I Became The Tyrant Of A Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 225

– Are you just going to sit there, hunched over, waiting to die?

Ash said that, standing in front of him.

Damian realized.

This was, his memory.

– So? Are you going to give up and just wait to die?

But… when?

– I will fight! I will scheme and struggle until the very last moment!

When did they have this conversation?

– If you want to die so badly! Then stab yourself in the neck with this sword right now.

The memory,

– But if you’re a coward who doesn’t have the courage to do that, Damian.

The memory, blocked by something…

Thud!

Then, Ban rushed over and hugged Damian tightly.

“Don’t listen, Damian!”

Ban covered Damian’s ears with her wrinkled, trembling hands.

“You’re just tired and worn out right now. That’s why you’re hearing things. It’s okay. I’m here.”

“……”

“I’ll grow old and die with you. Forever, always, I’ll be with you. So-”

Damian looked at Ban, then shifted his gaze to Ash.

– My……

Ash was smiling and saying something.

His voice was blocked by Ban’s hands, but the shape of his lips at that moment was clearly visible.

– ……become the trigger.

The trigger?

Damian blinked blankly.

The trigger, as in the device that fires a gun?

But he had never held a gun in his entire life…

“Huh?”

Damian looked down at his hands.

In his wrinkled, thin old hands, he was holding a blurry, long rifle-shaped object.

It felt so familiar, as if he had been handling it for a long time.

Damian looked ahead again.

Ash was already gone. The grandchildren who had come with his son had also disappeared like a mirage.

Stagger!

Damian left the bed as if he were possessed.

His old legs, weakened by illness, gave way. A sharp pain shot through his deeply bent back. It had been a long time since he had become unable to move without a wheelchair.

But Damian used the rifle in his hand as a cane, pushing himself off the ground, and finally got out of bed.

“No, honey!”

Ban screamed and tried to stop Damian, but Damian shook off Ban’s hand and stood up.

And the moment he stepped out of his room,

Whirr…

With the sound of sand being swept away by waves, the world began to crumble.

The mansion where he had spent his old age was being dismantled from the ceiling and soaring into the sky as if swept away by a storm.

Damian stood at the entrance of the collapsing mansion, looking down at the cityscape where he had lived his entire life.

The world was breaking apart.

It was collapsing like puzzle pieces, sinking into the ground and curling up into the sky.

Only then did Damian realize.

I see.

This place was, a dream.

“No.”

Then, a voice came from behind. Damian turned around.

“You can’t go, Damian.”

Ban was standing there.

Wrinkled and covered in age spots, but still the most beautiful face in the world to Damian. Ban was crying.

“You were the one who said we shouldn’t go on adventures, Damian!”

“……”

“Don’t go back. There’s only sadness and pain there.”

“……”

“Hell is waiting for you! Damian, please!”

Then, Damian smiled faintly with his wrinkled lips.

“I’m sorry, Ban. It was my dream to grow old and die peacefully with you like this… but I can’t.”

“Why?! It was your dream. Here, you can live as you dreamed, as you wanted. But why!”

“Because I remembered the last words you left behind.”

Ban’s last words.

– Don’t forget our promise back then.

The dawn of the day they escaped the orphanage.

The promise they made with their first kiss.

“To adventure through the whole world. To capture the entire vast world in our eyes.”

He remembers.

Of course, he remembers.

“Life here is happy, but the real you didn’t want to live like this.”

“……”

“So, I have to go.”

Staggering, he used the rifle to support himself on the floor.

“Because I promised you.”

The old Damian began to walk forward.

Into the collapsing world, without hesitation.

Whirr…!

Around Damian, who was walking along the center of the city, fragments of the collapsing world scattered like dust.

The theater where he and Ban used to hold hands and go in and out.

The regular restaurant where he never got to try all the menu items, the trading company building where he worked his entire life.

The park where they came for picnics every weekend, the square where he knelt and proposed on the autumn festival day, the basement room where they started their newlywed life…

All of them disappeared into dust.

Each time, the old Damian became younger.

The tall, faded stairs that led to the door of the basement house.

The cups the couple used together, the vase where Ban put flowers every Monday, the lines they drew on the wall every time their son grew taller, the bed where they lay holding hands and whispering love…

The memories,

Disappear.

Evaporate without a trace.

Now, the younger Damian did not cry.

He crushed the happy dream without hesitation, somehow holding back his tears. He walked without stopping.

***

When Damian came to his senses, it was the dawn of the day they escaped the orphanage.

The younger Damian and Ban were standing on the top of the mountain again.

“Don’t go… you can’t go…”

Ban was covering her face with both hands and crying.

“Ban.”

Damian looked at the girl he loved and spoke softly.

“After this, we’ll become mercenaries. It was one of the few things we could do without any resources, but it also suited our goal of wandering the world and adventuring.”

“……”

“You have an outstanding talent as a swordsman and are quickly recognized. I’m lacking, but as a healing priest, I’ll partner with you.”

“……”

“We go through all sorts of hardships. Adults look down on us because we’re young, we get cheated out of money, we almost die several times, we get hurt, we get sick, we get wounded and cry…”

Ban looked at Damian quietly with tearful eyes. Damian smiled bitterly.

“After about three years of going through hell, when we’re finally starting to get a foothold, in the year we turn eighteen.”

Damian’s eyes trembled as he recalled the painful memory.

“At the southern advance base of Crossroads, while fighting surrounded by a swarm of black spiders… you get stabbed by a black spider’s claw and die.”

With a voice that sounded like he was about to vomit blood, Damian barely managed to say.

“After saving me, instead.”

“…Are you really going back to such a painful reality?”

Ban cried, sobbing.

“If you leave this dream, a terrible hell awaits you! A living hell full of monsters and death! Do you really want to go back there?”

“…The three years I lived as a mercenary with you were suffocatingly difficult.”

Was it just the three years as a mercenary?

The orphanage in his childhood was just as painful.

“As you said, this world was always like hell.”

Not even once.

This world was never not hell.

“…But Ban, you smiled.”

Damian recalled how his partner had lived.

Always, in any worst-case scenario.

Even when she was taking her last breath.

Ban smiled.

“With bravado. ‘Heh heh,’ you would laugh. You would laugh strangely. Even on the most terrible days, you would laugh like that.”

Without turning away from the terrible reality, instead, she laughed it off with bravado.

Ban did not run away and lived facing this hell.

“So I could smile too. Because you were putting on a brave face, I could breathe.”

Damian looked like he was about to cry at any moment,

“I liked that about you, Ban.”

But he didn’t cry, and he smiled with difficulty.

“…That you saved me and died. My life was given to me by you.”

Ban stared blankly at Damian.

“I can’t undo your sacrifice, you who died for me. My life is tied to my promise with you.”

Damian clenched his trembling hand into a fist.

“I was happy while I was running away… but breaking my promise with you is more painful than that happiness.”

“……”

“I will adventure to the end of this hellish world. No matter how terrible and painful it is, I won’t run away anymore.”

Damian reached out and grabbed Ban’s shoulders,

Then slowly pulled her into his arms.

“I’ll be back, Ban. From the end of the world.”

“……”

“I’ll continue the adventure we started together, even if I have to do it alone.”

Ban’s body began to glow white.

Damian hugged the feather-like girl even tighter.

“I loved you, truly.”

Trying to remember the precious feeling that he would never be able to hold again.

“Goodbye.”

Was it an illusion?

It seemed like a streak of pure white smile had flashed across the lips of Ban, who was crying in his arms.

《Okay…》

《You won, Damian.》

It felt like her unique, bravado-filled laughter echoed.

《May luck be with you in your future life.》

《…Nightmare Slayer.》

And in that place, a pure white magic rifle remained.

***

Damian suddenly opened his eyes.

He was on the walls of Crossroads. Damian looked down at what he was holding dearly in his arms.

It was the magic rifle [Black Queen].

But its appearance had completely changed. The pitch-black aura was no longer visible, and the barrel had turned a dazzling white.

Holding the long rifle that seemed to emit light on its own, Damian muttered with a bewildered expression.

“…It feels like I slept for more than 50 years.”

It felt like he had a long, long dream.

He turned to the side and saw Lily, sweating profusely, directing the firing of artifacts. The alchemists and Kureha were assisting her.

Bang! Boom-boom-boom-!

Cannons were firing everywhere. Soldiers were yelling and firing cannons.

Damian, who had raised his upper body, asked in a languid voice.

“How much time has passed?”

Lily glanced back and replied sharply.

“Did you sleep well, Damian?! You’ve been out for an hour!”

An hour.

He had only slept for an hour, but his whole body felt as heavy as if he had been in hibernation for decades. Damian groaned and got up from his spot.

His body was heavy, but his heart was light.

When he fully stood up and looked over the wall, Jormungandr was right in front of him.

It had advanced to within a few tens of meters of the wall.

Kugugugugu-!

The serpent’s massive body pushed itself right up to the wall, and a cloud of dust swirled everywhere.

Bang! Boom-boom-boom!

The soldiers who had formed the final line of defense on the wall were relentlessly firing shells, but they were not inflicting any effective damage on the serpent’s body.

Ash and the party members were working on something above Jormungandr’s head, but they looked frustrated, as if things were not going as planned.

Despair was evident on everyone’s faces.

The soldiers on the wall, and the heroes struggling on the serpent’s body.

Damian, who had been quietly watching this scene, said to Lily.

“I’ll go out. Open the gate.”

“What?”

Lily, shocked by the sudden nonsense, asked back in disbelief.

“Can’t you see the situation?! How can you ask to open the gate in this situation…”

“I’ll stop that snake.”

Click!

Damian, who had readjusted his grip on Black Queen, smiled faintly.

“Please trust me, Lily.”