I’m Sick of the Kind Protagonist, so I Might as Well Just Die - Chapter 14

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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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#14
“That should be just about right for learning what the true Worlds are.”
“Yes.”
I didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but I simply nodded anyway. When words escape comprehension, experience through the body is the finest teacher. As if reading straight through me, Perenustus furrowed his brow with an anxious expression.
“Right, so, Aurelia.”
He called my name and began to elaborate, only to clamp his mouth shut entirely.
“Why?”
A peculiar emotion was gathering in his blue eyes. Anticipation? Anxiety? Obsession? A complex feeling I couldn’t name rippled across his gaze, directed solely at me—it was mesmerizing.
I found myself staring intently at Perenustus’s eyes, wondering if the midday sea held such a color, while he repeatedly started to speak only to stop himself. Like someone grappling with how to express something profoundly important.
“If it’s difficult to say aloud, write it down here.”
In my own way, I tapped the notebook and pen resting on the desk to show consideration. The man looked down at what my index finger was tapping, then let out a soft laugh, crinkling the corners of his eyes. The emotion rippling through his blue irises grew more intricate.
“I seem to be quite worried about you… I’m rooting for you. Take care of yourself. When danger comes, tap your shoe heel three times—something like that, some common phrase. If you have nothing more to say, send me off quickly.”
“…I’ll look forward to it.”
After such prolonged hesitation, the words that emerged were far too brief. Along with those words, a light so brilliant it was difficult to keep my eyes open consumed me. It was a light that resembled Perenustus’s eyes perfectly.
***
“Rowan.”
In a room where all that was visible were grey stone walls and a hard wooden bed, I turned my head toward the voice while sitting on the decrepit bed. A man draped entirely in a black hooded cloak that reached his ankles stood beyond the iron bars, gazing at me.
“How is your body?”
Quite exhausted, I simply stared at him without answering.
“Why don’t you answer your master? It’s not a poison that makes ears useless, is it?”
“Don’t be mistaken. My master isn’t you—it’s your mother, who pays to feed my family.”
“…”
“And before you ask how I am, think about it. A body that knowingly drank deadly poison and endured the pain without showing it—how do you think it would feel? Would it be fine?”
The man, whose brow was furrowed in obvious displeasure as he glared at me, soon fashioned a bright smile. I watched this fellow put on an act of kindness that no longer fooled me and clicked my tongue.
‘I’d like to hit him once… but then I’d die.’
The slender man looked quite sickly with just his pallid complexion alone. His wavy black hair and eyes darker than the hair itself made his skin appear even more ashen.
The First Empress’s only son—Damian.
From what I knew, Damian was the fourth son among nine princes the current Emperor had fathered with five different empresses. This mediocre heir, neither first nor last in succession, was using his decent looks as a weapon to exploit me.
“Prepare yourself. The Empress desires a hunting dog.”
“Just say your mother is looking for a fool to do hard labor instead of her precious son.”
“If you wish to call yourself a fool, I won’t stop you. But I dislike it somewhat when Rowan, whom I love, demeans herself in that manner.”
I dismissed his hollow words with a scoff.
A fool. That word fit perfectly to describe my current state, living under the name ‘Rowan’.
‘Even I think what I’m doing now is foolish, or perhaps stupid.’
To excuse my foolish and stupid reality, I would need to explain the wretched circumstances of this wretched nation.
The current Emperor feigned treating all the women he took as empresses equally while orchestrating endless competition among them. Wholehearted support from one’s maternal family and blind loyalty would become valuable assets for whoever became king, or so they said.
‘Well… that’s not wrong. He just redirected assassination attempts meant for the Emperor onto his children and wives.’
The Empress Families fell neatly into the Emperor’s shallow scheme. Ten families producing five empresses and nine princes—all vying against each other for the crown, scheming, slandering, and eliminating one another as a matter of course.
The mother of that fool standing before me, the First Empress, had prepared numerous shadows for her physically frail son. I was one of those many preparations.
More precisely, I was the shadow that had survived longest among all those countless preparations.
‘Even if I say so myself, I’m a former hero.’
Despite her boasting, Rowan’s life was a nauseating chronicle of survival and unrequited love stretching endlessly. I had been entangled with this woman since the First Empress spirited her son away from the Palace and hid him in her Maternal Estate to protect him.
A spirited neighborhood gang leader who became friends with a lonely prince. That was Rowan’s role. Unlike the rustic oafs in the countryside, Damian was delicate and fragile—the kind of young master one wanted to protect.
Rowan chased after Damian with blind devotion, and Damian seemed to rather enjoy her attention. Perhaps that’s why when the Empress casually offered the girl a position as something like his attendant, Rowan’s family shoved her forward without hesitation.
‘They must have harbored naive hopes that serving the young master would bring enough coin to ensure they’d never go hungry or cold again.’
Had they known what cruel reality awaited, they wouldn’t have pushed their daughter into this. At least, I wanted to believe that. Though it was a futile belief from a family that hadn’t sent even a single letter asking how she was doing as she grew into adulthood.
“Seeing you speak with such a grim expression and lowered voice, I understand now. Your mother must be thinking this is finally the time to have me killed.”
“….”
“In any case, I understand. If I see this through successfully, my family will never go hungry again, right?”
“…Yes. Those wretched beggars who sold you will live the rest of their lives patting their full bellies, no longer wretched.”
“Don’t make too much of me. The difference in our builds is too great now for me to pretend to be you anyway. I was always going to be disposed of, sooner or later.”
Damian, who had been wearing a smile all along, furrowed his brow deeply. I deliberately raised my hand toward him.
For a woman, my hands and height were considerable, but it was impossible to pass as an adult man. No matter how sickly and frail Damian claimed to be.
“Just tell me what I need to do and go rest. You’re about to collapse.”
“She instructed me to polish the rough stone through somewhat violent means.”
“Ah. So I’m supposed to cause some kind of explosion accident. That works.”
More precisely, I was to cause an explosion that killed as many princes and empresses as possible, and then I would be captured. Damian would have me executed and take credit for it.
It was an exchange—the life of a tenant farmer’s daughter for the future of this esteemed prince. Not a bad deal. For a third party, that is, excluding the one who had to die.
“Rowan, are you… really okay?”
I stared at the man asking such an unnecessary question. This man who had always treated Rowan as a convenient tool or a stupid consumable was suddenly playing the part of having a conscience.
I truly hated that.
“You keep asking because I apparently don’t look okay.”
“….”
“If your conscience bothers you that much, then make me one promise.”
“What is it.”
“No matter what happens, never say something like ‘just give me one more chance.'”
Damian’s eyebrows shot up. Whatever offended him about my words, the man glared at me with an expression that suggested he’d stab me if he had a blade, abandoning even his pretense of kindness and clicking his tongue.
“I would never beg for a chance from someone like you.”
“Then stop talking and make the promise. Right now.”
“I’m the one who grants chances, not you. You lowborn thing, don’t you understand your place.”
The man, speaking with proper aristocratic disdain, turned his back and walked toward the far end of the Corridor.
“Hey! No matter how angry you are, you should at least open the door before you leave! How else am I supposed to do what your mother asked?”
The man who had walked so far suddenly stopped in his tracks. Apparently deciding it would look bad to turn back now, he threw the key with all his might and climbed the stairs.
I watched the key, which I could never reach even if I stretched, as the sound of his footsteps grew distant.
“Since I got the promise, if I die now, that’s truly the end.”
I reminded Rowan, the original owner of this body, and swung my right hand to summon Basilect. With the blade now one with my hand, I shredded the iron bars like paper, and I clicked my tongue watching the stairs where Damian had vanished.
I know that idiot will end up holding Rowan’s severed head and begging through tears.
This is already the third time I’m dying since entering Rowan’s body.

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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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