The Legless Horse and the Voiceless Knight (3)
A scream-like screech pierced through the clash of strength between the Bicorn and Kriel. Crack. It was an unwelcome sound for both sides. But it was an even worse omen for Kriel. The noise came from the Bicorn's horn breaking in his right hand.
If the horn snapped before the neck, twisting the neck would become far more difficult. The Bicorn knew a significant portion of its magic power would vanish, yet it had no choice but to shatter its own horn. It was a battle of whether the neck would break before the horn—or the horn before the neck. The winner was the Bicorn.
Kriel's opening strike, which signaled the fight's start, had been blocked by the horn—and horns could only bend so much under that force. The crack at the base had finally led to destruction. Now, the only thing holding it was Kriel's left arm around its throat.
The Bicorn planned to rip Kriel's arm to shreds and kill the knight with its remaining horn. But before it could...
The Bicorn's horn, gripped in Kriel's right hand, pierced straight through its eye socket.
[Kyaaaaak!]
A horrific scream echoed. The curse embedded in the sound was so thick it withered the nearby plants and trees. Ignoring it completely, Kriel clenched his right fist tight and hammered it toward the horn lodged in the eye.
The blood qi loaded into his fist, combined with Kriel's own honed superhuman strength and the horn's sharpness—enough to pierce plate armor—drove the Bicorn's horn clean through its skull.
The Bicorn screamed no more.
Even after the Bicorn's screams faded, Kriel moved with caution. Truly vicious beasts could revive even after decapitation. Put another way, anything less vicious than that would die from a severed neck.
Confirming the father and daughter were still safe inside the ritual circle, Kriel yanked his greatsword from the withered tree. He raised it high for a clean decapitation.
[Oh... Ooooh!]
Suddenly, a sound—scream or ecstasy?—burst from the Bicorn. From its overturned body, pitch-black darkness began to flow. As the darkness drained out, the Bicorn's flesh turned ghostly pale.
The darkness escaping the Bicorn's body surged straight into the shadow of the Dark Knight, with nowhere else to go. It was pure resentment.
For a typical Dark Knight, this would be cause for celebration. Absorbing resentment of such purity would build up a massive reservoir. But Kriel was no typical Dark Knight.
Ugh, nooo! The side effects of using blood qi were already making his vision blur. The forest, which had merely been dimly lit moments ago, now looked like a sea of blood—a precursor.
Stockpiling resentment was useless anyway. Kriel wanted it gone as fast as possible. He pulled an uncharged mana stone from his pouch and hurled it at the resentment.
Black, murky qi slithered toward it, staining the stone. The moment he confirmed the resentment absorbed into the mana stone, Kriel swung his raised greatsword with all his might.
Noble Knight! Huh?
A pale, translucent horse head erupted from the Bicorn's corpse right then.
[Kraaaaaak!]
What the hell is that?
It was a first—even from his days experiencing this world as the game Tirnanog RPG up to now. Kriel eyed the ghost horse head emerging from the corpse warily.
The white, translucent spirit gave off a faint glow. It looked like an ordinary horse head, save for the single horn on its forehead.
Captured a Bicorn and out pops a unicorn ghost?
Meanwhile, the ghost horse was just as wary. Cursed by corruption and on the verge of being consumed by demonic nature, it had barely held on to seize this chance at death. For a spirit close to a mountain spirit, the flesh was ephemeral, but the soul eternal.
It had to grasp this opportunity for purification, even at the cost of physical death. Amid the mental haze, it sensed someone opposing the demonic influence. The iron scent enveloping them pierced deep into its heart. No doubt a knight come to hunt it.
It had restrained its fleeing flesh, which sought to cling to wretched life, forcing a final fight. And as planned, it met death at the hands of a noble knight—or so it thought.
Is that guy really a proper knight?
Right in front of it was some madman with bloodshot eyes slashing at the corpse. Memories from when the demonic nature dominated were hazy. But the impression that this suspicious knight-like figure was versed in abyssal sorcery lingered clearly.
[Uh...]
"Who are you?"
[This is a bad time. Wait a moment.]
The black knight raised his greatsword. Blood from what had once been its flesh dripped from the blade's tip.
Spiritual bodies typically resisted physical attacks, but this knight looked plenty capable of harming one.
[Wait! Wait! Don't you want to know where the missing women are?!]
Was that it? The thing that had kidnapped those two and rambled about mountain sacrifices—surely hearing this from it would just mean more victims. But the words were already out.
The ghost was spouting nonsense. I debated whether to sheathe my sword or not.
If a monster spewed something like that, nine times out of ten it was a trap; the rest was desperate babble to escape death. But I couldn't just ignore it.
If the ghost horse was telling the truth, it'd grant a hefty Honor stat boost. If lying, no Honor gain—but ignoring potential survivors would deduct Honor.
Honor. One of the exclusive stats for knight-class jobs back in Tirnanog RPG. It boosted resistance to mental ailments and sped recovery. Of course, with game mechanics turned real, there was no guarantee it worked the same.
Yet something like a system clearly existed to assist skill acquisition and use. The active skills for blood qi and resentment etched in my mind—skills I'd never learned—proved it.
Skills I can't even use, so I just honed my swordsmanship...
More importantly, experience showed that honorable acts accelerated debuff recovery. That was why I kept playing the knight despite my rotten luck.
A true Dark Knight could invert mental debuffs into buffs upon full abyssal corruption. But in this reality, that meant discarding humanity entirely—something I couldn't do.
"Fine. I'll trust you. But it's just you and me heading to your lair. I'll escort those two back to Rolang Village first."
[Uh... It'd be great if you hurried back. Those ladies must be hungry.]
"Huh?"
It didn't kill them?
The young men of Rolang Village stood watch at the log palisade through the night, clutching crudely modified farm tools or hunters' gear. They spotted a massive shadow approaching from afar.
Mountain ghost? But the speed was oddly slow. Trembling, they gripped their weapons tight.
As it neared the palisade, its full form came into view. The height and bulk dwarfing any man came from Kriel slinging the mountain ghost's corpse over his shoulder. Behind him trailed the father and daughter he'd brought along.
The youths hurriedly opened the gate.
Kriel had the headless corpse slung over both shoulders, its severed head tied to his waist with rope. The ghost horse claimed it wasn't bound to flesh, but Kriel didn't trust a monster's word that easily.
A knight bearing a horse's corpse. Even at midnight, it was a sight that drew eyes. If that "horse" was the mountain ghost plaguing Rolang all this time, all the more so.
Villagers followed Kriel without realizing it. By the time he tossed the corpse into the cathedral yard and turned, most of those still awake had trailed him to gawk at the mountain ghost's remains.
The commotion drew Zakabil the priest, who opened the cathedral doors. He beheld the huge, pure-white horse corpse dumped before him.
"Mountain ghost."
Zakabil stared at the fur that gleamed beautifully under the moonlight.
"The color... isn't it different?"
[The horn's different too!]
Suddenly, plop—the horse ghost popped out from Kriel's waist.
Eek! The priest's startled gasp sounded, but Kriel pretended not to hear, sparing the old man's dignity.
"H-Horn different, you say?"
[The number, I mean.]
Kriel lifted the mountain ghost's head to show. One eye socket still had the twisted, goat-like horn embedded—the state in which he'd slain the ghost. But the broken right horn's base and left horn were gone, replaced by a single straight horn jutting from the forehead's center.
Zakabil murmured the creature's name in a daze.
"Unicorn?"
To decapitate such a sacred beast! Horror and shock filled the priest's eyes.
[Oh, yeah. Back in the old Allied Kingdom days, I was a one-horned beast considered auspicious. Got some fancy title too. Then this weird curse sprouted an extra horn.]
"...Hold on."
As the most learned man in Rolang, Zakabil knew local lore well. In this era of gods and demons reshaping the world, studying legends was a priest's duty.
"You're that mountain spirit, Orishin?"
[And the mountain ghost terrorizing the village these past days. Sorry about that. But to avoid killing folks, I had no choi—]
As the horse ghost rambled on, Kriel tapped his sword flat. The metallic chime of gauntlet meeting blade prompted Orishin to get to the point.
[The people I kidnapped. They're all still alive! How about lending a cart?]