I Became the Dark Knight in the Game World - Chapter 51

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Order

◈ I Became the Dark Knight in the Game World ◈

Chapter 51: The Gabi Trading Company (5)

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Just as Mazhar had assured them, no one tried to stop Kriel’s group from going to see Tushkin Gabi.

The estate’s servants merely gave Mazhar sympathetic looks without blocking their way, and his two siblings did not seem to have returned to the estate.

Deep within the estate, where Mazhar led them, two lightly armed mages stood guard. They appeared to serve as both Tushkin’s protectors and medical staff, ready to provide emergency treatment should anything happen to him.

“Young Master Mazhar.”

“Is Father feeling any better?”

“He woke briefly and drank some water. He’s fallen asleep again, though.”

The mages looked over the group following Mazhar with weary yet wary expressions. They had seen Armede from time to time, but Kriel and Morgina were unfamiliar to them.

Morgina wore conventional priestly robes, so most of the mages’ suspicion was directed at Kriel.

Anyone carrying three swords was bound to be treated as dangerous wherever they went.

“They’re the people I called in to treat him.”

“You’ll have to leave all weapons behind.”

Kriel obediently removed all three swords. Tuon’s whining rang in his ears.

‘A sword and a knight are inseparable!’

Even after he removed all his weapons, the inspection was not over. The mages cast various spells used to screen for assassins. Metal-detection magic, poison-detection magic, and even Abyss-detection magic, which was nearly useless but still cast out of habit.

Kriel was impressed all over again by the Champion’s necklace Morgina had given him. Wearing it made him feel as though his whole body were under pressure, but that was a small price to pay for reducing the risk of being identified as a Dark Knight so drastically.

“You may enter.”

The inspection had been brief but tiresome. Mazhar opened the door to the room where his father lay.

The old man’s complexion was pale. His skin sagged as though it had been stretched over his bones, and the veins visible beneath it had lost all elasticity.

Instead of a healthy flush, he bore a pallor closer to that of a corpse. Tushkin’s eyelids fluttered once. Yet the gaze behind them looked less human than the unfocused eyes of a dead fish.

‘When it comes to lacking vitality, he looks more like me than anyone else.’

This was serious. Kriel was often asked whether he was undead. For a living person who had not even been tainted by the Abyss to look like that, it was truly alarming.

If Tushkin had been tainted by the Abyss, it would not have been such a big deal. It would have been his own fault for crawling into it.

“I’ll check his pulse.”

Mindful of the others present, Morgina politely asked Mazhar’s permission before taking Tushkin’s pulse. Armede held what looked like a pendulum made from a gemstone and walked around the room, closely watching its swings.

Kriel watched Tushkin Gabi. So far, he could not sense anything unusual.

Mazhar sat in a chair in one corner of the room and waited for the diagnosis. His posture suggested he had grown used to both resignation and waiting.

“Young Master Mazhar, is the patient wearing any special artifacts?”

“Ah, yes. The clothes Father is wearing have restorative effects, and each of his rings contains spells to reduce fever or ease pain. All the fabric has been blessed to lessen the curse of the Abyss.”

“May I draw blood?”

“What? Wh-what are you saying? Such a barbaric thing to do to a patient...!”

“Mazhar.”

Armede, who had been examining every corner of the room with the jeweled pendulum, turned around. She still had feelings about Morgina that were difficult to put into words, but her professional duty came first.

“You may have forgotten because the destruction she caused during the Trial by Combat was so memorable, but she’s a Saintess. She isn’t some brutish amateur who’d kill someone by drawing a drop or two of blood.”

Oh. Kriel was impressed. The two had been bickering constantly for some reason, yet Armede still defended Morgina when it mattered.

In a way, that was one of the Abyss’s positive effects. No matter how badly two people got along, when faced with the Abyss, they would shout, ‘Temporary alliance!’ An unspoken agreement ran throughout society that nothing was worse than the Abyss.

After hesitating, Mazhar nodded. Morgina shaped her blood into a sharp scalpel. Holding Tushkin’s right hand, she carefully pricked the tip of his index finger.

A single drop of blood fell.

Morgina caught the drop on a silver tray she had produced from somewhere. Tilting the tray this way and that, she closely observed the blood’s movements.

That was when Kriel began to sense something strange.

Detecting the Abyss through Divine Power was somewhat different from Kriel’s own detection.

The clergy’s method of detecting the Abyss was like a chemistry experiment. Just as one observes the reaction created when two specific substances meet, they identified the Abyss through the intense mutual-annihilation reaction that occurred when it came into contact with Divine Power.

If other impurities entered the experimental environment, the desired reaction would not occur. That was why the clergy’s search for the Abyss required a highly delicate and precise procedure.

Kriel’s detection of the Abyss, on the other hand, resembled a magnet. Just as two magnets naturally attract or repel each other when they come close, he instinctively became aware of the Abyss once it entered a certain range.

Just as special treatment could remove a magnet’s magnetism, Kriel’s ability to detect the Abyss could theoretically be neutralized through special measures.

‘But why now...?’

He could sense the Abyss’s presence, though he had not felt it until moments ago. Ever since Morgina caught that drop of blood on the silver tray.

Clues began connecting in Kriel’s mind one by one.

Had Mazhar not said Tushkin’s patient robes were made only from blessed fabric? It was the same principle as Kriel concealing his existence as a Dark Knight with the Champion’s Mark.

The Abyss’s presence must have become detectable as soon as the blood left Tushkin’s body and landed on the silver tray because it was outside the area the patient robes could conceal.

Kriel strode toward Mazhar, then whispered softly.

“A word.”

“What?”

Mazhar could not understand what Kriel meant. But with the Abyss right before them, Kriel had to act faster than anyone else. Instead of explaining, he raised his fist and charged at Tushkin.

“What the hell? Stop!”

* * *

Tushkin Gabi heard familiar footsteps. They belonged to his youngest son.

Hearing unfamiliar footsteps mixed in with his son’s, he knew Mazhar must have brought more people to “treat” him.

How pitiful.

This father had never been cursed or ill to begin with.

Tushkin smiled inwardly with his eyes closed. Mazhar, his youngest son, had committed the unfilial sin of not dying when he should have, but Tushkin could now forgive him generously.

The Demon he served desired chaos, so the family had to be set aflame.

His own death was the means to ignite a family conflict. Originally, he should have killed Mazhar long ago to bring about chaos, but with so much time having passed, the plan had no choice but to change.

If Tushkin Gabi’s old body died, Jaren and Arsika, Mazhar’s older siblings, would begin fighting over the Gabi Family.

The Gabi Family’s division would be the first stage of the chaos that would soon descend upon the Empire’s merchant world. Tushkin had been assigned the role of properly guiding that chaos by his master.

Tushkin intended to take Mazhar’s body in place of his old one. He would provoke conflict between Jaren and Arsika, then use Tushkin’s inheritance as bait in Mazhar’s body to throw the Empire’s merchant world into utter chaos.

As he searched for the right time to take Mazhar’s body, he realized that the guests Mazhar had brought this time were far from welcome.

Armede, the leader of that laughable organization called the Abyss Eradication Society. The mage from the society Tushkin had sponsored to deliberately distort its research direction was one thing, but an utterly repulsive priest had accompanied them as well.

There was also a knight with a strangely familiar face. Probably the priest’s escort.

Even with a priest before him, Tushkin was not afraid. He had devised a way to hide the Abyss’s blessing from Divine Power long ago.

As expected, the priest had failed to recognize his true nature. The faint trace left in his blood would probably be mistaken for part of the curse.

Just as he was inwardly pleased, hurried footsteps that did not belong indoors pierced Tushkin’s ears.

Judging from the sound, someone was clearly rushing straight at him. Tushkin did not even have time to react.

Before he could open his eyes, Kriel’s clenched fist struck the old servant of the Abyss square in the face.

Footnotes:

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