I’m Sick of the Kind Protagonist, so I Might as Well Just Die - Chapter 10

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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#10
“Why? Did I say something wrong again?”
“Not exactly….”
Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis and Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike exchanged glances before turning their attention to Silpi.
Silpi alternated her gaze between the waterfall of blood cascading from her body and me, her expression reluctant, before speaking as though releasing a sigh.
“Everything lines up too perfectly.”
“What do you mean?”
“It fits together like an existing setting. The pieces align exactly.”
“Misalignment could be a problem, but why is perfect alignment an issue?”
“It is a problem. If Ren hears about this, she’ll wear an expression far more serious than all of us combined.”
I couldn’t fathom what troubled Silpi. Yet watching Bilateia and Leonas converse silently with their eyes suggested this was no trivial matter.
‘I don’t know. If I truly needed to understand, they’d tell me—even if it kills them to do so.’
Given how distressed I already felt about the Village’s condition and the state of my home, I resolved not to dwell further on what I didn’t understand. Instead, I gazed upon the grotesquely melted ruins of the building and recalled the past.
“I was born and raised in that Inn. After my parents passed away early, I managed it alone.”
“Sorry to interrupt your sentimental moment, but you’re saying you’re a nameless ‘background character’? The fact that you’re mistaken about having such detailed setting values is proof you’re a critically serious error—Ugh! Who did that!”
Silpi’s rambling ceased the moment a small pebble struck the back of her head. I watched with surprise as Bilateia flicked her hand cleanly and led the group forward.
“My room was on the second floor, so it shouldn’t have been flooded by Silverdragoon’s blood… or so I thought.”
Contrary to my expectations, my room was utterly devastated, as though a bomb had detonated within it. Only a noxious stench and toxic smoke billowed forth.
“In this state, there’s nothing worth salvaging—not books, nothing. What do we do?”
“Shouldn’t we at least pretend to search? The Professor wants accurate information, after all.”
“Just go. The Professor isn’t as ruthless as Ren thinks.”
While Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis insisted on rummaging through my room despite my protests, Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike avoided answering and busied herself fanning away the smoke with delicate, butterfly-like motions. Watching those graceful hands flutter, I suddenly recalled a forgotten memory.
“Ah…! The Castle! We should go to the Castle!”
“The Castle? Why?”
“Because I severed the dragon’s neck and went to the Castle with all the villagers. I brought some books from home at that time.”
“This girl is really strange. You’re going to the Castle with a dragon’s head, and you’re bringing books?”
Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike muttered.
Even I found it absurd upon reflection. To have brought books while excitedly carrying a dragon’s head to officially receive the hero’s title… it certainly wasn’t conventional behavior.
I coughed awkwardly and averted my gaze, then quickly defended my peculiar actions.
“No, but there was a reason! The Castle is full of nobility! I was worried they’d look down on us as ignorant country folk who knew nothing of etiquette, so I brought those books. Court protocol manuals, books on understanding the Nobility—things like that.”
“The more I hear, the more astounded I am. The most ridiculous part is that such protocol manuals existed in a remote Mountain Village Inn.”
“Adventurers left behind books of surprisingly diverse genres. Swordsmanship, magic, history, novels…. They discarded all sorts of things at our place like it was a garbage dump, truly.”
As I murmured while retracing my memories, I simply closed my mouth. The more I spoke, the more embarrassed I felt. Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike, who had been staring at me intently, nodded.
“Right, let’s go to the Imperial Palace. Rather than wandering here, we should find those protocol manuals and bring them to the Professor to earn some points.”
This time, Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike took the lead.
The Castle, which felt like I was returning after an eternity, appeared far more shabby than I remembered. Perhaps it was because Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis’s Imperial Palace, which I had seen in the Training Stage, had been so magnificently ornate.
The pillars adorned with gold and the walls decorated with colorful gems all seemed crude and provincial by comparison.
“The room I stayed in at the Castle is that way.”
I hastily guided the group to the chamber that had been assigned to me.
The sensation of observing my sleeping form from above was extraordinarily strange. My body, lying upon a bed so luxuriously ornate it felt presumptuous to rest upon it, felt utterly unfamiliar. It was as though I were glimpsing someone else’s memories.
Wrapped in an inexplicable sensation, I could only stare endlessly at my own body and Silpi’s head. Unable to contain herself any longer, Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike pointed at the table.
“Are those the books you brought?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
I barely gathered my wits and slid toward the table.
The heavy, worn volumes with their faded leather covers and antique lettering seemed strangely welcoming.
“I’ve seen all the books in the Academy library, but I’ve never come across anything like this before.”
Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis murmured with curiosity as he examined the books. Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike shot him a disapproving glance and let her lips droop.
“‘The Imperial Etiquette Compendium,’ ‘Understanding and Practice in Nobility,’ ‘An Introduction to Imperial Politics’….”
Silpi’s voice grew quieter as she verified the titles and publication dates. She narrowed her eyes and looked at me sideways.
“Hey, were all the books in your house this worn out too?”
“Yeah. There were quite a few even older ones.”
Silpi’s expression grew more serious. Just as she was about to say something—
“Someone’s coming.”
Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis pointed at the door opening silently.
Through the gap, a man who appeared to be the Imperial Palace’s High Minister was entering. Behind him, the villagers from our Mountain Village filed in, their faces utterly dejected.
Once the last person had stepped into the room, the distinguished High Minister opened his mouth with feigned courtesy.
“No matter how many of you there are, this shouldn’t be a particularly difficult choice. It’s simply a matter of eliminating one or losing everyone.”
On the table beside the bed, resting upon an ornate silver platter, lay the massive head of the silver dragon I had severed with my own hands.
“That dragon you all defeated, you see.”
The High Minister sighed, placing his hand upon the elegant horns of the dead dragon. His expression was the same one he’d worn while graciously showing us around the various corners of the Imperial Palace.
“It was a tremendously important existence—the end of this world and the beginning of a new narrative. Did you know that?”
The villagers nodded hesitantly.
“‘When the silver wings sleeping at the world’s end shatter the mountain range with icy breath, the hero of longing shall open the sealed era’s new door.’ You truly knew of this ancient prophecy?”
The High Minister repeated the prophecy in disbelief. My sleeping form appeared to nod in unison with the villagers.
How could we not know the prophecy? We had all united in our Mountain Village to defeat those ‘silver wings’ precisely because of that damned prophecy.
“What exactly have we done so wrong…?”
“Are you truly asking because you don’t know? Was there any sentence in that sacred prophecy suggesting ‘unremarkable people from a mountain village’?”
“….”
“That is precisely your mistake. Failing to distinguish between when you should stand tall and when you should remain diminished, yet standing tall regardless!”
The High Minister, whose refined appearance belied his sudden irritability, withdrew a dagger from beneath his pristine white robes and began distributing them among the villagers.
“There’s no need for lengthy explanations. Simply do what needs to be done quickly.”
The villagers, arranged in a circle around my bed, awkwardly fingered the daggers while watching the High Minister’s expression. He raised the corners of his eyes sharply once more.
“You mustn’t wear such intimidated expressions. We are the victims here, not you. You are the perpetrators who have completely ruined the perfect narrative we so carefully prepared.”
“We only did this to protect our Mountain Village….”
“That’s precisely the problem. Your mountain range and this rotten world should have been trampled by that dragon! Only then would a true hero appear and begin the grand epic that opens a new era!”
At those words, my past self, burning with rage, swung a fist at the back of his head. But my fist passed right through him without even grazing him, as though I had become a ghost.
“The Divine has declared that this woman is the source of a fatal error. We have guided you to eliminate her upon receiving that divine mandate.”
The High Minister, now revealing his true nature, arrogantly gestured his chin toward my sleeping form.
“Fortunately for you, you are merely auxiliary elements existing around this woman. You’ve been analyzed as suffering only mild contamination. You can return to your originally assigned positions without bearing responsibility for the malfunction.”
The villagers and my sleeping self all tilted their heads with identical expressions. Malfunction, auxiliary elements… no matter how many times I heard such words, I couldn’t comprehend their meaning.
“I have told you repeatedly—there are only two choices. Either you remove one of your own, or you all disappear.”
A suffocating tension settled over the villagers. Frightened eyes darted nervously back and forth, searching for some sign of what to do. Trembling hands. Shallow, ragged breathing.
The moment those pitiful sounds—more insignificant than the chirping of insects beyond the window—cut off abruptly, the villagers raised their gleaming daggers in unison and brought them down upon me in a synchronized strike.
A terrible realization pierced through my body, accompanied by a pain I had mercifully forgotten.
Ah.
I had been murdered by my own companions.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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