WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Arsène
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Romance Fantasy’s Pushover Crown Prince Is No More ◈
Chapter 72: War of Conquest (6)
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It had an unpleasant appearance.
To put it bluntly, it was disgusting.
An absurdly long neck whose origins were impossible to discern.
The face at the end of that unnaturally long neck looked completely devoid of moisture.
Its cracked visage resembled a thickly built wall.
It was the kind of visceral disgust that came from seeing something obviously inhuman trying to imitate a human.
The term uncanny valley came to mind on its own.
Its face alone was as large as a person, and every one of its features was grotesquely oversized.
There was nothing comforting about it.
The Giraffe Face, a Giant with a giraffe’s neck, kept staring at us before it spoke.
“Mirne, if not, troublesome, said.”
It continued, tilting its head as though it were genuinely troubled.
“You, bug?”
One word made my eyes widen.
“A bug? Me?”
“If not Mirne, all, bugs.”
Bug.
That was not an expression that would normally come up.
When a stranger invaded, it should have called them an intruder or something similar.
‘Isn’t a bug usually an unexpected error...?’
Bug was generally a term used in games.
‘A game? No way.’
Starting with Save & Load, and even Mirne’s System, which went berserk whenever things diverged from the original story.
Everything resembled a game mechanic. But I'm Full Because Everyone Keeps Giving Me Things was not a game.
‘Am I thinking about this wrong?’
There was definitely something I had overlooked.
But I had no idea what it was.
I wished I had a little more time to think.
Unfortunately.
“Bug, erase.”
The Giraffe Face did not seem willing to give me any more time.
Creak, creak, creak.
Its head slowly bent backward, and the farther it bent, the more the corners of its mouth split upward toward its ears.
The meaning was too obvious. I immediately threw myself forward.
Normally, I would have watched the attack until the end before dodging, while figuring out what moves the Giraffe Face had up its sleeve.
But it was clearly loaded with System enhancements, so no one except me would be able to handle it.
So.
‘I’ll strike before it attacks.’
I immediately drew my sword.
Bang!
Before the Giraffe Face’s neck, bent as far back as it could go, sprang toward the group, I swung my sword one step faster at the point where its neck had first bent.
The sword created to slay a god.
The Imperial Crown Prince’s second sword collided with the Giraffe Face’s neck.
“As expected, you, bug?”
“Hah.”
Even though I had cut with both Sol Velos and Divine Power wrapped around the blade, the Giraffe Face’s neck remained unharmed.
Rather than stopping there, it bent even farther back, trying to draw out even greater destructive force.
“Bug, must, erase.”
Rumble, bang!
The Giraffe Face’s neck sprang toward me like a coil.
It was a simple attack, just pulling its neck far back and using the recoil.
Yet the force behind it was absurd.
Creeeak!
The Giraffe Face collided with the blade of the Zweihander, sending sparks flying.
“Existence, not, permitted.”
“I’d love to know who didn’t permit it.”
So there was a device that made it impossible for anyone but Mirne to resolve the Covenant.
I understood even more clearly why the Imperial Crown Prince had no choice but to regress so many times.
Had he faced things like this over and over, refusing to give up and continuing to regress?
It was devotion beyond measure. I could not even fathom how much he cherished and loved the Empire.
“Erase.”
“You’re going to erase me?”
Clang!
After deflecting the Giraffe Face with a two-handed swing, I compressed the flames more tightly than before and wrapped them around my sword.
The Giraffe Face’s methods of attack were incredibly simple.
It only pulled its face back before swinging it, or twisted its neck and struck.
It used its neck like a whip or blunt weapon, and it was not particularly skilled with it.
‘Is every single attack at least on par with the Grand General’s?’
The phrase mindlessly powerful suited it perfectly.
It felt like fighting a stupid AI with an infinite attack-power cheat.
Its attacks were simple, but their destructive power made it impossible to guarantee what would happen if even one landed.
Neither side could deal the other a fatal wound.
The exchange was likely to drag on until it became tedious.
“Pavan! Don’t worry about me, search the area! Inheriting the memories comes first!”
Rather than assist me in battle, I ordered the group to continue searching.
“...As you command!”
“Your Highness! This lady will swiftly resolve this damned Covenant and return to Your Highness’s side!”
“I’ll move immediately!”
Pavan, Arveda, and Lumynix quickly scattered, having grasped the situation at once.
Asking them for support in this battle would have been the worst move.
If the Giraffe Face was a measure prepared for Mirne, the Executioners obviously would not be able to deal with it anyway.
‘I’ll hold out until the Executioners find a clue about the Covenant.’
Even saying I would hold out was ridiculous.
‘I’m underestimating myself.’
Could the Imperial Crown Prince, who had regressed more times than I could count, really fail to defeat one pathetic Giraffe Face?
That made no sense.
The Imperial Crown Prince had already faced this thing.
If so, he would have prepared thoroughly for it.
‘I’ll crush it with overwhelming firepower.’
If it was going to charge in with brute force, I only had to meet it with the same kind of firepower.
I had been unable to use my full strength with the Executioners beside me.
But not anymore.
Sssssh.
The blade, compressed to its absolute limit, burned white.
“Not Mirne, bug.”
“The Executioners were designed for Mirne, but the Covenant was a measure for the Empire...”
Even as I left a deep line across the Giraffe Face’s face with my white sword, I continued turning its words over in my mind.
‘If the Executioners were designed for Mirne from the beginning, did the Great Prophet intervene afterward?’
The Great Prophet had made the Covenant with the Executioners during the early days of the Empire’s founding.
That would have been before the Empire was even called an empire.
Had the Great Prophet known even then that the Executioners would fall into Mirne’s hands, and bound them through the Covenant in advance?
Had he read this future from thousands of years ago?
‘There’s a reason he was called the Great Prophet.’
There were too many unexplained details to dismiss it by simply saying that he was great because he was a prophet.
Slice!
Even while I continued thinking, the Giraffe Face steadily took damage.
The white-burning God-Slaying Sword and the Empire’s Divine Power.
Those two powers could clearly inflict meaningful damage on the System.
“Why, damage? Not Mirne.”
“I like the things you say more than your appearance.”
Every clipped word it spoke was valuable information.
I wanted to lock it up and question it, but judging by how it acted, that did not seem possible.
Rumble!
‘I need to cut off its neck, but it’s too fast to strike the same spot.’
Where did this long neck’s main body even come from?
Even as I muttered that, my thoughts remained on the Prophet.
‘I don’t know which came first.’
Did the Prophet, knowing the future, make the Covenant after foreseeing that the Executioners would belong to Mirne?
Or did the System intervene later despite the Prophet’s Covenant with the Executioners?
I could not tell which had happened first.
The Giraffe Face suddenly stopped moving, making its displeasure obvious.
“You, why, keep, obstructing, Mirne?”
I did not miss the opening and immediately used magic to change my position.
I moved behind it and targeted the back of its neck.
Slice!
A white line appeared across the Giraffe Face’s neck.
Thud!
The Giraffe Face at the end of the long neck dropped to the ground.
It was the result of instinctive movement.
As if I had been waiting for it to stop at that exact moment, I cut through its neck the instant it stopped moving.
As though I could not afford to drag this out any longer.
“...I thought there would be something disgusting inside, but the cross-section is clean.”
Was it because its skin was made of piled-up bricks?
The Giraffe Face’s cross-section looked exactly like a rough-cut brick wall.
“At the end, it clearly said I kept obstructing Mirne.”
Even that could be interpreted in many ways.
Was it referring to me now, or to the Imperial Crown Prince who had repeated countless regressions?
It did not matter if it meant both, but if it meant the latter, another interpretation became possible.
‘Can the System remember regressions too? Mirne... shouldn’t remember them.’
I had only come to resolve one Covenant, yet I had somehow gained countless new questions.
There was already too much to think about, but things that made my head hurt kept piling up without end.
“For now, I should at least follow this neck.”
The Executioners were still searching for clues at this very moment. I had no time to rest just because I had killed one giraffe.
After following the Giraffe Face’s neck for some time, I could only laugh in disbelief when I saw what lay at its end.
Why was a System measure for Mirne beneath the Empire?
And why was it guarding something related to Pavan’s Covenant, in other words, the Giants?
“So there was a reason.”
Because there was something worth guarding.
[ You have discovered the hidden male protagonist, ‘Rumta’. ]
[ Rumta’s attributes are revealed: #Giant #Dependable #Steadfast #BigDog #Bodyguard ]
“Was a male lead hidden beneath the Empire too?”
What was a hidden male lead supposed to be?
I knew that three male leads had been summoned in advance because the original story had already gone off course.
Were there even more besides them?
‘Aren’t there far too many male leads?’
Whether it was a harem or reverse harem.
Once the protagonist had too many partners, it became impossible to stop the characters from turning into trophies.
There were already more than six male leads around Mirne.
If there were hidden male leads like this too, there had to be at least ten.
“That’s excessive.”
Even in male-oriented fantasy, that was a number one only saw in a long-running series.
If I had known this would happen, I should have at least checked how many chapters I'm Full Because Everyone Keeps Giving Me Things had run for.
I regretted only reading it casually and not remembering how long it had been serialized.
‘Even taking that into account, there are too many.’
So I focused on the fact that he was hidden.
Why was he hidden when the other male leads could be brought out so easily?
Why was the male lead called Rumta hidden, and why was the System protecting him?
‘It called me a bug... It said that my arrival was a bug.’
A bug and a hidden male lead.
Combining those two things, only one possibility came to mind.
‘A Hidden Piece.’
Something the protagonist should naturally obtain.
But Mirne had plenty of Hidden Pieces besides this one.
There was no reason to hide a male lead and make him special.
‘I don’t know what original work Mirne read.’
Still, since she had read it, Mirne’s original work must have been based on a novel.
But what if it was not just a simple novel?
“...Save & Load, bug, hidden.”
Those were not terms that commonly appeared in ordinary fantasy novels.
I had made up the name Save & Load myself, but bug and hidden were clearly names presented by the System.
The System itself had been like that from the start.
Messages that appeared as though they had been waiting whenever a specific situation occurred.
Those were traits usually found in games.
Could it be?
“...The original work Mirne read was not just a simple novel?”
What if the original work Mirne read was a novel with something else mixed into it?
There was only one kind of novel that was not merely a novel, but also had the traits of a game.
“A visual novel.”
It was only a hypothesis, a conclusion forced to fit the evidence.
But if I assumed it was a visual novel, Mirne’s actions gradually began to make sense.
‘Humans would not seem human. They would be NPCs, not even characters from a novel...’
Why must the original story be maintained? Because bugs could occur.
There was still not enough evidence.
For now, I was only forcing the results to fit.
Just as I was about to inspect the male protagonist before me.
“Your Highness! Pavan! Something is wrong with Pavan!”
Arveda called out desperately for help.
I immediately threw myself in that direction.
If the Executioners had been prepared as a measure for Mirne.
‘Then I will take every one of them through the Covenant.’
As the Great Prophet had arranged, I had no intention of handing anything over to Mirne.
Footnotes:
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