Reverse Dungeon

“Louise. Where is your village?”

“Huh? Why...?” Louise’s fur stood on end like a startled cat’s.

“Your village must be close. You were brought into this forest as a guide, after all. Do you understand what that means?”

“No... I’m sorry. I don’t.”

“This land originally belonged to the kingdom. Every subject living within its borders owes loyalty to the king.”

“......!”

This game had a class system.

Ian intended to use it.

What did Ian’s character have going for him?

‘Nothing...’

Well, except for the fact that he held the status of a prince.

To be precise, the # Nоvеlight # king’s illegitimate child.

“With His Majesty absent, I now stand as his representative. It is the duty of the nobility to guide the people. I must meet them.”

Louise flinched, then lowered his head.

‘He must be hesitating.’

Even in the original game, Louise had protected the community of the traitor race despite the discrimination he suffered there. Like Ian, he was a character who began from a miserable starting point.

Unlike Ian, however, Louise’s innate special abilities were useful from beginning to end, and his other skills were excellent as well, making his route far less punishing.

Ian added one more argument to persuade him.

“They must have had their reasons for cooperating with the demons. How can the weak defy what the strong impose on them? I am not going there simply to punish them.”

“What? No punishment? They’re the traitor race!”

Someone objected.

[Loyalty: 40%]

Ian did not bother checking the man’s name. He merely noted the loyalty value and signaled Sema to deal with him.

This was the man with the lowest loyalty. Once he was silenced, no one else would dare complain.

Sema squeezed his eyes shut and clamped a hand over the mouth of the man with 40% loyalty.

“Mmmph! Mmmph!”

“......”

Once the man fell quiet, the cave sank into silence.

Louise, having made up his mind, knelt and bowed his head.

“I will guide Lord Ian to the village.”

Ian mobilized everyone and began the descent toward the village. The larger his force appeared, the better.

Sema followed behind Ian, still conflicted.

‘What is he planning?’

The traitor race had betrayed the human realm. No one trusted them. How could anyone trust the people who had helped make the world like this?

If Ian forgave them, that distrust would transfer to him as well.

‘He must have a plan.’

Sema tried to believe that. This was the same man who had made him learn skills for a reason, wasn’t it? Surely he had some strategy in mind regarding the traitor race.

Ding!

[‘Mage’ Sema trusts you. Loyalty increases.]

[Loyalty: 80%]

‘Why does this guy’s loyalty keep going up and down?’ ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

Ian was baffled.

He had been thinking about the Support Force system.

In the world of <Reverse Dungeon>, the continent was shaped like the directional pad of a game controller, stretching out in four directions. It was the only continent, and at its very center stood the Demon King’s Castle.

Naturally, the best strategy was to conquer the east, west, south, and north, then topple the Demon King’s Castle and restore peace by separating the demon realm from the human realm.

But that was not the route Ian intended to take.

‘Not unless I want to die.’

What Ian wanted was to preserve his life safely and for as long as possible.

In a world this vivid, he wanted to live comfortably and avoid getting hurt.

After vomiting up a bucket’s worth of blood, Ian had experienced pain unlike anything he had ever felt in reality. Whether this place was a dream or reality no longer mattered much.

If an endless dream felt no different from life, then how was it different from reality?

The problem was that this game tormented the player without pause.

Understandably so. If a game simply left the player alone, could that even be called content?

As befit a defense game, <Reverse Dungeon> sent enemies to attack at regular intervals.

Ian’s goal was to survive by holding them off.

To do that, he needed to strengthen the dungeon.

There were several ways to enhance a dungeon, but what Ian wanted now was outside support.

‘It’s impossible to increase the number of people inside the dungeon right away.’

Ian had yet to obtain the <[missing term]>. Among the elves, it was known as the <Elf’s Tree>, and it was essential for dungeon evolution. Without it, he could not recklessly increase the dungeon’s population.

At present, Ian had twenty-one humans under his command. With one more person just added, that made twenty-two.

That was the current limit of “personnel within the dungeon” he could accept.

Incidentally, monsters registered in the dungeon’s defense system were not included among “personnel within the dungeon.” They were classified as “useful assets.”

The system’s blatant discrimination showed itself clearly here: only humans and other races were treated as “personnel.”

In any case...

‘If I can’t increase personnel inside the dungeon, I’ll increase the support forces outside it.’

Wasn’t that the obvious solution?

External support forces had several advantages over dungeon personnel.

First, they had no upkeep cost.

In other words, Ian had to feed and house the people he currently led.

Grrrr...

A loud growl rolled out from their stomachs.

Ian pretended not to hear it and followed Louise.

Louise deftly pushed through the leaves and stopped on a hill.

“There,” he said to Ian. “That’s it.”

Smoke was rising from the village below, carrying the smell of cooking.

‘That smells good.’

“Go tell the village chief to come out.”

Ian gestured down the hill with his chin.

The village chief was an old man with white hair. He was deeply shocked to see Louise return alive, and even more shocked when he saw the armed men accompanying him.

Too stunned to resist, he was dragged before Ian. Surrounded by men with weapons, he quickly assessed the situation and adopted a polite tone.

“Oh, my. Brave warriors. What brings you here, calling for an old man like me...?”

“Are you the village chief?” Ian asked.

The chief’s eyes darted from side to side.

“Yes. I am the chief, but I hold no real authority. As you can see, this is a small village, and we barely manage to scrape by...”

“So you sold me out to the demons?”

“Huh?”

“I am Ian, son of the king. According to my subject Louise, you sold him to the demons, then handed His Majesty and his subjects over to them as well.”

Ian spoke in the tone of a noble.

It was not difficult. He had heard that tone often enough in the game.

What surprised him was how readily threats he had barely encountered in the game slipped from his own mouth.

‘I must have seen it somewhere.’

Ian thought nothing more of it.

“No, I...”

“Do not even think of denying it. His Majesty has passed away. You of the traitor race were not satisfied with betraying the human realm. Now you have brought ruin upon the kingdom itself.”

The chief finally crumbled.

“No! No, Lord Ian! We did not do it willingly! The demons threatened our lives. I sent that boy with orders to resist them as much as possible. I don’t know what lies he whispered into Lord Ian’s ear, but I clearly told him, ‘Lead them the wrong way’!”

“That’s a lie!” Louise cried out in shock.

“Shut up, Louise! Lord Ian, listen to me. That boy is a liar—he always has been. Of course he is! He is Louise, the son of traitors!”

“His parents were the former village chiefs. They were the ones who proposed opening the human realm to the demon realm! They are the traitors, not us! We knew nothing! It was not our fault! It was all his fault!”

The crowd murmured.

‘So there was a setting like that, huh.’

Ian knew why Louise’s parents had opened the portal to the demon realm, so he remained unshaken.

“Louise, is that true?”

“No! M-my parents were once village chiefs, but... No! This chief never gave me any such order!”

“Very well.”

“Please, Lord Ian!”

Louise tried desperately to cling to him.

The chief wore a triumphant expression.

Then Ian said, “That is what he says.”

“Huh?”

A stupid sound escaped the chief’s mouth.

“My subjects do not lie to me. You are the one lying.”

“Huh?”

“......?”

Even the armed men, who had been waiting to decide whom they should attack, looked confused.

Ian continued.

“But there is some truth in what you said as well. If the demons threatened you, then weak and spineless as you are, you had no choice.”

“Even so, were you not subjects living on His Majesty’s land? Even if you are traitors... you were still people we should have protected. On behalf of His Majesty, I apologize for failing to do so.”

“Huh?”

“From now on, we will protect you.”

“Huh?”

‘We need these bastards anyway.’

There was no point hunting them down like rats.

Ian intended to bestow favor on them instead.