed against the earth.

“Foolish one, if you insist upon asking for a reason, then I shall mercifully grant you an answer.”

Splat. The severed head lay abandoned in the mud, its eyes rolled back. The blood-soaked mire and chunks of flesh rolling across it looked as though a fragment of hell itself had been dragged into this place.

“Everything I do is for the sake of dragging down the one who humiliated me, and in rebellion against the one who denied me even the chance to stand at the starting line.”

And atop that hellscape, the turquoise figure made her declaration.

“You shall be the first.”

Beneath the quietly recited words seemed to seethe an inferiority complex as hot as molten lava.

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