Headless Iron Cavalry – 1
“Claudia! what the hell is this… … !”
Iris’ urgent voice came from outside. All the members of the Silver Dawn Knights were gathered at the main gate of the castle.
Well, if I were to say all the members, Iris, Rize, Erica, and Claudia who returned this time were all five.
“What do you see? Subjugation failed.”
In front of my eyes, the leader of the Knights of the Silver Dawn, who was ranked first and was the strongest by design, was nowhere to be seen, and all I could see was a seriously injured woman with a bitter smile.
The bandages wrapped all over the body were soaked with blood and overflowed, leaving it black and dry. Finding areas not covered by bandages was becoming more difficult.
I couldn’t find the slightest bit of strength in walking with a limp on my left leg. He was leaning against the wall as if his movements were uncomfortable.
‘I was pretty sure it was a woman… … .’
Claudia’s appearance was completely different from what I thought.
Light pink or cherry blossom color seemed to suit the hair best, and the bobbed hair, arranged in a half-round shape, stretched just short of the collarbone.
Light pink eyes twinkled under the bangs that were neatly arranged in a straight line. In many ways, it was a face close to a neutral impression.
I could definitely feel the curves unique to women in the pelvis and waist, but overall, the feeling of being a neutral man was much stronger than feminine.
It was impressive, but it was even more so because he was incredibly tall. Even though I’m probably on the tall side, I was only a finger or two shorter than me.
As long as he was dressed like a man, it was close to the kind of appearance that would be believed without any doubt even if he was not a handsome woman but a handsome man.
Should we consider it fortunate that the curvature of the chest is revealed even through the bandages?
‘If I had dressed properly, I could have mistaken him for a man.’
First of all, the clothes he was wearing were dolphin pants like the other knight commanders, so there seemed to be no misunderstanding of gender.
On the floor lay a greatsword with a length equal to Claudia’s own height and an enormous width. It seemed to weigh more than 20kg even at a glance.
To be honest, it was something more like a blunt weapon than a sword.
“The subjugation failed?”
“Ahaha. That’s it. I went out with a lot of form, isn’t it ugly?”
Claudia shook her right hand, which was wrapped in a bandage, shyly, then shrank back when she heard Erica, who was re-wrapping the bandage, ask what she was doing.
“He came back alive, so that was it. It’s enough that you didn’t lose your life. The fact that they came back alive is much more important than the fact that they failed in subjugation.”
“Claudia, was that monster that strong? Enough to fail in subjugation?”
Claudia shook her head at Rize’s question.
“no. I couldn’t even get near him. Wouldn’t it have been unfair if I had been beaten by him?”
“What do you mean, Claudia? Didn’t you even come close?”
Her silver eyes widened as if in shock.
“I ran into another monster on the way to him. A horse in steel armor and a knight wielding a spear with its head cut off. … No, I don’t even know if it was a monster. Anyway, I got hit by him. No matter how hard I hit it, the attack didn’t work at all. Even if my weapon is like this.”
Claudia tapped the greatsword at her feet with the tip of her toe.
When I replied that the attack had not worked even though I hit it with a greatsword as wide as a person’s torso, as long as a person’s height, and as thick as two fingers, the expressions of the other three, except for me, hardened.
‘Of course not.’
In the first place, he was not a boss to be beaten with a frontal breakthrough, but a guy who had to use a specific item to remove the iron armor wrapped around the body and catch it.
In a state where the armor is not removed, even if you hold a full-gang weapon on a character with all stats of 99 and hit it with a full buff, it only deals damage around 10.
Occasionally, there were humans who tried to clear it without taking off their armor in order to challenge the human limits, but most of them ended up confirming where the limits of their patience were.
“… … Right. Once I knew.”
Iris bit her lip and nodded. Claudia had a face that had no face.
‘Let’s go soon.’
The event just ended with a conversation. The quest window to subdue him didn’t appear, but the quest window didn’t appear in the game anyway.
Brunet 4 was a game where the character had to infer all quests from conversations or investigations, no matter what missions the character was on, and the player had to remember them one by one.
What if I forgot or forgot about it? The story line is twisted and the story doesn’t go the way you want, or the story goes the opposite of what you want.
It was a style with very different likes and dislikes. Some people liked it because they didn’t see useless quest window notifications like other open world RPGs, and others didn’t like it because it was so inconvenient and unkind.
I wonder if there was a mode that shows the current main story and sub-quests in an easy-to-see notification format like other RPGs.
Of course, that didn’t apply to me. Even if I can’t memorize all the small sub-quests, I have the main story of the game and the big sub-quests in my head.
“for a moment. Where are you going, newbie?”
As I calmly tried to leave the castle, Iris called me to stop. My head stiffened for a moment in a situation I had never experienced before in a game.
‘… … Come to think of it, this isn’t going to go according to the game.’
Even if I only took this route in the game, it felt like I was just a member of the Knights of the Silver Dawn, and there was no benefit from it.
The main character plays alone, and the story of the Knights only progresses.
However, now I was definitely a new knight belonging to the Silver Dawn Knights. It also receives expectations in one body. Of course, it was obvious that attention would be focused on each action.
From Iris’ point of view, it’s only right to stop me from leaving somewhere alone.
‘I made a mistake.’
I clicked my tongue inside. Now that this had happened, there would be no benefit to me if I hid it, so I thought it would be better to tell it openly. I opened my mouth as calmly as possible.
“To catch the guy on the horse.”
A chilly silence hung over my words.
Lize and Erica have gone wild, and Claudia, what did I just hear? Iris rarely frowned and shook her head as if she understood what I was saying.
“No, there is no need to have you, a newcomer, participate in the subjugation. This is our job, and we have to come back after reporting the failure anyway—”
“I didn’t ask you to take me to the subjugation, I said I would go alone.”
Hearing those words, Iris finally twisted her expression. Claudia looked at me and asked if I was crazy. Erica’s expression was no different.
Rize approached me and gently grabbed my finger and tried to send it behind her. I put strength in my arms to mean that it was okay and endured it.
“newcomer. I know that you are very talented. I know that you have already proven your ability enough to us. However, this is practice, not practice. Like Rize in sparring, the enemy won’t look after her, and won’t hold her hand. If you do something wrong, you could lose your life.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not going to die anyway.”
“… … You don’t listen to me at all.”
Ha ha, Iris sighed.
“Any action that is carried out only with simple confidence will never be permitted. I fully understand where your confidence comes from. You’ve already surprised us time and time again. I also don’t doubt your ability itself. But that’s why I have no choice but to oppose it. If you leave with my permission and come back dead, or if you never come back at all… … Because I will never be able to forgive myself.”
It was a legitimate worry, a reasonable worry.
If I had been the leader of the knights, I would have been stopped if one day a newcomer full of talent came in and said he would go catch the monster that returned after failing to subjugate even the first knight commander of their own knights.
But that was it, and this was this. Even for me, there was a reason I could never postpone this subjugation.
You have to catch him so you can get a tool to use when you kill the lord later.
“Practice is different from theory. Enemies don’t move the way you think. It is the first enemy we encounter, and the correct answer is to approach it as carefully as possible. I can’t put you in a place like that. Again, I highly value your talent and future potential. I will not let such talented people crumble in vain, and I will not allow such talented people to die pointlessly. I won’t say it twice, newbie. refuse-”
“Captain Claudia Knights.”
“Uh, huh? me?”
When her name was called out of nowhere, Claudia, who was looking back at Iris and me while being supported by Erica, answered in surprise.
“yes. Can you help me with just one thing?”