The Black Story
“Damn it…”
When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a pristine white mountain range. I stood there holding the owl doll in my right hand, blankly staring at the cabin beside me.
[Looks like we’ve been pulled into a story.]
The Frozen Storage stories were ranked by the lip color of the meat hanging from the hooks. Since the one who spoke had red lips, this was a Red-grade tale.
‘Red grade means there’s nothing worth taking…’
After a moment’s thought, I reached a conclusion.
“Fine. If that’s how it is, we’re using the old-user method!”
[Old-user method? What’s that?]
Thanks to the recent boom at Equator’s item factories, we’d started producing more than just rifles. One of those new weapons was the Goddess’s Magic Wand. The ammunition was pricey, but each shot packed devastating power. I pulled out the long wand and aimed it at the cabin.
‘First, I’ll cause an incident and draw out the protagonist!’
Click—
BOOM!
Part of the cabin vanished into nature. The thunderous noise quickly brought the owner running out in a panic. I recognized him at a glance—the very piece of meat that had spoken and dragged me here.
“Wh-what… what happened… my house…!”
I glanced at the despairing woodcutter. Honestly, I didn’t like him much and was tempted to turn him into hooked meat on the spot, but I held back. If I wanted to see the end of this story, getting his cooperation was the fastest route.
I spoke curtly.
“Your house? Sorry. I accidentally blew it up. As an apology, I’ll grant you one wish. Anyone you want dead? I’ll do it for free.”
The woodcutter simply stared blankly at his ruined home. It was an absurd offer—destroy someone’s house and then offer to kill for them—but he couldn’t bring himself to get angry. He probably sensed that complaining would only make things worse. Instead, he bowed his head and asked,
“Y-you seem like a powerful mage… Can you really do anything?”
So he did have someone he wanted dead. I grabbed the woodcutter’s hand.
“Of course. As long as it’s within my power, I’ll grant you one wish!”
The old-user tactic had succeeded. Smash something first, and conflict with the protagonist would naturally follow—a miraculous strategy. It didn’t work in high-grade stories, but it was perfect for Red grade and below.
However, the woodcutter turned out to be surprisingly decent. Instead of asking me to kill anyone, he begged me to find his daughter, who had gone missing in the snowy mountains three days ago while searching for flowers.
“Ah, so that’s the conflict.”
Conflict didn’t only arise between humans. It could also exist between humans and nature. In such cases, the humans usually suffered disasters they couldn’t resist—like what the woodcutter was facing now.
‘A rescue-type story.’
I summoned zombies around me. The woodcutter trembled at the sight of the undead legion, but when I explained they would help search, his expression brightened and he bowed deeply, thanking me.
‘Tch… now I look like the bad guy.’
Red-grade stories tended to have clear lines between good and evil. Like with the Glutton, the villain was already decided, and the explorer helped the protagonist. Feeling oddly guilty, I rebuilt the woodcutter’s cabin while the zombies searched for his daughter.
[Do you really need to go that far?]
“I guess I’m not cut out for your methods.”
[What methods?]
“Never mind.”
About two hours later, the woodcutter’s daughter was found at the bottom of a valley with a broken leg. She had been on the verge of freezing to death. ‘The time limit was probably around six hours.’
Since the story was easy, a single small potion healed the girl’s wounds. Within ten minutes, she was walking around again, full of energy.
The woodcutter thanked me repeatedly and offered anything as a reward. I simply accepted one of the flowers his daughter had picked. After all, I’d blown up most of his house with the Goddess’s Magic Wand—there wasn’t much else he could give.
“What kind of flower is this?”
“It’s called the Speech-Blooming Flower. When children suffer severe shock and fall into aphasia, we brew this flower and have them drink it. It calms the mind and restores their ability to speak.”
‘Completely useless…’
The woodcutter’s cabin was already mostly restored to its original shape. The conflict was resolved, and I’d received my reward. I stored the flower and exited the story.
***
“Th-thank you…”
The piece of meat that had sent me into the story offered his thanks. He was the woodcutter who had just lost his daughter in the mountains. I looked at him for a moment. Some of them had tragic circumstances, but I didn’t have the luxury of helping them all one by one.
I took out earplugs and put them on along with Owl.
The meat in the “Noisy Frozen Storage” used sound to force stories on people. Aside from the creepy interior, simply blocking our hearing was enough to avoid the stories themselves.
Owl flapped his wings and pointed in a direction. Fortunately, this section of the storage was also within his knowledge, so he resumed guiding me.
As we wandered through the Frozen Storage, pieces of meat kept thrusting their faces toward us and muttering something. But with the earplugs in, we remained unaffected.
[About that story earlier.]
Owl spoke through his thoughts.
[What about it?]
[I was planning to go somewhere else, but seeing that story reminded me of something. There might be a Black-grade story in this area.]
That was welcome news. I’d already wasted about an hour being dragged into a story. If there was a Black-grade one here, I was all for it.
After wandering the frigid storage for about thirty minutes, we arrived at our destination.
An empty, vast frozen chamber. In the enormous space, a single piece of meat with black lips hung suspended in the air. The problem was, it didn’t speak to us.
‘What…?’
Every other piece of meat we’d encountered had been desperate to tell us their story, forcing it upon us. But the Black-grade meat we actually wanted to enter kept its black lips tightly shut and its eyes closed.
I demanded an explanation from Owl.
“What’s with this one?”
“It’s a piece of meat that doesn’t speak.”
‘I can see that…’
“Are you messing with me…? Anyway, were you suggesting we use the flower we just got to open its mouth?”
We had obtained the flower that restored speech after clearing the Red-grade story. But Owl shook his head.
“That won’t work. This story is sealed. A simple flower won’t break the seal. I’d forgotten about it, but seeing the flower reminded me.”
‘Right, bragging again…’
“Got it. Get ready to enter.”
“Huh? You know how to break the seal?”
I didn’t. But I had a law stronger than any seal. I transformed the White Stone into the shape of a sword. With a grinding sound, the stone became a finely honed weapon. I drove the blade into the meat, and its flesh parted easily, revealing the insides. I poured Baengnae’s deadly poison into the wound.
Glug, glug, glug—
I didn’t know what kind of seal it was, but if I turned the meat into a zombie, it would become my subordinate from that moment on. Once it was a zombie, a solution would present itself.
Before long, the piece of meat carrying the Black-grade story slowly opened its eyes. I observed it, then frowned and asked,
“Owl… was this thing a summoner?”
“Huh?! How did you know?”
Powerful former users didn’t obey me even after being turned into zombies. I could force commands on them, but they might commit suicide before carrying them out. They retained a certain degree of ego.
“What was its name?”
“Uh…”
Spin, spin. Spin, spin.
“Ah, I remember! The Goddess’s Knight!”
Perhaps because Owl had spoken its name, the Goddess’s Knight slowly raised its head. It looked around, then fixed its gaze on me and opened its mouth.
“L-leave… this place…”
Fragmented sounds that barely formed words. Yet I understood. This thing had been a knight who served the Goddess. After defeat, it had remained in this world to carry on her will. But what awaited it was no glory. It had been torn apart and cloned according to the number of new riders, trapped in a bleak future by the System.
So the knight had sealed its own mouth. To prevent new rider users from experiencing despair through the terrible story it carried. The meat couldn’t form a proper story and instead warned me with broken syllables. There was danger within it. This was its own punishment to bear, so it told me to back away.
The Black story was undoubtedly a dangerous place. But regardless, as someone who owed the Goddess a debt, I had an obligation to save her knight.
‘I’ve only been receiving help. This is perfect timing.’
I placed my hand on the knight’s shoulder and looked into its eyes.
“Do not fear. I am the messenger sent by the Goddess. The victor who will lead this world to glory. Show me the deepest darkness you carry. I will crush every hardship you face and devour it all.”
“A… aaah.”
Light slowly returned to the knight’s eyes.
“Will you… listen to my story?”
“Gladly.”
The meat’s black lips moved. The terrible, agonizing words it had kept inside formed a world and swallowed me whole.
Thus, I was pulled into the world that had become black.
***
A faint lavender scent brushed past my nose. Looking around, I found myself sitting in a church pew, holding the owl doll. People filled the seats on either side, and a large crowd had gathered in front of the altar as well. First, I gathered what information I could from what I saw.
Judging by the people’s clothing, the era appeared to be medieval. Various garments stitched from worn fabric. It wasn’t a wealthy neighborhood, but it didn’t feel completely rural either.
‘Anyway, what’s going on here?’
From the exterior, the place I was in was clearly a church honoring some god. But the atmosphere was quite chaotic. I stood up and approached the altar where the people were gathered. Coffins had been placed there.
This was a funeral.
Everyone had their eyes closed, reciting prayers.
“We send them to the angel.”
“We send them to the angel.”
“We send them to the angel.”
From the bodies in the coffins, I could deduce several facts. First, all the deceased were wearing armor with similar patterns. In other words, they were likely regular soldiers from somewhere. But their affiliation wasn’t important.
What mattered was their cause of death.
The corpses displayed a variety of ends. Sword wounds, stab wounds, burns. And among them were some whose deaths were particularly clean, with very smooth cross-sections.
‘Aura…’
I had already encountered someone capable of creating such wounds. In fact, I even had one with me. But aura wasn’t everything. Among the dead were those whose bodies had frozen solid, and others burned pitch-black by electricity. Corpses still carrying the lingering scent of dense mana.
‘Right. This is a world of swords and magic.’
The setting of this Black story had been revealed. This tale took place in a traditional fantasy world.