I’m Sick of the Kind Protagonist, so I Might as Well Just Die - Chapter 68

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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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#68
Leonas, who had been moving forward out of habit to escape the Dark Space, came to an abrupt halt.
“Does anyone else find that familiar?”
Leonas stopped at the boundary between the Dark Space and the normal world, extending his index finger. Bilateia, I, and even Perenustus understood immediately why he was doing so.
“It seems we’ve returned to that world from before.”
The moment I spoke, Perenustus furrowed his brow, craned his neck forward, and surveyed the surroundings. Judging by the musty stench emanating from the moss-covered stone walls, considerable time had passed since my death. We exchanged glances but dared not step beyond the Dark Space, only furrowing our brows.
“Professor, you didn’t know where this place was when you came here either, did you?”
“The moment I opened my office door, it was this pitch-black place. How could I possibly know where it is?”
“This is a secret passage in the Imperial Palace. It leads from behind the grandfather clock in my chamber to the Palace Square.”
“I’m aware of that. Everything except this unsightly dark space was created by me, after all.”
“Ah.”
Perenustus stared at me as I awkwardly rolled my eyes, then lightly flicked my forehead with his index finger as if delivering a gentle tap, and stepped beyond the boundary. As if waiting for him to set foot, light flickered in the empty air.
[Research Class] Manifestations of Results Contrary to Intent
Class Objective: Understanding the Value of Observation and Reflection
Implementation Guidelines: Maximize Sanctions Applied to Individuals
Perenustus glared at the status window containing only three lines as if he could chew it to death, then smiled crookedly and turned to look at Bilateia.
“Observation and reflection. Bilateia was quite a prescient student, wasn’t she?”
“….”
Leonas, who had given a small cough, stepped across the boundary.
“This path leads to the Palace Square, that one leads to Aurelia’s Room, and the path between them leads to the Emperor’s Study. Which direction should I guide you?”
“Since it seems to expect tremendous reflection, the Palace Square would be appropriate.”
Leonas promptly guided us out of the secret passage. Without anyone instructing us, we covered our faces and moved through the shadowy corridor, gathering in the darkest shadows to observe the square. The vast plaza that began before the castle gate blocking the Imperial Palace’s garden was quite chaotic. It was not the chaos of vitality, but the chaos born of terror.
‘What on earth has happened?’
The plaza, thick with acrid gunpowder smoke that numbed the senses and the stench of rotting blood, revealed an unbelievable atrocity. Scattered throughout the circular plaza were guillotines of various sizes and corpses piled haphazardly everywhere….
‘It’s like hell.’
It seemed someone was periodically burning the bodies, as black smoke blanketed the sky across the city. Following the rising smoke, I tilted my head back and inhaled without realizing it. I recognized the cloths tied tightly to the poles where people hung. They were those handkerchiefs that Leonas had instructed Mure to make.
‘Truth speaks through silence.’
The sentence, soaked in blood and filth until it was barely legible, fluttered like a grotesque magical artifact. The slogans written in bold red letters on every wall were reasonably idealistic words, but what unfolded beneath those noble words was anything but.
“That woman was harboring old-regime nobility! I saw it with my own two eyes!”
“No! I was only protecting someone who had fallen ill!”
A man dragged a middle-aged woman who must have been his neighbor before what was called the Revolutionary Tribunal—a crude tent—and denounced her furiously. The woman dragged before it shook her head frantically and struggled, but the judge wearing an armband didn’t even verify the evidence before decisively pointing his finger downward.
“There is no mercy for reactionaries! Execute them in the name of revolution!”
Along with the summary judgment, the judge handed the accuser a piece of stale bread. The wretched man didn’t even glance at his neighbor’s head rolling across the ground, instead hastily chewing and swallowing the bread. Beside him, in the market, boys clawed at each other’s throats over a single moldy potato, rolling across the ground.
‘How did it come to this…?’
I swallowed hard watching children with gaunt faces rummaging through piles of corpses searching for food. Those wearing armbands with strange markings wielded their clubs mercilessly against such children.
“What is this….”
Leonas, who had been watching without blinking like a man in a daze, covered his eyes with his palm. In the place where the oppressors—royalty and nobility—had vanished, not a shred of the hope he had anticipated remained.
‘If I can at least eliminate that mad judge or whatever he is first, something might….’
I raised my right hand to summon Basilect but stopped with my arm only halfway raised.
‘What good would it do to bring out Basilect here now? If I cut down that one judge, will the people hanging by their necks come back to life? Will the people making accusations come to their senses?’
I clicked my tongue in disapproval at such thoughts, then drew a sharp breath as I recalled the status window’s description.
‘【Maximized sanctions applied to individuals】…. This is bad. So when Silpi’s curse reaches its peak, it manifests like this.’
The old me would never have hesitated or second-guessed like this. My way had always been to act first, think later.
“I… something’s wrong with me.”
“You don’t need to tell me—I can see it. But he’s in worse shape, so just wait a moment.”
Bilateia, who had been watching me with growing unease, furrowed her entire face and turned her body toward Leonas.
“Hey, Leonas.”
Leonas didn’t answer. His gaze was fixed on the drops of blood falling from the guillotine. His crimson eyes trembled terribly. It seemed his mind was rejecting the reality before him—that the future he had dreamed of so desperately, the one he had yearned for even unto death itself, had become this grotesque spectacle.
“I think… I was wrong.”
Leonas murmured in a tone I had never heard from him before.
“Did my choice drive all these people toward destruction…?”
“Damn it, that’s complete nonsense.”
Bilateia firmly rejected his words, gripping both my arm and Leonas’s arm simultaneously while calling out to Perenustus in her mind.
‘Professor! Please do something!’
-First, let me address what you’re all overlooking. [Research Class] means that not only the great ones, but gods like myself who manage the Worlds are watching as well. We’re presenting a demonstration case for a very special lesson.
Perenustus responded dryly, his sharp eyes still fixed on the status window.
-I’m the one who demonstrates, not the one who becomes the example through sacrifice. I hope my students are of the same disposition as I am. Do you understand what I mean?
Perenustus’s eyes turned toward Leonas. Leonas, who had been despondent beyond words, swallowed hard and nodded. Perenustus patted his shoulder with a slightly softened tone.
-This world right now, since we departed, has been overlaid with only the most hideous possibilities. In a world shaped to disgust us, showing displeasure exactly as the opponent desires. Isn’t that utterly humiliating?
Caught between the impulse to keep doing something and the resignation that nothing mattered, I struggled to lift my head and meet Perenustus’s gaze. The Ancient Gods were doing this for exactly the reason he stated.
‘The more I struggle to change the world’s direction, the more tragic an ending awaits. That’s what they’re demonstrating—that truth. So they’ve scraped together only the most miserable and horrific permutations of Leonas’s ideal collapsing, and forcibly plastered them onto the framework of this world.’
-So should someone who understands that so well surrender to the world’s sanctions? Was my mission truly this trivial?
‘I’m not surrendering to the world’s sanctions or whatever because I want to!’
I shot back as though crying out in indignation, and Perenustus’s expression softened slightly.
‘Damn this curse.’
I tried to raise my right arm again while taking in all the deaths unfolding in the Palace Square. It wasn’t that my body had gone rigid—rather, the very reason to move was becoming obscured by a bizarre sensation. My desire to help those people, my determination to destroy this mad Revolutionary Tribunal, kept fading away.
‘So this is the core of the curse Silpi cast on me. It’s not that my actions produce opposite results—it’s that my will itself disappears.’
-That’s truly insulting.
Perenustus’s deeply furrowed brow radiated fierce anger. As though he felt nauseated watching the world he had designed degenerate into this vulgar, crude massacre.
-What Aurelia is feeling right now was my daily existence.
‘What?’
-The helplessness of the system trying to castrate my very essence, the nausea, everything becoming meaningless.
A familiar self-loathing rippled across Perenustus’s pupils.
-I’m wondering whether to show what happens when an excessively unmotivated human acts without thought or planning. Extremes meet, after all.

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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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