Dungeon Defense (WN)

* * *

Two days have passed since I returned from Niflheim. I wonder if this is an aftereffect of vacations since I felt like old gum stuck under a desk and splayed myself out on my bed as soon as I got home. One’s home, especially the bed of one’s home, possesses a bizarre power. The realization that I already considered this place as my home put a bitter smile on my face.

Of course, there are things I can do while lying down. Like doting on the monsters I haven’t seen while I was gone.

“You’re ticklish here, right?”

⎯ Kyarururu!

The fairy giggled once I rubbed her side with my index finger. She would fly up as if to tell me to not tickle her, but she would eventually come back down slowly. This was probably like a scary, but fun amusement park ride to her. I put my heart and soul into massaging the fairy. All while lying on my bed.

⎯ Kyaha? Kyaha.

A different fairy approached and grabbed my left index finger. She then looked at me expectantly. ‘Me too? Me too?’, it was like her eyes were asking me this. Even I couldn’t help but feel my heart tighten.

Are they perhaps not fairies but angels? If I ever have children, I wasn’t confident that I could dote on them as much as I do these fairies.

“All right. I’ll use my special move……<Two-handed Attack>.”

I declared more grimly than I intended.

This is my ultimate move.

This double-edged skill that I wouldn’t dare to even use in a life or death situation. It’s like an inescapable labyrinth once used or like the mouth of a rafflesia flower.

⎯ Kyahaa?

The fairy must have sensed my seriousness as she looked right at me. Hah, you noticed too late. You’ve already awoken a monster that mustn’t be awoken. I raised my hand. I raised my hands like a pianist who was about to start performing the cadenza of Mozart’s concerto. I then used each of my hands to tickle both the fairies at the same time.

⎯ Kyaruru! Kyarururu!

The two fairies squirmed around on the bed. I can’t hide it anymore. This is my genuine skill that far surpasses something like <Acting>. Although my two-handed assault has a 100% chance of subduing my target, it has a single flaw.

It’s the fact that I can’t do anything else with my hands.

Both of my hands are sealed.

Adding to this, since I’m lying down on my bed right now, I can’t use my feet either. Some onlookers may retort that I could just get up from my bed, but those onlookers are people who don’t know what beds are. Beds aren’t objects that you get off of. Beds are objects that you lay on. If you get up from a bed, then it’s like you’ve completely forgotten the true purpose of beds. For starters, only when you have laid on a bed to the point where you feel like you’ll remain there forever if you stay lying any longer, is when you’ve used a bed properly.

Although it feels like I had just heavily alluded to the reason why I spent my time unemployed in my original world, in consideration of my mental state, I disregarded it. What ultimately mattered was the fact that both my arms and legs were currently incapacitated. This eternal recurrence of being unable to retreat until the other party surrenders to my tickling. By getting sucked into this looping logic, I must roll the Dharma Wheel of Sisyphus forever…….

While I was wallowing in the remorse of my tragic life, the other fairies had gathered around us. I wonder if what we were doing appeared incredibly fun to them. Seeing the fairies gather around and declare that it was their turn now reminded me of the elementary school kids back in my world who would gather around an arcade machine in front of a stationary store and argue about who would get to play first.

I mumbled in shock.

“Don’t tell me……do you all intend to impose a more extreme situation upon me!?”

They intended to retaliate against my powerful assault with numbers. Eternal absolute tactics were being carried out on Rank 71st Dantalian’s Demon Lord bed within his Demon Lord castle.

The fairies looked at my expression and giggled. I am certain that it wasn’t only my imagination that their laughter sounded like they were saying, ‘That is so, we are the nightmare that will defeat you. Despair and lament, O Foolish One.’ I felt like how Goguryeo’s Yang Manchun must have felt as he stood atop of Ansi City and watched the armies of the Tang Dynasty approach endlessly.

“Kuh, you cheap Chinese bastards! Let us fight using our abilities and not with numbers!”

⎯ Kyahaa? Kyaruru.

“What was that? The human-wave strategy is also a respectable strategy?”

I let out a groan. I don’t know who these monsters belong to, but they were truly cheap and underhanded girls. Even I can’t imagine how perverse and malicious the master that raised these monsters could be.

I poured all my strength and stamina into tickling them. It was a desperate attempt; however, it was fruitless. Once a fairy gave up and retreated, another one would come in and replace her. This would repeat over and over again.

“T-The fairies aren’t giving up……!?”

What is this?

This is unreasonable.

It was like the referee was allowing the other team to replace their members not three times but infinitely even though our team was breathing heavily from exhaustion. There wasn’t even a morsel of sportsmanship.

If this sort of competition happened during the World Cup, then I’m certain that the viewers would all get upset and raze FIFA to the ground. I would most likely be the one standing at the front as a vanguard while holding a banner. The fact that things that couldn’t happen in sports could happen as many times as possible made it clear how unfair life is.

“If this is how you girls are going to play, then so be it.”

I stopped tickling them. ‘Kyaa?’, the fairies uttered as they looked up at me with question marks for eyes. Although their adorableness was extremely deadly, I didn’t let myself be tempted. It’s because I knew that horrendous dastardliness and heinousness were hiding behind their cute faces.

I raised my head and snorted.

“I didn’t want to use this ability. Remember that you were the ones who pushed me this far.”

⎯ Kyaha?

“The Wings of Corruption soar across the sky that has lost its stars……. Fate shall be imprisoned in a gap between time and roam eternally. Heraclitus and Anaximandros, Antinomy and Endless that smile in the early evening, I shall summon a legend here under the name of Paradox.” (TL Note: This part is entirely just chuunibyou speak. It’s pretty hard to get a firm grasp at what he’s talking about.)

I raised my hands like an orchestra conductor.

At this moment, I was truly like a Demon Lord.

The representation of fear who appears in fantasy stories and sows anxiety into the main character’s party while muttering some unknown language. A pitiful Demon Lord who didn’t even have more than a hundred stats combined was nowhere to be seen here. Only a perfect, dark, and terrifying man was present.

The more terrifying thing was the fact that I didn’t bite my tongue even once, which means that even if the sophists of Ancient Greece were to form an alliance and retaliate against me, they would all lose to my eloquence and commit suicide by throwing themselves into the Mediterranean because of the humiliation. There was only perfect and flawless narcissism here.

“Behold this miracle where one becomes two and two become ten. <The Night Dance of Ten Golden Fingers>!”

That’s right. There was no reason for me to only use ‘one’ finger of my hand to tickle them. If 10 fairies approach me⎯⎯then I just have to face them with 10 fingers! That’s <The Night Dance of Ten Golden Fingers>.

⎯ Kyaruruk!? Kyaha, kyarururu!

The outcome was impressive. 10 fairies were all subdued at the same time as they fell over helplessly to my tickling. As I thought, using my pinky to tickle the fairies was quite a difficult task, but I did my best to tickle them as delicately as possible. The fairies laughed nonstop. It was a bargain sale of laughter.

“Kuhaha! You dirty Chinese bastards, you most likely came at me believing in your numbers, but it is your fault for not realizing that the river is shallower than usual today⎯!”

“Ah ha.”

I heard the sound of awe next to me.

“So you’re dividing and conquering numerous opponents at the same time.”

“That’s right. This is my trump card. The secret move that I, Dantalian, have been hiding all this time!”

“You have an intuitive sense for military tactics as well, I see. How impressive. I have been with you for a month now, but I am still discovering new things about you. You are like an onion with infinite layers.”

“Well, even if you compliment me like that, I……?”

I stopped playing with the fairies with my fingers.

Once I turned my head, I saw Laura De Farnese sitting at the side of the bed. She was looking this way with her usual colorless and odorless eyes.

“…….”

A cold bead of sweat flowed down my back.

“I’ve dealt with quite the number of adventurer parties after I arrived here. I had become confident because I thought that I might actually have a knack for tactics, but it seems that I am still wet behind the ears when compared to you. How embarrassing. I will continue to better myself.”

“May……May I ask how long you have been watching me for?”

“Hm? What do you mean by, ‘how long’?”

I gulped.

“I-I mean. Since when did you start watching me play with the fairies?”

“It has not been that long.”

Laura brushed her blonde hair behind her shoulder as she spoke.

“To be exact, I started watching around the time you shouted <Two-handed Attack>.”

“That’s from the beginning!”

I grabbed my head and cried out. It must have been because I was lying on my side as I didn’t notice Laura sit next to me. Even though the Demon Lord room was scruffy, the bed was the only thing that was extravagant, so it was tall. Who knew that that would create such an opening.

A cold-hearted Demon Lord on the outside and a warm man on the inside was my image. At the very least, I wanted to have this image with Laura. Laura is an individual who will one day grow up to become one of the greatest strategists in the world. At the very least, I wanted to leave this sort of impression on her. That way, she wouldn’t betray me.

But I wound up getting caught as a fool who plays with his monsters. To make matters worse, even Lapis has never seen me in such a lowly state!

‘No. Calm down.’

My brain worked quickly. If I consider Laura’s tone……she didn’t sound like she knew that I was just now roleplaying extremely childishly. Therefore, there was a chance that my image hadn’t been greatly harmed yet. The best thing to do was act as brazenly as possible in times like this. In order to make it appear as if I weren’t just playing around and that there was some bigger picture behind my actions.

“But Dantalian, I have a couple of questions.”

“W-What is it?”

I responded nonchalantly. My voice quivered a little, but this was enough to receive a passing grade.

“What does it mean for the Wings of Corruption to soar across a sky that has lost its stars and for fate to be imprisoned between a moment of time and made to roam forever? I don’t quite get it.”

“Guaaaah!”

I screamed.

H-Hearing it out loud hurts much more than I imagined!

I wanted to immediately hide in a hole, but I couldn’t pull myself together in time because of Laura’s following questions.

“Also about Heraclitus and Aniximandros, and the two that smile in the early evening, Antinomy and Endless…….”

“Guah! Guaaack! Stop, please stop!”

“You said that you would summon a legend under the name of Paradox, but what correlation does a legend have with the movement of ten fingers? It sounds like there is a hidden meaning behind this which I cannot possibly grasp yet.”

“My dark past! My dark past is being brought back to me!”

Back when I was in elementary school, I would pretend as if I were a secret agent who had immense power and I would mutter to myself, ‘Some strange bastards are trying to invade Seoul again’. There was a girl who was walking to school with me one of the times I said that and she asked what I was talking about, so I shook my head as if the masses couldn’t possibly understand. I then told her, ‘You’ll get hurt if you knew. I don’t want to drag you into this cruel world.’

I will never forget her face at that moment.

She looked as if she wanted to vomit blood.

On the other hand, Laura looked completely serious.

“Please, I ask that you teach me the secret meaning behind your tactics.”

“My tactics……my tactics, huh…….”

My head went blank. I had no idea how to respond. Nevertheless, my brain, heart, and stomach had fused together and were screaming that I had to do whatever it takes to get out of this situation.

I shouted in my mind.

‘A-Acting skill activate!’

I wonder if it was because I had shouted it more earnestly than I ever had before. My Acting skill activated with a fancier sound effect which I had never heard before since the tutorial.

「Acting has been activated.」 「The die of luck has stopped just barely at the corner of the table! The chance that the other party doubts your statement has been ‘fairly’ lowered.」

Considering how the other party’s doubt has only been lowered ‘slightly’ until now, it seems that I succeeded in using my skill a level higher than before.

Why am I getting such good luck now!? This didn’t happen during the Walpurgis Night when I actually needed it! No, I don’t have the time to regret something that has already passed. I have to first recover from the calamity that had fallen before me like a wildfire.

I spoke whatever gibberish came out of my mouth.

“Tactics is something that combines 36 stratagems and 108 schemes……. Antinomy, Paradox, and Endless included……. You are hearing some of these words for the first time because they are ruses that I had secretly attached a name to…….”

“Oh.”

“If you wish to deceive the enemy, you must deceive your allies. And if you wish to deceive your allies, you must deceive yourself first……. By showing actions that appear as if they have absolutely no meaning, those actions will pile up and compress together to ultimately transcend into a single stratagem……. The opponent will have lowered their guard and only realize the meaning behind all of your actions at the last moment, but it will already be too late…….”

“I see.”

Laura was moved.

“In other words, a profound stratagem is hiding behind your words that sounded meaningless. They then combine at the end and become 10 fingers.”

“C-Correct. For you to have figured that out, you’re also quite impressive yourself, Laura…….”

“That isn’t so. In truth, I still do not understand what road Antinomy and Paradox that smile in the evening could have taken to lead to tickling. It is embarrassing to think that your profound words are located somewhere which my rationality still cannot reach. I will continue to better myself.”

“Haha, working hard is always good. Haha, ha…….”

As I let out a forced laugh, I heard a sound effect.

「Laura De Farnese’s affection has risen by 2!」

「Laura De Farnese’s affection has reached 50. Her affection will not increase any further until an event occurs.」

I somehow did it.

Even I don’t know how I did it, but I know that I managed to pull through in the end. This was good enough. I don’t need anything more.

Right when I was about to let out a sigh of relief, Laura tilted her head and asked a question.

“Nevertheless, the education I received until now was insufficient, so it is not enough for me to figure this out on my own. I am ashamed to say this, but it is the truth. Thus, I am curious as to whether I can ask Lapis for her opinion the next time she visits about the true meaning behind your words?”

“That is the one thing you absolutely mustn’t do!”

My cry echoed throughout the caverns of my dungeon.

***

TL note: Thanks for reading the chapter. Yadda yadda, nothing much to say, yadda yadda, coronavirus, yadda yadda, my next uni semester starts on the 16th. I honestly don’t know what else to say, so I’ll see you guys in the next release.