Dungeon Defense (WN)

This wasn’t just a threat. If you’re going to kill me, then do it. This was what I genuinely thought.

Killing me wouldn’t end with the death of a single person. It would also cut the makeshift bridge between the Plains, Mountain, and Neutral Factions. It would also be the death of the mediator between demons and humans. You would also be destroying the only way to suppress the unaffiliated Demon Lords by killing Gamigin’s lover.

Furthermore, there were also the lives that were lost in order to get this far.

The fifty thousand lives that had fallen at Austerlitz and Bruno respectively, the two thousand resolved death throes on the Black Mountains, and the lives of both Agares and Baal also lay on top of all this.

Naturally, the weight of tens of thousands of innocent lives was on my shoulders. I committed all of my slaughters with explicit intentions.

I fully acknowledged that this was my responsibility. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

We were on a mountaintop with no room for excuses. This was a barren land that you couldn’t even plant excuses in as seeds to harvest later. A graveyard of specters with their heads held high. A barren land of ice where nothing could be born.

A person who wishes to deny this requires a great excuse.

You could be like Elizabeth and declare the betterment of humanity and one’s nation. It doesn’t matter what the excuse is. The important part is if you have the resolve and whether there is any hypocrisy in your words. Paimon understood this fact very well.

Paimon squeezed out her words like an injured animal.

“The person who understood…… accepted, and forgave me.”

Her shell was shattering. The pebble that was buried deep in her chest was appearing on her face. Her face wasn’t the surface of her emotions, it was the bottom. That’s right. Different from me, she has a bottom.

“The first person I liked……!”

Paimon cried out.

“There is no way I could kill someone like that!”

You said it, Paimon. You admitted that you couldn’t kill me.

All right. At this moment, like a petal falling from a lily, a beautiful ideal that only a precious few humans in the world could possess dropped to the ground in silence.

Paimon is a woman who silently sacrificed hundreds of years for the sake of her ideal. All the gold in the continent would still be insignificant compared to her efforts. Despite all this, she didn’t want to kill me, no, she couldn’t. Her ideal was rejected by this extremely realistic and powerful emotion.

In that case, let’s make a contract.

I wiped away Paimon’s tears with my hand.

“Leave your conviction with me.”

An eternally unbreakable contract. A contract of blood.

“Paimon, in the end, you are unable to kill me, a single person. If you are told to sacrifice ten thousand healthy lives for the sake of republicanism, you would choose nothing. That is your limit. But I am different.”

“Dantalian……?”

Was it because she had cried too much? Paimon’s eyes were hazy. Paimon called out my name blankly with a somewhat anxious tone. I knelt down in order to be at her eye level.

“The fact that the lives of ten thousand cannot be killed for republicanism is something that you are aware of. Belief does not have the authority to slaughter that many lives. Nonetheless, you also know that a belief with that much of a right does not exist.”

You cannot commit slaughters as long as you are a ‘good’ individual.

A majority of idealists do not know this. Even if they did, they feign ignorance.

The fact that Paimon couldn’t feign ignorance made it clear that she possessed an ideal in the most beautiful form. I was now going to put that beauty on a white sheet of paper and put it on display in the museum within my mind forever.

“However, it is possible for an evil person to slaughter ten thousand.”

Paimon’s expression turned to that of shock.

“Dantalian…… what are you saying……?”

“Did I not say it before? I will act as a proxy for your desire.”

I smiled.

I made sure to do so as gently as possible. To make her unconsciously want to rely on me.

“I will kill the things that you cannot kill. I will impose the sacrifices that you cannot forgive. You can put down the burden that has been on your shoulders. In the first place, that burden was not something a person like you should have been shouldering.”

“That is ridiculous!”

Paimon shouted.

“I-I do not want that…… I never have……!”

“That is a lie. You have wanted it at least once, no, you have longed for it hundreds of thousands of times.”

I looked into Paimon’s gem-like red eyes with certainty.

“To one day wake up in a different world where demons and humans are not discriminated between……. How great would it be if that happened? I am sure that you most likely yearned for this to the point of wailing. Am I wrong?”

“Ah, ah…….”

Her mouth opened and closed over and over again. Incomprehensible sobs seeped out from between her lips.

“This is a contract. From now on, you will abandon all of your ideals. You do not have the right to utter such ideals when you cannot kill even me……. Paimon, please lower yourself to that of a simple lady.”

You could devote your life to something because you think it is right.

However, if you kill people for the sake of that something, then that thing would no longer be right. This is a paradox that many idealists face.

But what if a person who is bad from the beginning causes the massacres?

What if slaughters occur, causing the deaths of numerous people, but the culprit who caused the slaughters doesn’t try to make any excuses? Before you know it, republicanism would have ‘ultimately’ spread throughout the continent.

With this, there would be a clear person responsible for the slaughters, and republicanism would also be achieved. If the culprit doesn’t say that they committed the slaughters for republicanism, then republicanism would be unconnected to the crimes and remain in its purest form.

There would be no heroes or sacrifices in that world.

Only an evil individual would exist prominently.

People would be able to stare at beauty without any doubt or suspicions.

“But, what…… what would happen to you, then!?”

“Please do not underestimate me. I have already killed ten thousand people. Adding you on top of that would make no difference.”

I laughed pleasantly. My limbs were screaming since I wasn’t fully healed yet; however, I had to laugh if I wanted to endure the pain.

Good people are incompetent and bad people are competent. For some reason, the world was like this. If you have a sense of humor, then it would only be natural to laugh here.

“I appreciate your consideration, but please understand the topic. If you are harboring thoughts about trying to save me, then please throw them in the trash. I do not want something like that.”

“I also do not wish to leave all of the burdens on you instead!”

I smiled brightly.

“Sorry, but things like that are no longer important.”

Do you still not understand? I don’t ask other parties for their consent. Asking for consent would turn them into accomplices. True big shots don’t need something like accomplices.

This was all over the moment you admitted that you couldn’t kill me.

All that was needed now was a single lie. Adding this one thing would be enough to steal the soul of the maiden who was crying relentlessly in front of me.

I will show it to you now.

“I love you, Paimon.”

“Huh……?”

I took half a step forward and stole her lips before she could react.

Paimon’s eyes went wide. There was a slight bit of resistance. She struggled in order to push me away.

I utilized my injuries against her. I would furrow my brows as if my body was in pain whenever Paimon tried to move. Paimon immediately stopped to struggle as soon as she noticed this. She was probably reminded of the fact that I was still severely injured.

I took advantage of that opportunity.

Paimon relented so I forced a more intense kiss upon her. She carefully touched my body as if she were trying to push me away, but that kind of feeble resistance only made our bodies come closer together. Her attempts gradually waned down.

In the end, the only thing that remained was the two of us in an embrace.

“……, …, …….”

Paimon slowly closed her eyes.

The tears that had welled up around her eyes drew a smooth line down her cheek.

At the same time, a sound effect that almost sounded gloomy to me now rang out.

「Deep affection! The other party genuinely relies on you. A new title has been given to the other party because of this bond.」

50 affection points. The first affection point lock was broken.

The first step of capturing Paimon was none other than making her abandon her ideals. It was quite literally a malicious joke. However, at this point, I fully understood why it was like this.

50 affection points is probably by no means an arbitrary value. This value has a specific meaning behind it. It’s the value where the person is able to maintain their identities and love their partners at the same time. An impressive balance.

If their affection is lower than 50, then they would probably pick their belief over their partner if they had to make a choice. If it’s higher, then they would prioritize their partner. Exactly 50 means that they aren’t able to pick one side or the other…….

In that regard, capturing her didn’t mean anything good.

Before meeting me, Paimon was complete as a person. She didn’t need anyone else. However, after meeting me, she gained something with an equivalent value to her beliefs.

One’s belief refers to their identity as a whole. Therefore, capturing someone meant that you were destroying someone’s identity from their roots.

Laura abandoned her outlook on the world and chose to stay at my side. Gamigin became a woman obsessed with love. Ivar lost the identity she had built up for thousands of years and was reduced to being my maid.

Yes, reduced. No matter what other people may think, I think of this as falling.

“Ah, mm…… hah.”

I kissed Paimon more tenderly.

She wasn’t showing even a fragment of resistance now. She was accepting me as a whole. Paimon had fallen.

The only unfortunate thing at the moment was the fact that my body really hurt right now.

If my body was in better condition, then I would’ve dragged Paimon to my bed and turned her into a mess. I sort of felt like a kiss wasn’t enough. Well, if you have no teeth, then you have to make do with your gums.

I was having these kinds of thoughts while kissing the girl I had confessed my love to. I really am quite a ridiculous person. Well, this isn’t exactly anything new…….

Paimon will most likely listen to my orders from now on. Some remnants of her ideal might make her act arbitrarily, but I should be able to prevent it if I ask strong enough. That’s the typical end for a heroine who has been conquered.

The entire Demon Lord army was now under my control.

Barbatos listens to my advice, Paimon and Gamigin have been captured by me, and Marbas doesn’t show any signs of wanting to make any significant moves. A marvelous conclusion.

I’d probably get scolded by Lapis if I told her this, though.

At the very least, I knew that thinking of another woman while kissing someone wasn’t polite. If you think about it, I’m a man of manners. You could say that I’m the physical embodiment of manners.

Therefore, I focused on the sensation of Paimon’s lips.

As I felt the now silent night.

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter. Nothing too much to say this time around. Pitiful Paimon, but she did this to herself. I’ve been busy playing catch-up at work because the dang Chinese game is STILL giving us more work. I don’t know if I mentioned it, but the client hired a project manager who is apparently good at English and Indonesian. Normally this would be a good thing for us, but the asshole is completely disregarding all previous guidelines we had set up and decisions that were made to just change the game to how he wants it. We were told early on that the two projects don’t have to use the same exact terms, but now he’s trying to fuse everything, disregarding that doing so will require us to change thousands of lines. So yeah, classic client-side incompetency 🙂

Rant aside, if the next chapter is late, then it’s because I’m still busy trying to catch-up on work. I’ve been doing extra work after I get home, so that’s fun. I’ll see you guys in the next chapter.

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