The Knight Who Waits in the Wrong Place

Get back to the tower where you belong.

What are you even doing here?

Word had it that countless gamers hurled complaints at the monster that appeared at the tutorial point.

Being positioned somewhere completely at odds with the game's lore, their grumbling was only natural.

If this had been an action-focused game, players might have stood a chance with dazzling, skillful control. But in World of Phantasm, level was everything.

With a mid-to-late-game boss spawning at the starting zone, no one could hope to handle it.

And that was why the vast majority of gamers who started World of Phantasm experienced their first game over right ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠here.

A new alert flashed across Ryu Hwi's vision.

"A sudden mission... so that's a thing, huh."

Ten YggON tickets and one guaranteed SR ticket.

Generous rewards. Which also meant the Chaos Dark Knight was worth at least that much.

Ryu Hwi drew a deep breath with the Dark Knight standing before him.

This was a challenge — and an experiment.

The first step toward confirming just how far YggON's system would reach, and whether he could pull off everything he intended to do from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠here on.

"Dark Knight!!"

The knight in jet-black full plate responded. Between the slits of the black helm, his eyes glowed red.

"I... am the knight... of the Demon God. At the end... of nothingness... I wait... for the strong. Prove... your strength."

The Dark Knight drew out his massive greatsword — a shape so ominous it seemed steeped in black aura itself.

He closed the distance to Ryu Hwi in a single stride and brought the greatsword crashing down.

It was no ordinary attack.

A wide-area strike that unleashed dark energy along with the blade — every single swing of the Dark Knight's was both an AOE and an ultimate technique.

Most gamers had died without even properly handling that first blow.

But.

Ryu Hwi swung his Gunsword at the exact instant the Dark Knight's blade came down, timing it to the frame.

The moment sword met sword, his skill activated.

The instant the skill's effect triggered, the Dark Knight's attack was forcibly intercepted and deflected.

Just as I thought — land a parry, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the difference in raw power stops mattering.

Ryu Hwi had once analyzed information on game labyrinths where "Parrying" appeared as a skill.

In those worlds, parrying was the foundation of everything — games so brutal that failure to master it made the game unplayable outright.

In the gameplay footage he'd studied, gamers were parrying the attacks of monsters several times their own size.

The moment his parry connected, the Dark Knight's strike was interrupted, and Ryu Hwi's reflexes surged.

Riding that burst of speed, he struck at the opening the Dark Knight had exposed.

"Ghk?!"

The Gunsword failed to bite through the Dark Knight's armor and glanced away.

My attack isn't landing?

It was a strike powered even by his Sword Mastery enhancement, yet it dealt hardly any real damage.

So I can't punch through level correction after all?

When you leveled up, every stat rose. No matter how hard you hit, if the enemy's defense was high enough, damage simply wouldn't go through.

Common sense in any RPG.

Since World of Phantasm's system didn't apply to him, Ryu Hwi had guessed that maybe level-based stat correction would be ignored too.

But contrary to expectation, his attacks weren't getting through to the Dark Knight.

The Dark Knight swung his sword again.

Every swing was a wide-area attack — and one powerful enough to kill him outright if it connected.

Ryu Hwi parried the blade once more, cutting the attack short.

"Your instinct is good."

YggON's voice rang out.

"Just as Master predicted — you can ignore World of Phantasm's level-based stat correction."

"Then why the hell isn't my damage landing?!"

Ryu Hwi seized the pause in the Dark Knight's assault and counterattacked again — but this time, too, the blade couldn't pierce the armor.

"Are you an idiot? Of course it won't — the guy's in full plate armor."

"Oh."

At YggON's jab, Ryu Hwi realized he'd been thinking purely in system terms.

The world of the gods was, without question, a world built on the template of a "game."

A world governed by arbitrarily coded systems.

But "Ryu Hwi" was not. For him, this place wasn't virtual reality — it was another real world.

"Then—!"

BOOM!

Ryu Hwi's sword collided with the Dark Knight's.

Once again, his parry froze the Dark Knight's attack mid-swing, and his reflexes spiked in that instant.

The world seemed to slow down for a heartbeat.

Within that suspended world, Ryu Hwi boldly plunged into the Dark Knight's guard.

His target: the gap between the armor plates!

Even full plate armor had openings at the joints.

It was a technique bordering on acrobatics — a stunt, really. But skill-enhanced swordsmanship, physical ability, and reflexes made it possible.

Ryu Hwi's Gunsword stabbed into the Dark Knight's shoulder.

"...!"

There was a reaction.

He pulled the Gunsword's trigger.

The energy loaded in the cylinder exploded, multiplying the blade's force.

The next instant, the Dark Knight's arm flew off into the distance. The shock was enough to make him stagger.

Ryu Hwi was certain now.

Even the concept of HP in World of Phantasm was subject to the game labyrinth's system correction.

Which meant that an attack from him — a "YggON gamer" — wouldn't drain HP. It would deal real damage to the body itself.

Aim for a vital point, and it wouldn't just be a critical hit. He could kill in a single strike.

Without missing a beat, Ryu Hwi moved to attack the Dark Knight again.

The head, next—

"Master, danger—!"

"?!"

The moment YggON's warning hit his ears, Ryu Hwi flung himself aside.

That split-second reaction saved his life.

Countless swords were now planted where he'd been standing a heartbeat before.

The shadow bursting from the Dark Knight's severed arm had split into branches and transformed into dozens upon dozens of blades.

"Oh, come on — now what?"

Ryu Hwi swallowed hard at the Dark Knight's changed form.

No case of the "Chaos Dark Knight" ever being defeated in World of Phantasm had ever been reported.

The reason was simple.

The Chaos Dark Knight never appeared in the "Demon God's Tower," where he was originally supposed to spawn — only in the Forest of Beginning.

Worse, the Forest of Beginning was a zone that, once you left, you could never return to.

The vast majority of gamers got game-overed by the Chaos Dark Knight at the end of the Forest of Beginning and respawned in the nearest town.

Even if they leveled up dreaming of revenge, there was no way back into the tutorial zone.

And so the knight had never been slain — and no strategy guide for him existed.

Which meant, naturally, there was no information about the Chaos Dark Knight mutating like this when cornered.

After all, the Dark Knight had never once been in danger before.

"O strong one... he who threatens... the Demon God. Taste... a fragment... of the void."

Dozens of swords leveled at Ryu Hwi all at once. Each and every one of them was charged with tremendous power.

"Damn it!"

Ryu Hwi batted one blade away.

Parrying activated and the Dark Knight's attack stalled — but only for the barest instant. The next blow came immediately after.

"The parrying's not working properly?!"

Ryu Hwi kept deflecting the deluge of blades, one after another.

No — that's not it. It IS working.

Parrying's effects — the power to interrupt enemy attacks and the boost to his reflexes — were definitely activating.

The problem was that the Dark Knight's attacks were too fast, and too many.

After only a moment's stun, the next wave came crashing down, which made it feel as if parrying wasn't landing at all.

If Parrying's effects hadn't been active, he'd never have blocked the simultaneous barrage — it would have ended in one clean stroke.

"GRAAAAAAHHHH!!"

Ryu Hwi swung his Gunsword without pause.

Deflect, deflect, deflect, and deflect again.

There wasn't even a gap to look for a counterattack.

One single hit allowed — and he died.

Ryu Hwi had no HP concept either. One wrong hit and it was over.

Bam! Boom! Bam! KRA-KOOM! Bam!

His arms were going numb. Every deflection sent the shockwave screaming up through them.

"You continue... to block... my attacks. What... power is this?"

The Dark Knight showed interest in Ryu Hwi's strength.

Ryu Hwi didn't answer. There was no room to answer. Just holding back the attacks was all he could manage.

"Whatever power... you possess... you cannot block... the Demon God's... blessing."

Unleashing wide-area attacks in rapid-fire, second after second — Ryu Hwi clicked his tongue at the Dark Knight's power.

Focus!

BOOM!

Focus! There has to be a pattern.

He steadied his mind. There was no way this assault could go on forever.

Every time he deflected the Dark Knight's blows, old memories surfaced unbidden.

Bam! Boom!

—The days when hope still overflowed. The foolish time when he'd believed his dream would come true someday.

KRA-KOOM! THUD! CLANG!

—The day his name was stolen. The day he fell to the bottom of life.

"GRAAAAH!"

—The day the last precious person he had left him forever. The day he betrayed every last hope.

"I..."

—The days without hope, without a future, when he was merely stretching out his existence.

"I will!!"

He had sworn to pay it all back.

He had sworn to trample them all into the dirt.

He had reclaimed his name in Yggdrasil. But he hadn't yet taken his first real step.

The Dark Knight's attacks fell like a torrential downpour.

And they looked like a colossal wall barring that first step.

If he couldn't get over this, there was no next time.

He would regress to those days — living on in despair, stripped of hope.

"I'm getting out of this abyss!"

Out of this wretched deep — and then he'd trample every last one of those garbage bastards into the ground!

That was Ryu Hwi's vow.

Against the never-ending storm of attacks, he boldly took one step forward.

"UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

Sword clashed against sword.

Ryu Hwi endured, and endured, and endured the Dark Knight's ferocious assault.

Enduring was familiar work. He'd spent all this time enduring in despair that didn't even hold hope.

Endure, endure, endure — and at the end of it—

The attack that had seemed endless stopped for a single instant.

A gap of one heartbeat, finally arrived.

Ryu Hwi wrung out every last scrap of remaining strength and drove the Gunsword into the Dark Knight's head.

The seam of the helm guarding it — right where those red eyes gleamed.

The Gunsword sank in.

He pulled the trigger without hesitation.

The Gunsword's cylinder held six rounds. He'd already used two.

Four remained.

He kept pulling the trigger.

The energy in each cylinder made the blade's power erupt in surges.

Every trigger pull drove the sword deeper into the helm.

And then—

"O strong one. Beyond the void... go forth."

With those words, the Dark Knight dissolved into nothing.

A monster that waited in the tower of nothingness for the strong.

Those words were meant, originally, for the gamers who climbed the Demon God's Tower.

For whatever reason, he'd ended up planted in a tutorial zone like this instead.

"Beyond the void... go forth, huh."

Ironically, those words fit the current Ryu Hwi better than anyone.

Because his life, up to now, had been nothing if not a void.

Sudden mission cleared.

New achievements unlocked, too.

Twenty YggON tickets and two guaranteed SR tickets.

And enough points banked for a full ten-pull in one go.

All that suffering had been worth something.

And the rewards didn't end there. The greatest prize of all was the confidence he'd gained.

The confidence that he could fight his way through the labyrinth.

For Ryu Hwi, that was an enormous step.

"Just you wait, you trash bastards."

A step he hadn't even dared to imagine taking for all these years.

"I'm coming for you. Very soon."