I Don’t Want To Be The Protagonist of a Romance Novel – Chapter 72

—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
—————————————————————–

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

 
“Wow, I really didn’t expect that none of this would work.”

“At this point, shouldn’t you just give up and die peacefully?”

“Don’t say that so easily about someone else’s situation… No, it’s about you in the first place!”

“I guess it’s not meant to work out today.”

“I told you not to say that so easily when it’s about you…”

Although Sylphia let out a deep sigh as if the earth would cave in, my principle was to give up quickly on things that don’t work out.

Even when playing games, it’s better to look at the strategies made by the pioneers who struggle and clear it on the first day of a new content update, rather than recklessly heading in and clearing it.

It was similar.

Of course, this time it wasn’t a simple game dungeon or a new boss monster, but something that my life truly depended on.

So I was still curious about what that final method was that she was keeping wrapped up like a sacred treasure, but still, since there was a method, I could think of it as having some sort of insurance.

Anyway, we tried a few other methods besides the first one, but they all failed.

In fact, I wasn’t expecting much either.

If it were that easy, there was no way I would have died so easily before the regression.

Of course, I know that there’s some leeway now since it’s the early stages before it seriously progresses.

“So is everything over now?”

“That’s right. I didn’t expect all of them to fail… Ugh.”

Sylphia’s expression darkened, and then she replied in a weak voice.

Well, if you did your best, that’s OK, right?

If I grumble here, saying “Sigh, we just wasted time,” it would be like asking for the luggage to be saved after being saved from drowning.

No matter how dense a person is, I think being that dense is close to a crime.

Pat pat.

“…?”

I just gently patted her head with my hand.

Usually, one would pat the back or shoulder, right?

But it just so happened that her head was in a position where I could reach it by simply extending my arm.

“…What is it?”

“Nothing, just saying you worked hard. Sylphia tried her best for my sake, after all.”

Hmm, that line just now was a bit sweet.

I don’t know what the final method left as a last resort is, but in the end, it was Sylphia who tried to cure the illness that’s not an illness that I’m suffering from.

If I can’t even say thank you, am I a human or a beast?

At least the Confucian Taliban sleeping within me, who is from a country of Eastern etiquette, couldn’t tolerate that.

However, perhaps she didn’t expect this reaction from me, as Sylphia stared at me blankly.

“…”

“…”

A subtle silence.

No, isn’t the normal situation in this timing to be moved and say, “I didn’t know you felt that way…!”?

Eventually,

“…Don’t do that.”

“Yes?”

“I told you not to leak it out like that carelessly.”

“What am I leaking…?”

“Haa…”

A sigh welled up from deep within her lungs.

Why was she sighing even when I patted her head and said she did well?

I didn’t know.

And then, as if she had made up her mind, Sylphia hardened her expression and grabbed my hand, leading me somewhere.

“Huh?”

“Follow me silently.”

An unprecedentedly intimidating atmosphere and a lowered voice.

After being led somewhere, the door soon slammed shut.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that it was a perfectly locked room, like the ones often mentioned in a certain elementary school detective manga.

“…?”

Of course, there was no way she would commit a locked room murder like in that manga, and I couldn’t understand why I was dragged here when I didn’t do anything wrong, so I was just tilting my head in confusion.

Bang.

“…You startled me.”

I flinched for a moment as Sylphia suddenly hit the wall with a bang.

…Is this the so-called kabedon that I’ve only heard about?

Usually, it was orthodox for a man to do it to a woman, but this was a gender-reversed world, so it was orthodox for a woman to do it to a man.

Yes, that was all fine, but I had no idea why Sylphia was doing this.

Could it be that she was angry because I patted her head without permission…?

If that was the case, I thought it was a bit petty.

“Rudrick, you need to fix that habit of yours.”

“…Yes?”

But I guessed wrong.

What came out of Sylphia’s mouth were incomprehensible words.

I tilted my head again, wondering what she meant.

Fix my habit, my habit…?

I didn’t know why she’s suddenly saying I needed to fix my habit.

Just until now, we tried all sorts of methods but failed, and since Sylphia worked hard, I patted her head a little to console her when she was feeling down.

If I summarized it as plainly as possible, that was all.

If she suddenly said I needed to fix my habit, it was normal not to understand what kind of nonsense it was in the middle of the night.

“What did I say just now?”

“If you ask me what you said…”

“I told you not to do that. Not to carelessly leak it out like that. In the first place, you shouldn’t give any room for misunderstanding, right?”

Her face was flushed and her breathing was rough.

Sylphia’s unique vertically split pupils that usually didn’t show anything unless she was really excited or angry were shining.

I could clearly realize one thing, even if I didn’t know anything else.

‘I’m screwed…!’

I didn’t know the reason, but Sylphia’s condition was a bit strange.

In the first place, as long as one was a living being, anyone had no choice but to shrink back the moment they made eye contact with her.

It would be more accurate to say it was the instinct of prey standing in front of a predator.

I’d heard that a tiger’s roar contained infrasound that psychologically made people feel intimidated and induced fear.

And for some unknown reason, standing in front of a dragon in an excited state for some reason had a similar meaning.

Just looking at her, my body stiffened like I had encountered Medusa from mythology, and I could clearly feel myself being overwhelmed by the pressure.

“…Rudrick, you’re the one who kept seducing me like that.”

“Me…?”

“Acting like that, pretending nothing happened, pretending to be harmless. Wagging your tail with an innocent face. How come you haven’t changed at all, then and now?”

“…”

This was unfair.

A little, a lot?

No, I didn’t know why I was being told I was wagging my tail when I didn’t even know what I did.

For a moment, my curiosity preceded my fear.

And perhaps because that curiosity was clearly reflected on my face, Sylphia, who seemed to want to say something, shook her head.

“This won’t do. Then I think I need to instill a sense of vigilance in you, even if it means using shock therapy.”

“Ouch.”

My wrist was grabbed in a flash, as the saying goes.

I didn’t know why her grip strength was so strong, but even when I tried to break free with force, my tightly held hand wouldn’t let go.

And then,

Pushed against the wall, unable to move with my wrist still grabbed, Sylphia’s face slowly approached.

My Adam’s apple bobbed, and the subtle tremors caused by each other’s breaths being inhaled and exhaled were clearly transmitted.

For a moment, various thoughts came to mind and my head became complicated, but as soon as I saw Sylphia’s face that had come right in front of me, my random thoughts disappeared cleanly.

The first thought that came to mind was, although it may sound ridiculous, that she was pretty.

The standards of beauty that people thought of were generally universal and an artificially sculpted form created through polymorph magic.

Naturally, she was beautiful.

Her fiery red hair and eyes, her face that looked like she couldn’t control herself, as if consumed by desire, and even that expression with a blush as red as her hair, everything.

And the moment her soft, cherry blossom-colored lips slowly approached, I, who had been blankly staring as if bewitched by something, came to my senses.

“…No.”

“…”

With a single word I uttered like a magic spell, Sylphia’s movement, which had come close enough for our breaths to touch, abruptly stopped.

“Not now, Sylphia.”

“…Why?”

“This method won’t do. You know it too, don’t you, Sylphia?”

I never dreamed that I would recite lines like a tragic heroine with my own mouth.

Separate from the fact that my values differed from this world, this was a strange world where men and women were reversed.

From that perspective, Sylphia’s current actions may be perfectly natural.

Anyway, if it was an action that both parties agreed upon.

But separate from that, I had no intention of choosing anyone yet.

To be more precise, I didn’t have the leisure to do so.

The past twenty years of my life had completely changed at some point, and while I was adapting and living my life, it was suddenly forcing many choices upon me.

“…If I just pick anyone carelessly now, there will certainly be advantages in a way.”

Sylphia closed her mouth at my quiet murmur.

Her face, which had come close, was slowly moving away.

“But it’s not like the fire is at my feet yet.”

I could tell from what Lassiel had said and from Sylphia’s actions this time that my actions could be understood with a different intention.

But I, the person involved, didn’t have that intention.

It may be a terribly selfish thought, but in this one life, I didn’t want to leave regrets with my current choice.

It was not like the sky would fall tomorrow if I didn’t choose someone right away.

Decisively,

“Sylphia.”

“…Yes.”

“…I didn’t regress together with you.”

Sylphia flinched as if she had realized something from my words.

I still didn’t know what happened in the past before the regression.

Even if something happened at that time, it was a story that I couldn’t share memories of.

…Well, if I included my current life, I’d lived quite a few years.

It was not like I wasted my age for nothing.

There was a bitter taste in my mouth.

I didn’t know the reason myself.

Saying it like this made me feel like a heroine rejecting the confession of a male protagonist.

Experiencing it firsthand, the feeling wasn’t very pleasant.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇