I Became The Tyrant Of A Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 245

Amazingly, unbelievably, and for some reason!

Both boxes yielded complete equipment pieces.

‘Damn it, I knew it! SSR God!’

As expected, SSR God and I have a great relationship! I should set up a table for ancestral rites later and bow to it.

The SSR-grade box produced SSR-grade equipment, and the SR-grade box produced SR-grade equipment. I like how honest that is.

[Rewards]

– Blink Knife (SSR)

– Armed Assault (SR)

I picked up the Blink Knife first and whistled.

‘Wow, a blink dagger!’

As a weapon, it’s nothing particularly special, but this dagger’s true value lies in its special ability.

After throwing the dagger, it allows the user to teleport to the dagger’s location.

The cooldown is quite long at 5 turns (15 minutes), but giving a character a movement skill is what makes it so overpowered.

The downside is that it’s all about the blink function, so its own performance is poor.

It’s weaker than most R-grade daggers in terms of damage, and its durability is also low. Still, the blink function alone makes it worth using.

‘But who should I give this to… I don’t have a dagger user…’

Should I give it to Elysee, Serenade’s bodyguard? She carries all sorts of weapons in the sword case on her back, and she seems to use daggers too….

‘Ah! Or maybe Verdandi?’

Verdandi is an assassin class, so it would be very suitable and useful for her.

The problem is that she’s not under my command, but a temporarily transferred guest character.

‘…Maybe I should think about it a bit more.’

I tossed the dagger into my inventory for now, and next.

The SR-grade gauntlet, Armed Assault!

In the game, it was usually shortened to AA.

AA is an abbreviation for Armed Assault, but it’s also an abbreviation for Auto-Attack.

It’s a fitting abbreviation for Armed Assault, which is an equipment that enhances normal attacks.

Its performance is simply powerful, adding fixed additional damage to normal attacks.

The value isn’t high, but the fixed damage accumulates as normal attacks accumulate, and fighters are a class that relies heavily on normal attacks.

Moreover, it’s an SR-grade equipment, so it’s relatively easy to farm and you can get multiple copies, so most fighters would equip this.

You could call it a standard equipment.

That was a long explanation, but anyway, there was only one person who would wear this.

‘Quillan, you rascal! How many high-grade equipment pieces are you going to eat!’

His right hand has Lucky Strike (SSR), his legs have the Vampire General’s Boots (SSR), his auxiliary equipment is the Vampire General’s Muffler (SSR), and now his left hand has Armed Assault (SR).

He’s decked out in more expensive gear than most first-stringers. And yet, he’s still so unreliable.

‘Is my investment the right thing to do….’

It feels like I’m constantly buying more shares of a stock that’s plummeting, thinking, ‘It’ll skyrocket someday!’

Anyway, the main party members are mostly equipped, so Quillan is the only character I can pour resources into right now.

‘Please skyrocket, you bandit king bastard….’

Quillan is also about to reach level 50.

I can only hope he gets his ultimate skill and becomes a powerhouse. Please!

***

I woke up after a nap, and it was a little before noon.

I drank a glass of cold water and headed straight to the barracks. I wanted to give the equipment I pulled to Quillan.

When I said I was going to see Quillan, Lucas, who was assigned as my escort, made a subtle expression. What, why?

“No, we did a little training among ourselves last night….”

“Huh? Yesterday? You went on a free exploration and then trained again?”

“Yes. Me, Evangeline, Damian, and Quillan. The four of us.”

“Why do you guys keep grouping up without me?”

If you keep doing this, the prince will be upset. Of course, I have no intention of joining in on nighttime training. I don’t want to sweat!

“It seemed that Quillan had some inner turmoil, so we beat him up thoroughly.”

Lucas muttered, a faint smirk on his lips.

“He might not be able to get up today.”

“What did you do to the poor kid, you jerk….”

And so, the barracks. When I arrived at the penal unit’s quarters, it was true.

“Ughhh… Kkeuek….”

The giant fighter was sprawled out on his bed, groaning. Oh my god.

“What did you do to someone with such weak stamina!”

“When the body is tired, the mind’s turmoil also disappears. I made his body suffer so he wouldn’t have time to worry, so Quillan should be grateful to me.”

Lucas said shamelessly. You’re always so macho when it comes to this kind of thing!

“Ah, Your Highness.”

At that moment, a thin man with a limp came out of the quarters.

He had the same red hair and the same braided hairstyle as Quillan. Was he Quillan’s older brother?

“Oh, so your name is….”

“It’s Kureha, Your Highness,”

Kureha said with a smile, then gestured towards Quillan.

“My brother was training in the training grounds all night… and he’s been groaning ever since. I’m sorry, but I think he’ll be like this all day….”

“Hmm, it can’t be helped. Then, can you give this to him instead?”

I handed Kureha the gauntlet I had pulled this morning.

“It’s a new gauntlet, tell him to wear Lucky Strike on his right hand and this on his left.”

“Understood, Your Highness… then what about the other part?”

Of course, a gauntlet is a pair. Quillan is wearing different equipment on his left and right hands, so one side is left over.

“Tell him to keep it as a spare, like Lucky Strike. He’ll need to replace it if necessary.”

“Understood.”

Kureha carefully placed the equipment on the table and asked me with a smile.

“How about it, you’ve come a long way, would you like to have a meal before you go?”

Looking inside the quarters at those words, I saw a mountain of food being prepared….

The smell was similar to when I visited my grandmother’s house during the holidays.

No, why are they making so much food for lunch? They must have big hands.

“You need to eat well to take care of the city well, right? Oh my, you’re so thin.”

“Me, I’m thin?”

“Yes. You’re just skin and bones….”

I was a little touched by Kureha’s words!

Even at the hot springs a few days ago, I was the most oily one! Even when I ate on camera during my broadcasting days, viewers would tell me to go on a diet! And now someone is telling me I’m thin!

Then Kureha suddenly looked surprised and waved his hand.

“S-Sorry. If someone is younger than me, I treat them like my younger brother… I just try to take care of them without realizing it.”

Damian treated me like his son, and this guy treats me like his younger brother.

As someone who didn’t have any siblings on Earth, I didn’t feel bad about it.

I waved my hand, saying it was okay, then turned to Lucas and nodded.

“Then, shall we accept their lunch offer?”

Lucas nodded vigorously… weren’t you just hungry?

***

It wouldn’t be good to make noise while Quillan was resting, so we moved to the communal kitchen next to the quarters.

“Huh?!”

“Your Highness?!”

Other soldiers who were passing by were startled when they saw me, but I waved my hand calmly. You guys eat and work too.

“Please eat a lot. It’s our tribe’s traditional cuisine.”

Kureha kept bringing out dishes. It was a rather exotic nomadic style of food. Like Mongolian food on Earth?

It looked like a feast, but surprisingly, he feeds his brother like this normally.

“Isn’t my brother a little small and thin? I’ve been making sure he eats well.”

“Small and thin…? Quillan…?”

It sounded like nonsense, but I let it slide. Everyone here on the front lines has a screw loose somewhere. Haha.

Lucas ate well, gobbling it down. He must have been quite hungry after training yesterday.

As we ate and talked, the events that happened during yesterday’s free exploration also came up.

“I see, so that’s what happened….”

Kureha nodded with a stiff face after hearing about the incident with the wolf king Lunared.

The story that the werewolf monster might be an ancestor of Quillan and Kureha’s brothers.

I was going to hide it, but Kureha is also involved, so I just told him.

“Quillan… found out too.”

Somehow, Kureha seemed to already know.

“You knew?”

“……Yes.”

Kureha smiled bitterly and looked down at his right arm.

“That blood is a curse passed down in our clan.”

“A curse…?”

“I’ve been hiding it from my brother. I didn’t know when or how to tell him. But he found out like this.”

Kureha stopped serving food and sat across the table, opening his mouth.

“Your Highness. Do you know how the other races have been living since the collapse of the other races’ nations?”

I put down my utensils with a sullen expression.

100 years ago, the other races and humans fought a war, and humans won.

And the other races became slaves of humans. That’s all I know.

The four major other races. Dwarves. Elves. Mermaids. And Werebeasts.

Kureha explained what happened to each of them.

“The dwarves chose to integrate into human society. Their technology was extremely useful. Thanks to actively interacting and sharing technology, the dwarves are still treated well even after their country was destroyed.”

No wonder the blacksmiths were so subservient when Kellybay entered the smithy. There was this reason too.

“The elves are still maintaining their country, but they are withering away, trapped in autonomous districts.”

The faces of the shadow unit, who were conscripted from the elf autonomous district and used as expendable soldiers, came to mind.

They must be having a hard time too.

“The mermaids… fled. Beyond the eastern sea. To find a new place where they can live.”

The mermaids, who could live in the sea rather than on land, gave up on this continent and left.

All that was left were the mixed-blood descendants between them and humans.

Serenade’s blue hair, mixed with mermaid blood, flashed through my mind. I kind of miss her.

“Finally, our werebeasts originally lived divided into tribes. Although they are grouped as one race called werebeasts, each tribe worships a different god, and the blood they inherit is different.”

It was like that in the game too. There were lions, bears, tigers, and all sorts of different kinds.

At the time, I thought there must be a suspicious furry fetish among the game developers, but it turned out that this world was originally like this.

“After losing the war, some tribes were completely suppressed or destroyed. But our Maple Wolf tribe did not suffer much damage in the war, and we were able to preserve our strength.”

Kureha continued calmly.

“Since our tribe’s homeland was at the edge of the border, other human countries did not try to invade us. So our tribe was able to live peacefully in its own way.”

“Then how did you end up like this… wandering around as bandits?”

It might be a painful question, but I felt like I had to ask. Then the bitter smile on Kureha’s lips deepened.

“Over the past 100 years, the Everblack Empire has been constantly expanding its territory. And finally, its border reached our tribe’s land.”

I swallowed hard.

This damn empire! This damn emperor father! You’re the root of all evil!

“So, is it our country that destroyed your tribe?”

“……My brother, and the survivors of our tribe, believe so. That’s why they all hated the empire. They lived as bandits and fought relentlessly against the imperial army.”

Kureha raised his head and looked at me directly.

“But it’s not.”

“Then?”

“I destroyed it.”

……?

Uh?

I blinked blankly at the sudden confession. What?

Kureha looked down at his right hand and repeated slowly once more.

“I am the one who destroyed our tribe.”

“…….”

“I will tell you everything honestly. That way, no matter what our blood is, I think you will trust my brother.”

Kureha, who was reminiscing to tell me, smiled at me.