I’m Sick of the Kind Protagonist, so I Might as Well Just Die - Chapter 30

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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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#30
Bilateia gazed at Leonas with an affection entirely different from the cold glare she’d fixed upon me, her lips curving into a tender smile.
“Don’t worry, Leo. Your sister will protect you no matter what.”
“I trust you. You are all I have.”
“Then would you wait inside for just a moment? I’ll quickly deal with this insolent—”
“No. We should do as the Duchess suggests, sister. Right now, we have no choice but to trust her.”
Leonas turned his gaze toward me. Those innocent eyes bore the same exhaustion as an Academy student tormented by a temperamental professor.
“I understand well. You are our only hope now—please, I beg you to protect us.”
My mind had been filled with nothing but the thought of how thoroughly I’d mock them both once their memories returned, yet I couldn’t turn away from those weary eyes.
“Ugh….”
A long, heavy sigh escaped me—the kind that threatened to become a habit. After a moment’s hesitation, I knelt down to meet Leonas at eye level.
“Listen. You don’t need to trust me. Right now, trust isn’t what matters.”
“You’re telling me not to trust you?”
“No—I’m telling you to make the urgent choice right now. Stay here and watch your sister die, or flee and try to buy her even a little more life, whatever the cost.”
Leonas, his gaze piercing through me with an intensity unbefitting a child, turned and nodded toward Bilateia.
“Sister. The Duchess is right. Let’s go.”
“Yes, my dear Leo. If that is your wish, then so be it.”
Bilateia smiled and gently stroked Leonas’s hair. I’d been irritated and exhausted just moments before, but imagining what expression she’d wear when she recalled this moment later sent a surge of energy through me.
“Where do you plan to go?”
Estella answered Bilateia’s question instead of me.
“To where the Sacred Forest’s stream ends.”
Estella gestured toward the narrow stream running beside the cottage, then strode purposefully behind the small house. There, a weathered wooden boat—barely large enough for two adult men—lay moored.
“Only our Noble Family is permitted passage through this Sacred Forest, and my father plans even the future of the future itself. This is the answer.”
The young siblings seemed reluctant, but they had no choice. I pushed the hesitant children aboard and took up the oars.
‘Estella, do you know how to row? I grew up in a Mountain Village surrounded by nothing but cliffs and trees—this is my first time in a boat.’
‘Child, I was a Duchess.’
-Insert the paddle at roughly thirty degrees to the water’s surface, angled slightly. Grip the middle of the handle firmly with one hand, and support the blade end lightly with the other to maintain balance. That’s the foundation. Then push the water gently as if gliding, and you’ll move straight ahead. It might help to think of moving your shoulders and back rather than just your arms.
Thanks to Perenustus’s swift intervention, the small boat picked up speed and flowed downstream. Sadly, it was far from a peaceful voyage.
The thin columns of black smoke that had risen moments before now blanketed the sky like dark storm clouds. The beautiful forest I’d thought belonged to another world screamed—not through my ears, but through my very skin.
-Aurelia. Be careful. The fire is spreading at an abnormally rapid pace. The forest is nearly consumed.
‘They said only members of that Noble Family could even enter this forest.’
-If they burn it all down, it ceases to be a forest. Quite the clever solution.
‘Damn. I’ve learned a useful trick. I’ll have to use it later.’
Sweat poured down my entire body as I rowed with all my strength, yet the oppressive heat still licked at the back of my neck. Glancing back, I saw crimson flames and pitch-black smoke leaping from tree to tree like living beasts, devouring the entire forest.
“You—or should I call you Estella? Or would you prefer Duchess?”
Bilateia spoke to me with deliberate gentleness, as if trying to ease my tension. I forced a smile, determined not to worry the children any further.
“Call me whatever. I’ll do the same.”
“What kind of Duchess acts like this….”
“Right now, I’m something far more impressive than a Duchess, so I’m letting loose a bit.”
“….”
“What title would be appropriate? The forest keeper of the burning woods?”
Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike, who had been clutching Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis tighter while glaring with her pallid face, let out a scoff as if finding the notion absurd. That was when it happened.
Screeeeeech!
Small embers erupted from the inferno all at once. Birds and spirits. The tiny lights writhed in agony before crumbling into ash in the empty air with a soft whisper. Where they vanished, only echoing screams remained, ringing in my ears.
-Damn it all… How is this even happening?
‘Why?’
-After the forest burned completely, I can’t measure the stage’s difficulty level!
‘What does that mean?’
-This escape is an event where I, the creator, guarantee success, and this is absolute nonsense…! Look, I’ll do whatever it takes to block entry into this stream, so don’t worry too much.
Perenustus’s voice carried an unfamiliar tension. The man who usually spoke in a languid, leisurely manner—almost loosely mad—was radiating an alien anxiety that proved contagious.
Goosebumps erupted across my sweat-drenched skin. I couldn’t even tell if it was the slimy curse emanating from the ruins that was no longer a forest, or the shouts and thundering hoofbeats of the men.
Whoosh—
As if answering my dread, an arrow flew through the air and lodged itself in the water. Soon, countless arrows began raining down on the boat.
“There! Fire!”
The sound of dozens of bowstrings being drawn simultaneously echoed from the ruins, shrouded in pale smoke.
“Get down!”
With the shout, I threw my body over Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike and Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis, flattening myself against the boat’s floor. Arrows poured down like rain, so thick I didn’t dare turn to look.
“We only need to kill the Grand Duchess and the Princess!”
“The child is to be captured, those are the orders!”
“This is ridiculous! I didn’t go through all this hell just to get caught here!”
-Aurelia!
As I lifted my body from shielding the children and began rowing, Perenustus shrieked. My head rang with the force of it, but I quickened my rowing pace as if I couldn’t hear anything.
“What are you doing! Get down!”
Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike screamed with an expression as if she might faint. I shook my head and hardened my gaze.
“If I get down, who rows the boat? You and your sister hold on tight and stay flat.”
“This is not the time for bravado!”
“I’m not being brave. If I don’t get us far enough to escape the arrows’ range, none of us three will survive. I’m running for my life with everything I have.”
Just as I was pouring all my strength into rowing with the single thought that we only needed to go a little further, an arrow came whistling through the air and embedded itself deep in my shoulder.
“Ugh!”
This was a pain I had never experienced before. It felt like I was collecting data on various forms of suffering with my own body while wandering through these Worlds.
In the moment I faltered, another arrow buried itself deep in my back.
-Aurelia! You must prioritize your own survival! If you die here, those two cannot escape!
Perenustus cried out. My vision blurred from the excruciating pain, but I steadied myself at his voice and clenched my teeth.
‘Oh, so if I just succeed in escaping here, I can save those two.’
-That kind of thinking is precisely your problem!
Along with the scolding, the world twisted. The river swirled and a column of water surged upward, spreading a veil of water around the small boat. Light passing through the hemispherical barrier scattered into rainbow hues.
‘Did Perenustus do this? Isn’t it wrong to intervene so openly and help like this…?’
-…Let’s say it was Silpi’s curse activating on its own. Since Aurelia was trying to die, the curse activated to prevent her from being killed by arrows for the time being.
There was no time to offer thanks before the rushing current accelerated. I furrowed my brow and gripped the edge of the boat.
Having received this much help, I had to succeed in getting these young siblings to safety, even if it killed me. Though Estella still seemed displeased, muttering something about illegitimate children.
‘If bloodline and legitimacy matter so much, why don’t you just place the Princess on the throne yourself?’
‘That’s absurd….’
‘Why? If she were of legitimate birth, perhaps—but you’re willing to stake your life on a bastard? That makes no sense. So you’re really doing this for the Princess, not the Crown Prince. Wouldn’t that be more satisfying?’
Estella, finding herself without a retort, twisted her heart inward. The motion caused blood to surge from her arrow-pierced arm and back, and the two children shrieked in terror.

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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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