WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Order
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Dark Knight in the Game World ◈
Chapter 56: A Very Ordinary Journey (1)
──────
Kriel was trying to calm Tuon down. Tuon, who had transformed into a girl in an ash-gray dress, was huffing in anger.
“How could you put me in the coffin of such a vulgar curved sword?!”
[What did you say?! Hey, that scabbard is comfortable in its own way!]
“Well...”
If Tuon started saying things like, “Together, we can conquer the world,” after they had killed a Servant of the Abyss, wouldn’t it look like a territorial dispute between Demons?
Kriel himself would seem like a Dark Knight sent to kill Tushkin, Grikenkos’s servant, to expand another Demon’s domain. They would likely see him as the vanguard or incarnation of some Demon.
“Tuon. I have no intention of conquering the world as you suggested.”
“That wasn’t what I was going to say! You didn’t even listen to me to the end!”
“That’s true. I’m sorry. What were you going to say?”
“If you join me, you can become the King of the Abyss!”
“No!”
Kriel grabbed Tuon and launched into a long lecture. A Knight’s duty lay in honor, and true honor was not rising to a higher position and gaining glory, but preserving one’s own Nobility.
Listening from the side, Orisin thought,
‘No matter how I look at him, that bastard seems completely sincere about chivalry...’
“Therefore, throwing myself into the Abyss for a position like Demon King is far from my goal. Sacrificing others for my desires is not noble.”
“But wouldn’t being the Demon King... be cool?”
It was such an absurd question that Orisin expected Kriel to dismiss it lightly.
Yet Kriel couldn’t answer. Judging by his expression, he was clearly thinking, ‘It would be cool, though...’
“If you don’t like King of the Abyss, what about Knight King?”
Orisin shook their head. There was no unclaimed land at the moment. To call himself king, Kriel would need to build a power base, but that guy had the temperament of a Wandering Knight.
Kriel seemed to be thinking the same thing, because his expression turned subtly uninterested. Tuon hurriedly added,
“No. You can do both!”
[Huh.]
“You can be both the Demon King and the Knight King. With both light and darkness, you’ll look invincible!”
Orisin heard Kriel softly exclaim, “Oh.” It was hard to understand that guy’s standards for what was cool.
[For goodness’ sake, children of darkness, get a grip!]
Just as Orisin lightly tapped both of them on the head with the flat of the curved sword,
“I’m coming in for a...”
Armede opened the door and walked in. Before her was the sight of an ash-gray-haired girl clinging to Kriel with tears in her eyes.
She froze.
[Ha ha, we’re screwed.]
Orisin muttered.
* * *
Armede did not grab a rock and shout, “You womanizing bastard! You’re still my fiancé!” Her mind had gone completely blank, leaving her unable to say anything.
Kriel considered making up an excuse for how he had come to possess a Demon Sword, then decided against it. It was unlikely that Armede had recognized Tuon’s true nature at a glance. He intended to insist that it was merely an ordinary Ego Sword, not the Sword Spirit of a Demon Sword.
Tuon returned to sword form, an ash-gray straight sword with a cross-shaped guard.
“There was a brief disagreement with my Sword Spirit. What did you come for?”
“Ah, right. A Sword Spirit...”
Armede barely managed to gather her creaking thoughts and was about to nod blankly, but stopped herself. Her curiosity as a mage had kicked in.
“A Sword Spirit? With a fully developed consciousness that can materialize?”
A strange excitement flickered in Armede’s eyes. Kriel nodded awkwardly.
“A weapon housing such an advanced consciousness. Even among Ego Weapons, it’s top-class. I suspected as much from the moment it tore Tushkin to pieces.”
Armede raised a hand. Her strong desire to touch it just once was obvious. The Head of the Order of Eve Kaha had assured them that its connection to the Abyss had been severed, but Tuon was still a Demon Sword.
Demon Swords that corrupted people were feared anywhere in Tirnanog.
More importantly, even if Tuon had escaped the Abyss’s shadow for now, their origin was Gratuon, one of the Seven Demon Weapons. Their true nature had to remain hidden if possible.
Kriel looked at Orisin. Orisin understood his intent from that urgent gaze.
‘It’s time for this body to step up heroically!’
Orisin often found Kriel and Tuon hard to understand, but they failed to realize that thinking of something as “heroic” in this situation meant they had already been influenced quite a bit by their romantic view of chivalry.
[Come to think of it, I’m that kind of weapon too!]
A horse’s head blocked Armede’s path. She frowned. In theory, Orisin and the Horn Dagger also belonged to the category of Ego Weapons.
After all, an Ego Weapon was a weapon with a self.
“But a Spirit that originally possessed a physical form and was implanted into a dagger is different from a Sword Spirit that was born from a sword in the first place.”
Armede’s words shifted into an academic debate about Ego Weapons. Having safely drawn her attention away from Tuon, Kriel thanked Orisin with a glance, then waited for the right moment to speak.
“Right. What did you come for?”
“...You were obviously planning to leave without having dinner, weren’t you?”
“Ah.”
Kriel smiled sheepishly. Since he had already received a coin, he had been preparing to leave rather than make a show of it and receive more money.
“Stay for a meal at least. I heard from the servants that they’re preparing a welcoming celebration for the noble Knight who defeated Tushkin Gabi and saved him from the Abyss.”
“That sounds burdensome.”
“What?”
Kriel shrugged. He had always been the type to enjoy spending time alone in his room. Being the center of attention wasn’t something he disliked, honestly, but it still felt burdensome.
“I’m a little shy by nature.”
Armede snorted at the weak joke.
“You really have a strange personality. You know that?”
“If you need my name to draw more support from the Gabi Trading Company, use it as you please. I’m your fiancé in name, at least. I should repay what I’ve received.”
Armede’s lips twitched slightly. She struggled to suppress a smile, but in the next moment, she no longer needed to.
“Though I should discuss it with Morgina as well.”
“...Hey. Why are you bringing up her name here?”
Kriel calmly explained that he had two public positions. One was Champion of Eve Kaha, and the other was Armede Kett’s fiancé.
Orisin cut in with, [Isn’t the first one just a soldier?] but Kriel cheerfully ignored them.
“There could be religious issues. It would be better to discuss it at least once so things don’t get complicated for no reason.”
Armede nodded with a sulky expression. Kriel had gathered all his belongings, including the greatsword he had retrieved near the ruined hallway, and was just about to depart.
“Kriel. You know the Winter Solstice is coming soon, right?”
The winter solstice. The time when the night was longest. Originally, night did not carry an ominous image, but that had changed somewhat since the Demon King War.
It was because the Abyss avoided light and nested in darkness.
“A little over a month remains. Why?”
“Come to the County of Kett around the time of the Winter Solstice Festival. It’ll be easier to formally settle the engagement in front of the whole family, and we need an event like that to bring everyone together.”
The Winter Solstice Festival. Originally, it was an event held on the longest night of the year, where people burned away the year’s old Resentment and prayed for good fortune in the coming year. After the Demon King War, its meaning had changed into gathering people’s vital energy on the day when darkness was deepest to ward off calamities from the Abyss.
To put it more bluntly, no one knew when or how Abyssal spies might enter, so the idea was to gather everyone together and keep watch over them. It was closer to surveillance than a festival.
Now that the Demon King had fallen, Kriel had heard that its original meaning was slowly returning and the festive atmosphere was coming back as well.
Kriel nodded. Around then, Armede probably intended to dissolve their engagement and return to being free.
* * *
Kriel headed for the back gate to avoid the crowded main entrance. A figure was perched atop the wall for no apparent reason.
The hair color was quite familiar to him. Black at the roots, red at the ends.
“I knew you’d say one coin was enough and leave right away. You’re later than I expected.”
“Armede came to my room saying the same thing.”
“Did the pink-haired girl realize you’d leave without taking payment too? Tch. She’s a formidable rival...”
Morgina raised a hand to her lips as she spoke. At a glance, she looked like a priest deep in thought beneath the moonlight. It would have made a beautiful painting, but Kriel knew Morgina was far from the ideal priest depicted in holy icons.
Her shoes, for one thing. Whenever she set out on a long journey, she used Blood Flow Manipulation to make herself boots closer to marching combat boots instead of wearing ordinary shoes.
At the moment, Morgina was wearing leather shoes rather than red combat boots.
“Do you have something to do here?”
“Yeah. Grandmother said something was happening in the Empire, so I came this way. Since traces of the Abyss were found here, I’m going to investigate this area first.”
The Head of the Order of Eve Kaha had warned of the Abyss’s activity. As a Knight, Kriel could not ignore those words.
“Do you need help?”
“It’s fine. Nothing has really come to light yet. You have to go deal with that horse-head’s business, right? If it turns out to be something I can’t handle alone, I’ll come find you.”
“How will you know where I am?”
Morgina lightly jumped down from the wall and approached Kriel. Once she came close enough that they could feel each other’s breath, she raised her index finger and touched near his shoulder. Her finger slid lightly down from his shoulder, coming to rest near his solar plexus.
The raven necklace, the Mark of the Great Warrior, swayed.
“Because you have this. If I send a raven, it’ll find you on its own.”
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
