I’m Sick of the Kind Protagonist, so I Might as Well Just Die - Chapter 7

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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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#07
When I opened my eyes, I was back in that empty Gray Room.
Blue eyes filled with shock and fury bore down on me like needles, pricking me relentlessly.
He was as resplendent as ever.
Unlike the Emperor, his features possessed an exquisitely refined beauty—like a meticulously crafted work of art, carved with painstaking precision.
A man so beautiful he seemed dangerous. Perenustus furrowed his brow deeply.
‘That expression makes him look even more irritable. And he’s so infuriatingly pretty.’
He stared down at me, still curled up in pain on the floor, unable to rise, his gaze burning with indescribable exasperation. After a long moment of silent scrutiny, he finally sighed heavily and lifted me to my feet with his own hands.
“I apologize.”
“Are you joking?”
“What do you mean? It’s not like this is your first death. Did you really think you’d fall apart over it?”
The man supporting my shoulders suddenly gripped me harder. That crushing force reminded me of the Emperor’s grasp, and I instinctively recoiled, shaking his hand away.
“That hurts.”
“You’re complaining about a grip this gentle, yet you stabbed your own neck with porcelain?”
“Oh. You were worried about me?”
“Of course I was worried—no, wait. I didn’t send you there to die so recklessly!”
Beneath his furious expression lay an unmistakable concern he couldn’t quite hide. Perhaps because of that, his sharp reproach—cutting as his gaze—felt almost welcome.
I was about to make another joke at the ticklish feeling of it all when he suddenly waved a blood-soaked prophecy before me.
“Self-harm is one thing, but what is this prophecy?! The Red Door, Falkenstein’s jewel—you’ve created such chaos that the world has completely shifted genres! It’s suddenly turned into a mystery novel!”
“Wow. I did it on purpose, and it actually worked?”
“What?”
I laughed brightly, forgetting even the lingering pain.
“I think I’m starting to understand something now.”
“No, you don’t. If you understood anything, you couldn’t possibly do something like this.”
“But I do. I really do understand what I’m capable of now. You said the genre changed, didn’t you?”
I gestured with my chin toward the prophecy crumpled in his hand—that fake prophecy was proof that my death fulfilled someone’s desire.
“Sigh… How did such an irreparable error end up in my world…?”
He gritted his teeth and muttered, hurling the prophecy away before tearing at his perfectly groomed hair.
“Why do you keep creating more problems?! I gave you the Academy’s finest students so you could practice how the world operates, and you died anyway!”
“Why? You told me to get caught up in an assassination and die, so I did my best to make it happen.”
“Effort, effort—enough! What I expected from you was a variety of dilemmas, choices, and consequences! Who told you to die so arbitrarily?!”
“That’s funny. Do I need your permission to die? It’s my life.”
The man squeezed his eyes shut and tore at his hair even more frantically before suddenly screaming into the void.
“Silverdragoon! Bring the Lead Role Academy cast members out here now!”
With his shout came an ear-splitting shriek, and silver lightning struck down countless times.
“Ah!”
I reflexively curled up and covered my ears, and the committee chairman glanced at me before silently wrapping an arm around my shoulders to steady me.
“…I never expected you to be frightened by something like that. I’ll warn you about Silverdragoon from now on.”
I could barely nod, leaning against him as I caught my breath. By the time I finally steadied my breathing, the terrifying bolts of light had vanished without a trace.
Instead, Silverdragoon, Adelaine, and the Emperor suddenly appeared, standing awkwardly as if unsure where to direct their gaze.
“Everyone, please sit down. I believe we need a reflection meeting.”
Perenustus settled me into a chair first, then sighed out his declaration. Unaccustomed to such treatment, I found myself stammering awkwardly, feeling as though I ought to offer some excuse.
“I’m sorry. Back where I used to live, whenever lightning like this struck, many villagers died.”
“Ah, my apologies. That was probably when I was snoring—”
“Silence and sit, Silverdragoon.”
Perenustus seized Silverdragoon by the nape of the neck and dragged him into a chair, then launched into his interrogation without preamble.
“You. Why did you recklessly release poison into the fountain?”
“I didn’t do that. That bug was hiding quietly out of sight, and when it was willing to die, my curse activated on its own!”
“Your curse made her the Empress? What about my role?”
Adelaine, who had been eyeing Silverdragoon with terrified eyes, forgot her fear entirely and bristled with indignation.
“In the first place, this training stage—in my previous life, it was yours!”
Adelaine’s index finger pointed directly at me.
“You stole the hero role and the saint role that were designated for us! That’s why this opportunity was supposed to be our compensation!”
“Ah… So that’s why you both hated me so much. No wonder you cursed me to death and disappear the moment we met.”
The Emperor and Adelaine fixed me with looks of utter exasperation. Unfortunately, after eating humble pie for the past few days, their glares barely registered as a blow.
“But still, didn’t things work out well in the end? The Vice Chairman said the genre definitely changed. From romance to mystery.”
“Are you seriously saying that right now?”
“Why? If I just disappeared, you could climb to the very top exactly as you wanted without worrying about anything. I wasn’t even concerned about you.”
I couldn’t pinpoint which part of my words had been the problem. Adelaine, already on edge, exploded.
“I haven’t even graduated from Lead Role Academy yet! How could you suddenly splash me with blood like this when I haven’t even properly taken on a single lead role? And you’re saying it worked out well? Do you have no concept of psychological trauma?”
“Ah, I see now.”
I struck my knee as everything finally clicked into place.
“So when you said my thinking was childish, you really meant you were children.”
“Children?”
Fire blazed in Adelaine’s eyes. That fire turned toward Perenustus.
“I didn’t want to say this, but Professor, you really made a mistake! No matter how inevitable variables are in a worldview, where did you pick up someone like this and insert them into a world that was running perfectly fine!”
“….”
“And you called it easy mode training, but then you made someone like him!”
Once again, Adelaine’s index finger pointed at the Emperor.
“How could you make a tyrant with 100% aptitude for obsessive confinement into the Emperor!”
“What? The Emperor told me his aptitude was for supporting roles like a bodyguard knight or attendant?”
“This is driving me insane. Are you blind?”
Adelaine shrieked hysterically and seized the Emperor’s jaw.
“Look at his face! How could this face possibly be a supporting role?”
As all eyes turned toward him, the Emperor, who had been sitting silently, awkwardly brushed his face with his hand.
“I spent a full thousand years as nothing but a supporting character in martial arts novels! With that career, I barely managed to obtain appearance modification rights and transferred to this Academy, but if I’d known someone like this was going to stay as top student from birth, I wouldn’t have come!”
Adelaine let out a scream that was almost a wail. Even Silverdragoon, who had been watching with a slight smile, let out a cough at the intensity of her protest.
“So, in other words.”
I began to quietly organize the situation as I processed Adelaine’s words.
“Adelaine wants to be the lead no matter what, but His Majesty the Emperor doesn’t want to be entangled with Adelaine through obsessive confinement, right?”
“What?! This brat’s gotten cocky! If you’re offered a Lead Role, you should snap it up without hesitation. Since when do you get to be picky about scraps?”
“…The Emperor dislikes romance. This professor or committee chair or whoever wants to control me. Silverdragoon cursed me. And I want to fill up this whole comedy-tragedy quota thing as fast as possible so I can stop being treated like a criminal.”
“….”
“That’s right, isn’t it? That’s exactly our situation right now?”
Everyone looked at me and nodded with an uncomfortable expression. Their faces screamed: what nonsense is he going to spout this time?
I flashed them a bright smile to meet their expectations.
“Now that we’ve clarified each other’s needs, I’ll be more careful going forward.”
“Careful? Going forward? Professor, is he going to keep getting tangled up with me? Really?”
“Well, you or whoever. I’ll try to cause as little trouble as possible and attempt to die at a more appropriate time. As long as it doesn’t hurt you too much.”
Instead of saying I promised, I nodded once toward Adelaine and once toward the Emperor.
When I first learned to hunt, I got covered in the prey’s blood and spent a whole week retching. It really was my fault for suddenly drenching these kids—who hadn’t even graduated from the Academy yet—in human blood.
“Isn’t that what a reflection meeting is? Acknowledging what you did wrong this time, and saying you’ll do better next time?”
“….”
Perenustus’s lips twitched before he buried his face in his palm with a deep sigh.
The Emperor’s expression wasn’t much different from Perenustus’s.
Only Silverdragoon, who had seemed somewhat tired of Adelaine’s shrill shouting, was lighting up with amusement.
“No, come on, why is everyone just sitting there? You should grab him by the collar and shake him until he gets it!”
Adelaine, who had opened and closed her mouth several times beside me, wrung out her voice in protest. Silverdragoon, who had been smiling, shook her head.
“That bug isn’t the kind of error that common sense works on, so there’s no point in telling him.”
A thick silence fell, carrying Adelaine’s shock and Perenustus’s dejection.
The light in the eyes of those watching me grew increasingly complex.
Perenustus’s eyes, which held the most troubled gleam among them, didn’t blink once as they took me in completely.
“Why?”
“Why, you ask… Sigh. With you, I think I need to start from the very basics, the very bottom.”
“Why…?”
“I’m sick of hearing that word ‘why.'”
The committee chair, who had curtly silenced me, furrowed his brow and pressed his hand over his heart.
That’s what the Nobility do when they stake their lives on their destined partner.
“I am Perenustus, the master of this world. I’m going to formally take responsibility for you.”
“No? Why would you be responsible for me?”
“You have no right to refuse. From now on, you are my mission—Aurelia.”

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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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