I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 1

BOOM! I opened my eyes to a deafening explosion, and a pile of bricks came crashing down in front of me.

“Huh?”

As I uttered that dumb sound, someone forcefully shoved my shoulder from behind.

I didn’t even have time to groan before I was slammed face-first onto the ground.

“What the, suddenly…!”

I tried to turn my head to see who had pushed me, but then,

CRASH!

An even louder explosion and a massive shockwave hit me. It felt like a bomb had gone off right in front of my face. I was terrified and pressed myself even harder against the ground.

The shaking soon subsided, and my ringing ears began to settle. I lifted my trembling head and looked around. What was going on?

I was on top of a large brick wall. Acrid smoke billowed from fires all around, and shouts and screams echoed in the air.

The wall right next to me was melting, glowing red and flowing like water. It really did seem like something like a bomb had gone off.

“What the hell…?”

I muttered, bewildered, and looked around the wall more carefully.

People covered in soot and blood, clad in armor, were moving busily. Cannons on the wall were firing continuously, and people were yelling as they swung swords and shot arrows over the wall.

What could be on the other side of the wall that made them act like this? I slowly raised my head to look.

And beyond the wall…

“… !”

There were monsters.

Kieeeek-!

Monsters that looked like giant spiders, but bigger than humans, were screeching ferociously as they swarmed towards the wall endlessly.

There must have been hundreds, no, thousands of them.

I was so dumbfounded that my body froze.

What is this?

“Is this a dream? Or did I eat something bad and start hallucinating…?”

“While denying reality is fine, isn’t that a bit of a cliché reaction, Your Highness?”

A grumbling voice came from behind me. It was the person who had pushed me to the ground. I turned around, feeling dazed.

A young man I felt like I’d seen somewhere before was standing there.

“… Uhm?”

In the middle of this terrible battlefield, a handsome pretty boy suddenly popped his face in front of me, making it even harder to get my bearings.

Back off a little, you’re making me uncomfortable.

Bright blue eyes sparkled beneath his shiny blonde hair. His well-built, muscular body was clearly visible even through his leather armor.

He looked like he was claiming to be the main character. Yeah, he definitely has the main character look…

Wait a minute?

“… Lucas?”

Without realizing it, I pointed at the handsome man.

He looked exactly like Lucas, the main character from the game I had been playing just a little while ago.

The blonde young man looked dumbfounded.

“You finally call me by my name. After I’ve been serving as your escort knight for my entire life, you couldn’t even remember it.”

“Uh… uh?”

Is he really Lucas?

No, wait a minute, does that mean… could this be…?

CRASH!

Something flew in again, and part of the wall collapsed. I screamed and rolled on the ground. Help me!

Lucas, gritting his teeth, rushed over and forcibly pulled me up.

“I’ll explain it again since you’ve probably forgotten! The enemy is the ‘Black Spider Legion’! Two hundred heavy siege units and nine hundred close-range assault units! This forward base is about to fall!”

“Ubb, ubber, ubberber.”

I was so flustered that I couldn’t even speak properly.

The Black Spider Legion was a monster type that appeared in [the game]. They were notorious for tormenting players from the mid-game onwards.

Lucas growled as he looked over the wall.

“But they don’t operate at sunset! The sun will set in 30 minutes! So I told you several times to stay inside the base building…!”

It seemed that the barrage of explosions was the Black Spider Legion’s siege attack.

Bang! Crash! Sparks flew everywhere, and the wall melted. Soldiers fighting on the wall were constantly falling, spraying blood.

“Damn it, this way!”

Lucas almost carried me as he dragged me into the base.

The buildings inside the base were also scorched and broken, but the situation was better than the hell outside.

Lucas gently put me down inside and shouted.

“Stay here until sunset! Don’t come out no matter what! Got it?”

“Uh, uh, okay…”

Then, without thinking, I said,

“Thank you, Lucas…”

“…?”

Lucas glanced at me, looking puzzled, then ran back towards the wall.

What’s with him? Is it so bad that I’m thanking him? What kind of relationship do I have with that guy?

“Uhm.”

I stretched my stiff back from rolling around and looked around. I needed to figure out the current situation.

“Ugh…”

“It hurts, it hurts so much…”

The base building was full of wounded soldiers.

The soldiers groaned, their bodies wrapped in blood-soaked bandages. They writhed in fear whenever they heard the monsters’ cries from outside.

But there was something the soldiers feared more than the monsters.

“Eek?!”

“Y-Your Highness?!”

…It was me.

As I approached the injured soldiers, they all flinched and pressed themselves against the floor.

“We’re sorry! We’re sorry! We have nothing to say!”

“We’re the ones who deserve to die for resting with such minor injuries! We’ll go back out and fight, so please, just spare us from execution!”

What?

Execution?

No, what kind of scary thing are you talking about? I frantically waved my hands.

“No, I just thought you looked hurt, so I was going to help…”

“Are you saying you’ll kill us to make us comfortable?!”

“These injuries are nothing! We’ll return to the front lines immediately! Uwaaaah!”

Before I could say anything, the soldiers dragged their injured bodies and ran towards the wall.

“…”

I stared blankly at the empty interior of the building.

“…What is going on?”

Okay, let’s stay calm. I don’t know if this is a dream or reality, but let’s stay calm.

There was a chair in the empty room. I sat down roughly and rubbed my aching forehead. I needed to sort out the situation.

‘First of all, even though it sounds absurd.’

This is inside the world of [the game].

Yes, the very game I just finished on the highest difficulty.

Lucas, the main character, is here, and so is the Black Spider Legion, a representative monster species. It’s almost certain.

I don’t know why I came here, but that’s the result.

‘Then, who is the current ‘me’?’

I’m not the ‘old game enthusiast’ who made a living streaming games in reality. That’s because.

“Are you feeling better, Your Highness?”

The people here all call me that.

Lucas, who had poked his head in from outside, asked me. I nodded weakly.

“Uh, yeah. I think I’m okay…”

“Sunset has begun. The Black Spider Legion has also started to retreat. They’re likely to set up a siege line soon.”

Lucas wiped the blood from his cheek with his hand and sighed.

“We somehow survived today. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow…”

I glanced at Lucas’s face.

It was strange and unfamiliar to see the guy who was in my monitor just a little while ago now standing in front of me.

But right now, there’s something more important than looking at some guy’s face. I slowly got up from the chair.

“Lucas, what about the wounded soldiers?”

“Yes?”

“I mean the wounded soldiers who were in this room. They ran away in terror when I came in. Where are they now?”

“I wondered what was going on when the wounded soldiers rushed out… They’re all on the wall now.”

Immediately, Lucas’s face turned pale.

“Your Highness. Did the soldiers perhaps offend you?”

“Huh? It’s not that.”

“Please forgive them. Every soldier who can hold a weapon is important right now. There’s a limit to maintaining morale by executing them…”

“No, I’m not executing them! I said I’m not killing them! Why is everyone like this? Do I look like a crazy, murderous maniac who sees human lives as bugs?!”

Lucas’s eyes widened at my words. It was as if he was saying, ‘Now you know?’

I broke out in a cold sweat. Is it true? Is it really true? Am I that kind of person? Am I a monster who beheads innocent subordinates just because I’m in a bad mood?

“Th-that’s it. I really won’t touch them… Tell them all to come back and rest here.”

Lucas asked, as if he couldn’t understand.

“Yes?”

“The sun is setting, right? It’ll get cold soon. Light the stove here and let the injured rest. They need to recover to fight tomorrow.”

“Uh… yes…”

“And you, let’s talk.”

As I said that and stepped outside, Lucas asked in a trembling voice.

“Your Highness, perhaps.”

“Yeah?”

“Instead of saving the soldiers, are you going to kill me?”

“No, I’m not killing anyone!”

What the hell kind of person was ‘I’ supposed to be!

***

The wind blowing over the wall was cold.

The wind that whipped my face was the wind of winter.

And it was the wind of night. It was natural that it was cold, but there was another reason.

“…”

I slowly looked around.

Death.

Death was everywhere. The ground below the wall was full of monster corpses, and the wall was full of human corpses.

Death emanated a coldness. A much more severe chill than winter or night.

“Lucas. What time is it, and where is this?”

I stood at the edge of the wall, barely holding back my nausea from the smell of blood, and managed to ask.

Lucas, standing behind me, was puzzled by my question, but he answered clearly.

“It’s the last day of February in the Imperial Year 649. This is the forward base of the fortress city of Crossroads.”

“…Then tomorrow will be March 1st, 649.”

“That’s correct.”

I gritted my teeth.

March 1st, 649 in the Imperial Calendar. The forward base of the monster front.

It was a very familiar time, and a very familiar place.

It had to be. In the past half-year of playing [the game], I had to play this ‘tutorial’ time and place hundreds of times.

‘No wonder the situation felt familiar…’

I cleared [the game] on hell difficulty with ironman mode.

Ironman mode requires you to play the game with only one save slot.

And the game forcibly overwrites the progress in that slot. It means that save-scumming is impossible [save-scumming is a gaming term for repeatedly saving and reloading to get a desired outcome].

But what if the overall situation of the game becomes so bad that it’s impossible to clear?

You have no choice but to give up the current game and start over from the beginning.

Viewers called restarting the game from the beginning ‘new earth’ or ‘new empire’. I kept track of how many times I had restarted with numbers.

And the game I cleared was the 742nd earth.

That means I failed 741 times, and I played this tutorial map 742 times. I couldn’t help but know the tutorial well.

‘Tomorrow is the prologue of [the game]. The tutorial stage begins.’

The tutorial is simple.

It explains the world, teaches the controls and game system, and…

Everyone except Lucas dies.

“…”

I had forgotten the story because I had skipped it hundreds of times, but once I recalled it, it came back to me smoothly.

At the same time, I also knew who ‘I’ was.

“It’s ‘Ash’.”

“Yes?”

“My name. Ash. Ash ‘Bonehater’ Everblack.”

Lucas looked at me as if I was stating the obvious, but I was serious. I gritted my teeth and tore at my hair.

“Why, why does it have to be this bastard?!”

The empire’s crazy psycho third prince.

The worst commander who recklessly brought most of the fortress city’s forces to the forward base and annihilated them.

And the character who meets the most terrible end in the tutorial.

Ash ‘Bonehater’ Everblack.

A minor extra character who dies as soon as he appears, with no significance in the main game.

‘It’s already absurd that I’ve been dragged into the game world, but why did it have to be this kind of guy?’

That was the moment I realized ‘my’ identity.

Ding!

A cheap, familiar sound effect rang in my ears, and a transparent window appeared in front of my eyes.

[STAGE 0]

– Objective: Survive the monster attack

– Reward: ???

It was a system window I had seen many times before.

Yes, it was the same interface as the game I had been playing just a little while ago.

“…”

Only then did I realize for sure.

I had really entered the game world,

And this game was a very shitty game.

“Um, Your Highness. Are you alright?”

Lucas looked at me with concern as I stared blankly into space with hollow eyes.

“…Lucas.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I stiffly turned my head towards Lucas and whispered quietly.

It was a word filled with passion, sincerity, and truth.

“I’m fucked, shit.”