In the Land of Leadale - Volume 3 - Chapter SS

Bonus Short Story – The Day He Became a Knight

“Huh…?” 

He looked at the scene before him and rubbed his eyes. He thought his sight was deceiving him, but the scenery remained unchanged. The man filled his lungs with the scent of nature and glanced around. 

A road continued in front and behind him. It was wide enough for ten adults to stand shoulder to shoulder across, but it was unpaved. The hard earth was completely bare. Furthermore, the areas to the left and right of him were covered in thick trees and brush that were impossible to see through. It was clear these were the source of the half-wet plant life he’d been smelling. 

He instinctively wondered if his neighborhood had always looked like this, then nodded. 

“Right, this must be a dream. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.” 

About a minute later… 

Without someone to cut him off with a sharp comment, even his vague laughter couldn’t continue. 

He calmed himself, took another look around, and after checking his outfit, murmured, “What the heck?” There was a slightly hoarse tremble in his voice. If broken down into a composition, it would be 40 percent shock and 30 percent concern. Sixteen percent of him no doubt wanted to cry, and 14 percent wanted to scream. 

Long story short, he was standing in the middle of a forest-enclosed road dressed as his avatar. The avatar known as Shining Saber murmured, “Seriously?” and fell to the ground in helplessness. 

Looking back, he’d been enjoying his final game session just before everything changed. 

December 31. The VRMMORPG Leadale’s last day of service. 

There was wailing, bemoaning, laughing, mourning, et cetera… All throughout Leadale, players let their emotions fly free. 

Notice that service was ending had come out of nowhere only a month prior. It was all so sudden. Even enterprising players who had trillions in assets couldn’t make the words go away. These players tried to throw their weight around on the official forums by asking for donations to “build our own Leadale II!” The sight of his wealthy friends involving themselves out of concern only to be stopped by a full force of guild members was nothing short of sad. 

Thus, he went to the capital of the Red Kingdom as always, joined open parties, and went hunting here and there. In his heart, he held the feeling that he’d do the same thing the next day, too. 

Just around twelve AM in real time, the quickly formed party spoke casually as they went to part. 

“Later, then.” 

“Let’s meet up again somewhere.” 

“Hey, Shiny. Let’s duke it out with bigger weapons next time.” 

“No way—that’s crass.” 

“C’mon, quit bein’ so damn fussy. Why’re you like this but still crazy good?” 

“One’s usual behavior and personality probably have nothing to do with gaming skills.” 

“I at least wanted to square off with the Silver Ring Witch in the end…” 

“Don’t wish for a dangerous comedy act at the finish line!” 

“That would surely spell the end for Leadale…” 

“Scary!!” 

He went to log out after their rowdy conversation…but although he’d been satisfied with how things ended, before he knew it, he was not in his own bedroom but in the middle of a nature road. Furthermore, he was not his normal human self but rather his avatar, Shining Saber. 

He had no idea what was happening and tried cutting his arm with his sword as a test. The burning pain and iron taste of the blood that poured forth was all too real. He vowed he’d never try this again. Despite the great pain, he took a potion out of his Item Box, and it was as if nothing had ever happened. 

Turning into one’s own game avatar felt like something out of an anime. 

Mercifully, sliding to the ground allowed him to hear the rumbling echo from afar. 

Pressing his ear (?) to the earth, he tried to sense where it was coming from. A blue sky spread out before him, but it wasn’t as if someone normally immersed in modern civilization could pinpoint their direction without the sun. 

Since he’d only get in the way if anything approached while he was sitting, he got up. At the moment, he didn’t at all consider whether it might be a foe or a monster come to do him harm. 

That alone as enough proof of how massively overwhelmed he was by his current situation. 

Soon enough, a group of about twenty people appeared. They were dressed as knights and rode atop horses. Naturally, a cavalry of this number wouldn’t miss sight of him, either, when they galloped by. There were some women among the majority of men, and they all wore gleaming white armor. A man at the forefront noticed Shining Saber, and the group came to a halt. 

They all stared at him with concern. Among them, the leader of the group alighted from his horse and stepped forward while gripping the sword at his waist. He was apparently their representative. Behind him, the man’s comrades unsheathed their swords and readied their spears. Tension filled the air. 

As for Shining Saber, he got the impression that involving himself with this group would be a major hassle. He’d be happy enough to just get out of the situation. 

However, it looked like things weren’t going to be so simple. The man who stopped about twenty meters from him while keeping a battle stance seemed to be in his thirties. He spoke with a grim expression on his face. 

“Who are you?! Did you take this path knowing full well that doing so without the king’s permission is forbidden?” 

“…Huh? What?” 

While Shining Saber struggled to comprehend what he’d just heard, a sharp shiing! came from the man’s waist as he unsheathed his sword. Along with this came an intensity that warned he would attack at any second. Anyone would cower if they were not only clueless to their situation but also unsure of how to react when met with hostility by the first villager they came across. 

No sound came from Shining Saber’s dry mouth. His arms trembled, and the thought of drawing his sword to protect himself never once crossed his mind. 

He was a carp on a cutting board. 

Just as Shining Saber was about to be helplessly cut down, he noticed not his attacker’s face but his own two feet. He had apparently been struck by paralyzing fear. Later on, he would wish he had at least not wet his pants. 

A voice went “Pfft” over his head. 

“Looks like you’re not a bandit or an assassin.” 

A voice that sounded a degree gentler than moments before hit Shining Saber. Shivers ran across his body, and when he looked up, he saw the man grinning. 

“A coward like you isn’t the type to go after His Majesty’s life, but rules are rules.” 

The man turned toward his comrades, who had suddenly closed in, and told them, “Take him away and put him in a cell.” 

Shining Saber’s weapons and equipment were confiscated, and then he was bound with a rope, blindfolded, and taken away. Before he knew it, he was a prisoner. Less than two hours had passed since he found himself in the middle of the road. 

“…Ain’t this goin’ off the deep end…?” 

What else could he even say? 

Looking at the iron jail bars before him made him extremely weary, as if his entire body was bound in heavy chains. Pessimism took hold, and the feeling that It’s no good. Everything is over stuck with him as he prayed to be buried in the depths of the earth. Strangely enough, as soon as he mumbled “I know all about how people in jails feel,” he felt like he might as well just keep saying whatever he wanted. 

“…Anyway, my underclothes can come off, huh?” 

Whether willingly or not, Shining Saber looked down at his body to find ripped muscles he had no memory of building. It was the exact opposite of his usual gangly body, and even he couldn’t believe this was really him. His arms were covered in visibly rough scales, while the sections beneath this were covered in thin, almost imperceptible scales as smooth as human skin. 

In the game, all players wore a minimum amount of underclothes regardless of gender. Private areas were depicted by only the faintest outline, and careful consideration was made to remove any detailed shapes. 

He had just taken everything off and was now wearing a single pair of underpants. He couldn’t have done so in the game even if he tried, and it further hit him how real this world really was. 

“Still, it looks like I’ve got some time to kill,” he murmured. 

He laid on the hard bed in his cell and glanced around the sour-smelling room. His tail got in the way when he laid flat on his back, so he turned on his side. The horns on the back of his head kept him from sleeping in a sprawled-out position like he did as a human, but he was thankful that this dragoid body kept the hard bed from being too uncomfortable. 

Shining Saber thought all the more that his own room was much like a jail cell. After all, it had been nothing more than a place for him to sleep and play games. Although his mood was now dark, he felt a sense of ease. 

Saying “This is all we’ve got,” the guard passed Shining Saber a blanket. He wrapped himself in it and told himself he would answer the following day’s interrogation honestly. 

The next day. 

He was woken up early, and several knights questioned him with watchful eyes. It seemed they were members of this nation. 

At first, the captain of the knights, named Arbiter, questioned him directly, but the gentle-natured young man who served as his co-captain said, “You already have enough work to do,” and chased him out. 

After starting with the basics by asking Shining Saber’s name, they continued with “Where did you come from?” “What were you doing there?” “What is your occupation?” “Where do you live?” and so forth. They asked everything from his personal information to his career history. 

He would undoubtedly confuse even himself if he gave his real-life circumstances, so he provided the facts about his avatar. 

Nevertheless, there wasn’t all that much to talk about. 

His name was Shining Saber. He was an adventurer. He didn’t really have much of a personal background, and he increasingly felt like his existence was as thin as a piece of paper. However, as they delved into his story, he asked his own numerous questions that disturbed the guards. 

His homeland, for example. When he answered “The Blue Kingdom of Aulzelie,” they replied, “That country was destroyed two hundred years ago.” And when he asked what happened to the others, he was left dumbfounded when they said, “There’s only three now. Doesn’t everyone know that?” 

The knights reckoned he was a country bumpkin ignorant of the modern world, and they returned Shining Saber to his cell before even two hours had passed. 

“You’ve gotta be kidding me…” 

He wasn’t sure how many times he’d said this already, but murmuring the phrase would likely become a habit while he was here. 

“Here” was now the capital of a nation in the center of the continent known as Felskeilo. He was in a jail within the castle. He was being charged for the crime of trespassing upon a road that directly connected each capital. The details weren’t fully explained to him, but it was likely the same as stowing away on a government plane. 

From what he’d already heard, the seven nations of the game no longer existed. Instead, there were three unified nations: Helshper to the north, Otaloquess to the south, and Felskeilo in the center. Moreover, the original seven had already been gone for over two hundred years. In that moment of darkness when he went to log out, he had apparently surpassed space and time like a dimensional traveler. 

“As if the game becoming reality wasn’t enough, I also jumped eras? It’s like some kind of Urashima effect…” 

While he wasn’t entirely sure of this, his heart could find no ideal noun that applied to this phenomenon. 

The questioning continued for several more days. And then one day soon after that… 

Shining Saber, equipped in leather armor tailored to fit him, stood in a corner of a parade ground with a wooden sword. 

“I have no clue what’s goin’ on…” 

The captain of the knights had suddenly visited him, and as soon as he let Shining Saber out of jail, he handed him clothes, armor, and a sword. 

Not left with much choice, Shining Saber got changed. In the game, you could easily go into your Item Box, tap, and change outfits in an instant, so having to physically dress was naturally tiring. However, since Shining Saber hadn’t checked his stats, he was unaware he could have used his Item Box as normal. 

The captain of the knights brought him not to his usual cell but instead outside. Like him, the knights were dressed in light armor and carrying either wooden swords or spears. As he stood there unable to process what was going on, the captain explained their intent. 

“Listen up. This is the punishment for your crime.” 

“…My punishment?” 

From what he could tell, this scenario could only mean the knights were about to give him a full beatdown. He thought to himself, Ain’t this more vigilantism than due punishment? 

“It looks like you’re misunderstandin’ something. You’ve got it all wrong.” 

“Aren’t you about to beat me to your heart’s content?” 

Probably unable to bear looking at Shining Saber’s dead fish eyes any longer, the captain and co-captain refuted his assertion. 

“From today forward, you will join our ranks and learn to become a knight.” 

“Huh? …WHAAAAAAT?!” 

“You’ll be more of a servant at first, but you’ll show us just how well you can fight. Your adventuring taught you how to handle a sword pretty well, right?” 

A hysterical voice had released from the pit of Shining Saber’s stomach. Among the lineup of knights, there were those who had questioned him in the past several days. The nodding of their heads said His shock makes total sense. 

He was apparently going to work for the country as punishment. He asked, “Isn’t it more common to make people slave away in the mines?” but it seemed that the continent had no slave system. He also heard that if the High Priest had found out he’d been treated in such a way, the knights would be reprimanded. A bolt of lightning might literally come crashing down on them. 

Besides, mines were more the territory of dwarves and other similar races. Neither Helshper nor Felskeilo had that sort of environment. 

“First, we’ll get a good taste of what you can do by actually facing off in battle. Let’s go one by one.” 

“I-I’m going to fight this many people…?” 

“Correct. Isn’t that how we’ll learn your habits and fix problem areas?” 

At the co-captain’s command, the knights formed a neat row. A quick glance would suggest there were about fifty people total, which would be a slightly large number for a martial arts kata. 

Even so, considering he was level 427, Shining Saber was confident the fight would be tiring but not insufferable. He readied his wooden sword and faced a knight who had stepped forward from the end of the line. 

With the co-captain’s sharp cry of “Begin!” the two exchanged blows. 

Shining Saber suffered an overwhelming defeat. 

His level was high, and as a dragoid, he had incredible power and defense. However, those three points were all he had for beating an average knight. 

In other words, he had absolutely no technique or finesse. 

In Leadale, each race had default attack movements, and it was commonplace to download free sword techniques via software. There was a plethora of different ones available. Although data provided by renowned schools of swordsmanship and those who actually knew how to wield a sword were preferred, there were also combinations of original, messy motions that any specialist in the field would call highly unorthodox. For amateurs, the problem was identifying what was a true sword technique or not. Shining Saber was one such person under this strange influence, which was why he was unable to move properly or wield his sword with any skill. 

His battle opponents, the captain, and the co-captain watched on in pity, while others displayed shock by covering their faces and facing the sky. 

And thus, his ranked dropped from “Let’s see your sword skills” to “Keep running around the outside of the parade ground.” 

“…Yet you somehow managed to become captain of the knights three years later, right?” 

In a bar flooded with the sound of food orders, laughter, and rage, Cayna fully appreciated Shining Saber’s efforts despite his ill fate. 

“Well, this guy was nothin’ but brute force. If he’d had even an ounce of skill, he would’ve torn through the ranks in no time.” 

With a tankard in one hand and several meat skewers in the others, Arbiter put his arm around Shining Saber’s shoulders. 

Although Shining Saber was wearing casual clothing, Cayna frowned as the meat sauce sat moments away from dripping on him. 

“Yes, he was a worthy student. Quite worthy indeed…” 

The co-captain of the knights at the time and current co-leader of the mercenary group the Flame Spears narrowed his eyes nostalgically and tilted his glass. Shining Saber sat between him and Arbiter with a beer in one hand. He looked at Cayna with half-lidded eyes and an expression that said he had a bone to pick. 

“Hey, Cayna. Why are we sittin’ with these guys like it’s no big deal…?” 

“Huh? What do you mean, why? They called out to us, right?” 

Just past noon, Cayna happened to come across Shining Saber in the capital while he was off duty. She was about to go shopping, and he decided to join her, since he had some free time. As thanks, Cayna invited him out for a few drinks. 

After seeing how well the two got along, it was only natural that rumors among the current knights that Cayna was “Captain Shining Saber’s fiancée” sprouted not only fins but legs and horns as well. 

When the pair went to a popular bar a friend had told her about and grabbed a seat in the crowded space, Arbiter and his co-captain had appeared to the left and right of Shining Saber. Completely ignoring the dragoid and his surly look, Arbiter had begun divulging how they first met. The co-leader corrected the occasional exaggerated scene and explained to Cayna how Shining Saber had come to join the knights. 

As for Shining Saber himself, their retelling resurfaced his feelings from that time, and the added embellishments made him feel indignant. 

After the story finally came to a good stopping point, Shining Saber asked Cayna why the two were even there. 

“Hey now, Shiny. What’re you being all grumpy for, hmm? Who do you think told the miss about this place anyway?” said Arbiter. 

“I KNEW ITTTTT!!” Shining Saber shouted, falling onto the table. 

Cayna was technically a minor and unlikely to have a deep knowledge of taverns and the sort. Furthermore, when one considered the friends who did join her, the list didn’t stretch much farther than Cohral in the capital. Her own children were more or less candidates as well, but if asked how she felt about the high-class restaurant catering to nobles that the three, particularly Skargo, often frequented, Cayna didn’t see it as an option. 

When asked “Do you go to taverns with your kids, Cayna?” she replied, “Kartatz and I often eat meat skewers from the stalls. I’ve had tea with Skargo in his office, but I don’t remember doing much with Mai-Mai.” Since she was based in the remote village now, it was rare for Cayna to do this sort of thing in the capital. 

As Shining Saber’s former boss acted drunk and tried to put the moves on Cayna, the co-leader mildly put a stop to his antics as she completely iced him out. 

When the dragoid looked upon this scene, his three years of asceticism flashed before his eyes, and he let out a great sigh. 

Noticing his gaze, the co-leader looked at Shining Saber with unusual seriousness. 

“Do you regret your time with us?” 

He had spent those days learning sword fighting, etiquette, and basic knowledge before finally becoming captain of the knights. Objectively speaking, these were pretty simple accomplishments, but those three years were well drilled into his body. Although the time had been fulfilling, he also had more than a few regrets. It was the very reason he was able to become not “himself” but “Shining Saber.” 

“Nope, none at all.” 

Answering honestly, Shining Saber knocked glasses with the co-leader.