I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 459

“Let’s organize the mission we’ve been assigned.”

The five gamblers put their heads together, deep in thought.

“We need to open the ‘back doors’ throughout the Imperial Capital and help the citizens escape. That’s our mission.”

“But we’re facing a hurdle right from the start.”

“Even if we manage to open the back doors, the citizens are all out of it. I don’t know if things will go smoothly like this…”

After a moment of contemplation, Violet spoke up.

“We’ll move separately.”

The others looked at Violet. Her face was tense, but she gave the order.

“Each of us will move to the next ‘back door,’ wake up the people in the area from their hypnosis, and guide them out of the Imperial Capital. This is the fastest way to accomplish our mission.”

In addition to their original mission, they now had the sudden additional task of breaking the citizens out of their hypnosis.

To complete the operation within the allotted time, they had to move more efficiently—in other words, push themselves harder.

“Each of us to five different places…?”

“It’s certainly efficient, but…”

“Can we really do this?”

They all lacked confidence, and the one who lacked it the most was Violet herself. But.

“There’s no need to overthink it.”

Violet pretended to be tough.

“Have we ever played cards when we had a 100% chance of winning? No, right?”

At least this time, there was a basis. There was a clear goal. This alone made calculating the odds easier.

In the end, everyone agreed, and the five of them finally found the most effective way to break the hypnosis.

After testing, they found that the mind-reading perfumer Orange’s mind-reading perfume was the fastest way to break the hypnosis.

Orange took out all the orange tea she had and distributed it to her companions.

“It took me so much effort to make this much…”

“I’ll buy you a lot of oranges later, so you can make more then. Just give it to us quickly, sis.”

After sharing the mind-reading perfume, the five gamblers exchanged glances and then parted ways towards their respective destinations.

“Let’s finish this quickly and go get our money safely.”

“Everyone, be careful!”

“Don’t push yourselves too hard! Our lives come first!”

After watching her fellow gamblers head towards their assigned mission destinations, Violet turned around.

“Ugh… ugh…”

“Where… where am I…?”

“How many days have we been asleep?”

“Are we still alive…?”

The people who had been hypnotized began to wake up one by one.

Violet yelled at these citizens.

“Wake up your families and escape out of the Imperial Capital through the back doors, you morons!”

Violet waved her hand at the citizens who were looking at her with blank eyes.

“Don’t melt and die trying to get some crazy eternal life, hurry up!”

***

The gamblers, scattered in five directions, headed to the ‘back doors’ of the back alley organizations they each had connections with.

The Imperial Capital New Terra was a vast and old city, and even the imperial family couldn’t control all of these hidden back doors.

The five gamblers went around the outskirts, waking up the hypnotized people.

The people who had been asleep, brainwashed by Fernandes’ dream, gradually regained their senses.

“Escape quickly!”

“There’s no time! Fernandes is planning to kill us all!”

There were still many who believed that the Imperial Capital was safe and wanted to board the ark led by Fernandes.

But there were far more who were fed up with the series of events.

“We have to escape!”

The man who first woke up in the slums found his wife and woke her up, and the people who had been asleep began to wake up one by one like dominoes.

“We’ll all die if we stay in this city!”

“Let’s just grab our emergency funds and valuables…”

“Is money the problem now?! We need to get out of here first!”

The streets became a mess.

The people who had woken up from their hypnosis broke down the boards blocking the doors, rushed out, broke down the boards of the next house, and woke up the people inside.

People escaping, people leaving the city, thugs trying to collect passage fees at the back doors, burly men fighting with those thugs, and people stealing from other people’s houses in the chaos…

“Lord Fernandes will take us to paradise on the ark.”

Even those who were praying while looking at the Imperial Palace, without any intention of escaping.

“We are the chosen citizens of the Imperial Capital… with Lord Fernandes…”

The chaos spread throughout the city.

Fernandes’ hypnosis magic had a structure that linked the minds of the citizens together and brainwashed them simultaneously.

This kind of linked structure was essential to cast magic on a huge number of people at the same time.

Therefore, as a small number of people began to wake up from their hypnosis, everyone’s hypnosis began to break simultaneously and in a chain reaction.

Here, where the awakened people were fighting and cooperating with each other, desperately trying to escape from the Imperial Capital.

“Stop-!”

The Aegis Special Forces appeared.

Aegis Special Forces members appeared at each back door where citizens were crowding to escape, causing bottlenecks, and raised their weapons.

“Didn’t I tell you to stop!”

“Anyone trying to escape the Imperial Capital through unauthorized routes will be summarily judged!”

Clank! Clank!

The Special Forces members who had rushed in aimed their crossbows and magic rifles forward.

“Can’t you hear us?!”

“Go back to your homes! Now!”

“This is an imperial order! We will shoot if you ignore the warning!”

A fierce silence descended.

The stopped citizens glared at the Aegis Special Forces with eyes burning with anger.

However, the Special Forces members were sweating cold sweat on their backs, but they did not back down even a step.

After a few seconds of that strange standoff, as some of the citizens, dissatisfied, tried to move towards the Special Forces members-

“I told you to go home! Are you resisting!”

One of the Special Forces members fired into the air in annoyance. Bang-!

At the same time,

“Aaaah!”

A shrill scream was heard.

The citizens and the Special Forces members were surprised and looked in that direction.

A girl in a red cloak was lying on the ground with a scream. Red blood was seeping from the chest of the girl she was clutching.

“Did they shoot…?”

The citizens looked at the Aegis Special Forces with shocked eyes.

“Just now, they shot… this child?”

Anger surged like wildfire among the people.

The flustered Aegis Special Forces members flinched and stepped back.

“N-no, I clearly shot into the air…”

“You bastards!”

“Did the Emperor order you to shoot and kill a child too?!”

“Shoot us too, you motherfuckers!”

The enraged citizens rushed in, and the Aegis Special Forces had to flee from the wave of citizens.

In the midst of this chaos, the red-cloaked girl who had been shot slowly stood up without a sound.

“Easy, easy.”

The con artist girl, Scarlet, who had spread red paint on her chest and pretended to be shot, stuck out her tongue slightly and disappeared into the crowd.

Similar things happened at other back doors.

“What is this, a doll…?”

“That’s a fake! Look ahead!”

“Aaaah!”

The citizens attacked the Aegis Special Forces, whose attention was drawn to the dolls that suddenly rushed in from behind. It was Cobalt’s puppetry.

Lime used her clairvoyance to find the weak points of the bridge the Special Forces were standing on and collapsed it.

Orange used her mind-reading to persuade the Aegis Special Forces to surrender instead.

Finally, Violet,

“Uwaaa! Uwaaaah! Your Majesty!”

“Please save me, Your Majesty! Please, just spare my life!”

Using her illusionary domain, she showed the Special Forces the illusions they feared most in their hearts.

‘I don’t know why everyone is most afraid of Fernandes.’

The beings that the Special Forces members feared deep in their hearts were none other than Fernandes.

Inside the illusionary domain, the Special Forces members all rolled on the floor, begging Fernandes for forgiveness.

It was a bit eerie, but the operation was a success anyway.

The Gamble Club had subdued the Special Forces in all five locations, and the citizens began to escape smoothly again.

Violet, watching this scene, breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that she had completed her mission-

“You’ve made quite a mess, you rat.”

A voice suddenly came from the sky.

“?!”

At the same time as Violet turned around in shock, Reina fell from the sky, creating a gust of wind.

While observing the situation from the airship Alcatraz, she had discovered Violet, who was emitting an unusual amount of magical power, and had descended in person to capture her.

Thud!

“Kuhuk?!”

Reina, who had fallen, crushed Violet and slammed her into the ground.

Reina grabbed the back of Violet’s head with her gloved hand as she lay face down and growled.

“Are you a rat planted by Prince Ash? Judging by your clothes, you’re a remnant of the 1st Legion. So, is that Metallic bastard involved too?”

“…”

“You’re only doing sneaky things. Evacuating the citizens. You must believe you’re doing something righteous, right?”

“Righteous…? Who cares about that.”

A sneer formed on Violet’s lips.

“We street rats always want the same thing. To eat our fill today and sleep happily. Eternal life? I wouldn’t take it even if you gave it to me.”

“A rat is a rat. You don’t even seem to understand His Majesty’s cause.”

“Cause or whatever, I just don’t want to be sacrificed to the whims of some high-ranking person I can’t understand.”

Reina, realizing that further conversation was pointless, yelled.

“What exactly is Prince Ash planning?”

“If I were important enough to know that, would I be sent on a suicide mission like this…?”

“Answer me! What is Prince Ash’s goal!”

Reina pressed the back of Violet’s head harder against the ground. Violet, groaning in pain, chuckled.

“Why do all you suckers have the same pattern?”

“What?”

“You always get fleeced until you’re broke, and then you start yelling and getting angry. Even after you’ve been sucked dry until there’s no dust left.”

“…”

“Prince Ash’s goal? What are you going to do with it now?”

Reina’s brow furrowed roughly. Violet giggled.

“The game’s already over, you idiot.”

***

The Imperial Capital New Terra is a port city.

The center of global trade and logistics, touching the inland sea of the continent.

The port of this city reaches deep into the heart of the Imperial Capital.

In other words, if you can move through the sea, you can easily move to the center of the Imperial Capital.

Of course, the sea route to the port has been blocked for a long time. It is naturally impossible to approach by conventional means.

But here,

Bubbling…

There are merfolk.

Whoosh…!

Creating rough foam, right in front of the port inside the city—we rose up.

Through the power of the Merfolk King, King Poseidon, we, the infiltration team, moved through the sea and came here using bubble submersion.

‘If there are airships, why wouldn’t there be submarines?’

I smiled as I stepped onto the port, shaking off the huge bubble.

“Wow~ It’s been a while here.”

The Winter Silver Merchant Guild building was also visible not far away. I took a deep breath and smelled the air of the Imperial Capital. It was still the same annoying smell of my hometown that I couldn’t get used to.

“It seems the operation went well as planned. There’s no defense here at all.”

That’s right.

All the operations we’ve carried out so far were all tricks. A smokescreen to cover our true intentions.

The main force that was walled off, the airship Geronimo that drew attention in the sky, and the fake key gamblers who infiltrated and caused the citizens’ chaos-

All of them were fakes.

It was a ruse to lure out the enemy.

Our main force heading to the Imperial Capital is approaching from the sea.

Fernandes’ army was lured out of the Imperial Capital by the main force, the airship fleet was lured out by Geronimo, and the Aegis Special Forces were all deployed to the outskirts of the Imperial Capital by the gamblers.

The navy belonging to the Imperial Capital is only guarding the entrance of the strait from the outer sea to the inner sea.

Now, there is no army of Fernandes to stop us here.

“It’s just around the corner from here to the Imperial Palace.”

I said, looking at the pointed roof of the Thorn Palace not far away.

“Let’s go in one go.”

“But Captain, isn’t it a bit far to walk?” Kuilan asked, puzzled, so I silently raised my hand.

“Don’t worry. I brought a car.”

I was wearing a ring that I had obtained from a box opening a while ago.

“And while we’re at it, let’s show these people a little taste of how scary a monster invasion can be.”

I said, focusing my consciousness on the ring.

“Summon!”

The name of that monster.

“Kraken!”

Flash!

The [Kraken’s Ring] on my hand emitted a dark blue light, and the next moment.

Kuoohhhhh!

It summoned a monstrously huge cephalopod monster.

The strongest squid… no, octopus? Anyway, a monster was summoned, and the control was passed to me.

“…”

“…”

“…”

My heroes were dumbfounded, their mouths agape, as if they were amazed. I just grinned and climbed onto the wriggling body of this monster.

“Okay~ then, let’s go to the Empire’s main base, and run down the mid lane with excitement.”

“On this monster?!”

“Do you think you’ll ever get to ride a sea monster and cross the Empire’s capital twice in your life? It’s something you can’t do even if you pay for it. Stop complaining and get on quickly!”

The Kraken stretched out its legs and forcibly grabbed my heroes, who were clearly reluctant. They all screamed and were forced to sit next to me.

“Okay, let’s go~!”

To summon a monster and run through the main street of the country where I was born.

Even I think I’m pretty good at trolling.

‘That’s because, from the beginning, Kim Ash was a specialist in this…!’

The Kraken stretched out its long legs in all directions, tearing up all the beautifully paved sidewalks of the Imperial Capital, and ran towards the Imperial Palace.

Yahoo, this is fun!