I’m Sick of the Kind Protagonist, so I Might as Well Just Die - Chapter 6

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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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#06
The Emperor and I froze mid-laughter, our smiles dying on our faces.
“You look like a happy couple in love. Yet you only met for the first time today.”
Adelaine’s sarcasm struck like a switch, and the Emperor—who had been loosening his guard—snapped the cold mask back into place.
“Did I ever require your assessment of me?”
“I merely spoke what I observed. If I’ve offended you, I apologize.”
“Whether I accept your apology depends on what you tell me about why you’re here.”
“I received considerable assistance at the Banquet Hall and wished to express my gratitude. I didn’t realize the room’s owner would be absent at such a late hour.”
The Emperor called to me slowly, his brow furrowing.
“Meriel von Evergreen.”
“…Yes, Your Majesty.”
“You are to be my Empress. You need not welcome those who arrive unannounced without prior arrangement.”
His voice was glacial.
The man before me—who had been laughing with me moments ago—now seemed utterly foreign, his tone oppressively commanding.
“I’m telling you to turn away uninvited guests, Meriel von Evergreen.”
Before I could respond, Adelaine rose stiffly to her feet.
“Had I known Meriel von Evergreen had a prior engagement with Your Majesty, I would never have come.”
“Our meeting requires no permission from you.”
“Permission? Surely Your Majesty understands the validity of my resentment!”
“Must I?”
“Of course! You know better than anyone how desperately I’ve longed for the position of Empress!”
Adelaine’s voice cracked with tears, thick with injustice and anguish.
“I know well. Who else could understand as thoroughly as I do what you’ve done to narrow the candidates down to yourself alone?”
“If you know that, how can you place such a nameless house at your side!”
“When you eliminated the third Empress candidate, didn’t I warn you then? To exercise restraint so I wouldn’t be forced into such a choice?”
“Something insignificant enough to be eliminated by my hand has no right to become Your Majesty’s consort!”
Adelaine’s voice transformed into something close to a wail, her face twisted with despair and fury.
“That position was my only life goal, Your Majesty. Every moment of my existence has been devoted to it.”
Adelaine, who had been grinding her teeth, suddenly spun toward me.
“How can you fill that position with something like this, knowing full well what it means?”
“Adelaine. Calm yourself.”
I gently pushed aside the finger she pointed at me and tried to soothe her. But it only made things worse.
“Calm myself? While you keep squandering the opportunity I’ve counted down the days to seize!”
“You won’t believe me, but I never wanted any of this.”
“That’s what makes it worse! No matter how hard I strive, a position denied to me holds no value in your hands!”
Adelaine’s laughter took on a manic edge.
I realized that if this continued, either the reluctant Maid or the Captain of the Guard the Emperor had left behind would surely come running. So I closed the distance between us while glancing toward the door.
“Lower your voice and speak calmly. Tell me specifically what Adelaine wants.”
“Ha! If I tell you, will you do it?”
“Yes. I want to help you as much as I can, but honestly, I don’t understand what you want.”
It was genuine.
If we’re talking about being wronged, wasn’t I the one pushed to die without understanding anything?
‘I don’t even know how things are unfolding, so why is everyone making such a fuss about me!’
Adelaine’s lips twisted awry as her scoff died away.
“I want you to disappear, Meriel von Evergreen. Cleanly, right now, completely from my sight. If possible, forever.”
I had been genuinely considering granting Adelaine’s request, but I let my shoulders drop and waved my hand with a weary expression.
“No… don’t think that only one of us has to be ruined for this to work. There has to be another way.”
“Then? Is there another answer? Will His Majesty sweetly whisper to you about taking you to that ‘blind spot’ of his and making you the Empress?”
“…That’s not it. But I think there must be a way somewhere that satisfies Adelaine, me, and His Majesty all at once.”
“Good heavens. Goodness gracious. Meriel von Evergreen. I don’t like you, but I have to say this much.”
Adelaine’s brow furrowed with the same scorn she’d been wearing.
“You must never take a man’s honeyed words at face value. Especially not the words of a man like His Majesty, who is prepared to use anything for his own purposes.”
“Isn’t that a bit harsh? Coming from someone who wants my position beside him so badly.”
“Oh my. You know full well it’s not because I love His Majesty. I simply wish to stand above everyone. Why are you pretending not to know?”
Adelaine and the Emperor regarded each other with derision.
I watched the exchange between the Emperor and Adelaine, turning over his words in my mind.
‘He said that if some major incident happened and created a dramatic twist, those two could get along in their own way.’
I clicked my tongue.
Setting Adelaine aside, the Emperor’s eyes were anything but the gaze of someone harboring unrequited love.
‘Why did the Emperor lie to me, saying we were friends or whatever, claiming he liked Adelaine? From his perspective, deceiving me wouldn’t give him any real advantage….’
“I thought if I coaxed him a bit, he’d play the good child and die for me. Instead, he’s actually using his head to try to survive.”
As if on cue, the Emperor smirked as though he’d read my thoughts.
I looked at the Emperor with a sensation similar to when someone’s dagger was about to strike me down.
A corner of my heart stung slightly, and I felt a little disappointed.
That was simply… all there was to it.
“Sigh.”
I had meant to brush away such feelings with a single sigh, but Adelaine and the Emperor were waiting for my answer with eager eyes.
‘Childish, how childish. It seems both of them are far younger than they appear.’
Their expectant gazes ignited my stubbornness.
“Since you two seem so curious about what I’m feeling right now, I’ll tell you.”
I opened my mouth reluctantly. As an adult, it felt wrong to disappoint children waiting for a reaction to their prank.
“I think I really hate this kind of thing, Adelaine.”
“What? Getting stabbed in the back by someone you trusted?”
“No. Well, of course being betrayed doesn’t feel good either. But more than that… hmm.”
I paused for a moment, searching for the words that best captured my current feelings.
“Everyone treating me like an idiot and trying to dispose of me like some troublesome thing without asking. I hate that.”
The smile faded from the Emperor’s face. In contrast, I smiled openly—genuinely. It was brief, but it was my way of repaying the companionship that had made me recall a childhood I’d forgotten.
“In the Cliff Mountain Village where I grew up, there was never anything to spare, so I spent every day thinking about the most efficient method for everything. Whatever it was. Food, human lives.”
“….”
“So maybe that’s why… seeing someone who clearly has value being treated as a mere obstacle and carelessly discarded really bothers me.”
As I spoke, I approached the desk and began hastily scrawling a sentence onto the paper I had prepared for writing a letter home.
“From where I stand, the desire of all three of us is fundamentally one and the same. My death.”
“….”
“Your Majesty clearly wishes to dispose of me and then do something with Adelaine, just the two of you. Adelaine cannot become Empress while I remain in the way. And my task is to languish here uselessly and die without a single thing going according to my wishes.”
Even as I spoke, my hand never ceased its movement across the paper.
For something written so impulsively, the sentences were quite convincing, and it felt as though the disappointment the Emperor had stirred within me was being washed away.
I pushed aside the heavy shadow of my aching heart and nodded to myself.
‘Look at this. With just a little thought, I can satisfy the purposes and needs of all three people, yet they are fools.’
By generously including self-praise and disdain for those two, my mood improved considerably.
With a lightened heart, I held up the paper toward them both.
『 Where light sleeps and darkness dwells, at the end of the path
Beyond the Red Door, silver buried in secrecy
From behind the moon cradling its halo
Shall lead forth those who are lost
The jewel of wrathful Falkenstein
Covered in the blood of Evergreen
Shall become the key to the seal 』
It was merely a string of words pretending to mean something, nothing more. I had simply mimicked a passage from the prophecy that was currently destroying my life in real time.
Watching their eyes move busily as they read my fabricated nonsense, I felt an even greater sense of satisfaction.
“The jewel of Falkenstein… the Red Door… what does this mean?”
Adelaine asked in a trembling voice.
I merely shrugged once. After savoring the useless sentence I had created one more time, I gently lowered the paper to the ground.
“Pay close attention. I’m about to show you that everyone can be satisfied without anyone getting stabbed in the back.”
The Emperor stared at me with an expression difficult to discern—whether it was anxiety or displeasure. Holding his gaze, I hurled the vase he had given me forcefully to the ground.
The vase shattered with a loud crash into countless pieces. From among the fragments, I seized the sharpest one and without hesitation drove it deep into my throat.
“Meriel von Evergreen!”
“What are you doing!”
Both of them screamed my name and reached out their arms. But perhaps because they were mere children, they could not move faster than a former hero.
I closed my eyes contentedly, watching the blood pouring from my throat stain Adelaine and the Emperor crimson, and soak the fraudulent prophecy.
‘A life destined to end anyway should be used meaningfully like this. Fools.’
Now this story would proceed as an “incident” the Emperor had subtly desired.
Adelaine would become Empress as she wished. And I, having died disappointed in someone I had briefly considered a friend, would have successfully fulfilled some quota of tragicomedy.
This was probably what Perenustus wanted.
‘I’m doing this job rather well, aren’t I?’
The pain consuming my body was offset by satisfaction. Though it was an agonizing and slow death, I could distinctly feel the corners of my mouth rising with contentment.
As warmth drained away, a desolate chill crept in. With that chill came the gaze of a man with eyes as cold and crimson as the color itself, watching me with devastating sorrow—and then my consciousness faded completely.

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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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