The Red Knight
If the Black Knight looked like a full-plate armored knight magnified to monstrous scale, the Red Knight looked like a humanoid robot shrunk down from some sci-fi animation.
The sharp, hornlike protrusions jutting from its forehead, shoulders, elbows, and knees gave it a presence that felt oppressive at a glance.
If the Black Knight stood around four meters tall, the Red Knight was a full meter taller, reaching roughly five meters. Its armor alone was so much thicker than the Black Knight’s that, by weight, it would easily have been twice as heavy.
The Red Knight held two swords in both hands, each blade as grotesque as its armor. Just by appearance, the jagged edges that rose irregularly like shark teeth made them look less like swords and more like saws. The skill Blade Storm, unleashed with both blades, boasted enough power to lay waste to everything around it.
The Red Knight, which had sent countless raiding parties back into the real world from Eternal World, now stood at a distance, radiating its imposing might.
"Finally found you. Why are there so few of you?"
After wandering all over the Steel Mountains for more than five hours, he had only just encountered the first Red Knight.
"Still looks damn good."
There was no question that the knight series appearing in the Steel Mountains ranked among the most impressive monsters in Eternal World, at least in terms of appearance alone.
Rrrrroooaaar-
As befitted a being above the Black Knight, the Red Knight noticed Yoon Sang-hyuk even from a considerable distance. Watching it turn toward him and release that deep, resonant roar, Yoon Sang-hyuk grinned in clear delight.
"Looks like you’re glad to see me too."
He drew a weapon from his subspace, but it wasn’t Braki’s war hammer. At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a simple club. A club with a round lump on one end. Yet in Yoon Sang-hyuk’s hand, a faint blue current of lightning flickered across it.
It was a weapon called the Thunder Rod.
The Thunder Rod was the weapon Yoon Sang-hyuk had obtained from an event that took place in the sixteenth year of Eternal World. The event map had been Thunder Mountain, and the objective was to clear monsters and defeat the final boss, the Thunder Giant.
Yoon Sang-hyuk had defeated the Thunder Giant alone, earned top contribution, and received the Thunder Rod. Originally, it had been the drumstick used by the event boss Thunder Giant when he beat the drum that summoned lightning.
The Thunder Rod held lightning within it, making it a unique item with a high chance of inflicting stun on impact. It had higher attack power than Braki’s war hammer and even offered a stun effect through lightning, so there was only one reason he had never used it until now.
He had wanted to feel the hit.
That desire hadn’t changed, but he had spent far too long searching for the Red Knight. Thinking he needed to finish this quickly and head back, he had taken out the Thunder Rod.
Thud- Thud-
Every time the Red Knight took a step, a heavy vibration rolled through the ground. As Yoon Sang-hyuk imagined the fight that was about to begin, a strange excitement rose within him.
Rumble-
The Red Knight’s movement accelerated. Matching it, Yoon Sang-hyuk kicked off the ground and broke into a run straight toward it.
Whoosh-
The two swords swept in with only the slightest gap between them, one aimed at his neck and the other at his lower body. While still running, he lightly jumped and dropped his body low. He slipped through the narrow space created by the two horizontal slashes, his body flattened almost parallel to the ground.
Bang-
After dodging the attack, he kicked off the ground again and sprang upward, swinging the Thunder Rod at the wrist holding the sword. The Red Knight, in the act of pulling its blades back, flinched for the briefest moment. The Thunder Rod’s stun effect had triggered.
The Red Knight drove up a knee. The sharp horn jutting from it tried to pierce Yoon Sang-hyuk, but he knocked it aside with the Thunder Rod and used the recoil to fall back.
The Red Knight twisted its body and slashed horizontally with the sword in its right hand. Given the distance between them, no matter how long the arm was or how long the blade ran, it clearly shouldn’t have reached him. But Yoon Sang-hyuk moved back even farther.
From the tip of the sword, red energy burst outward like a whip and tore through the space where Yoon Sang-hyuk had been standing. It was an attack he had expected, so he suffered no damage.
"Yeah. That's it!"
He shouted in high spirits and charged the Red Knight again. As he slipped in close by avoiding the sword, the knight attacked with the horns on its knees and elbows. Dodging those as well, he battered every part of its body he could reach.
His hand around the Thunder Rod had gone numb, but he didn’t care. He was too busy savoring the ecstasy of a battle that set every nerve in his body alight.
He kicked off the Red Knight’s knee and shot upward. At once, a horn from the elbow came crashing down vertically.
"Hup!"
He gripped the Thunder Rod with both hands and swung upward from below.
Braaaam-!
In that instant, blue lightning wrapped around the Red Knight’s arm. The Red Knight froze for a split second. Seizing that tiny opening, Yoon Sang-hyuk leapt again. The horn on the opposite elbow swept past beneath his feet.
Soaring up to the Red Knight’s head, Yoon Sang-hyuk brought the Thunder Rod down with all his strength.
The Red Knight staggered and retreated. Lightning lingered for a moment over its head before fading. The tip of the horn jutting from the center of its forehead had chipped away slightly.
The Red Knight, seeming to rage, lashed wildly with the crimson blade energy drawn from the tip of its sword, as if it meant to shred Yoon Sang-hyuk’s body apart. The ground exploded again and again, and the sharp little metal fragments that broke off pelted his body.
"Put a little more force into it!"
Cheering on the Red Knight, Yoon Sang-hyuk closed the distance once more. When the two swords swept through the place he had stood, the space itself warped. Yoon Sang-hyuk reappeared a little farther away and struck the back of the Red Knight’s knee with the Thunder Rod. A chunk of the impact point cracked and flaked away.
He evaded the Red Knight’s attacks with the effortless steps of one walking through space, relentlessly targeting only the knees and the backs of the knees.
Rooooaaaarrrr-!
The roar that answered him carried a very different emotion than when the Red Knight had first noticed him. Fury, pure and undiluted, was packed into that sound. The Red Knight roared in that fury and kicked off the ground, leaping into the air. It spun at terrifying speed, and with it, red energies swept across the surroundings.
The Red Knight had used its wide-area skill, Blade Storm.
As the red blade energy ravaged everything nearby, Yoon Sang-hyuk had already used Blink to get clear.
"Phew. You really are something. That’s some serious presence."
Once the storm of blades died down and the Red Knight returned to the ground, Yoon Sang-hyuk charged again.
Weaving through its attacks, he struck the Red Knight’s body whenever an opening appeared. The Red Knight, trying to catch him, spun in place again and again, slashing and thrusting with both swords and horns all the while.
He was fighting the Red Knight alone, with perfect T.O. support from two raiding parties, a hundred players in all, and yet Yoon Sang-hyuk kept shouting in delight the entire time.
"Good! You're way too slow. Try attacking a little faster!"
* * *
Thud-!
The Red Knight’s enormous body collapsed onto the ground.
"Ha, haha. You're still the best."
The ecstasy of battle was more vicious than any drug. Though he could have killed it far more easily, he had fought the Red Knight at a level close to its own, locking into a savage, drawn-out struggle.
Maybe that was why Yoon Sang-hyuk’s face beneath the Masked Lord’s mask was slick with sweat.
It didn’t matter if nothing dropped.
Leaning against the Red Knight’s corpse, he sat down and drank the bottled water he took from his inventory. He removed the Masked Lord’s mask and poured the water over his head. The cold water cooled the heat left behind by the fight.
"Minister Cheol-woo’s going to love this."
The Red Knight’s corpse was a mass of rare Redium. In particular, the horns sprouting from all over its armor were excellent sword material on their own. With only a bit of shaping and sharpening, they could become blades of outstanding quality.
The most valuable part of the Red Knight’s corpse was the horn growing from its forehead. It was a little longer than the others, and its strength and durability were greater as well.
If a skilled mage enchanted the sword forged from it, the result would be a blade comparable to super-rare grade.
As planned before he entered the Steel Mountains, he intended to auction off the Black Knight’s corpse through the Player Association. But the Red Knight was different. Maybe later, once he had begun hunting them steadily in the Steel Mountains, he might think differently, but for the time being he would supply Red Knight corpses only to Twilight Forge, which belonged to the Masked Castle.
After storing the Red Knight’s corpse in his subspace, Yoon Sang-hyuk looked up toward the summit of the Steel Mountains.
"Somewhere up there..."
There would be a White Knight.
The ruler of the Steel Mountains.
A powerful knight who had never knelt before anyone except Yoon Sang-hyuk would be waiting for a challenger.
Yoon Sang-hyuk spoke as casually as if the White Knight were right beside him.
"Wait a little longer. I'll be back soon."
* * *
When Yoon Sang-hyuk returned to the Masked Castle, South Korea was in an uproar.
News had spread that the Absolute Guild and the Dragon Slayers Guild had joined forces to hunt down a Black Knight.
The media was babbling on about the value of the Black Knight’s corpse.
Did any of those reporters, who made a living writing about knights, actually understand what a Black Knight was worth?
Yoon Sang-hyuk returned to the Masked Castle simply and directly through Lilith. By then, the Absolute Guild and the Dragon Slayers Guild, who had left the Steel Mountains earlier, had already come back to the castle.
Once word spread that Yoon Sang-hyuk had returned, Richard Polsen and Manuel Mateus, who had been resting at Grid, the tavern in Desire Village located in the outer city of the Masked Castle, immediately requested a meeting.
"How many did you catch?"
As soon as Richard Polsen arrived in the reception room, he asked Yoon Sang-hyuk about the results of the hunt.
"Eight."
"Wow. That's insane. We nearly died trying to take down just one, and you’re telling me eight? I’m starting to feel genuinely inferior just because we’re the same species of player."
He didn’t say it out loud, but Manuel Mateus was just as shocked. He also knew that among all the players in Eternal World, Yoon Sang-hyuk was the only one capable of facing the White Knight that appeared in the Steel Mountains.
"Did you catch a Red Knight too?"
Manuel Mateus asked with obvious curiosity. Instead of answering, Yoon Sang-hyuk pulled a horn he had already cut from a Red Knight out of his subspace and tossed it in front of the two of them.
"Well, would you look at that. A Red Knight horn, and it’s been a while since I last saw one. I wonder how much this goes for. You thinking of selling it? I’ll match the price as best I can."
"Do I look like I need money right now?"
"Fair enough. Just asking. But a Red Knight... seriously, that’s something else. I’m not greedy enough to ask for the corpse. Still, could you sell me something else?"
When Yoon Sang-hyuk looked at him without a word, Richard Polsen stated what he needed.
"Could you sell me some potions? We used up every potion you gave us."
"I gave you quite a lot."
"That’s true, but the difficulty of the raid is too high. We nearly lost several people. I’m not kidding. No matter how I think about it, I don't think it’s possible to clear the Steel Mountains without the potions you gave us."
"As you’ve already seen, they aren’t ordinary potions. Even the materials needed to make one are substantial. I’ll sell them, but I can’t guarantee I’ll always provide as many as you want. My priority is the people of the Masked Castle."
Both men nodded as though they understood Yoon Sang-hyuk’s words. Manuel Mateus gauged his expression before asking,
"Will you give other guilds a chance to raid it too?"