I Became a Dark Knight in the Game

2 – The Wordless Horse and the Silent Knight (3)

A scream-like sound pierced through the struggle between the Bicorn and Kriel.

Crack.

It was an unwelcome sound to both sides. However, it was a more ominous sign for Kriel. It was the sound of the Bicorn’s horn, held in his right hand, breaking.

If the horn broke before the neck, it would become even harder to snap the Bicorn’s neck. The Bicorn, knowing that a significant portion of its magic would be lost, had no choice but to do its best to break its own horn.

A fight to see whether the horn would break before the neck, or the neck before the horn.

The victor was the Bicorn. The initial strike from Kriel that had signaled the start of the battle had to be received by the horn, which inevitably broke.

The crack at the base of the horn finally led to its destruction. Now, the only thing binding it was the arm choking its neck. The Bicorn intended to tear apart Kriel’s arm and kill the knight with its single horn.

But before that could happen, Kriel drove the Bicorn’s horn, held in his right hand, into its eye socket.

[Kiaaa!]

A terrible scream echoed. The curse embedded in the sound was so intense that it could wither the nearby vegetation. Unperturbed, Kriel clenched his right fist.

He punched towards the horn embedded in the eye.

The bloodlust in his fist, combined with the monstrous strength Kriel had honed, added a sharpness that could pierce even the plate armor of the Bicorn’s horn.

The Bicorn’s horn completely penetrated its skull.

The Bicorn no longer screamed.

*

Even after the Bicorn’s screams subsided, Kriel acted cautiously. Truly tenacious beasts could revive even after their necks were severed.

Conversely, unless they were exceptionally tenacious, they would die if their necks were severed.

Confirming that the father and daughter were still safely within the circle, Kriel drew his greatsword from the ancient tree. As he raised the sword to sever the neck in one stroke.

[Oh… Oh!]

Suddenly, a sound that could be either a scream or a cry of joy came from the Bicorn, and dark blackness flowed from its fallen body.

As the darkness flowed out, the Bicorn’s body turned white. The darkness that escaped from the Bicorn’s flesh gathered into the shadow of the Dark Knight.

It was pure resentment. For an ordinary Dark Knight, it would be a moment of triumph. Absorbing such pure resentment would allow them to accumulate great hatred.

But Kriel was not an ordinary Dark Knight.

‘No, no!’

The side effects of using bloodlust were already flickering before his eyes. The forest, which had been merely dim until a moment ago, now looked like a sea of blood, a sign of what was to come.

Accumulating hatred was of little use. Kriel wanted to get rid of the resentment as quickly as possible.

He took an uncharged magic stone from his bosom and threw it towards the resentment. The black miasma slowly flowed and stained the magic stone. As soon as Kriel confirmed that the resentment had been absorbed into the magic stone, he swung his raised greatsword with all his might.

[Noble knight! Huh?]

It was at that moment that a pale horse head shape emerged from the corpse of the Bicorn.

[Kraaa!]

*

‘What is that?’

Since encountering this world through the game Tirnanog RPG, Criele had never seen anything like this. He watched the horse ghost that sprang from the dead horse with caution.

The white, translucent ghost emitted a faint glow. It looked like an ordinary horse head, except for one peculiar feature: a horn on its forehead.

‘I killed a Bicorn, but a unicorn ghost appeared?’

On the other hand, the horse ghost was also wary of its opponent. Cursed by corruption, it had barely managed to control its body, which had been consumed by demonic energy, to seize the opportunity to die.

For the horse ghost, which was originally close to the spirit of the mountain, the body was short-lived, but the soul was eternal. It had to seize the chance to purify its soul, even at the cost of physical death. Even in its hazy mind, it sensed someone opposing the demonic energy.

The scent of iron that enveloped its entire body reached deep into its heart. It must be a knight who came to hunt it. It restrained its body, which was trying to flee to prolong its miserable life, and forced it into a fight.

It thought it had met its death at the hands of a noble knight as planned.

‘Is that really a proper knight?’

In front of it was a madman with bloodshot eyes hacking at the corpse.

The memories of the moment when the demonic energy controlled its body were blurry. But it clearly remembered that the suspicious knight-like figure was well-versed in the dark arts.

[Uh….]

“Who are you?”

[Now is not the time. Please wait a moment.]

The black knight raised his greatsword. Blood dripped from the tip of the blade, which had once been its own body.

Normally, a spirit would not be harmed by ordinary physical attacks, but this knight seemed capable of harming the spirit.

[Wait! Wait! Don’t you want to know where the missing women are?]

‘Is this not it?’

It thought that saying such a thing to the one who held two people as living sacrifices would only increase the number of victims, but the words had already been spoken.

*

The ghost said something strange. I hesitated whether to sheathe my sword or not. If a monster said such things, it was usually a trap, and the rest were nonsense to avoid death.

But I couldn’t just ignore it.

If what the horse ghost said was true, it would provide a considerable amount of ‘Nobility’ stats, and if it was false, I wouldn’t gain Nobility, but ignoring the possibility of finding survivors would decrease Nobility.

Nobility. One of the exclusive statuses given to knight-class jobs during the Tirnanog RPG era. It increased the chance of resisting mental status ailments and accelerated recovery speed.

Of course, there was no guarantee that the game’s settings would apply as they were now that the game had become reality. At the same time, it was certain that something similar to a system that assisted in acquiring and using skills existed. The fact that the methods of using bloodlust and grudges, so-called active skills, were engraved in my mind without learning them was proof of that.

‘I can’t even use those skills, so I only train in swordsmanship….’

Most importantly, from experience, performing acts that increased Nobility sped up the removal of debuffs. This was the reason I continued to play the role of a knight, which was not in my nature.

Originally, the Dark Knight was a profession that could reverse mental debuffs into buffs if they completely fell into the abyss. Overcoming mental debuffs in such a way is impossible now, as it would mean completely abandoning one’s humanity.

“Fine. I will trust your word. But only you and I will head to your nest. Those two will be taken to Lorang and returned.”

[Uh…, I hope you come back as soon as possible. Those girls must be hungry.]

“Huh?”

‘You didn’t kill them?’

*

At the wooden fence of Lorang village, there were young men staying up all night, holding weapons made by crudely modifying farming tools or hunters’ equipment. They could see a giant shadow approaching from afar.

They thought it might be a mountain spirit, but its speed was strangely slow. They gripped their weapons tightly with trembling hearts.

As it approached the fence, its full form became visible. The figure, much larger than a normal person, was because Kriel had placed the corpse of a mountain spirit on his shoulder.

Following behind him were the two people, a father and daughter, who had accompanied Kriel.

The young men hurriedly opened the gate of the fence.

Kriel was carrying the headless corpse of the mountain spirit on his shoulders, with the severed head tied to his waist with a rope. The spirit of the mountain had said, ‘I am not bound to the physical body,’ but Kriel did not easily believe the words of a monster.

A knight carrying the corpse of a horse. It was a combination striking enough to draw attention even in the middle of the night. Especially if that ‘horse’ was the mountain spirit that had been tormenting Lorang for days. The villagers unknowingly followed Kriel.

Finally, when Kriel threw the corpse of the mountain spirit into the yard in front of the cathedral and turned around, most of the still-awake people of Lorang were following him, eager to see the corpse of the mountain spirit.

Hearing the noise of the crowd, Priest Jakabil opened the door of the cathedral and appeared. He saw the unusually large, white-furred corpse of a horse thrown in front of the cathedral.

“It’s a mountain spirit.”

Priest Jakabil stared at the pure white fur, which looked beautiful even in the moonlight.

“The color… isn’t it different?”

[The horn is different too!]

Suddenly, the horse spirit popped out from Kriel’s waist. ‘Ugh!’ The priest’s startled voice was heard, but Kriel decided to pretend he didn’t see it for the dignity of the old priest.

“What do you mean, the horn is different?”

[The number of horns.]

Kriel lifted the head of the mountain spirit to show him. The twisted horn like that of a goat was still embedded in one side of the forehead, just as it was when he killed the spirit, but the broken right horn and the left horn had disappeared, leaving only a single straight horn in the center of the forehead.

Priest Jakabil muttered the name of the animal in a daze.

“Unicorn?”

To bring back the head of such a sacred animal! Shock and fear filled Priest Jakabil’s eyes.

[Oh. That’s right. Despite how I look, I was once a revered animal in the old United Kingdom, even given the title of a unicorn. I got an extra horn due to a strange curse.]

“…Wait.”

As the most learned person in Lorang, Priest Jakabil was also well-versed in local legends. In this era where the harmony of gods and demons was transforming the world, studying legends was a natural duty for a priest.

“Are you the spirit of the mountain, Orisin?”

[And for a few days, it was also the mountain ghost that troubled the village. I’m sorry. But if I didn’t want to kill people, I had no choice─]

As the horse ghost tried to blabber on, Kriel tapped the blade of his sword. The metallic symphony created by the gauntlet and the blade made the ghost quickly get to the point.

[The people I kidnapped. They’re all alive. How about lending me a cart?]