I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 38

On a low hill far to the southeast of the Crossroad’s walls, an old man on horseback silently observed the defense battle.

It was Count Charles Cross.

“……”

As a commander who had fought and defended against monsters his entire life, he could tell right away that this monster invasion was different.

It was completely unlike anything he had experienced when he was the lord. Not only was the scale enormous, but the composition of the monsters was also different. Instead of a chaotic mix, a unified army had appeared.

‘Something’s off.’

And that wasn’t all. When a minstrel appeared by the lake and played a flute, the monsters’ movements completely changed.

‘This is different from the usual monster battles… Is Prince Ash fighting his third battle like this?’

He understood why the newly appointed lord—the youngest prince, Ash—had desperately asked him for help.

Even if Count Cross hadn’t resigned and remained commander, he would have struggled considerably if the enemies had appeared like this.

Prince Ash was doing an incredible job, far from the image of a layabout who had been playing around in the capital.

However, it was precarious.

‘Should I help?’

The thought came to him without him realizing it.

He saw the armor and weapons he had habitually brought, hanging beside his saddle, a habit ingrained in him over a lifetime.

‘No.’

Count Cross shook his head.

He had already retired. There was no need for him to step in now.

He hated this front line. He loathed this land.

He had dedicated his entire life to it, yet it had taken his wife and caused his daughter to leave. He was sick of this barren, desolate place.

He didn’t want to protect it anymore.

‘I’ll just… die in the orchard.’

Count Cross considered it his atonement.

The last atonement he could make, for abandoning his wife while obsessed with guarding the monster front.

He would die where his wife had taken her last breath.

Count Cross turned his back without looking at the defense battle any longer.

He had come to check because the situation seemed dire, but it was too late now anyway.

What could he possibly do?

‘It’s meaningless, it’s all meaningless….’

Count Cross was about to return to his last home, the orchard.

At that very moment,

Kugwagwagwang-!

A roar echoed.

“……?!”

Startled, he turned back to see the entire wall shaking amidst a cloud of dust, along with the sight of thousands of sewer rats burrowing under the wall.

The screams of humans reached his ears. The count’s eyes trembled.

‘No. No! I won’t fight anymore.’

The count gritted his teeth and stubbornly turned his horse back towards the orchard.

‘I have to go back. To the orchard….’

If the front line were to fall, the entire area would be ravaged by monsters.

His orchard would soon be trampled by the beasts as well.

‘Wait for me, dear.’

At that moment, an image of his wife smiling brightly flashed through Count Cross’s mind.

Her smile as she put a dirt-covered grape into her husband’s mouth, asking, ‘Is it sweet?’

‘This time, I’ll protect you.’

Count Cross thought of his wife’s grave, buried next to the orchard.

He would die there.

Clop, clop, clop….

Leaving the collapsing front line behind, Count Cross headed towards his orchard.

***

Thump, thud…!

The vibrations and explosions subsided.

Barely regaining my composure, I shouted towards the inside of the wall.

“Report the damage to the wall!”

After a moment, the soldiers waiting inside the wall reported.

“It hasn’t been completely breached yet!”

“But it’s only a matter of time! We can hear the rats gnawing at the stones from inside the wall!”

I clicked my tongue and swept my hair back.

“Why are they eating rocks? They should eat something healthier…!”

The fortress wall was made of several layers of stone and iron plates. It wouldn’t break all at once. The problem was that the section that had just been repaired had been easily split by the Ratman Champion’s charge.

Eventually, they would make a hole in the wall.

I covered my face with one hand, lost in thought, and then growled in a suppressed voice.

“…Issue an evacuation order.”

“Huh?”

Lucas, who hadn’t understood, asked back. I snapped sharply.

“Issue an evacuation order for the city! Now!”

“You mean….”

“There’s a high chance the monsters will break through the wall! Don’t get caught up and die, all citizens in the city must evacuate to the north!”

Of course, this was in preparation for the worst-case scenario.

We had to be prepared to stop them all here.

Ding, ding, ding, ding-!

The sound of the emergency bell rang loudly in my ears. It was the sound urging the citizens to evacuate.

Hoping the evacuation would go smoothly, I gave the next order.

“Except for the minimum number of artillerymen and archers to operate the cannons and ballistae [large, ancient crossbows], all personnel capable of melee combat are to go down below the wall.”

I gestured to Lucas.

“Lucas, you command the melee squad. Form a defensive line inside the wall. Stop them with your bodies.”

Lucas looked at me with a worried expression.

“What about Your Highness?”

“I’ll command from above.”

“It’s dangerous, Your Highness!”

Lucas pointed below my feet.

“This is a wall that has already been breached once. It might collapse again. It’s too dangerous!”

Indeed, the wall was visibly shaking.

It was so bad that the soldiers were having trouble fixing the cannons and ballistae and adjusting their aim.

“If we give up the upper defense, are we supposed to stop the remaining fifteen hundred rats with our bare hands?”

There was a chance the wall might collapse further, but we couldn’t give up firing from above.

Without fire support from above, the melee squad would suffer fatal damage, which could lead to the failure of the defense battle.

“…Understood, Your Highness.”

Lucas reluctantly nodded.

“But if the condition of the wall worsens even slightly, you must come down without delay.”

“Of course. Don’t worry and go down quickly.”

Even if the top of the wall was dangerous, could it be as dangerous as the first floor, where they would have to fight the monsters hand-to-hand?

Yet, Lucas kept worrying about me until I urged him, and only then did he run down to the first floor. He was like my mother.

“Jupiter, fight as you see fit, but take out as many of them as possible at once.”

The party members naturally gathered around me. I looked at each of them and gave orders.

“Don’t hold back on your magic. When you have enough to cast lightning, unleash it all.”

“As you command, Your Highness.”

As the situation became urgent, Jupiter’s face also turned serious.

Jupiter quickly grabbed the bright yellow magic in both hands and ran towards the wall.

“Lily. What artifacts are currently operational?”

“Only the speed-enhancing artifact, Haste, is available. The gravity field artifact and the magic amplifier artifact are currently on cooldown. They cannot be used until this battle is over.”

“What about the flamethrower artifact?”

“It has 10 minutes left until recharge.”

“Use Haste on the melee soldiers immediately, and use the flamethrower as soon as it’s recharged.”

“Yes!”

Lily immediately ran off to activate the Haste artifact. I looked at Damian last.

“Damian.”

“…Yes, Your Highness.”

Damian had his head bowed, looking very dejected.

He had failed to shoot the flute-playing man, and he had failed to stop the Ratman Champion.

He probably thought the current situation was his fault.

I gathered my fingers and placed them on Damian’s forehead—

Tap!

I lightly flicked him on the forehead.

“Ouch!”

Damian, whose head had snapped back, looked up at me with tears welling up in his eyes. I grinned.

“You’ve done well enough so far, you little rascal.”

“Y-Your Highness….”

“I won’t blame you for a small mistake or two. So don’t be discouraged.”

A sniper who always hits his target. A de facto cheat character [a character with overpowered abilities]. Just having Damian in my party drastically broadened the range of strategies I could use.

Damian’s existence itself was a blessing to me.

“I gain great strength just from having you here.”

“……!”

“So, I want you to have as much confidence as I have in you.”

I patted Damian’s shoulder harder than usual.

“Let’s overcome this crisis together. Okay?”

“Yes, yes! Your Highness!”

“Good. Damian. The role I’m entrusting to you is… ‘the final line of defense.’”

I swept the wall under my feet with my toe, feeling the faint vibrations.

“The wall being breached is a foregone conclusion. The sewer rats that break through the wall will encounter our melee squad on the first floor.”

“Yes.”

“But the melee squad is human. Not a wall. Inevitably, there will be gaps… meaning, they might miss some sewer rats.”

Damian and I looked at the inside of the wall at the same time.

The peaceful city, with smoke rising from the bakeries.

“If even one of them gets into the city, I don’t know how much damage it will cause. You have to snipe those that get through without missing them.”

After all, the boss monster, the Ratman Champion, was dead. All that was left were about fifteen hundred sewer rats.

Damian could easily take care of any rats that escaped the defensive line.

‘As long as a dozen or so don’t get through at once.’

Damian was an accurate sniper, but his slow speed was a recurring problem.

I needed to find a way to make up for this weakness….

“I understand, Your Highness! I’ll do it!”

Damian, who had answered energetically, raised his crossbow and ran towards the inside of the wall.

That’s it. Now I just had to hope that everyone would carry out their roles well.

“Hoo!”

I took a breath and slapped my cheeks, then tried to look outside the wall, to check if the kill zone had been re-established.

That’s when it happened.

“The wall is breaking! They’re coming in!”

A scream-like shout echoed from inside the wall.

“They’re too fast, damn it…!”

I gritted my teeth and looked inside the wall.

The ground on the first floor, visible in the distance. The wall inside it trembled, then—

Poof-!

Sewer rats burst out along with shattered bricks and dust.

Kilik! Kiririk!

The sewer rats, who had finally made a hole, tried to rush at the humans in front of them, their bodies covered in dust.

Flash!

However, Lucas, who was standing right in front of the hole, beheaded them all.

The toothed sword in Lucas’s hand, the ‘Rat Cutter,’ gleamed eerily.

Lucas, who had cut the sewer rats in half without batting an eye, shouted.

“The passage they’re coming out of is narrow! Don’t panic and take them out one by one!”

“Yes!”

The soldiers responded in unison to Lucas’s command.

But there was something Lucas had overlooked.

The hole was narrow, but the opponents were rats. They squeezed through the narrow hole and kept pouring out.

Moreover, as if they were widening the passage, the number of rats passing through was gradually increasing.

I watched from above, dumbfounded, and grumbled.

“What kind of sewer rats are these? They’re just moles….”

The melee squad had initially managed to stop the rats easily, but as their numbers increased, they began to struggle.

And that wasn’t the end of it.

“Flamethrower artifact! Ready. Activating… Kyaaak?!”

Lily, who was preparing to activate the artifact, screamed. I was startled and ran towards her.

“What’s wrong, Lily!”

“Rats, rats…!”

Several sewer rats had climbed onto the flamethrower artifact.

Several alchemists, who had been bitten in the meantime, were bleeding and collapsing on the floor.

I rushed forward and threw a punch.

“It’s the Prince Punch-!”

Thwack!

The moment my fist hit the rat, Lucky Strike activated.

Ding, ding, ding!

The numbers that appeared on the roulette were 0, 1, 5.

15 damage!

It was a tiny number, but it was enough to take down a level 5 sewer rat.

I pulled back my fist and quickly scanned the outside of the wall.

“Did they climb over the wall?!”

I had been so focused on the area where they had made the hole that I had missed it.

Some of the sewer rats were simply climbing over the wall. Some of them had attacked the artifact.

“Eek! Hiyah!”

Lily sprayed flames and burned the remaining sewer rats.

Lily then checked on the injured alchemists and shouted to me.

“They’re not in life-threatening condition! But because the rats attacked the artifact, it needs to be readjusted to activate…!”

“Do it as quickly as possible! We don’t have time.”

Since all the soldiers who were supposed to keep the rats from climbing the wall had gone to the first floor, the number of rats climbing over the wall was gradually increasing.

Inevitably, even the artillerymen and archers who had been waiting on the wall had to draw their weapons and fight them.

“Kkyaaaak!”

“My hand, my hand!”

Injured people also began to appear on the melee squad side, which was blocking the first floor.

If the ranged attack squad could properly attack the sewer rats that were breaking through to the melee squad, the melee squad’s defense burden would be reduced, and they would be able to stop the enemies more easily.

But now, both sides were just suffering damage as they tried to stop the pouring sewer rats with their bodies.

‘At this rate…!’

In front of Jupiter, who was panting as he prepared his next spell, I kept swinging Lucky Strike.

Damian was also busy firing his crossbow here and there beside me, but he was slow.

‘At this rate, the damage will really be out of control…!’

The worst-case scenario was naturally playing out in my head. I racked my brain to find a solution. Damn it, isn’t there anything?!?

That’s when it happened.

An old soldier, who was cutting the throats of sewer rats with a dagger on the wall, suddenly widened his eyes.

He was a veteran soldier who had been under the Count’s command.

He looked at the southern field as if he had seen a ghost, and then muttered softly.

“Count…?”

“…What?”

I looked in that direction too, and soon I could see it.

Clop, clop, clop-!

Far outside the wall, the sight of an old lancer in rusty armor, galloping towards us.