Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: The Beautiful Knight
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My head froze solid as an utterly unexpected situation unfolded right before my eyes.
The knight NPC from the tutorial area, as I remembered him, was a middle-aged man with wrinkles etched across his face and a thick gray beard.
But the knight standing before me now was a woman to begin with.
Her silver hair, gleaming as if infused with radiant moonlight, cascaded down her back past her nape, reaching midway down her thighs. Her bangs neatly parted into three strands, covering half her forehead.
Beneath them shone eyes that sparkled silver, just like her hair. Objectively and subjectively speaking, it was a face of staggering beauty.
The shock was so immense that my brain refused to function. Perhaps sensing my stare, the knight—who had been nudging the corroded helmet with her foot—turned to look at me. Her silver eyes fixed on me.
“What’s wrong? Do you have something to say?”
“Uh, well, I mean... you’re a woman...?”
“You think this face could belong to a man? What an odd question.”
The knight let out a slight chuckle. Even that faint smile was unfairly gorgeous. She seemed to think I was joking.
To me, though, it had been a genuine question.
‘No way, what the hell is this...?’
I desperately tried to calm my shock and wracked my brain to make sense of the situation. Was this knight not the NPC from the tutorial area?
But aside from the gender and appearance, everything else matched the NPC I remembered perfectly. Which meant there was no room to doubt her identity.
Even in Dakla Mod, they hadn’t changed the gender—
‘Wait, mods?’
A possibility suddenly flashed through my mind.
Careful not to seem rude or lecherous, I sneaked a glance at her face. The silver hair stretching down to her waist, the silver eyes like her hair.
It vaguely matched something in my memory.
‘That looks just like the appearance from the appearance change mod.’
The Brightest Darkness series had such a grim, hopeless worldview that almost every significant NPC role was filled by men.
The empire’s emperor, the knights, the holy kingdom’s pope, the priests, the magic tower lord, the mages, and most mid-boss enemies and street trash mobs too—all of them.
There were female NPCs, sure, but across the entire game, you could count them on one hand.
At first, the dominant mods prettied up and beautified those existing female NPCs. No one bothered touching the male ones.
But as modders’ skills grew more refined over time, eventually mods appeared that turned over a hundred major male NPCs into women.
Out of curiosity, I’d installed one myself.
It was impressively well-made. Not only were the NPCs pretty, but the changes felt natural, rarely crashed with other mods, and didn’t interfere with dodging boss patterns.
The only issue? Their voices stayed the same deep male tones, despite the beautiful female bodies and faces. Changing voices was beyond modders’ reach.
Some players ignored the dissonance and enjoyed it anyway, but I couldn’t adapt, and with Dakla Mod coming out around then, I eventually just uninstalled it.
‘No way, that one?’
There was no other way to explain this situation except that the appearance change mod—or NPC retouch mod—was active.
“This won’t do anymore.”
While I frantically pieced things together, the knight—who’d been wiping blood from her armor—frowned and clicked her tongue softly. Where the black blood had been cleaned away, the metal was heavily corroded and rusted.
Without hesitation, she stripped off her armor.
“...?”
As her bare form emerged beneath the armor, I doubted my eyes.
A white sleeveless top fully exposed her flawless arms and smooth underarms. That was what she wore under the armor. Her skin was so fair it outshone the outfit.
The tight fit clung to her body to the point of breathlessness, revealing her figure and build in full. A glimpse of bare abdomen and side peeked at the edges as a bonus.
That wasn’t all. Her lower half was clad in silver dolphin pants. Beyond the clattering falling armor, her slender thighs and calves came into view.
‘No, what? What the actual hell?’
My head grew even more muddled than when I’d first confirmed her gender. Dolphin pants under a sleeveless top? And beneath full plate armor?
I rummaged through my memories. As I recalled, the appearance change and NPC retouch mods only altered looks faithfully. Yet here the clothes had changed too—into something ridiculously revealing.
Regardless of my confusion, the knight shed her greaves and gauntlets, then secured her sword to the belt at her waist, left only in the sleeveless top and dolphin pants.
‘...Insane.’
It was an intensely provocative sight. The white sleeveless top, slightly damp with sweat and plastered to her skin; the hips swaying lewdly beneath the silver dolphin pants; the thighs that looked impossibly soft.
I averted my eyes, forcing myself not to stare.
This time, I grasped the situation faster than before. Clearly, alongside the NPC appearance mod, a clothing mod had come over too.
Darkest Light Mod was already applied, and the appearance change mod too—why not a clothing mod on top?
I vaguely remembered installing such mods, maybe bundled in some all-in-one pack.
“Hey, prisoner?”
Lost in recollection of every mod I’d ever installed, I startled at the knight’s voice calling me and snapped my head up.
“Y-Yes?”
“Do you have anywhere to go now?”
Hearing the familiar dialogue snapped me back to reality a bit. Right—confusion aside, to survive, I had to do what I could.
“No. Nowhere.”
“Figured as much. From here, you’d either become a fugitive or get transferred to another prison—those are your only options. So here’s my proposal: how about following me and joining the knight order? With that skill, a little polishing and you’d more than earn your keep. I’ll vouch for you.”
‘Jackpot.’
I inwardly cheered as the exact same choices from the game appeared.
Defeating the Human Butcher on first encounter triggered this event, letting you join the knight order right away by following the NPC. It was the easiest route through the early game.
With only one life, easier was better.
“You took down that monster alone without proper weapons or skills—your talent’s proven. And you didn’t flinch facing it head-on, so your courage is plenty. I think it’d be a shame to let ability like yours go to waste. Oh, don’t worry about your status. Prisoner or not, if you say you’ll join the order, no one will care. You can tell a person’s nature by their eyes. You’re someone I can trust.”
Hearing that infamous meme line straight from her mouth felt surreal.
It was the fixed dialogue from the original male NPC during the enlistment event. You could judge character by the eyes, so he trusted the protagonist.
The line became a meme because it always played during the event, regardless of the character’s appearance.
Even if players customized their character into something inhuman, it used that line—leading to fanworks depicting the NPC as half-blind or fully sightless.
Thankfully, my current look wasn’t purple-skinned with giant eyes bigger than my mouth and a twisted face.
“Interested?”
In the game, choices would pop up here: Yes or No.
Mine was obvious.
“Yes. I’ll do it.”
“Good. Then we leave now. Lingering here won’t do you any good—especially not you.”
With that, the knight turned and headed for the exit.
Her hips, covered only by the dolphin pants, swayed obscenely with each step, revealing the subtle dip of her slender waist and spine.
No matter how many times I saw it, the outfit didn’t compute. Wearing full plate over it, and showing no discomfort with her attire.
“Oh, wait—one thing first.”
She paused and met my eyes again.
“I almost forgot introductions. My name is Iris.”
‘Iris?’
I’d never heard that name in the game. With the gender swap, the name had changed from male to female too, apparently.
“What’s your name? Can’t keep calling you ‘you’ or ‘prisoner.’”
Come to think of it, I’d never considered my own name.
In the game, any random string of letters worked fine, but that wouldn’t fly here. Using my real name felt off too.
I pondered for a moment, then had a good idea and opened my mouth.