WETRIED TRANSLATIONS
Is It Bad That the Main Character’s a Roleplayer?
[Translator – Aren]
◈Chapter 292 Something Convincing (8)
Clang!
[Don’t be so impatient, Gretchen. Once this brat loses his power, I’ll deal with you even if you don’t want me to.]
Naturally, the sword I had thrown did nothing. The one who knocked it aside with sharp nails curled her lips into a sneer.
“Go screw yourself.”
But like hell I was going to let that stop me. I created several more daggers and hurled them. Clang, clang, clang. Not one of them worked, but I felt considerably better. At long last, I could at least throw knives at that bastard.
[You insignificant little……]
「…You mustn’t attack her recklessly.」
However, the boy did not seem particularly pleased by my assistance.
He hadn’t made any notable movements since binding the Demon’s arm, so there was no way my dagger-throwing had suddenly interfered with him. It seemed he was simply uncomfortable with me joining the fight at all.
「Your soul is vast enough to suppress a Demon, but that Demon is cunning enough to squeeze through the cracks in your soul and claw at the world outside.」
“Explain properly. Are you telling me to be careful, or that I shouldn’t attack her at all?”
「…A mental form will not die even if it is killed. However, the mind forced to endure all that pain will be worn down.」
Perhaps because of everything I had endured until now, my tone came out somewhat curt even when speaking to a child. Yet the boy paid no mind to those thorns and continued warning me.
「A worn-down mind narrows one’s vision and makes one pursue only the salvation directly before them, without even knowing whether it is false or genuine.」
Beneath his whisper lay layer upon layer of terrible exhaustion and regret, supporting every word.
「…You must not let that happen. If you do, the Demon will devour you.」
It was ground the boy had endured alone and built up alone.
「So please remain behind me. I’ll be the one to fight.」
You won’t die even if you’re strangled or stabbed. The weight of what the Demon had said began to settle vaguely into my hands.
[Self-sacrifice…How very noble of you.]
I looked at the boy who had, at some point, stepped in front of me. His back was still small, as was only natural for a growing child who had yet to fully mature.
[But I already told you. You can't do this anymore. You no longer have the right to stand upon this stage.]
At the same time, the boy was a Knight. His straightened back, moderately spread legs, and the two hands gripping his sword firmly proved as much.
「I know.」
A dazzlingly bright sword burst into flame. Its light was closer to gold than amber and closer to the sun than a torch.
The blade, burning more fiercely than a wood fire, illuminated the collapsing world.
「Even so, I will stand in your way. Just as I always have.」
The boy’s hair, dyed gold by the light, glittered like embers coming back to life among the ashes.
[No, you can’t.]
「……!」
However, that beautiful light failed to change the course of the battle.
Boom! The instant the Demon’s sword of pitch-black flame collided with the boy’s blade, the collapse of the white world began to accelerate. The horizon had already been swallowed by blackness, and now even the scenery on either side was cracking apart.
[Fulfill the 'promise.']
「Kgh……!」
The boy put more strength into his blade as though resisting it, but it made little difference. He could slow the spreading cracks, but he could not stop them.
Only then did I come to my senses. A sword formed in my hand and stabbed into the Demon’s side.
[…What a nuisance.]
「Ah!」
Knight or not, the boy was still a child, and I was an adult. There was no way I could become an adult only to stand back and let a child protect me. Even if that child had done something unforgivable to me, even if he had committed a sin the entire world would condemn, that remained true.
No matter the crime, children deserved the opportunity to atone. For no other reason than that they were children.
[Did you want to experience death, Gretchen?]
“I’ve already experienced a ton of that, so not really?”
I never wanted to fight another Knight again…but the Demon wasn’t a Knight, so this would be fine. I kicked at the Demon's leg after she avoided my blade.
[It’s useless.]
However, when one swept a hand through smoke that had taken physical form, its shape might distort, but it would not disappear. The Demon’s body was the same.
Her leg scattered like flame and smoke, allowing mine to pass straight through, then reassembled and returned to its original shape. My eyes widened at the unexpected response.
[Have you forgotten whose power was sustaining you outside?]
However, she did not give me long to be surprised. Fwoosh. Flames burst from her hand and poured over my body. I hurriedly rolled across the floor, but the fire still managed to catch one of my arms.
“─!!”
I couldn’t even scream. My mouth fell open at the pain of my skin burning and something eating away beneath it. It hurt about as much as when I had been struck by divine power.
「Steady your mind and picture yourself without any wounds!」
Fortunately, the moment I followed the boy’s advice, the flames burning my body disappeared. More precisely, the boy swiftly carved away the burning area and removed the flames along with it.
Clang, clang!
While the boy and the Demon exchanged three blows, I barely managed to regenerate the missing flesh. Being able to heal merely by wishing for it was useful, but the entire experience still felt absolutely miserable.
“This setup kills you the second you lose focus……”
[Exactly. So, would you like to give up?]
“Fuck off…….”
I tightened my trembling hands around the sword. The pain had reached me in full without the convenient trick of adjusting my pain sensitivity, so it had been overwhelming. Still, I had experienced pain this severe quite a few times lately, so I could endure it.
Clang!
“Ah, I shouldn’t be swearing……”
My sword knocked aside the flames that had been about to cut down the boy.
[Honestly, those with enormous souls are always needlessly stubborn.]
The Demon tried attacking several more times, realized it wasn’t working, then lightly leaped backward. The brief lull gave me time to catch my breath.
[Enough. Time is on my side anyway.]
Apparently, exchanging blows was not strictly necessary for her. Using the Demon’s words, I roughly assessed the situation. It could have been a bluff, but judging by the boy‘s silence, the claim did not seem entirely wrong.
“…Hey.”
「…Were you calling me?」
“Is it true that beating her up won’t accomplish anything?”
Just in case, I confirmed whether that was actually true. The boy nodded with a grave expression.
「Unless we could overwhelm her completely… It won’t do much good in our current situation.」
“But there are two of us?”
「It’s only because there are two of us that we’ve managed to maintain the status quo. Normally……」
Crack. Just as the boy was about to say something, a massive fissure split across the world. It felt somewhat different from the continuous collapse until now. This break was conspicuous enough to stand out, as though something had directly affected it.
“…Was that because of the Concealment of Ignorance just now?”
「…That was part of it, but the fundamental cause lies elsewhere.」
“Because you broke the rules?”
「How did you know……?」
“You practically announced it. Why are you acting surprised now……?”
Anyone could have guessed after hearing them talk like that right in front of them. Flexing the fingers of my regenerated hand, I started thinking.
It wasn’t as though I was experienced in battles within mental worlds and could simply beat the Demon down. And according to the boy, continuing to scuffle like this wouldn’t repair the collapsing world either. In that case, wouldn’t it be better to address the underlying problem instead?
“…In the end, the reason you kept silent around me was because of the contract. And by breaking the rule first, you gave the Demon the advantage.”
I brushed back my hair as I watched the boy fidget and cautiously gauge my reaction.
Had Munmund never been placed in danger, would he have remained silent until the very end? Judging by this mess, he probably would have. No matter how I looked at it, the crumbling white world did not seem like a good sign for our side.
[Yes. You really are perceptive, Gretchen.]
“…And the promise that has to be fulfilled?”
[Why ask when you already know the answer?]
But did I regret using Munmund to threaten him? No. Even if it had supposedly been for my sake, I hated being manipulated while my eyes and ears were covered. More than that, I was sick and tired of walking through a tunnel with no end in sight.
I needed an answer.
Whether it was an answer I could turn into a goal or one that would allow me to finally put the life I had left behind on Earth to rest without lingering regrets. An answer that would let me put some part of my life in order.
[The delivery of the truth. That is the promise you made with that brat, isn’t it?]
And all I needed for that answer were two sentences.
“Is that so? Then answer just one, no, two questions.”
Of course, it would have been nice to know everything. But if that happened, the Concealment of Ignorance would likely shatter completely. Considering what effect that might have on me, I could afford to give up a considerable portion of the truth. It wasn’t as though knowing those facts would send me home anyway.
「……?」
“Can I go home or not?”
Therefore, I decided to discard every trivial detail. How this boy had summoned me, whether the bodies used in the process truly belonged to criminals, why it had specifically been me, how he had known I would create the ‘Demon Knight’s’ character settings, and how he had taken on a form matching them.
“I’m not going to trade away my chance to return home for mere curiosity. I only need to hear what matters most to me. So tell me. Can I go home or not?”
If I could return, I was perfectly willing to carry unanswered questions with me for the rest of my life.
Under my gaze, the boy bit his lip and then muttered the answers as though breathing them out.
「Y-you can go back.」
One corner of the world collapsed with a heavy crunch. Perhaps because so much had fallen apart at once, the smaller cracks stopped spreading.
Maybe fulfilling part of the promise had halted the minor collapse.
“How do I get home?”
「Th-that’s……」
But what would happen if all this white completely collapsed? At the very least, it wouldn’t end well.
So I asked the second question I most desired an answer to. This would be my final question.
「Death. In other words, if the body you are currently using dies…or if you remain uncorrupted for 10 years…you can return to your original world.」
Craaack!
As though a massive iceberg had broken apart, another huge section of the world caved in. Even though the answer itself was not as unexpected as I had imagined.
“…Then why did you keep quiet when those were the conditions?”
Death. Corruption. Considering how Demons acted in stories, neither condition was particularly surprising. They were easier to deal with if I knew about them rather than remained ignorant.
So why hadn’t the boy told me? I had been worried I might need to sacrifice some enormous number of people, but with conditions like these, wouldn’t it have been better to tell me and ask for my cooperation?
Granted, the duration was rather long.
「That’s……」
"Ah, never mind. If telling me gives her an advantage, then don’t bother. I’m not curious enough to risk that.”
In truth, I was incredibly curious, but not nearly as much as I wanted to return home.
Instead, I turned over the conditions I had just heard. Either this body died, or I endured for 10 years. I was profoundly relieved that I did not have to sacrifice anyone.
“This is enough. I’ve heard everything I need. What do we do now?”
「Well…….」
[Oh, how unfortunate.]
Contrary to my hopes, however, the situation did not come to an end. The Demon grinned.
[First, I’ll praise you for being clever enough to distinguish your priorities, Gretchen. Trying to preserve the Concealment of Ignorance without even understanding the full situation was certainly the quick judgment of an intelligent person.]
Crackle. At the same time, cracks formed in the chain binding her arm. Beyond the shattered world, the enormous hand of flame gripped the world’s wall.
[However, a ‘promise’ cannot be fulfilled so carelessly. When the promise was made, I served as its mediator and defined ‘the truth’ as ‘every fact concerning the circumstances.’ Therefore, it must be fulfilled according to that definition.]
“What?”
[In other words, you cannot simply hear what you want and end it there.]
For a moment, I failed to understand what she meant and had to think it through. Every fact concerning the circumstances. Put more simply, it seemed to mean the entire story of how we ended up like this.
“You…….”
「I-I’m sorry……」
I reflexively turned toward the boy. However, his face had gone indescribably pale. It appeared he had realized his mistake as well.
“You absolute son of a……”
I started to blurt out whatever my heart demanded, then swallowed it back down. In that brief moment, the child had begun trembling so pitifully that the sight became the final threat holding my reason together.
“…So you’re saying I have to hear everything?”
[That’s right.]
“…Even though this is enough for me?”
[Then he should have worded the promise more precisely when you made it.]
However, the Demon standing before me began picking away at the final thread of my reason.
[As the mediator of the promise, I do not consider the exchange that just occurred to be equitable. Therefore, you must hear the entire truth, even if you do not wish to.]
An adult deceiving an ignorant child for personal gain. I had seen a piece of shit like this somewhere before.
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