I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 536

First, I took Hannibal out of the barracks to separate him from the other old guys.

I squatted down in front of Hannibal, rubbing my throbbing forehead, and asked,

“You said you were fifteen when I hired you.”

Hannibal, who had been glancing at me hesitantly, said in a subdued voice,

“I lied about my age back then… but Kellybay-nim noticed it right away on the day he took me as an assistant.”

I immediately opened the door and yelled at Kellybay inside the barracks.

“Kellybay! Why didn’t you tell me!”

“Huh? You should have screened out his age! Hey! And how many times do I have to say it! Dwarves dig tunnels from the time they’re babies, okay? It’s weird that you’re trying to wait until they’re adults!”

Ugh, seriously, this barbaric… romantic… whatever, it’s like a fantasy world!

I grabbed my hair, sighed, and asked Hannibal,

“So, how old are you?”

“…I’m fourteen now. I was thirteen when you hired me.”

Thwack!

I felt like lightning had struck behind me.

Thirteen years old? Thirteen years old?

Am I… violating child labor laws? An evil boss, no, an evil lord?!

“Kaaaaah! I’m… I’m a bad adult who recklessly throws children into the front lines… !”

As I writhed on the floor in agony, the old guys who had poked their faces out of the barracks again spoke in turns.

“No, I’m telling you, you’re the only one who cares about that kind of thing, Lord!”

“We grew up stealing, taking, and fighting from the time we were kids!”

“Shut your mouths, everyone! Kids shouldn’t be fighting for their lives! Kids should be playing to their hearts’ content!”

I slammed the door shut in anger.

Hannibal, even more flustered, twisted his body and looked at me.

“…Anyway, when I was at that orphanage. I secretly heard something from the director.”

“What is it?”

“That I’m the child born to a princess of the Western Mist Kingdom…”

Hannibal glanced at the closed door.

“And that my father has been sending child support to the orphanage.”

“……”

“And a few years ago, assassins from the Mist Kingdom came to the orphanage to kill me, and I barely escaped…”

So, he somehow ended up here after all that.

“Okay. I get the gist.”

I put Hannibal in the dining hall attached to the barracks.

“Stay here and rest for now. I’ll go talk to Zenith and come back.”

And I ran into the barracks.

Inside the barracks, in addition to the usual old guys, other old guys who were curious about what was going on had gathered and were surrounding Zenith in a corner of the hallway. I pressed my throbbing temples with both hands.

“Okay, Zenith… let’s start with cross-verification.”

After comparing the name of the orphanage Hannibal mentioned and Hannibal’s age, I was able to confirm that his personal information matched Zenith’s son.

“Haaaah…”

Zenith sighed deeply, then rubbed his forehead several times. I asked carefully,

“It seems like he’s your son, right?”

“…I don’t know where to even begin with this story.”

Zenith covered his face with both hands and muttered softly,

“That child is my son… but he’s not my son.”

“…?”

A moment of silence passed.

The next moment, the old guys around him started beating Zenith all at once.

“You rotten bastard! You’re just like our dads!”

“Now you’re even saying such nonsense in front of your own son!”

“We were wrong… Zenith-nim! You deserve to be punished more!”

“It’s not enough that you left your child in an orphanage for his whole life, now what?! He’s your son but not your son?”

“You bad man! You, you!”

After beating him until Zenith declared surrender.

I snarled at this old guy who was lying on the floor making groaning noises.

“Okay, give me a reasonable explanation. Or you might not survive these old guys here…”

“……”

Zenith squeezed his eyes shut with a bruised face. And then slowly opened his mouth.

***

Seventeen years ago.

Thwack!

A fist filled with divine power crushed a man’s head like a watermelon.

The head belonged to the commander of the knight order of this small city-state. And the place where the head exploded was inside the king’s bedroom.

“Ugh, ugh, ugh!”

The king screamed.

He was in a panic. This assassin, who had suddenly broken in in the middle of the night, had killed all of his guards with his bare fists.

“P-please, just spare my life! Just spare my life!”

“……”

“I’ll give you as much money as you want! I have plenty of wealth! I’ll give you anything, anything! So…”

The king begged, but the muscular assassin standing in front of him just silently looked down at the king.

Step, step.

At that moment, a female assassin wearing the same outfit approached the muscular assassin with light footsteps.

“Your Majesty. How many times have we told you? We have no interest in wealth…”

When the female assassin removed the veil covering her face, a beautiful face familiar to the king was revealed.

It was the priestess sent here to propagate the Goddess’s teachings – Saint Rosetta.

“Saint Rosetta!”

The king knelt down before Rosetta in a hurry.

“Y-yes. Is it because I executed the followers of your religion last week? I’ll apologize right now. If necessary, I’ll offer an apology on behalf of the kingdom. So…”

“You should have thought carefully from the beginning, shouldn’t you?”

Rosetta smiled gently.

“If you had stopped persecuting our Goddess’s teachings earlier, things wouldn’t have escalated this far.”

“I was wrong. I was short-sighted. I’ll declare freedom of religion now. So…!”

“It’s too late. Your cousin has already promised to convert this kingdom’s state religion to the Goddess’s teachings.”

Rosetta slowly unwound the whip from her waist.

“So… there’s no need to negotiate with you anymore. When you disappear, your cousin will take over this country.”

“T-that bastard…! That bastard sold me, sold the country… !”

Rosetta slowly approached the king. The king, who was crawling backward, shouted,

“Aren’t you priests of God! Do you think your God will forgive you for doing this!”

“We are the shadows of the Goddess. In order to illuminate her light, we need those who stain their hands with blood, like us.”

Only then did the king remember the alias of the people in front of him – the inquisitors of the Goddess’s Church.

The blood-soaked executioners who stained their black priestly robes red with the blood of their opponents.

The Red Priests.

“Eeeeeeek! What kind of saint are you! You’re a witch!”

“I hear that often.”

“You’ll all fall into hell!”

“That’s what we desire.”

Rosetta whispered, easily ignoring the king’s last shrill scream.

“In that hell, we’ll be able to kill the evil things that defied God’s word… once again.”

Immediately after, Rosetta’s whip mercilessly struck the king’s body.

***

After the situation was over, on the top of a mountain near the city-state.

“……”

Rosetta was looking down at the chaotic city with a cold face.

The king had been assassinated, his cousin had ascended to the new throne, and he had declared the Goddess’s teachings as the new state religion.

In other words, they had decided to accept the influence of the Everblack Empire.

The Empire did not wage war on this small country. Instead, they had brought this country into their sphere of influence through relatively ‘peaceful’ methods such as the assassination of the king and the propagation of religion.

There were many ways to bring a country into one’s belly without forcibly subjugating it within the borders. This was just one of them.

“…Hoo.”

As Rosetta let out a short sigh,

“Why are you sighing, Sister?”

From behind Rosetta, a muscular young man approached, brushing his hair back.

It was the assassin who had destroyed the palace with Rosetta earlier – Inquisitor Zenith.

Zenith straightened his clothes with a young and cold face.

A cold and chilling aura flowed along the young man’s face, making it hard to believe that he was the assassin who had been swinging his fists like crazy in the palace just a moment ago.

Rosetta glanced at her stepbrother and adjusted her glasses.

“Zenith, is this the right thing to do?”

“…Are you wavering again? Get a grip, Sister.”

Zenith glared at his sister with a cold gaze.

“Aren’t we waging a holy war?”

“Or are we just acting as proxies for the Empire’s war?”

“It’s just that our interests aligned. The Empire expands its influence, and we destroy countries that persecute our followers.”

Zenith stared blankly at the burning city-state. But in the young man’s eyes, there was an undeniable pride and fanaticism.

“All for the light of the Goddess.”

“……”

Rosetta, who had been quietly watching her brother, shook her head.

“I don’t know. This isn’t why I became a priestess.”

“Why do you keep doing this? You’re the best inquisitor in the Order?”

“How did we, the internal purification device of the Order, end up outside the Order like this? How did we end up assassinating and engaging in political maneuvers in the name of proselytizing?”

Rosetta let out a long sigh.

“I wanted to heal people and receive words of gratitude, like the other saints of the Order, not kill people and be cursed at.”

“Like that youngest saint you often praise… Margherita?”

“Yes.”

Perhaps she was envious of the other saints, Rosetta began to list them off as the words came out.

“She’s been healing people in all sorts of dangerous and impoverished areas. People are so moved by that young saint that they’re converting to our religion on their own.”

Rosetta silently looked down at the city-state where they had overthrown the throne.

“This kind of violence can’t be the only answer…”

Then Zenith scoffed.

“Nonsense. Snakes have a life that suits snakes, and birds have a life that suits birds. And we are snakes, Sister.”

Snake-.

At those words, Rosetta felt the blood in her whole body turn cold. The vain desire for a different life that she had briefly dreamed of quickly evaporated and disappeared.

“…Yes. You’re right, we are shadows. We are the Red Priests.”

Rosetta nodded and patted Zenith on the back.

“Zenith, from now on, don’t waver like that, and remain the pillar of our inquisitors… the Holy Knights.”

“Of course, I will.”

Zenith slightly raised the corners of his cold mouth and smiled.

“That way, you won’t waver either.”

“……”

“Where is our next mission, Sister?”

“This time, it’s your solo mission.”

Rosetta took out the next mission order from her pocket and gave it to Zenith.

“It’s a place called the Western Mist Kingdom. It’s worse than this mission area. It’s an extremely exclusive country that is wary of other religions, as well as other races, ethnicities, and cultures.”

Rosetta continued as Zenith unfolded the mission order and read it.

“You will enter as a diplomat of the Everblack Empire. While slowly building a foundation for proselytizing, make allies among the high-ranking officials. And…”

“If necessary, assassinate the leadership, like this time?”

“…Yes.”

“It’s the same as always. I’ll do my best.”

Zenith, who had put the mission order in his pocket, nodded and disappeared as if melting into the darkness.

“This mission will take some time. See you next time, Sister.”

“……”

“All for the light of the Goddess.”

“Let’s meet again in the shadows, my brother.”

Zenith disappeared into the darkness. Rosetta was quietly looking at the place where the darkness had disappeared.

The two of them never knew.

That it would take 17 long years before they would meet again.

***

“…So, what’s the reason for telling this story?”

Present.

The old guys who had been listening to Zenith’s past recollection all jeered at once.

“Are you trying to say that you were a cold, handsome man 17 years ago?”

“Hey, who would believe that? Mr. Zenith must have been a hairy, sloppy old man from the beginning!”

“More importantly, when is Hannibal’s story coming out!”

“We asked why you abandoned your son, and who wants to hear about your glory days?!”

“This old guy is the type who would start with farming if you asked him for bread!”

With a booing sound, various junk was thrown at Zenith.

“Ah, that story comes right after this! So just listen quietly! And!”

Zenith shouted desperately, grinding his teeth.

“It’s just that I’m not managing myself right now, but I was really good-looking when I was young!”

It was truly an old man-like remark.