I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game – Chapter 674

(TL Note: There was a large part missing, so I just redid the whole Chapter)

One day earlier.

After the Heroic Expedition, defeated by Night Bringer, had retreated.

Right after the meeting between Ash and Night Bringer, who had polymorphed into human form, came to an end.

Squelch……!

Night Bringer’s royal scepter-sword pierced through Ash’s chest for the second time.

If the first thrust had merely been to inflict physical pain, this second strike stabbed into Ash’s soul core and shattered his very soul.

“Ah……!”

Ash convulsed as he breathed his last.

Night Bringer reached out and gently wrapped his hand around Ash’s neck.

He leisurely savored the moment when the tiny flame of life in his grip flickered out.

Just then, a faint smile brushed the lips of the dying Ash.

《Hm?》

Not understanding the meaning of that smile, Night Bringer felt a flicker of doubt.

《……?!》

Suddenly, a murderous intent surged toward him from behind.

Night Bringer whipped around.

He saw a rain of arrows and spells pouring toward him.

He easily raised a magic barrier and blocked every attack.

Then he turned to look at the newcomers.

Step! Step! Step!

Those who appeared in orderly formation and leveled their weapons at Night Bringer were none other than…

《Hooh. If it isn’t the court jester and his circus troupe.》

Crown.

And the Immortals under his command—the Night Crawler Unit.

All of them wore white smiling masks.

Calmly, they surrounded Night Bringer.

With the cliff at his back, Night Bringer let out a low chuckle.

《Do you dare betray me, jester?》

“Treason? That sounds strange.”

Crown tilted his head.

“You’ve never been my king.”

《And yet the royal scepter of your kingdom is in my hand right now.》

“That’s why I’ve come to take it back.”

Crown snorted and swung his flute, signaling his subordinates to prepare for battle.

“There’s no point in exchanging words between us. Just prepare to die, Black Dragon.”

《I do not understand, jester. You know very well that you cannot oppose me.》

“And you know very well that we are under the curse of immortality, don’t you? If we’ve nothing to lose, we can at least swing our blades once to reclaim the throne.”

The Night Crawler Unit finished their preparations.

Night Bringer, too, readied himself to fight.

In any case, Night Bringer was not the type to shy away from a duel to the death thrown at him.

He was also the sort who, when clashing with those hostile to him, would at least offer them the bare minimum of courtesy.

“Get him-!”

When Crown thrust his flute forward and shouted, the Night Crawler troopers’ white masks flashed as they all charged at once.

Night Bringer scattered darkness and crushed them one by one.

The Immortals were annihilated in an instant, yet they still threw themselves at Night Bringer in a desperate attempt to reach him.

Right at that moment—

“…….”

“…….”

Two old men were stealthily crawling up from the cliff side.

Sword Demon and Spear Demon.

With a chipped blade and a broken short spear clenched in their toothless mouths, the two old men crept up without a sound and then rushed straight at Night Bringer.

“Hey, lizard-head dragon! Listen up! This big bridge-”

“Is our business courtyard, that’s what we’re sayin’ here!”

Night Bringer had never imagined he’d be ambushed from the cliff side without so much as a trace.

He took the attack head-on.

These two freaks were mighty powerhouses who would not fall behind any of the heroes on the surface.

Once he allowed that single surprise attack and let them close in, the sword and spear of the two monsters tore apart the body of Night Bringer’s human polymorph.

Of course, Night Bringer regenerated wounds of this level immediately, but—

For an instant, his arm was severed, and the Ash he’d been holding in that hand was flung out into the air.

《……!》

Night Bringer instantly regenerated his arm and reached out to grab Ash.

His hand closed instead around the flag attached to the pole Ash was holding.

Crack……!

His grip was so overwhelmingly strong that the flag simply tore away and came off in his hand.

Ash’s body, hurled through the air, fell straight down the sheer cliff and vanished into the darkness below.

《…….》

Night Bringer looked down over the edge of the cliff where Ash had fallen and disappeared, then let out a mirthless laugh.

《How troublesome you are, you unkillable insects…….》

“We’ll stop being a bother, so please just kill us already!”

“Even if we croak, we’ll just revive again anyway, you son of a biiitch-!”

Sword Demon and Spear Demon, who were charging in while shouting, failed to evade the torrent of magic that poured down the next moment and were blasted apart.

The remaining Night Crawler troops were likewise swept up in the darkness Night Bringer unleashed and were wiped out in an instant.

“Honestly, what’s so good about a worn-out, decrepit country like this…?”

Crown, whose breath had barely held on to the end, had his entire body crushed and died.

“Why is everyone… making such a fuss trying to be king…?”

Crunch-!

Crown was struck by the darkness Night Bringer swung and exploded into pieces.

The blood and corpses of Sword Demon, Spear Demon, and the Night Crawler soldiers who had breathed their last all turned into black mist and vanished.

The Immortals of this kingdom, cursed with eternal life, always disappeared like this.

Confirming that there were no more obstacles left, Night Bringer once more gazed down into the bottomless abyss below the cliff.

《……Hm.》

He had already shattered the soul.

Ash was dead.

There was no way he could survive.

But Night Bringer was not one to grow careless.

《Still, just in case…….》

Snap!

When Night Bringer lightly flicked his fingers, two of the auxiliary heads appeared in the air at his left and right.

Roaaaar-!

They opened their mouths and poured black flame down into the chasm beneath the bridge.

The tremendous jet-black blaze incinerated everything under the bridge.

Only after spewing black fire for a long time did Night Bringer finally grow satisfied and withdraw the flames.

At this level, the fire would have reached the depths below.

Not even ashes of the corpse should remain.

As he turned away, Night Bringer suddenly realized he still had Ash’s flag in his hand.

《This would be better burned on the surface.》

There was no better declaration of war than burning the enemy’s banner.

Clutching the flag, he strode toward the main gate of the Lake Kingdom.

It was time to invade the mortal world.

Night Bringer departed, and long after—

Down below the cliff, where black flames still blazed along the rock face—

Crunch!

A soot-covered hand rose up.

“Huff, huff……!”

The one who crawled up was none other than… King Poseidon, king of the Merfolk.

Even after mustering the full authority of his species’ god and erecting a water barrier for defense, his entire body had been horribly burned.

But he had protected Ash in his arms.

‘Prince Ash…….’

King Poseidon checked on Ash.

Though his soul had been shattered, his body lingered in a comatose state and was still barely alive.

Of course, even that was only because he had stopped time on it with magic for the moment.

It would not last long.

‘I have to hurry.’

Excannibal, which had fallen over the cliff along with Ash amid the chaos, was already in his hand as well.

King Poseidon poured the power of his race’s god into the demon sword so that it would spit out what it had swallowed right before.

Drip, drop……

The contents Excannibal could not immediately digest beaded on the blade and then scattered onto the ground.

Dragon blood.

Blood drawn directly from Night Bringer’s chest—from his heart.

Even though Night Bringer had been in his polymorphed human form when the sword stabbed him, this blood was genuine.

“Huff! Huff!”

After extracting all the dragon blood from Excannibal, King Poseidon stabbed the demon sword haphazardly into the ground.

Then he planted his trident on the floor.

The dragon blood, drawn straight from Night Bringer’s chest, transformed into a round droplet of water and floated into the air.

King Poseidon placed this dragon blood into the wound in Ash’s chest.

Thump!

Ash’s body, frozen like a mounted specimen with his eyes closed, jolted violently once.

“Not yet……!”

King Poseidon gritted his teeth and proceeded to the next step.

He struck his trident into the ground again.

Next, the massive amount of blood scattered across the entire battlefield—the other blood Night Bringer had shed, which the Heroic Expedition had forced from him—gathered into a single enormous droplet of liquid and floated into the air.

King Poseidon placed Ash’s body inside that huge sphere of dragon blood.

“…….”

He had done all he could here.

But he could not perform the remaining surgery in this place.

If by any chance the Black Dragon returned, or another monster arrived, everything would be for nothing.

The time remaining was tight, and in the end, there was only one choice.

King Poseidon stood at the edge of the cliff and looked down.

He could still see the darkness below, writhing with black fire.

“Phew.”

As with life itself, it was do or die.

Taking a deep breath, he once again summoned a water barrier with the authority of his race’s god and then leapt down with Ash.

—

The present.

At the bottom of the cliff. Bottom Village.

In this place unknown to any monster, King Poseidon continued to perform surgery on Ash.

The resurrected Sword Demon and Spear Demon were frantically putting out the black flames that had engulfed the entire village.

Only after Crown, who had joined them late, helped as well did they finally manage to extinguish all the fire.

Now they were left waiting together for the surgery to end.

“Anyway, we’re cooperatin’ like this ‘cause we’ve got a promise from that prince fella.”

Sword Demon looked at Crown as he asked.

“What are you helpin’ for?”

Before the Heroic Expedition set out.

Ash had come in advance to the Lake Kingdom with King Poseidon and asked these people for their aid.

Bottom Village was connected to Zone 1’s dungeon, the Dried Drainage, but the waterways were so hopelessly tangled that no one had managed to find the path until now.

But as the Great Flood drew near, the channels filled with water, and King Poseidon, who could read the flow of water, found the way.

When Ash revisited Bottom Village, he did not pay them the promised gold coins.

Instead, he proposed something entirely different.

Because they could not refuse that proposal, Sword Demon, Spear Demon, and Bottom Village chose once more to cooperate with Ash.

But Crown?

Why was he helping Ash?

Crown replied curtly.

“……That’s none of your business, bandit.”

At being called a bandit, Spear Demon flared up.

“Hey now, we’re still subjects of the country your father ruled, an’ you’re callin’ us bandits? Sure, we did a liiittle bit of bandit work, but still!”

“…….”

“Though we weren’t even proper citizens, more like the non-citizens buried underneath ‘em. But with the world in this state, shouldn’t folks like us, who still remember when the kingdom was intact, at least try to get along with each other?”

Sword Demon and Spear Demon grinned and slung their arms over Crown’s shoulders from both sides.

Crown shuddered and shoved them away.

“……Ash made me a promise too.”

Yet he answered more calmly than expected.

Even Crown himself wasn’t sure why he spoke.

Perhaps his heart had been moved by the prince honorific he hadn’t heard in such a long time.

Sword Demon and Spear Demon tilted their heads.

“A promise?”

“Yeah.”

From behind his mask, Crown sent a complicated gaze forward.

At the end of that gaze lay Ash, buried in the surging dragon blood.

“He promised… to save my little sister.”

“Your Highness’s little sister? Then you mean our princess?”

“Yeah.”

Crown gave a hollow laugh.

“He said he understood. The way to save my sister.”

“…….”

“I figured it was an obvious lie… but if it’s him, I thought maybe. Even now, when everything is at the end… No, precisely because it is the end, and I’ve got nothing left to lose anyway.”

Even if it was a futile hope, it didn’t matter.

Whether the Black Dragon destroyed the world or not.

It would all be over soon anyway.

All he wanted was for there to be a small salvation for his sister before that.

“So I decided to help. That’s all.”

“Ooohhh……”

Letting out a strange sound of admiration, Sword Demon and Spear Demon slowly turned their heads.

When Crown also looked over, he saw someone staggering out of their shabby house.

“Urgh…… Where is this……?”

Hair white enough to drag along the ground, an old iron sword on her back…

A merchant of the Lake Kingdom, the deposed princess—Nameless.

“I’m sure I got hit by Night Bringer and fell down the cliff…….”

“Oh my, our princess woke up too!”

Sword Demon and Spear Demon rushed over to Nameless and bowed.

Nameless stared blankly at the two of them.

“It’s been a while, Princess! Have you been well?”

“Sword Demon? Spear Demon? Ah, then this must be……”

“Yess, yes! This here’s Bottom Village where we live!”

“We finally got to keep our promise of showin’ Your Highness the place someday! Didn’t expect you to just whoosh drop in from above, though!”

They were all survivors of the Lake Kingdom, living in the hell beneath the lake.

After tangled centuries together, they could not help but know one another.

After thanking Sword Demon and Spear Demon for saving her when she fell from above, Nameless glanced past them and her eyes widened in surprise when she saw Crown.

“Brother… no, Crown?”

“You’ve come to your senses, Nameless.”

“Why is Crown here too…?”

“Because that guy gathered us.”

Crown jerked his chin toward where Ash was.

Nameless followed his motion and opened her turquoise eyes wide.

“Ash? This secret art, don’t tell me… turning into a dragon…?!”

“It’s Ash’s scheme. And it looks like it’s almost finished.”

The moment the words left his mouth—

Ssswoooosh……!

The black-blood sphere in which Ash had been submerged lost its shape and poured down onto the floor.

King Poseidon, who had been performing the surgery, collapsed where he stood, his strength spent.

And from within the dragon blood that spilled and stained the ground black…

Tap.

Ash set his feet on the earth, his entire body soaked in black blood.

“…….”

The surroundings fell silent.

Nameless and Crown, and even Sword Demon and Spear Demon, all held their breath in tense silence.

And at the end of that ominous stillness—

“Haaaaa…….”

Ash let out a long breath and swept his blood-drenched hair back.

Between the wet, tangled black strands, his slowly opening eyes were unmistakably a perfect, pure gold.

Eyes with the dragonkin’s characteristic vertically slit pupils—

Dragon eyes.

“……What the hell.”

Ash swept his utterly exhausted gaze around, then looked down at his own body.

He slowly opened and closed his fist.

Then he let out a dumbfounded chuckle.

“I must’ve been pushed into a real corner. Doing crap like this.”

“……?”

“No matter how bad it got, I stole the Black Dragon’s blood? Why would I do something this reckless and half-baked… Ah, no? If I’d inherited the Red Dragon, then Dragon Lady would have… Aha. I see.”

As if he were appraising someone else’s actions rather than his own.

Muttering to himself as he sorted through the situation, Ash staggered forward, then plopped down on the ground and leaned against a crumbling stone wall.

With a more decadent and haggard look than ever before, he glanced around and gestured.

“Cigarette.”

Among the dumbstruck onlookers, Sword Demon asked blankly.

“Huh? What was that?”

“I said cigarette. Old man bandit. Don’t you have a cigarette?”

“I… I got one, sure.”

“Then bring it here, hurry up…… I feel like I’m gonna die. Fast.”

Sword Demon was bewildered, but he went into his house and fetched a cigarette.

It was one of the many things that had drifted down to stagnate in Bottom Village.

“And what is this, it’s all rotten… Damn it. Looks just like me.”

Ash calmly held the cigarette between his lips and skillfully conjured black flame at his fingertip to light it.

“Fuuuu…….”

The old, rotten cigarette somehow caught and burned, giving off smoke.

Only after he exhaled a long stream of smoke through his dry lips did Ash’s expression look even slightly at peace.

“Feels like I can breathe… No, damn. I’m still tired enough to drop dead…….”

For some reason, overwhelmed—

Nameless, watching Ash, who seemed the same as before and yet utterly different, stammered out a question.

“Who… are you?”

“Mm?”

“You’re not Ash. Who are you?”

“I am Ash, though.”

The corner of his mouth curled up slightly.

With a dangerously brittle sneer on his lips, he narrowed his golden eyes.

“Who else would I be but me, unmistakably—Born Hater.”

The save slot worn down to the core from countless regressions and battles-

The ‘real’ Ash said so.

–TL Notes–
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