NOVEL WEB Chapter 6
Three days after escaping from prison, we arrived in front of the city gate of a certain city. It was the city where the order to which Iris belonged was located.
At first glance, this place didn’t look much different from what I remembered. The size and shape of the gate seemed pretty similar, and there were guards standing out front.
Except there were no carriages lined up waiting to enter, nor a long queue of differently dressed people.
The horse, which showed no signs of exhaustion despite having carried Iris and me for three days, confidently trotted past the line of people and carriages toward the guard.
“Welcome, Lady Iris!”
Upon seeing Iris, the guards immediately took a stance and spoke in sharp voices.
“Yes, tell the lord that the second commander of the Silver Dawn Knights has returned. Also let him know that I’ll be postponing my report for a little while. I have some tasks to attend to, so I’ll head back to the castle first.”
“Yes, understood!”
‘That lord hasn’t changed, I see.’
Watching Iris hesitating for a moment before adding the honorific “nim” after “lord,” I thought that. Even in the game, the lord of this city was a villain the player could kill without a second thought.
If I completed the lord-targeting quest a bit faster, wouldn’t Iris like me more? If I rushed it, I could take down one more boss and deal with that guy right away.
“But, who is the person sitting behind you…?”
Suspicion in the guards’ eyes turned toward me.
Thanks to Iris bringing me clothes, I was no longer just wearing a loincloth, but to the guards, it had to be strange that a person they didn’t know was riding alongside their knight commander.
“Nothing to worry about. I vouch for this person’s identity.”
“Understood. If you say so…”
Though he hesitated slightly, the guard stepped back willingly when Iris vouched for me. Iris didn’t even glance at the guards as she spurred the horse and entered the city.
As I compared the scenery on the street with my mental map of the city from Brightest Darkness 4, an odd feeling stirred within me.
‘That’s quite fascinating.’
There were elements that reflected omitted details from the game, while other aspects followed the same rules as reality.
For example, we would still starve if we didn’t eat. However, on the flip side, we didn’t need to use the restroom. No matter how much we consumed, those things weren’t expelled.
It seemed that the concept of excretion didn’t even exist in Iris’s mind.
In fact, since coming here, I hadn’t needed to visit the restroom even once, yet my body had shown no ill effects. It was quite peculiar.
Even though Brightest Darkness 4 omitted both hunger gauges and bodily functions, one acted like reality while the other followed game laws.
And one more thing.
‘Hmm… how should I put this? It’s like a treat for the eyes.’
Maybe due to the mod, the difference in appearance between men and women on the street was strikingly pronounced.
The men looked pretty average. Occasionally a guy would show up resembling an NPC from the game, and most looked like ordinary folks you’d see anywhere.
In contrast, the women had not a single blemish on their skin, and most were stunning enough that you could call anyone pretty, and the listener would agree.
If it were reality, Iris, with her looks that could turn heads on the streets, was only somewhat prettier than the regular beauties surrounding her.
‘Which is saying she’s incredibly pretty, by the way.’
The division by appearance was not just superficial. The clothing styles also differed remarkably by gender.
Men dressed in suitably medieval textiles suited for the game’s world, while all the women wore quite revealing modern garments.
There were short denim shorts with t-shirts, crop tops showing off bellies, miniskirts with high heels, and extraordinarily, some were just wearing a single dress shirt.
Moreover, men took it completely for granted that women would wander around in such outfits.
Even if a woman roamed the busy street in just a dress shirt, or stood around in leggings that left her underwear fully exposed, no one would cast inappropriate glances.
The women nonchalantly strolled around in practically nothing, making it a world that seemed to have undergone a shift in commonly accepted norms.
‘Well, it’s not like there’s any harm in it for me.’
With so many gorgeous women around, and a modern style of clothing that was light on the coverage, what could possibly be bad for me?
It only made me feel a stark contrast to the heartbreaking world of the original Brightest Darkness 4, which had no dreams or hope and was crumbling.
“This is it.”
How far into the city had we gone? Iris stopped the horse in front of an enormous castle. Tall castle walls surrounded it, and instead of gates, there was just a large opening.
“A castle?”
In the game, it was just a regular knight order building with a training ground.
“It’s an old castle. Originally, that guy… ahem, the lord lived here, but he handed it over to us and built himself a mansion to live in. So here we are.”
Though her tone hadn’t changed much, Iris now treated me much more casually than when we first met. I did the same.
There was no reason for either of us to hold any bad feelings toward one another.
Iris was an NPC who showed a strong trust in the player, so much so that it became a meme, and I wasn’t keen on being hostile toward her just for kicks.
Thus, the distance between us naturally narrowed over the three days we returned to the city from prison. That’s why I was speaking informally to Iris.
Even though she was the knight commander, given the circumstances of the order, there seemed no need for formality.
“You handed it over? What does that mean?”
“I’ll show you directly once you join our order. Experiencing it firsthand is much better than me explaining it here.”
That was genuinely something I didn’t know. In the original game, the Silver Dawn Knights’ lodging had been a standard training ground, and while the lord lived in a mansion, it didn’t feel like he had abandoned the castle.
‘As long as the story hasn’t changed, I’ll be okay.’
That was the worst-case scenario I could imagine.
After turning about halfway around the castle walls, Iris halted the horse. Right beside us was a slightly ajar wooden door. Inside, I could hear the clanging of horses. This seemed to be the stable.
“Wait here. I’ll be back shortly.”
“And you?”
“I’ll tie up the horse and come back. It won’t take long, so just wait.”
Nodding in response, I hopped down to the ground as Iris then led the horse through the open door. Once I confirmed she was completely inside the building, I let out a sigh of relief.
‘No way I want to experience that again, really.’
Riding wasn’t the hard part. Like in the game, where characters never complained no matter how long they rode, it felt the same for me. It was as if my body didn’t even feel weariness.
The issue was the posture.
Since Iris wouldn’t have brought two horses to the prison on her own, the only way for us to return together meant I had to ride behind her.
Yeah, behind a woman wearing just a sleeveless top and short dolphin shorts.
And since there was practically no good place to hold on to, she suggested I grab her waist or shoulders. There was indeed a risk of falling off while holding on awkwardly and bouncing around.
Given that wasn’t incorrect, I tightly hugged her soft, supple waist, leaving me pouring all my effort into stabilizing my lower body while riding.
Even if the mod had made such an outrageous outfit seem normal, it wasn’t that I didn’t understand what it meant for an upright stick to poke at my backside.
To make matters worse, it was embarrassingly large, so I sat awkwardly, trying to keep it from touching Iris.
Fortunately, once we entered the city, we began walking slowly, so I didn’t have to worry about gripping too tightly.
Seriously.
“What are you thinking so hard about?”
I jumped when I heard an unfamiliar female voice beside me. Looking up, startled, I was met with a blue-haired girl waving at me, dressed in a white sleeveless top and blue dolphin shorts.