WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Arsène

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Romance Fantasy’s Pushover Crown Prince Is No More ◈

Chapter 66: World Tree (6)

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If the System had brainwashed the male leads...

Had the existing male leads already been brainwashed?

‘Probably not.’

I concluded that the answer to this question was probably no.

If that were the case, this phenomenon should have been happening all along.

Take the Northern Grand Duke, for example. There had been no pink aura around him.

If anything, the Northern Grand Duke had even resurrected while insisting that he must not die, and his future self had appeared in that state.

That was far too different from brainwashing.

The same went for Theo, who was faithfully working under me right now.

‘The Second Imperial Prince and the East Grand Duke would’ve been strange too.’

What was happening now only applied to Ailoren, at least so far.

More precisely, it seemed limited to male protagonists who had been introduced later.

That was why I had worried about the Northern Great Warrior first.

Still, the Northern Great Warrior had taken the Northern Grand Duke’s place.

Since he had already met Mirne, I judged there was very little chance of something like this happening to him.

That meant the variables I should be most worried about were the Beastman and the prince of the Eastern Continent, whose rapport with Mirne might be building in real time even now.

I had a feeling those two would definitely become enemies if I met them later.

At least there was a chance things could end well if I met Ailoren quickly.

The characters whose brainwashing had already been completed were clearly enemies.

“You still have a chance, Ailoren.”

So...

“Don’t die. Hold on.”

Ailoren was someone I absolutely needed to recruit.

He was the only person through whom I could learn the entire process of how the brainwashing was carried out.

He absolutely could not die.

Bang!

Since I only needed to subdue him, not kill him, I struck him with the flat of my sword rather than cutting him with my flame-wreathed blade.

Put simply, I was swinging a flaming club around.

Ailoren, on the other hand, fought like this.

“Spirits!!!”

It was a brute-force barrage of firepower so stupid that the word came naturally to mind.

Normally, Ailoren did not seem like the type to fight this way.

Ailoren was summoning every Spirit available and throwing them all at me.

It was like watching someone use a character they did not know how to control.

With no knowledge of combos, he just mindlessly threw out his strongest moves.

It was painfully obvious that Ailoren was being controlled rather than acting of his own will.

‘Ha.’

The System used Save & Load whenever it did not like how things were progressing.

Now, it was even trying to move the characters however it pleased.

“I can understand why the Imperial Crown Prince lost more and more motivation every time he regressed.”

If he had experienced this phenomenon every time he regressed, it would have been hard to stay sane.

Whenever he tried to do something, an unbeatable entity kept getting in his way.

No matter how strong his sense of duty was, his mind would inevitably wear down.

And besides...

“Doesn’t it even care about him?”

It seemed the System intended to kill Ailoren if things went wrong.

That was why it kept making Ailoren fight at close range.

Someone using Spirits should keep their distance and harass their opponent.

Yet it ignored the advantages of combining Spirits with a bow and continued charging at me.

If that were all, I could have dismissed it.

Snatch.

“Draw your sword, Imperial Crown Prince! I’m trying to kill you! Do you think it’s right to face me with a scabbard?!”

Ailoren was trying to take my scabbard away.

Ailoren was trying to force me to fight with a real blade so that, if things went wrong, he would suffer a fatal injury and die.

“First, it drives him out because he’s in the way, and if that doesn’t work, it makes him die?”

It started with hypnotic brainwashing, then moved on to controlling him, and now it was steering him toward death.

Its behavior reminded me of some Cthulhu-like outer god.

‘Is Lovecraft also love, then?’

Putting that stupid joke aside, I focused on the battle.

Smack!

Just as I tried to knock Ailoren unconscious by striking his chin with the scabbard, I saw him deliberately shift his body so that his neck would take the blow instead.

‘Crazy.’

I immediately turned the scabbard horizontal instead of vertical and changed my target to Ailoren’s abdomen.

“Ghk!”

I was trying to subdue someone who was struggling to die.

Thank goodness the difference in strength between us was overwhelming.

If we had been evenly matched, I would have had no choice but to kill Ailoren, just as the System wanted.

‘Because I was too weak, I would’ve had to throw away the chance to obtain so many clues right in front of me.’

It suddenly made me wonder if that was why the Imperial Crown Prince had prepared a sword for what came next.

How many opportunities like this had he encountered over countless regressions?

‘Is this power meant for that?’

But if so, why had he acted like such a pushover even with this kind of power?

Was there a separate period of rest during the cycle of regressions?

Had I possessed him during a round meant to recover a mind exhausted by countless regressions?

‘But if he hadn’t prepared for this, why did the Emperor disappear?’

For some reason, not a single question was properly answered. More and more questions only kept piling up.

Muttering to myself, I widened the distance between us while Ailoren staggered from the blow.

‘This is troublesome.’

Killing Ailoren would be easy, but subduing him was difficult.

Whenever I tried to subdue him, he charged at me because he wanted to die.

The key was to control my strength while accounting for even that.

The problem was that I had never done anything like this before.

If the Imperial Crown Prince’s power were a weapon, it was basically a nuke.

Could you gently hit someone with a nuke? Once it went off, that was the end.

“Phew.”

I took a short breath and changed my approach.

If I kept hitting Ailoren lightly, I would only waste time and mental energy.

Instead...

“I can only pray you don’t die.”

I would have to press Ailoren relentlessly.

Thud!

“Urgh!”

I grabbed Ailoren’s head tightly and slammed him straight into the ground.

Bang!

In this situation, I could not expect support from either the World Tree or Pavan.

When the System forced a situation, the characters were subjected to absurd restrictions.

It was like the police only appearing after everything was over in a movie.

Rumble!

Holding Ailoren’s head, I kept digging down into the earth.

“J-Just... kill me... Kill meee...!”

Was that the System speaking, or Ailoren’s true feelings beneath its control?

“You won’t be able to move carelessly now.”

We were somewhere underground.

The only exit was the tunnel above my head.

The escape route was completely blocked.

“Phew.”

I let out a short breath.

I needed to recall the sensation of cutting the System that had floated above Mirne before.

I could cut it. I had cut it once already, and there would be many more situations like this in the future.

- Killing a god is not enough.

- Something greater than a god...

- We must cut away what we have never known until now.

- Please make a sword for that purpose.

A conversation the Imperial Crown Prince had once had with Gilbat replayed in my head.

The Imperial Crown Prince knew the System existed.

Either he knew and fell into despair, becoming a pushover.

Or this really was a round of rest.

I did not know for certain.

What was certain was that he had tried to fight it.

Swish.

Recalling the moment I cut the System, I struck Ailoren.

“Argh!”

I had to beat him, literally.

There was no time to focus and strike carefully.

Either I would use the power that had cut the System to drive it out, or I would subdue Ailoren.

I prayed again and again that Ailoren was sturdy.

For now, this was the only method I could think of.

Rumble!

Using the World Tree’s roots as walls, I continued pummeling Ailoren.

[ The System resists. ]

[ It does its utmost to hold on to Ailoren’s mind. ]

[ It forcibly awakens Ailoren’s mind and makes him face forward. ]

Countless messages appeared.

At the same time...

- Someday, someone who will cut it will come.

“...”

The Imperial Crown Prince’s incomprehensible words brushed through my mind.

What did he mean when he said someone who would cut it would come?

As that thought passed through my mind...

Thud.

Ailoren’s head slumped.

It was not twisted or anything.

It looked like Ailoren had simply fallen unconscious.

The pink aura was no longer visible around him either.

“...For such a complicated situation, the process itself was rather clean.”

I had beaten Ailoren until it was over.

Why had I even wrapped my sword in flames, then?

Whoosh.

As I was thinking that...

“Huh.”

I looked at the flames wrapped around my hand.

I had no idea when they had appeared.

‘This body has too many secrets as well.’

Muttering that, I hoisted Ailoren over my back.

[ Ailoren has strayed significantly from the original story’s progression. ]

[ If he does not meet Mirne soon, he will lose his ‘male protagonist qualifications.’ ]

The messages appeared as though the situation had been completely resolved.

‘He has to meet Mirne to maintain his qualifications as a male lead?’

How was that any different from regularly coming face-to-face with a brainwashing app?

Then, to keep extracting information from him, would I have to make Ailoren meet Mirne regularly?

“Just what are you, Mirne?”

With those words, I left the tunnel and laid Ailoren on the ground.

At that moment, Pavan regained consciousness as if she had been waiting for it, then approached me.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness. I... I lost consciousness.”

“No, I understand. You had no choice. There’s no need to apologize.”

Still, the World Tree needed to be replanted too.

Did I have to wait until Ailoren woke up before doing that?

“At least we’ve put out the immediate fire.”

I should rest for a moment.

Having reached that conclusion, I sat down on a World Tree root that jutted out from the ground.

Screeeech!!!

“Pirande?”

I had no idea how Pirande had gotten through the barrier.

Was she really some kind of phoenix? Pirande flew toward me with flames trailing behind her.

But how she had arrived was less important than why she had come.

I immediately untied the letter from Pirande’s leg and unfolded it.

“Ha.”

I could only let out a hollow laugh at the short, impactful sentence.

[ Mirne, waging a War of Conquest in the west ]

You were finally showing your true colors, Mirne.

Were you building up your strength to take on the Empire properly?

“I’ll have to show you exactly why the Empire is called the Empire.”

It was time to show Mirne, who did not know how I had stopped the war through Save & Load, the difference in power between the Empire and the Macelin Kingdom once again.

‘It won’t go the way you want.’

While I was at it, I should give our Gardener No. 1 a chance to meet Mirne as well.

Footnotes:

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