The Knight of Betrayal, Mordred
The naga collapsed before my eyes, cleanly severed at the neck.
Only when the relentless stream of level-up alerts flooded my vision did it finally sink in—the boss was dead.
In a single breath, the knot of suffocating tension unraveled, and every muscle in my body turned to lead.
“Whew...”
With a heavy sigh of relief, the mana that had been precariously holding my battered frame together dispersed into thin air. Even the Chosen Hero wasn't exempt from the toll of battle; the sheer strain of the clash caught up to him, sending Ray sprawling face-first onto the ground right beside me.
At that moment, a voice drifted in from behind.
“Well done.”
“You really couldn't lend a hand even once, could you...?”
Yeong So-so’s slender hand rested gently against my abdomen. I had no earthly idea what profound martial principles were at work, but the gouged flesh began knitting together before my very eyes. In less than three minutes, the wound had sealed shut so completely that not a lingering throb of pain remained.
Murim arts really were something else. At this rate, wasn't internal qi basically just another school of magic?
“What even is martial arts...?” I muttered under my breath.
“What nonsense are you babbling now?”
“No, it's just... this honestly doesn't feel any different from high-tier healing magic.”
Even having witnessed it firsthand, it defied rational belief. But since trying to comprehend it with conventional logic was a lost cause anyway, I brought Ray and Selena over and asked So-so to tend to their injuries as well.
“Thank you very much,” Ray said politely, bowing his head.
“Tch, to think I got knocked out in a single hit...” Selena grumbled, having finally regained consciousness. Fully restored, she stomped petulantly on the dead naga's remains, clearly mortified that her brave vanguard charge had resulted in an instant knockout.
Both of them seemed bewildered by the unnatural speed of their recovery, but like true natives of this fantasy world, they adapted swiftly and set to work harvesting materials from the monster's carcass.
Rip!
Crack!
The naga's massive corpse was methodically dismantled. Watching Selena work with practiced, fluid precision, I couldn't help but ask, “Looking at you, you seem like a pure battle junkie—where did you pick up butchering skills like that?”
“Learned it from the person who raised me when I was little!”
“Really? You're damn good at it.”
Within ten minutes, Selena had reduced the naga into neat, salvageable cuts and crafting materials. Her dexterity easily rivaled the licensed dismantle-specialists I'd seen back in the day. Wondering if her guardian had been a master butcher, I decided not to pry any further.
Still, with the subjugation mission complete, we found ourselves in a rather awkward position.
“Hmm...”
“Ah...”
“What do we do now...?”
Normally, a temporary party disbanded the moment the boss fell. However, three of us were already officially inducted into Elysium, while one remained a complete outsider.
I had no intention of exposing my Inventory system in front of him, so I reached into the harvested pile and tore free one of the naga's key organs.
Squelch—!
It was the monster's most valuable drop: the Core Essence. Ingesting it granted a permanent stat boost, making it a high-ticket luxury item that would fetch a fortune on the open market.
“Here, take it.”
“Huh? W-Wait—what?”
I casually tossed the glowing essence toward Ray. He blinked in utter bewilderment, staring back and forth between the prize in his hands and my face. Seeing his confusion, I offered a frank explanation.
“Think of it as an investment.”
“An... investment?”
“I've got a feeling you're going to make it big someday. Being friends is fine and all, but this kind of relationship works too, doesn't it?”
Friends, but also investor and prospect. Down the road, items of this caliber could be bought for pocket change, but at this stage of the continent's development, its value was astronomical. A solid bond where he'd come running to help no matter what—that was the ideal relationship I was aiming for, and that was why I handed him the essence.
Ray's expression turned ambivalent. He seemed to be parsing through the deeper meaning behind my gesture. For a second, I thought he might refuse, but then...
Slide.
Without further hesitation, he slipped the essence into his breast pocket. Even without words, it wasn't hard to grasp the conclusion he'd reached. At the very least, it wasn't a negative one.
Having gathered his gear to depart, Ray waved his hand.
“Until next time.”
“Yeah. If fate allows, we'll run into each other again.”
With those parting words, he turned and faded gracefully into the dense thickets on the far side of the forest. It was a rather understated farewell compared to our turbulent first encounter. Yet somehow, I felt certain our paths would cross again, so parting ways didn't leave much of a bitter aftertaste.
Meanwhile, having left the lake behind, Ray walked in solitude.
Leaping onto a sturdy branch high in the canopy, he exhaled a long breath and drew out the essence Juhan had given him. Because its potency would degrade over time, he accepted the man's goodwill and swallowed the core without hesitation.
“Huuuuh...”
As the warmth settled into his core, his thoughts naturally drifted back to the man who had gifted it to him.
At first glance, Seo Juhan had appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary F-rank adventurer—unremarkable, possessing neither outstanding martial prowess nor flashy talents. Yet having fought alongside him, Ray had felt the undeniable certainty that this man was destined for greatness.
Precise situational judgment, flawless battlefield command, and an innate, compelling charisma.
If the Guildmaster of Avalon truly existed... wouldn't he be someone just like him?
To think such a person held him in such high regard... Honestly, Ray felt it bordered on overestimation. He glanced down at the mark etched into his shoulder—the Stigma branded into his flesh amidst tears of blood on the day he lost everything.
Did he even see through this?
The odds of that were slim to none, but Juhan had clearly sensed something extraordinary within him.
Grrrk—!
A blinding migraine tore through his skull.
“By His Excellency's command. Slay them all.”
Memories he desperately wished to bury resurfaced without warning, clawing violently at his sanity.
In the burning ruins of his past stood a woman clad in pure-white armor. Wielding a pristine white blade, she systematically slaughtered every living creature in sight—monsters, humans, beastfolk, and livestock alike. Nothing was spared.
Beside her, other armored knights—figures who now formed the terrifying foundation of Avalon—swung their weapons without a shred of hesitation. They cut, pierced, burned, severed, killed, killed, and killed again.
They moved like zealots possessed by some unfathomable entity.
Terrifying.
Dreadful.
Monstrous.
To ordinary mortals, these beings who marched solely under the banner of their absolute 'Greater Cause' were nothing more than lunatics worshipping a mad god. His hands and feet still trembled at the memory.
Yes. He understood the cold logic behind it. A parasitic monster had infiltrated the settlement; with no way to distinguish friend from foe, any major guild might have reached the exact same brutal conclusion. Had they left it alone, the entire village would have become an incubator for the swarm.
Even so.
“I can never forgive them. Not ever.”
Whether waking, sleeping, or eating, the dead never stopped visiting him. Their voices constantly whispered in his ears.
Kill them.
Avenge our souls.
Tear them limb from limb.
“......”
The night his family, his siblings, his friends, and his neighbors were consumed by roaring hellfire. They had stripped him of everything.
And the one who issued that merciless command to those white knights was none other than the master of Avalon—the shadowy figure they reverently called their 'Master,' 'Commander,' or 'Guildmaster.' A ghost who had never once shown his face in public.
Ray would live for the sole purpose of putting an end to that monster's life.
“The Lord of Avalon... I will make sure...”
I will tear your throat out with my own hands.
Carving that vow into his heart once more, Ray stepped forward, vanishing silently into the depths of the forest.
“Well, he's gone...”
Ray's silhouette had completely vanished into the foliage. Honestly, missing out on the chance to recruit another 7-star character right after So-so left a massive void in my heart. It felt like someone had handed me a fried chicken drumstick only to snatch it right out of my hand before I could take a bite.
Still, what was done was done.
I turned to look at So-so and Selena chatting nearby. Over the past two grueling months, I had crawled through the dirt like a dog just to form this party and scout these two. A frontline-heavy nightmare composition consisting of three melee DPS, but somehow...
I got the distinct feeling that our business in this city was officially concluded.
Now it was time to aim for the next objective. We'd founded the guild, so the next logical step was expanding our sphere of influence. How on earth had my dream of living a sweet, carefree slacker life devolved into this non-stop grind...?
With melancholy in my eyes, I gazed up at the azure sky—only for a glint of white plate armor to catch my gaze.
Wait a second. White plate armor? Why did that silhouette look so eerily familiar...?
It was a carbon copy of the custom armor design I'd commissioned from the design majors back during my college days. Had the exhaustion finally scrambled my brain into hallucinating? If my memory served me right, that was the signature plate armor worn almost exclusively by the Knights of the Round Table...
“Nah, no way. I must be seeing things because of fatigue.”
Yeah, it's gotta be a dream. Right? Please tell me it's a dream.
I squinted up at the speck in the sky. But instead of drifting away, the white figure plummeted downward at terrifying speed, hurtling straight toward me like a kinetic strike missile.
BAM—!
“Gaaaagh—!”
A pair of armored arms locked around my torso, and the sheer momentum slammed both of us violently into a nearby rock wall. A white knight was pressed tight against my chest.
The woman before me was the spitting image of the in-game character illustration. Through the gaps in her pure-white plate armor gleamed an insignia: a sword plunged through a shattered throne.
My mind went completely blank from the sudden shock, but there was no mistaking who this was.
One of the Round Table knights upon whom I had bestowed the epithet of Betrayal. A character who had attempted to detonate my account on multiple occasions. And yet, a broken 7-star unit whose absurd performance made it utterly impossible to bench her.
“Mordred...?”
“I have missed you... It has been far too long, Captain.”
The Knight of Betrayal. Mordred.
The second most dangerous character on my absolute blacklist had just dropped out of the sky and into my lap.
God damn it.
What a dogshit trash gacha game...