Dungeon Defense (WN)

A young kid had stood up in the middle of the group of humans who were seated.
I turned to look at their face because they had spoken in an old-timey way of speech despite being a slash-and-burn villager.
It was a girl.

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“…….”

Eyes that were as dark as obsidian were shimmering with life.
Her gaze alone wasn’t nearly enough to contain all of her life force as it stretched out on all sides like invisible branches.

There was a certain type of air flowing around the girl that was different from the dry ticking of a clock.
It felt like a melody that was influencing the time.

I was caught in those black eyes and could not move for a while.
The girl raised her hand to her chest and bowed neatly to me as soon as we made eye contact.
She was waiting for my response.
In other words, a lot of time hadn’t passed since our eyes met.

“Daisy!”

The woman, the hero’s mother who didn’t flinch or weep all this time let out a shout.
She raised her head and looked at the girl with despair.
Her face was already covered in tears, so it was like adding a flood to a river.

Although it would only be right to reprimand her for her discourtesy, I felt like a hammer had struck my head.

Daisy, that was the name of the hero’s little sister.

The protagonist would constantly mutter ‘Mom, Dad, Daisy’ over and over again throughout the game whenever he anguished over his lost family.
I was familiar with the name Daisy.
Considering the reaction the woman had just given, this girl was undoubtedly the hero, Luke’s little sister.

If Daisy was simply Luke’s little sister, then I wouldn’t be panicking this much.
There was another fact that was actually important.

‘Daisy……she becomes the hero if the player chooses to play a female character!”

Similar to other games, Dungeon Attack lets you select the protagonist’s gender as well.
If you select a male character, then the little sister dies when the village is invaded by monsters.
If you select a female character, then it happens to the brother instead.

I chose Luke.
I didn’t have a habit of selecting female characters when playing games.
Thus, I naturally thought that this world would select Luke as the hero as well.
Come to think of it, this was just a conclusion I had made arbitrarily.

But why?

‘According to the scenario, one of them should be dead.
Why were both Luke and Daisy alive……ah.’

I came to a realization.
Andromalius’ invasion event had disappeared because of me.

Andromalius didn’t lead his goblins to crush this slash-and-burn village, so naturally, neither of the siblings perished.

No, selecting a gender wasn’t a procedure that happened within a game event.
It was a setting that was selected before starting the game like inputting your character’s name.
Who would have thought that a setting-establishing procedure would be mirrored in this world…….

I felt a chill.

‘Two heroes could’ve appeared if I didn’t visit this place.’

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The hero was a monster who was capable of slaughtering Demon Lords on their own.
There were two of them.
I had killed Andromalius in order to prevent the hero from being born, but it ended up making things even more dangerous.
Without anyone knowing, the Demon Lord army had been put into a disastrous situation.

Calm.

Stay calm.

There’s nothing else that you can do except use your brain, Dantalian.
Shovel coal into that rotten brain of yours.
Think until steam comes out of your ears.
Think of what you should do in this situation.

“Your demeanor is impressive for a child who was raised in such a secluded place.”

I managed to move my lips.

“Although I should punish you for opening your mouth when I did not ask a question…….”

The woman prostrating before me, the mother of two heroes was looking up at me.
She was pleading for mercy with her tearful eyes.
The fact that she didn’t audibly beg for mercy made her an impressive human.

“This is an assumption, but I believe you are a blood relative to the boy, Luke.
You have the right to speak up about your family’s demise, brat.”

The mother was so moved that she was touching her head on the ground.
It wasn’t only once.
Five, six times, the woman continued to pound her head on the ground.
This was the best way she could show her gratitude since she wasn’t allowed to speak.
As expected, the father was also doing the same thing.

“Keep in mind that I am not so generous to give you multiple chances.
I will only give you one opportunity to give a rebuttal.
O child who was born and raised on a mountainside, are you prepared to shoulder this single chance?”

“Yes, O Great Being.”

Daisy answered immediately with her head lowered.
Her tone wasn’t overflowing with confidence; however, she didn’t sound servile either.
Similar to when a vassal would swear their loyalty to their lord, the girl spoke in a refined manner.

I couldn’t picture her as a child who was around 10 years old.
She was most likely an innate genius.

As expected of someone who had the fate of the world on their shoulders.
She was someone who was going to grow up to become a hero.
So you’re telling me that I shouldn’t judge her by her outer appearance alone……?

I woke up all of the nerves in my entire body.
I made the eyes of even the smallest molecules in my body open up to stare at the other party like my life was on the line.

I was familiar with the male hero, Luke.
However, I knew practically nothing about the female hero, Daisy.
What kind of personality does she have? What about her habits? I had to figure this all out with an unprecedented amount of caution.

“Very well, then.
I will allow you to speak.
You will be granted the right to speak freely even when I have not asked a question.
However, you must first answer my question.”

“Yes.”

“Step forward.”

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Once Daisy raised her feet, the humans naturally opened a path for her.
She walked down that opened path and stopped about six steps away from me before getting down on one knee.

I felt a bit bewildered.
Wasn’t she the daughter of some slash-and-burn farmers? How was she used to performing common courtesies?

“……You claimed that you wished to rely upon my magnanimity.
With what proof do you believe that I would be magnanimous? If that was simply rhetoric, then I will punish you accordingly.”

“That is because Your Honor had already shown us clemency twice.”

The girl responded.

“I showed clemency twice already? This is the first time I am hearing of this.”

I intentionally let out an audible laugh.
This was for the sake of applying psychological pressure.
I didn’t think I was being shameful even though I was only facing a child.
Before being a child, the girl before me was a hero candidate.

“Yes, I truly am curious as to how magnanimous I must be when I have already killed several humans in this village including the village chief.
Go on, tell me.”

“Understood.
First, Your Honor did not send your forces to the stream even though you were told that Luke was there.
Your Honor could have immediately sent your troops to capture Luke.
This was Your Honor’s first act of magnanimity.”

I rolled the wooden ball in my palm.

“……Tell me the second instance.”

“Yes.
After not giving any orders, Your Honor ordered Luke’s parents to come forward.
After they came forward, Your Honor explained to them why their son had to die.
Your Honor went out of your way to give humble people like us an explanation.”

Daisy continued.

“Your Honor could have simply killed us.
You have more than enough authority to have done so.
Despite this, Your Honor had put your authority aside for a moment to give us an explanation, I can only refer to this as magnanimity.”

“How truly foolish of you.
This still does not change the fact that I will be killing you all.
Calling this magnanimity when only a couple of your questions were answered would be ridiculous.”

Daisy bowed her head further.

“O Great Being, we are slash-and-burn villagers.
We are a kind that is lower than slaves and have been cursed by the heavens.
We do not have the right to have questions nor do we have the right to have them answered.
What Your Honor has granted us was undoubtedly magnanimous.”

“…….”

“Your Honor has shown us another clemency besides allowing this one to speak.”

There was one more?

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I felt uncomfortable because it felt like she was reading my mind.
I composed my emotions before speaking to her.

“What would that be?”

“Your Honor referred to me as ‘you’.”

The girl’s voice rang clearly throughout the area.

“Before allowing this one to speak, Your Honor called this one a brat, but Your Honor graciously referred to this one as ‘you’ afterward.”

She was definitely looking toward the ground.

“O Great Being, even lords do not simply refer to their people as ‘you’ and there is not a single noble in the entire world that would say such a thing to accursed slash-and-burn villagers like us.
Allowing this one to speak is not the only thing that Your Honor had allowed.”

And yet, it felt like her utterly pure eyes were staring straight at me.

“Your Honor had acknowledged me as a single person.”

“…….”

“I am not the only one Your Honor had acknowledged.
Your Honor had acknowledged the two people prostrating before you as a boy’s mother and father and not as simply two slash-and-burn villagers.
Your Honor had acknowledged the people behind me not as simply slash-and-burn villagers but as people who have the right to hear an explanation before their deaths.”

I messed up.

I had changed the way I spoke to her subconsciously.
That was enough to fill the girl before me with certainty.
Damn it.
How pathetic of me.
I had resolved myself to not lower my guard, but I had done so anyway.

However, how could someone not be a person simply because they are a slash-and-burn villager?

I couldn’t deny this.
I wasn’t killing livestock.
I was killing people.
Everyone I had killed directly and indirectly were all people.
This has been a common occurrence throughout every battle.
I didn’t intend to deny this.
This was why I accepted that I was the worst piece of trash in the world.

Even pieces of trash have their own sense of pride.

“Your Honor must currently be debating whether it would be okay to kill us like this or not.”

A mere 10-year-old girl managed to see through me, huh?

“O Great Being.
Therefore, I wish to rely upon your magnanimity.
If the prophecy is only directed at Luke, then you do not have to kill us all.
Please take the life of Luke alone.”

Daisy also managed to fluster me.
I thought that she would ask to spare her brother’s life, but she requested for me to take only his life.

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Daisy continued once I stared at her impassively.

“However, please allow me to be the one to kill Luke.”

Her parents’ shoulders shook.

That was how absurd her statement was.
It was already immoral to ask for me to only kill her brother, but she was also pleading to let her be the one to do it.

The other villagers seemed baffled as well as they stared at Daisy.
She wasn’t acting like the girl they had known all this time.

She was most likely a child who followed her brother around constantly.
That was how she was described in as well.
Her words just now went against her usual personality and the common sense of this world.

And yet, I knew why she was saying this.

Be it the villagers, her parents, or anyone else, no one would understand.
I was the only person here who knew exactly what she was saying.
Daisy’s upright tone was telling this to me.

I asked a question with confidence.

“Let me ask you a question.”

“Ask me anything, O Great Being.”

“Killing your kin is the largest sin.
Why do you wish to voluntarily commit this sin?”

Daisy chuckled lightly.

It was a self-deprecating laugh that didn’t suit a 10-year-old child at all.

“It is because, O Great Being, there is a need for it to be eternally remembered that I was the piece of trash who caused her own brother to die.”

―Aah.

The girl before me was the same as me.

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter.
It’s Daisy time.
I feel sad that I constantly got spoiled about the existence of this characters from time to time, hopefully she lives up to all the hype around her.

On another note, my job hasn’t immediately started yet.
The company is still setting up their schedule and stuff like that so they said they’ll get back to me within the week.
In other words, I don’t know how much work I’ll be getting yet.
If my upload becomes slow, then you know why.

I’ll see you guys in the next chapter.