WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Order
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◈ I Became the Dark Knight in the Game World ◈
Chapter 32: The Society of Dead Mages (3)
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The Gate City Kriel had left behind was in the midst of a banquet. The flushed guards raised their cups and shouted, “To Sir Kriel!”
Elsewhere in the city, they had finally gathered the bodies of those whom wyverns had dropped to their deaths or torn apart and begun holding funerals. Since many of the dead were guards, the banquet was more than a simple feast. It was also an event meant to comfort the entire city.
In the middle of it all, one guard rose from his seat. He told the others he was going to relieve himself, then headed for the wall near the barracks.
The guard pulled a black pebble from his belt and was about to toss it through a small hole in the wall.
“Freeze.”
A cold voice rang out behind the guard.
It was Lewein.
“Sir Mage? C-Could you wait just a moment?”
The guard hurriedly pretended to straighten his clothes. As if refastening his belt, he let the black pebble fall somewhere onto the ground.
“I've already gotten an earful from the captain. But can't a man piss against a wall on a day like this? I've already had five mugs of beer!”
Lewein did not entertain the excuse.
“There were signs that someone had entered my room. The Gate City's warding device was damaged. That means there is a traitor in this city. And this is where the ward is weakest.”
“...I just came here to relieve myself!”
“Is that so? Then perhaps I'll relieve myself as well.”
Lewein snapped his fingers. Water flowed from the bottle tied at the mage's waist and sprayed across the ground.
The soldier braced himself for pain, but felt nothing. It was not an attack spell.
Yet the black pebble at his feet was smoking and crumbling away.
“Holy Water.”
Lewein stepped forward and picked up the pebble. A sharp numbness spread from his fingertips. It was clearly a wicked object connected to the Abyss.
“It looks like it will be a long night, soldier.”
The traitor was bound in chains of water and dragged away in an instant.
Once even Lewein's shadow had vanished, a snake raised its head.
The snake had slipped in to report the Wyvern Recruitment Officer's failure to its master.
* * *
Kriel moved briskly.
He stored all his armor in the Cloak of Eve Kaha to lighten his load. He kept his rest to a minimum as well.
His route had also changed from the original plan. He should have followed the main road Lewein had told him about, but Kriel instead cut straight across toward the Duchy of Argetlam.
[This feels familiar!]
Orisin was referring to their journey to the Sacred Kingdom. Kriel did not indulge the idle chatter. Instead, he let out a bitter mutter.
“I left the army, so why do I still have to go on so many mountain marches?”
The words came from the heart.
[Because you didn't properly leave the army? Strictly speaking, isn't this desertion?]
“Strictly speaking, I'm in the middle of a mission.”
Tuon remained silent while watching Kriel converse with a sword that was lowly and shabby compared to Tuon. Tuon did not want to admit it, but the faint red glow on the blade was at least tolerable.
Unlike that frivolous sword, every word Tuon spoke needed to carry weight.
That was what made a sword magnificent.
At that moment, Tuon's senses as a Demon Weapon detected Monsters. They were the sort that could at least serve as the lowest-ranking soldiers if Kriel ever raised an army.
More importantly, there was a wolf among them. Last time, it had gone screaming down the road to the Underworld because Kriel had not heeded Tuon's wise counsel. This time would be different. Had Tuon not proven loyalty through what happened in the Gate City? Kriel would surely listen now.
[Master! There is a group of Monsters ahead!]
Kriel gripped his greatsword, charged forward, and cut down the Monsters with a single swing.
Tuon became dejected.
* * *
After the Demon King fell to the three Heroes, the world regained its peace, aside from certain exceptions such as the Western Front. The Duchy of Argetlam was no exception.
The duchy's guards, accustomed to their peaceful routine, did not regard Kriel with unnecessary suspicion.
Of course, that was only possible because Kriel was not wearing his armor.
A black cloak was fastened over a dull leather tunic. The cloak looked somewhat expensive, but otherwise, he appeared to be an ordinary traveler.
As Kriel drew closer, though, things the guards had not been able to see before entered their view. The first thing that caught their attention was his swords. Two at his waist, one on each side, and a greatsword slung across his back. It was rare for someone to carry three swords.
When it was Kriel's turn for inspection, the guard captain raised an eyebrow.
“You have a lot of swords. Are you a mercenary?”
Kriel naturally nodded. He had once been a mercenary, so it was not a lie.
“What brings you to the duchy?”
“I know a mage, and I plan to ask them to inspect the enchantments on my weapons.”
He joked that he had treated the swords too roughly in the last battle, so they had been acting strange. The guards seemed accustomed to friendly adventurers and mercenaries, and they played along.
“Be careful. I used to carry an enchanted crossbow, but I neglected its maintenance and one day it shot an arrow into my knee.”
The guard captain shrugged, saying they had quit adventuring and become a guard because their joints ached after walking too long. Then the captain approached Kriel.
“May we inspect the contents of your bag and the back of your cloak?”
Kriel nodded. The guards washed their hands in a bowl of water, then approached to search his belongings. When they found nothing suspicious, the guard captain nodded.
“A mage friend is rare. A friend you can depend on is even rarer. I'm jealous. You may enter.”
Kriel smiled gently, nodded his thanks, and entered through the city gate. Long after he had gone inside, the guards muttered among themselves.
“Good grief. What an unusual-looking mercenary.”
“I couldn't tell until he got closer, but his skin was so pale that I thought he was undead.”
The bowl they had washed their hands in was actually a Holy Water Basin. If Kriel had been an impure being, he would have screamed the moment holy water-coated palms touched him.
The guards put Kriel out of their minds. Sometimes, people simply looked ominous.
* * *
“Let's see. The Golden Cauldron Building on Furnace Street...”
Kriel walked through the duchy with surprising familiarity. He had visited major cities in the Empire several times before.
Both in Tirnanog and on Earth.
“This was a fairly important place.”
[What was?]
“Ah, this city. During the war against the Demon King, it handled most of the logistics.”
That was the setting in Tirnanog RPG, and also the history of the era when the three Heroes had been active before Kriel arrived in this world. The Duchy of Argetlam, especially its directly governed city, was a major trade hub where goods from across the Empire gathered.
‘Well, its location is this good, so it makes sense that it became the center of the duchy.’
[You know a lot about strange things. During Valor's time, I stayed holed up in a mountain valley, so I don't know much.]
“So you're a country bumpkin.”
[I'm getting to see the city thanks to this, so could you call me a horse that studied abroad instead?!]
Kriel muttered with Orisin as he searched for the meeting place. With a creak, he opened the door and entered. An elf mage with deep dark circles beneath their eyes was greeting visitors.
“The general presentation on feline transformation magic is on the first floor. Culinary applications of water-attribute magic are on the second floor. The correlation between a mage's living environment and magical power is on the third floor.”
Kriel scratched his head. There were quite a few unusual presentations.
“I'm here to observe the Abyss Eradication Society's meeting.”
“...Excuse me?”
“The Abyss Eradication Society. The invitation said it would be held for two days starting today...”
The reception mage adjusted their glasses and accepted the invitation. After staring at it for a long time, they let out an “Ah!”
“Third basement floor.”
Then the mage whispered discreetly.
“Are you here to collect a debt?”
“...What?”
Kriel hesitated for several seconds in disbelief. The reception mage seemed to interpret that as confirmation and lowered their voice even further.
“You don't have to hide it from me. I know that the people downstairs have rather... complicated ledgers.”
What in the world was going on? Sensing something ominous, Kriel gathered his thoughts. First, he would go over what he knew.
“I know perfectly well that the Abyss Eradication Society is wealthy. Don't say such things.”
“Oh, the Society is wealthy. That doesn't mean its member mages are wealthy. You really did come here knowing all this.”
The situation began to take shape in Kriel's mind. The Abyss Eradication Society had plenty of money. Its member mages, on the other hand, were poor.
“They need quick money, so they come to a niche society with a difficult subject like Abyss eradication. Please conduct any debt collection outside our building...”
A society was normally a place where members shared the results of their research and advanced their field of study.
But societies were not always run for purely academic purposes. Sometimes, a society existed to serve the personal hobby of an absurdly wealthy sponsor.
The Abyss Eradication Society was clearly one of those societies. An obscure society with an extremely narrow field. Yet it offered exceptionally high sponsorship money based on research results, enough to make any mage specializing in magic that destroyed financial assets consider joining at least once.
In other words...
It was The Society of Dead Mages, financially speaking.
Footnotes:
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