A Small Twist – 2

‘The Emperor ordered him to monitor me. I can’t understand this situation.’

That was the very first thought that came to mind.

‘First of all, that guy is definitely an idiot.’

That was the next thought that came to mind.

I didn’t know what the Emperor wanted from me, or what he had ordered that guy to do, but I could easily be certain that it wasn’t meant to be a blatant order to monitor me like this.

Who would ever say, “I’m going to watch you from now on,” and then proceed to monitor someone? Unless the very purpose was to intimidate the target’s actions with such words.

But listening to what this guy was saying, it didn’t seem like his purpose was to intimidate my actions by uttering such words. In other words, this guy had seriously declared that he would monitor me.

‘Nothing has changed from the Game and/with.’

The Captain-nim of the Golden Twilight Knight Order was an NPC who was practically a gag character in the Game, with self-aggrandizement and flattery being his daily routine. On top of that, he had a terrible personality.

Of course, unlike the Lord of this city, who also had a terrible personality and caused a lot of trouble for others, this guy was merely living for his own self-satisfaction, so the situation was slightly different.

Just as in creative works, if there are usually two rival groups, one is incorruptible or good, becoming the protagonist’s helper, and the other is corrupt or relatively bad, constantly obstructing the protagonist, the two Knight Orders of the Imperial Palace were the same.

The Silver Dawn Knight Order could even become complete allies and join as comrades depending on the story progression and route selection. On the other hand, the Golden Twilight Knight Order had no such thing.

‘And their skill is even worse.’

All the Captain-nims of the Silver Dawn Knight Order were named bosses who even had their own OSTs for boss battles, and the regular knights absorbed into the Golden Twilight Knight Order were mobs with the special title of ‘Elite.’

Conversely, the knights of the Golden Twilight Knight Order were simply called ‘Imperial Knights.’ Moreover, the sole Captain-nim standing before me, even he was treated as a mid-boss, not a boss.

What the developer wanted to convey was obvious.

“Right now, who are you monitoring?”

“Hey, cut the crap and just explain it already, will you? I’m seriously starting to get pissed off now, you know? What are you doing to our rookie?”

Upon hearing that he would monitor me, Rije’s eyes turned cold, and Claudia, who had approached from behind, tightly gripped her shoulder. Claudia’s gaze was just as chilling as Rije’s.

The Golden Knight retorted irritably, showing no sign of flinching.

“I told you earlier. It’s the Emperor Your Majesty’s order. Starting today, for two weeks, I have received the order to monitor the new knight who joined your Silver Dawn Knight Order.”

“Rookie, did you do something wrong back then?”

“I can’t think of anything in particular?”

“But why would the Emperor Your Majesty…?”

“I don’t know either. That’s why I’m doing this now.”

The three of us looked at each other and exchanged words in bewildered voices.

It’s true.

I greeted the Emperor who arrived here, just as I used to do in the Game, and since I couldn’t not answer when the Emperor asked a question, I answered. As for the attack that came in the middle, I only blocked it because I would have died if I hadn’t.

After that, there was nothing particularly noteworthy. From the start, Aurora did all the sticking close to the Emperor; I just followed silently from behind.

The Emperor hadn’t even bothered to speak to me, who was quietly following along.

‘…Where did it go wrong?’

This situation was a first for me, and as the absurdity faded, a bit of worry began to rear its head. I had clearly thought that the main storyline followed the Game’s main story exactly.

Regardless of the intermediate processes, I eventually joined the Silver Dawn Knight Order, eventually subjugated the Headless Armored Cavalry, eventually dealt with the Lord using a demon, and eventually passed the meeting with the Emperor safely.

The details were quite different from the Game, but that was unavoidable since the mod changed appearances and personalities along with them.

But as a result, an event I had never seen before occurred.

The Emperor sending the Captain-nim of the Golden Twilight Knight Order to monitor the player was an unheard-of story. I hadn’t even heard of anyone else doing this.

I briefly wondered if it was a hidden event in the Game, but I quickly dismissed the thought.

Brdk 4 was a game that had already been data-mined by users; if such a hidden route existed, it would have been thoroughly uncovered and strategy guides would have been posted all over the community long ago.

‘Wait. Personalities change too?’

As that thought reached me, I felt like I might know the cause of this situation.

The gender and appearance of the NPCs changed, and naturally, their personalities changed along with them. It felt like it would be faster to count the characters who *didn’t* change than those who did.

Therefore, the reactions to the player’s actions would naturally have to change as well.

‘…Tsk.’

The thought that I hadn’t realized this simple fact until now left a bitter taste in my mouth.

If the Emperor’s personality had changed, just like the other characters? What if, instead of simply praising the player for defending their attack and moving on, the situation became one where they took an interest in me?

‘I need to think this over.’

It seemed I might have been thinking about it all wrong until now. This needed serious consideration.

“……”

I needed to, but I didn’t have time.

‘Ugh, this is terribly annoying, seriously.’

I shuddered internally as I listened to the footsteps of the Golden Knight, who was still trailing me a few meters away.

Rije, who had followed me to subjugate monsters and watched me, was a saint by comparison. No, I could even enjoy that level of attention. After all, it was a beautiful woman with large breasts looking at me with pleased eyes.

But that guy was different. Ever since he openly declared he would monitor me, he really watched me without missing a single moment.

Even when I was walking around inside the castle, eating in the dining hall, or going to subjugate monsters for leveling, I always saw that golden armor in a corner of my vision.

Thanks to him, I hadn’t even been able to properly raise my stats after beating up monsters. I couldn’t assign stats while that guy was watching, after all.

What was even more infuriating was that it was only the second day of monitoring. Just two days were enough to drive me crazy with annoyance, but having to endure this for two weeks made me feel faint.

Iris and Erica, who had returned a few days ago after finishing their city patrol, also looked bewildered when they heard the full story from us, but neither of them seemed to have any clever way to get rid of him.

Although he was a slippery character with an arrogant nose that touched the sky and terribly strong pride, he was still officially a Captain-nim serving the Emperor Your Majesty in the Imperial Palace.

That meant he was absolutely not the kind of person to falsely invoke the Emperor. If the Emperor had ordered him to monitor me, what could we possibly do to stop it?

However, even if there was no particular way, it seemed that I wasn’t the only one annoyed by that guy; the other Captain-nims felt the same way.

“Hey, rookie. Why is he acting like that?”

“I don’t know either. You can guess the mind of a smart person, but you can’t follow or guess the mind of an idiot.”

“That’s true. He definitely seems to have a low IQ.”

“I think he might have heard what you just said?”

“I meant for him to hear it. I’m dying of discomfort right now, you know?”

Rije and I whispered to each other, pausing our wooden sword sparring. That Golden Knight was meticulously jotting even that down in his notebook. Seeing that, Rije let out an “Ugh,” and expressed her disgust.

I briefly checked to see what the hell he was writing, and it was a notebook recording my actions.

I was so dumbfounded that when I asked why he was writing such things, he even wrote down the fact that I had asked him why he was writing such things. He wasn’t some historian from the Joseon Dynasty; why the hell was he writing that?

‘I’m so distracted I can’t think straight.’

I had a mountain of things to worry about right now, but that guy was stealing all my attention, making it impossible to concentrate. Rije and I sighed, “Ugh,” and then resumed our stances.

“So, this situation will continue for a while, right?”

“I think so. It’s a bit ambiguous since things don’t come with a warning, but we don’t have a set schedule for now. Unless something happens somewhere else, we’ll probably keep having nothing to do.”

We exchanged conversation while swinging our wooden swords. The clack, clack of wood hitting wood echoed rhythmically through the training ground.

In the end, the story itself seemed to be scheduled to progress once I reached level 20 and unlocked runes. Though I couldn’t be certain anymore.

As soon as I repelled all three of Rije’s consecutive attacks, my body suddenly felt heavy. I stepped back and straightened my posture. Combat fatigue slowly receded, and my senses returned.

‘I need to level up quickly to get rid of the debuff.’

A sigh escaped me as I thought about when I would ever reach level 20. This was the problem.

Unlike the Game, where mobs in an area would respawn perfectly fine after a rest at a base, now I had to wait a certain amount of time no matter what.

Once I cleared out all the surrounding monsters and leveled up, my schedule would be completely open until the respawn.

Little by little, the realization that where I was, although a world within a game, was truly not just a game, began to sink in.

“Pathetic.”

‘…Huh?’

As I was doing calculations in my head, thinking I could reach level 20 and unlock runes with just one or two more rounds, I heard a voice from somewhere, seemingly mocking us.

The source, of course, was the Golden Knight who was monitoring me.

“Hey, what did you just say?”

Rije reacted instantly, growling. The Golden Knight spoke again without batting an eye.

“I said pathetic. It’s a sparring match whose level is obvious just by looking at it.”

“If you came to monitor the rookie, shut your mouth and do your job. Just the fact that a guy like you is here is annoying me to death, so why are you picking a fight? Want to go a round?”

“And would you even win if we went a round?”

“You son of a- Mmph!”

I covered Rije’s mouth with my hand before the atmosphere could get any worse. Rije protested with her eyes, asking why I was doing this, but I put more force into my hand, smiled as pleasantly as possible, and opened my mouth.

“Captain-nim Rije has to match my level, so it can’t be helped. Right now, the only opponents I can spar with are the Captain-nims. Since we were both holding back, it’s only natural that you would think that.”

“Even if you have to match skill levels, it’s too trivial. How could you survive fighting monsters with that?”

I had already taken dozens of those monsters’ heads. And I was going to take thousands more in the future. I wondered what the hell he was spouting, not knowing his place, but I hid my true feelings and maintained my smile.

“I don’t think that’s something a Captain-nim should be saying?”

“What did you say?”

At my light provocation, the Golden Knight flared up and asked back. He was a guy with a terribly low ignition point.

Despite being nothing special, his pride was terribly strong, so for a rookie who had just joined the Knight Order to say such things to him must have been an unbearable insult.

Rije, seeing my smile, seemed to anticipate the situation that was about to unfold, and her struggles subsided.

“Isn’t that right? Anyone can give advice from the sidelines. Seeing you just blabbering without even stepping forward yourself, isn’t it because you lack confidence in your own skill? If you truly were skilled, you wouldn’t just talk, you would show it directly.”

That was the decisive blow. The Golden Knight uttered the cliché line, “How dare you say such things to me!” and stomped off to the other side of the training ground to find a wooden sword.

I released the hand covering Rije’s mouth. Rije briefly caressed her lips where my hand had been, then winked, telling me not to beat him up too much, just enough.

It was a smile that conveyed deep trust in me.

For the player to fight that guy here was a new event, but then again, his very presence at the Silver Dawn Knight Order was a situation that didn’t exist in the Game.

So, it wouldn’t matter if I gave him a proper beating.

‘He was the one who picked a fight first.’

He was a guy who had always gotten on my nerves in the Game anyway, so perhaps I could consider this getting revenge as well.

The scene in the training ground was quietly observed by a pair of eyes, unseen by anyone.