Dragon Knight

A pitch-black space without a single glimmer of light.

A gloomy voice sounded within it.

[If this has activated, someone must have received my power.]

My power?

"Are you, by any chance, the Death Lord himself?"

[There is no point asking questions. This is merely a recorded voice. Just listen.]

The answer came immediately.

I realized something. Whatever was about to happen would begin once these lines finished playing.

This was my prep time!

"Rise, my lackeys."

[Using Summon Skeleton!]

RATTLE.

CLACK!

Skeletons rose from the ground in droves. Thanks to my equipped items, an enormous number emerged.

Well over three hundred skeletons!

[Opening spatial ring (Intermediate)!]

Equipment piled up like a mountain before the skeletons. Alongside the cost-effective Black Heart sets lay all sorts of other gear.

Swords, spears, halberds, maces, and more.

Vicious weapons that looked capable of doing serious damage with even a careless swing.

"Get dressed! Grab a weapon each! We don't have time! Hurry!"

I barked orders as I gulped down a mana potion. This was my only chance to equip the skeletons.

All the while, the voice continued playing.

[I pursued revenge. I dyed the continent in death. I thought I had achieved my purpose.]

RATTLE!

CLACK!

Helmets, armor, pants, gloves, and boots.

The skeletons busily donned the five-piece, ink-black sets.

"Put on the spare gear too, not just the sets! If you can't figure it out, at least throw on some spare armor!"

I only had about two hundred Black Heart sets. The rest would have to make do with individual pieces.

[But at some point, I came to realize the truth. I was nothing more than... one of the puppets on the stage...]

"So you were a scrub."

[Even with my power, I could not oppose them. Thus, I chose to prepare for another day.]

Seriously, not even a reaction to that?

The lines kept flowing without the slightest hesitation. It really did seem to be a recording.

'Was he being used or something?'

Someone who had dyed an entire continent in death clearly couldn't have been a pushover.

Who could have been so powerful that a necromancer like that couldn't stand against them?

'Could it be an Outer God?'

As a god from outside, influencing another world probably wouldn't be difficult.

Well, that wasn't important right now.

Just look at this.

I'd looked away for a moment, and one idiot was holding two heavy shields with its arms dangling.

"You little shit! Just take one shield!"

I rapped its skull, snatched away a shield, and put a sword in its hand.

[Now, I shall test your worth.]

[Survive and prove yourself, and you shall gain my authority.]

[But should you fail...]

[You will be trapped in eternity alongside me. Even a peaceful death will be a luxury beyond your reach.]

You sure know how to make things sound terrifying.

"Yeah, well. They're already fully equipped."

That should have boosted my fighting strength at least fivefold.

Whatever you were, just come on out.

[The first arrangement has begun...]

The scenery changed once again.

Everything blurred.

[Entering the Eternal Battlefield – Battle of Hreulunif!]

[You have entered an ancient battlefield!]

[You have acquired the title, 'Just How Far Will You Go?'!]

* * *

Kim Minwoo found himself standing atop an enormous fortress wall.

A profound silence filled the place, as though time itself had stopped.

'Huh?'

He looked around the entirely gray world. Fortunately, the skeletons he'd just equipped stood neatly beside him on the wall.

The strange thing was...

'Those aren't skeletons I summoned.'

Endless ranks of skeletons he hadn't summoned stood there too.

Skeleton mages. Skeleton warriors. Skeleton archers, and more.

Nor were they the only undead present.

Dullahans, liches, specters, death knights, and even...

'A bone dragon?'

Below the wall stood an enormous dragon made of bone.

This was, quite literally, a fortress of the undead.

[This is a battlefield of the past, created from the regrets of 'Dragon Knight Cedric.']

[The player is inhabiting a 'virtual body.' Skills, stats, and possessions remain unchanged.]

[However, you cannot gain experience points.]

[The player is joining the battle.]

[Time resumes.]

Color washed over the gray stage, and flames began igniting in the undead's eyes, one after another.

Then...

A voice flowed into his mind.

"Are you the one the Lord has prepared for?"

His head turned toward it instinctively.

Atop the bone dragon sat an enormous golden skeletal knight.

'What kind of monster is that...?'

The knight's body was composed of golden bones, blue flames blazing in his eyes.

The pressure he exuded was suffocating. He made a death knight look like child's play.

"... Would you happen to be Mr. Cedric?"

The golden skeletal knight nodded.

"... Clueless necromancer. I expect little of you. Simply try to survive. If you can."

[Commander-in-Chief Cedric has granted you authority!]

[You may command the undead troops in Sector 16 of the fortress wall!]

[Undead currently available for command: Death Knight 1, Lich 1, Dullahan 5, Specter 5, Skeleton 500]

[You have acquired the title, 'Baby Commander'!]

Immediately afterward...

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

"Orc! Orc! Orc!"

A tremendous roar rose from ahead.

On the plain before the fortress wall stood more orcs than the eye could count.

Clad in pitch-black armor, they pounded their weapons rhythmically against the ground, whipping themselves into a battle frenzy!

But they weren't the only problem.

'This is fucking insane...'

That was no mere bone dragon.

A real dragon, so enormous he could make it out even from this distance, flapped its wings. Around it stood wyverns, hydras, cyclopes, kodos, death witches, and more.

Every one of those top-tier monsters was enough to make his flesh crawl.

'Wow. This is fucking brutal.'

The problems were obvious at a glance.

Even with the advantage of the walls, they were overwhelmingly outnumbered. Did they at least have an edge in quality?

No.

A living dragon was generally far stronger than a bone dragon. They did have high-ranking undead like death knights and liches, but those were few and far between.

From the lowest ranks to the highest, they were badly outmatched in both quality and quantity.

'Nowhere to run, either?'

Ahead, orcs swarmed in droves.

And behind?

A dizzyingly sheer cliff.

'This fortress is built to put our backs against the wall.'

Surely he wasn't supposed to clear this by falling off the cliff and stumbling upon some miraculous opportunity...

'So I have to fight for now.'

His first thought was a time limit.

Perhaps surviving for a certain amount of time would earn him approval from Cedric—or whatever his name was—and end the battlefield.

Or perhaps reinforcements would arrive.

'Cedric does look strong, of course...'

But there was one problem.

"Orc! Orc!"

An enormous orc hero stood amid the orc royal guards.

That was no ordinary orc. He looked seriously powerful even at a glance, his chilling aura completely dominating the surrounding area.

Didn't he seem far stronger than that dragon...?

Could they really hold out?

'Let's think. A straightforward approach would be murderously difficult.'

All it took to get summoned here was reaching the stat cap of fifty and learning a single summoning skill.

How strong could someone summoned under those conditions possibly be?

At best, they'd be some clueless necromancer around level thirty or forty. Death Lord (EX) or not, they'd be utterly helpless.

And then they were thrown into a place like this and told to survive?

Gate Hunter was a difficult game.

But it wasn't an unfair one.

'There has to be another way. Is regret the key?'

A battlefield created from regret.

He still had no idea what their dear Mr. Cedric regretted, but perhaps resolving it would end the battlefield.

'Whatever it is, there's a way to beat this.'

He had to find it.

His survival depended on it!

GROOOOAAAR!

The orc hero thrust his glaive forward.

"Orc! Orc! Orc!"

The orcs began charging toward the walls, carrying long ladders!

"Fire! Don't save your arrows! Shoot everything you've got!"

"The commander has given his orders. Fire."

At his words, the death knight on the wall thrust a hand forward.

WHOOSH!

A hail of arrows rained down. A few orcs toppled, but it was only a drop in the bucket.

THUNK!

Ladders slammed against the walls everywhere.

The orcs surged forward like a tidal wave.

"All right, boys! Get your tools out!"

SHING!

Beside him, the death knight drew his sword. A vicious light filled the lich's eyes as it raised its staff.

A dullahan drew a double-bladed axe, while black mist billowed around a specter's mouth.

His baby skeletons were preparing for battle too. They raised their weapons, ready to strike at any moment!

For now, let's overlook the way their arms trembled because their level-one strength wasn't up to the task.

The moment an orc's head appeared above the wall, he swung his sword with all his might.

SLASH!

In that instant, Minwoo realized something.

'My body moves so much more smoothly!'

His stats were definitely unchanged.

Yet his movements were different. They were far smoother, like a butterfly shedding its shell and taking flight.

Apparently, becoming a virtual body had removed Kim Minwoo's physical aptitude from the equation.

'Even better!'

The orc's head flew off in a single stroke.

But the deliveries were only just beginning. Orc heads popped up everywhere like a game of whack-a-mole.

"Bring your weapons down as hard as you can!"

THUD!

CRUNCH!

GRAAAGH!

[Skeleton 1 has caused an enemy far stronger than itself to fall to its death! Its combat experience is beginning to increase significantly!]

[Skeleton 171 has caused an enemy far stronger than itself to fall to its death...]

[Skeleton 223 has...]

.

.

They had the advantage of being atop the wall.

Under the full-force blows raining down from above, the climbing orcs died without putting up much resistance.

But that didn't last long.

A baby skeleton slammed its weapon at an orc's head, just as it had learned.

The climbing orc caught the hammer in one hand.

RATTLE?

The skeleton desperately shook its trapped weapon, but the orc's grip held fast as glue.

GRAAAH!

The orc gave a powerful yank, dragging the skeleton forward and sending it plummeting off the wall.

CLATTER!

One after another, skeletons had their entire bodies smashed apart.

[The undead revives once more...]

[Skeleton 1 has been unsummoned!]

[Skeleton 16 has been unsummoned...]

Even if they revived, they were surrounded by orcs.

The skeletons began getting helplessly unsummoned.

That wasn't the end of their troubles.

WHIZZ!

Orc archers began firing from the ground!

Minwoo narrowly dodged an arrow as it skimmed past his face.

"Lich! Break the ladders! Acid magic!"

[Lich 'Hans' uses Acid Touch (C)!]

Acidic hands materialized in the air and gripped the tops of the ladders. They broke apart in an instant, sending the climbing orcs plummeting with piteous screams.

But the orcs kept coming endlessly.

And that wasn't the only problem.

At first, only ordinary orc soldiers and warriors had climbed up. Now, higher-ranking orcs were starting to appear.

GRAAAH!

An orc berserker.

A type of orc that grew stronger the more blood it saw shed by its own kind.

Its enormous axe narrowly swept over his head.

He drove his sword deep into its abdomen. The blade slid smoothly in.

Blood welled from the creature's mouth as it opened wide, as though trying to bite his face off.

He kicked it away, then neatly lopped off the head of another orc climbing up beside it.

[You have slain one hundred orcs far higher in level than yourself!]

[You have acquired the title, 'Orc Hunter'!]

What effect did that have again?

He thought it increased damage against orcs.

He summoned the unsummoned skeletons once again.

His mana drained away.

Nearly two hundred skeletons replenished his ranks in an instant, but sadly, most had no equipment. Their gear had long since fallen below the wall, beyond recovery.

"Hurry! Pick up anything you can!"

The skeletons hastily grabbed weapons.

Things were so chaotic that he needed every last scrap of help he could get.

Thirty minutes.

One hour.

Two hours.

They held them off, again and again.

In the meantime, mid-ranking undead such as dullahans and specters died one by one. Farther away, even death knights and liches began to perish.

He cut down orc after orc.

[You have slain five hundred orcs far higher in level than yourself!]

[The title 'Orc Hunter' has changed to 'Orc Slaughterer'!]

[Warning!]

[You have consumed too many potions in a short period! Overload is beginning!]

'This won't do.'

Saving it for later would only make it go to waste.

"Hans! Use the big one!"

[Lich 'Hans' uses Earthquake (A)!]

RUMBLE...!

The ground before the wall split wide like a crevasse, swallowing hundreds of orcs. It gave them a little room to breathe.

Somehow, they were managing to hold out reasonably well.

Up to this point.

GRAAAH!

The orc hero's roar began to engulf the area.

FLAP!

The enormous dragon's wings moved.

ROOOAR!

The dragon rapidly closed in on the wall.

And of all places, it was heading straight for his Sector 16.

'I can't dodge this!'

He had the death knight and Hans the lich, but neither inspired the slightest confidence in this situation!

He shouted reflexively.

"Cedriiiic!"

Do something!

I'm going to die here!

Just then...

FLAP!

The bone dragon flew in from behind and rammed the living dragon.

The golden skeletal knight riding it leaped powerfully toward the dragon. His spearhead, surging with dark energy, plunged into its head.

The dragon thrashed its head wildly, apparently in pain.

"... I was about to intervene anyway."

Bullshit. You'd been standing back with your arms crossed, doing nothing but watching this whole time.

Minwoo swallowed the words that nearly burst out and cut off a charging orc's head.

That bastard.

If he ever became his subordinate, Minwoo would work him like a dog.

He made that promise to himself.