I Reincarnated into a Game Filled with Mods – Chapter 36

Chapter 36

‘The Emperor ordered him to watch me? I don’t understand the situation.’

That was my first thought, and.

‘First of all, that guy is definitely an idiot.’

That was my next thought.

I don’t know what the Emperor wants from me, or what she ordered that guy to do, but I could easily be certain that it wasn’t to openly watch me like this.

Who would announce they’re going to watch someone and then actually do it? Unless the goal was to restrict the target’s actions by saying so.

But listening to what this guy was saying, it didn’t seem like his goal was to restrict my actions by saying that. In other words, this guy was seriously declaring that he would watch me.

‘Nothing’s changed from the game.’

The Knight Commander of the Golden Twilight Knights was an NPC close to a gag character, even in the game, whose daily life was full of arrogance and self-importance. Besides, his personality was also a mess.

Of course, unlike the lord of this city, who also had a messed-up personality and caused a lot of trouble for others, this guy was only living in his own little world, so it was a little different.

Just like in creative works where there are usually two rival factions, one being upright or good guys who become the protagonist’s helpers, and the other being corrupt or relatively bad guys who constantly hinder the protagonist, the two knight orders of the Imperial Palace were the same.

The Silver Dawn Knights, depending on the story progression and route selection, could become complete allies and even join as companions. On the other hand, the Golden Twilight Knights didn’t have that.

‘And their skills are worse too.’

All the Knight Commanders of the Silver Dawn Knights were named bosses who even had their own OSTs in boss battles, and even the regular knights who were absorbed into the Golden Twilight Knights were mobs with the special title of ‘Elite’.

On the contrary, the knights of the Golden Twilight Knights were simply called ‘Knights of the Imperial Palace’. Moreover, even the only Knight Commander, the NPC in front of me, wasn’t even treated as a boss, but a mid-boss.

It was obvious what the developer wanted to say.

“Who are you watching, right now?”

“Hey, cut the c*ap and explain quickly, will you? I’m starting to get really pissed off. What are you doing to our rookie?”

Rize’s eyes turned cold after hearing that he was going to watch me, and Claudia, who had approached from behind, grabbed his shoulder tightly. Claudia’s eyes were as fierce as Rize’s.

The golden knight, without showing any sign of flinching, retorted irritably.

“I’ve been telling you since earlier. It’s Her Majesty’s order. I’ve been ordered to watch the new recruit of your Silver Dawn Knights for two weeks starting today.”

“Rookie, did you do something wrong back then?”

“I can’t think of anything in particular?”

“Then why would Her Majesty…?”

“How would I know? That’s why I’m doing this.”

The three of us looked at each other and exchanged bewildered words.

It’s real.

I greeted the Emperor who arrived here as I did in the game, and I couldn’t help but answer when the Emperor asked me questions, and I only blocked the attack that came in the middle because I would have died if I hadn’t.

There wasn’t anything particularly special after that. Aurora did all the sticking around the Emperor, and I just followed behind with my mouth shut.

The Emperor didn’t even bother talking to me, who was quietly following her.

‘…Where did it go wrong?’

This situation was a first for me, so as the absurdity faded, worries started to creep into my head. I thought I had followed the main story of the game.

Whatever the process, I ended up joining the Silver Dawn Knights, I ended up defeating the Headless Ironclad Cavalryman, I ended up dealing with the lord using the demon, and I successfully got through the meeting with the Emperor.

The details were quite different from the game, but that couldn’t be helped because the personalities changed along with the appearance due to the mod.

But as a result, an event I had never seen before occurred.

The Emperor sending the Knight Commander of the Golden Twilight Knights to watch the player was something I had never heard of before. I hadn’t even heard of anyone else doing this.

I briefly wondered if it was a hidden event in the game, but I soon denied it myself.

Brightest Darkness 4 was a game that had already been data-mined by users, and if there had been such a hidden route, it would have been thoroughly dissected and the strategy would have been posted on the community.

‘Wait. Personalities changed too?’

When I thought that far, I felt like I knew the cause of this situation.

The genders and appearances of the NPCs changed, and naturally, their personalities changed as well. It would be faster to count the characters that didn’t change than the ones that did.

So, the reactions to the player’s actions would also have to change.

‘…Sigh.’

The thought that I hadn’t realized this simple fact until now left a bitter taste in my mouth.

If the Emperor’s personality had changed, just like other characters? If, instead of simply praising the player for blocking her attack and moving on, she became interested in me?

‘I need to think about this.’

Perhaps, I might have been thinking wrong all along. It seemed like I needed to seriously think about this.

“…”

I needed to, but I didn’t have the time.

‘Ah, this is really annoying.’

I gritted my teeth inwardly as I listened to the footsteps of the golden knight who was still following me a few meters away.

Rize, who followed me to subjugate monsters and watched me, was a saint. No, I could even gladly accept that level of attention. After all, it’s a busty beauty looking at me with admiring eyes.

But that guy was different. After declaring that he would watch me, he really watched me without missing a beat.

Not only when I was walking around inside the castle, but also when I was eating in the dining hall or when I went out to subjugate monsters for leveling, I could always see the golden armor in the corner of my vision.

Thanks to that, I couldn’t even raise my stats properly after beating up the monsters. I couldn’t allocate stats while he was watching, could I?

What’s even more frustrating is that it’s only the second day of surveillance. I’m already going crazy with annoyance after just two days, but the thought of having to endure this for two weeks made me feel dizzy.

Iris and Erika, who returned from patrolling the city a few days ago, also made dumbfounded expressions after hearing the whole story from us, but they didn’t seem to have any good ideas to get rid of him either.

Even though he was a lazy, arrogant, and extremely proud man, he was still a Knight Commander serving Her Majesty in the Imperial Palace.

It meant that he would never be the kind of person to falsely invoke the Emperor’s name. The Emperor ordered him to watch me, so how could we possibly stop that?

However, it seemed that it wasn’t just me who was annoyed by him, but the other Knight Commanders as well, even if there was no way to do anything about it.

“Hey, rookie. Why is he acting like that?”

“I don’t know either. You can guess the mind of a smart person, but you can’t even follow or guess the mind of an idiot.”

“That’s true. He definitely seems a bit slow-witted.”

“I think he heard that.”

“I’m saying it so he can hear. I’m also going crazy with discomfort right now.”

Rize and I whispered to each other, stopping our wooden sword practice. That golden knight was meticulously writing it down in his notebook. Seeing that, Rize made a disgusted sound.

I was so curious about what he was writing that I checked for a moment, and it was a notebook recording my actions.

It was so absurd that I asked him why he was writing such a thing, and he even wrote down the fact that I asked him why he was writing such a thing. What, is he a Joseon Dynasty historian or something? Why is he writing that down?

‘I can’t think straight because I’m so distracted.’

I had a mountain of things to worry about right now, but that guy was stealing all my attention, so I couldn’t concentrate at all. Rize and I sighed and repositioned ourselves.

“So, we’re going to be in this situation for a while?”

“I think so. It’s a bit vague because things don’t usually give you a heads-up, but we don’t have any scheduled events. Unless something happens elsewhere, we’ll probably continue to have nothing to do.”

We exchanged conversation while swinging our wooden swords. The sound of wood hitting wood echoed rhythmically through the training ground.

It seemed that the story itself would only progress after I reached level 20 and unlocked the runes. At least, I think I can be sure of that now.

As I deflected all three of Rize’s consecutive attacks, my body suddenly felt heavy. I stepped back and regained my posture. Battle fatigue gradually subsided and my senses returned.

‘I need to level up quickly to get rid of the debuff.’

I sighed as I thought about when I would finally reach level 20. This was the problem.

Unlike the game, where monsters in an area would respawn perfectly fine after a rest at the base even if you killed them all, now I had to wait for a certain amount of time.

Once I leveled up by going around and clearing out all the surrounding monsters, my schedule would be empty until they respawned.

Little by little, I started to realize that even though I was in the world of the game, it really wasn’t a game.

“Pathetic.”

‘…Huh?’

I was about to calculate in my head that I could reach level 20 and unlock runes after just one or two more rounds when I heard a voice that seemed to be mocking us from somewhere.

The source was, of course, the golden knight who was watching me.

“Hey, what did you just say?”

Rize reacted immediately and growled. The golden knight didn’t even blink and said again.

“I said it’s pathetic. It’s a spar that shows your level at a glance.”

“If you came here to watch the rookie, shut your mouth and do your job. I’m already annoyed just by the fact that you’re here, so why are you picking a fight? Want to have a go?”

“Can you even win if we have a go?”

“Youㅡ Mmmph!”

Before the atmosphere could get any worse, I covered Rize’s mouth with my hand. Rize protested with her eyes, asking why I was doing this, but I put more strength into my hand and opened my mouth with the most pleasant smile I could muster.

“It can’t be helped that Knight Commander Rize has to adjust to my level. The only opponents I can spar with right now are the Knight Commanders. We both held back our strength, so it’s natural that you would think that way.”

“Even if you have to adjust your skills, that’s too pathetic. How can you survive fighting monsters like that?”

I’ve already taken down dozens of those monsters. And I’m going to take down thousands more in the future. I wondered what this guy was babbling about without knowing his place, but I hid my inner thoughts and maintained my smile.

“I don’t think that’s something you should be saying either?”

“What?”

The golden knight was enraged by my light provocation and asked back. He had an incredibly low boiling point.

He must have found it unbearable that a mere rookie was talking to him like that, especially since he had nothing but a strong sense of pride.

Rize seemed to have guessed what was about to happen from my smile, and her struggles subsided.

“Isn’t that right? Anyone can give advice with their mouth. Seeing you talk nonsense without even stepping up yourself, I guess you’re not confident in your skills? If you were truly skilled, you would have shown it yourself instead of just talking.”

That was the finishing blow. The golden knight shouted the cliché line, “How dare you say such a thing to me!” and stomped off to the other side of the training ground to find a wooden sword.

I released my hand from Rize’s mouth. Rize touched her lips where my hand had been for a moment, then winked at me, saying not to beat him up too badly and to go easy on him.

It was a smile full of trust in me.

It was the first time I had experienced the event where the player fights him here, but even that guy coming to the Silver Dawn Knights was a situation that didn’t exist in the game.

So it wouldn’t matter if I beat him up a bit.

‘He’s the one who started it.’

I might as well think of it as getting revenge on the guy who was constantly getting on my nerves in the game.

A pair of eyes watched the scene in the training ground quietly, without being noticed by anyone.