I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 688

The last memory I had was the moment the Night Bringer pierced my chest for the second time.

The Dusk Bringer calmly explained what had happened after that.

Supported by her, I stood up and blankly looked around.

“…So, you came all the way here yourself to find me?”

A world within ice.

Inside the Nightmare Slayer [Light and Shadow]… a preserved storage.

Did she come all the way here herself to find me?

“Because it’s only you.”

The Dusk Bringer reached out with her cold fingertips and stroked my forehead.

“You are the only one who can relight this world, the only one I can entrust my flame to for that purpose.”

“…”

After a moment of silence, I spoke cautiously.

“Great Lord. I am not the Ash you cherished.”

“…”

“That Ash is already dead. I am just a backup… a copy that preserved Ash’s memories.”

I couldn’t help but let out a self-deprecating laugh.

“Since Ash was a copy in the first place, I am a copy of a copy, a replica of a replica, a replica of a replica. I’m just a fake among fakes. How can someone like me…”

“It’s okay.”

My trembling voice stopped at the Dusk Bringer’s firm words of belief.

The Dusk Bringer smiled, her lips white with frost.

“Because that’s you too.”

“…”

“Because that’s your life too.”

Slowly, she reached out and took both of my hands in hers.

“And because your life is beautiful.”

She said it with all her heart.

I was speechless and bit my lip.

“Ash. You have the strongest heart in this world… the courage not to hate.”

I blinked at the unfamiliar expression.

“The courage not to hate…?”

“Yes. The ability to embrace others instead of hatred and anger. The ability to embrace a divided world and comfort the wounds of others. A truly strong… goodwill.”

“…”

“As long as you have that goodwill, even if you are copied thousands or tens of thousands of times, you are still you.”

The Dusk Bringer continued, seeing me standing there blankly.

“My mother, the Day Bringer, said that I also had that courage. So she trusted me and passed the throne to me… but as I was swept away by the storms of the world, that courage within me had all withered away.”

“…”

“During my reign, my country was stained with blood and ashes. I killed many, hated many, and was hated in return.”

A bitter light flickered across the Dusk Bringer’s face.

“In the end, I couldn’t live up to what my mother had hoped for. I was just a cowardly and shameless, run-of-the-mill king.”

The hand holding mine tightened.

“Then I met you. You, who never let go of the courage I had lost.”

“…”

“It’s easy to fight and kill an opponent. Conversely, it’s difficult to talk and understand. But you always worried, yet you willingly took the difficult and arduous path. That’s why your journey was great.”

I was just pushed along, just stumbling, falling and crawling, and that’s how I arrived here.

I lost, lost, lost, and lost again – and now the world is on the verge of destruction, and I have fallen repeatedly after repeated defeats, and if you hadn’t come, I would have been frozen here forever.

“Believe in me, Ash. I’m saying this as someone who once had the same dream as you, but eventually gave up in the face of harsh reality.”

Why do you look at me so preciously, as if I were the last candle flame in this world?

“You can light up this world.”

The Dusk Bringer slowly released my hands, then brought her hands together in front of her chest, and then took out a red flame flickering from inside her chest and gathered it between her hands.

The Dusk Bringer, who had been looking down at the flame silently for a while, slowly extended her hands forward.

“Will you accept it?”

“…”

When I hesitated, the Dusk Bringer’s voice trembled.

“I know. This flame is not pure. I couldn’t protect the nobility that our predecessors had upheld.”

Her cheeks flushed red.

“This flame is engraved with my mistakes. The will of our great ancestors has been tainted, corrupted, and made ugly by my inadequacy.”

“…”

“But this is all I can give.”

She was truly ashamed.

As if her tainted life had contaminated the pure flame that had been passed down from her predecessors.

“Does this flame look so ugly to you… that you can’t accept it?”

The Dusk Bringer’s gaze, her voice, and the flame in her hands… all trembled faintly.

“…”

After a moment of silence, I slowly opened my mouth.

“It’s okay if it’s ugly, Great Lord.”

I smiled at her, who was staring at me with wide eyes.

“We call it ordinary to live a life where we inevitably hate someone, sometimes inflict harm, and sometimes get hurt, and get stained with soot…”

Where in this world is there a perfect good?

Like my flag, stained with blood and ashes after passing through the battlefield.

Suppressing the inevitable accumulation of hatred and anger, resentment and bitterness, and yet struggling to live as an ordinary person, not a monster…

That stained everyday life is the great battle that everyone in this world has always fought.

“Sometimes we might make mistakes. Sometimes we might hurt others. We might leave blemishes with momentary mistakes, and flaws like scars might remain. Looking back, we might be covered in nothing but wounds and soot.”

“…”

“But it’s okay. Great Lord, you didn’t forget what was important in the end.”

Because she remained human until the end.

Even while living in the mire of politics, she was looking at the stars until the very end.

“I won’t forgive your mistakes. I won’t make your blemishes disappear. But, like this… I will embrace your ugliness.”

I slowly embraced the Dusk Bringer’s small shoulders and hugged her again.

Tears streamed down from the Dusk Bringer’s amber eyes in my arms. I whispered in her ear with all my heart.

“Thank you, Great Lord. For coming to save me. For saying that my life has value.”

“Ash…”

“Now I will inherit it. Your ugliness, your wounds, your karma and regrets, everything.”

What made me hesitate was not that her life was ugly.

It was because I knew that the moment I inherited this, I would have to say goodbye to her.

But if I truly care about this person… I have to accept it.

Her will too.

And her farewell too.

Saaaah…

The flame in her hand slowly began to be absorbed into my chest.

The Dusk Bringer whispered as she carefully pushed the flame into me with her small hand.

“People call what they don’t understand and fear a dragon. Now you will be beyond people’s understanding, revered, and pointed at. That is the fate of a dragon.”

“…”

“But love, Ash.”

Tears constantly flowed down the Dusk Bringer’s cheeks as she tried to smile.

“I will give you all the love I received from my predecessors… all the love I have left. Please, you love too.”

“I will love.”

I smiled.

“Just like you did, Great Lord.”

The flame was completely transferred into my chest.

“My successor.”

The Dusk Bringer’s body rapidly lost strength. I tightened my arms around her as she was about to collapse.

“My flame, my will, my name to inherit… my son.”

And, a name that is passed down through generations.

That repeated and continuing name, she gave it to me.

“Dawn-Bringer.”

The moment I heard that name.

A hot heat surged from the flame that had been transferred to my chest, and at the same time, it began to melt the frozen world around me.

As the ice and snow melted away, the black, soot-covered earth revealed itself. I intuitively realized that this soot-filled world belonged to the Dusk Bringer.

And also.

In the center of this black world that had been burned to the horizon.

There was a small hill covered with green grass and weeds that she had carefully protected and cultivated.

It was the place where I stood.

A very small hope that she had protected from all the ugliness, all the hatred, all the corruption that clouded her heart.

That was me.

“When twilight falls, night descends…”

I slowly laid her down on the ground as she gradually collapsed.

Lying gracefully on the weeds, the Dusk Bringer smiled faintly.

“When the long, long night ends, dawn will surely come.”

“…”

“So, Dawn Bringer. Bring back the sunlight to your world. You can do it.”

I whispered, holding back my tears.

“…The Great Lord’s tomorrow will surely be clear too.”

Just because yesterday was ugly, there’s no reason why tomorrow should be ugly too.

As she said, when twilight fades and night breaks, surely-

Dawn will come again.

“…Yes. I’ve already found such a brilliant tomorrow…”

With a weak hand, she stroked my cheek one more time, then smiled brightly with her eyes that had lost their light.

“According to the legend my mother told me, red dragons who have reached the end of their lives gather on the shores at the end of the world… and wait together for the last sunrise of the world.”

“…”

“So, this isn’t goodbye… we can meet again on that last morning.”

The Dusk Bringer’s breathing faded in an instant. She tried to smile at me until the very end.

“See you again, my…”

She couldn’t finish her sentence.

I carefully lowered her hand that had fallen to the floor, then gently closed her amber eyes that were open with tears, and then quietly kissed her white, smooth forehead.

“See you again, Great Lord. No.”

Immediately after, I corrected myself.

Her title, who had passed on her blood and will to me, like this.

“…Mother.”

Looking at her deeply sleeping face, I whispered with as much tenderness as I could muster.

“We will definitely meet again.”

After saying goodbye, I slowly got up.

I roughly wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, and pushed the tears that were about to burst out inside.

Then, I turned around.

Her world, black and burned, filled with soot. The long path of carnage covered with a carpet of flames.

Just as she had willingly marched through the frozen world to find me, I too walked the long path she had lived… with a willing heart.

***

At the end of the long, distant road.

The world changed its appearance.

Standing at the boundary between worlds, I looked around.

“…This place is.”

It was an endless desert filled with white, burned ashes.

Whatever it was that existed in the beginning, it had all burned and burned again, turning into white ashes that were swirling around.

In this dying desert of ashes, filled only with the sound of sand crunching.

“Hey, friend.”

A voice was heard.

“Do you need help?”

When I turned around, there was a man sitting down.

It was a man sitting with his back against a sand pillar that looked like a sand temple because of the hazy heat haze. Strangely, even though this was a mental world, the man was not maintaining his original form.

His whole body was shattered like a broken ceramic, with his empty insides clearly visible. He himself was scattering white ashes from his whole body like this desert.

With a mysterious, relaxed smile on his cracked and broken face with holes, he was staring at me intently.

“…It looks like you’re the one who needs help.”

I let out a hollow laugh and called out to the other person.

“Bonehater.”

Then, the man – the ‘real Ash’ – chuckled.

“Let’s just say that we’re in a situation where we need each other.”

With a ‘heave-ho’ sound, the real Ash got up. As he lightly brushed his body with his hand, hazy ashes were scattered like sand from all over his broken body.

The real Ash awkwardly pointed to his broken body.

“I’m in this state, but I think I’ll be more helpful to you than nothing…”

“…”

I just stared at him.

“I only have fragmented memories of the strategy and fragmented combat experience… but isn’t it much better than nothing? What do you think?”

The real Ash reached out his hand to me, the fake.

His hand, broken and falling apart, was trembling weakly every time a dry, cold wind blew through this desert.

“To save the world, why don’t we join forces, Dawn Bringer?”

“…”

I let out a low sigh.

Then, I reached out my hand and grabbed his hand.

“When haven’t we joined forces?”

Our overlapping hands moved heavily up and down.

The next moment, the world of white ashes and the world of black soot began to vibrate violently and mix with each other.