Black Knight - Chapter 5 (Patreon)

Authors note: 2 New segments added to chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Sir Knight

Location: The Dungeon, Floor one

The dungeon is an interesting place. Upon descending down the grand staircase on the upper plaza, one finds themselves in an ornate cave-like system that looks like the ruins of an ancient people’s civilization. It’s as if they had been in the process of carving a great temple out of a naturally occurring cave system and then had just… never finished. It’s as if they had all just stopped their work in the middle of the project and vanished without a trace, leaving only monsters in their wake.

It’s massive; just floor one. There are dozens of rooms, tunnels, and chambers that are each unique in their own design, some being filled with more monsters than others and some odd puzzle mechanics that need to be solved — but this is difficult to do given the literal line of people that stands at the entrance to some rooms, waiting for their turn to ‘solve’ the puzzle that has been solved generations ago.

“That’s forty-three,” says an elf, pulling out a tooth from a dead goblin and handing it to her party-member.

“Fifty-seven left,” sighs the man, looking at the tooth and pocketing it.

Floor one contains very simple monsters, such as goblins, slimes, small plant and mushroom monsters with more bark than bite, and things of such a nature.

“Hey…” whispers someone. “It’s him again. Look…”

Sir Knight turns his head, walking through a crowd to look at a room off to the side. There is a large fountain in it where people are sitting around, eating pre-wrapped breakfast meals, and getting ready. A safe-room in which monsters can’t spawn. There’s allegedly one on every floor.

“- only need a few more Obols, then I can get that new staff!” says an excited priestess, looking at the person she’s partied up with, a brand new adventurer by the looks of it, given that he’s gotten a few scuffs from the goblins that she’s in the process of healing. “That’ll make it way easier for us!”

The dungeon, being a highly commercialized place, is very popular and, as such, full.

The easiest floors, starting with the first one, are packed. There are probably a thousand people in here with him right now.

However, as one goes deeper, this number starts to dwindle, barring a few strategically advantageous floors. Floor two, floor three, and so on all have fewer people — to an extent — than floor one. Floor seventy has far, far fewer people. There are maybe two or three parties fighting there on a good day, compared to the churning masses present here on the upper levels.

He walks past a crowd, stopping to stare at them in the distance. There are a good hundred people standing there in one large chamber, just staring at the blank space in the middle of it. They’ve nestled themselves in comfortably and seem to be waiting for something.

A short person with animal traits and dark-blond cat-ears turns around, sensing him standing there. “Boss is gonna spawn in a minute,” he explains. “You want to come into our party, big guy?” Amongst the humans, orcs, elves of all kinds, dwarves, fairies, and such also exist the vildt. They’re a pseudo-human species adorned with animalistic features.

This is a boss arena. Every hour, the boss of this floor, floor one, respawns. It’s a giant slime, easily the size of a house, escorted by a band of skeleton swordsmen, who appear to have been consumed by it, given the acid leaking out of their decayed armor.

“Forget it, Jasp,” says a fairy, flicking the Vildt boy’s cat ear with her finger, causing him to hiss at her. “That guy never joins anybody’s party,” she says, looking at him and then turning back to the fight that’s about to start. “Come on. Let’s get ready.”

— But that’s the nature of it. These floors are safe and easy. Everyone can harvest them. Whereas if you go deeper, the threat of really dying in a truly violent and horrifying way increases substantially. There are entire teams of adventuring parties dedicated to just ‘farming’ the easy floors, whereas other models of the trade devote themselves to pushing deeply into the dungeon, opting for a quality over quantity approach to making a living.

Sir Knight looks at the empty arena, at the hole that is present in the middle of a hundred and then some people — a void. He stares at it before then finding his sight locked on his empty hand.

There’s something he wants to test.

“Sure,” replies Sir Knight, stepping into the crowd.

The two of them stop, looking back at him in surprise, and stare blankly for a moment. It’s only been a few days, but he’s earned a bit of a reputation in the dungeon for being a kind of overpowered loner. Some groups have stopped asking him to join them at this point, but he still gets a lot of looks.

The boy’s cat ears perk up. “Really?!”

“But just for this one,” says Sir Knight, looking off into the distance. He can feel Acacia’s thoughts. He’ll probably have to get back soon.

That’s their greatest weakness at the moment.

He can’t be everywhere all at once.

__________________________________________

Someone blows a whistle, having been keeping track of the time.

The arena rumbles, everyone rising to their feet and getting ready. Fairy-lights fill the air, floating around like fireflies. The magical particulates, carrying a range of hues from soft blue to a glowing yellow, come together in the center of the room. They press themselves together, like flocks of snow being formed into a mass. It condenses, taking shape.

“Okay. You know the drill,” says the fairy. “We won’t need to be the focus, so just blast it,” she explains. “Same as always.” She looks up at Sir Knight. “You do whatever you do. Just don’t get in the way.”

The boy nods, lifting a small knife.

In terms of dungeoneering, someone who is ‘focused’ is the person who has a monster’s attention. In a boss fight with a few hundred people, this is vital, as that person will need the most healing and, ideally, power — so that they don’t get flattened right away. But in a fight of this scale, the group is full of dozens of people with shields and magical barriers who do nothing except fight this boss encounter all day, every day, for their money.

Generally, a monster will choose whom it focuses on based on several criteria. But there are also many abilities that can force a monster to focus on an individual, which is very useful in team-play situations when a caster — someone with very little health and stamina — has gotten some negative attention.

The thing in the center of the arena comes to life, the blinding light fading and leaving a heavy, dense mass in its place. A large, quivering pile of gloop — a giant slime — comes to life, easily the size of a house. Inside of its highly acidic mass are thousands of not-yet decayed bones and resilient metal that oozes out of itself like pus-coated splinters pressed out of a body, falling to the ground and rattling as fifty or so people, the boy included, begin running forward into the fight, eager to claim their ‘tags’ on the enemies — that is, to hit them at least once and become an official part of the battle, which means when the monsters die, they’ll be given a portion of the experience-points and a small satchel of loot that is generated by the dungeon.

If an enemy dies and you don’t get involved in the fight, even if you’re in the area, you won’t get anything from being there other than an interesting view.

The bones rattle, rising to their feet, pressing themselves into the suits of armor as the undead soldiers rise around the kingly slime, screeching with shrill undead cries, green slime falling out of their mouths as they rush to counter the encroaching adventurers and to keep them away from the actual boss, as if they were a royal guard and the slime their king.

There are many of them. There’s something to learn here.

One single entity, an individual, is not enough to protect a vital figure against numbers of this scale. Even if they were powerful, there just isn’t enough presence on the field that can be offered by a number that is greater than zero but less than any other higher one.

“Hey! Get in there!” barks a sharp, fairy voice at him from up close as he studies the fight. “No leaching!” Sir Knight looks at her narrowed eyes, her hands covered in glowing offensively based nature magic, and nods, moving forward and striding through the crowd.

“PHASE TWO! EARLY!” yells a voice from the masses as the knights all pull back together at once, forming a tight ring around the slime that they hold their backs to. They lift a series of shields to protect it from all sides from spells and arrows as it begins to condense itself into a pillar and then shakes, sending acidic slime flying all around the room, splashing against shields and barriers, causing caustic puddles of poison to form all over the arena. People scramble, trying to get away as the boss shifts to its next phase earlier than it usually would, catching some of them by surprise.

The vildt boy with the dagger falls, his legs getting caught on someone else’s staff in the crowd, and he lands down on the stones, scrambling away as the shadow of an acid globule falls down toward him.

People don’t usually die on floor one of the dungeon these days, even in a boss-fight. There are just too many people everywhere, priests and healers included, for it to really happen. But it does happen now and then, and, even if they don’t die, people do sometimes get hurt. They lose fingers, eyes, and limbs, break bones, and get new scars all the time.

Adventuring life is dangerous, even along the easy paths. One can make life more comfortable, but the truth is that the total sum of risk is always greater than zero.

He covers his head and yelps.

— The colors in the room shift, the air wavering as if it were cooking in the heat of a raging summer’s day, yet its color fading as if it were within the heart of the grayest, dullest winter.

Sir Knight thinks, making use of Acacia’s memory from her time at the magical academy. Magic is always present within a space, whether there are living things present somewhere or not. Magic is there just the same as there might be air or humidity. This ever-present magic is called ‘ambient magic’, and it is just a given of the world like temperature or the rising and falling of the sun. Ambient magic is especially strong within dungeons, which is what allows them to manifest monsters like they do.

Furthermore, every living being, whether human or beast, emanates ambient magic out of itself, just like body heat.

The boy down at Sir Knight’s feet doesn’t scream anymore, despite his mouth being open and having emitted a tone a moment ago. The sound is consumed. The air wavers, yet sits completely still otherwise. The globule of slime that is about to fall hangs there, suspended for only a second, as nothing moves within an immediate radius of the presence that he himself has become, his long cape billowing unnaturally in this bubble he stands in the center of, flowing to the side as if it were underwater.

[Sir Knight] has used: [Total Entropy]

[Total Entropy]

Rapidly expands a pulse of VOID out from within your body.

Within six meters of yourself, causes all ambient magic and the rules of physicality governed by it to decay to a state of total nothingness for several seconds.

Standing within the void, the bubble outside of it looks distorted and misshapen, as if one were looking from the other end of a foggy mirror that couldn’t be crossed back into normality, no matter how hard one hits against the glass.

The boy turns over onto his back, crawling backward as Sir Knight pulls the hilt of the great sword free from its rest, the moonlight blade manifesting inch by inch as it draws free — forming from total nothingness. The bubble around them shrinks, absorbing back into him, into the blade, as if the total nothingness were paradoxically consuming itself to form itself anew.

— The skeleton formation turns his way, holding their shields up, the slime towering down toward the last person approaching.

“What- what-” starts the boy, crawling away and holding his throat that now makes sound again as the magic fades, the slime-projectile flopping down to the ground between them, having lost its momentum as if all of the energy behind it had been taken, leaving it fully devoid. His confused words mix in with the intermingling conversations of the crowd around the arena.

“P-PHASE ONE!” calls a voice from the surrounding crowd as the slime returns to its prior state, the skeletons moving out to return to formation, but now all moving Sir Knight’s way as the crowd around them seems hesitant to return to the fight for some reason.

A dozen armored skeletons shriek as he holds the hollow greatsword up into the air.

“- What are you doing?” asks the boy.

Sir Knight responds, bringing an end to their interaction as he swings his weapon a single time more than zero, the ethereal blade almost seeming to stretch outwardly as it makes its forward arc, cutting unnaturally far to reach several bodies at once like a closing crescent, moving through them like a ray of vivid light through thin leaves.

“- Something,” is all that he replies with, as a dozen empty suits of armor rattle to the ground, their contents missing, as if they had never been there to begin with. His cloak swipes over the empty pieces of armor as he presses toward the boss, which is woefully defenseless against the encroaching nothingness.

He can make use of these pieces of armor for his idea.

(Sir Knight) has looted:

• {Broken}[Ancient Iron Cuirass] x 12
• {Broken} [Ancient Iron Helm] x 12
• {Broken}[Ancient Iron Boots] x 12
• [Miscellaneous Trinkets] x 01
• [Obols] x 103

__________________________________________

CHAPTER 5

~ [Somewhere, sometime in the distant past] ~

A contract has been made.

Small, bare feet patter across the hard, stone floors of the palace. The sleek marble slates that the girl quietly runs over reflect soft moonlight in all directions as she sneaks through the palace, her hands holding her sleeping-gown up so as to stop herself from tripping as she goes.

Quietly, the girl leans back against a corner, staring out to see if anyone is around.

There is nobody there in the long corridor. It’s as quiet and empty as one would expect it to be in the middle of the night. The royal guards are elsewhere on their routes.

She hurries, stepping over the precipice and onto the short, burgundy carpeting of the back-room hallway, running past many closed doors toward a silhouette that stands in the middle of the corridor within a mostly neglected wing of the castle — an empty suit of armor on display.

The girl looks up at it, stopping her escapade for its sake.

The armor is old, far older than anything else in the castle, according to her father. Far older than any of them for sure. It’s so old, in fact, that he said even his own grandfather didn’t know where it had come from. It was just… there one day, as far as he could tell.

But that isn’t unusual in a house of royalty. After all, money buys things, and the more money and the bigger a house you have, the more things you need to fill it with. Most of these purchases are handled by stewards. This armor is likely the same, being some relic from a distant kingdom that managed to survive and find its way to their house.

She turns her head, looking around herself for a moment, before looking back up at the hollow armor. Lowering herself in a small curtsy, she bows down as one would do with an adult of higher stature.

“Herr Ritter, I’ve returned!” says the young girl, playfully looking at it.

— The forgotten armor does not respond.

It would be very strange if it did, after all.

She beams.

Technically, she should be in bed right now. She’ll be harshly scolded if she’s caught. But she had to come back for a good reason. She and the armor have a bargain after all. “If I may -” she starts, reaching for it and fumbling with the straps of his breastplate, opening it to the side to reveal the wooden frame inside and, most importantly, the goods she had stashed there during her escape last night.

The girl smiles, pulling out the somewhat stale cakes she had taken from the kitchen, which are safe and sound, right where she left them. She had almost gotten caught with them, so she stashed it all away here and asked the suit of armor, whom she has dubbed as ‘Herr Ritter’, to look out for her.

They established a contract.

Sort of.

In reality, it was just her words, echoing through the darkness as she spoke to the lifeless suit of armor, offering it this and that if it would be so good and kind as to protect her ill-gotten treasures for the night.

— Footsteps come from the distance.

She looks. The guards are coming, and then quickly stares back up at the armor. “I’ll see you tomorrow!” says the girl excitedly, although it makes little to no sense in a logical context. Their ‘bargain’ is fulfilled, at least on his part.

However, logic isn’t meant to be the tool used here. She’s a child playing secret games alone in the middle of the night. Her imagination is what brings the armor to life as her protector; its ancient mystique and the stories her grandfather had told her about it add a layer of truth to it.

Now, she is still obligated, if only by the wiles of her own overactive imagination, to repay her part of the deal.

Holding her stolen cakes, the girl runs away down the corridor, back from whence she came.

_____________________________

Sir Knight

The adventurers’ guild

The crowd stands around him in a circle, dozens of people pushing past one another to get to the front.

Sir Knight, sitting down at a table on a chair that is going above and beyond all hopes for its meager frame, turns his head to look at them. A few seconds later, he turns his head the other way, examining the curious and excited faces.

Slowly, he lifts his hand, holding a tiny, delicate plate that is very out of place in its grip. “…This isn’t such a big deal…” he explains, his voice drowning out in the excited chatter that comes from all sides.

“Try it!” says an excited dark-elf, looking at him.

“Wait! Forget that!” calls someone else from next to her. The priestess, looking oddly smug, leans over and takes the plate from his hands as she maintains a cold stare with the dark-elf. “Try this instead,” she says, shaking a small glass bottle his way. She covers her mouth with her hand to whisper. “I brewed it myself,” she says, winking and setting the bottle down into his still open palm that is now missing the cake.

— A tankard donks against the priestess’ head, and she flops over as the crowd devolves into a fight again as everyone tries to get his attention and make an impression.

It seems that his participation in the boss-fight in the dungeon yesterday made quite an impression on… well, literally everyone. While it’s true that he made quite a statement about his presence during the attack on the city when he first arrived here, that was only seen by a few people, and the rest of his reputation came from word of mouth. However, now, some odd hundred and then some adventurers saw him absolutely decimate an entire boss by himself, he’s become somewhat…

A man stands behind him, leaning over. “Hey champ, I bet that armor’s heavy. Need someone to carry your stuff for y-?”

— Popular.

The man is cut-off, his question interrupted as the priestess from a second ago jumps up, holding the sore spot on her head for a second before she tackles him, the two of them falling to the floor as a fight breaks out between them and then, for some reason, between everyone else too.

Sir Knight sits there at the table as the world around him devolves into anarchy. He sets the small flask down, and slides back the plate of homemade cake toward himself.

It’s a dark dough, with a layer of heavy cream in the middle and also on top. The exterior is sprinkled with flakes of some sweet confectionery. For sure, it’s home-made and not from a bakery, given the way it looks.

He doesn’t need to eat.

During the bread experiment with Acacia, he discovered that in this body he can eat if he so chooses to. But it’s an odd experience, to say the least. Inside the armor, his body is a shadow, a void. The bread was just absorbed into him entirely, and he did taste it, yes. But he didn’t just taste it in his mouth. Rather, he took note of it all through the entirety of his form at once.

Very strange.

“…Uh…” says the person sitting across from him as Sir Knight picks up the plate and the cake, putting them both into his cloak. Acacia can have it. She hasn’t had real sweets in a while, and she could use some calories. “Okay.”

“Too noisy here to enjoy,” says Sir Knight, looking at the man sitting across from him — a city official who was notified by the adventurers’ guild about a suspicious person. Apparently, he works for the census.

And also apparently, he himself is a suspicious person.

“…Right…” replies the somewhat spindly man, straightening himself upright and folding his hands together. “So, let me get this clear,” asks the official. “Your name is… ‘Sir Knight’?” asks the man.

“It is,” replies Sir Knight.

“- As in, you were given that name at birth?” confirms the bureaucrat in a very sarcastic tone, raising an eyebrow.

Sir Knight nods. It’s technically true. “Would you like to see my menu again?” he offers, lifting a hand.

Palms slam against the table as the lanky human jumps to his feet with a very stressed expression. “- NO!” he shouts, quickly shutting down the offer.

Sir Knight had opened the menu a moment ago, when he sat down with the official to discuss the fact that he is alive and undocumented in this city, having appeared quite literally at the same time as the enemy forces struck. There is clearly the implication that he’s some sort of spy of some sort. However, upon opening his main status window, showing his name and his impossible current ‘level’, which is only defined by the character ‘X’ rather than a number that ranges from one to one-hundred, the crowd became even more interested than before.

— A knife flies through the air, and the man ducks down, covering his head just in time as it strikes into the wall behind him. The fight rages.

The man sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose, before looking back his way as Sir Knight takes the flask of whatever was given to him by that priestess, who is currently in a biting fight with two elves, and slowly reaches into his cloak, stowing it away inside of his storage in the void of the fabric.

“My name is Sir Knight,” he recites dryly, as is whispered to him. “I am but a servant to my lady, Miss. Acacia Odofreudus Krone,” says Sir Knight. “Any questions regarding my pedigree should be directed to her in written form,” he repeats. “- As said before.”

“Sir Knight!” says an excited voice, cutting through the crowd. He turns his head, looking at some adventurers he’s seen before but never talked to. “Can you help us in the dungeon today? Please?!” asks a fairy, holding his hands together to beg.

He yelps a second later, flying higher into the air as someone tries to snatch him out of it, as a dozen other voices come to ask for his attention instead.

Sir Knight looks at the inspector. “I would, but I think I’m about to be arrested,” he says.

— The room falls quiet, the three dozen people all stopping their fight in an instant, several red and bruising faces turning their way toward the table and, more importantly, toward the inspector.

The lanky man, feeling very nervous given the glares coming his way, clears his throat and pulls out a piece of paperwork from his bag, sliding it across the table. “I think we’re good here,” he says. “We’ll remain in contact via written word,” says the man, getting up and doing his best to keep the sweat over his face from ruining his composed, calm expression. “Don’t leave the city.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” replies Sir Knight.

— The man from the city quietly shuffles away, keeping his back to the wall as he makes his way out of the guild.

As for everyone else, the zest is out of the fight now, and they all more or less let one another go, rising back up to their feet and returning to their lives. ‘Passionate’ debates aren’t unusual for an adventurers’ guild, and especially not for regulars.

Sir Knight rises to his feet, walking to the door.

There’s a problem, though — one that’s bigger than his legal documentation.

________________________________

It is still the middle of the night.

Sir Knight stands in the darkness, looking around for a moment. After seeing that everything is clear, he holds his arm out, holding up his cloak. “It’s clear,” he says.

“Really?” whispers a voice.

“Yes,” replies Sir Knight, looking down toward the side of his chest as Acacia’s red face slowly pops out of his cloak, a small smear of cream still left below her mouth.

“…I didn’t…” she mutters and blinks slowly. “- You did good,” says Acacia, saying something else now and stepping out of his cloak, which she had been hiding inside of this entire time, wobbling as she holds her head for a second, as if she were unbalanced.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

She looks up toward him, reaching out with both of her hands. Her palms slap against his chestplate, resting on the cold metal for a while. Her eyes fixate on him. “I don’t feel so good…” explains Acacia. She does her best to compose herself. “You were perfect,” explains the once princess of the nation, who may or may not be inebriated given that it looks and smells like she drank the homemade hooch the priestess had given him.

Why exactly she did this isn’t unclear — Only unwise.

This happenstance of the city government taking notice of him was expected. It was not only so because of his presence during the attack on the city or because of his newfound fame with the low-level adventurer, but because of his connection to Acacia, who is making a splash with the local merchants of this district. Acacia, having been schooled in the fundamentals of city governance, knew it was only a matter of time until some curious bureaucrat sniffed their way and started asking questions.

So when the time came, rather abruptly, she hid in his cloak and has been whispering to him the entire time, telling him what he should say. Although, this voice came at greatly varying levels of offense, tone, and formality depending on who was talking to him and what exactly they were asking him for.

— Adventurers can be, as their title implies, very adventurous, and she may have taken some level of offense to the offers being made in her perceived absence.

“Sorry,” says Sir Knight, looking at her as she stares down at the ground between his feet at the girl, who, despite her connection to him, may have actually been treated worse now in their words than before.

This is the problem at hand.

The adventurers love him already. At this rate, he’ll be their king in a week. However, Acacia remains only a side-note to them, and how could she not be? She’s never done anything for them. So there’s a dilemma here, as the story of the weak, useless girl who flunked out of the magical academy begins to intermingle with the new tale they’re weaving together — the one that depicts her as someone of importance.

She shakes her head. “It’s not your fault,” replies Acacia, standing there. She lets her palms drop from his armor, straightening herself up as she seems to be able to stand by herself now after a moment of reorientation. “I think I got jealous,” she admits, rubbing her arm as she turns to look at something nearby, that is clearly very interesting. “— It’s hard to hear all that.”

Sir Knight looks at her as she stands there, having made her first unsuccessful attempt at drinking away her troubles behind her now — like a true adventurer. It’s not so much that she’s jealous of the things people are saying to him. They’re not that closely connected to one another. It’s more so the fact that people are simply saying such nice, brazen, and wanting things to him — someone who is ‘new’ to being alive. Whereas she, with all of her life experience, is an outcast.

It feels unfair to her. Whether that is justified or not can’t be said, but it is what she feels.

“Hey,” he says, reaching out and placing a hand on her shoulder, breaking the contact-barrier between them. She turns her head, looking back at him, her posture loosening a little. “They all don’t know who you are yet,” he explains. “When you’re on your throne, nobody will spare a glance my way, Your Majesty.”

It’s quiet as her expression changes, her red face deepening and moving its somber expression toward one that is lighter and more aglow. “…Sir Knight…” says Acacia, looking at him. She looks away.

“Just how much of that flask did you drink?” he asks, reaching into his cloak and pulling out the little vial.

“A bit,” replies Acacia, steadying herself, crossing her arms, and lifting her nose. “It’s nothing that I, Lady Ac-” Her throat cracks as she holds down a sudden noise. “- Lady Acacia Odofredus Krone, heir to this nation can’t -” She covers her mouth. “- can’t -”

“- Are you gonna throw up?” he asks, looking at the flask that is entirely empty. She chugged it. It’s likely just hitting her now and given that she has literally never really drank alcohol before, other than a sip from a tankard of beer while she was trying to act interesting back in during her time in the magic academy.

{Homebrewed}(High-Quality)[Slime Liquor]

A 200mL flask that once contained Slime Liquor, a spirit made from a mixture of slime-droplets and roots from the dungeon.

It is now mostly empty.

Strength: 72%

Effect: Causes inebriation

She shakes her head.

But the question answers itself a second later as she runs away to the next corner, purging herself appropriately out of sight of the common rabble, as one would expect of a woman of her title.

_____________________________________

“— I wanted to prove that I was tough too,” says Acacia, a hand slapping against his face from the front. She gasps for air, as if she realized she had forgotten to breathe; her inhalation sharply increasing the tone of the end of her statement.

Sir Knight walks, holding her in his arms as her palm slides down the front of his face. “I know,” he replies as he carries her toward home, but not directly. Acacia folds her arms over herself, donking her head against his armor.

“Put me d- down,” she says. “I can walk.”

“I know,” replies Sir Knight, not doing that, because she already tried walking twice and it didn’t work.

Acacia sighs, her cheek squishing against his armor. “It’s warm,” she complains, sagging in his grip as if she were melting. She exhales a long breath through her pursed lips, fanning herself with a hand as she pulls on the fabric of her dress.

“I know,” he says, looking out ahead of himself through the cool night air as they arrive back at the alley near the adventurers’ guild. “I think it’s time,” he says, looking down at her. Acacia’s face, painted with a smug smile, looks up at him and he can already sense what it’s about to say, as if it had happened before…

He turns, already continuing to walk another lap instead of bringing her to bed.

“Sir Knnn~ight!” starts Acacia. “I order you to take me for another stroll around the ccc~ity!”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” says the avatar of total entropy as it walks on its fourth lap through the park, carrying in its arms a total lightweight who is very likely going to regret her choices come tomorrow morning.

She laughs with a smug ‘noble’s laugh’, covering her mouth; the realization that she has power over him is apparently very entertaining in her current state.

— But by the time the lap is done, her face, as red as it is, lays gracelessly smudged against his armor as he walks down the staircase into the small room below the adventurers’ guild, looking at her as he sets her down.

Maybe there’s a miscalculation in this plan of his.

He’s been hoping to make her stronger and more notable by pushing her into a pattern of self-improvement, and for sure, there is definitely something to that when it comes to self-confidence, if nothing else.

But that isn’t the whole cure, is it?

— Acacia rolls onto her side, grabbing the thin blanket and balling it up against herself to hold as he starts to dissipate into smoke, which drifts downward slowly toward the floors.

In his old life, he tried the same thing. He made a pattern of routines and discipline that he followed day in and day out so that his feelings could move past a state of total zero — but they never really did, did they?

Sure, he felt better in a way in that old life, but not better in a way he wanted to feel better in.

Sir Knight condenses back together, drifting into a glass flask beneath the bed.

The only reason he had escaped that old life was because something intervened from the outside.

Maybe that’s the trick to some issues of this nature.

Maybe they can’t be solved by anyone just by themselves.

— Someone starts quietly crying up above the bed.

Maybe a person who is totally isolated, alone, and suffering in quiet desperation needs someone else to help pull them free from the blackwater because its depths are too deep, murky, and thick to swim out of under one’s own power alone.

He had been trying to apply his very own failed previous life’s strategy to her, thinking that it might work now even if it hadn’t before for him.

Tomorrow, he’ll have to do something different.

He’s going to take her to the dungeon after all.