Chapter 264 - If It Exists (2)

She hadn't meant to help me, huh... But was that really true? She'd only stepped in because they annoyed her, and it just happened to benefit me? Was that really pure coincidence?

CLATTER!

"Excuse me for a moment. Is there anyone here who..."

While I wrestled with suspicions that were inevitable for someone on the run, the inn door burst open rather roughly. The newcomer was a young Curity man with broad, drooping puppy ears and a long sword cradled in his arms.

He was a little short, which made me wonder if he was still in his teens... but that hardly mattered. Teenager or twenty-something, those silk clothes made him someone you couldn't afford to mess with.

"Ah, Knight!"

Apparently, the newcomer and my rescuer knew each other. The young Curity man's face brightened the instant he spotted the teal-haired woman.

The woman, on the other hand... didn't particularly change her expression. Yet something about that painted-on smile seemed to hint at annoyance and irritation. That was only my guess, though.

"Knight, how could you leave me behind!"

"Lower your voice, Jardin. You sound uncouth."

"Urk. I-I'm sorry about that..."

"... A knight?"

As the innkeeper's involuntary murmur indicated, their conversation had revealed a potentially troublesome detail.

"... A k-knight?"

I'd certainly thought she was no ordinary person, but a knight?

... When she didn't have a weapon at her waist or on her back, or even strapped to her thigh, wrist, or leg?

"... We're fucked."

"Shut up..."

I'd already thanked her, and there was nothing else for me to do. I quietly watched things unfold.

The adventurers who'd tried to intimidate me did much the same. They must have realized she was far too important for them to pick a fight over the insult of overturning their table or interfering with their scheme.

"But Knight, if you have business somewhere, please at least tell me. You have no idea how startled I was when I came out of the shop and you were gone."

"Very well. I'll bear that in mind next time."

Well, with her status as a knight coming up over and over, who could fail to catch on?

"... So why did you come here?"

"I thought someone I knew was here."

"Oh, really? Where are they?"

"I was mistaken. Let's go."

"Ah, yes."

Fortunately or unfortunately, the knight paid us no further attention. Not even to the fact that the adventurers had nearly challenged her before learning who she was.

She ignored us completely, as though even the time needed to deal with the aftermath would be wasted. And that included me, not just the adventurers.

JINGLE.

With the sound of a bell, the person who had stirred up all that trouble was gone.

"So... I wasn't caught?"

If I'd really been discovered, it wouldn't have ended like this. I was now a wanted criminal, and a genuine knight would have a duty to arrest me. Even without such a duty, she would have no reason to let a criminal walk free right in front of her.

Yet she'd simply left without sparing me a glance? In the end, she'd probably just helped me without recognizing me. Probably.

Even if something about it... still left me uneasy.

"... Hmm."

After all, knights helping people wasn't exactly commonplace, and wasn't it a little contrived that I'd happened to be the beneficiary?

... Oh, or was it? Was it common? It wasn't as if I saw knights very often. Unless I was meeting someone like a city's Lord, I hardly ever encountered them, so I had no idea whether they went around doing good deeds like that.

"L-let's go."

"Yeah."

Hmm. Still, I couldn't imagine someone of a knight's standing coming to a shabby inn like this without a good reason... And she'd said something about someone she knew... Hmm...

I glanced at the adventurers, who were leaving in a cold sweat instead of picking another fight. They probably feared the knight might return.

Had their harassment been pure coincidence too, or had there been some purpose behind it?

"Um, young man."

What about this innkeeper?

"What would you like me to do about your meal? Shall I bring you another...?"

... That was taking things too far.

I reined in my runaway suspicions. Sure, I was on the run, but distrusting absolutely everything was excessive.

"No, that's all right. I was nearly finished anyway."

If I kept up this degree of suspicion and distrust, I'd become paranoid long before I managed to avoid danger. And then every single day would be exhausting. Considering I might spend years on the run, that was a perfect recipe for shortening my lifespan.

"I'll help you clean up."

"Oh, you really don't have to..."

"I've got nothing but time. And you gave me extra food, too. It's fine. Please look after your other customers."

So, unless I had solid proof or circumstantial evidence, I'd hold off on the wild speculation.

With that resolve, I set the table upright and collected the dishes that had scattered across the floor.

The innkeeper looked a little apologetic, but eventually left to tackle her mounting workload. With money to collect from the adventurers and other customers tentatively placing orders, she seemed to have little choice.

CLINK.

I set the neatly stacked dishes on the table with hands I kept gloved at all times, since I never knew when I might need to deactivate Disguise.

.

.

.

"I'll never find them this way, no matter how long I try."

"Pardon?"

Meanwhile, on the street the adventurers had fled onto...

"I wasn't speaking to you."

"Ah, yes."

"More importantly, Jardin. My sword."

"H-here it is."

Paying no heed to the presumptuous fools passing behind her, the blue-haired knight took her sword and raised it.

Bernstein, a keepsake left by the former knight commander, had been specially forged for people like her: those who could not become Mages yet possessed far too much magical energy for knights. Its distinctive glow shone softly, undimmed.

"But why the sword...?"

"What a strange question."

An amber blade, as subtly beautiful as a newly kindled wood fire, transmitting light clearly rather than scattering it.

"Does a knight need a reason or an explanation to inspect her own sword?"

"I-I'm sorry..."

It wasn't to her taste, but it certainly was beautiful. With that thought, Emerald returned the sword to its sheath.

The long, 1.3-meter blade slid into its wooden scabbard. It had been sized for her 1.9-meter-tall predecessor, without a thought for whoever might inherit it.

"U-um, then... what you said earlier... was it true?"

"... What do you mean?"

"Earlier... you said you were... mistaken."

Her attendant Jardin, who had been granted the rank of squire, ventured another hesitant question. The boy dreamed of becoming a knight and worked hard at it, yet somehow never lost weight. At times like this, he looked adorably round.

"Was that such a strange thing to say that you must question it?"

"No, it's not that... It's just that you hardly ever make mistakes, Knight..."

"True enough."

"... May I ask who you thought you knew?"

Still, his failure to take a hint and stop asking questions no matter how often she rebuffed him, along with his excessive interest in her, was rather irritating.

Emerald silently looked down at her squire. Under the sustained gaze of her jade eyes, Jardin lowered his head to hide his trembling eyes.

"I'm sorry if I overstepped..."

"Good. So long as you understand."

She pushed the sheathed sword back onto Jardin and resumed walking.

"Dame Emerald!"

Before long, someone came running from up ahead. The clothes matching those of the person beside him, the spear he carried, and the insignia on his clothing marked him as a city guard.

"We've found a lead on the demon."

"Ah, have you?"

"At last!"

She and Jardin each reacted to the breathless soldier's report.

Jardin's response was especially exuberant, but Emerald did not bother to restrain him. It remained far removed from her standards of propriety, yet even pointing that out to her squire was too much trouble.

"If they've found a lead, we'll be able to catch the demon soon, Knight."

"Well, that remains to be seen."

"But you're the head knight!"

Above all, news that the demon had been found was quite welcome to her as well. The demon was responsible for about half of both the reason she'd come to this tiresome, boring, filthy town and the reason her assignment away had dragged on.

"Once we catch it, your assignment will finally be over... We'll be returning to Munmunt after a whole year."

"Enough. My restraint has allowed your impertinence to reach new heights. Or have you developed a desire to hunt it yourself?"

"Ah... Um, I'm sorry."

She looked back on the year she had spent participating in the traditional knight exchange between the two Knight Academies, Chechebator and Munmunt.

She should have returned to the city of Munmunt over two weeks ago... but that damned Lord of Manhafelt had saddled her with an assignment outside the city, asking her to do him one last favor before she left. That remained true even if unavoidable circumstances had more or less forced her to volunteer.

"And you. Lead the way at once."

"Y-yes!"

One day, both that Lord and the person who had left her no choice but to volunteer would pay for their decisions.

The knight, saddled with someone else's work without travel expenses or field pay, quietly grasped her sword.

* * *

Permission had been granted to meet with Blue Coral.

Faced with the long-awaited approval, Meister wondered, 'What's gotten into those Temple bastards?' and 'Are these fuckers trying to set me up?' Natural thoughts for a Mage.

"What's going on?"

"If you're coming in, come all the way in. Why are you hovering in the doorway?"

Contrary to his expectations, however, the Temple made no attempt to monitor their conversation or use it to find something to hold against them.

Meister's brow furrowed.

"I was wondering whether the idiots were being idiots again."

"And you crawled in here thinking that?"

"And I suppose you're locked up here because you're so brilliant?"

Good. If the old geezer was talking like that, there really must not be any surveillance devices.

Still, just in case, Meister decided to watch his mouth and avoid saying anything unnecessary. Meanwhile, having nothing particular to say in response, Blue Coral turned with a faint sigh.

"I hear they'll be leaving soon."

"Really?"

He hadn't specified who, but that was no obstacle to understanding. Meister immediately grasped whom he meant and raised an eyebrow.

"And?"

"I thought you'd go with them."

"Me?"

At the words that followed, he couldn't hide his bemusement. Him? With them? Why?

"... It seems he was mistaken."

"Is that what the Archmage told you?"

"Yes."

"Hmm."

In truth, it wasn't entirely a misunderstanding. It wasn't as if he'd never considered joining their journey.

But he was better off not going with them. To be a little more precise, his reasons to stay outweighed his reasons to leave.

That was why he'd given up on accompanying them.

"... Is it because of me?"

"Half of it."

"And the other half?"

"Battery research and commissions?"

After all, besides looking after his grandfather, he had plenty of other work on his hands. His battery research, for which the recent catastrophe had provided a clue, for example. Or remaking the commissioned goods that had vanished in the disaster.

"If that's all, go with them."

"...?"

"... You've heard about the divine oracle, I assume."

"Well, yes?"

Wasn't this the first time in ages that the spectator of a god, who designated the human destined to become the Hero but had never interfered beyond that, had actually done some work?

He'd never taken an interest in such things, but the Priests had made such a fuss that he'd heard about it early on. He had simply ignored it until now because it had nothing to do with him.

"Then you must know the latter part of the oracle as well."

But if his grandfather brought it up, that changed things.

Meister narrowed his eyes and adjusted his glasses with his index finger.

"... Of course I do."

When he'd first heard the oracle, he had immediately guessed the identity of the "one who has lost the way."

After all, how significant must someone be for God to personally mention them in an oracle, when he hadn't even forewarned them about the Bemurhen disaster? At the very least, they had to be capable of causing an even greater catastrophe or be as important as the Hero. One of the two.

And how many people like that were there? Especially when God had added the qualifier "who has lost the way"?

Thus, in Meister's judgment, only one person could be the subject of this oracle. The one man who harbored a Great Demon, had slain two primeval beasts and two Great Demons, and had done all of it without his memories intact.

"... Suppose."

Of course, that didn't mean he perfectly fit the description "one who has lost the way." But taken as a metaphor, it wasn't so far off either. In a sense, the man living without his memories did seem to be wandering, having lost his way through life.

So the oracle's subject would be the Demon Knight. It was probably him.

"Suppose I agree to go."

And now his grandfather was bringing that up?

... The grandfather who had let the Demon Knight go while talking about being worthy?

"Will you tell me what you meant about being worthy?"

That had to mean there was something more to this. Something only his grandfather knew.

Meister's violet eyes flashed.

Is It a Problem If the Protagonist Is a Role-Play Fanatic? (Serial)

Author │ Hae Inseol

Publisher │ Kim Juhyeong

Published by │ Jple Media Co., Ltd.

Marketing │ Han Jaehyeok

Address │ Room 204, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daeryung Post Tower 1)

Email │ [email protected]

Website │ http://blog.naver.com/jayplemedia1

ⓒ Hae Inseol 2022

※ This work is published by Jple Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder. No part of its contents may be used in any form or by any means without the permission of the company and the author. Violations may result in criminal and civil liability.