WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

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

[Translator – Aren]

◈ Chapter 297 Proof (2)

Deathbringer bit his lip, startled by his own words. He’d been completely baited. Hook, line, and sinker. His head was filled with self-loathing.

"But…Why? Why gather everyone in Munmund……?”

While he lamented, Daniel, who had finally grasped the situation, opened and closed his mouth before asking. Meister answered in place of Deathbringer, who was busy swallowing hard.

"Like I said earlier, I don’t think they were targeting the Hero. Nor were they targeting another city in the East. If they wanted to take down a city without a Great Demon, they would need an enormous number of lesser Demons…Yet instead of overwhelming us all at once, they chose to apply pressure gradually.”

In other words, they had given the people time to gather in the East. Whether or not everyone had actually arrived was unimportant. What mattered was that military movements were not something easily carried out, and once begun, they were difficult to reverse.

"Then there’s the news about the Great Demon, which reached us in advance. It would have been far more effective if they had used it as a surprise card, yet instead they deliberately let us know beforehand. Munmund is in terrible danger, send your elite troops immediately. Like they were wagging their tails to lure us in.”

"You’re saying they truly used a Great Demon as bait? A Great Demon?”

“You’ve got it backward. It could serve as bait precisely because it was a Great Demon. Just look at us. The moment we heard the news, we abandoned everything else and rode for nearly 10 days. Erysichthon stole every bit of our attention merely by appearing.”

The moment Munmund became a concrete objective, manpower from the surrounding cities poured toward it. Just as the Hero’s party had, and just as the Knights of Mannnafeld had.

And cities emptied by sending reinforcements would draw manpower from even farther away. In other words, the distribution of elite troops shifted. Eastward. Toward Munmund

"Here’s the question. If all that manpower is concentrated in the East, what happens to the West?”

Then what had been happening on the opposite side during all that time?

"...There are rugged mountain ranges there, as well as the Great Temple.”

"If they were willing to send one Great Demon out as bait, there’s no reason another Great Demon couldn’t be part of the actual attack.”

Meister recalled the might of the Great Demon he had witnessed in Bemurchen. Mountains that served as fortresses against lesser Demons would mean nothing to beings like that.

"And isn’t the Great Temple valuable enough to attack even if it costs them a Great Demon?”

With two Great Demons already dead, they had probably grown desperate as well.

Even Bemurchen, destroyed by a Great Demon, would eventually be rebuilt. Bemurchen’s true value had come from its Magic Tower, and most of the Tower’s human resources had survived even that disaster.

"Bemurchen may have fallen, but ultimately, that was only a loss of material resources. As long as the human resources remain, it'll probably recover within 10 years. And now that the monster believed to be the Mermen’s nest is gone, the bloody fighting against the Mermen will probably decrease too.”

The moment Bemurchen, one of humanity’s arsenals, was restored, the Demons would once again find themselves at a disadvantage. In other words, if they were ever going to gamble everything on a risky move, now was the only time.

"So wouldn’t it make sense for them to try a diversion? There’s little value in attacking the South because of the desert, and there were too many people in the North.”

And so, only after arriving here did Meister voice the hypothesis he had finally become convinced of.

"Explain that in more detail, please.”

Behind him, faded red hair swayed.

* * *

Ooooooooooh!!!!

The instant Ratel’s fang gouged into Behemoth’s cornea, the enormous beast squeezed its eye shut and screamed in pain. I hadn’t managed to tear the eyeball itself, but the attack had definitely hurt it.

"This bastard’s ridiculously tough……!”

But this wasn't the level of damage I had been hoping for. Whatever else might be true, shouldn’t the cornea at least be soft? If you stab a human eye with a needle, it’d probably get ruined!

[I told you, didn’t I? It’s extremely tough.]

Right after throwing Ratel, I somehow maneuvered my falling body. After spinning several times, I landed on the tusk jutting out like an elephant’s. It was the lowest point of the tusk.

Rumble! But Behemoth was currently thrashing its body around. I ended up slipping from the tusk. Tap! My arm lashed out at the last second, and I barely managed to hook my fingers along its side.

My body kept trying to slide downward.

"Hup!"

But depending on how you looked at it, a crisis could also become an opportunity. I used the recoil from the beast’s violent movements to launch myself upward. My body soared through the air, clearing the tusk and flying toward its head.

Grab! My hand caught a clump of the sparse, coarse hair growing there, giving me something to hold on to. My feet were planted stubbornly in the gaps between its rough, rugged hide.

"Ratel!!”

But I couldn't hold out like this for long. I called Ratel, which had flown away, back to me. A little Demonic Energy was consumed, and the white mass came flying toward me.

Grab!

I transformed it into crampons, gloves densely covered in spikes, and a rope with a grappling hook.

[Smart.]

With climbing equipment, both ascending and holding on became considerably easier.

Tap, tap. My body began steadily climbing about a meter with every jump. The beast’s violent movements nearly threw me off several times, but with the tools combined with my physical abilities, it was manageable enough. Before long, I was standing between its eyes again.

Fwooosh. Changing Ratel’s shape every single time seemed like it would consume a considerable amount of Demonic Energy, so instead I drew the amber-colored sword, which immediately burst into flame. Its brilliance, bright enough to be visible from 4 kilometers away, shone in place of the sun hidden behind the clouds.

Whoosh!

My body rose into the air as well. It wasn’t because I had been thrown off by the beast’s rampaging. If I wanted to stab the center of that enormous eye with a sword rather than a spear, not merely strike its edge, I simply needed to do this.

I floated in the air directly before Behemoth’s eye before it could close its lid. Only then did Behemoth notice me and begin lowering its enormous eyelid.

[There.]

But I had already finished preparing to throw the sword. In the illusion that time itself had slowed, I hurled the longsword I had been gripping by the blade.

The sword, blazing as magnificently as the Arcane Power it contained, flew toward the exact spot I had pierced before.

Rooooooaaaaaaar!!!

Got it. Once I was certain the sword had torn through the sclera, I pulled on the rope, Ratel, tied to its hilt. Just as the emerald Knight had retrieved her rapier with a whip, my sword came flying back toward me along the rope.

Swoosh!

At the same time, the grappling hook hanging from my other hand caught onto Behemoth’s tusk. I no longer had to worry about slipping off like before. In other words, from now on, all I had to do was repeat this.

"Hey, Demon.”

[What?]

"This thing isn’t going to die just because I rip apart its eyes. What do I do after that?”

Now that I had established a pattern, the rest was simply repetition. But would something this enormous really die from losing a single eye? Probably not.

[Why are you even asking? Dig through the eye, crawl inside, and either scrape out the flesh from within or roast its brain.]

"......"

So that really was the only option. I let out a bitter sigh at the half-expected answer.

It had taken this long just to pierce a single cornea. How long would it take to break through the flesh and bone inside?

The arduous future ahead drew another sigh from me.

[Annoyed? Don’t like it? Then lend me your body. I’ll butcher it nice and clean for you.]

"Shut up unless you want me to get you banned from coming out here and running your mouth too.”

[My, how prickly.]

Using the crampons I had transformed Ratel into, I ran along the tusk much more easily and began climbing again. Sliiide. The situation changed immediately afterward.

Mud began streaming down from Behemoth’s hide. It looked almost like sweat being expelled through pores. Foul-smelling mud gushed out in waves, making its body slick.

[What an annoying trick……]

And that wasn’t all. Demons resembling cockroaches crawled out of the watery earth. Each was about the size of an adult man’s upper body, which made them especially disgusting.

Buzzzz.

At the same time, the swarms of flies that had been buzzing everywhere suddenly vanished. It happened far too abruptly to dismiss as me simply having killed too many of them.

"Aaaaagh!!”

"Hgk, aaaaagh!!"

[Tsk. Looks like it’s going to heal the wound you worked so hard to make.]

No. They hadn’t vanished. They had simply moved to a different battlefield.

"Save me! Please, save me!”

"God!!”

All manner of screams drifted faintly from the wall. They were screams of people being eaten alive by insects.

"What the hell is that……?!”

[Why are you surprised? Behemoth’s essence is Gluttony. It’s a damn insect that devours everything.]

I cut down every cockroach rushing toward me as I glared at the Demon. Explain. At my stare, the Demon folded her arms.

[What’s the point of asking when you already know? It’s hungry, so it eats. That’s only natural.]

“So it’s eating the people?”

[Well, the reason it’s trying to gorge itself right now probably isn’t just its nature. It’s exhausted from maintaining its domain for two days, and you threatening it by stabbing its eye probably contributed too.]

As she spoke, she swept back her own hair. The long white strands falling past her waist swayed softly.

[What an idiot. Once all the Demons that dragged that thing here died first, it should’ve stopped thinking unnecessary thoughts and obediently retreated. Did it seriously poke its head in here thinking, ‘If the body containing me is just standing around, can I eat those things?’ What a pathetic excuse for a beast.]

But this was hardly the opponent or situation for me to let my attention wander toward her. Slash! My teeth clenched as I sliced the head off another cockroach.

[Anyway, kill it quickly. Even if it eats everything on the wall, that won’t make it particularly threatening…but if it uses them to heal its wounds, that’ll be troublesome in its own way.]

"How do I stop it?!”

[...What?]

"I’m asking if there’s a way to stop that swarm of insects?!”

[Let me think. A way to stop them… Burn all the humans along with them?]

"Shit, not something like that!”

[There isn’t anything else. There’s no way you could possibly kill every single one of those insects one by one.]

Godammit, useless bastard. What the hell had she been doing all this time without developing even one technique for something like this?

I swallowed the words rising into my throat and leaped once more. If there was no other way, then I would at least kill Behemoth as quickly as possible.

[Just empty out all your Demonic Energy and blow away the entire city. Then the insects will disappear too, and there'll be nothing left for that thing to eat, so it won’t be able to recover.]

“Stop talking bullshit!”

But when I reached the space between its eyes again, what greeted me was not an open eye, but an eyelid clenched firmly shut.

[Don’t like it? Then forget it. But you should know this much. The reason Behemoth could succeed Beelzebub despite being this stupid and the reason it has managed to hold onto that position until now are entirely because of that damn body’s durability and regenerative ability.]

How was I supposed to get through this? I clung to the eyelid. But even when I jammed my fingers into the gap and pulled with all my strength, the closed eye wouldn’t open.

Clack! It was much the same when I drove the sword into the gap. If I forced it, I could somehow wedge the blade inside, but I couldn’t imagine being able to gouge out the eyeball with it.

Creaaaak!

The sword blade saturated with Demonic Energy let out a strange sound. It was the sound of the weapon’s internal frame twisting.

[For reference, the first Gluttony, Beelzebub, died after being hit twice by that sweeping attack. You know, the one that wipes out everything around you? Mammon, the one you fought in Bemurchen, died from a single direct hit. Even that snake bastard they called a Primordial Beast only survived one hit after wrapping itself in a turtle shell and died on the second.]

Damn it, this was someone else’s sword! I pulled the amber-colored sword back out and drove Ratel in instead. Fortunately, Ratel didn’t make any noises of bending.

[But Behemoth endured that attack of mine at least three times even before it ate Beelzebub’s remains. Do you understand what I’m saying? That damn bastard can only be killed by slowly wearing it down over time, and only after you remove every source of food around it so there’s no chance for it to recover.]

But it still refused to penetrate. I shifted my gaze toward the Demon as she continued emphasizing just how absurdly durable Behemoth was.

[So give up on that city.]

Then I lowered my head again.

[You certainly won’t die, but there is also no chance you’ll kill Behemoth before those people will die.]

Up on the wall, the soldiers and the dark-blue-haired man leading them were fighting desperately.

* * *

"...I see."

"Representative..."

"Thank you for your opinion. Thanks to you, I now understand that we must bring the situation in Munmund to an end as quickly as possible.”

The Hero quietly closed her eyes after hearing Meister’s words. The Great Temple. Her nest, her hometown, and the place where everything had begun.

A sanctuary she might even have called her home.

"...Ironwall, are you okay?”

"Why would you ask that?”

"Well, because the Great Temple might be in danger……”

"So?”

But she couldn’t allow herself to be shaken by that. The great warrior of God, the one who carried out destiny, the Hero who received the divine oracle, barely suppressed the churning in her stomach and steeled her heart.

"It’s not yet certain that the Demons are targeting that place. And even if the Great Temple truly were in danger, there is nothing I could do about it. This place and that place are far too distant.”

"...Ironwall."

"On the other hand, there is a land before me that has fallen into misery, and it’s close enough that I could run to its aid this very moment. What must take priority is clear.”

"Ironwall."

"So keep that hypothesis in mind, but erase it from your thoughts for now. What we need to focus on is the battle soon to come, not some uncertain threat to the Great Temple.”

The words she forced out at the cost of carving into her own heart sounded more convincing than expected, enough that even the one who had spoken them found herself persuaded. Her green eyes, having finished rationalizing the decision to herself, stare blankly beyond the mountains.

The sky at dawn was a delicate pale violet, utterly at odds with the situation.

"...Also, start preparing to leave.”

Still, there were clouds obscuring that beautiful color. That, at least, was fortunate. The Hero slowly closed her eyes.

"...What should we do about the villagers?”

"We leave them here."

"But……”

"It’s safer for them to remain here. We don’t have enough manpower to spare anyone to stay behind with them, do we?”

Please, let the clouds fill this vast sky completely. Let them keep her from being exposed before the sun.

"If it truly weighs on your mind, then at least leave them some sturdy weapo—Ah!”

A life far too shameful to be laid bare beneath the sky.

"W-what is it, ironwall?”

The Hero bit her lip as something all too familiar began making its presence known amid the unfamiliar Demonic Energy. An ominous force she knew too well.

"...Let’s go."

Dawn… Dawn had broken.

It was the day that would change them.

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