Chapter 177. Fantasy-Style Real Estate
“We’re heeere to look at the laaand~!”
The moment I shouted at the top of my lungs, the twin Rat Holy Knights, Porter 1 and Porter 2, simultaneously raised their arms in front of the enormous castle gate.
Both of them were over ten meters tall, so just seeing them move like that was incredibly intimidating.
Of course, they weren’t actually all that powerful.
Their bodies were hollow, meaning they were ridiculously light for their size.
If they wanted to put real weight behind an attack, they had to fill their empty bodies with something heavy before swinging.
But if they attacked like that, they might hurt themselves, so it wasn’t really an option.
At best, these kids could pick up rocks from far away and throw them.
Their visuals were just overwhelming, which was why I brought them out.
When the Porters swung their arms toward the castle gate at the same time, I carefully timed it and detonated the explosives I had planted on the gate beforehand.
See?
Overwhelming visuals combined with realistic effects.
Who wouldn’t fall for it?
BOOM!!
“Goodness~ Excuse us!”
I shouted through the broken gate.
“We just came to look at some land, and you wouldn’t even open the door for us!”
I had taken the Badgers and Goblins back under my wing.
I had also placed all kinds of monsters beneath me.
I wasn’t lacking citizens.
So what was I missing?
“Wow... Now this is proper mountain-at-the-back, water-at-the-front terrain!”
I looked around with admiration.
“Prime real estate! Absolute prime real estate!”
Land.
Yes.
Land.
No matter how many times I repeated it, the sound of that word refused to leave my heart.
Ah.
Ahhh, real estate....
Why did the very sound of the word land feel so ominous to me?
Was it because I had been scammed on a jeonse lease and lost even the inheritance I had left?
Those damn bastards.
My distrust of humanity is because of you people.
“Intruders!”
So.
Where exactly was this place?
Why was I going out of my way to obtain land when I could simply live in the Abandoned District?
Why had I worked this hard just to get land?
Why did I need land for my plan to screw over the Chairman?!
Did you need land to become a Demon King?
Couldn’t you destroy the world without owning land?!
Of course you could.
But scale mattered.
“You bastard! Do you even know where you are?!”
A soldier shouted.
“This place is ruled by the Demon King of Wisdom—!”
“The geography here is amazing!”
I shouted back.
“Our grandma says this land is good!”
I pointed dramatically.
“Hand it over!”
My gigantic monster kingdom needed to exist somewhere visible enough to threaten everyone.
Almost nobody knew about the Abandoned District.
That meant it couldn’t serve as an effective symbol.
At best, I would simply become Fanatics Mk. 2.
Apparently that Indomitable whatever created his own country over there.
Apparently monsters have been getting stronger lately because of that Indomitable whatever.
He pretends to do good deeds while preparing to start a war against the world.
He visits places and does suspicious things because he can’t hide his true nature.
He himself is basically a demon, and he leads monsters around!
Suspicion would continue escalating until it eventually reached one conclusion.
Otherworlders are dangerous!
The existence of players, the otherworlders of this world, was becoming increasingly important.
As time passed, more and more players were firmly establishing their positions here.
But what if people could no longer trust those otherworlders?
Conflicts would break out everywhere.
People would begin hating each other for no real reason.
And eventually, they would blindly believe that hatred.
Because what mattered wasn’t whether something was actually true.
What mattered was the reality that I feel uncomfortable right now.
...
Well.
Honestly, I didn’t care much about any of that.
As long as it could push this world toward destruction, I didn’t really care how it happened.
Besides, my eyes hadn’t grown up looking at good things, so naturally I thought like this.
The world Chang saw was probably completely different.
In other words, there were plenty of hopeful people with viewpoints unlike mine.
Because of them, there was a good chance things wouldn’t go the way I wanted anyway.
That meant this nation, which would serve as my foundation, couldn’t be small or weak.
It needed to become a more obvious, unmistakable, overwhelming threat.
Was that enough of a reasonable justification for why I needed a huge territory?
If not...
Then I would confidently answer—
“Ah, I just wanted to.”
Romance didn’t need a reason.
So I have to do it!
The Demon King’s soldiers rushed toward me in a swarm.
I had deliberately made a flashy entrance to scare them, yet...
I guess these really were a Demon King’s troops.
I couldn’t sense any hesitation.
They didn’t look especially powerful for a Demon King’s soldiers.
But there were many of them, and their equipment was good.
That alone made them threatening.
“Haa....”
I sighed.
“Usually people say defending is harder, while destroying things is easy, right?”
I rubbed my face.
“Then why is destroying things harder for me?”
Lately, even my way of playing games had become too focused on efficiency.
I could feel myself growing more exhausted by the day....
Maybe once in a while, it wouldn’t be so bad to forget everything about my situation and simply have some lighthearted fun.
“The enemy is alone!”
A commander shouted.
“Kill him quickly!”
I grinned.
“...Then how about we play a strategy game?”
This trash game had no content.
So the user had to create content himself.
Fwoosh!
Dark Rats poured out of the shadow domain spreading widely around me.
Thanks to their endless training in the Abandoned District, a faint darkness now drifted around their bodies.
Weak enemies probably wouldn’t even be able to properly tell that these guys were beastfolk.
They would probably just see them as vaguely black shapes.
“Let’s see.”
It was true that the rats had become stronger.
But no matter how much they had grown, the opponents were still soldiers of a Demon King.
They weren’t weak.
And they didn’t scare easily.
If I brought out the Porters, the enemy might be intimidated for a moment.
But it wouldn’t take long for them to realize how pitiful the twins’ attack power was.
There’s a wide open area beyond the castle gate too.
They said the castle walls surround the section from the middle of the mountain all the way up to the summit, right?
The mountain itself wasn’t especially steep.
Still, the enemy unquestionably held the high ground.
From our position, looking forward meant staring at the ground.
From their position, looking forward meant seeing the entire battlefield.
The geographical advantage belonged to them.
Trying to overwhelm them with numbers would be difficult too....
“Porters.”
I pointed toward the castle wall.
“Hide behind the wall and bombard them.”
“Eeeeh, scary....”
“Do we get fired if we don’t do this?”
“Come on.”
I frowned.
“If you keep whining and refusing to listen, Grandpa Undertaker is going to go, ‘You little rascals~!’”
“Hiiing... We’ll work hard....”
“Eeeeh... That’s mean....”
Since there was no real way to seize the high ground after breaking through the gate while the enemy was alert...
Bombardment it was.
“They’ll try to shoot us from the high ground instead of approaching!”
I shouted to the Dark Rats.
“Don’t wait for them to come to us!”
“Advance while preparing for incoming attacks!”
After issuing the order, I climbed onto the castle wall and sat at the edge.
Apparently, our assault had been sudden enough that there weren’t any soldiers nearby.
Nice and comfortable.
Whoosh!
Rocks thrown by the Porters...
Along with entire trees ripped out by the roots...
Cut through the air and fell like rain toward the Demon King’s troops.
They simply grabbed whatever was nearby and hurled it randomly.
So the attacks spread out over a huge area, almost like scattering sand.
Except every grain of this “sand” was enormous.
“Uwaaaah!”
“Do not panic!”
A commander shouted.
“Respond calmly!”
“We are the ones holding the high ground!”
I sat atop the castle wall with my arms crossed.
Below me, the soldiers fired magic, arrows, and spears to stop the rats from climbing.
Meanwhile, our rats bravely pushed forward against them.
It reminded me of the war games I sometimes played with Jayeon.
That thought made me a little uneasy.
I couldn’t remember ever properly defeating her.
Still...
The Demon King’s soldiers and my rats seemed to have roughly comparable combat strength.
The balance actually looked pretty good....
Whoooosh!
BOOM!
“Reinforcements!”
The Demon King continued sending reinforcements.
Some of them even carried out what looked like aerial bombardments.
The fight was gradually becoming interesting.
Tsk.
Maybe I should have properly organized my units before coming here.
I had assumed I could just crush everything with brute force.
“Master! Look! Something scary showed up over there!”
One Porter shouted.
“Hiiing... My arms hurt now...! I’ve never thrown things this much before~!”
The other one trembled.
“Scaaary! He looks suuuper strong!”
Then he asked pitifully—
“Can’t I just go back to being a porter...?”
[A commander of the Demon King’s army has appeared! Morale on the Demon King’s side rises! The Demon King’s army is beginning to reveal its true strength!]
The Porters’ whining was followed by countless magic circles suddenly covering the sky.
Oho....
So that was what a commander could do?
If I compared him to our side...
Maybe he was something like Aien?
“Porters, good work.”
I waved.
“Go back in.”
“Yahoo! Yes! Gooood work!”
“Still, one last throw~!”
“Ah! One feels lonely, so one more~!”
Two enormous rocks were hurled high into the sky.
The enemy intercepted them with magic.
The rocks shattered into countless fragments, turning into a rain of debris.
Beyond that falling rubble, the figure of the so-called commander slowly became visible.
He stared at us as though we were beneath contempt.
