Dungeon Defense (WN)

The day was getting dark.
We set up camp at some ruins nearby.

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The campfire flickered.
The light from the fire illuminated the old castle ruins.
Murky shadows swayed quietly on the castle walls.
They were like a bunch of actors practicing a script for a performance that was never going to happen on a stage that had long been deserted.

“Our client……Miss Paimon, has been incredibly interested in Your Highness.”

One of the shadows opened its dark mouth.

“For a very long time now.”

“Exactly how long?”

“It has been a little over a year now.”

A year.
That was around the time we held the hearing during Walpurgis Night.
So you’re telling me that Paimon has been monitoring my every movement since then……?

“We have been gathering information on Your Highness.
From when you took a human from a slave market to when you murdered an influential merchant’s son…….
Does Your Highness perhaps dislike the smell of cigars?”

I shook my head.
I was telling her that I didn’t mind.

“Pardon me.”

The woman with light blue hair took out a pipe.
She spoke while pushing tobacco leaves into her pipe.

“We were honestly surprised.
Our group has quite a reputation even in the demon world.
Instead of contracting us for a month or so, she made a long-term contract with us.
We were tasked with looking into the background of a rank 71 Demon Lord…….
Although it was fine with us since we were in a bit of a recession.”

The woman smiled brightly.

To me, the woman’s smile felt completely dry.
I have the power to read the emotions of demons, so I could tell that no emotion was going through her mind right now.
The remaining half of this woman’s face that was untouched by severe burns was nothing more than a mask.

“You must have been disappointed.”

“We were, until half a year ago.”

The woman blew out a cloud of smoke from her mouth.

“Half a year ago, the Keuncuska Firm started to dabble in ‘this’ side of work.
They were so cautious and careful about it, that if we hadn’t been monitoring Your Highness already, then we would have never noticed.
We had no other choice but to acknowledge our client’s, Miss Paimon’s discerning eye.”

The woman turned to me with a smile still on her face.

“Since that moment on, Your Highness was undoubtedly the center of the world for approximately five months.”

“…….”

“How many people in the world are aware of the truth? You had spread rumors throughout both the demon world and the human world and skillfully utilized those rumors to make the humans dispatch their armies.”

She sounded as if she was getting excited.

“You distorted the truth around the human armies being dispatched to incite the Crescent Alliance.
How many people know that the Rank 71 Demon Lord was behind all of this? I guarantee you that there are less than ten people.
Less than ten people throughout the entirety of both the human world and the demon world who know the truth.
We have the honor of being a part of that ten.”

The woman chuckled.

“Truly.
It is moments like these that I am able to feel fulfilled in life after being born as an assassin.
I am sincerely grateful to Her Highness Paimon.
Even if I live for another century or two, I will most likely not be able to experience the same amount of excitement as I have for the past 6 months.
……Your Highness, did you know? I am currently extremely excited because I am finally able to talk to Your Highness like this.”

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I took out my water flask and took a sip.

“Despite your words, I do not feel any particular emotions from you.”

“Ever since my birth, I have only killed my emotions.”

The woman chuckled again.
She was a girl who laughed often.

“People who live in a desert and people who live next to a lake.
The value of water is like night and day to them.”

“Are you saying that even the smallest amount of emotion is actually rather big for you?”

“That is correct.”

Certainly, if you want to sneak up on a Demon Lord, your emotions have to be as faint as this woman’s.

I suddenly became curious.
How are assassins raised? Once I asked this indirectly, the woman took a puff of her pipe before responding.
It was almost like she was unraveling a tangled ball of yarn.

“For starters, you must become a slave in order to be able to go against Demon Lords.
If both your soul and body are subordinated to a person, then you can be hostile towards Demon Lords even if you are a demon.”

“Would this not rid you of your freedom?”

“Who knows? When you are young, a loaf of bread is more important than your freedom.”

I had a rough understanding of what this woman’s life was like now.

Be it the human world or the demon world, there was an abundant number of starving people everywhere.
Among those people starving to death, there were a lot of orphans.
The heads of assassin groups and guilds most likely gathered these orphans.
The orphans would agree to these slave contracts.
No, they would only gather orphans who have no other choice but to accept…….

“Can you not get rid of the slave seal?”

“Ah, that is a bit difficult.
It is engraved in our hearts.
This is done intentionally when surgery is done upon us.”

“On your heart?”

Come to think of it, the death knight mentioned something about the heart.

“How do they engrave a magic seal on the heart?”

“A type of initiation ceremony is done when you first join.
A healing magic circle is drawn and the chest is cut open while on top of the circle.
They pour a healing potion into the chest, cut the flesh, and on the heart they do…….
Well, all sorts of things.”

“Hm.”

I made a disgusted face.
In other words, they use healing magic and potions to keep a decrepit person alive and do all sorts of things to their heart.
They call it surgery, but it was no different from torture.
The woman seemed to understand how I felt as she nodded.

“This is a rather perilous era.”

“Yes, it truly is.”

She smiled.

A brief silence fell over us.
It wasn’t an awkward silence.
A perilous era.
A brief moment of time was required to mull over the weight that line had.

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“It has not been that long since Miss Paimon had a change of heart.
Miss Paimon abruptly changed her request immediately after the first skirmish with the human army on Bruno Plains.
She ordered us to protect Your Highness.”

“Why did she do that?”

“Our client wished to get on Your Highness’ good side.”

My good side, huh?

It was like that when I was with the Crescent Alliance as well.
Paimon helped me when I was in a bad situation during the ceremonial speeches.
She lost the magic she had garnered for the past few thousand years in order to help me.

Logically speaking, it was ridiculous to think that Paimon of all people would be trying to help me.
Why was she doing this?

“Our client refers to herself as a republican.”

“What?”

“She said that you would understand if we told you this.”

A republican? Who? Paimon?

I felt like a hammer had hit my head.
I had just heard a word that I had never even considered.
Was Paimon not simply a pervert?

In , Paimon falls for the protagonist.
That was why she was so obsessed with the hero.
Although the way she showed her affection was abnormal since she did it by sending an endless wave of monsters after the hero and his party.

During one of the scenarios in the game, Paimon was the only one to not slaughter the humans when both the humans and demons were trying to massacre each other.
If the humans die, then she would no longer have any playthings.
That was her reason.
I could only think of her as a pervert.
But……a republican? What was this supposed to mean? Are you telling me that she wasn’t simply a human lover?

“……I don’t understand.”

“Our client also said that she wished to know why certain people ruled while others were ruled.
Where did everything go wrong? ……She wished to know these things.”

Inequality, irrationality, and illogicality.

An era where those who ruled and those who were ruled were determined at birth.
She considered this to be weird and wrong.
She believed that this was not an obvious and natural occurrence and wanted to discover the hidden reason behind this.

That was undoubtedly―the silent and blind child of revolution.

I asked the woman a question.

“Is republicanism a familiar term to demons?”

“No.
We do not understand it at all.”

The woman chuckled.

“Prior to receiving this commission from Miss Paimon, I had never heard of it before.
I did know that there was a nation called the Republic of Batavia in the human world, though.
I started to look into it because of Miss Paimon’s request.”

“……What is your opinion on republicans?”

“They seem like perfect targets to capture and kill.”

That wasn’t surprising.

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“But I do think that it sounds appealing.”

“…….”

“Enough to make someone gladly risk their life for it.”

The woman’s eyes turned to look at me.
Contrary to her smiling lips, her gaze was indifferent.

“Is Your Highness aware that the speech you gave at Bruno Plains is circulating here and there throughout the continent?”

“No.”

I didn’t know this at all.

“Currently, it is only being circulated in specific areas of the human world and the demon world.
Nonetheless, the response has been fervent.
The speech will most likely spread through hundreds and thousands of cities and villages before long.
Your Highness, I would like to mention that this humble one is not an exception to this.”

The woman lowered her pipe and looked straight at me.

“Your Highness spoke solely about the inequality in the human world; however, I have always wondered about something ever since I was little.
This was something I was curious about ever since I was little and struggled to get my hands on even a single loaf of bread or strand of mana.
Back when I had to reveal my heart to survive.
……I always wondered why I was born poor.”

“…….”

“It would be understandable if I had a lazy personality, had done something wrong, or committed a sin.
It would only be natural to live a hard life if I were making up for my wrongdoings.
It would make sense.
However, I have been poor since birth.
What had I done wrong? Was my birth itself a crime?”

But, if that’s the case, the woman continued.

“Why are some people able to live such beautiful lives?”

“…….”

“Some people’s lives are a blessing since the moment they are born and some people are cursed instead.
This was something that I truly struggled to understand.
Why was I a part of the latter? Is reincarnation real? Did I commit a crime before I was even born, so I have to live like this because of that?”

For the first time, I could feel the tiniest bit of emotion from the woman.

It was a hatred that was viscous like mucus.

“I did not believe that this was true.
I did not know why it was not true; however, it had to be a lie.
There was no way that this could be the truth.
It mustn’t be.
……Even if the world allowed these sorts of things, I could not accept it.
I had done nothing wrong.
The world is at fault here.”

“…….”

“Miss Paimon said that she wanted to confirm whether Your Highness truly shared her interests or not.
I also have the same hopes as our client.
Did Your Highness truly roar for freedom at Bruno Plains? Would it be all right……if people like us who were born as low-tier demons and have no other choice but to live as the garbage of society……genuinely accepted Your Highness as our king?”

The woman asked.

If I agree with her here, then I would most likely be able to meet Paimon through her.

If I tell her that she was wrong, then she would simply leave.

I stayed silent.
I fell deeply into my thoughts.
How was this woman’s life? To no surprise, her life made me feel sorrow.
Demon Lords can read the emotions of demons, so I fully understood how much she lamented and despised her life.

Nonetheless, I can’t act simply off of emotions.

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From the pros and cons of bringing a lower demon under my wing to the pros and cons of talking behind closed doors with Paimon when I’m a part of the Plains Faction.
I have to consider everything.

I opened my mouth.

“I am not sure.”

The woman blinked.

“Pardon me?”

“Why must I answer you? Do I have to tell you everything that is going through my head? Okay, then.
Let us say that we share interests and this results in you devoting your loyalty to me.
Even if this were to happen, this does not mean that you represent every low-tier demon of the demon world, right?”

The woman was perplexed.

“But…….”

“Was your life unfortunate? Was your life difficult? Do you think that that is enough to make you the representative of everyone’s misfortune?”

I smiled.

“Do not get ahead of yourself.
You cannot take the place of others.
Even if you were the most unfortunate person in the world, your misfortune does not give you the right to take the place of others.
Assassin, deal with your misfortune on your own.”

I stood up.

“If an archduke of hell is blocking your path, then kill that archduke.
If a Demon Lord is obstructing you, then kill that Demon Lord.
If a nation or the continent itself is interfering with your life, then destroy that nation or that continent.”

If you can ally yourself with me during this process, then go ahead.
If you have to distance yourself from me, then do so.
There is no such thing as an eternal ally.
Eternal loyalty does not exist either.
It would only trouble me if you ask me to become your impartial king for all of eternity.

I simply make choices that are good for me according to the situation.

“Tell Paimon that if she wishes to speak to me, then bring something to trade besides emotions.”

“Your Highness.”

“I am tired.
I am going to rest.”

I entered my carriage.
I heard the woman try to call out to me, but I ignored her.
I really did feel tired.

I had a battle of wits with the Kakola Archduke, got attacked by unknown assailants, and received a bombshell about Paimon being a republican all in one day.
It’d be weird if I wasn’t tired after all that.
I need to let my brain rest.

Lapis was already sleeping peacefully in the carriage.
I haphazardly laid a blanket down on the floor before lying down.

‘Paimon is a republican……so what? What does this change……?’

Come to think of it, I was way too honest with that woman.
Would it have been better if I had mixed in a little more rhetoric? Would it have been wiser? But I didn’t want to.
I really am weak to honest people like her.
What a burdensome personality I have…….

I soon fell asleep.

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter.
I don’t have that much to say, but I would like to ask people to stop posting spoilers in the comments.
I noticed that people have been posting in different languages, and some of them are from people talking about how they machine translated everything and are acting as if they fully understood the story.
They then gave detailed spoilers.
I will be deleting these comments whenever I see them now.
Christ, people need to learn to keep spoilers to themselves.

I’ll see you guys in the next chapter.