Is It Bad That the Main Character’s a Roleplayer?

Chapter 10: I Didn't Know (3)

Chapter 10: I Didn't Know (3)

“What…? Demons fighting each other?”

The Inquisitor was the first to see the man running toward the Demon. She was utterly flustered. He was a traitor, after all, someone who had turned his back on God and made a contract with a Demon.

“Why would a traitor…?”

Those who formed contracts with Demons were nothing short of the Demon’s pawn. While low-level Demons of low intelligence couldn’t order contractees around, they most certainly wouldn’t be shown hostility.

So how could that guy dare to attack these Demons without any hesitation? Even while all those snakes bit him, he persistently searched for its main body.

This, this was utterly impossible. Something like that…

“No… You’re wrong, Miss Inquisitor. That person isn't a Demon Contractor.”

This whole situation went against anything she had learned.

“What?”

“…I never thought I would ever witness something like that in my life. Demonic Energy alongside Arcane Power… Hmm, just what will this mean for the future…?”

The Inquisitor tightly gripped her mace at hearing the Archmage mutter with a grave expression on his face. She judged that he would know more about this situation, given his standing as an Archmage.

“Please explain in more detail, Sir Archmage.”

“…Ah, yes. It’s a theoretical hypothesis that only circulates within mage society, so you probably wouldn’t know, Miss Inquisitor.”

Touching his cane with his thick fingers, the Archmage answered her question.

“That young man… Perhaps he didn’t gain power by forging a contract with a Demon, but somehow became a Demon’s host and managed to tap into its power.”

“He… became a host…? Are you saying that he turned into a Zombie?”

She had learned about Zombies. They were those possessed by Demons and could no longer move of their own free will.

They were literal living corpses, only puppeted by parasitic Demons. Death was their only salvation. They were those kinds of beings.

“You are right. However, while ordinary Zombies lose their egos to the parasitic Demons, this young man seems to have successfully suppressed the Demon and taken control of it himself.”

“What?! That’s impossible!”

“Impossible? There’s nothing impossible in this world, Miss Inquisitor. There are only things that one might consider impossible.”

The Archmage smiled faintly at her, watching her shouting as though throwing a fit. It was a vague smile that also seemed a little sad.

“Otherwise, what would you call this young man before us then?”

At that moment, the man who had finally found the Demon’s main body cut it to pieces. He used his Demonic Energy to kill the Demon.

* * *

“Now then, as promised, let me rip apart that mouth of yours.”

I spoke these lines with joy in my heart as I immersed myself in my character.

“Wait, I think there has been a misunderstanding. I apologize for attacking you, so would you please listen to us?”

The Wizard urgently tried to stop me. I could see now that he was quite a handsome man.

“A misunderstanding? What a funny thing to say. So it’s a misunderstanding that you randomly attacked me and then treated me like some piece of shit?”

He really was very tall. Considering that I would look at his neckline if I were to look straight ahead, he seemed at least 2m in height.

He actually might be of a different race. There were four races in Legend of Heroes: Middle, Slang, Curety, and Shaggi.

And the beast-like ‘Shaggi’, who were close to bipedal animals, were all that tall on average.

“Please, forgive us. Demonic Energy is coming from your arm, so we mistook you for a Zombie parasitized by a Demon before. If you’re a Demon hunter, you should know… That a Zombie maintaining their ego is rather unprecedented, right?”

Oh… I didn’t know how to react to that. It should be fine to stay angry for a bit longer since he seemed to be trying to gloss over what happened.

After running some calculations through my head, I clenched my fists. I also wore a complicated, crumpled expression, hoping it seemed like a twisted mix of anger, understanding, and self-loathing.

“What…?”

I didn’t really remember that Zombie setting. What were they talking about? It seemed a bit different from the Zombies I knew.

Going by what they said, ‘A Zombie parasitized by a Demon,’ it somewhat sounded like a Demon host… Were they the same thing? Could that be it?

It sure wasn’t a pleasant thing to hear for someone with a complex about these kinds of things. It would make one feel as though they really weren’t a person anymore.

“If we knew that you maintained your ego like a normal person, we wouldn’t have attacked you. My apologies."

Clank.

Lowering the sword leaning against my shoulder, I tightly gripped its hilt. I then touched the eyepatch over my right eye and the bangs hanging over my forehead.

Completely immersed in this character, I felt wrath, disgust, and loathing toward these things for no particular reason.

And I felt hatred for those guys who misunderstood me just as much. I didn’t hate them, of course, but I felt like this character would.

Actually, I could understand their position quite well. They were NPCs anyway, so I wasn’t all that fazed by it. However, this character I was immersed in now wouldn’t be able to do that.

“Hah, a Zombie…”

Sometimes, when one acted, their mouth would automatically speak lines, and their body would move on its own.

Should I describe it as the character guiding one’s body? Anyway, I thought something like that was happening at that moment.

“How… How dare you bugs treat me as something like that?”

As a result, I moved more than I usually would and even raised my sword.

Of course, it was a bit heavy to hold up with just one hand. My arm was even shaking a bit. I prayed that the other two would just interpret that as anger.

“…We are obviously at fault here. If there is anything you wish for, I shall do my best to grant it."

Ah. While I didn't think now would be the right time to say it, this is so much fun. It was even more fun because my partners—the NPCs—were properly reacting to and matching my lines.

I felt like I was acting with my peers from my college days.

“Damn. Do you want to grant me my wish? If I told you to cut off your tongue, would you?"

“That's…"

“If you aren't even willing to do that, you should stop spitting out these irrelevant little apologies."

What other games could I even play after this? No, how could I even think of other games now? Legend of Heroes and Deep Sea Pearl were simply that divine.

Still, it would be nice if they fixed the transportation system and added some more quality-of-life features.

“…I really want to pull out your jaws and hang them outside that village, but that would make me no different from those Demon bastards."

“…H-hmm.”

“Leave."

Anyway, I pretended like I swallowed my anger and told them to leave, my heart beating in excitement. I also put away my sword.

‘Would it really be the right call to withdraw now?'

After making my judgment, I immediately doubted my interpretation but quickly reached a conclusion.

My actions were correct, even if I didn't care about the game's plot going awry. My character hated Demons because he didn't want to be like them.

Honestly, yeah. I firmly believed this character's sharp and sensitive personality came from a constant fear that the Demon in his arm could run rampant again at any moment.

In other words, he was driving everyone away because he didn't know when he would lose control and hurt those around him.

However, would someone with that kind of personality kill others just because he got really upset after being misunderstood once? Take a person's life, not a Demon's?

He'd get very heated, but as long as it was an honest misunderstanding, he wouldn't actually try to kill them. Because the thought that killing a person would be something a Demon would do stuck in his head.

That was my interpretation.

* * *

* * *

“…"

I returned my sword to its sheath on my back and turned around. The Quest included gathering proof of my hunt, so I still needed to take care of that.

“Wait."

I bent down to retrieve the snake's corpse. Then I heard the Priest's… no, the Inquisitor's voice from behind me.

“…I also want to apologize."

I thought she would say something about killing me or whatever, so I was a bit surprised when she apologized.

“I… no. No matter what I say, it'll just be an excuse for my actions. I am deeply sorry for attacking you first. I want to sincerely apologize."

Ah… I mean, I never actually cared about that. Just looking at my settings, wasn't it obvious that others would misunderstand?

Actually, it was good that I hadn’t gotten into conflict with any Temple people so far. If people from the Temple went out into the world, they would only do so after receiving a revelation. Even if I wanted to bump into them, I probably couldn’t.

“If what you want is to make amends…”

On the other hand, this character’s opinion would seriously differ from mine.

“There’s no need for such hypocrisy.”

So, I had to follow my setting.

“…!”

However, it was admirable that they tried to involve the player in the plot even when they were uncooperative.

Of course, I realized that the plot’s original direction was to become their Companion even after the cooperative event was over…

Hmm. It was honestly a touch unrealistic. We had fought pretty fiercely against each other, so I didn’t think becoming teammates with them would be that easy. I didn’t even know if the peer system was still around in the remake.

Anyway, this was just too sudden and out of the blue. I usually enjoyed these things, but normal players wouldn’t like these sudden developments.

“It’s hypocri—”

“Now, now, Inquisitor. Take it easy.”

“Sir Archmage…!”

Now that I thought of it, didn’t my level rise after I caught that snake? I started to think about what skill to select next.

That Attack skill was pretty good, and as I confirmed during this incident, the effect of [Detection] wasn’t that bad either. However, it might be better if I got something from the [Melee Combat] skill tree to bolster my battle correction and defense.

“Anyway, we should go back now as well. We only hadn’t left because we couldn’t find the Demon and weren’t quite done with the Purification.”

Urgh, right, the Purification.

“…Alright.”

When I covertly opened the System Window, it said the Purification process was 98%. According to the conversation I just overheard, it seemed they went around Purifying the place.

I was a little jealous of that. The Demon Knight class had no other choice but to Purify using fire.

In a way, that was a penalty of the Demon Knight class. Thanks to that, despite being immune to Demonic Erosion, I didn’t really prefer playing this class.

The Priest class had a class-specific Purification skill, and other classes could buy Purification Stones from Temples, but Demon Knights couldn’t do any of that.

“…”

“…”

…Anyway, could anyone tell me why those two were following me?

“You’ve gone through a lot this week. I’m really sorry.”

“…Not at all. This was the right thing to do as a servant of God.”

Why were they following me? I had the Area Map turned on and was heading straight toward the village, but there was no way these NPCs knew that.

We didn’t even get along that well, so wouldn’t it be better for them to go the other direction? Ah… Was it because of the plot, perhaps?

“I believe I told you to leave.”

I decided to threaten them lightly, just in case. The NPCs should show some realistic reactions to that.

“I guess my words just sound like dog barks to you.”

Grabbing the hilt of the sword hanging at my waist, I slightly turned my body. I almost turned right on reflex but remembered I wore an eyepatch on my right eye before it was too late.

I almost turned into a weirdo who tried to look back with a blindfolded eye.

“I apologize if we made you feel unpleasant. We didn’t do so intentionally.”

Upon turning toward those two, I saw a sphere of light floating around them. I wondered why they hadn’t turned it on earlier, but the same went for me, so I had nothing to say.

The only thing that caught my eye was the compass-like visage floating above the sphere of light…

“We were just following the directions given by the {Guidance} spell. We might have marked the same place.”

Was the navigation function implemented as a type of magic? That turned me into an overly paranoid man, huh?

“…”

The good thing was that they weren’t actually following me. If our goals being the same was the problem, I could work around that.

I couldn’t do anything in that village anyway, and I had no intention of getting on that hell carriage again. There was no reason for us not to part ways. As long as the system allowed it, that is.

So I just turned around, pretending to frown. I arrived at this place only after riding in that carriage for hours on end, so it seemed I had to diligently walk back to the starting town.

“Wait, where are you going?”

Then the Inquisitor asked me where I was heading. I didn’t feel the need to answer that question, so I didn’t bother to.

“Hey, the forest is dangerous at night…”

But I couldn’t just ignore those words that were hurting my pride.

“I’m sure it is for you. Don’t force your standards on me.”

“…Still, it’s not a good idea to walk around here by yourself.”

No, if I had to point out the most dangerous thing in this forest, it would be you guys, so going alone would actually be safer.

Of course, telling the truth would only blow up in my face, so I shouted at her.

“It seems your ears do not work properly.”

Fortunately, the Inquisitor didn’t try to hold me back any longer after hearing that.

I had no idea what kind of event was ahead or where the plot wanted to lead me, but in this battle between the system and my roleplaying, my roleplaying earned a decisive victory. Ahahaha.