Dungeon Defense (WN)

***

Quite some time had passed before Paimon finally raised her head. A wet sensation remained on my lips.

“This lady prefers to strike while the iron is hot, though.”

She smiled shyly.

“I have never been the one to ask first. My pride as the Succubus Queen is on the line, after all. If you asked for it first, then this lady would more than gladly offer her body……. How about it?”

“I respectfully decline.”

I shook my hand from side to side. I have never seen something good come out of letting a female play with one’s middle leg thoughtlessly. Furthermore, you want me to be a guy who has relations with both Barbatos and Paimon? That would be insane. I would meet a political end almost immediately. I don’t want to voluntarily buy an express ticket to the Styx river.

“Mm. Your defenses are higher than I expected.”

Paimon furrowed her brows as if she were disappointed by my reaction.

“Do you perhaps have a preference for younger bodies like Barbatos’? This is a dream. This lady could change her figure for you.”

“I absolutely do not have such a preference.”

Although I ended up becoming lovers with Barbatos and Laura, people with smaller figures, ever since I fell into this world, it was not intentional. This was definitely the doing of some sort of cosmic entity that was messing with fate. My sexual preferences are absolutely normal. Seriously. Damn it.

Paimon pouted.

“Very well, then. The moment you conquer an impregnable fortress is when you bask in the most satisfaction. Making the first man Barbatos has ever taken as a lover kneel before this lady and plead……Fufu. Now that will truly be an amazing sight. I am looking forward to it.”

Please don’t look forward to it.

I was now certain. Be it the Mountain Faction or the Plains Faction, the brains of every high-ranking Demon Lord were dyed pink with lust. Barbatos was literally the most perverted, BDSM-loving, loli bitch, the blonde and unaffiliated Rank 4 Demon Lord Gamigin was a masochist, and the woman before me was a woman who didn’t lose out to her past lover when it came to perverseness.

I don’t understand why these three split into groups. They should combine their factions and create the Perverted Party. I guarantee you that they would be able to unify the Demon Lord army without shedding a single drop of blood if they did this. Would that not be amazing? These Demon Lords were all the same……. I emphasize this often, but you can’t find a Demon Lord as reliable and sincere as me.

“I will be in your care, Miss Paimon.”

“Indeed, Dantalian. Let us work together for the sake of each other’s goals.”

We shook hands.

“Additionally, I hope that we are able to have a close relationship even behind closed doors.”

“……That is, uh, an honor.”

How persistent! I’m a man who knows how to manage his sexual desires. I have a rational head on my shoulders. I won’t be tempted no matter how much Paimon wags her tail.

However, I was a little curious. Paimon’s affection towards me was somewhat low. Considering her personality, she doesn’t seem like someone who would just kiss anyone.

‘Status.’

I decided to check Paimon’s status window just in case. Her affection was probably low, so I was most likely only going to be able to see her basic stats. If this was the case, then that would make this incredibly terrifying as it would mean that Paimon was tricking me even now. She could be pretending as she did with the hero.

Nonetheless, my concerns were wiped out completely.

– Ding!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Name: Paimon Race: Demon Lord　　 Affiliation: Paimon’s Demon Lord Army, Mountain Faction, Liberation Alliance Attribute: Evil(-34)

Level: 349　　　　Infamy: 5354100 Job: Demon Lord(S), Dungeon Manager(A+), Archmage(Ruin)

Leadership: 300　　Might: 224 　　Intelligence: 107 Politics: 448　　Charm: 572　　Technique: 349

Affection: 44

Current thought: ‘Should I just do him here? Hm.’ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

I’m not sure why, but Paimon’s affection was at 44. I didn’t understand.

‘I never saw a notification window telling me that Paimon’s affection had gone up, though?’

More importantly, her stat points were distributed very unevenly. Her politics and charm stats were abnormally high. This explained why, according to her, she specialized in political schemes but not in normal schemes. It makes sense that she was able to become the leader of the greatest faction in the Demon Lord army with stats like those.

……Her current thought worried me, but I decided to ignore it for now. I kept having a sense of deja vu. I did my best to calm down before asking a question.

“Pardon me, Miss Paimon, but what about me do you like exactly?”

“What an abrupt question.”

Paimon pondered for a moment before speaking.

“Well, back when you were giving the ceremonial speech for the Crescent Alliance, I fully believed that you could become this lady’s ally.”

“Ah, so it was from back then.”

It happened in the middle of the speech, huh? It was probably immediately after I defeated the imperial princess. Thousands of notice windows washed over me at that time telling me about the affection points of all sorts of people.

I couldn’t possibly check each and every notification, so I turned them off all at once. So Paimon’s affection notice was one of them……. It wasn’t surprising that I failed to notice it.

“Do you have no more questions? All right. Then it is time for me to introduce you.”

“Huh? Introduce me?”

“We are many and we are also one.”

An unreadable smile appeared on Paimon’s lips.

“It is time to wake up, Dantalian.”

Flick, she snapped her fingers.

My eyes opened at that moment. The white void was nowhere to be seen now. All I could see was the carriage’s black ceiling in front of me. It was night.

I hastily raised my upper body. Lapis was sleeping peacefully on the other side of the carriage. Only the sound of Lapis’ regular breathing resonated quietly throughout the carriage. ……Did I wake up from a dream?

It was weird. It felt like a lot of time had passed, but it also felt like only a moment had passed. My head felt clear as if I had gotten a good night’s rest. I got up slowly as my body moved subconsciously. I then carefully opened the door to the carriage.

“Welcome, Dantalian.”

There, standing in front of me, was Paimon in a black dress.

It wasn’t only her. There were about a dozen other people lined up behind her. They were all wearing black robes. They were standing solemnly and in silence which made me feel like I was at a funeral.

We were in the ruins of a castle. The campfire was no longer burning, so with only the pale light from the moon shining down on her―Paimon grabbed the ends of her dress and curtseyed as if she were the lady of this castle who had slipped through time.

“We are the Liberation Alliance. The one and only federation of the human world and the demon world.”

Thud.

The people who were standing upright behind Paimon brought their right hands to their chests in unison.

“As we believe that all living beings that are able to think rationally are equal, we have therefore decided to return the world back to its most basic state. We are partners that have decided to devote our blood and sweat into revolution until that fateful day arrives.”

“…….”

I was bewildered as I took in the scene before me. Starting from the person to my right, they started to speak in order. Their voices melted into the night sky.

A person with a fuzzy beard bowed his head as he greeted me.

“It is an honor to meet you, Your Highness. This humble one goes by the name Stephan Timofeyevich. I am a mix between a plains elf and a human. I am in charge of the Liberation Alliance branch in the Kingdom of Moscow. I act as the supreme commander of the Don Cossacks Cavalry. It is nice to meet you.”

Next, it was a stout dwarf’s turn to speak.

“This lowly one’s name is Jack Bonhomme. I am from the Greenbeard dwarf clan. I am the branch manager of the Frank Empire branch of the Liberation Alliance. I lead the Double Ax Mercenary Brigade. I have heard a lot about Your Highness.”

“Greetings. This one’s name is Wat Tyler! I am in charge of the Liberation Army branch in the Kingdom of Bernicia!”

Like this, they continued to introduce themselves one by one.

Moscow, Frankia, Bernicia, Brittany, Castile, Sardinia, Habsburg, Teuton, Kalmar Union, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Anatolia……and finally, a girl with dull blonde hair spoke.

“This humble one’s name is Anna de Bis. I am the general manager of the Liberation Alliance and the branch manager of the Republic of Batavia. I also have the lowest seat among the 13 committee members of the nation. Please treat me well.”

A total of 12 people. They were rooted deeply in every nation on the continent. One of them was the leader of a large nomadic tribe, another was a high-ranking government official of a kingdom, and another had a key position in the republic’s power structure.

“…….”

The republic that Paimon mentioned was a lot larger and deeply enrooted in key positions of every society than I expected. If these people were to act, then they could more than easily make the continent fall into chaos. I was at a loss for words as I imagined their capabilities.

Paimon was the final person to speak.

“This lady is the leader of the Liberation Army. Rank 9 Demon Lord Paimon.”

I barely managed to utter a response.

“I am the Rank 71 Demon Lord Dantalian.”

“Dantalian, can you swear to never reveal information about the Liberation Alliance even if a knife were to be placed against your throat?”

This wasn’t a simple oath swearing. There was probably a magical contract being applied here. That was what Paimon’s gaze was saying.

If I take a step forward here, then I will enter a world that I have never experienced before even in the game. The pieces of information that I had until now will no longer have as much strength as they did before. Therefore, my survival will be solely determined by my own abilities.

While standing before this forked path,

“Yes, I swear.”

I gave a firm response.

Paimon smiled.

“From this point forth, you are now an eternal comrade of the Liberation Alliance. Dantalian, I welcome you.”

She must’ve prepared them beforehand as bottles of wine and wine cups were passed around. A wine that was as red as blood filled the cups. I thought to myself as I shared a toast with them.

I can no longer predict future events.

The impact of the Black Death was a lot weaker here than how it was supposed to be. The Crescent Alliance happened a whole decade early, and different from how it went in the game, the Demon Lord army was winning. Elizabeth, who was fated to become the ruler of the continent, had received a huge political blow. The relations between nobles and farmers had deteriorated.

And there were people here who craved for revolution.

“We are many and we are also one.”

Paimon quietly raised her glass as she led the toast. It was the Liberation Alliance’s slogan.

“For revolution.”

They all shouted in unison.

“For revolution!”

“For revolution―!”

Including me, all 14 people present emptied their cups instantly. We then threw our cups on the ground and shattered them. A custom from the Demon Lord army was also maintained in this organization. The glass cups shattered and glimmered as the moonlight reflected off of the many shards.

‘Be it the Plains Faction or the Mountain Faction, I’ll use them all.’

As this was what I have been doing.

I will continue to do so.

* * *

Dawn approached.

The members of the Liberation Alliance were gone. They used teleportation magic to return to where they belonged. Paimon remained until the very end and gave me some heavy words.

“The Liberation Alliance branches do not only exist in the human world.”

“They exist in the demon world as well, huh?”

“This lady knows what you have been going around and saying to the archdukes of hell.”

Paimon smiled brightly. In other words, there was a republican among the archdukes as well.

It was hard to fathom how far Paimon and Baal’s reach went. I smiled bitterly on the inside as I saw Paimon off.

I sat on a boulder as I stared out at the horizon. The sun was slowly rising. While I was basking in the languidness of dawn, I heard a voice behind me.

“……Sir Dantalian.”

It was Lapis. I turned my head and grinned. I then returned my gaze to the horizon. Lapis naturally came to my side in silence. She also stared out at the horizon.

I am sorry for causing you trouble. No, I am the one who should be sorry. I have no injuries because you covered me. That is naturally my role. ……Lapis and I knew that we had no reason to go out of our way to share this kind of conversation.

A single line.

“Thanks.”

“Yes. Thank you very much.”

Thanking each other like this was more than enough.

The two of us silently watched the faint light of dawn rise up.

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter. God I love when just pressing enter to make a space between line doesn’t work and it disappears when the post is published. Some people might be curious about why I would always put in like invisible Οs as line gaps, but that’s the reason. For some reason, just pressing enter to make the gaps works sometimes, but other times, it doesn’t and gets deleted when the chapter is published. Single line gaps often work, but if I want to make the gap bigger, I have to resort to using the Οs. WordPress just doesn’t like line gaps.

On another note, I might take a day off because I feel like I’ve been burning myself out. I feel a tad tired. See you guys in the next chapter.

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