Dungeon Defense (WN)

Crash!

The wooden door fell to pieces. Like so, the door to the Demon Lord’s room pitifully became a large pile of trash.

Riff skillfully lifted his axe back up and spat on the floor.

“Hm, nothing to it.”

“As expected of Riff. He’s the best lumberjack in Jalsen.”

“What are you talking about? Even a snot-nosed brat can do this.”

With Riff in the lead, the party entered the Demon Lord by ones and twos.

The Demon Lord room was incredibly shabby. It was reasonably large, but it was no different from a slightly cleaner cavern. There was a red carpet covering one corner of the room. A bed was positioned on top of it. That was the only luxury item in the room. This was much different in comparison to the Demon Lord rooms that were described fancily in the game.

‘As expected of a D class…….’

I’m not referring to the D in an ABCD ranking. I’m referring to the first letter in Dantalian’s name. After being shocked by his status and the dungeon window, I decided to give this runt Demon Lord a separate class of his own. It felt bad to even give Dantalian an F rank. It was a level which I couldn’t possibly forgive as one of Dungeon Attack’s biggest fans.

On another note, there was also something fortunate about this situation. I told the party that I didn’t know how to open the door, but Riff broke down the door as if it weren’t an issue. The adventurers casually accepted my excuse that I had lost my keys during the commotion.

‘It’s just a wooden door, so all we have to do is break it down, right?’

That was the suggestion one of the adventurers had offered. Thus, after Riff swung his axe a couple of times, the door came down with ease. However, if I hadn’t raised their affection towards me beforehand, then they would have probably gotten annoyed by something as trivial as this as well. I might be overthinking this, but I wanted to give an applause to my excellent performance earlier despite being in a situation where these men had absolutely no reason to trust me.

“Yup. We’re finally here.”

Riff’s eyes glimmered.

“So where’s that Maeirundou room you mentioned before?”

“Yes. I, I know where it is……gah!”

I let out a cry as I got down from the rookie’s back. My right foot twisted the instant it touched the floor, so I wound up falling over.

The adventurers panicked.

“Oh, are you all right?”

“Hey, hey. You should have been supporting him properly!”

I quickly tried my best to stand up by myself before they could help me. It was half an act and half sincere. I was a severely injured person. I strongly appealed to them to seem as if I couldn’t possibly raise even a single fist at them.

Currently, the most important thing to do was to gain their sympathy. I wasn’t trying to make them more annoyed and bothered by forcing them to hold me up. With trembling legs, I stood up with my own strength. Damn it. This really fucking hurts.

“It’s okay. I’m fine.”

“Can you even walk like that?”

An adventurer asked in a worried tone. I smiled faintly. I then started limping towards a wall. I could tell that some of them were feeling sorry for me from behind my back. Of course, none of them came to help me. It was like that.

I placed my hand against the wall.

“It’s right here everyone.”

“Hm? All I see is a wall.”

“A magical symbol that only activates for the dungeon owner is engraved here.”

I spoke in a slightly louder voice with the intention to let all of the adventurers hear me.

“If I recite a specific line while touching this symbol, then the dungeon’s gold will come out.”

“Magic, huh?”

Sounds of awe came from the adventurers. Novice adventurers were ignorant of magic. They were originally normal peasants that spent their entire lives as either farmers or lumberjacks. It’s unlikely that they would have ever gotten the chance to see magic throughout their lives. They have no other choice but to believe it’s magic since a Demon Lord of all people is saying it is.

I gave them a grim look.

“Everyone. Please take 10 steps away from me.”

“Hm? Why?”

“This magic is set up only for Demon Lords. It has an enchantment that prevents it from ever opening if there is an outsider nearby. If something goes wrong, then you may get injured.”

I purposely gave them a grave look.

“Worst-case scenario, the treasure itself could become sealed.”

“……!”

A grave look also appeared on the adventurers’ faces. As I thought, my words take immediate effect if I mention the treasure. They all stood in a line and took exactly 10 steps away from me.

How I felt as I witnessed this…… It was like a bunch of otters were getting into formation after having arrived at a chance of a lifetime.

“Now then.”

Riff spoke with the most serious look in the world.

“As you instructed, we took ten steps back.”

“…….”

In a way, he sounded like he wanted to be praised for his actions.

How could he be so pure despite having cruelly shot arrows at me earlier? It was honestly baffling. Were the people in the medieval age all like this? In any case, I maintained my serious gaze.

“Impressive. You took no more and no less than ten steps. At that distance, there should be no reason for you to get swept up by the magic.”

The adventurers then nodded their heads.

“Good. Hehe.”

“We’re always perfect like this.”

“……Then I’ll begin reciting the spell. Please be silent.”

I turned my back towards them and faced the wall. It was a flat and plain wall surface.

I then proceeded to shout in a dignified voice as if there were sacred words, which only I could see, engraved on the wall before me.

“You bastards!”

Naturally, I spoke in Korean.

“You sons of bitches, you crocodile leather bastards that should get torn apart! You guys are pieces of shit that should eat random things with perilla seeds, get constipated, and die after your assholes and potbellies explode! Your sphincters should randomly burst while you’re on a stroll, you god――damn sons of bitches!”

My vigor must be alarming.

I could hear the adventurers shrinking back and whispering to each other.

“Mm, I don’t know what he’s saying, but……. There’s a lot of emotion in his voice.”

“I don’t know why, but this reminds me of that eunuch bastard who had his dick bitten off by the crazy mutt in our neighborhood. He also screamed like this when he learned that he had become a eunuch. How should I say it? The demon language is a bit different from what I imagined it to be. I thought it’d be more refined and weird, but hearing it now, it sounds very manly.”

“It touches a chord. Suns ob beeches, Hm, suns ob beeches. It really sticks to your mouth the more you say it.”

I simply shouted whatever came to mind without any care.

As I did so, my gaze was on the ‘Dungeon Wealth Tab’ and was determining how much I wanted to withdraw.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Dungeon wealth withdrawal. If you withdraw too much, you may go bankrupt.

Withdraw: <u> 489</u> gold Remaining Balance: <u> 511</u> gold

※After you’ve decided on the amount you wish to withdraw, please think of the word ‘confirm’. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

I decided to take out roughly half of my entire wealth. That seemed like an appropriate amount. I figured the adventurers would start to suspect something if I pulled out exactly 500 gold, so I changed the withdrawal amount to a number that felt reasonable. They would probably think it’s strange if exactly no more and no less than 500 gold were to appear.

I spread my arms out and cried out grandly.

“――I’ll see you next time, you sons of bitches!”

At that moment, gold appeared out of thin air.

A sudden shower of gold began to fall down. I heard the adventurers let out an astonished cry behind me.

“Gold, it’s gold!”

“Fuck, just how much is that!?”

“It really was magic!”

They sounded like they were about to immediately run for the gold. I hastily shouted at them.

“You mustn’t approach yet! You could get cursed!”

All at once, the feet of the adventurers, which were all about to rush forward, came to a stop at the mention of the word curse.

Honestly, I had no reason to go out of my way to stop them. It’s just, should I call this an insurance? I wanted to raise their affection towards me a little just in case. I required their absolute trust for the plan I intended to carry out soon, after all. It would probably be best if I portrayed myself as a professional.

A small hill of gold coins was soon created on the cavern floor.

The adventurers licked their lips from afar.

“Jeez, how much is all that?”

“Gentlemen. You all haven’t forgotten that we’re going to split this all evenly, right?”

“Of course. If someone changes their mind now, then we’re taking their head!”

Their voices were lathered in oil. The oil of greed.

‘Now then, come.’

I was waiting for the perfect moment. Eventually, approximately 500 gold had finished coming out. After the final coin fell will a clank and rolled down the hill, no more money came out from thin air.

‘One, two, three…….’

Sure enough, the adventurers who had been waiting impatiently until now took a step forward. They sounded as if they couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Oi, there’s no problem now, right?”

Now!

I promptly threw myself on the floor.

“Guaaaaaah!”

I flailed around as if I were in intense pain. Saliva flowed out of my mouth. I contorted my face as much as I could. The fact that I was purposely rubbing my right foot and thigh against the floor to make my performance seem genuine was something the adventurers would never find out.

“W-What!?”

“What’s happening!? Why’s he like that!?”

“B-Black magic! It’s the curse of black magic!”

Thus, my greatest performance was put on display.

“S-Stop…… Damn it! Calm down……my……eye, my eye……! Uaaaaack!”

I pressed both of my hands against my eyes and cried out.

The adventurers slowly backed away.

“Dear Lord, this is terrible.”

“Uuh.”

However, there must have been a brave individual among the dogs as one of the adventurers tried to approach me.

“Hey, what’s the matter? Are you all right?”

“D-Don’t get any closer! This……kuuh! This is the price I have to pay for using dark magic……! If you get any closer, you could, ku, kuuuaah! Get…… pulled in as well!”

“Ah!”

The young man stopped. I threw in another blow.

“At least ten…… no, if you don’t stay at least 9 steps away from me……the curse may affect you all as well!”

As I vigorously clawed at the ground, I furtively took a glance at the adventurers in order to scope their reactions. They all looked like shocked chickens. It was most likely because they had witnessed gold coins pour out from thin air a second ago. As they were ignorant when it came to magic, they believed me since I seemed like an expert on the matter.

‘But why aren’t they giving me the reaction I want?’

Why do they think I’m doing something so embarrassing?

‘Don’t tell me they don’t understand even though I told them this much?’

I screamed restlessly. Fortunately, there was an individual in the party whose head worked properly. A person shouted out as if he realized something.

“Don’t tell me……he told us to take ten steps back for our sake?”

Yes. That’s the reaction I wanted.

Instead of giving him a reply, I screamed even louder than before. The adventurers took my scream as the answer. They started to mutter while enveloped in shock.

“I’ve been only trying to kill that guy.”

“He had an opportunity to get rid of us, but he…….”

“Wait, he looks like he’s in actual pain. Shouldn’t we be trying to help him?”

At this very moment, I was undoubtedly the greatest actor of all time. At the very least, in this one moment.

I was actually just putting pressure on my thigh and screaming because of the pain, but they had no way of knowing that.

“Idiot! He said it’s black magic. Have you not heard the tales of those guys that died after getting hit by black magic? Just wait patiently.”

“Daneff is right. Right now, the only thing we can do……although it’s unfortunate, is to wait.”

“Shit.”

It was around this time that a clear sound effect resounded like a bunch of fanfare.

「Novice Adventurer Daneff’s affection has risen by 15.」 「Novice Adventurer Riff’s affection has risen by 16.」 「Novice Adventurer Luke’s affection has risen by 20.」

‘Good, very good!’

I got what I wanted.

However, although things have carried out as I wanted them to……I was crying on the inside. I was getting this ecstatic after raising the affection of a bunch of males. I desperately missed my mother’s face.

I’m sorry, mother. I’m living an unbecoming life even after death…….

***

TL note: Thanks for reading. Nothing much to say this chapter, so I’ll see you guys in the next.