WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: WeTried Translations

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◈ I Became the Dark Knight in the Game World ◈

Chapter 18: What Is This? Take It. (3)

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“What the hell?!”

Kriel moved swiftly.

Fighting for honor was not all a knight needed. Taking decisive action against an enemy was also a knightly virtue. Kriel grabbed her by the collar and slammed her into the ground.

“…What?”

The blow came so swiftly that it stopped Morgina’s thoughts, even as she approached with her mace in hand.

Kriel’s reflexive attack left Morgina even more baffled. He was not the sort of person who would treat an ordinary stranger so brutally.

‘He wouldn’t beat up an ordinary person like that. But he picked her up and started pummeling her. Then...’

That meant she was no ordinary person.

Morgina increased the weight of the mace she had prepared as a threat. It gave off a heavy whoosh as it cut through the air.

[What is it? What is it?!]

Orisin cried out in alarm. From the outside, it looked as though Kriel had suddenly started beating up a young woman.

“Come help!”

Morgina shouted urgently. An enemy with a complete human form who could make Kriel feel threatened?

Whether it was a doppelganger-type Monster, a Demonkin who had mistaken Kriel for an ally, a polymorphed ancient dragon, or something else entirely, every possibility was dangerous. It deserved to be sent from this world at once.

“Wait.”

A calm voice rang out.

It was a beautiful voice, utterly out of place in the situation.

“Master, why do you reject me?”

Kriel’s movements stopped.

He could not understand whom she was calling master.

More precisely, he did not want to understand.

“Do not reject your ordained fate. You defeated me in a contest of pure strength, so you are my rightful master.”

Kriel instinctively realized that the being before him was the greatest threat to his healthy-body, healthy-mind, long-and-happy-life project.

‘The master of one of the Seven Demon Weapons? I’m already suffering enough because of my class!’

“Morgina, wreck her!”

He shouted bluntly, without caring about dignity or Nobility. After all, no one but Orisin and Morgina could hear him here.

“It is meaningless.”

The ash-gray girl explained in a slow voice that was relaxed enough to sound almost leisurely.

“Just as I cannot defy my master’s will, damaging my physical form cannot harm my essence.”

[We’re screwed.]

Orisin was the first to understand what the ash-gray girl meant. Morgina looked toward the horsehead floating in the air, clicking its tongue.

“What does that mean?”

[Well, from what I can see, that thing seems connected to Kriel’s soul.]

“What the hell are you talking about?!”

[Don’t get angry and listen, you thug of a Saintess. You know Kriel isn’t, um, a standard knight, right?]

Morgina bit her lip but nodded. She had witnessed enough since the Western Army that she could not deny it.

[And that... uh, nonstandard knight we know has the ability to absorb the physical pain, mental pain, souls, and things like that from opponents he defeats, right?]

Kriel let go of the ash-gray girl’s collar. Too many things came to mind.

Morgina, still unconvinced, demanded an explanation.

An Abyssal being that claimed Kriel had defeated it in a contest of strength. Its identity was easy to guess.

“I bound Gratuon and sent it to the Holy City. The sword wasn’t destroyed or anything. So how?”

Morgina looked at Kriel with trembling eyes. He put a hand to his forehead.

“Master, would you like me to explain instead?”

“Be quiet...”

At Kriel’s words, the ash-gray girl clamped her mouth shut and nodded.

[Well, as far as I know, battles between beings of the Abyss can sometimes be settled when one side’s spirit breaks, even if they do not physically destroy each other.]

Orisin listed various examples. In a battle between two Demons, the one who acknowledged defeat would serve the winner. A Demonkin might subdue a Demonic Beast with a look and make it a war mount.

[Like those cases, perhaps Gratuon accepted its defeat deep down...]

Morgina felt the back of her neck stiffen.

That thing had attached itself to her Champion. She had planned to take Kriel to the Church of Eve Kaha headquarters and persuade him as much as possible.

At this rate, she would have to persuade the Church elders rather than Kriel.

[Still, this is strange. I never heard that Gratuon had a Sword Spirit.]

Orisin tilted its head and sank into thought. Information on the Seven Demon Weapons was scarce, but if it had possessed a Sword Spirit developed enough to materialize like this, it would have been hard for the Sacred Kingdom’s record keepers to overlook.

‘Were the warriors who had wielded Gratuon until now simply not strong enough to awaken its Sword Spirit? It’s not impossible.’

Orisin sensed that something was off, though it could not identify exactly what felt wrong.

While Orisin and Morgina continued their scholarly discussion of the Abyss’s nature, Kriel closed his eyes and sank into his inner self.

He was trying to access the thing he called the system, the acquired instinct that taught him how to use his skills.

Kriel’s inner self felt like a kind of constellation. Each star represented an ability he could use. There were no convenient descriptions like in a game, but he could instinctively tell what ability each star represented and what result it would bring.

‘...Damn it.’

Sure enough, a new star had appeared. It was blue. Even that color was new to him.

‘The class-related skills provided by the system were red. The ordinary techniques I learned while struggling through this world, including Fighting Energy, were yellow.’

He observed the blue light trembling within him and felt the star’s essence. If he had to name it, it was a skill called Phantom Sword. It was an authority that wielded the power of a Demon Sword.

Kriel had known for a long time that this half-baked system did not support something as useful as deleting skills.

He opened his eyes and looked up at the sky.

“Is it trying to push me into the Abyss already...?”

Damn sky. What exactly was the celestial Pantheon doing, letting things like this happen?

* * *

[Tuon, cook.]

“I do not listen to those weaker than me.”

[What did you say?]

Kriel gave up on cursing the heavens and asked Morgina for advice on resolving the situation. He asked, with faint hope, whether the elder priests at the Church of Eve Kaha headquarters might know something that could help.

Morgina was putting their heads together over the matter with him, saying they first needed to consider whether Kriel was going to get stabbed.

In the meantime, Gratuon’s Sword Spirit sat on a tree stump after being ordered to stay put.

Kriel had a simple reason for not recalling Gratuon into himself. If it was somehow judged to be using an Abyss skill, he could not even begin to predict the consequences. For the time being, Kriel decided to leave Gratuon materialized.

Tasked with keeping watch, Orisin teased Gratuon’s Sword Spirit and carefully observed its reactions.

[Well, this is fascinating. You came out of Gratuon? The sword itself should be in the Holy City, but I can’t feel any connection.]

“Logically speaking, the sword is not my true body.”

[Huh?]

“I possess all of Gratuon’s functions, so I am the true body. The sword sealed in Temlis is only a husk.”

[Ah, yes. You’re so impressive. So, Tuon, what can you do?]

“I do not listen to those weaker than─”

[This bastard again?]

Orisin remembered the Sword Spirit’s personality. Its pride was strangely strong, so it usually ignored questions, but it reacted well when provoked.

Kriel came walking over with heavy, listless steps.

[Hey! Did you find a good solution?]

Morgina answered in place of the gloomy Kriel.

“...We’re not sure yet, but we decided to stick to our original plan and go to our Order’s headquarters.”

[Is that reckless strategy really going to be okay?]

“I personally vouch for him as a Champion. Surely they won’t try to beat him to death the moment they see him?”

Morgina tried to sound confident, but she did not seem convinced.

Kriel looked at the Sword Spirit.

“Can you change into the form of a sword?”

“If my master wishes it. That is my duty.”

Blue cracks spread across the ash-gray girl’s entire body. They were the same color as her eyes.

Blue light poured from the cracks and dyed her whole body. At last, when she became a human-shaped crystal, it shattered into countless pieces.

It was a brilliant destruction, like stained-glass fragments or sunlight breaking across waves. Then every fragment gathered and took on a new form.

When the light faded, a sword lay there. It was the same ash-gray color as the blade that had once served as Kriel’s chest-opening surgical instrument.

“The shape is a little different.”

It was subtly different. The Gratuon Kriel had faced before had stood out for its strangely pointed spikes, but this one was neat overall and brought a cross to mind.

The sword was entirely ash-gray, except for the jewel embedded in the center of its crossguard. That jewel alone was blue.

The jewel flickered in response to Kriel’s mutter.

[I have cast off my husk. Why must I keep my old form?]

Kriel was briefly taken aback by the fact that it could still speak as a sword.

Orisin muttered,

[Three swords. Should I hold one in my mouth?]

Footnotes:

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