Is It Bad That the Main Character’s a Roleplayer? [Novel] Chapter 171

## Chapter 171: Next Time (4)

“Could that be… Has the demon consumed him…?!”

“What’s going on? What’s going on? The tiger turned black!”

Listening to the Archmage’s groan, I wiped away a little more blood.

Confusion? Shock?

Unfortunately, I felt neither.

The moment Biryuho ate the Archdemon’s corpse, or perhaps the moment the Archdemon went down more easily than expected, I had already considered the possibility that something like this might happen.

After all, isn’t it practically a law of the genre that high-ranking enemies like Archdemons never die easily?

Until you personally watch the corpse get burned or purified, you assume resurrection is still on the table.

And if someone eats the corpse?

Even if an ally did it, I’d be nervous. But someone who wasn’t even on our side?

Yeah. Guaranteed trouble.

[This time, I will drag you with me into death.]

Still, being mentally prepared did nothing to stop the disappointment.

I already had more than enough enemies without this bastard coming back to life.

“You think a demon such as yourself can accomplish that?!”

“Be careful, Inquisitor!”

“This time as well, you alone shall meet your end!”

At least the Inquisitor was perfectly fine.

Unlike last time, she had not needed to exhaust herself creating a battlefield where we could fight.

“I don’t know what happened, but if it’s alive, that’s good enough! Krahaha! This time, Berserker will definitely take it down!”

Berserker was delighted too, now that she knew there was still something left to fight.

If I were being completely honest, part of me wondered why those two couldn’t just handle the rest themselves.

I mean, Berserker was human, so divine power wouldn’t damage her, and she was absurdly durable. Her compatibility with the Inquisitor actually seemed pretty good.

Compared with them, I…

Forget compatibility. My physical condition alone was a problem.

“Cough.”

“Do not get up!”

But that wasn’t happening, was it?

There was no way my persona would simply sit back and watch after an enemy I thought we had killed turned out to be perfectly alive.

“Move.”

Still, the bleeding had slowed considerably compared with before.

Thanks to the Archmage patching me up for a short while, my HP had recovered somewhat too.

So moving was the correct choice.

I brushed away the Archmage’s hand and stood.

“Why don’t you just stay down? Berserker’s going to kill it anyway!”

“Your words are not worth answering.”

Good.

I wasn’t swaying while standing.

There was a little dizziness, but compared with the usual ringing in my ears, it was about the same.

Then there was no problem.

I adjusted my grip on my sword.

“It’s coming!”

“Damn…!”

Right on cue, the fusion of Moby Dick and Biryuho, henceforth **Mobyho**, launched its attack.

More precisely, it launched itself straight at us.

No.

Straight at me.

“Not so fast!”

The Inquisitor erupted in fury and raised a wave of divine power.

Unfortunately, Mobyho was one step faster.

It wrapped its own body in vines made of water and fired itself like a cannonball.

It burst through the surging light and came hurtling toward us.

The Archmage did not even have enough time to protect herself.

Instinctively, she curled inward and covered her head with both arms.

“Hyaaah!”

Fortunately, Berserker, unwilling to let anyone steal her prey, moved first.

Her halberd spun like a windmill beneath the power of her muscles before smashing hard into the approaching Mobyho.

Mobyho’s trajectory twisted, sending it flying in another direction.

I couldn’t tell whether it had failed to anticipate that possibility or had simply launched itself too fast to regain control.

Mobyho skidded away and desperately dug its feet into the earth to stop.

That was when I moved.

“Hey! You!”

Berserker was great and all, but she didn’t seem very good at learning from experience.

Hadn’t this already happened several times?

Whenever she landed the first hit, I followed up immediately afterward.

Well, that was her problem, not mine.

Listening to her cry of outrage, I targeted Mobyho, which had just stopped in the distance.

A pitch-black sword strike split through the now-green vines and sliced through Mobyho’s afterimage.

It reappeared a short distance away, the fin behind its back fluttering decoratively.

Once again, it failed to land cleanly and left a long gouge across the ground.

“So the vermin has returned as a rat.”

[The body of an overfed beast is not a bad vessel after all. Though it is amusing that it possessed such an excellent body and could do nothing more than waste it.]

I wasn’t so sure about that.

Sure, Biryuho had been clumsy early on, but from the middle of the battle onward, he had given me a decent amount of trouble.

Even if he couldn’t use every ounce of his physical ability, once you included the combination of his powers, he had actually used that body pretty damn well.

You’re confident you can do better?

That would be inconvenient.

With that thought, I kicked off the ground.

Technically, I had kicked off the moment our exchange began, so by now I was already directly in front of Mobyho.

CLANG!

My blade collided with Mobyho’s claws.

Not the claws of a beast.

Human fingernails.

With its entire body stained black, there was no longer a clear distinction between fingers and nails. Its hands ended in sharp points like a bird’s talons.

Apparently I had nicked it, because a trace of black blood gathered along my blade and trickled down.

“Hryaaah!”

THOOM!

Immediately afterward, it knocked away Berserker’s halberd with its other hand.

The sound resembled metal striking metal.

Without even a scratch on its hand, Mobyho pressed its index and middle fingers together.

BANG!

A jet of water fired from its fingertips and shot toward Berserker.

She tried to dodge, but vines had already wrapped around her ankle, forcing her to take the attack on the shoulder.

A round mark remained there.

BOOM!

Was I standing around doing nothing during all that?

Of course not.

The instant I realized my longsword had been blocked, I pulled it back and attempted a combination attack.

Mobyho, however, restrained Berserker while extending vines toward me at the same time.

Branches burst from the ground like spears, unfortunately aimed straight at my heart.

That ruled out deliberately trading damage.

After cutting the branches apart, I tore the vines around my ankle using sheer leg strength and retreated.

I had moved back in preparation for a follow-up attack, but fortunately none came.

Berserker, on the other hand, seemed perfectly willing to trade blows.

She ripped the stalks apart using only the strength of her foot and continued attacking, only to be thrown backward with a thunderous boom.

After exchanging several blows with us, Mobyho had used a knockback attack.

Come to think of it, its responses had seemed slightly delayed.

Regardless, Berserker landed beside me and glared at Mobyho.

[Even outside the King’s Domain, this body moves freely. Manipulating demonic energy is still inconvenient, but not needing demonic energy merely to maintain the body is rather intoxicating. Wrath, now I understand why you choose only the creations of a foreign god as vessels. Even if the senses differ, advantages such as these make them well worth possessing.]

Despite Berserker’s murderous glare, Mobyho remained perfectly composed.

Or perhaps “composed” was not the right word.

Its tone sounded almost exhilarated, as if it were intoxicated by something.

Its expression became easier to read after it shifted from the form of a beast into Curety’s form.

Its flushed face made its abnormal state obvious.

“What… the hell are you talking about?!”

Berserker was not the type to quietly listen to that.

She attacked first.

Damn it. She stole the timing.

[You lowly mongrel!]

Mobyho’s previously loose expression vanished at once as demonic energy erupted from its body.

Good thing I hadn’t charged in with Berserker.

Otherwise, I might have been caught in that wave of demonic energy and sent tumbling away too.

[Begone. This is not a battle for you to interfere in!]

“You think saying that will…”

[This is a battle between Wrath and me!]

“…!”

Excuse me?

What did you just call me?

No matter how serious your expression is, some things are unacceptable.

You can’t just rename someone else’s character however you please.

Keep this up and I really will permanently rename you Mobyho.

“…Tch.”

Yet regardless of how absurd I found it, those words apparently meant something to Berserker.

Her face twisted in irritation, but she lowered her weapon and backed away.

Why?

The question came to me naturally.

No, seriously.

Why?

“Why are you coming back?”

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one confused.

The Archmage, who had been applying buffs from the rear, looked equally bewildered.

Understandably so.

Forget the fact that one of the damage dealers had just decided to throw the match. She had literally just finished casting Haste on Berserker.

Nothing raises your blood pressure quite like buffing someone only for them to immediately stop fighting.

“It is a battle between warriors. A Norda warrior does not interfere in a fair duel between two combatants.”

“I-I hardly think this is the time for such a thing…”

“Then when should it apply?”

W-Well…

Fair point.

Part of me wondered whether Mobyho could even be considered a warrior.

But was it so obviously *not* a warrior that I could say that without hesitation?

That was also difficult.

Its origin as a demon was a problem, sure, but Mobyho itself hadn’t exactly fought dirty…

…Had it?

The one who had truly fought dirty by taking a hostage was Biryuho.

This thing…

This thing…

Wait.

Didn’t it do something to Dev too?!

Does that not count?

Or does Berserker consider any formal duel valid regardless of whether the participant is a warrior?

I had no idea what her standards were.

I tried to understand Berserker’s logic for a few moments, then gave up.

People who appeared simple at first glance were sometimes the hardest to understand.

So instead of standing there dumbfounded by her decision, I had something else to do.

Fight Mobyho alone.

“Even so, this is simply…!”

“Watch, Mage. Or do you doubt it? The victory of your comrade?”

“No, that isn’t what I…”

“What happened?!”

Actually, this might be easier.

Berserker and I had terrible coordination, while the Inquisitor’s attacks damaged me as well.

[Now, the stage has been prepared. Come, Wrath.]

“Do not soil my ears with your base tongue.”

Come to think of it, calling this “easier” was underselling it.

This was an outright advantage.

I always fought bosses solo anyway. It wasn’t as though I suddenly needed other people’s help now.

“Die, demon.”

Ignoring the conversation between Berserker, the Archmage, and the Inquisitor, I collided with Mobyho.

Grrrrk.

My blade and its claws locked together in a brief contest of strength.

Mobyho stepped closer and thrust out its curled right hand.

Its nails, gathered like an awl, lightly scraped my cheek.

SLASH!

But Mobyho wasn’t the only one capable of attacking barehanded.

I filled my nails with demonic energy and raked upward from below.

Mobyho immediately retreated.

I had expected that.

What I had not expected was for it to stagger despite my attack not even touching it.

Feeling something was off, I nevertheless matched its movement and thrust my sword forward.

Mana spears formed one after another, raining down to seal off every possible escape route.

RUMBLE!

Mobyho did not simply stand there and take it.

It frowned slightly, then chose to raise vines from the ground rather than dodge with its own body.

The ground had shifted slightly beforehand, so avoiding them was not particularly difficult.

I stepped between the spiraling branches rising around me.

[Die!]

Immediately afterward, ice spears formed in midair and poured down.

Rather than flying in straight lines, they seemed to possess some degree of homing ability, curving through the air toward me.

Fortunately, I was faster, and I could break them with my longsword.

So they weren’t a major problem.

Just annoying.

Clang. Clang-clang.

Ice shattered against metal and scattered in every direction.

The branches that had grown from the ground did not disappear with time, making them fairly meaningful obstacles.

Rather than recklessly charging Mobyho, I circled around it, cutting through the thorns while observing.

It stood slightly crooked, barely moving, and continued firing long-range attacks.

From my perspective, knowing that its ranged attacks were less dangerous than having it personally join the assault, the behavior was strange.

Sssss.

But the mystery was soon solved.

Its body, which had been dyed completely black, occasionally turned white, exposing what lay beneath.

Each time that happened, Mobyho grimaced.

It looked as though it might be suppressing Biryuho, who was trying to awaken again.

CLANG!

And there was something else.

This bastard was awkward in close combat.

The earlier staggering, its sloppy movements, its overall delayed reactions…

I had suspected something was wrong, and it turned out it genuinely did not know how to use the body properly.

Maybe it hadn’t adapted because this wasn’t its original body.

Whatever the reason, if the bastard was clumsy, that was all I needed.

[Stay away!]

Especially when it kept proving the point by relying on knockback attacks.

A massive torrent of water struck me and pushed me backward.

It wasn’t ordinary water.

Rather than soaking me, it tore at me.

The injuries were only shallow, but considering the water shredded through my clothes and bandages and left hundreds of small cuts across my skin, “tore” felt accurate enough.

Was I going to stop there?

Obviously not.

To force the fight back into close range, I kicked off the ground again even as I was being pushed away.

[Kgh!]

Reading my obvious intention, Mobyho hurriedly prepared its next skill.

Water surged from beneath its feet and began flooding the surrounding ground.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

Like a wave spreading outward, the water froze smoothly in stages with clear ringing sounds.

If I landed there, my balance would collapse.

“Pathetic.”

That was when I understood why the thorns hadn’t disappeared.

They had been given to me as footholds for this exact moment.

SLASH!

Even if that had not been their intended purpose, that was how I chose to interpret them.

I released sword aura over as wide a range as possible, even at the cost of power.

The tops of the spiraling thorns were sliced away in chunks, leaving surfaces broad enough to step on.

I landed on one.

[What a clown you are!]

I don’t remember ever seeing a clown dressed this gloomily.

Using the improvised footholds, I charged toward Mobyho.

Chunks of ice continued forming endlessly and targeting me, but that hardly mattered.

I could shatter them even without mana.

Creeeak.

Then, hearing the noise from my longsword, I threw it.

Might as well finish this before the weapon broke.

The mana-soaked blade flew like a spear.

[That will not work!]

Despite its words, apparently it found the attack threatening.

Mobyho temporarily stopped generating ice spears and focused entirely on blocking the sword.

Vines grew in an instant and formed a shield.

BOOM!

The blade buried itself deeply into the shield.

At the same time, my hand reached behind me and drew the zweihänder.

Boiling mana flooded into the silver blade before splitting into three razor-sharp branches.

The wooden vine shield shattered into three sections.

Beyond it, Mobyho was flattened against the ground.

It was the most efficient method of evasion.

Still, it surprised me.

I had not expected something with that much pride to dodge like that.

[Die.]

Unexpected or not, failed predictions always demanded payment in battle.

The instant I saw it rush toward me like a predator, I made my judgment.

I couldn’t dodge this.

CRASH!

But being unable to dodge did not mean giving up.

The instant I reached that conclusion, I discarded the zweihänder and grabbed one section of the shattered shield that had begun falling.

My longsword was still embedded in it.

I lifted the piece of shield along with the sword and wedged it between Mobyho and myself, blocking part of its attack.

Even so, its claws caught my left shoulder and dug straight in.

A small burst of pain arrived alongside the message:

「Poison!」

[Fool.]

At the same time, the vines wrapped around my longsword suddenly sprouted new branches and began binding my body.

“Demon Knight!”

“Do not interfere. The battle is not yet finished.”

Behind me, I heard the Inquisitor’s urgent voice and Berserker stopping her.

[Die!]

Now what?

The vines had grown too thick to break simply by reinforcing my body with mana.

And using Ground Crash seemed impossible because there wasn’t enough room.

The principle behind Ground Crash was to compress mana into the blade and inject it into the ground all at once, dispersing it through the surrounding area…

Wait.

Did that actually require space?

If not, had I just been an idiot?

I adapted everything else, yet somehow never thought to adapt this?

Technically, spreading spiraling mana around myself was already an application of the same principle…

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had been stupid.

With a hollow sense of realization, I poured mana into the blade still in my hand.

The instant enough had gathered, I detonated it.

The entire process took exactly two seconds.

That was also exactly how long Mobyho needed to surround me with hundreds of ice spears and launch them.

“Something like this…”

Blades of mana erupted from the sword, then my arm, torso, and legs in sequence, shredding the sleeves of my clothes and the surrounding wisteria.

It looked as though a storm of blades were blowing outward with me at its center.

“…will not work.”

Nor were those blades satisfied with merely tearing apart my clothes and fragments of wood.

Their next targets were the hundreds of ice spears flying toward me.

Crackle.

Every spear shattered as though thrown into a grinder.

[…!]

“D-Demon Knight!”

“See? Berserker told you he would be fine.”

Thousands, tens of thousands of shards of ice scattered through the air, turning the world into a pure white snowscape.

The chill they carried briefly froze my breath into white mist.

And from within that cloud of powdered ice, I broke through and brought my longsword down in a massive slash.

**Breaker.**

The horrified Mobyho swung its arm in much the same way.

SLASH!

I did not sever it completely.

But I cut halfway through its forearm.

Corrupted black blood sprayed across the ground.

[You do not even possess flames!]

Yeah.

I don’t need them.

Keeping that ridiculous response to myself, I stretched my arm toward the empty space below.

There was another reason I had deliberately used Breaker.

It shook the ground.

And that impact was enough to bounce my zweihänder upward.

Naturally, considering its weight, it did not rise very high.

But with my waist already lowered from bringing the sword down and one arm extended downward, that much was plenty.

CLANG!

My right hand caught the hilt and hurriedly pulled it upward.

I had no intention of properly swinging it.

It was a shield.

The blade crossed diagonally in front of me and blocked Mobyho’s claws.

Did that mean it was my turn again?

With my longsword, I fired Bombard straight ahead.

Rather than releasing it immediately, I maintained the beam and swept it across the battlefield.

My mana was truly scraping the bottom now.

But when I could count the newly formed ice spears with my eyes, and when parts of Mobyho’s body had begun revealing white particles beneath the black surface, I understood.

That bastard was almost finished too.

[Not yet. It is not over yet…!]

“It is over.”

Something between a beam and a blade silently cut apart nearly everything Moby Dick and Biryuho had summoned.

Mobyho barely evaded it, while a few objects outside its path survived, but this was more than enough.

The white portion of Mobyho finally spread across half its face, dragging the original owner back to the surface.

[I, Biryuho, have not yet—!]

The ice spears I had failed to eliminate scraped past the side of my neck, my flank, and my thigh.

That wasn’t enough to stop me.

Watching Biryuho’s desperate face, I swung my sword again in the opposite direction from before.

Whether it was Moby Dick or Biryuho, it transformed into a tiger in one final struggle and charged at me.

Too late.

“Atone with your death.”

SLASH!

“For everything you toyed with.”

The slash split the gigantic tiger apart.

The blade, having reached its limit, did not simply snap like usual.

Beginning at its tip, it disintegrated piece by piece.

THOOM!

What remained was a hilt with no blade.

And the tiger’s corpse, divided into head and torso.

“Cough.”

At the same time, the blood I had barely been holding back finally escaped.

My knees gave out.