WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

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

[Translator – Aren]

◈ Chapter 322 If Only I Could (8)

I don’t know how long I cried. By the time the emotions that had been clogging my throat and choking me finally seemed to loosen even a little, the scent of tea was already drifting through the room. It was a familiar scent, and one I liked the most.

"...Do you feel a little better now?”

I wasn’t sure. Could I really call this feeling better? I slowly closed and opened my eyes as I looked at the pile of emotions that had lightened somewhat, yet still gripped at me relentlessly.

"...A little."

My throat, hoarse from crying so much, tingled.

"I see......."

At my answer, the Archmage guided me along with an odd reaction that seemed both disappointed and understanding.

The moment the front of the sofa touched my knees, I understood what she wanted.

I followed her lead and sat down on the sofa that was in front of me. The soft leather supported my body.

-Rattle.

While I leaned back against the sofa, the Archmage pulled over the trolley that had been left near the door. An elegant tea set and a few refreshments were scattered across it.

Only then did I realize where the scent filling the room had come from.

"The butler left it outside the door earlier.”

So the butler saw me crying too? I was mortified for a moment, then just gave up. It was far too late to worry about saving face. Especially after I’d already said everything I had held inside of me to the Archmage.

'What am I supposed to say if she asked me later what all that roleplaying stuff was about……?'

My mind grew deeply troubled.

[Don’t worry. I blurred out all that roleplaying nonsense you blurted out without thinking.]

But Wrath’s next words cut off my anxiety.

'Blurred it out?'

[You’re a human from another dimension. We can translate writing for you, but spoken language doesn’t work that way, so we put something like a translation spell on you. We also added an illusion spell so no one would notice that the shape of your lips doesn’t match with the sounds you’re making……Anyway, I partially disabled those so she only caught bits and pieces. I did good, right?]

The longer Wrath explained, the more my blank mind filled with deep relief, a strange sense of deflation, and a thick layer of irritation.

I mean, whose fault was it that I’d ended up doing this whole roleplaying shtick without knowing what was going on? Wasn’t it this bastard’s fault in the first place?

'Talk about feeding you poison and then offering the cure……'

[Better than feeding you poison and not offering the cure.]

I vividly imagined myself flipping her off. I wondered whether images could be transmitted too, but unfortunately there was no reaction, so I couldn’t tell.

Glug, glug, glug.

Meanwhile, whether I was having a slight internal crisis or not, the Archmage carefully poured the tea. A clear, jade-like color and a fragrant scent. I immediately recognized what the tea had been brewed from.

Those were the tea leaves I’d been given in abundance in the Great Forest, the same ones the Archmage had once brewed for me.

"...Would it be alright if I gave you some tea?”

But she hesitated for a moment over the cup she’d poured. Why? There was no need to think too deeply about the reason.

I recalled the teacup I had once cracked before.

"...Of course."

Fortunately, there were no cracks in the new teacup. As long as I was careful, there was no need to get new ones again.

I accepted the cup carefully so the same thing wouldn’t happen again. The rich fragrance I hadn’t noticed back then gently tickled my nose. It was much nicer.

Sip.

I savored the aroma for a moment before bringing the cup to my lips and drinking. It wasn’t hot enough to burn my tongue.

The tea leaves, steeped for just the right amount of time in water that hadn’t quite reached the boiling point, washed sweetly over my tongue before slipping down my throat.

It felt like both my body and my heart were warming up.

"You can tell me more."

By the time I'd finally emptied the cup. The Archmage spoke. Glug, glug, glug. Fresh tea filled the empty cup, still carrying its warmth.

"...About that."

I hesitated over that warmth. I remembered enough of how badly I’d broken down just now and how far I’d gone with what I’d said, which only made me more reluctant.

"Liquid usually spills from a cup when it exceeds what the cup can hold. But even if no more is poured in and nothing else spills out, the cup itself remains full. Unless you empty it, it will stay that way forever.”

"...If it isn’t overflowing, is there really any need to empty it?”

"Well…A full cup spills at the slightest jolt and overflows the moment you add even a little more. Do you really think there’s no need to empty it?”

Letting those emotions out just now had given me a little breathing room. That was why I’d tried to decline, but the Archmage was of a different opinion.

Instead of placing a chair across from me, she sat beside me, shoulder to shoulder, and put a hand on my back. I generally disliked unnecessary physical contact, yet somehow, that touch didn’t bother me.

"It’s alright. I’m older than you, and I have enough room in my heart to share some of it with someone else. Besides, I still have things of my own to atone to you for.”

"......"

I almost denied that she had anything to atone for but stopped when our eyes met.

"So I’m alright. But are you? Are you truly alright now?”

No, did I stop myself? Or had the words simply gotten stuck in my throat?

"...I.”

I thought back on some of the things I’d blurted out thoughtlessly while venting. I remembered how I shifted some of the blame onto others in the heat of the moment.

"I......."

That was, well, I mean…

I mean……

"...I’m not okay.”

Maybe, just maybe. Maybe those really were things they should apologize for. Objectively, perhaps not, but emotionally, maybe they were.

Because just as I’d hurt them, they’d hurt me too. They must have.

"I want to say I’m okay, but I just can’t."

Yeah. Let's admit it. I think they really did hurt me.

No, not think. They did hurt me.

"It hurts so much.”

For the first time, I truly acknowledged that fact.

Even if none of it could’ve been helped, their misunderstanding and the pressure forced on me because of that misunderstanding had caused me so much pain. I understood why the existence of a Demon made me difficult to trust, but I had truly hated that rigid righteousness that wouldn't even let me explain myself… And even if my own mistake had started all of this, it had still hurt so damn much. At last, I accepted all of that as the truth.

"It hurt so much……”

At that, one of the knots that had done nothing but build and build inside of me finally came undone.

It had been a long time since I’d felt this relieved.

* * *

"May I…ask your true name?”

Perhaps she thought I needed some time to collect myself after seeing my expression, because the Archmage waited a little before asking.

"I’m asking because I don’t think it would be good to keep calling you Demon Knight. If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.”

I blinked my swollen eyes and thought for a moment.

"...It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I can’t. It would be troublesome if the Demon heard my name.”

"Ah…I see. So that’s the problem.”

If it were up to me, I’d like to tell her my name too. But if I said it out loud here, the Demon might hear. I fidgeted with my teacup as I thought of the Demon lurking somewhere in my mindscape.

"Then…what would you like me to call you?”

"...I don’t know.”

Should I give her one of the nicknames my friends used? No. If I heard it, I’d definitely keep thinking about them.

To keep the longing at bay, I crossed out the best option. The same went for my various old nicknames like Seven Stars, Star, or Constellation.

"Just…Call me Adventurer.”

That left me with nothing much to use. I considered giving her my pen name, but using that felt like it would doom me to an absurd amount of suffering, so I drifted in another direction.

Adventurer. It was one of the most common terms games used for players.

"Adventurer…you say?”

"Would Traveler be better?”

The Archmage looked a bit troubled, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. Although I was working in the creative field, I wasn’t especially confident at coming up with names without a dictionary or naming site.

"I understand, for now.”

In the end, the Archmage accepted that painfully generic title.

"But do come up with a proper nickname later.”

Only for now, apparently.

I rolled my eyes a little at her mention of the word ‘later.’ I had no idea what the Temple would decide. Would there even be a later for us?

"...Didn’t I tell you?”

When I cleaned up that doubt and voiced it, she looked flustered. "Ah, I suppose there wasn’t a chance to mention it.” Her discomfort didn’t last long.

"You don’t need to worry about that.”

The Archmage told me the outcome of the negotiations she and Meister had led. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, but hearing that it had been finalized still made me genuinely happy.

With this, I could openly live among humans, whether I stayed with them or not.

"Ah…and your meal will be here soon…The Young Lord heard you skipped breakfast and personally asked that you eat, so please do that.”

"...He did?”

"Yes. He considers you the city’s benefactor and has been looking after you in various ways. He also asked me to tell you that there would be plenty of time to talk later, so you should rest comfortably for now. So don’t feel burdened about staying here either. Get some proper rest.”

I was a little startled by the sudden reminder of the Young Lord, but I quickly composed myself. I had no idea what Faust and the Young Lord had talked about, but I remembered the Demon saying it had ended well.

Whatever else might be true, that bastard was obsessive about keeping this body safe, so surely she wouldn't have lied about that. And even if she had, well, there wasn’t anything I could do about it right now.

With that not-quite-faith in my heart, I decided to set the Young Lord aside for the moment. Now that I’d let out some of the emotions I’d been carrying, my thoughts became a lot more stable.

"Then…may I ask again? About the things that have been hard for you…or things that hurt you……”

Now that food had been mentioned, I suddenly realized I was hungry. Maybe the emptiness left behind after pouring out all those emotions made me feel it even more intensely.

I reached for the refreshments I hadn’t touched until now. Crunch. The cookie crumbled in my mouth, incredibly sweet, as though they’d filled it to the brim with sugar.

"Of course, I’ve always kept in mind that there are things I need to apologize for, but I feel there may be many things I unknowingly overlooked.”

"...Not really."

Crunch, crunch. I slowly moved my eyes while eating with one hand over my mouth so no crumbs would fly around.

It was a different kind of ‘not really’ from before.

"...Is it too late for me to apologize?”

"That’s not what I meant. It’s just…I can’t think of anything right now."

I’d had nowhere to pour out all the hurt that had piled up inside me, so I simply slapped the label ‘couldn’t be helped’ on everything.

And now, after Daniel and the Archmage hit me with their talks one after another, I’d realized that label was wrong. That it would be better to actually let those feelings out.

"But I can’t sort through all the feelings I’ve deliberately ignored because they hurt too much to dwell on…not all at once.”

But just because I’d peeled off the labels, did that mean I could immediately give every feeling its proper name? Especially when they were things I’d ignored and pushed aside because I was trying so hard to endure? When they were all tangled together, knotted up beyond recognition?

...If I dug into them carelessly, I’d end up confronting all my own mistakes at once too.

"Ah… I wasn’t considerate enough. I’m sorry.”

"I wasn’t really telling you to apologize again though……”

I awkwardly chewed my cookie.

“...I’m sorry too. For all the times I harshly rejected your kindness…and for the many times I acted rudely.”

“Those weren’t things you did because you wanted to, were they?”

"Even so, they still could have hurt you.”

"If you put it that way, I have no idea where I should even begin apologizing."

"...Weren’t those things kind of unavoidable?”

"And yet you were the first to apologize because I still could have been hurt despite what you did, having been unavoidable.”

"......"

That’s…true? I couldn't find any way to argue with that, so I put another cookie in my mouth.

Crunch. I only realized after eating it that it had been the last one.

The Archmage looked at the empty plate and smiled with satisfaction.

"I rarely thought you were rude… Well, I can’t say never, but none of it ever hurt me, so it’s fine. You don’t have to apologize.”

"...Still."

"If it truly bothers you, then just try not to do it again from now on.”

Well, obviously. The Archmage gave me a faint smile, then added one more thing.

"And it would be nice if you softened the way you speak a little.”

Judging by her expression, it was probably a joke. Considering how spectacularly rude I'd been until now, she likely wasn’t completely joking, but it seemed more like harmless teasing. Something she’d appreciate if I did, but wouldn’t care much if I didn’t.

"I shall. No…I will.”

But I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass me by.

Pretending to casually correct myself, I switched into polite speech. 2 seconds later, the Archmage’s smiling expression turned to utter shock. Why 2 seconds later? Probably because her brain briefly stopped working and needed time to process what she’d heard.

"R-r-r-right.”

Well, what could she do? She was the one who told me to change the way I spoke.

I watched the malfunctioning Archmage and took a satisfied sip of tea. Warmth spread through my stomach.

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