I Became The Tyrant Of A Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 8

“Lily.”

I tried to approach Lily, but she held out a hand to stop me.

“I can’t hold out much longer. I can block the entrance a little more, but the spider siege units will soon break through the wall.”

“……”

“There isn’t much time. Hurry.”

With her slender back blocking dozens of black spiders, Lily smiled resolutely.

“Don’t let our deaths be in vain.”

I gritted my teeth, rose to my feet, and shouted.

“What are you doing, artillery!”

The artillerymen were still struggling to get their bearings from the impact of the fall. But I roared harshly.

“Load the last round!”

“But, Your Highness.”

The artillery captain, who couldn’t walk or stand properly, reported in a hoarse voice, likely due to a broken ankle from the fall.

“As I told you, the barrel’s durability has already exceeded its limit.”

“……”

“The mana core is also at its limit. If we fire, the cannon will explode.”

“We’ll die from the spiders’ claws if we just stand here.”

I approached the mana cannon lying on the ground.

The stand was shattered, but fortunately, the cannon itself was not broken.

“Wouldn’t it be better to take a last gamble? Even if we burn to death, we have to roll the dice.”

“……”

The silent artillery captain looked up.

“How will you aim?”

I looked up as well.

The battery had collapsed all the way to the first floor. The wreckage of the collapsed battery formed a wall around us.

It felt like being trapped in a well. I could see the round sky above the wall, but I couldn’t even guess the location of the black spider queen.

“We can’t see it. There’s no angle to aim at the queen. The stand is also broken.”

“We’ll hold the cannon by hand.”

If we don’t have teeth, we’ll chew with our gums.

“No need to aim. Damian just needs to fire.”

I don’t know exactly how the Clairvoyance trait works, but if Damian, the owner of Clairvoyance [the ability to see the future or distant objects], pulls the trigger, the correction will be applied.

I have no choice but to believe that.

“Load the last round. That’s an order.”

“……Understood.”

The artillery captain didn’t say anything more and quietly began to cram the last round into the cannon.

I walked over to Damian. Damian was sitting on the ground, breathing weakly.

“Damian.”

“……”

Damian, with his eyes closed, turned his head towards me.

His face was a mess, with blood flowing from under his eyes. Damian took a painful breath.

“This is the last one. Just one more shot.”

“……”

“Just one more. Just give it one more try.”

“……Your Highness.”

Damian shook his head weakly.

“What’s the point of all this? No matter what I do… nothing changes.”

“If you hit it one more time, that monster will die.”

“No. That’s not what I mean.”

Cough! Cough!

Damian coughed roughly and mumbled in a hollow voice.

“Let’s say I pull the trigger one more time. Let’s say I kill that spider queen. Then what changes?”

A hollow smile appeared on Damian’s thin lips.

“I’ve realized it now. Half of my friends are already dead. No matter how hard I try to get revenge, they can’t come back.”

“……”

“It’s always like this. No matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I work, the world takes everything from me. Nothing ever changes.”

“Damian.”

“I want to stop now. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I want to go to the side of my friends…”

“Damian!”

I interrupted him and asked.

“Do you think this world is absurd?”

Damian was blank for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes.”

“Do you think that even if you overcome the difficulties in front of you, life will still be painful?”

“……Yes.”

I gave such Damian a bright smile.

“Don’t say such obvious nonsense, you idiot!”

“Cough?!”

I roughly grabbed Damian by the collar and pulled him up to my face.

I shouted at Damian, who was choking for breath.

“If this world has a difficulty level, it’s hell difficulty. It’s an ironman mode where you can’t save or load, that’s obvious!”

It wasn’t that the game was in hell difficulty ironman mode.

From the beginning, this world was hell and ironman [a game mode where if you die, you lose all progress and have to start over].

“It’s absurd, it doesn’t make sense, and nothing goes my way! That’s this world! Who doesn’t know that?”

We are living in this miserable landscape.

That being said,

“So? Are you going to give up and just die quietly?”

Are we going to give up on the strategy?

“No!”

The strategy must continue.

Until the moment life stops.

“I will fight! I will think and struggle until the last moment!”

I threw Damian to the ground.

Damian fell weakly to the ground. I drew the sword that had been at my waist, which I had never drawn before.

“If you want to die so easily!”

I pointed the drawn sword at Damian’s eyes. Damian’s whole body stiffened.

“Stab yourself in the neck with this sword right now.”

“……”

“But if you’re a coward who doesn’t have the courage to do that, Damian.”

Clang-

I threw the sword aside carelessly and sat in front of Damian, making eye contact.

“You can be my trigger.”

“……What?”

“Stop looking for your dead friends. All you need to operate is me, your lord.”

I put my hands on Damian’s shoulders and squeezed them tightly.

“Don’t attach meaningless reasons to living. You are my pawn! My key! My trigger! That’s enough!”

“……”

“That’s enough, Damian.”

It was then.

[Ash(EX) has awakened a skill!]

[Passive Skill – Indomitable Commander]

The system window blocked a corner of my vision, but I didn’t care. I held tightly onto the shoulders of my only hope.

“That’s an order, my trigger.”

A faint light emanated from my fingertips. It seemed that the passive skill I had just awakened had activated.

I didn’t know what the effect was, but Damian’s trembling shoulders… slowly calmed down.

I nodded heavily.

“Blow that damn monster’s face away.”

“……”

Damian was still, like a weathered statue, without any reaction.

After a few seconds that felt like an eternity,

Finally.

“……Yes, Your Highness.”

Damian’s head slowly nodded.

With a face that looked like he was about to cry, but somehow didn’t.

“If that is your command.”

***

“There’s no way to cool the barrel.”

The artillery captain, who had finished loading the last round, said.

“There’s no cooling magic, and no water to use as coolant. At this rate…”

“Get out of the way.”

I stood next to the mana cannon on the ground.

“I’ll hold it.”

“Y-Your Highness?!”

The horrified artillery captain stopped me.

“It’s incredibly hot! If you just touch it, it won’t end with a normal burn!”

“It’s better to get burned alive than to fall into a fiery hell and die.”

I could feel the scorching heat just by standing near the cannon.

I took a breath and turned around.

“Are you ready, Damian?”

Damian was still sitting on the ground with his eyes closed, his hand awkwardly placed on the cannon’s trigger.

“Your Highness. I can’t see in front of me.”

“It’s okay.”

“I can’t feel my hands.”

“It’s okay.”

I tried my best to speak in a steady voice.

“It’s okay.”

“……”

Damian bit his pale lip.

I grabbed the barrel of the mana cannon with both hands.

Whoosh!

In an instant, my gloves caught fire, and the palms of my hands inside them also caught fire.

“Ugh…”

I could smell burning flesh amidst the smell of burning clothes.

But I endured it.

Because this is the only thing I can do right now.

“Uwaaa-aaaaaak!”

I screamed and put the barrel on my shoulder.

My shoulder was hot.

The terrible heat and immense weight made my whole body feel like it was collapsing. I felt like I would turn to ashes at any moment.

At that moment.

“Help His Highness!”

The surviving artillerymen rushed over and grabbed the barrel next to me.

The hands of the artillerymen who grabbed the barrel also smelled of burning. We all screamed and finally pointed the muzzle towards the sky.

Thud! Thud!

Immediately after, the black spider heavy armored siege units broke through the wall and entered. Behind them, hundreds of spiders rushed towards us over the collapsed wall.

I turned around and shouted.

“Damian!”

At that moment, Damian opened his eyes.

A pure white light flashed in his large brown eyes as he looked up at the sky.

“Fire-!”

With all his might, Damian pulled the trigger.

Click!

Fzzzt, fzzzzzt…!

Mana flowing from the runaway mana core surged like an electric current through the barrel.

The immense mana pierced through my whole body, but I didn’t collapse.

The next moment,

Thwack-!

With an ear-splitting explosion, the last round was fired.

‘Reach it.’

Looking up at the blue mana bullet soaring into the sky, amidst the claws of the spiders pouring in from all directions…

‘Reach it…’

I lost consciousness.

***

The bullet soars.

The final bullet fired from the collapsed forward base soared like a firework, piercing the sky.

And then – it began to descend.

Drawing a sharp parabola, it fell like a meteor.

Kieeeeeeek-!

The black spider queen, realizing the existence of the magic bullet, screamed, and the black spiders guarding the queen began to stack their bodies on top of each other to form a wall.

It was an impossible task from the start.

A bullet fired from the bottom of the collapsed battery, aimed at an unseen opponent.

Not only was the aim impossible, but even with a mana cannon with boosted output, it was impossible to reach that distance and height difference.

Swoosh-!

However.

The bullet rushes directly towards the spider queen.

Height difference.

It ignores it.

Distance.

It ignores it.

Hundreds and thousands of monsters blocking the way.

It ignores them.