I Became a Dark Knight in the Game

31 – The Society of Dead Wizards (3)

The gateway city that Kriel had left was in the midst of a banquet. The drunken guards, with flushed faces, all shouted, ‘For Sir Kriel!’ as they made toasts.

In one corner of the city, they were finally holding funerals for the people who had fallen or been torn apart by wyverns. Since a significant number of the deceased were guards, the banquet was not just a feast but an event to console the entire city.

In the midst of such an event, one guard stood up. He made an excuse to his comrades that he was going to relieve himself and headed towards the wall near the barracks.

The guard took out a black pebble from his belt and tried to throw it into a hole.

“Stop right there.”

A cold voice echoed from behind the guard.

It was Lwein.

“Wizard? Could you, please, wait a moment?”

He quickly pretended to adjust his clothes. As he made a show of retying his belt, the black pebble fell to the ground somewhere.

“I’ve been scolded a lot by the captain too. But on a day like this, can’t I just relieve myself on the wall? I’ve already had five beers!”

Lwein did not entertain his nonsense.

“There were signs of an intrusion in my room. The barrier device of the gateway city was damaged. This means there is a traitor in our city. And this area is where the barrier is the weakest.”

“…I just came to relieve myself for a moment!”

“Is that so? Then I shall relieve myself too.”

Lwein snapped his fingers. Water flowed out from the bottle tied to the wizard’s waist and spread widely.

The soldier braced for pain but felt nothing. It was not an attack spell.

However, the black pebble at his feet began to smolder and disintegrate.

“Holy water.”

Lwein approached and picked up the pebble. A tingling sensation spread from his fingertips. It was clearly an item associated with the abyss.

“It looks like it’s going to be a long night, soldier.”

The traitor was quickly bound in chains of water and dragged away.

By the time even Lwein’s shadow had disappeared, a snake raised its head.

The snake had sneaked in to report the failure of the wyvern commander to its master.

*

Kriel moved busily.

He stored all his armor in Eve Kaha’s cloak to lighten his body. Rest was also kept to a minimum.

The route also changed from the original plan. Originally, he would have followed the road Lewain had told him about, but instead, Kriel sprinted straight to the Arghetlam Duchy.

[This feels familiar!]

He was referring to the journey to the Holy Kingdom. Kriel did not engage in Orisin’s chatter. A sigh mixed with lament escaped his lips.

“I left the army, so why do I have so many mountain marches?”

It was a sentence that came from the heart.

[That’s because you didn’t properly discharge? Strictly speaking, isn’t this desertion?]

“Strictly speaking, it’s a mission.”

Tuon remained silent as he watched his master converse with a sword that was, compared to himself, lowly and unsightly – though he hated to admit it, the sword’s blade, which glowed faintly red, was at least tolerable.

Unlike such a frivolous sword, every word he spoke had to carry weight.

That was the way of a splendid sword.

At that moment, his senses as a demon soldier detected monsters. They were beings who could at least serve as the lowest soldiers if his master formed an army.

Above all, there was a wolf among them. Last time, his master did not heed his advice and ended up dead, but this time would be different. Hadn’t he proven his loyalty in the gateway city? Surely now his master would listen to his counsel.

[Master! There is a group of monsters ahead!]

Kriel grabbed his greatsword and dashed forward, cutting down the group of monsters in one fell swoop.

Tuon became sullen.

*

After the Demon King fell at the hands of the three heroes, the world (with some exceptions like the Western Front) regained peace. The Arghetlam Duchy was no exception.

The guards of the duchy, accustomed to the languid peace, did not harbor unnecessary vigilance towards Kriel.

Of course, it was possible because Kriel was not wearing armor.

A black cloak fixed over a dull leather tunic. The cloak’s material looked somewhat luxurious, but he appeared as an ordinary traveler.

However, as Kriel approached, parts that had not been visible began to catch the guards’ eyes. The first thing that drew attention was the swords. Two at his sides and a greatsword slung over his back. It was rare to see someone carrying three swords.

When it was Kriel’s turn for inspection, the guard captain, raising an eyebrow, spoke.

“You have many swords. Are you a mercenary?”

Kriel nodded naturally. He had been a mercenary once, so it wasn’t a lie.

“What brings you to the duchy?”

“I know a wizard here. I plan to ask him to check the enchantments on my weapons.”

A jest about the state of his swords after the last battle. The guards of the duchy, accustomed to adventurers and mercenaries being friendly, responded appropriately.

“Be careful. I once had a magic crossbow, but I didn’t maintain it, and one day it shot an arrow into my knee.”

The guard captain, who shrugged his shoulders saying he became a guard because his joints ached from long walks, approached Kriel.

“May I check the contents of your bag and the back of your cloak?”

When Kriel nodded, the guards washed their hands in a water bowl and approached to search his belongings. Finding nothing suspicious, the guard captain nodded.

“A wizard friend is precious, and a friend you can rely on is even more precious. I’m envious. You may enter.”

Kriel smiled softly in greeting and entered the fortress. After he had gone, the guards murmured.

“Huh. What a peculiar-looking mercenary.”

“I didn’t realize until he got close, but his skin was so pale I thought he was undead.”

In fact, the water bowl they washed their hands in was a holy water basin. If he had been an unholy being, he would have screamed the moment the holy water touched his palms.

The guards erased Kriel from their minds. Sometimes, there were people with such ominous appearances.

*

“Let’s see. The Golden Cauldron building on Furnace Street…”

Kriel was walking through the duchy quite familiarly. This naturalness was because he had visited the empire’s capital city a few times.

Both in Tirnanog and on Earth.

“It was quite an important place.”

[What was?]

“Oh, this city. During the war with the Demon King, it played a key role in logistics.”

It was a setting in the Tirnanog RPG, and it was also the history of the time when the ‘Three Heroes’ were active before he fell into this world. The Argetlam Duchy was the center of trade where logistics from all over the empire gathered.

‘Well, that’s why it’s the center of the duchy.’

[You’re knowledgeable in strange areas. During the Balor period, I was holed up in the mountains, so I don’t know much.]

“Country talk.”

[Thanks to that, I’m sightseeing in the city, so call me a study abroad student!]

Kriel whispered to himself as he searched for the conference venue. Creak, as he opened the door and entered, an elf wizard with dark circles under his eyes greeted the people.

“The general research presentation on cat transformation studies is on the first floor, the integration of water attribute magic and culinary arts is on the second floor, and the correlation between a wizard’s living environment and power is on the third floor.”

Kriel scratched his head. There were quite a few peculiar presentations.

“I’m here to attend the Abyss Prevention Conference.”

“…Excuse me?”

“The Abyss Prevention Conference. The invitation said it would be held for two days starting today…”

The receptionist wizard adjusted his glasses and took the invitation. After staring at it for a while, he exclaimed, “Ah!”

“It’s on the third basement floor.”

Then he whispered secretly.

“Are you here to collect a debt?”

“…What?”

The receptionist wizard, perhaps interpreting the few seconds of hesitation as hitting the mark, began to speak even more quietly.

“You don’t have to hide it from me. I know very well that those people in the basement… have complicated ledgers.”

What on earth is going on? Feeling a sense of foreboding, Kriel steadied his mind. Let’s go over the information we know first.

“I am also well aware of the wealth of the Abyssal Control Society. Don’t say such things.”

“Hey, the society is wealthy, but the wizards who join are not. You must be someone who knows everything.”

The situation began to reassemble itself in Kriel’s mind. The Abyssal Control Society had a lot of money. Conversely, the wizards who joined were impoverished.

“You must have come to such a minor society with a difficult subject like Abyssal Control because you needed quick cash. Please, do your collection work outside our building…”

A society was usually a place where members shared their research achievements and promoted the development of scholarship.

But societies are not always operated purely for academic purposes. Sometimes, they are run for the personal hobbies of suspiciously wealthy patrons.

The Abyssal Control Society was clearly one of those societies. A nameless society with an extremely narrow base. But it set the sponsorship fees based on research achievements very high, making it a place that wizards specializing in destructive magic on financial assets would consider joining at least once.

In other words…

It was a society of economically dead wizards.