WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Mistaken as the Dungeon Boss Monster ◈
Chapter 42: You’re Annoying Me to the End
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Reactions immediately erupted from all directions.
Sharp gasps, eyes widening unnaturally, bodies flinching in surprise.
Even without checking their levels, the shock they felt was written all over their faces.
“Did you see that wrong?”
Unlike the others, Roxanne folded her arms and dismissed it with a scoff.
Not only was Roxanne the highest-ranking Lord at the Round Table, but she was also an absurdly arrogant Dragon Lord.
If someone asked who was the most arrogant being among the Seven Palaces of the Abyss, Roxanne would undoubtedly be the answer.
A Lord ranked five places below her was supposedly the strongest one here?
Naturally, she couldn’t believe it, even before the humiliation set in.
“Even if they are a single entity, they are Rank 7. I do not believe it at all.”
“Yeah! They don’t look that strong.”
“Rin thinks so too!”
The twins, Ren and Rin, chattered like sparrows.
Just as they said, I looked like an ordinary Death Knight. Not just on the outside, either.
They didn’t say it aloud, but aside from the Seven Palaces of the Abyss, most of them seemed to dismiss it as ridiculous nonsense.
Roxanne’s eyes narrowed like those of a bird of prey as she looked at me.
She wanted to determine whether it was true, and an absolute lie detector was already sitting right beside her.
“Ren, Rin. Use your Foresight on Blizz.”
“Eeeeh? Why?”
“Why Rin?”
“Are you two not curious as well? Whether Blizz and Vargoer had conspired, and whether what Blizz said was true?”
It was obvious she was the most curious of all.
In that respect, Roxanne was being very Roxanne.
Unable to resist her urging, the twins stared at Blizz.
For an instant, strange lights flashed through their eyes.
It was the sign that their Heaven-Gifted Insight was about to activate.
“No. Not Blizz. Use it on Vargoer, Rank 7.”
...Why me?
If she wanted to find out, it made more sense to question Blizz.
The twins’ Foresight possessed absolute discernment.
But it couldn’t distinguish every matter as true or false.
After all, subjective certainty was not directly tied to possibility.
Say everyone answered with complete certainty that they could kill Blizz.
If they merely had one hundred percent resolve, and neither side knew the other’s strength, Foresight’s determination of truth or falsehood would be impossible. It probably wouldn’t activate at all.
It would work on Blizz, though.
Did the twins truly possess Foresight, and had they seen a one-hundred-percent probability of death?
If they asked that, they could distinguish truth from lies.
Then why insist on asking me?
...I understood why.
She wanted to know whether I possessed an ability that allowed for absolute instant death, rather than mere subjective certainty.
If I didn’t, the twins’ Foresight wouldn’t activate. If I truly had such an ability, it would.
“Rank 7! Is what the octopus said true? Can you definitely kill Blizz if you decide to?”
“Answer! Answer!”
Enhancement chance: 0%. Chance of instant death: 100%.
In truth, it only applied to Blizz, but no one knew that.
Since there was already the precedent of Balm Monk, it would be hard for them to even consider that possibility.
Balm Monk, one of the Four Heroes of the Empire and a powerhouse in his own right, had been killed by me without me even touching him.
Everyone at the Round Table knew that.
When an ant lay before a person, the chance of killing it simply by deciding to kill it was one hundred percent.
Would Foresight’s determination of truth or falsehood not activate when the difference in power was so great that comparison itself was impossible?
If my answer was true, most of them would probably misunderstand it that way.
“That is correct.”
I answered calmly to maintain my persona.
The seven Lords’ gazes stabbed into me. From what I could tell, they thought I was simply bluffing.
Silence filled the hall, and their attention shifted from me to the twins.
The smiles had already melted from Ren and Rin’s faces. They only stared at me with blank expressions.
Ren’s eyes, which judged truth, turned green.
A green signal that my words were true.
“Wow... It’s real? So that’s why they’re a single entity...”
“Rin’s getting goosebumps...”
Short breaths suddenly sounded from all around me.
Even with the slightest turn of my head, I could see levels colored with wariness and fear.
Those belonged to the lower-ranking Lords.
It wasn’t something I needed to worry about, so I continued looking over the levels of the other Lords of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss one by one.
“Rin. Don’t you think Rank 7 is interesting?”
“Rin thinks so too! Rin wants to be friends!”
Ren and Rin whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Their levels had already changed to deep green.
“Huh. So that’s what being a single entity means...”
Even Dalon’s level had turned a darker green.
Neither Dalon nor the twins had personalities that made them wary of the strong. They only felt goodwill toward them.
“Well, isn’t that obvious? Vargoer is the only single-entity member of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss among us.”
Rose Sha’s level became an even deeper pink.
I had benefited countless times from everyone mistakenly believing I was a single entity.
If I had only been Rank 7, everyone would have questioned it. Yet the single-entity excuse alone made it easy for them to accept.
Kalandas’s level, on the other hand, held deep wariness and faint fear.
Kalandas stared at me in silence while trying to look dignified, but the emotions held inside were plain to see.
At the edge of my vision, the bridge of Roxanne’s nose twitched.
Her red level had darkened slightly. She showed no wariness toward me, only hostility.
‘Well, she’s immortal.’
Roxanne, at least, wouldn’t be afraid of me or wary of me.
Her hostility had only grown, but that didn’t matter.
I had gained far more than I had lost.
What would their reactions be if they learned how little power I truly had?
I looked calm on the outside, but honestly, I was fucking terrified.
I’d done it, but how was I supposed to deal with this from now on?
‘How else?’
I’d have to manage somehow.
To hide how little power I truly had, I had to become an Artist of Pretension so no one could suspect it.
“Let’s put the small talk aside.”
Blizz spoke while looking around the room.
“We shall begin the meeting now. I will serve as moderator.”
* * *
The topics of the Roundtable Meeting were conflicts between Grand Dukes and Lords, disputes between lower-ranked dungeons, and various other matters that had nothing to do with me.
As the discussion continued, the Lords began arguing over who was at fault, and the atmosphere gradually heated up.
I felt a small sense of relief as the attention naturally shifted away from me.
During that time, I only pretended to listen.
...While pretending not to notice the uncomfortable stares.
‘Please stop staring at me already.’
Their attention had shifted elsewhere.
The lower-ranking Lords either cast sidelong glances while pretending not to, or focused on something else entirely.
The problem was the Seven Palaces of the Abyss.
They weren’t even being subtle. Every one of them was openly staring at me.
They were making it clear with their entire bodies that they were fixated on me.
Trying to act imposing had me scared shitless already. Why were they doing this? I wasn’t some monkey in a zoo.
‘What am I really going to do after this meeting ends?’
No, that was the wrong thing to worry about first.
First, I should worry about whether this meeting would end without trouble.
As the meeting began to settle down, Blizz clapped to change the mood.
Clap!
“Now, we shall move on to the main point, the main agenda item.”
The main agenda item.
Even I knew what that meant at the 72 Dungeons Assembly.
Kalandas would probably leap at it with eyes blazing.
“Everyone is gathered here.”
As if on cue, Kalandas’s voice rang out.
“Comrades. This is our opportunity to advance the cause. It has been left unresolved for too long, but that cannot continue. We must remain vigilant. Even Shadow of Pangu, formerly one of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss, has fallen.”
I hadn’t expected Kalandas to come out so aggressively from the start.
The purpose of the 72 Dungeons Assembly was the Roundtable Meeting, and there had only ever been one main agenda item at those meetings.
The destruction of humanity for the sake of the 72 Dungeons and the Nonhuman Demon Realm.
At this point, the Empire was no match for the 72 Dungeons.
Just one of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss could pose an unprecedented threat to humanity.
Yet even by the eighth Assembly, the Empire still stood strong.
“The Empire has grown stronger with time. It has taken another leap forward through the conquest of one of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss. Will we continue to stand by and watch?”
When one of the 72 Dungeons was conquered, a new dungeon of the same rank was born.
That allowed them to resist humanity once again, but from another perspective, it was no different from handing the Empire unlimited resources.
Dungeon byproducts had advanced humanity beyond measure, and they would continue to do so.
Kalandas wanted to break that shameful cycle.
“The time has come to declare the Empire’s end. If we form a 72 Dungeons Allied Army, humanity will...”
“Why should we?”
There was a reason it had remained unresolved until now.
Not everyone shared Kalandas’s views.
Rose Sha glared at Kalandas with vicious eyes.
“Why should we do what you say?”
“Then will you keep standing by with your hands folded? Shadow of Pangu was conquered as well. You will be next, and I will be after you.”
Honestly, from a player’s perspective, it had always seemed strange.
Just one of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss could bring about humanity’s destruction.
Then why had they only stood by and watched until they were defeated one at a time?
Surprisingly, there was a real reason, not merely a gameplay contrivance.
“So, who is this alliance for?”
“For the 72 Dungeons. For the Nonhuman Demon Realm.”
“Hah! You are lost in your own little world.”
The reason everyone had only protected their own dungeons and looked after themselves wasn’t because they lacked the means to act.
The 72 Dungeons did not trust one another. Everyone ignored it, but they all knew it.
Distrust and betrayal. If anyone raised those two issues, they couldn’t even unite.
“What will happen to the Dungeon Cores when war breaks out? Do you think there can be unity when everyone has to worry about getting stabbed in the back during the chaos?”
Humanity was obsessed with the 72 Dungeons because of dungeon byproducts. Dungeon Cores stood at the center of that.
Likewise, a dungeon boss could absorb another Dungeon Core.
If war broke out, the Dungeon Cores would have to be placed somewhere safe.
Yet no one could rest easy knowing there were Lords within their own ranks who might covet those Dungeon Cores.
“We are bound by rank. Instinctively, we crave higher ranks. There is a reason those numbers are imprinted in our minds.”
If a Rank 20 Lord absorbed the Dungeon Core of Rank 15, there was a high chance they would rise to Rank 15.
Then the newly reborn Rank 15 Dungeon would no longer be Rank 15.
It would become Rank 16. Depending on the circumstances, it could fall even lower.
By gradually absorbing Dungeon Cores like that, they could claim ever-higher ranks.
“Humans are necessary. Without humans, many nonhuman peoples will eventually go extinct. And that is not the only sacrifice. Who do you think will bear most of the losses in a war? The lower-ranking 72 Lords. They will simply die.”
“Even if they die, they will be reborn. It is a valuable and inexhaustible sacrifice.”
“If you die, a new Rank 5 will be born, right? Then go fight on the front lines and die. Can you do that?”
“...Hah.”
Watching them fight was already entertaining.
Still, Rose Sha’s words made perfect sense.
Everyone valued their own life before any grand cause.
They had demanded innocent sacrifices in the name of that cause, which was why they had failed to unite even after eight Assemblies.
“You know that too. Yet you have kept doing this. Why? Because you see every dungeon that wasn’t an Abyssal Palace as nothing but consumables.”
“...”
“More than that, Kalandas, everyone knows your plan. War with humanity will inevitably bring losses. Yet there is one Lord, and only one, who can profit without suffering any loss.”
“Stop.”
“Everyone knows, don’t they? This skeleton is egging everyone on to keep everything for himself.”
I cheered inwardly.
Rose Sha was saying everything I wanted to say. As expected of someone from an opposing faction.
The corpses of those who died on both sides in the war would all be resurrected as Kalandas’s followers.
In the game, once Kalandas swallowed humanity, Kalandas’s next target was the 72 Dungeons.
Rose Sha might have even foreseen that future.
Form a dungeon alliance and destroy humanity.
The cause sounded good, but everyone saw through Kalandas’s true intentions.
They had only kept it to themselves because they were afraid, and they had stood by because they could not agree to it.
“That is an excessive leap.”
“It is the truth. How many times have you pushed for an alliance in the name of the cause? Aren’t you tired of it? You may as well try covering the sky with your palm.”
War with humanity would only end up benefiting Kalandas.
I agreed with Rose Sha, but I only nodded instead of saying it aloud.
I would rather die than draw everyone’s attention to myself by joining the conversation.
“That is enough.”
Unable to listen any longer, Roxanne stepped in to mediate.
The atmosphere had become so heated that I expected one of the higher-ranking Lords to step in eventually.
Since Roxanne held the most influence at the Round Table, neither of them could say another word.
“Strengthening unity is good. Questioning it is good as well. But the order is wrong.”
Roxanne looked around the room.
When her passing gaze briefly landed on me, a strange sense of unease came over me.
“Before discussing war, there is something that must be corrected. Our highest priority is to identify traitors within our ranks. If there is a weak point, our unity will soon crumble.”
After she finished speaking, Roxanne’s gaze settled on me.
More precisely, on the Holy Sword and Charlotte, who stood behind me.
“No Lord here is unaware of what the Holy Sword signifies. The Holy Sword is Solari’s revelation for humanity. The one chosen by that Holy Sword is here. You even took a pureblood human as your adjutant.”
...That fucking bitch.
She openly pointed at me with her finger now.
“Vargoer, Rank 7. I suspect that you harbor treacherous intent and favor humanity. Therefore, by the authority of the Lord of the Rank 2 Tenfold Abyss, I demand a hearing.”
The heated air instantly sank into a frost-like chill.
According to the notice in the summons, the sacred and inviolable Seven Palaces of the Abyss had the right to demand a hearing.
A hearing was bound to spark silent political strife and conflict.
Was she really trying to bury me by accusing me of being pro-human?
No. She must have had another motive.
Her level had been red from the beginning, blatant hostility.
‘What a petty lizard.’
This was purely because her pride had been wounded.
She was doing this because I had offended her pride and she didn’t like me.
Footnotes:
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