I’m Sick of the Kind Protagonist, so I Might as Well Just Die - Chapter 73

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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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#73
A few days had slipped by since the public extortion in the Grand Hall came to an end.
“Wait, wait a moment. Bilateia, was the class originally… ah, was it always like this…?”
“Yeah. ‘History and Understanding of Dance’ is always a battle of endurance. Just push through.”
I shook my head. Dancing in shoes I’d never grow accustomed to no matter how long I lived, coupled with a torturous corset even worse than the shoes themselves—and doing this for an entire hour without a single break. It was absurd.
“Silpi, when you were cutting the Silver Dragon’s neck, it wasn’t this exhaust— ow!”
“You discourteous hero! Placing a sacred Silver Dragon beneath mere dance practice? Try cursing me a few more times—!”
“Please, calm down!”
Silpi’s sudden appearance and rampage mercifully ended the dance practice that had been killing me. While the professor teaching ‘History and Understanding of Dance’ and Leonas barely managed to capture Silpi and escort her to Perenustus, I collapsed onto the practice floor in an ungraceful heap.
“Even during rest periods, maintaining proper posture is a quality befitting the Protagonist.”
“I’m not the Protagonist.”
“You’re still spouting such nonsense?”
Bilateia, her entire face scrunched up as if she’d heard something ridiculous, gave my ribs a sharp kick. Still, I didn’t get up, remaining sprawled out and catching my breath.
My body and mind were simply exhausted from attending classes for the first time in my life, but the Academy itself proceeded as usual. Wedged between Leonas and Bilateia, I pushed through the crowded corridors filled with students, attended lectures, ate meals, and collapsed into sleep from fatigue. Oh, and enduring Silpi’s outbursts like earlier, along with the seniors’ nagging, had become part of my daily routine.
In short, it was utterly peaceful, day after day.
‘It’s peaceful… so I should be happy, but why does something feel empty? Is it because I haven’t seen Perenustus?’
I let Bilateia’s endless chatter about the Protagonist’s qualities and duties go in one ear and out the other, subtly turning my head. Beyond the window, among the students resting against the wall, I could see the Academy’s Spire. The tower where Perenustus’s office was located.
‘I haven’t seen Perenustus at all since the Grand Hall. Is that why I feel empty? But… why?’
I couldn’t understand why the fact of not seeing someone would be connected to this sense of emptiness. It didn’t seem like the right atmosphere to ask Bilateia, so I simply left the question unanswered and adjusted my posture to sit properly.
‘I need to enter another world soon and fill the quota of comedy and tragedy so I can restore the people of my village.’
Over the faces of people living miserable lives in the previous world, the faces of my village people overlapped. Now I perfectly understood Leonas’s despair from that world—how he couldn’t even breathe properly, drowning in hopelessness. What I’d done with the hope that everyone would live better had become the worst of nightmares.
‘But the people from the previous world are being restored steadily. My village people aren’t.’
My throat tightened with guilt as I fixed my gaze on the floating recovery status board beyond the window. After the incident in the Grand Hall, it was the real-time recovery notification board that Perenustus had created.
【Knowledge and technology regarding the distribution of public benefit have been transmitted from the SF World】
【This knowledge and technology will be added to next semester’s ‘National Administration Techniques’ lecture】
Several students who noticed the newly added text on the status board let out loud groans. I watched the grieving students as if observing a fire across a river, tallying the comedy-tragedy quota.
‘Those old beings called the Ancient Gods or whatever have been concentrating and observing, so quite a bit of the quota has accumulated. But even so, is it really okay for me to just sit here attending classes…?’
“Hey, are you even listening to me?”
Noticing I wasn’t paying attention to her lecture, Bilateia slapped my back with a sharp smack. I turned my body toward my friend with the surprisingly strong hands.
“Bilateia.”
“What.”
“When do we enter another world again?”
Bilateia, who had been reaching to pinch my cheek, stopped mid-motion and furrowed her brow with a peculiar expression. Staring intently at my face, she tilted her head as if finding something strange.
“Seeing how your thoughts are running that way, you’ve really absorbed the Academy’s culture perfectly.”
“…What do you mean by that.”
“It just proves people need education. Through it, children like you naturally develop an addiction to labor and hardship.”
“Huh…?”
“Students aren’t assigned to the Professor’s worlds every other day, so just focus on your studies. And you definitely won’t be assigned to another world immediately after leaving one.”
Bilateia set down the fan she’d been using for dance class and bent her knees to meet my eyes at the same level.
“Do you understand? Entering a world and leaving it doesn’t conclude the narrative. There needs to be time for us to discuss and organize together—what we did well in the world, what we failed at, what we need to improve going forward. And sometimes we hold full-class sessions like that day in the Grand Hall.”
“We haven’t done any of that until now, have we?”
“That’s not all we haven’t done. We’ve never conducted mental care assessments either.”
“Mental care assessments? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“When cadets experience death in the Worlds or witness the death of someone close to them, such accumulated trauma can affect their mental state. That’s why we regularly select candidates for mental care assessments, and if a selected cadet’s condition is severe, they must take a mandatory period of rest and recovery. It’s compulsory.”
Though I didn’t fully understand it, I could vaguely grasp that it was a reasonably sound system.
“So we have to do all of those things we haven’t done yet—discussions, reviews, and mental care assessments—before we can move on to the next World?”
The other cadets who had been listening to my conversation with Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike cast glances tinged with reproach in my direction. Really, me. When you think about it, I’m just a newly admitted freshman—is it really worth looking at me with such disdain?
“It’s difficult to explain when I can’t even pinpoint where your common sense is lacking.”
Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike, exhaling a sigh laden with the greatest exasperation, spread her hand open.
“If you don’t understand, just memorize it. One, not all cadets are assigned to Worlds. Two, far, far, far more cadets never enter the Worlds at all. Three, you’ve been receiving extraordinarily special treatment until now. Four, if you wait, the Professor will handle it himself. Understood?”
“…Understood.”
Though I answered with some reluctance, I held firm in my belief that Perenustus wouldn’t leave me as I was. After all, he and I had made a contract with the lives of my Village people at stake.
“By the way, how does Perenustus choose which Worlds to enter and which cadets to deploy?”
“He selects from among the Worlds he created and manages—whichever promises the highest energy harvest efficiency. Worlds where comedy and tragedy have ripened sufficiently.”
“…I still don’t quite follow.”
“The Professor is essentially a farm owner. We’re the workers. When the farm owner selects a ripe persimmon tree and gives orders, the workers climb that tree and harvest the fruit. There’s no point climbing a tree that hasn’t ripened yet.”
“Ah…”
“And the Ancient Gods are like landowners. The farm owner collects the persimmons harvested by the workers and pays a fixed price to the landowner for the use of their land.”
The moment I heard that analogy, all my questions dissolved at once.
‘So that’s how it is. Now I understand why Perenustus shows such excessive courtesy to the Ancient Gods.’
I nodded and gazed once more at the Spire beyond the window. What could Perenustus be doing alone in there? Was he selecting which persimmon tree to send the workers to?
“Whatever persimmon tree it is, I just hope he chooses one quickly.”
“Hah…”
Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike clicked her tongue in exasperation and moved away from my side.
“If you’re just going to stand there vacantly wasting time, get up. Next is the 【Advanced Conversational Etiquette in High Society】 class, so let’s go early and review beforehand. The dance professor probably won’t show up anyway.”
I laughed emptily and followed Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike, when I suddenly realized something odd about my own desires.
‘Wanting to enter a new World so badly… is it because I want to restore my Village people, or because I want to see Perenustus?’
As I tilted my head in confusion, something even stranger caught my attention.
“Strange? Why… do I want to see him…?”
“What?”
Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike, who had been walking ahead, turned to look at me. I met her gaze with furrowed brows.
“Bilateia… do you miss Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis right now?”
“What kind of insane thing are you saying?”
Without the slightest hesitation, Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike’s irritation only magnified the strangeness swelling in my heart.
‘This is really strange, isn’t it? Even Bilateia Fernichiosa Venisike doesn’t miss Leonas Hagpethar Yuletanis, so why do I miss Perenustus?’
A wind blew through the window, rustling the flags atop the Spire. My heart trembled far more restlessly than those fluttering flags. Strangely so.

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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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