WeTried Translations

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◈ I Became the Dark Knight in the Game World ◈

Chapter 10: There Are Too Many Abysses (3)

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It had not been difficult for Kriel to realize that the place he had drifted into was the world of Tirnanog RPG. For one thing, the Monsters roaming around were all monsters he had encountered somewhere before.

Then there was his own appearance. He looked as though the graphics of the last character he had created in the game had been brought to life.

He did not like the fact that the character was a Dark Knight, a class that became more and more messed up the more skills it used, but he had hope of his own.

In countless game-transmigration novels, was the goal not usually to defeat the original story's final boss? He also had something like a system that had imprinted skills into his mind, so he believed that if he defeated the Demon King someday, he would be able to return home.

It did not take long for that belief to shatter. He soon learned that Demon King Valor had already been defeated by the Heroes long ago.

Hero was the title given to player characters in the game.

Kriel had tried to find even one Hero and obtain a clue about returning home, but after the Demon King's defeat, the Heroes' whereabouts had become unknown.

There were countless rumors about their disappearance. Still, Kriel did not believe any of them held the truth.

‘They probably went home.’

Kriel laughed bitterly, and from then on, his goal became simply to stay sane and healthy...

[How many of the Seven Demon Weapons currently have unknown whereabouts?]

“They're weapons that keep trying to escape even after being sealed. It'd be faster to count the ones that are properly sealed than look for the missing ones.”

He was now wondering whether a life caught between a unicorn-headed ghost and a so-called witch could truly be considered healthy.

An unproductive argument followed, with one side saying, “Why is the Sacred Kingdom's management so careless?” and the other responding, “Because we're short on staff from trying to restore Corrupted Spirits like you.”

“Instead of doing this by yourselves, why don't you gather the other Saints and hold a discussion?”

Kriel mixed a joke into his words as he stopped their bickering. He had no idea why the two were so eager to tear each other apart.

[Oh.]

“We're going together anyway... It might be worth trying.”

Orisin and Morgina took the joke seriously.

* * *

Kriel was drinking water in a corner of the meeting hall. This was a logical discussion based on decades of accumulated Abyss observation data, not a search based on intuition or senses. There was no place for him in it.

Morgina quietly came over to stand beside Kriel. She looked nothing like the person who had been passionately debating spearheads and blades just moments ago.

“What? Is the discussion over already?”

“It has reached a lull. When I thought about it, you've made a major concession, so none of us need to act separately.”

Normally, finding the place where the artifact's main body was hidden would have been the task itself. The Priest-King had summoned so many Saints so they could scatter and search for the artifact's hiding place.

But thanks to Kriel, they could now charge directly at the artifact's main body. There was no need for the tedious search process.

“So we decided that each of us will prepare for the abilities of the Demon Weapon we think it is.”

Kriel let out a hollow laugh. They had talked for two hours straight, only to fail to reach a consensus.

“Is it difficult for Saints to agree on something too? Do the churches at least get along when they gather for meals?”

“Have you ever been to a Day of Light's Birth festival? Once all the events are done and someone suggests getting something to eat together, they argue for ages. It starts with whether fish or meat is better, then there are people insisting we should avoid meat and eat only vegetables...”

Morgina went on with one complaint after another, only for it all to end in praise for the Church of Eve Kaha.

“But our Church doesn't have such annoying restrictions. You can drink and eat meat as much as you want! If you join now, you can even keep your position as Champion.”

“Don't try to proselytize.”

Kriel ignored Morgina's nonsense. The first place he had heard something similar was on a battlefield.

He had known it since she went around with a mace covered in blood, shouting at soldiers, “Join our church and you'll get free bread with strawberry jam every weekend!” Morgina had no talent for proselytizing.

* * *

Satranak, Grikenkos's Demonkin vanguard, looked at the Constellation Chart spread through the air.

The constellations shining in the darkness differed from those that existed in reality. The stars embroidered across the empty air were the Abyss's equivalent of a map of power.

The six constellations, each with its own color and ruling the sky, were proof enough.

Symbols of the Archdemons.

The stars representing Grikenkos gathered together to form the shape of balancing scales. The constellation shaped like scales held power that nameless stars could not even dare compare themselves to, yet beside the other five constellations, it seemed lacking in presence.

Like all Demons, Grikenkos wished to topple the balance between the stars of the Abyss and become its unrivaled ruler.

Satranak had offered his master an ingenious plan to make that wish a reality. A method of mass-producing Apostles of the Abyss by using the Demon King's Legacy.

According to the plan, fragments of the Seven Demon Weapons would slowly grow by feeding on the world, then bloom in the soil of corpses.

Yet things had gone wrong. Despite scattering so many fragments, there was not even one who had risen to the rank of Demonkin like himself. No one had even become a Demonic Beast.

There were two possible explanations. Either every human he had painstakingly selected was utterly incompetent, fools who could not even kill a single family member.

Or they had been discovered by idiots who worshipped heartless machines.

Satranak moved a fingertip. The Constellation Chart vanished, replaced by several screens showing every corner of the world.

They were connected to the worshippers who served Satranak. They all testified that the Sacred Kingdom had “secretly” summoned the Saints.

‘Humans are animals obsessed with each other's secrets.’

Satranak's worshippers brought him secrets without even knowing whom they served. Perhaps some knew his identity and chose to look away. The other secrets they received in return were sweet enough to make it worthwhile.

A summons for the Saints. Satranak immediately sensed that they would set out to stop his plan.

Even so, the Saints would have no effective solution. When Satranak had planted the fragments of the Seven Demon Weapons, he had scattered them evenly across all four corners of the world so no pattern would emerge.

The Saints who began tracking them might reach the branches, perhaps even the trunk. But they would never reach the roots.

Satranak turned his gaze to a mummy with a blade embedded in its heart. The sword blade stuck in the mummy was as thin and bare as a bone. Yet if one watched closely, it was regenerating, as though flesh were gradually filling it out.

For the past several years, he had restored the sword through that mummy, but the restoration process was gradually reaching its limit. Even now, the blade's regeneration had visibly slowed.

Once the sword devoured the last drop of soul remaining in the corpse, Satranak intended to abandon this hideout without hesitation.

Even if the Saints' punitive force found this place, nothing would remain by then.

“...Still, it would be better to put more effort into the disguise.”

Satranak selected worthless worshippers who could serve as scapegoats. He planned to summon them here, plant false memories in them, and disappear.

Once the Saints had taken the scapegoats' heads and were satisfied, he only needed to continue the plan elsewhere after they had forgotten this incident. Next time, with more capable worshippers and greater secrecy.

* * *

“The main body of the Abyssal Seed is there.”

Kriel pointed at the stone structure that seemed to cling precariously beyond the cliff.

Kriel led the Saints deep into the mountains. It was a place where people could not easily venture, but a remote mountain location did not necessarily make it suitable for the Abyss to hide.

In this world, which had fought the Abyss since ancient times, nearly every mountain had a monastery or church built somewhere within it.

Whenever a Demonkin appeared on a mountain peak, people would put it down, then build a monastery to purify the place where its corpse had been burned.

The place Kriel pointed to was one such monastery. The Saints' expressions hardened.

Monasteries in the mountains regularly sent reports on the regions under their watch to the Holy City of Temlis. Yet sensing the Abyss within one meant that either the Abyss had seeped into the monks' very marrow, or everyone inside had already perished.

Neither possibility was ordinary. Whether it was the collective corruption of the monks or a mysterious enemy that had isolated and silently wiped out the entire monastery.

“First, I...”

“I'll come too.”

Morgina added before Kriel could properly finish speaking. Kriel glanced at her once, then continued.

“...We will disguise ourselves as wandering priests and scout the place. If there is no news thirty minutes after we enter, all of you break in together.”

Footnotes:

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