I Don’t Want To Be The Protagonist of a Romance Novel – Chapter 32

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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Sylphia Andres couldn’t remember clearly how she had returned afterwards.

Whether she had returned trembling with humiliation or after spitting out all the lumps in her stomach at Arwen in a fit of rage.

She couldn’t remember well, but there was no need to force herself to remember either.

Arwen, who had suddenly appeared in front of her and was pretending to be clean and noble alone, was not an object of anger but merely a detonator. At least, that’s how Sylphia felt.

“…Ah.”

Covering her eyes with her arm, Sylphia, who had been lying still on the bed, let out a feeble groan through her parched lips.

The tearing down disguised as a conversation with Arwen was just a trigger. The difference was only in the degree, but in the end, all five of them shared the same past. That also meant they shared the same wounds.

That’s why she knew that the conversation from earlier would only stir up each other’s unhealed wounds and cause pain. Not only she but Arwen must have known that as well.

However…

“I must not let other dragons find out, even by mistake. They’ll definitely make fun of me for the rest of my life.”

She babbled nonsensical words. Otherwise, it felt like the suffocating emotions she was feeling now wouldn’t be resolved.

She knew it in her head. She understood it. That the game was just a game.

But dragons weren’t creatures with different emotions from humans. They ridiculed humans for being weak, but when they started the game, they desperately tried to hypnotize themselves, saying it was just role-playing to perform a specific role, and conformed to that human framework.

Whenever she heard about other dragons who became too immersed in the game, she used to sneer at them, saying they must have enjoyed the game for too long.

“…What do you mean, enjoying the game for too long? In the end, I became the same.”

A salty taste came from her parched lips. It was tears.

It wasn’t because she was sad. But once again, a tear of unknown reason flowed from her eyes.

She was strange. And the one who made her strange was Rudrick.

It wasn’t for no reason that dragons were forbidden from forming deeper relationships with humans than necessary during the game. Sometimes, some dragons even forgot their awareness of being dragons and became too immersed in the game, which was merely an act of killing time close to eternity.

And the price to pay for breaking that taboo was too costly to ever repay.

Realizing that the taboo wasn’t a taboo for no reason, Sylphia turned her body and buried her face in the pillow.

For a while, Sylphia’s buried face trembled. As if she were sobbing.

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It wasn’t as if Arwen’s heart was entirely at ease either.

From the moment Rudrick didn’t return to the room when it was time, she had a bad feeling. With a heavy heart, as if a rock had been placed in a corner of her chest, she left the room and wandered aimlessly around the Imperial Palace in the form of a cat.

Sometimes she was noticed by others, but thanks to her elegant demeanor, she was mistaken for a cat owned by a noble and wasn’t particularly hindered.

And the moment she reached the entrance of the Imperial Palace and saw Sylphia and Rudrick returning like an affectionate couple…

The shock hit her like a punch to the face.

Although she had engaged in a verbal battle with Sylphia, exchanging words that hurt each other, even now that she had returned to the room, the shock hadn’t completely dissipated.

“What are you thinking so deeply about?”

“…No, it’s nothing. I was just thinking about old times a little.”

A gentle touch stroked Arwen’s head as she sat on Rudrick’s lap, lost in thought.

It was the moment when she started to feel a strange dissatisfaction with being treated like a real cat rather than the True Ancestor Arwen Nosferatu. To be precise, her intention was to remind him that she was a proper woman, not a pet he was raising.

Usually, when she received such a stroking touch, any dissatisfaction she had would melt away like snow…

But now, her heart wasn’t at ease enough to simply enjoy that touch.

It was a contradiction.

Although they were rivals competing for the same man, paradoxically, they were also the only ones who could share the wounds and pain from before the regression.

“Rudrick.”

“Hmm?”

“What do you think?”

“What do you mean, what do I think all of a sudden?”

“Let’s say there’s a wounded beast. Although they usually have a bad relationship, they can’t survive unless they lick each other’s wounds.”

Arwen, who had been mechanically rubbing her head against Rudrick’s hand until just now, muttered in a low voice, unlike her usual self.

Amidst the serious and heavy atmosphere, different from the usual, Rudrick instinctively listened attentively to her words.

Recalling the earlier situation where Arwen hadn’t given any answer when he asked if something had happened with Sylphia, he could easily guess that it was related to that conversation.

“Isn’t it contradictory? Even though their relationship is so bad, just because they share the same pain, their existence becomes a wound to each other, and even though they have that wound, they find comfort in it.”

“…Is this about the conversation you had with Sylphia earlier?”

“…It’s not exactly that. I just had that thought suddenly.”

Rudrick, who had been listening to Arwen’s words, made an ambiguous expression.

Rudrick already knew that Arwen, who had bluntly revealed that she was a regressor, and the others had all regressed.

However, there was a blind spot here. Although he knew the fact that they had regressed, he didn’t know the reason, cause, or what had happened in the past before the regression.

Even if he ignored the reason for the regression itself, as the “fact” of the regression was more important, Rudrick was also very curious about what had roughly happened in the past before the regression.

What on earth had happened that caused Arwen to suddenly bring up this contextless conversation?

His curiosity grew stronger, and he felt the need to hear about it straightforwardly at least once.

“Arwen.”

“…Hmm.”

“Can I ask you something then?”

Rudrick’s voice was unusually resolute. It wasn’t difficult to guess the content of the question, and Arwen, with an expression of “here it comes,” nodded her head.

“You said you regressed, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then what exactly happened in the past before you regressed?”

“…”

It was a short but straightforward question that cut to the core.

However, Arwen couldn’t answer. Although the question she had anticipated came out of Rudrick’s mouth as expected, her lips wouldn’t easily part as if glue had been applied.

It wasn’t difficult to say what had happened in the past before the regression.

It was just that in that past, it wasn’t easy to say that the person innocently asking the question in front of her had died.

It was a cruel thing to do.

Like a mute suffering from a cold heart, it was a rather miserable feeling to be unable to utter those few cruel and simple truths.

If a person were to know their predetermined lifespan…

Considering the result, it wasn’t difficult to understand the reason.

After hesitating for a long time, as if sensing something unusual about Arwen’s attitude, Rudrick carefully asked.

“…Did something bad happen to me by any chance?”

“…!”

The cautiously asked question pierced right through the essence.

From Rudrick’s perspective, it was a question he had deduced from Arwen’s hesitant attitude, as if she couldn’t bring herself to say something for some reason, but Arwen’s flinch as she sat with her back turned to him on his lap came back as confirmation.

“…I guess that’s it. Maybe I died or something like that happened.”

“That’s…”

“Well, well.”

Rudrick spoke in a nonchalant voice.

From the perspective of someone who remembered their past life, death was not an unknown.

Even if he were to die right now, the bonds he had built over the past twenty years would come to mind first, followed by the emotion of sadness…

“You couldn’t tell me because you were worried I might be shocked.”

“…Yes.”

Arwen added in a small voice.

One couldn’t become familiar with death unless they regressed repeatedly after dying. Because for everyone, life was only one.

However, Rudrick pretended to be nonchalant and roughly ruffled Arwen’s hair with a chuckle.

“How cute. Is that what you were worried about?”

“Cu-cu-cute… No, in the first place, aren’t you worried that you’ll die in the future? I have a long lifespan by nature, but humans only live for a hundred years at most–”

“That’s why you regressed, right, Arwen?”

Arwen’s words were cut off as she shook her head wildly like a feisty cat, trying to shake off his touch.

After a long moment, Arwen slowly turned her head like a broken machine.

“…What do you mean by that?”

“Whether I die in an accident or from an illness. Anyway, you’ve seen that process unfold. Then you must know how to prevent it.”

“…I’m not an omnipotent being who can do anything. How can you carelessly say such things as if I can prevent the future where you die?”

Arwen, who had been chuckling in disbelief as if Rudrick’s seemingly irresponsible words were absurd, shook her head.

With quick steps, she got up from his lap and sat down under the bed, her figure enveloped in a shimmering light as she transformed back into her human form.

Her hair was neatly braided and draped to one side, and she was wearing a neat suit. It was the same appearance as when he first saw her in Lorenzo’s secret research lab, but the difference was that there was a strange heat flickering in her amethyst eyes.

“Huhu…”

The corners of Arwen’s lips curled up.

He understood her intention. It wasn’t that he had thoughtlessly uttered those words because he truly thought it was irresponsible, but rather to break the gloomy atmosphere that had been lingering and to reassure Arwen, who had brought up painful memories.

In her memory, Rudrick seemed to be strangely clumsy and easygoing, but beneath his brusque behavior, there was an inherent kindness and consideration for others.

“…Um, Arwen?”

“It seems I need to teach you that you shouldn’t say such things unless you’re prepared to take responsibility.”

She had been craving to lick the blood that had formed on the tip of his finger while transformed into a cat.

Even though she was a True Ancestor, her fundamental nature was that of a vampire. A bloodsucker. To her, Rudrick’s blood was an incomparable delicacy that she wouldn’t trade for anything, so she had been merely salivating for the past few days.

Ahaha, Arwen buried her face in the nape of Rudrick’s neck as he let out an awkward laugh.

The scent filling her nostrils was unbearably sweet, and Arwen, exerting superhuman self-control at the last moment, gave him a slight reprieve.

As if to say, push me away if you really hate it.

But Rudrick didn’t push her away, and Arwen sank her fangs into his neck.

As if to calm Rudrick, who flinched the moment her fangs pierced his skin, Arwen slowly stroked his back and leisurely sucked his blood.

“…This feels really strange.”

“Get used to it. You’ll experience it often.”

Arwen retorted with a muffled pronunciation, somehow managing not to slur her words.

She inadvertently thought to herself.

She wished this moment could last forever.

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