Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Episode 10
"This place is...."
I was standing atop something that might have been a stone wall or an earthen rampart.
The roulette had shown a magnificent stone fortress. What I actually got was a tiny village surrounded by half-collapsed walls barely 1.5 meters high.
The one saving grace was that, whatever those low stone-and-earth walls were, they were at least fairly wide.
They looked less like defensive walls than the embankments you saw in rural villages—and shabby ones at that.
Looking at the village as a whole, there were a few dozen houses. They ranged from things like huts to buildings made of stone, and at the center of the village stood a single stone structure that looked like a temple.
The village covered roughly the area of a large sports field. Small for a settlement, perhaps, but not tiny either.
[Dimensional Tower, Floor 1. You have entered Small Stone-Pile Village.]
[Defend Small Stone-Pile Village.]
[If an awakened dies, or the village temple collapses, the Floor 1 trial fails.]
[May luck be with you.]
Hm. This was the infamous defense battle.
-Defense battles do show up on Floor 1, but they're mostly a total mess;;;;
-Isn't that the place where nobody even mines?
-Is there any high-level who goes there?
-But if it's the Corpse-Spirit Martial Sovereign, maybe he can pull it off.
-F-X-k lololol what does level even matter? This is a group project!!!
The viewers were making a racket. And among them, one viewer's comment caught my eye.
Right.
This is a group project.
Why do university group projects fail?
Because everyone tries to dump their work on someone else and coast.
That's what this defense-battle map is like.
The defense-battle map itself is brutal, but I've also never seen awakened cooperate with each other.
If they were from the same company, raid group, or guild, maybe. But with a hundred random strangers thrown together like this, there was no hope.
Getting them to cooperate at all would be lucky.
There are also people who troll.
Either way, until you die 100 times in the tower, your awakened status is maintained.
So when they get stuck on a map like this, there are people who troll while collecting money from their viewers.
That's how the holy trinity of chaos, destruction, and ruin comes into being.
"F-X-uuuuuck! Why is it a defense battle!? I need to level uuuup!"
"Damn it. I've already died nine times on Floor 1...."
"Guys! We rolled a defense battle, but I'll make it work somehow! Donations appreciated!"
Awakened began appearing around me one by one.
The number kept growing, and when it reached exactly 100 people, it stopped.
Everyone's busy.
People who've lost their minds. People streaming. People despairing. People steeling their resolve.
That's why it's even more of a problem.
With ten people, they might at least have reached some kind of consensus. With a hundred, cooperation went straight out the window.
All sorts of people were making noise.
I watched that blankly for a moment, then observed other things.
I could see NPCs between the buildings.
They watched us through the doorways. Their faces were full of fear—the fear of death.
They were fabricated illusions who would vanish whether this floor was cleared or destroyed.
Even so, those NPCs were indistinguishable from real people.
They cried, laughed, suffered, and felt joy.
I'd seen it countless times on video, but....
It still left a bitter taste.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
And then a bell rang.
At the same time, I saw a wave of green and black charging toward us from the distant plain.
-A thousand goblinssss!
-We need a Goblin Slayer!
-Sending a condolence death beam to the Corpse-Spirit Martial Sovereign.
There was actually a viewer firing condolence death beams at me.
Tsk, tsk. As if that would kill me. I had half my Necromantic Mana left because the mana I'd used in the lobby still hadn't recovered.
Hmm.
Then shall I do it once more?
1. I win. 10DP
2. I lose. 10DP
-Insane;;;
-This guy's hooked;;;
-No, but can he actually win this?
"Now then. You all know, right? Same as last time, I'm betting everything I have on 'I win.'"
I bet all the DP I possessed on "I win."
Now then. Let's see... what will the other viewers do?
1. I win. 21%
2. I lose. 79%
Oh. This time there are quite a few betting on "I win," at least.
"Looks like I've earned a little more trust than last time?"
-We believe in you, sir!
-This is my allowance for this month. Please win for sure!
-He's the one who killed the troll!
-Troll or whatever, how do you beat a goblin wave?
-That's over a thousand f-X-king goblins.
-Lololololol he insists he can win this lololol
"Now, now. Don't fight. I'll just show you."
O ye of little faith, come to me.
I shall give you faith.
* * *
The goblins were advancing.
Crudely made ladders. And equally crudely made spears and shields. And creatures carrying swords and the like were charging forward.
They held weapons, but they weren't wearing armor.
Because if they came out fully equipped like that on Floor 1, clearing it would be impossible.
-Hyeonggang, looks like we die here.
-If you die in style, I'll give you 10 DP!
[Honghonghong has donated 1 DP!]
Try to die in style! I'll put 1,000 DP on it!
[Honghonghong has issued a 1,000 DP mission!]
"Honghonghong, thank you! All right! Hyeonggang the man is going to die in style here!"
The awakened man with the Barbarian Warrior class was Park Hyeon.
He was a GodTuber active under the nickname Hyeonggang.
Some awakened made streaming their main livelihood. Hyeonggang was one of them.
They mainly operated around the 1st and 2nd floors.
Their goal was to make a big score and exit before using up all 100 lives.
Park Hyeon was one of those people.
He pulled out a two-handed axe.
Then he went and stood at the spot where the charging goblins were most visible.
"Goblin bastards! I'm right heeeere!"
His voice boomed!
The skill Barbarian Warrior's Roar activated!
The charging goblins all turned toward streamer Hyeonggang.
He had pulled their aggro!
"Skreee!"
"Skree! Skree!"
Among the goblins, the ones carrying ladders came first and set them against the earthen wall. Then they climbed up at a terrifying speed.
"Come on!"
Hyeonggang's axe crashed down, splitting the skull of the goblin climbing the ladder. He kicked the next one back down.
Hyeonggang fought better than expected.
In an instant, ten goblins became corpses and lay scattered around him or fell outside the earthen wall.
On top of that.
"Lightning!"
"Blood Link!"
The other awakened began unleashing their skills too. Goblins started dying on all sides.
But.
Crunch!
"Aaargh!"
Death wasn't permanent here, but the pain and physical sensations were exactly like reality.
Hyeonggang screamed at the sensation of something biting his ankle.
He looked down to find a goblin gnawing on his ankle. Blood poured out, and the creature showed no sign of letting go.
"You little bastard!"
Crunch!
He killed it with a downward axe strike, but its jaws were still clamped around his ankle, perhaps because of postmortem rigidity.
That was when.
"GRAAAH!"
Goblins swarmed in from every direction.
"Aaargh, die! You bastards! Axe Whirlwind!"
Barbarian Warrior's Axe Whirlwind!
He spun in place so fast the eye could barely follow him.
For about five seconds, his whirling axe pulverized everything around him.
The head of the dead goblin that had been biting his ankle also flew off.
"Huff! Huff!"
-Whoa~! That's Hyeonggang for you.
-He's hurt, but he's still fighting well.
[Hancheoljangsa has donated 10 DP!]
Magnificent!
His ankle hurt as if it were being stabbed with a knife and seared with fire. On top of that, he had wounds all over his body, so his head was burning.
Dying and reviving was possible, but the pain was real.
Even so, Hyeonggang smiled.
Even in the pain.
He smiled.
"Thanks, man!"
It was a crazy world.
He had to smile like this while enduring torture just to make money.
But even so, Hyeonggang raised his axe.
His body felt impossibly heavy. If he died this time, how many would he have left? Hadn't he died about 40 times by now?
Could he earn enough to live on for the rest of his life before that?
Damn it. If only I'd gotten a strong class too....
The moment he thought that.
He saw goblins climbing the earthen wall again.
"Guys! I'm going to die in style!"
Smile!
Still, it wasn't as if he was really dying! It hurt f-X-king bad, but at least he could make money this way!
I'm just a high school grad. I couldn't even get into a decent college. If I want to make a living, don't I have to do at least this much?
He was thinking that and about to throw himself back into the fight when—
"Young fellow, you live quite diligently. This sovereign will help you."
That was when.
A voice suddenly rang out, deep and dignified.
What the hell is this bullshit?
Just as that thought flashed through his mind.
Lurch! Lurch! Lurch!
The goblin corpses he had killed suddenly rose up.
"Gruuuuuuh!"
"Graaaaaah!"
Then the corpses threw themselves at the attacking goblins.
"What the...."
Dumbfounded, Hyeonggang turned his head.
To find the owner of the voice.
He completely forgot he was in a trial on Floor 1 of the Dimensional Tower and simply gaped.
"What is that? What kind of crazy palanquin is he riding?"
That's right.
He could see some insane person riding a palanquin.
-F--, what the hell is that?
The viewers felt exactly what Hyeonggang was feeling.
A madman had appeared.
* * *
What does a Necromancer do?
It's a class that commands undead lackeys.
Rather than fighting directly myself, it was a somewhat troublesome profession that required controlling undead to fight.
Of course, if I controlled them, even corpses could use martial arts, but....
Either way, aside from occasionally firing a Necromantic Mana Arrow from the rear or infusing Necromantic Mana into my undead as a substitute for internal energy, there wasn't much for me to do.
On top of that.
Hadn't my class changed to Necron Emperor?
Then I should go around like an emperor.
My Subdimension was only town-sized, so I might have been more of a town-mayor emperor, but....
An emperor is still an emperor, isn't he?
So I prepared.
A palanquin.
A palanquin!
In the martial world of my previous life, this was called a two-man palanquin.
It's called a two-man palanquin because two people carry it.
There was a cart lying below the earthen wall, so I had the undead smash it apart and turn it into a palanquin.
Even if it was crude.
It looked comfortable enough to ride.
Of course, there were reasons for doing this.
First: it was fun.
Second: I was an emperor.
Third: it gave me a better view.
If I had to command the battlefield anyway, a clear view mattered.
-This is dizzying....
-Corpse-Spirit Martial Sovereign, you're moving too fast.
-Did you ride a palanquin because you're the Necron Emperor?
The viewers were dizzy, but I ignored them.