I’m Sick of the Kind Protagonist, so I Might as Well Just Die - Chapter 19

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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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#19
It was a profoundly strange sensation. I was overcome with joy, yet tears streamed relentlessly down my face. A sense of relief and clarity washed over me simultaneously with a loss so acute it resembled discarding a cherished childhood companion—though I had never actually possessed such a thing.
Perhaps these were not my emotions at all, but rather Rowan’s feelings now that she had finally resolved to release Damian.
‘So I’ve finally achieved something akin to immersion in the Worlds.’
With anticipation blooming, I grew curious about the two test tubes suspended in empty space. Had the total measure of comedy been filled, or the total measure of tragedy? And what expression would Perenustus wear when greeting me?
Opening my eyes with such expectations, I found not the familiar ceiling, but a familiar face filling my entire vision.
“-lia!”
A man with piercing blue eyes was calling my name in a thunderous voice—utterly unlike the composed and cold Perenustus I knew.
“Aurelia! Can you hear me? Look at me, Aurelia!”
I wanted to retort asking what was so serious, but my lips would not move. Those blue eyes that seemed to be my entire world, and the desperate voice crying out, grew increasingly distant.
‘This is strange. I died in that world, so why does it still hurt?’
Only then did I realize that this hazy consciousness and blurred vision bore a striking resemblance to the sensations preceding death. Had I died so frequently in such a short span that the boundary between life and death had become indistinct?
‘Ah, but it really does hurt.’
Centered on my neck, pierced by the ceremonial blade, pain radiated through my head and down to my sternum. Damian’s hands had trembled far more violently than ever before.
Logically, the pain should have ended the moment I died in that ‘world.’ This current agony was likely phantom pain—the final death had been so vivid that it felt as though the blade still protruded from my neck.
‘Or perhaps… my heart aches more than my throat.’
Then this must stem from Rowan’s constant piercing and squeezing of my heart. The tangled emotions—love and hatred, hope and despair directed toward Damian—had transferred entirely into my suffering.
‘Ugh. I really don’t care for that.’
Incongruously, a hollow laugh escaped me despite the tears flowing unnoticed down my face.
It wasn’t even funny. I had perfectly achieved what Rowan desired, successfully discarded that dried-fish of a man, and yet I felt immensely proud—so why did the tears flow so relentlessly?
As the ceaseless tears streamed down my cheeks and into my ears, Perenustus’s voice reached me once more.
“Aurelia!”
Perenustus’s voice was so loud that his figure finally came into sharp focus through my unfocused, blurred vision.
Within those gem-like blue eyes existed only me. In eyes that gleamed as coldly as Silpi’s scales, there was only me. And anxiety and impatience besides.
“Regain consciousness! You’ve escaped the Worlds. You mustn’t let yourself be ensnared by a world that has already ended!”
I wanted to ask what he meant, but still no words came. Strong hands gripped my shoulders firmly before pulling me close. The contact was so unfamiliar that I only belatedly realized I had been drawn into his embrace.
“Do you remember? I hoped you would become an important variable to bring diversity to the world I designed. I wished for you to learn the weight of responsibility and pressure while fulfilling your role, and to reflect upon yourself!”
Perenustus’s voice trembled. As my body continued to go limp, he cradled my head against his neck.
Against my cheek, I felt his heartbeat pounding rapidly and distinctly. It was strange—my consciousness remained clear, yet my body possessed no strength whatsoever.
“That is what I wished for, not for you to be completely assimilated and consumed by such a world. You are not Rowan. You are my mission, my Aurelia.”
Perenustus’s voice grew progressively softer. His increasingly hushed words seemed to seep into me like mist enveloping my cradled form, and I understood them with agonizing slowness.
‘How remarkably empathetic I’ve become.’
The frivolous thought circled my mind, yet my tongue remained rigid and unresponsive. The more I struggled to move my lips, the heavier my eyelids became.
‘I’d like to sleep for a moment and wake to find a pleasant tea house.’
Just a brief rest would set everything right. With such baseless confidence, I surrendered myself entirely to the sweetness of slumber.
***
Perenustus cradled Aurelia in his arms, crouched upon the floor like a wounded beast, whispering ceaselessly. Unable to bear it any longer, Silpi approached him.
“Ren. Stop.”
“….”
“It happens often when one becomes deeply immersed in the Worlds. Eternal sleep.”
“Who gave her the right to die? Who?”
Perenustus posed the question as though he’d been asked the most absurd thing in existence. Despite his serene voice, a sinister aura emanated from his back, stretching outward in the form of sharp, jagged wings.
‘Good grief… as if one bug running rampant wasn’t enough, why is Ren losing his mind alongside it?’
Sighing, Silpi gestured to Leonas and Bilateia, who had frozen in terror. Heeding the dragon’s warning, both retreated with hushed footsteps.
Once their backs touched the classroom wall, Silpi tapped Perenustus’s shoulder with the tip of her snout.
“What happens if the administrator loses his reason? If he denies eternal sleep—”
“I, the creator of these Worlds, never issued such a command. Who gave anyone the authority to impose eternal sleep?”
“Who? This bug did, of course.”
Perenustus pulled the limp Aurelia closer, his eyes alone turning to glare at Silpi. She drooped her mouth and gestured with her snout toward Aurelia.
“Your glare doesn’t change the facts. You granted her the highest degree of freedom. With your own words.”
“Not the freedom to die so recklessly alongside that world’s Protagonist.”
“How she uses the freedom you gave her is her choice, isn’t it?”
Perenustus did not answer. Instead, he turned his head to gaze into empty space. Where his gaze fell, a luminous cylinder filled with shimmering comedy essence materialized.
“Hey, don’t you dare!”
Silpi, realizing what was about to unfold, cried out and lunged forward, but Perenustus moved faster. Without a moment’s hesitation, he seized the cylinder and poured its entire contents over Aurelia.
All the joy and delight in the world cascaded down upon the unconscious woman’s head like a blessing. The glittering liquid seeped into her skin the instant it made contact, as water soaks into parched earth.
“Within Aurelia lies every concept the elders forced me to revise, every value I abandoned.”
“No, yes, I know, I understand.”
Silpi responded carelessly, her voice tinged with a sigh. Perenustus continued, watching what he had poured seep completely into Aurelia.
“She contains all the important things I grew weary of and surrendered. The more I consider these discarded things valuable, the more desperately the elders will wish to erase them.”
“That doesn’t justify this madness you’ve just committed!”
Perenustus answered not with words, but with clear, crystalline laughter.
“Aurelia.”
And he whispered the name of the woman who could not possibly answer, with tenderness. From a distance, Leonas felt the icy madness radiating toward him and wrapped his arm around Bilateia’s shoulders.
“Listen carefully. The fact that I gave Aurelia the name ‘My Mission’ means I have no intention of letting you go.”
Speaking like a tender parent, he cradled Aurelia’s neck and lifted her body into his arms. As the man who had been crouching straightened his spine, the chill that had filled the classroom crackled with a sharp sound, scattering shards of ice.
“You’re free to meddle in my world, free to cause chaos—all of that is fine. But you have no freedom to leave me. Do you understand?”
Perenustus’s voice rode upon the light of the comedy essence enveloping Aurelia, seeping completely into her being.
“So Aurelia must live, and live again, proving just how valuable an error she is, how attractive a bug she represents.”
Having inscribed gentle shackles throughout every corner of the sleeping woman’s body, he slowly raised his head. Bilateia and Leonas, who had retreated to a distance, received his gaze with terrified expressions.
“Dear Bilateia. Leonas.”
As their names were spoken in his usual calm and serene tone, both tensed their shoulders like herbivores facing a predator.
“What method should excellent students propose at this juncture?”
It was far too clearly a command to be called a question. Faced with an order whose answer was already determined, both students maintained their silence. Neither Bilateia nor Leonas could bring themselves to speak first, only exchanging glances.
“We must go capture the dragon.”
Bilateia spoke first.

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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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