[Yup, we successfully achieved 7 chapters in one day yesterday. We’re going to stock up for a couple more days then start mass-uploading.]
[11th Round] Dark, Dark, Dark…
I spent the whole day with the Dark Princess. There was a way to heal her quickly with the power of the saint, but if the process became too easy, I couldn’t get close to her.
This wasn’t my guess, but the conclusion I came to after looking at the fantasy natives from the 1st playthrough. If you treat a sick person in a flash, it would be over with the phrase thank you, but if you work hard to find a cure, you’ll even be served a meal.
I applied that logic to the Dark Princess. Eating, bathing, sleeping, going to the lavatory, taking a walk…it was very cumbersome, but the effect was certain. Impressed by my genuine care, the Dark Princess began to obey me two days after her spine was attached. With an expression as if her soul had evaporated.
“You did well, Dark Princess.”
My father, who was released a week after being taken to the hospital by an ambulance at dawn because of a herniated disc, had the same look.
“Princess, what? I don’t deserve it. I am just a vampire following you, who is greater than my father! So please don’t worry about me.”
The Dark Princess added the virtue of humility to this. I decided to actively support the princess, who became a proper lady in body and mind. Of course, that basic policy was what I planned to establish.
“With the death of the Phantom King Shakespeare, this land has become a lawless zone. I have to leave for another continent soon. Do you understand what’s going on?”
“I understand that you are leaving soon.”
The Dark Princess’s expression brightened noticeably. As a way of thanking me for helping like a pushover, she had been working her ass off to serve me meals. However, it was similar to a house owner who took care of the hero and paid for the meals by themselves.
“The Western Continent isn’t my specialty. I think you, who were born on this land and lived here for 576 years-”
“How can you know my age that no one knows except my mother?!”
“Don’t interrupt me.”
“I-I’m sorry! Please have mercy… !”
“Listen quietly. The native Dark Princess knows a lot more about the Western Continent than I do. You’re even stronger than any other vampire living on the Western Continent. There is only one thing to keep in mind: do not persecute humans, a race higher than vampires. If you keep that law, there will be no troublesome bloodshed to prompt my return to the Western Continent. Do you understand?”
“I understand perfectly.”
A great monarch wasn’t necessarily a good fighter. In fantasy novels, the main character, the lord or the son of the lord, overthrows the monarch by force and becomes the king. Even if we look back at history, the powerful people covered a coup d’état with the banner of revolution to take away the throne.
But the virtue of a monarch wasn’t in force. It was about identifying people’s abilities and putting them in the right place. It would be even better if you could understand human nature. As a bonus…
“I’ll put a watchman here to see if you are good at it.”
“Who is it?”
“Do you think I will tell you? Ah! By the way, it’s not your mother. She is not on good terms with you, so she can’t look at you objectively.”
“…”
“Any questions?”
“No.”
In any land where the five powers existed, spirits existed there as well. Of course, there were plenty in the Western Continent as well. Enough to molest me by sticking even one cheek to my body, the spirits did basic, odd jobs and information gathering for me.
Watchman? There was no such cumbersome position. If I appoint a spirit to be a watchman, I would have to appoint another watchman to watch over it. However, the Dark Princess, unaware of this fact, would restrain herself.
Trinity politics, in which the three rulers keep each other in check and sometimes cooperated, was also good, but the three of them could unite to deceive my eyes and ears. In that case, the spirits were better. These drug-addicted guys were unlikely to betray me, and the fierce battles and competitions to cling to my body were terrifying.
In other words, they were perfect as watchmen.
“Then, we will start cleaning from now on.”
Although he was a tyrant, the Phantom King Shakespeare also had followers. Not all his wives hated their husbands like the mayor of Colony A. I didn’t question them. They didn’t even get a lawyer or a day to stand in court.
“How dare a hero…!”
“Sa-save me!”
“I didn’t do anything?!”
“Why would a hero do such brutalities…!”
I thinned out the vampires with any potential for betrayal based on my experience volunteering for the vampires before. In the process, some of them shouted, “I got caught, huh?” and fought. However, many people gave up and complained about the injustice. It’s not that I didn’t understand. They made a plausible plan in their head without even implementing it, but the hero used the plan in their head as an excuse to punish them.
It was something crazy and insane. The card they pulled out in front of me was me being a hero. They immediately recognized that I was a fair and righteous hero and appealed to my conscience and mercy. It was wrong to say that I executed them as soon as I met them. Each time, I answered honestly while squeezing their blood out.
“You may resent the Fantasy God who showed me the future.”
I wouldn’t have been able to do it this boldly if I hadn’t remembered the 1st playthrough. After all, there weren’t just one or two vampires pretending to be pitiful by creating a family that didn’t exist to bring out my compassion.
However, there was a hit list in my head. Of course, there might have been one or two people who suffered unfairness among them. There must have been cowards who were forced to follow because they were afraid of the Phantom King Shakespeare. But I’m not God.
What if I really could decide the details of right and wrong? I must first commit suicide before punishing others. How many innocent grass bugs died in the aftermath of the last battle, after all?
“Dark Princess, do you have any complaints?”
“No! Not even a bit!”
The cleaning was completed in half a day. It would have been difficult if the vampires had been scattered throughout the Western Continent. Still, the travel time didn’t take very long because the vampire cities were concentrated in the central region of the land where the light-eating Lucifer was most prevalent.
Many vampires died at my hands. However, their death would make both humans and vampires happier. This wasn’t self-satisfaction. If I had been selfish, I would have given light to the Western Continent by annihilating the Lucifers that filled the sky.
The only ones who benefited from Lucifer were the vampires afraid of sunlight. As a righteous and fair hero, I left an environment where even vampires could live in the savage Fantasy Continent. And yet, they were chirping without knowing how to say thank you…
▶ Sniff: It must be frustrating, but not everyone knows the deep heart of Cadet Kang Han-soo. Sniff! Your sublime heart aroused my tears.
Even if it’s just words, thank you, Miss Trainee Teacher!
Not all vampires were like that, but some had locked up humans underground and raised them like livestock. Women constantly give birth to children devoured, and men who sow seeds like beasts dig a little every day to make space for future children, continuously from generation to generation. The Fantasy World without flush toilets was hell itself, and there were even more hells lurking within.
These underground humans lived by eating Lucifers thrown to them by vampires, with human blood as the price for their meals. They were humans who didn’t know shame, let alone the concept of clothes, as they washed their bodies with groundwater and took turns offering blood.
What were the expressions on their faces when they were freed?
“Aah…”
“How should I, how…”
“Lucifer fills the sky…”
These humans had always suffered from hunger and ate every single piece of Lucifer, from their hard legs to even their hair. They were amazed at the vast sky they saw instead of the uneasy ceiling that looked ready to fall and was at a loss for words when they saw the many Lucifers that covered it.
How would I explain it from the perspective of an ordinary citizen? It felt like accidentally watching a documentary stating that the universe was full of diamonds the size of planets after saving up money for ten years to buy diamonds the size of fly dung.
▶ Question: I can’t quite relate this time. I understand the sparkle of diamonds is so good but isn’t it a common mineral? Why do you have to save money for ten years?
A spaceman’s point of view is so different! I’ll change the example so that even Miss Trainee Teacher can understand it. Imagine, after waiting 50,000 years, you were happy to find a pushover hero who would fight for you. But only to hear later that there were hundreds of other pushover heroes in the dimension.
▶Laugh: But there was only one true hero that was found in the first place. So, this slender lady wasn’t disappointed at all.
That slender lady must have been so lucky!
“Hero? If you stop suddenly, I will have a hard time waiting.”
“Ah, I’m sorry.”
The mayor of Colony A, who was lying on the bed and leaving everything of herself to me, whispered to me in a sullen tone. How could I talk with a woman with my body and with another woman with my soul…?
My body was still hot, but I felt cold because my unconscious actions seemed tainted by the savage fantasy natives. Today was my last day on the Western Continent. Just a few hours ago, I had broken the spines of several evil vampires, and after that, I was tormenting the spines of the most beautiful vampires in the Western Continent.
Wasn’t it okay to call it a successful end? I commended myself on a productive day.
Bang!
Accepting the mayor’s desperate request, I started to move again, but the bedroom door opened violently. A cool breeze from outside blew into the muggy room. The expression on the uninvited guest was like ice.
“Dark Princess, what’s going on?”
“The heroes have invaded the city with the Death Knight. No, the other way around. The Death Knight leads the heroes like soldiers.”
“What the…”
I set the mayor aside. I thought that if only the vampires, the strongest race in the Western Continent, were subdued, the Western Continent’s stabilization would be resolved naturally. But that was my misjudgment.
The Western Continent is wide and held so many strong people. Some guardians had power comparable to the Five Great Disasters, and there were six talented people recruited as companions in the 1st playthrough like the Dark Princess. Dark Princess, Dark Bandit, Dark Priest, Dark Knight, Dark Lord C, Dark Lord D.
▶ Scold: The names are so pathetic…
Although they were nicknames I gave them for convenience, these were the strong people who made names for themselves in the Western Continent, each with a great false name.
Death Knight. It was another name for the Dark Knight. After being killed by the Phantom King Shakespeare, the Wind Knight, who was on a reconnaissance mission to the West Continent, was revived as a slave. However, he overcame the reign of the Phantom King with his high mental power and escaped.
When he took off his thick armor, he looked like an ordinary elf, but he was little more than an animated body. He wore thick armor because he couldn’t heal wounds on his own. Still, he was strong.
“It’s strange. To him, I must be the benefactor who took his revenge.”
The news that I had slain the Phantom King Shakespeare spread to the depths of the Western Continent. But an invasion into the vampire city where I was currently living? I called out to the Dark Princess, who engaged in a staring contest with her mother.
“Are you sure it’s an invasion?”
“What? Yes, I’m sure. Arrows shot by the Death Knight knocked down five guards, and many of the corpses caring for the fields were damaged by the heroes.”
The Dark Knight that I remembered was extremely neutral toward the vampire’s brutalities. For an elf, human misfortune was someone else’s business. But invading here? It didn’t happen before.
Although the time they spent together was short, the relationship between the Dark Princess and the Dark Knight wasn’t bad.
“I’ll find out when I get there.”
I got up from the bed and spread my arms left and right. Originally, the maid would do it, and then the mayor would do it until tomorrow morning. But what could I do since something came up out of the blue?
I needed to borrow the spirit’s arms as soon as possible.
“I am not your maid! How come you treat the First Spirit…”
“If you don’t like it, move out.”
“…I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it, though! Mean drug hero!”
The spirits put the angel clothing on me; then, I headed out of the city hall. Outside, I could see that the vampires already surrounded the knight. As a bonus, I could even see some familiar heroes.
“We welcome you to Colony A with lies, Death Knight. Did you come to die twice?”
The cost of interfering with the fair social welfare activities of this MAX-Class hero who not only favored virgins but also comforted widows was very expensive.
