I Became the Dark Knight in the Game World - Chapter 1

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Order

◈ I Became the Dark Knight in the Game World ◈

Chapter 1: The Wordless Horse and the Silent Knight (1)

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The knight walked toward the sunset.

Plate armor, dull as if scorched by fire. A single greatsword nearly as tall as he was.

The armor might have looked clean if not for the burn-like black patterns across it, but bright red blood streamed down the sword at his side, lending him a grim air.

Yet the falling blood never stained the ground.

The black shadow gathered beneath the knight’s feet was slowly but greedily devouring the Blood Energy.

The knight suddenly stopped and raised his head. His gaze turned toward the setting sun.

In the forest, darkened by the sunset's backlight, only his red gaze gleamed brightly.

The knight looked at the sun and thought,

'I should've become a mage.'

His name was Kriel.

He was a former modern man who hated the system that gave him neither a mount nor even a single coin as a starting item, despite making him a knight, a mounted warrior.

* * *

At the foot of a mountain range, Jakabil, parish priest of a small church in a small village, was trying to calm the frightened villagers.

"Everyone, wait a little longer. I've sent word to the commander. Soldiers will come soon to resolve this matter."

"But Father! It's already been two weeks since Ivan left to deliver the message!"

"Stay calm. We'll receive an answer soon. Soon..."

It was hard to tell whether Jakabil's repeated words were meant for the panicked villagers or for himself.

For several days, strange and terrible things had been happening in Laurang, a frontier village near the Western Front.

The first victim had been the youngest daughter of the family with the potato field. She had always loved wandering around the foothills, a brazen child who never broke the habit no matter how often the village elders scolded her.

When she failed to return home late into the evening, her parents went looking for her, but their daughter was nowhere to be found.

The second had been a girl who helped her mother weave cloth. One day, she vanished from sight, and there had been no word of her since.

The repeated disappearances were enough to give rise to frightening rumors. Monsters lurking deep in the mountains were hardly unheard of, so the villagers could not simply dismiss them as idle gossip.

A mountain ghost that ate maidens. Tales of a monster lurking in the mountain behind the village gradually spread through Laurang.

Then, one day, someone truly witnessed the shadowy form of a monster that seemed to be luring away a maiden.

No one knew whether the abducted girls were alive or dead. All Laurang could do was turn to the priest, who had close ties to the village's most influential people, and beg him to send a knight who could slay the dreadful monster.

But even Ivan, who had taken on the role of messenger, had vanished without a trace. Naturally, fear spread that the mountain ghost had realized people were plotting against it and eaten him.

Thud.

That was when a heavy knock echoed through the church doors. Silence fell over the room.

Thud.

A second knock rang out, as if urging them on. It was louder than the first. Under the villagers' fearful yet hopeful gazes, Father Jakabil opened the door.

There stood a knight.

Or rather, knight was simply the closest word Jakabil could use based on what he knew. Having once served as a military chaplain on the Western Front, Jakabil clearly remembered what knights looked like.

Men clad in gleaming silver armor, their surcoats embroidered with glorious emblems, their eyes bright with anticipation for glory and pride in their honor.

But the "knight" before him was different.

Even his plate armor, the symbol of a knight, was black instead of silver. The gaze faintly visible beneath his deeply lowered helmet seemed filled with greed rather than honor.

Most alien of all was the greatsword slung over his shoulder.

Its black blade carried an ominous air, as though it would bring curses rather than honor or glory.

"W-who are you?"

"I was dispatched from the Western Front."

The knight showed him an order bearing the front commander's seal. It contained a simple, soldierly instruction far removed from noble language.

Resolve the disturbance in Laurang.

He was clearly the savior they had been waiting for, yet Jakabil somehow found it difficult to invite him into the church.

Shaking his head to cast away such improper thoughts, Father Jakabil led the knight inside.

* * *

They always react like this.

Kriel repeated the thought only to himself. It had been a long time since he started counting the years, not the months, of his career pretending to be a dignified knight. He had grown used to the suspicious looks people gave him, as if wondering, What kind of knight is this?

More accurately, they were probably thinking, Isn't this bastard a servant of the demon race?

Kriel understood that their suspicions were not entirely unreasonable. The role bestowed upon the body he currently wore was not simply knight, but Dark Knight.

He could complain about that class forever, but something else was more important right now.

The disturbance in Laurang.

It was not an important matter in the grand scheme of the Western Front. Compared with the foremost battlefield, where automated machines left behind by the Ancient Dwarven Kingdom continued their nighttime raids even now, Laurang's situation could be treated as no more than a minor commotion.

The Laurang incident mattered to Kriel because his discharge depended on it.

He had somehow been dragged all the way to the Western Front, and he no longer wanted to remain in the military.

For the sake of that desperate wish, Kriel listened closely to the villagers' testimonies. Still, his silent attention only felt like meaningful silence to them.

In the villagers' fear, the mountain ghost had gradually become little more than a vague image. The only useful testimony was that the monster had a dark shape and probably walked on four legs.

It was not much different from what Ivan had told him before he set out. Kriel searched his mind for black, four-legged monsters. Information from the game did not always apply to this world exactly as it was, but it was enough to provide a lead.

"Sir Knight..."

A farmer who had waited until the end approached Kriel, who had been pondering in silence. The farmer was especially hesitant. It seemed he had suffered plenty of abuse from knights or nobles before.

"Speak."

The old villager blinked, clearly surprised that a knight had spoken to him politely. Then he began to explain in a stammer.

"I saw the mountain ghost abducting a maiden too. As it ran on four legs, something like smoke wrapped around its body. It moved as fast as the wind and vanished in an instant."

There was nothing particularly notable about the story. Kriel was about to send the old man away with a few polite responses.

"But, sir. Didn't that thing have goat-like horns on its head?"

"Goat-like?"

Two large, curving horns.

That was an invaluable clue.

"Thank you, old man."

A four-legged beast. Great speed. And two large, beautiful horns.

It was undoubtedly a Bicorn.

He did not know why a monster that usually ate men in the game had started abducting maidens, but unicorns, which were more or less the Bicorn's cousins, did like maidens.

Mutations existed even among monsters. Thinking this was a mutant that had developed tendencies similar to its cousin, Kriel quietly called Father Jakabil over.

"I'll kill the mountain ghost tomorrow."

At the declaration, spoken as casually as if he were saying the sun rose in the east, Father Jakabil could only be bewildered.

* * *

Kriel attached strange conditions to his plan, saying they were necessary to catch the mountain ghost.

First, he needed one woman who had not yet been abducted. It was obvious that they needed bait to lure out the mountain ghost. Though the villagers worried another person would disappear, they considered it a reasonable condition.

Second, a husband from a loving married couple had to accompany them. This one was truly incomprehensible.

Kriel had quietly told Father Jakabil, "If this mountain ghost is the monster I know, it doesn't eat maidens. It eats husbands." Yet the old priest could not fully set aside his doubts, as it was completely different from everything they had experienced so far.

Still, what could they do? The knight said he needed bait to hunt the monster.

Most of the women who had not yet been taken were children, and most devoted husbands were good fathers as well.

That was why the two people accompanying Kriel were a father and daughter.

The priest looked up at the knight with a gaunt face.

"...Please make sure no one dies. The wife left alone is already crying."

"She'll stop crying tomorrow."

* * *

Nobles usually hunted in broad daylight. Yet the knight who called himself Kriel headed into the forest at twilight.

The forest had always been a dangerous place people were reluctant to enter after sunset. All the more so after the mountain ghost made its nest there.

Shielding his trembling daughter behind him, the farmer asked the knight,

"...What happens now?"

"The mountain ghost will appear soon. Once I catch it, you'll return to Laurang."

Kriel headed for a clearing he had noticed while crossing the forest the day before. The trees in the wild forest surrounding Laurang stood too close together for him to swing his greatsword properly.

That was why, while dealing with the monsters in the forest the previous day, he had already picked out a place suitable for a showdown with the mountain ghost.

It was not very wide, but it was better than fighting among densely packed trees. Kriel left the father and daughter in the center of the clearing, then used the tip of his blade to draw a circle around them.

"Do not step outside the circle."

The farmer nodded vigorously. Feeling that the warning was not quite enough, Kriel added one more thing.

"Do not come out, no matter what happens. Suspicious voices and illusions may try to lure you out, but never do it."

Kriel planted an incense stick between the father and daughter and lit it. It was monster-luring incense he had brought from the Western Front.

Normally, doing this would draw every starving beast in the forest, but all the beasts that might have gathered had lost their heads the previous day.

The only beast that would come running was the Bicorn that had not shown even a single hair of itself the previous day.

A devoted husband, the Bicorn's usual prey. A pure maiden, the target of the mutant Bicorn that had appeared in Laurang. And finally, the monster-luring incense.

The conditions were more than enough to make the mountain ghost charge in.

Footnotes:

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