I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 215

Three raid parties, fifteen people in total.

We finished our preparations before dawn and teleported to the [Lakeside Wharf].

From a vantage point overlooking the black lake, we waited for Jormungandr to appear.

“Hup, hup, hup!”

Next to me, Kellybay was looking down at the lake, stretching his short arms and legs in a peculiar exercise.

It’s… hard to say, but his exercise posture really looks like an old man. Please stop.

“Hey, you should come over here and follow along! If you keep slouching like that, you’ll regret it when you get older!”

“What is with the nagging like a dad… No, don’t pull me!”

So, I was half-forced by Kellybay to come over and do exercises while looking at the lake. Damn it… Hup, hup.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been outside the Lake Kingdom!”

Kellybay clapped his hands in front and behind his body after finishing his exercises.

“Being inside makes you numb to the passage of time.”

“Do you really need to stay in there? Since there’s a teleport gate anyway, I’ll build you a smithy in Crossroads so you can stay outside in the sun and cool breeze.”

I’m trying to suck him dry… No, I made this suggestion out of concern for the old man’s health. Kellybay shook his head.

“There are things I can only do inside. And, those poor friends crawling around down there need a blacksmith too, don’t they?”

I tried to persuade him, but Kellybay covered his ears and wouldn’t listen to me.

Che. Like a dwarf, the old man is stubborn as a mule.

“Hmm….”

Next to us, Reina and the support party were examining the teleport gate.

“There are many fascinating things here, Your Highness. Lost teleportation magic, a dungeon under the lake…”

“There’s an ancient magic kingdom down there, related to the origin of those monsters.”

I gave Reina a smirk.

“I thought the central command knew everything?”

“I was given a brief heads-up when I was dispatched, but I didn’t know there were things here that modern magic couldn’t even touch.”

Reina, who had been pondering with her chin in her hand, looked at me with sparkling eyes.

“Could you take me with you on the next exploration?”

“If the situation allows.”

Magicians are all interested in ancient magic, huh?

But strictly speaking, the support party is just a support party. There’s no need to take friends who will be leaving soon on an exploration to share experience points.

That’s why I intentionally kept Reina’s party away from the dungeon.

‘Still, the next one is the boss stage, 10. To coordinate all the hero characters, it might be good to go on an exploration together and conduct joint training….’

While we were chatting and easing our tension.

Kugugugung-

The ground began to shake.

Everyone instinctively knew the enemy was approaching. I shouted.

“Everyone, prepare!”

Bubbling….

The surface of the black lake churned violently as if hit by a storm, and then.

Swaaaaaa…!

A terrifying spray of water shot up.

From within that spray, the head of a huge snake, shimmering in silver-gray, appeared. I spat out its name.

“Jormungandr…!”

Gooooooo-!

The monster’s yellowish eyes appeared in the air, and the air seemed to boil.

…It’s huge.

It’s an adjective I’ve used many times, but I had to use it again. There was no other word that described it so well.

The head alone, which had barely emerged from the water, seemed to be about the size of a mansion.

What is with this ridiculous size!

‘This is a ‘super-giant’ monster…!’

Seeing it with my own eyes, the impact was on a different level than what I felt in the game.

Is it possible for such a large creature to exist in the world?

Shreeeeeee-

Jormungandr slowly pulled its body out of the lake, exhaling a chilling breath.

The huge silver-gray body, covered with scales the size of small shields, slowly crawled on the ground and finally landed on the shore.

Thud-!

The water from the black lake crashed out in waves.

Standing next to the wharf, we were showered with droplets of water like a downpour.

“……Seeing it with my own eyes, it’s ridiculously huge.”

Even while being drenched, Evangeline was stiff.

“Can we really… defeat such a monster?”

“We have to defeat it.”

I said calmly.

“If we fail, the monster front will be over, and the world will perish.”

Looking back, all the defense battles were like that.

It was a situation where everyone would die if we failed to hold the line. We were always the final defense line of this world.

It’s the same this time. Nothing is different.

Kill the monster.

Save people.

It’s the same thing we’ve always done.

As I spoke calmly, the shoulders of the frozen party members gradually relaxed.

“Get a grip, you ragtag bandits.”

Lukas patted the shoulders of the most frozen Execution Unit.

“Are you already scared? If you’re like that, you’ll really die later. Don’t make me clean up your corpses, get a grip.”

“W-who said I was scared, Sir Knight!”

Despite being over 2 meters tall, Quillan shouted at Lukas’s words, his legs trembling.

“I’m just excited about going snake hunting!”

“You look like it. Weakling.”

“I really am! Damn it, let’s compare our war achievements after this is over!”

“That’s good. It’s a perfect condition to clearly show the difference between you weaklings and me.”

Lukas sneered coldly, and Quillan gritted his teeth.

I smirked, looking at them. Even if it’s just bravado, it’s good to have them fighting spirit now.

‘And, it won’t be as difficult an enemy as I think.’

It’s an irregular monster that makes the ground shake as if there’s an earthquake just by crawling, but.

Actually, in the game, Jormungandr was my favorite boss monster.

Because the strategy was clear.

Its aggression was low too. It just moves north. If you thoroughly perform the part destruction gimmick, it was possible to defeat it before it reached Crossroads.

Moreover, in this stage,

[Dark Event will not be activated in this stage.]

[This is the maximum applicable difficulty. You cannot increase the difficulty any further.]

There’s no damn dark event!

There’s no dark event because it’s the ‘maximum difficulty,’ like with the vampire.

The fact that it’s the maximum difficulty is annoying, but the fact that there’s no dark event means there are no additional variables.

‘A stable strategy is possible.’

I adjusted the grappling hook on my arm and nodded heavily.

The opponent is a monster like a natural disaster.

But it’s doable.

“Alright, it’s time to board!”

Jormungandr’s massive body had already emerged almost halfway from the lake.

Timing it, I shot a grappling hook towards the monster’s body.

“Let’s go-!”

Whirr! Whirrrrr!

Almost simultaneously, fifteen grappling hooks with silver threads were shot towards the monster snake’s body, hooking into its scales.

Ping! Peeing!

The device’s spring wound up, pulling us, and all 15 hero characters flew through the air.

Thud! Thud!

Just as it had landed on the ground.

We also landed on its back.

“It’s… wide.”

Evangeline, who had just crawled onto Jormungandr’s back, exclaimed in admiration.

“Is this how an ant feels when it climbs on my body…?”

Jormungandr’s body was shaped like a cylinder laid on its side and pressed from top and bottom, probably due to its massive mass.

In other words, the upper part was quite flat. We could move around enough.

Evangeline, who was lightly bouncing around on it, tilted her head.

“Isn’t it a dragon, not a snake? At this size?”

“Whether it’s a snake, a dragon, an imugi [a Korean mythical serpent], or an earthworm. Who cares. It’s just our enemy.”

I nodded after confirming that everyone was on board. No one was left behind.

“As instructed beforehand. From here, all three parties head to their respective operation zones.”

There are three neural centers to destroy. There are also three parties deployed.

Each party would take charge of one neural center.

Our main party would take the head, Reina and the support party would take the center, and finally, the Execution Unit would take the tail.

We didn’t land near the head because we didn’t want to unnecessarily provoke it, and the tail was difficult to land on due to its violent movements.

So, we decided to land in the center first and then scatter to our respective operation zones.

“The neural center we need to destroy looks like that.”

I pointed to the center of Jormungandr’s body.

A huge protrusion like a horn was visible in the middle of its back.

One of the three neural centers of Jormungandr.

The part to be destroyed was appetizingly exposed. I gestured towards it and nodded.

“If we attack steadily, we can each destroy it in two to two and a half days.”

It would be a bit difficult for the parties to communicate since the snake’s body was so long.

But I had the system window, which was, in a way, my greatest cheat.

[Jormungandr – Part Destruction Progress]

-First Center: 0%

-Second Center: 0%

-Third Center: 0%

I planned to check the current situation through this, and if the progress of other parties slowed down or stopped, I would move to assess the situation.

‘You invaded the human world, you monster. Then we’ll invade your back.’

I curled up the corners of my mouth and gestured to my party members.

“Okay, then let’s each go to our operation zones….”

The moment I was about to instruct them to move.

Kugwagwagwang!

The vibrations suddenly intensified.

Jormungandr’s entire body, which we were on, shook violently. As if it had crashed into a thick wall.

“What?!”

“Hold on tight!”

All the terrified hero characters crouched down and clung to Jormungandr’s back.

Lukas and Evangeline grabbed me from both sides as I staggered.

Bang! Kugwagwang!

Clumps of dirt poured down from all sides, and the ground cracked with a roar.

‘What’s going on?’

I stretched my neck to look around to assess the situation, and then I realized that Jormungandr was pushing its body into a rugged mountain valley.

‘What? Why is it abandoning the road that was paved to Crossroads and just digging into the mountains?’

I blinked, not understanding, and then I realized the reason.

‘Could it be…!’

This snake monster is moving north honestly.

In other words, it doesn’t use the road that humans made.

It just forges its own path with its massive body, simply advancing due north…!

“This is insane-?!”

Kwagg! Kugwagwagwagwang!

The mountains in Jormungandr’s path collapsed one after another, spewing out piles of dirt.

The trees that had grown tall for at least decades, if not hundreds of years, without being exposed to any external forces, fell in rows.

We screamed silently as we were hit by the pouring dirt and tree debris.

In the face of the roar of the collapsing mountain, the screams of mere humans were not even audible.

A natural disaster.

A snake of this size was literally earth-shattering just by moving.

“Hold on a little longer! We can resume the operation once we get out of the mountain area….”

As I shouted, recalling the map of the area, I saw the snake’s head burrowing under a huge rocky mountain in the distance.

Krrrrrr!

And then the rocky mountain began to collapse.

“……No, you son of a bitch.”

A curse word slipped out of my mouth without me realizing it.

I was a fool to think that I could easily clear it by faithfully following the game’s strategy since there was no dark event.

This was not the top of the castle wall, which could be considered our home ground.

The moment the battlefield moved outside, everything was a variable.

“Even so, this is a bit too much, you snake bastard-!”

Urrrrrr- Kugwagwagwang!

The poured-out rock landslide swept over the snake’s body.

We, who were clinging to the snake’s body, were also swept away by the rain of rocks and dirt.