Chapter 137
Translator: uly
Chapter: 137
Chapter Title: Being a Guild Master Isn't Enough With Just the Game
Dart looked down at Lenox, who had collapsed to his knees covered in blood, and pulled a binding item from his inventory window before using it.
Click.
Lenox's body was wrapped in transparent chains, his hands bound behind his back.
[You have used 'Supreme Prisoner Binding Technique.' Usable only when the enemy's HP is below 5%.
The binding can only be released by the user or the user's party members. It will forcibly release if external impacts deplete its 100 million durability.]
Even though he was suddenly bound, Lenox sat there listlessly without a hint of surprise.
Blood dripped steadily from his soaked red hair.
"......"
Sensing a presence, Lenox lifted his dizzy head with a blurred expression, struggling to focus his hazy eyes.
The area in front of the building was brightly lit by the lights.
True to the saying that faces could captivate people, Lenox had an exceptionally handsome face.
His silver-white hair was stained crimson. Blood and tears mixed together, streaming down from his sapphire eyes that gleamed vividly in the light.
Dart furrowed his brow.
What a crybaby.
"The gods of this world aren't anything special."
Dart deeply despised weakness and emotional fragility. He had never forgiven his own powerless childhood.
Such pathetic and frail pasts deserved to die away.
The moment Dart coldly raised his sword.
"What are you doing!"
Kaisha appeared in an instant via teleportation, hurriedly erecting a shield in front of Lenox to block Dart's strike.
The déjà vu of the scene, one he'd seen somewhere before, furrowed Dart's brow.
The same thought crossed Kaisha's mind—the standoff over Hellcannon during the city war—but she forced herself not to show it.
Kaisha had just started bringing up Lenox while talking with Gilgamesh about how to turn the android army into allies when she saw Dart trying to kill him and rushed over in shock.
Kaisha said.
"You can't kill him hastily. We might need him to seize the central system and manipulate the mechanical soldiers."
"......"
It was an irrefutable justification.
Dart glared at Kaisha with deep dissatisfaction, clamping his mouth shut before muttering lowly and turning away.
"Don't make me laugh, you idiot."
"!"
Puhaha!
Gilgamesh burst into laughter, and Kaisha looked back and forth between Dart's retreating back and Gilgamesh with a flustered face.
"No, I mean, it's true......"
"Ahaha! It's also true that you're an idiot! Dart, you savage fact bomber!"
"......"
Kaisha felt wronged.
It was true she wasn't exactly denying being an idiot, but that didn't mean she wanted to spare Lenox in this situation just because of his 'face.'
Hyunwoo turned his head to chuckle, while Mura stared at Kaisha with a faintly hurt expression.
As Gilgamesh laughed heartily, Dart strode away.
Once he'd had his fill of laughter, Gilgamesh said.
"Whew, things were so grim, but that lightened the mood. I should head back now too. You can escort that guy on your own, right?"
Kaisha glanced at Lenox.
"Of course. Dart bound him, so it's fine."
"Call Hellcannon to drag him."
"......Yeah."
Kaisha replied like that, her face a bit complicated, but the others didn't notice.
"Then I'll wait for the central takeover."
"Take care."
Gilgamesh turned and Hyunwoo followed behind.
Mura, who had been about to trail after Gilgamesh as usual in his automatic Hyunwoo-set combo, suddenly approached Kaisha instead and said.
"Um, as you know, being swayed by appearances isn't strange. It's a natural human instinct—"
Having dealt with this more than once or twice since allying with the Gentle Knights, Kaisha reflexively smiled and put up an iron wall.
"Yes, I know."
"......"
"Go on."
At Kaisha's curt reply and perfect deflection, Mura deflated immediately, glanced around awkwardly, then turned away.
Once everyone had left, Kaisha let out a sigh.
Seriously, you could never let your guard down around Mura-nim. Even if he was a famous ex-baseball player with a great build and good looks, what gave him that confidence?
Kaisha glanced down at Lenox while thinking that.
"Man......"
He was ridiculously handsome.
But since she'd approached him thoroughly as a boss mob, Kaisha felt no particular emotions toward Lenox.
His eyes suggested he wouldn't live long anyway, and she had no desire to get attached.
Kaisha looked down at Lenox, who was listlessly bleeding and barely breathing, pondered for a moment, then called her reliable tanker hero specialists.
"Terra. Whistle."
Magic circles appeared, summoning Kaisha's bound heroes.
There was a good reason Kaisha hadn't called Hellcannon.
She felt a bit bad forcing him to stay when he refused to go, making it awkward to summon him again.
Kaisha said.
"Escort him. We're taking this guy inside that building."
That said, the building was practically in ruins, leaving her at a loss on how to find the central control room.
A brief flicker of doubt crossed the heroes' faces, but once the order was given, they hoisted Lenox from both sides and followed behind Kaisha as she headed into the building.
* * *
Lenox leaned against the familiar wall of the control room, under the watch of the heroes Kaisha had summoned, observing the situation.
"......"
The building had been wrecked, but the central control room area was astonishingly intact.
From the start, the central control room had been designed never to collapse under ordinary external shocks.
In truth, bringing Lenox inside here was a major blunder on Kaisha's part.
Lenox could, without lifting a finger, access the system right now, summon the mechanical soldiers, launch fighter planes to attack them, and activate the apocalypse program again.
But now that his sanity had returned, Lenox had no intention of doing so.
For one, he'd been beaten so badly his mind was still foggy, and the rampage had burned out all the emotions surging from Lea's death and the unprecedented severance he'd felt for the first time.
With his emotions settled and reason restored, his mind began working properly.
This world had called another god.
Lenox felt the natural sense of betrayal but understood the world's choice.
He had known that Lea, who chose to live in the forest, didn't have much time left.
He just hadn't anticipated her death causing such a massive ripple.
Even if Lea had died naturally rather than being 'killed,' Lenox probably would have rampaged just the same, as an unavoidable force.
Lenox and Lea were a pair created by the previous leader—a lifelong sufferer of suicidal impulses despite his perfect abilities—to resolve the instability in the Linoxa bloodline.
Thanks to that, Lenox was mentally extremely stable, but it seemed the price was this momentary rampage.
"If you want to live, I'll have you healed."
Kaisha spoke up abruptly.
Lenox's condition was actually quite dire; he urgently needed treatment.
Though her eyes were fixed on the control room's hologram screens, she had been concerned about Lenox left there covered in blood.
Lenox didn't respond at first, then after a long pause, offered different words.
"Did you see Lea's end?"
"What? Oh......"
Kaisha, clueless about operating the machines, fiddled around haphazardly and said.
"Error code, so basically killed by another external bad guy. Kaizen, um, Lea's foster son, rushed to save her but died alongside her......"
He'd followed Lea more like a mother than his own birth mom.
Kaisha swallowed a sigh inwardly.
"I want to hear more details."
With his rampage subsided and reason returned, Lenox's voice was profoundly deep and calm, and Kaisha found herself spilling it all without thinking.
"The military building exploded, and Lea ran to rescue the test subjects inside. She died to one of the guys charging at me during the escape."
"......"
Lenox's eyes deepened.
Lenox had permitted the attack on the military. In the end, he too was connected to Lea's death.
Kaisha kept murmuring.
"I should have protected her, but I was on the brink of death myself, so I couldn't... It really weighs on me."
Her last words were soft, but they rang clear in Lenox's ears.
"Got it!"
Kaisha had successfully accessed the central control system's military section.
Overjoyed, she suddenly realized she'd unwittingly poured out her deepest feelings and furrowed her brow, glaring at Lenox.
"Fine. I'm sorry I couldn't protect Lea properly. Happy?"
"......You're suddenly getting angry by yourself."
"Why stir it up? I couldn't even grieve properly, so I was keeping it buried. Well, you're family, so it's natural to be curious. Sigh. Messiah."
At Kaisha's call, Messiah was summoned.
With a bit of leeway now, Kaisha pulled the freshly summoned Messiah close and naturally kissed her cheek before issuing the order.
"Can you heal that man just a little? He was rampaging like a madman until moments ago, so not fully— just enough to mend the wounds slightly."
"Yes."
Messiah immediately went to Lenox, emitting a faint light as she cast healing.
Lenox stared fixedly at the girl healing him with an expression like he was seeing something bizarre, then slowly raised his head to look at the screen Kaisha was operating.
The screen showed the positions of the android soldiers and their attack target settings.
While Lenox received healing from Messiah, Kaisha had nearly accessed control over the android soldiers but was stuck, unable to proceed further.
She could reach this point via selection buttons, but no more options appeared.
'Is it view-only?'
She'd brought Lenox for exactly this moment, so she had to use him.
When Kaisha glanced back, Lenox—who was bound and under watch, observing her—spoke first.
"What are you planning to do?"
"I want to manipulate the android soldiers to use them as allies. Everyone's fighting massive enemy forces in the forest right now."
"......"
Lenox stared at the screen.
[System lock has been released. Converting user's authority from view level to control level.]
Suddenly, such text appeared on the hologram, multiple screens lit up and expanded in sequence, and the somewhat dim lights in the control room all switched on at once.
"!"
Kaisha, startled, fully turned to look at Lenox.
Lenox was still bound.
Realizing something too late, Kaisha summoned her sword with a grimace, but Lenox had already manipulated something while bound.
Lenox said, his eyes gleaming.
"This is my house."
A more powerful, tangible domain. The central control system of this nation, inherited by only one person, permitted to rule the world.
The space resonated with Lenox's will as if alive.
Shing—
Terra and Whistle, startled like Kaisha and scanning around, drew their swords and aimed at Lenox's throat.
"Shall we kill him?"
At that moment, the lights turned red.
[!Warning!]
[Threat detected!]
[If Lenox-nim's life is deemed in danger, the room will seal and self-destruct.]
Click.
The control room door suddenly locked.
Ignoring his bindings and the heroes' threats, Lenox said to Kaisha.
"Let's make a deal."