“Claudia! What the hell is going on……!”

Iris’s urgent voice echoed from outside. All members of the Silver Dawn Knights were gathered at the castle main gate.

Well, when I say all members, it’s just the five of us: me, Iris, Lize, Erica, and Claudia, who just returned.

“As you can see, we failed the subjugation.”

Before my eyes, the strongest knight commander of the Silver Dawn Knights, who was supposed to be ranked first, was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was just a woman with a bitter smile, heavily injured.

Her body was wrapped in bandages soaked and overflowing with blood, dried and clinging onto her skin. It was harder to find any part of her body not covered.

Walking with a limp on her left leg, she looked utterly powerless. She leaned awkwardly against the wall.

‘I was sure she was a woman, but……’

Claudia’s appearance was nothing like what I imagined.

Her hair seemed to match the words light pink or cherry blossom, and her bob cut, neatly styled, extended just shy of her collarbone.

Beneath her straight-across bangs, her light pink eyes twinkled. She had a face that leaned towards an androgynous impression.

You could definitely sense feminine curves around her hips or waist, but overall, she had a much stronger vibe of an androgynous man rather than a woman.

Adding to that, her monstrous height made it even more pronounced. I thought I was relatively tall, but she was only a finger’s length shorter.

If she just dressed like a man, you wouldn’t easily mistake her for a beautiful woman; she could be mistaken for a pretty boy without any doubts.

I should consider it fortunate that her chest curves could still be seen even through the bandages.

‘If she had just dressed properly, I might have mistaken her for a man.’

At least she was wearing dolphin shorts like the other knight commanders, so there was no way anyone would confuse her gender.

On the floor, a greatsword, matching Claudia’s height and of immense width, lay before her. Just from a glance, it looked to weigh over 20 kg.

Honestly, it looked more like a blunt weapon than a sword.

“So, you failed the subjugation?”

“Haha. It happened. I went out all flashy, but look where it got me?”

Claudia sheepishly waved her bandaged right hand, but when she got scolded by Erica for her antics while re-wrapping her bandages, she shrank back.

“You came back alive, so that’s enough. Not losing your life is more than enough. The fact that we failed the subjugation is less important than the fact that you returned alive.”

“Claudia, was that monster that strong? Were you really unable to take it down?”

Claudia shook her head at Lize’s question.

“No. I never even got close to it. If I had gotten caught by that guy, I wouldn’t feel so frustrated.”

“What do you mean by that, Claudia? You didn’t get close at all?”

Her silver eyes widened in shock.

“I ran into another monster on the way to that one. A monster that wore steel armor and a knight that seemed to be wielding a spear with its head cut off… Actually, I’m not even sure if it was a monster. Anyway, I got taken down by it. No matter how much I hit it, none of my attacks worked. Even with a weapon like this.”

Claudia tapped her greatsword with her toes.

Hearing that she had struck with a weapon the size of a human torso, as tall as a person, and with a thickness of two fingers without any effect, the expressions of the other three except for me froze in place.

‘Well, that’s obvious.’

From the start, that guy wasn’t a boss that you could just beat down head-on; he was the kind of opponent you had to use certain items to strip his armor away, then take him down.

If the armor wasn’t stripped, even a character with all stats at 99 swinging a fully-enhanced weapon with full buffs would only inflict about 10 damage!

Occasionally, some humans would challenge their limits and attempt to clear it without stripping the armor, but most ended up merely testing how far their patience could go.

“……I see. Understood.”

Iris nodded while biting her lips, and Claudia looked embarrassed.

‘Should I go now?’

The conversation just now signaled the end of the event. Although a quest notification to defeat that monster didn’t pop up, it wouldn’t matter since quest notifications hadn’t popped up in the game either.

Brightest Darkness 4 was a game where players had to infer every quest through dialogue or exploration, and had to memorize everything.

What if you forgot or overlooked that? The storyline would get tangled, and you wouldn’t be able to progress the way you wanted—or worse, you might proceed into a storyline completely opposite to what you wanted.

It was a style that split opinions greatly. Some people liked it because there were no unnecessary quest notifications like other open-world RPGs, while others hated it for being too inconvenient and unfriendly.

How bad did it have to be for a mod to come out that neatly organized the main story and ongoing side quests into a notification format like in other RPGs?

Of course, that didn’t apply to me. I might not memorize every single side quest, but I had the main story and major side quests firmly in my mind.

“Wait. Where are you going, newbie?”

As I casually tried to step outside the castle, Iris called out to halt me. My mind froze, caught in a situation I had never experienced in the game.

‘……Thinking about it, this isn’t going to play out like the game.’

Even if I followed this route in the game, it felt like I was just associated with the Silver Dawn Knights, gaining nothing from it.

The protagonist was off doing their own thing while the knight order’s story progressed.

But right now, I was clearly a newbie knight under the Silver Dawn Knights. And one expected to carry the weight of their hopes. Naturally, every one of my actions would attract attention.

From Iris’s perspective, it made sense to stop me from leaving alone.

‘That was a mistake.’

I clicked my tongue internally. Now that it had come to this, hiding it wouldn’t benefit me, so I might as well just say it outright. I opened my mouth with the calmest expression I could muster.

“To catch that guy on the horse.”

With my single statement, a chilling silence enveloped the group.

Lize and Erica froze solid, Claudia looked at me in disbelief, and Iris frowned for a rare moment before shaking her head, trying to comprehend what I just said.

“No, there’s no need to involve a newbie like you in the subjugation. This is our responsibility, and after reporting the failure we’ll have to—”

“I’m not asking to be taken along for the subjugation. I’m saying I’m going alone.”

Hearing that, Iris’s expression twisted. Claudia shot me a look that screamed “are you insane?” and Erica looked equally incredulous.

Lize approached me and gently grasped my fingers, trying to pull me back. I resisted, signaling that I was okay.

“Newbie, I know you’re talented. I’m aware you’ve already proven your abilities to us. But this isn’t training; it’s real combat. The enemies won’t go easy on you like Lize did during sparring, nor will they hold back. If you make a single mistake, you could lose your life.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m not going to die anyway.”

“……You’re not listening to me at all.”

Sighing, Iris exhaled heavily.

“If your actions stem from mere confidence, there’s no way I can allow it. I fully understand where your self-confidence comes from. You’ve surprised us time and again. I don’t doubt your talent at all. But that’s precisely why I must oppose you. If you leave with my permission and come back dead, or worse, don’t return at all… I could never forgive myself.”

It was a valid concern, a reasonable worry.

If I were a knight commander and a talented newbie suddenly insisted on chasing the very monster that had just downed our first knight commander, I would have tried to stop him.

Yet that was one thing, and this was another. I had my reasons that made it absolutely impossible for me to postpone this subjugation.

Catching that guy was essential for obtaining the tools I would need to kill the lord later.

“Real combat is different from theory. Enemies won’t move as you wish. This is a new foe for us, and the right approach is to be as cautious as possible. I can’t let you walk into such danger. Again, I think highly of your talent and potential. I won’t allow such a gem to be wasted or die for no reason. I won’t say it twice, newbie. Refusal—”

“Commander Claudia.”

“Huh? Me?”

Startled by suddenly being called by her name, Claudia, who was exchanging glances between Erica and me, replied wide-eyed as Erica supported her.

“Yes. Could you help me with just one thing?”