I’m Sick of the Kind Protagonist, so I Might as Well Just Die - Chapter 49

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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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#49
Emerging from the gap behind the heavy grandfather clock at the end of the Secret Passage, I froze the moment I spotted Ingyeong standing before me.
Glossy black leather boots that gleamed brilliantly. Trousers crisply tailored at the hem. I didn’t even need to look up to know. There was only one person in this Castle who wore those boots. My fingertips turned to ice.
“I fill your chamber with every beautiful thing in the world, and you crouch in a dust pit.”
Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis mocked me.
I’d heard he’d fallen under the Ancient Gods’ influence, yet now he showed no intention of interrogating me about emerging from the Dark Space. Rather, his gaze suggested he was fabricating an excuse for where I’d come from.
‘Why…?’
The fact that I couldn’t determine whether this too was the gods’ instruction or consideration from a comrade displeased me.
As always, without warning, he simply lifted me into his arms and set me upon the bed. The sensation of settling onto the mattress felt soft. Perhaps he felt quite sorry for throwing me into the Bathtub before, for his movements were gentler and more courteous than ever.
“I have no interest in hide-and-seek. Remember that.”
He added those blunt words, then picked up the coat he’d left on the bed and threaded his arms through the sleeves. The man, still wearing that expression of reluctance to go work, took one step neither closer nor away—he simply gazed at me.
It was only for a moment. Just a brief instant when I thought I saw Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis’s pupils waver. Then he erased his hesitation and gripped my wrist.
“Summon the holy sword.”
The command came without warning. I remained still, simply staring at him. A pale light flowed from my captured wrist. Basilect, sensing my danger, attempted to take form but failed repeatedly, causing my entire arm to begin shallow convulsions.
“It won’t work.”
An expression I’d never seen before settled on Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis’s face. Whether it was wariness, doubt, or some mixture of both—countless nameless emotions surged fiercely beneath his expressionless mask before settling coldly.
“Unfortunately, I have much work today, so I must leave as is. I’ve wasted meaningless time playing breath-stealing games with you.”
Having suppressed all emotion, he released my hand and straightened his back fully. The man withdrew his gaze from me without hesitation and turned toward the door. Just before grasping the handle, he called back to me.
“Remember this.”
Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis spoke while facing the door. He didn’t turn to look at me.
“You are a doll meant to remain upon the bed. Not a bird wandering this Castle without my permission.”
It felt like a warning, yet it also seemed like concern for my safety. Unlike Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike, Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis was impossibly difficult to discern—ally or enemy.
‘Perhaps he too hasn’t fully decided whether to side with the Ancient Gods or not.’
This was likely the answer. Having reached that conclusion, I stared intently at Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis’s profile as one might scrutinize a stranger. When I met the harsh gleam in his eyes and the overt coercion and threats within them, a greater question arose.
Was Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis reading a script the gods had given him, or was he blinded by the prize the gods had dangled, pouring forth his desire with all his might? As I was now, I couldn’t determine where his performance ended and his sincerity began.
“Ah. The Duke comes tomorrow, I hear.”
He added this as if he’d forgotten, grasping the door handle. I furrowed my brow.
‘Then I’ve returned a day earlier than usual?’
Whenever I died and awoke, I always returned on a day when something erupted in succession. A day earlier meant far more variables. Or perhaps the curse was already quietly touching something.
Accustomed to my silence, he didn’t wait for an answer and left the chamber. The Maid who had peeked her head in from outside the door quietly closed it the moment she confirmed my clothing remained perfectly arranged.
Silence returned once more.
‘Ugh, I don’t know. For now, let me think about how to use Silpi’s curse. Where on earth does Silpi keep disappearing to anyway?’
I collapsed onto the spot where Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis had set me down and reconsidered how the curse functioned.
‘Silpi’s curse reverses my true intentions to opposite results. It’s not complete reversal, but rather twists them in the direction of “never goes as intended”—that’s the problem.’
In the previous stage, I’d hidden my will well behind Estella’s intense hatred, passing through without major issues. If I tried such a cunning method, I thought I could control the curse’s activation to some degree.
‘Ah, but now my soul and original body are one, aren’t they? Then that technique won’t work.’
As I pondered this, I began to dimly understand why I’d been one-sidedly victimized by the gods until now.
Because dying was too painful and exhausting, I’d existed in a daze without thought. Without will, there’s no result to twist. For the curse to activate, there must first be will to reverse, but I’d lacked even that will to reverse. So the curse lay dormant, and the gods’ scenario proceeded along its course without resistance.
‘So from now on, I need to move with will and desire for this to become a real fight?’
It was a simple conclusion. Precisely because it was simple, it was also extraordinarily difficult to execute.
‘Willpower and determination.’
As I stood contemplating those two words endlessly while gazing at the heap of lace that covered the bed, the chamber door opened and Bilateia entered.
“I heard my husband was here. Did we miss each other?”
The attendants following in her wake sharpened their gazes like blades. Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike unfurled an ornate fan and elegantly circled around me as I lay sprawled across the bed.
“Good heavens. What a sight. If you are my husband’s plaything, you should never be disheveled—you must be adorned befitting your station at all times.”
Bilateia swept her gaze over me with oppressive intensity, then flicked her fan toward the attendants. The attendants repeated the same gesture to the maids.
Through an entirely inefficient chain of command, the maids reached me and began changing my clothes and meticulously styling my hair. Bilateia personally selected the garments and jewels I would wear while pressuring the attendants.
‘Every time this happens, I wonder what kind of nonsense this is.’
As I pressed my temples, my head throbbing from the fragrant oils that filled the chamber, Bilateia’s fan struck the back of my hand. It was no light blow.
“A ornament that has lost its luster is worthless. Your value is proven by what you possess upon your body. So you must always be impeccably adorned and bear the weight.”
Bilateia personally took up a choker and fastened it around my neck, whispering low. The moment the cold metal touched my nape, her true intention crystallized in my mind.
‘She’s telling me to sell all these jewels and set aside a slush fund, isn’t she?’
The moment our eyes met, Bilateia fluttered her long lashes like butterfly wings in answer. I let my lips droop slightly while quietly accepting the weight of the choker settling around my neck.
‘What would a girl trapped in a chamber need a slush fund for? Yet here she is, draping me with all these things.’
“This will suffice—let us go. A welcome guest has arrived, so I must hurry as well.”
Without even giving me a chance to ask who the guest was, Bilateia swept from the chamber with a whoosh of air, leaving only her fragrance behind. Silence descended once more in the wake of her whirlwind departure.
‘Did she come here just for that? What is she?’
I watched the direction Bilateia had gone—she who came like the wind and left only her scent—then gazed blankly into the mirror. A woman stared back at me from the glass, adorned like an elaborate doll. The choker around my neck gleamed coldly.
‘Ugh… I’m drowsy.’
I let out an involuntary laugh. It seemed Bilateia had used poison again this time. In a far gentler manner than before, just as she had promised in the Dark Space.
Unable to even distinguish between falling asleep and dying, I could only passively accept my eyelids growing heavy as they began to close.
Crash—!
A deafening sound erupted from outside the window.
My eyes snapped open. The screams of horses, the scatter of gravel in all directions, the sound of something heavy crashing down—all reached my ears nearly simultaneously.
I barely clung to consciousness and stumbled toward the window.
‘Nothing like this has ever happened before. Something has definitely changed.’
In the midst of billowing dust, a carriage sat tilted at an angle, having completely lost one wheel. As the horses reared and lurched to one side, the carriage’s flank scraped against the gravel path, tilting further.

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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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