Chapter 255 - What If (3)

“... No wonder the Temple went berserk trying to kill me.”

[What was that?]

“Nothing.”

Forget it. There was no point feeling hollow over something that had already happened. Even if I had known, it wouldn't have stopped me from running away.

Setting it aside, I quietly asked a question.

“If they can sacrifice their own kind, I wonder why they leave one another alone.”

[Well... humans know they can get someone's possessions by killing them, but they don't necessarily do it, do they? Perhaps it's something along those lines?]

“... I believe that's because enforceable social norms exist. Would demons have laws or customs to maintain order?”

[I doubt they have social standards established by mutual agreement, either. But they do have him, don't they?]

The mad king who had succeeded in linking one dimension to another, even if it meant making himself the wedge.

[If someone like that forbade them to slaughter their own kind, they'd all have to obey.]

“So that's the logic...”

I imagined Satan gathering the demons and proclaiming, “No fighting among yourselves.” It was rather funny.

[Anyway, it's still a mystery how the body's original owner went around hiding his demonic energy. Judging by how he spent all five years gathering corpses for sacrifices, the contract must have come before that... Is that possible? Making a contract with a demon, then going around hiding your demonic energy? If it were, Demon Contractors would have had the time of their lives long ago.]

But my reality was too bleak to laugh about it.

We steered our wandering discussion back to the original subject. There was still no answer in sight.

[... Could the demon have hidden it himself?]

“Pardon?”

[As I said before, it's almost impossible for a human to conceal demonic energy alone. But if the demon wanted to hide his own demonic energy... that would change things. Yes. If the demon hid it himself, that would change everything!]

Yukkwi abruptly raised his head midsentence, like Archimedes crying eureka.

[Yes, yes, that's it! That's the answer!]

“... I'm afraid I still don't understand.”

So calm down and explain. That was what I was politely trying to say, but it didn't get through at all.

[But why? What would the demon gain from cooperating?]

“... I would like to understand, too.”

[Oh, oh, sorry.]

Still, saying it more directly the second time worked. After apologizing, Yukkwi lowered his proudly raised head and tapped the moss with a flipper.

[Once a demon reaches the level of a Great Demon, changing its body's composition doesn't cause adverse effects. In other words, it won't suffer deformities or pain from the restorative properties of demonic energy the way a human would. Demonic energy belongs to them in the first place.]

Of course, Yukkwi added, it wasn't entirely without side effects: they became vulnerable to outside attacks, and maintaining the change for too long caused a backlash that inflicted internal injuries.

[So if the demon took matters into his own hands, concealing the demonic energy wouldn't be entirely impossible. But...]

“The question is whether he had a reason to do so.”

[Exactly.]

I tapped my fingers as I considered his question. Having come this far, I felt something nagging at me.

“... First, the original owner of this body made his contract with the demon over five years ago. Is that correct?”

[He wouldn't have thought to gather sacrifices without a contract... so probably?]

“And they used those sacrifices to bring me here. That much is certain.”

[Yes?]

“... Why would they do that?”

[...?]

“I'm not lamenting why it had to be me. That's something to ask them. What I mean is... why did they bring in an outsider like me rather than settle things between themselves?”

A contract was ultimately an agreement between the parties involved. And agreements were usually reached through compromise and negotiation. In other words, they had mutually agreed to bring in a third party.

“If there was something they wanted to accomplish through me, I was never given any instructions. They never even told me why I ended up in this body.”

The main story had appeared only after I acted, so it was hard to call that an instruction. If anything... it was more of a blindfold to keep me from realizing this was reality. If they really wanted me to kill Satan, they would have openly given me a main quest to kill Satan.

“On the other hand, I was given a few conveniences useful for survival. A bag that holds more than its size would suggest, for instance, and equipment that doesn't break.”

The status window and skills were the same, though I left them out because they were difficult to explain. They were both a means of tricking me into believing this world was a game and a clear aid to my survival.

Then... could that itself be a meaningful clue?

[But what could they gain from you being alive and active?]

Like someone who had realized something lay buried in the ground they were digging, I began feeling out the obstructing stones one by one. Would clearing all of them away reveal the answer? A slender hope moved my lips of its own accord.

“For one thing, if I lived without recognizing the demon, my very existence would suppress him... Perhaps that was what the human wanted. You must have some idea from what happened in Bemurhen, but the consequences of his running wild are immense.”

[That seems a little forced... but it's not implausible. Go on.]

Forced? No. This was probably the answer. I recalled the opening cinematic, now hazy in my memory. I didn't want to believe even that had been a lie.

“As for the demon...”

The demon, by contrast, had given me nothing to go on. What could he gain from handing control of the body to a third party and standing back to watch?

A screen provided by my unique trait—Concealment Through Ignorance?

But that hadn't concealed him completely, resulting in all sorts of misunderstandings and disasters. In fact, even when I was treated as a demon and faced execution, all they could do was watch anxiously unless something specific triggered their intervention.

Was that really a benefit?

“... I don't know what it is, but he must gain something. Otherwise, he wouldn't have accepted this compromise, let alone cooperated.”

[True enough?]

“The question is what...”

I racked my brains trying to figure out what the demon stood to gain, then suddenly reconsidered the premise.

If my staying alive and active benefited them... what would the opposite mean?

“... I've been thinking about this wrong.”

[...?]

“What matters isn't what the demon stands to gain from me—”

I considered that stubborn grip on life White Wind and I had investigated together. And all the conveniences that helped keep me alive.

“It's what I could do to make them lose.”

Whatever else I knew, I thought I could be certain my death might put them in a difficult position.

“Should I die...”

[H-huh?]

Then couldn't I use that to strike a bargain?

“Please send my body to Inquisitor Daniel, who should be living in Dorfmain.”

I took hold of my dagger.

* * *

Berserker ran her fingers over the piece of metal the turtle had left her. Unable to understand his voice, she had taken it as a likely token of thanks... but she still didn't know what it was.

“... Cold.”

But a lack of knowledge was no reason to fail to recognize an object's value. All the more so when this fragment was wreathed in an unrelenting chill and wind.

It was as though the metal embodied her homeland, that glacial land that never melted.

“... Hmm.”

Come to think of it, she wondered what had become of home. Her eyes slowly lowered as memories returned after so long.

When she had lived there, those snowfields had never changed, as though even time were frozen.

Was that place still filled with savage cold, death everywhere, and slowly encroaching ruin? Were the warriors who died in order to live still waging their meaningless battles there?

That land where the weak were culled and the strong snapped and broke, where blood flowed endlessly yet everything remained white—did it still...

[“... Pass the Trial of the Glacier twenty times. That was the punishment we imposed on you. And you passed admirably. You are free now.”]

Still...

[“You're leaving? Well, all right. Nothing binds you anymore, so you may leave if you wish. We have no right to stop you.”]

Did it still cradle her sister?

[“But remember this. If you fail to die, you will return. Just as we cannot leave this land even as it grows barren and game dwindles, you, too, will eventually come back here.”]

Berserker clenched the metal, which only grew colder the longer she held it.

“They say Norda warriors are bound by a curse.”

Wise Birgir had known all along. As long as her sister lay buried there, Berserker would have no choice but to return. Her flight would inevitably end someday.

“They were right.”

Yet it stirred no pointless defiance in her. Naturally so, now that she understood that the longer she shook her head and refused to face the truth, the harder it would be on her.

“They were right.”

And so, only one choice remained.

It was time to return.

Berserker rose. Layer upon layer of cold began to settle in the heart that had lost the purpose she had craved while wandering the south.

* * *

Before driving the blade into myself, I thought things over until the very last moment.

Worries that the demon might emerge again if I were on the verge of death. Anxiety that, contrary to my expectations, whether this body lived or died might have no bearing on their gains or losses. Questions about what would happen if I really died.

Most of my thoughts were things like that.

[Wait, hey, huh!]

But I was already a bird perched at the tip of a blade of grass, with nowhere left to retreat.

I steeled myself.

[Hey, hey. Even so, you can't—!]

“Please.”

Above all, I was certain of one thing.

Even in the worst case, I might die, but the demon would not seize control of this body.

After all, looking back at everything that had happened, there were clearly restrictions on the demon taking control.

For instance, Fury might have to be active and the madness gauge full, or he might only be able to swoop in like a deus ex machina when the situation seemed utterly hopeless. There appeared to be restrictions of that sort.

And by “hopeless,” I didn't mean a threat to my life. Despite all the times I had been at death's door, the demon had only appeared twice. It was a natural conclusion.

Then when did the demon descend?

When it wasn't just my life on the line, but the lives of many others. I suspected the real Demon Knight compromised with the demon to save them, sending him out in my place.

The clues gathered in Bemurhen alone made it nearly certain. Honestly, what reason would a demon have to save humans, to save the Hero, unless he was forced to?

“Please, just honor the request I made.”

Anyway, for those reasons, this gamble wasn't such a bad deal. Not even if I died.

The best outcome would be returning home upon death, but even if I died without going back... wasn't it all the same? If I couldn't hide my demonic energy, I'd spend the rest of my life hunted and hated, and I wasn't confident I could endure that. Better to die holding on to some hope.

[You really...]

“I'm sorry.”

So resorting to a measure like this was by no means excessive.

[“... Don't ever do that again.”]

I'm sorry. An apology that would never reach its recipient sank into the abyss.

Is It a Problem If the Protagonist Is a Roleplay Fanatic? (Serial)

Author │ Hae Inseol

Publisher │ Kim Juhyeong

Published by │ Jple Media Co., Ltd.

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ⓒ Hae Inseol 2022

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