Chapter 4: [STAGE 0] There's a hole I can spring up through

Immediately decapitate this rude knight who insulted the royal family and the commander-in-chief!

Lucas's face got pale as soon as I commanded Ken's execution.

Y-Your Highness! He lost his temper for a while due to exhaustion from consistent battling, but Ken is a great knight of the Empire!

He fought valiantly in the previous battles. Please forgive him!

It seems that you didn't hear my command, Lucas.

Of course, I didn't have any intention of killing Ken here at all.

We're in a situation where every soldier counts. There was no way I'd kill a party member. As I said, I'm not some psycho who kills people for breakfast.

Cut Ken's head off, right here, right now! This is an order!

However, it was necessary to firmly grasp the command system here.

The Ash I possessed in the first place was an incompetent idiot.

This place is going to collapse tomorrow, and there is no way to win the trust of his men overnight.

In the end, there is only one way to get them to follow me.

Fear.

The worst option out of all the worst options, but there was no other way.

Ken!

When it seemed like I had no intention of changing my mind, Lucas flusteredly turned to Ken.

What are you doing standing there? Apologize to His Highness right now!

Ugh

Ken! If you consider yourself a knight of the Empire, be polite and apologize to the Prince!

Ken flinched his body and slowly lowered his head.

I'm sorry, Your Highness. My emotions got the best of me. Please forgive my rudeness.

Ken.

I looked bleak and cynical toward Ken.

You probably thought that dying by my blade would be no different from dying by the spiders' claws.

Ken's shoulders trembled as I was right. I continued to laugh.

However, those two are different, completely different.

If you die fighting against the spiders, you'd die a knight. However, if you die by my blade, then you'd die a traitor.

I pointed at the end of the hallway. Ken's face turned pale when he saw them.

Carrier pigeons.

They were the pigeons that flew around with letters asking for a rescue party in the last few days.

The Black Spider Army did not attack the birds in the sky, so the carrier pigeons were working normally.

It looks like the cage was annihilated before help arrived, butanyway, my point is,

If you die in disgrace, you will also put a burden on your family in your hometown.

I was telling him that it won't just end with me taking his life if he protests against me. His family in his hometown will also be in trouble.

I was straight-up threatening him.

The fact that Ken had a lot of people to support in his family was already obvious by looking at [Character Summary].

It's not just over once you die, Ken. You need to think about what will happen after your death.

M-my sincerest apologies, Your Highness!

Ken is now kneeling on the floor.

Please, show mercy, Your Highness.

It is a sin to despise the imperial family.

I shrugged.

However, considering the difficult circumstances of the war and the fact that you have shown great results in the past, I shall let it pass this time.

I was worried that Ken was going to frag me or something, but thankfully, nothing like that happened. He just decided to obey me with his knees on the floor.

'Thank goodness it worked.'

I let out a sigh of relief without anyone noticing.

I don't care if that was petty. I don't care if that was selfish.

This is all a gamble. If even one thing turns out to be different from my plans, everyone will die. Fortunately, the preemptive suppression seems to have been successful.

And if it is possible!

I looked around at the party members one by one and nodded.

Isn't it better to survive together rather than dying together?

It was such an obvious thing to say. The party members nodded bewilderedly.

I stretched out my arms in front of them.

Carrot and stick.

Act like a shithead once, and then be honest and humble.

I'll make no excuses. Because of my fatal misjudgment, our army is close to total annihilation.

Everyone's eyes widened. Probably because it's their first time seeing this crazy psycho prince admitting his own mistake.

However, this is no time to reflect on the mistakes that had already been made. It's time for us to think about how to survive against those damned spiders in the future.

I looked at their faces in turn.

Lucas, Lily, Ken, and Demian still squatting over there.

The faces of those who are destined to die tomorrow, but will resist with me.

I have a way to drive out the black spider army.

Lucas's eyes widened at my words.

Pardon? Is that true, Your Highness?

Yes, the chances are slim, but there is a chance of success nonetheless.

A commotion spread among the party members.

Whether it was because he was surprised to hear that there was a chance of success, or because he was stunned by the crazy prince's nonsense, I didn't know, but one thing was certain.

Just one time! Once! Would you all trust me and follow after me?

You have to follow me anyway if you don't want to be executed.

Mid credit:

[Translator: Dawn]

[Proofreader: Alissa]

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After setting the mood.

From now on, I will explain the roles you will play in tomorrow's battle.

Having seated the party members in front of me, I started explaining.

First, Lily.

Yes, Your Highness.

Lily's eyes lit up as if she wanted to show that she was listening to me.

But her face hardened at my subsequent words.

You are the 'shield' of this party. As the main tank, fend off the spiders' attacks.

Pardon?

Lily asked as if there was an absurdity.

Uhm, Your Highness? I'm a magician, and I'm also a user of fire-type attack magic?

Ignoring Lily's reluctant retort, I turned my gaze to Ken.

Ken.

Y-yes, Your Highness!

You secretly infiltrate into the middle of the enemy camp, derange them.

Ken pointed at himself with the same face as Lily.

Yes?! me?! Infiltration?! Derangement?!

Next, Demian.

Ignoring again, I turned my head to the next party member.

The most important and most insecure member among us. It was the healer, Demian.

You will be the 'sniper' of this party.

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You must shoot the enemy's most important target.

Demain was wiping away tears, but as expected, he looked up at me to see if I meant what I said.

Finally, Lucas. You command the rest of the soldiers to maintain the front line.

Lucas's mouth was wide open as he listened to the crazy role assignments. Well, these reactions are exactly what I expected.

Amidst the silence, it was Lily who cautiously offered her opinion and broke the silence.

Uhm, so, to summarize what Your Highness said As a fire-type magician, I'm supposed to be tanking on the frontline.

Yes.

The shield knight, Ken, who is over 2 meters tall, will infiltrate into the middle of the enemy camp and derange the troops.

Right.

And Demian, a healer who has never held a bow in his entire life Is going to be the sniper?

That's right. You heard well, Lily.

Excuse me for a second, but may I ask you this one thing, Your Highness?

Lily looked up at me with her genuinely worried face.

Did you get a head injury in the daytime battle?

Even though everyone didn't say it, it was obvious that they were thinking the same thing.

No wonder it sounds crazy. I ordered the wizard to tank, the shield knight to infiltrate, and the healer to snipe.

However, this is a stage that cannot be cleared using typical methods.

That means there's no other way than to clear it like a madman, right?

Your suspicions are justified. By listening to what I said, I'm sure you think it's just some kind of a suicide show held by the crazy prince.

As if everyone really thought the same thing, they all twitched their shoulders in unison.

But all of you have the 'ability' to carry out the tasks I have ordered.

I smiled as I looked around to see the party members' faces.

Am I wrong?

Lily, Ken, and Demian exchanged glances with bewildered faces at my words.

A little while ago, before summoning the party members,

I was looking at the stat windows of the party members in my room.

First of all, my escort knight and the main character of this game. Lucas.

[Lucas (SSR)]

Level: 25

Title: Prince's escort knight/Main character

Class: Intermediate Knight

Strength 25, Agility 25, Intelligence 10, Stamina 25, Mana 10

'Phew~ Look at these beautiful stats.'

The maximum stat at level 25 is 25, and all the stats required as a knight are maximized already. The intelligence and mana stats aren't too low either. He sure does have what it takes to be the main character.

Skills Learned

} Passive: Man of Steel

} Skill 1: Strike of Will

} Skill 2: ??? (Unlocked after second-class advancement)

} Ultimate: ??? (Unlocked after third-class advancement)

The passive skill, 'Man of Steel', increases basic defense and negates lethal strikes once per stage.

It can be considered the skill that brings out the best performance in a game like this, where everything is over once you get a game over. I guess it's like insurance since he's the main character.

The first skill, 'Strike of Will' is also a broken, OP skill for the main character, it stacks permanently every time a unit is killed.

In other words, the more enemies he kills, the stronger he'll get over time.

If the game progresses until the third year, this skill gets as strong as the ultimate skill of an average unit. So OP!

'It's a bummer that the second skill and the ultimate aren't unlocked yet.'

He's very strong even in the tutorial stage. Nothing less is expected from our main character.

'Alright, now that I've looked at Lucas, next is

I swiped the screen to see the stat window of myself.

[Ash (EX)]

Level: 1

Title: Nasty Prince.

Class: Novice

Strength 1, Agility 1, Intelligence 1, Stamina 1, Mana 1

What is this garbage?

I froze up for a moment because this was so absurd. However, even after rubbing my eyes, the stats stayed the same. What the hell?!

Like, what is this level 1 stuff? I thought the minimum level in this game was 5! And so was the minimum stat! So why is everything at 1?

'And what is that 'EX' rank on the character?'

It was my first time seeing such a thing. Wasn't this guy's rank N?

This game's character rank was classified as SSR, SR, R, and N-rank.

Even I, who had no-lifed this game to the limit, never saw something like the 'EX' rank.

'Ash, I mean 'I', have become a different character than the one I saw in the game.'

I was flustered. Flustered, indeed, but since it could lead to some kind of an unknown variable.

Who knows? Maybe it could become my trump card in this desperate situation.

I worked really hard to keep my hopes up and turned to look at the skills I had. Let's see.

Skills Learned

} None

Okay, let's calm down and take a deep breath.

This is because I'm only at level 1 for now. Once my level goes up and I get a class advancement, I'll learn more skills and acquire more stats.

My hopes were reduced to ashes, but I still tried my best to think positively.

I turned off the Skills tab and opened the Traits tab.

Characteristics are independent of skills, and the habits or quirks that a character acquires while developing will affect the stats.

There is no limit to how many can be obtained, but up to three can be equipped.

When I opened the Traits tab, I saw one trait.

Equipped Traits (1 / 3).

} Map Creation

Ah, there it is.

Fortunately, the trait that Ash had in the game was still there.

Map creation. This doesn't actually make him draw and create a map, but

[Map Creation Lv.1]

The entire battlefield is understood in a pixel form of a map. Can be activated for 5 minutes a day.

This is what the trait provides.

It's a skill that seems useful to a player, so I always wondered why such a skill was given to this character

'Perhaps, this was given by the devs, knowing that a player was going to take over this character's body?'

Well, that wasn't the main topic to worry about right now. It was something that I could think about after surviving the crisis I have on my hand.

After confirming the existence of my trait, 'Map Creation', I quickly turned off my stats window. The numbers were so terrible that I didn't want to see them anymore.

Time to look at the others' stat windows.

Hm, they're all pretty average.

Lily, Ken, and Demian had nothing that caught my eyes since they were all average-rated units.

Luckily, Lily was an R-rank magician who had decent stats. Ken, an N-rank knight, and Demian, an N-rank healer, had just N-rank stats.

If the stats that I just saw truly were everything I had, then I would've given up passing this stage in the first place. Because it'd be impossible.

However Lily, Ken, and Demian all have special features.

A 'joke' that the developers of the game added, which was impossible to utilize in the game.