I Became a Gallery Newbie Beloved by Transcendents-Chapter 61: Crimson Knight (3)

Title: That Magic Really Came in Handy

Author: ㅇㅇ*

Light magic, Von. As expected of ancient primal magic — it dispelled the darkness cast by the high-ranking beast monster.

Thanks to that, I managed to kill the Skaldmagra boss monster.

But another variable popped up.

A set of choices appeared:

1. Just quietly move on to the 11th floor.

2. Hidden Quest: Grant peace to the Knight of Glory, Dekkan.

By the way, the Hidden Quest has a seven-star difficulty rating.

Also, the quest details mention that if you return inside the combat boundary line, it’ll count as forfeiting the quest and you’ll be sent up to the 11th floor stage.

But let’s be real — that part's clearly bait.

If you’re badly injured, you’ll probably die before you can even crawl back to that "combat boundary line."

Is option 2 even viable?

Hmm... Doesn't look like it.

ㄴ Of course not.

ㄴ Seven stars...!

ㄴ Maybe...? Climber, think back on everything you’ve overcome! You can do this!

ㄴ STFU, easy to talk big when it’s not your life on the line lololol

ㄴ Admin) Yeah, that whole “you can back out anytime” thing is definitely bait. It's there to gently pressure you into taking the quest.

ㄴ Admin) But when the fight actually starts, you won’t have a second to disengage and retreat.

ㄴ Shrine Maiden) Hawawawa~ this is 100% a crappy bait quest!

As expected, total scumbag design.

ㄴ Archmage) Yep — seems like primal magic truly shows its full potential inside the Forest of Beasts.

ㄴ Archmage) Makes all those all-nighters I pulled to finish it worth it.

ㄴ Archmage) Worth reading, right?

ㄴ ㅇㅇ*) I only fully read Von so far. I’ll study the rest later.

ㄴ Archmage) I’d explain how huge it is to cast magic directly through your aura circuits, but that’d take forever. Let’s just say — good job using it.

ㄴ Archmage) If you’ve already read Von, make time to study the rest. You probably won’t use them right away, so once you reach the waiting room on the next floor—

ㄴ Archmage) But seriously — what are you going to do?

ㄴ Sword of Light) Han Yuseong, wait a second.

ㄴ Oh, does Sword have a plan?

ㄴ Sword of Light) Is there a time limit on the choice?

ㄴ ㅇㅇ*) I’ve got plenty of time to think it over. Twelve hours.

ㄴ Sword of Light) Good. Hold on, then.

ㄴ Absolute Monarch) Sword of Light, what are you planning?

ㄴ Honestly? Just pick option 1 and get your ass to the 11th floor. If you hesitate too long, you’ll end up clicking 2 and dying. Guaranteed.

ㄴ LOL this guy already decided option 2 is a guaranteed death.

ㄴ And does it not look like that? Come on, it’s so obviously the trap choice...

ㄴ That choice might as well come with a nametag that says “Hi, I’m Hell Incarnate.”

ㄴ Suwang) Go forth!!!!! My friend!!!!!!! Life is duality!!!! Sometimes you have to gamble!!!

ㄴ Translation: Click option 2 and die.

ㄴ Suwang) That’s an insult to my friend!

ㄴ ㅇㅇ*) Honestly, you can insult me a little.

ㄴ Elf Guy) If there’s a chance to grant him peace, you probably should... I got tons of help from Dekkan when I was cleansing the Forest of Beasts.

ㄴ Shrine Maiden) Hawawa, but a 6th-Rank swordsman is just too dangerous for our current 4th-Rank climber!

ㄴ Ice Queen) Frozen, frozen...! I believe in the climber’s judgment! But yeah, rationally speaking? Turning down the Hidden Quest and going to the 11th floor is the wise move.

After going over the mixed reactions of the Transcendent Gallery seniors, I finally left my own comment.

ㄴ ㅇㅇ*) Just how big is the gap between me and Knight Dekkan right now?

ㄴ Dragon King Beltui) To put it simply... the gap between a child and an adult.

ㄴ Heavenly Demon) Depending on the situation, it could be even worse than that.

ㄴ Gutter Swordsman) The one hopeful thing is — your talent is real, and your combat instincts and decision-making are excellent.

ㄴ Gutter Swordsman) But if you put your faith in that and charge in recklessly, you might not even have time to retreat before you’re killed.

ㄴ Sword of Light) For now... anyone who’s ever taught Dekkan a sword form, even just a single technique — write down what you taught him.

ㄴ Absolute Monarch) What are you preparing for?

ㄴ Sword of Light) Breaking. The traces of the past. Gotta tear them down before I decide.

The Gallery kept trying to reach Sword of Light for clarification, but he wasn’t planning to reply again anytime soon.

I closed the Gallery window and stepped out of my tent.

No one had disturbed me while I was resting inside — not after I’d said I was tired from taking down the Swarm Overlord on my own.

Outside, Yunes slowly approached.

“...May I ask you a question?”

I nodded.

“What is it?”

“Well... I wanted to ask how you knew how to cast that magic — the one that lit up the entire area and dispelled the darkness. We all failed...”

I tilted my head.

“The other mages tried casting light magic too?”

Yunes let out a deep sigh.

“Yes. We all used Lux before you cast your spell. But before the light could even fully form, the darkness swallowed it again. Mine included.”

She added softly:

“But you made it work. I have no idea how.”

I decided to lie.

Explaining it would be way too much of a hassle.

“I got my hands on a useful artifact. I just used that.”

I could see her brow twitch slightly.

“...An artifact?”

“Yeah.”

She clearly didn’t buy it, but she didn’t press further.

“I see.”

Still, she didn’t seem like she intended to push the matter.

“The Captain — Resellin — asked me to tell you to come by if you’re feeling rested.”

“Understood. Let’s go.”

Following Yunes’s lead, I stepped into the captain’s command tent.

Despite the fact that we’d eliminated our objective — every last Skaldmagra — Resellin still had a busy, exhausted look on her face as she worked through a mountain of paperwork.

“Ah! Yuseong!”

The moment her eyes met mine, her face lit up.

“You’re here!”

Just the slightest bit—

Yunes, perhaps feeling awkward about being there with the two of us, quietly stepped outside the tent.

Resellin tied back her long, blue hair.

“You’re not disappearing in a puff of smoke this time? That’s rare.”

I was planning to, actually.

But something entirely unexpected happened — that’s the only reason I didn’t vanish.

“Any remaining Skaldmagra sightings?”

Resellin smiled and nodded at my question.

“Nope, all gone. Thanks to you, there’s not a trace left. Even the scouts haven’t spotted anything. The other beast monsters must’ve gone into deep hiding too — it’s eerily quiet. I think the Forest of Beasts will be calm for a while.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Resellin brought her hands together.

“I tried asking around to see if anyone knew anything about the death knight that showed up yesterday.”

Yesterday, when I asked her about Dekkan, all she knew was that there was a strange death knight who only attacked beast monsters and never harmed people. She didn’t know the backstory.

“Well, I found someone. I called them here just now.”

As soon as she finished speaking, a voice called from outside the tent.

“May I come in?”

“Yes.”

The man who entered after pulling back the flap was Krevan, the Hundred-Man Captain.

“Please, have a seat.”

Following Resellin’s gesture, Krevan walked over to the chair next to me. But instead of sitting immediately, he bowed deeply.

“First of all, allow me to thank you. If you hadn’t been here, I can’t imagine how we would’ve killed that thing.”

His attitude had completely changed from two days ago, when he tried to test me.

“I also owe you an apology for how I acted the first day.”

“It’s fine.”

At this point, it didn’t matter anymore.

Krevan nodded again and sat down ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) beside me.

“I heard you were looking for someone who knew about the death knight we encountered yesterday — Knight Dekkan.”

He knows the name.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

The chances of him having real information just went up.

“Dekkan is always included in the subjugation targets. It’s routine. But it’s hard to assemble a team that can reliably take down a knight who was 6th-Rank in life, so the operation has been postponed over and over again.”

Krevan continued.

“Also, the fact that he only targets beast monsters instead of humans is the main reason most people ignored him. Yesterday’s incident was an exception, of course — that’s why it became a problem.”

He must’ve been referring to when Dekkan nearly sliced a soldier’s shoulder off.

I asked Krevan a direct question.

“Do you know how he became a death knight?”

“Yes. I heard it from a fellow knight, but... Sir Dekkan was always at the forefront of purging the Forest of Beasts, even up until seven years ago. He was a knight who received countless decorations from the Empire.”

Krevan let out a shallow sigh.

“Seven years ago, he led the charge against a high demon known as Black Eye. He landed the final blow... and died along with the demon. But the forest was in a chaotic state at the time, so they failed to retrieve his body.”

He went on.

“Later, once things had settled a bit, they went back to recover his remains — but his body was gone. They combed the entire forest but couldn’t find him. In the end, they just erected a cross over an empty grave. A few months after that, a death knight began wandering the forest — that’s how it started.”

Krevan tapped his finger on the table.

“The spiral mark on his neck suggests that he killed the necromancer who turned him into a death knight. That’s why he wanders the forest with almost no consciousness left...”

I looked at the map of the Forest of Beasts lying on the table.

“......”

And I remembered something that happened during the Pandemonium 3rd Floor stage.

That event, chronologically speaking, would’ve happened two years ago in this timeline. frёewebηovel.cѳm

When I saved the Myo Tribe.

Back then, I’d wondered why I hadn’t encountered any Skaldmagra or death knight-like Dekkan, even though I was in the Forest of Beasts.

Now I understood why.

I had been in the northern outskirts of the forest.

A region as large as a small kingdom — the very tip of the north.

Whereas now, I was at the southernmost end of the forest.

The complete opposite side.

No wonder I never ran into him back then. And I wasn’t there long either.

Seven years.

Dekkan had wandered this forest in undeath for far too long.

“Are you... planning to face Knight Dekkan?”

I ignored Krevan’s question and left the command tent, heading back to my own.

Once inside, I uploaded everything Krevan told me to the Transcendent Gallery — Dekkan’s story and how he became a death knight.

ㄴ That’s so Dekkan, though. Even his death. It’s the part after that’s the tragedy.

ㄴ Fr.

ㄴ Seven years... feels short and long at the same time.

ㄴ Pioneer) It’s long. Seven years is a lifetime.

ㄴ Absolute Monarch) So, are you going to do it, climber?

I stared at Absolute Monarch’s comment for a while.

ㄴ ㅇㅇ*) I’m leaning toward doing it.

ㄴ This crazy bastard... really gone mad.

ㄴ Ah, the climber does what climbers do!

ㄴ If you die, who’s gonna post the obit? If we don’t hear from you in two days, we’ll just assume you’re dead...

ㄴ Ice Queen) Frozen! Stop jinxing it already!

ㄴ Dragon King Beltui) Wishing you strength and gloryyyyy~

A few moments later—

ㄴ Sword of Light) Go for it.

The comment I’d been waiting for.

ㄴ Sword of Light) It’s not zero chance anymore.

ㄴ Sword of Light) Initiate dimensional trade.

Dimensional trade complete.

What I got made Sword of Light’s words make perfect sense — “not zero chance.”

I looked once more at the two options still lingering in my vision:

[1. Would you like to move to the 11th Floor waiting room?]

[2. Would you like to challenge the 10th Floor Hidden Quest – "Knight of Glory: Dekkan’s Rest"?]

[Quest Difficulty – ★★★★★★★]

I didn’t need to rest.

I had just leveled up.

I was in peak condition.

I chose Option 2.

A waypoint only visible to me appeared in the sky.

I began walking toward it.

– It’s a bracelet with support spells enchanted into it. I think this is the best help I can give you right now.

I slipped on the bracelet Yunes had cautiously handed me.

It wasn’t that she’d chickened out and only gave me the bracelet.

I had declined her help.

Because bringing others with me... would only be a burden.

Step—

In the distance, a figure holding a sword began to take shape.

Right before my eyes, a line marked the threshold.

This was the combat boundary.

Everything from here on would be my choice.

Even if I chose to return here and give up...

It had to be my decision, based on my experience.

Not that I had any intention of giving up.

[Activating ‘Visographica’.]

A glowing blue orb floated up from my terminal.

It resembled a drone — and it began to cloak itself.

I drew my sword.

Step.

I crossed the threshold.

[BOSS MONSTER]

[Knight of Glory – Dekkan]

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