I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 401

Swish, swish, swish!

The rowboat we were on slid along the stagnant water and plunged into the sewer.

Staggering on the boat, I looked back at the lower town.

“Aaaah!”

“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts… !”

“Protect the gold, protect the gold… !”

The scene of the town swept away by Raven’s plague was horrific.

The residents were scratching their diseased skin, and at the same time, they were banging their heads on the ground due to their contaminated minds, their bodies and minds collapsing.

Moreover, it was contagious.

Residents who had not yet been infected rushed to save other residents, but the plague was transmitted through an unknown route, and they were seen collapsing in both body and mind in the same way.

“Tch…”

It was literally a living hell.

But I didn’t have time to worry about them.

《I’ll chase you to the ends of hell, Ash-!》

Because Raven was right behind us.

The Plague Lord, transformed into a mist, was chasing closely behind us.

Just being swept up in his path caused the sewer water to boil with a rotten stench, and the sewer pipes corroded and collapsed.

“If we get caught, it’s over, honey!”

“Don’t worry! Even if he’s a Nightmare Legion Commander…”

Even in this urgent situation, the Sword Demon and Spear Demon calmly rowed the boat forward. The Sword Demon glared at Raven with a fierce gaze as he steered the boat.

“You won’t be able to navigate this underground tunnel faster than me!”

Swish, swish, swish!

In time with the flood, the black rainwater had already filled the sewer and was overflowing.

The rowboat was swept into the huge sewer where the dark torrents swirled.

Like a single leaf floating on a stormy sea, the boat was dangerously unstable.

However, the Sword Demon and Spear Demon skillfully controlled the boat and maintained their balance.

The speed of the swirling rainwater was terrifying. The rowboat, riding the current, moved at an incredible speed.

《I won’t let you go! I won’t let you go! Give it to me! Give me your body, your mind, your soul-!》

Raven, transformed into a mist, let out a grotesque scream and reached out to us.

But the rowboat narrowly avoided his hand, and Mason, seeing his hand inevitably getting too close, raised his huge claws and attacked, offsetting it.

“Are you okay?!”

《I’m… okay.》

Mason’s claws corroded and fell off in pieces. But when Mason exerted his strength again, new claws grew. Being a beast was convenient in this way.

Swish, swish, swish-!

The huge sewer pipes twisted and turned, branching into several paths, then merging into one, forming a maze.

The rowboat continued to twist its path and escape the maze. Raven wasn’t very agile, so he gradually fell behind us.

《Ashhhhh-!》

As we frantically rode the rowboat deep into the sewer, Raven’s voice gradually faded away, and at some point, it became inaudible.

“…Did we shake him off?”

The Sword Demon and Spear Demon didn’t let their guard down and maintained the boat’s speed, but having dealt with Nightmare Legion Commanders for a long time, I felt it instinctively.

We had shaken off Raven’s pursuit.

“Whew…”

Wiping the cold sweat from my forehead, I finally checked on the condition of my party members.

Fortunately, Salome, Mason, and the Sword Demon and Spear Demon were relatively unharmed by the plague.

Thanks to my mental defense passive skill [Unyielding Commander] and the area-of-effect application of the panacea effect, they were able to protect themselves from Raven’s plague.

However, just like how my [Unyielding Commander] was breached a little while ago and I was hit by his mental plague.

They could also be infiltrated by his mind and see terrible hallucinations if they were careless.

Fortunately, my panacea side had a high defense score, so it hadn’t been breached yet, but it was still unstable.

‘It’s not like some kind of Pok*mon, evolving on his own…’

I gritted my teeth, thinking about Raven, who had entered a hidden phase all by himself.

At that moment, the Sword Demon and Spear Demon, who had been silently rowing, opened their mouths.

“It seems like we’ve shaken off the pursuit, so we just need to get to the surface like this.”

“Just sit still. We’ll get out of here quickly.”

Looking at their backs at the bow, I asked hesitantly.

“What about the townspeople?”

Before leaving the lower town, I saw it clearly.

The townspeople were suffering, swept away by Raven’s plague.

What would happen to them?

“…”

The two thugs, who had been silent, reluctantly answered.

“Our townspeople are all cursed with eternal life. We can’t die.”

“So, if the plague doesn’t get better, we’ll have to suffer until the end of the world…”

I was horrified by their indifferent words.

“How can you say that so calmly?!”

“What’s the difference?”

The Sword Demon smirked and turned to look at me.

“Do you think it’s fun and happy to be searching for gold in this place for five hundred years?”

“…”

“It’s the same as surviving in a state worse than death anyway. It’s just one more plague added to it.”

The Spear Demon chimed in.

“You might not know, but we’ve experienced worse than that plague.”

“Worse…?”

“Five hundred years ago, when this Lake Kingdom suddenly sank below the lake. What do you think happened to the people?”

The Spear Demon stared intently at the black water filling the sewer.

“They drowned in the sunken city.”

“…”

“But because everyone was cursed with eternal life, no one could die. They couldn’t breathe, they clutched their painful lungs filled with water, and they suffered endlessly in the water.”

I thought about the scale of the Lake Kingdom I had seen from above before.

It was a huge city-state, almost the size of the imperial capital New Terra.

If such a large city had sunk entirely below the lake, how many people would there be…

“The Demon King offered us a deal in that living hell.”

The Sword Demon continued.

“He said he would let us escape from this painful reality. He said he would let us sleep peacefully. Instead, he said that the nightmares you dream would be his.”

“…”

“The vast majority of the Lake Kingdom’s residents succumbed to the Demon King at that time. And… they were wrapped in black cocoons and fell into beings who dream nightmares for the Demon King.”

The human-shaped black cocoons that I had been seeing since entering the depths of the Lake Kingdom.

They were all… people who once lived in the Lake Kingdom.

“Then, what about the survivors who didn’t become those black cocoons…?”

“They endured. They endured for a hundred years until the water drained from the Lake Kingdom.”

A hundred years.

They endured the pain of drowning and endured for a hundred years?

“We’ve endured a hundred years of drowning. Do you think we’ll succumb to that plague?”

“…”

“We, the immortals, have our own way of living. So, don’t worry about us, and after you get out of here safely… bring back a lot of gold.”

The Sword Demon and Spear Demon began to focus on steering the rowboat again.

“…”

I clenched my fist and looked at their backs, then,

I steeled my heart… and spoke.

“Let’s go back.”

“…?”

“What?”

Everyone sitting in the small boat looked at me. I spoke again with emphasis.

“Let’s go back. Let’s go back and defeat that plague… defeat Raven.”

It was Salome who looked at me with a blank face.

《What nonsense are you talking about, Ash! That guy broke your mental barrier! That wall that even I, the Succubus Queen, couldn’t cross, he crossed it!》

“…”

《It’s not just the mental barrier! That guy’s essence is a plague that rots the body! You’re lucky to have eaten that fruit and gained plague resistance, but if it breaks through here too, you’ll experience the real hell of pain!》

Mason also objected in a hoarse voice.

《I know you’re usually reckless, but this time I can’t understand it even more.》

“…”

《Even if we go back… how are we going to defeat a Plague Legion Commander, who would be difficult even with an army, with just five of us?》

I raised my tired eyes and looked around at the people on the rowboat.

It’s not like I don’t want to run away right now. The illusion I experienced a little while ago was truly terrible.

The deaths of my lost comrades, whom I least wanted to see. If I saw something like that again, my mentality might not be able to handle it.

But I am someone who aims for the true ending. I am a player who has to plan until the end of this game.

‘I have to defeat him here.’

Raven’s plague has evolved in a bizarre direction.

He was already a terrible enemy who would leave permanent injuries on our allies and spread corruption and pollution throughout the city if he invaded Crossroads, but now he has become an even more terrible being that damages even the mind.

If that plague were to leak out of the Lake Kingdom.

Crossroads, no, the whole world… might collapse in an instant.

While he’s still in this Lake Kingdom.

Before he starts to build his forces in earnest, we have to eradicate him.

“…I have a strategy to defeat him.”

Even though he took some strange evolution stone and mutated on his own.

If his essence is the Plague Legion Commander Raven, then I have a way to defeat him. A method of extermination that I established during the game.

“Rather, it’s harder if there are too many of us. A small elite group is suitable.”

The more of us there are, the more exponentially the damage from the Plague Legion increases.

As few as possible… no, to be honest.

“…It’s ideal to form a party with expendables who don’t mind being infected with the plague.”

I spoke honestly and looked around at my party members.

Immortals who cannot die, the Sword Demon and Spear Demon.

A half-human, half-beast on the verge of death, Mason.

Salome, who I have to defeat anyway… she’ll probably run away with [Reality Escape] if things get tough.

With this party composition, I can mobilize them for the Raven extermination operation without guilt.

I was being blunt – that I was going to throw you all into a suicide mission.

Salome, who had been listening quietly, looked at me with trembling eyes.

《We’re fine, but what about you, Ash…?》

“…”

I sighed and nodded.

“Raven’s plague has the characteristic of disappearing completely when Raven is defeated.”

The damage already done cannot be recovered, but his plague itself disappears. No matter how widespread it is, it loses its source and power and disappears.

“That’s probably because the basis of the plague is Raven’s malice.”

《…》

“So, if I kill him before I die, it’s fine.”

Salome seemed to be at a loss for words, but I turned my gaze away.

The Sword Demon and Spear Demon, who had stopped the boat, were glaring at me with fierce eyes.

“You’re a very funny guest.”

“Why do you think we’ll follow your orders?”

I silently took out a piece of paper from my pocket and shook it.

It was the contract we had written and shared with each other back then.

– The Castaway Wanderers will help Ash until he escapes the dungeon. If Ash escapes the dungeon, he will pay half of his assets to the Castaway Wanderers.

That’s right.

It’s not about helping him ‘escape’. It’s about helping him ‘until he escapes’.

No matter what I order. No matter what I do. They have to help me.

“You see the fingerprints here, right? You two have to cooperate with me until I escape.”

“What is this?!”

“This son of a… !”

The Sword Demon and Spear Demon, who had quickly checked their own contracts, grabbed the back of their heads as if they had been hit.

I looked at them quietly and opened my mouth.

“When the Lake Kingdom sank, the other survivors gave up on reality. They chose to escape into nightmares rather than suffer eternal pain while alive.”

“…”

“But you people in the lower town chose a reality more terrible than nightmares. Why?”

The Sword Demon and Spear Demon, who were mumbling, exchanged glances, then,

“…Because we wanted to be.”

“Because we wanted to be human.”

They crumpled the contract and put it back in their pockets.

“That’s why we’ve been collecting gold our whole lives.”

“Dreaming nightmares for the Demon King in a cocoon wasn’t our dream.”

“It’s the same for me.”

I nodded.

“I still want to remain human.”

A little while ago. When I looked back at the lower town for the last time.

I made eye contact with the little older brother who shared the fruit with me.

He quietly waved his hand at me when our eyes met.

His whole body was dyed red, and even as he was being consumed by the plague… as if he was saying goodbye to a departing friend. With a peaceful face.

…If I don’t defeat Raven in time.

The townspeople, and that little boy, might writhe in pain for the next few hundred years, their minds and bodies eaten away by the plague.

“Hoo.”

I exhaled and slowly got up.

I am afraid.

The nightmare that Raven showed me.

All the people I killed. This guilt that weighs on my shoulders.

But, however – I know something more frightening.

– Bro!

I could have saved them.

I could have reached out my hand.

The small lives that I turned away from and ignored.

I know painfully that the regret of losing an opportunity after not fighting is greater than the regret of fighting and losing.

‘I want to save them.’

The people within my reach.

Still, I want to save them.

So. Even if this fight is long, terrible, and painful-

I will not back down.

“Let’s go.”

Straightening my body, straightening my back.

Gathering all the courage I had left, no matter how much was left.

I said.

“…To kill the monster and protect the people.”

Hoping that the flag I had once abandoned was still inside me.