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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“I heard that Her Majesty the Empress personally appointed you as the Knight Commander of the Dark Starry Night Knights.”
“Yes.”
“It seems that there was a reason behind that decision.”
‘As expected.’
It was ridiculous to care about the story of the Silver Dawn Knights at this point, but Cassandra’s words told me that I was far removed from the story of the knight order.
It was a situation I had already expected, so I wasn’t surprised.
Although it varied depending on the route, in the Silver Dawn Knights route, they would tentatively ask if the player had any intention of working in their territory.
If you accepted, the story would change slightly, and if you rejected, you would continue with the story of the Silver Dawn Knights. They had naturally implemented a branching point like that.
That was similar to the dialogue that was said when the player was on a route related to the Emperor. They would say that His Majesty’s eyes were truly exceptional since he had taken notice of you.
[T/N: before you fucks get on my ass he’s referring to the game emperor who was male]
It seemed that the fact that Cecilia had shown a great deal of interest in me had played a big part.
‘It seems that more than half of the route is decided as the Imperial Palace route…….’
I thought about it for a while and then let it go. There was no need to think deeply about the story afterwards. It wouldn’t be of much help anyway.
I could just think about it when I actually encountered it.
“I would like to express my sincere gratitude for accepting my sudden offer and resolving the situation. Knight Commander of the Dark Starry Night Knights. Thanks to you, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief.”
Cassandra bowed her head. Her upper body tilted slightly, and the dress around her cleavage lowered.
Cassandra didn’t seem to have any intention of hiding the cleavage that was exposed through the dress.
A noble with that title couldn’t possibly have not learned about proper decorum, so it was probably an intentional action.
I calmly accepted the greeting.
When my expression didn’t change at all, Cassandra looked slightly surprised for a moment, but soon put on a bright smile again.
After seeing that change, I became even more convinced. If I had shown a reaction, she would have been much more aggressive than before.
Since I didn’t show any reaction, she probably gave up cleanly.
“Lady Cassandra, I have a request, if that’s alright with you?”
“Of course it’s alright. Please, tell me anything. What is it?”
“You said that we could take all the spoils and byproducts from the dungeon, including the runes, but unfortunately, there wasn’t anything else that came out other than the rune.”
“Yes, I understand. I will personally repay you for your hard work. Everyone, I invite you all to my mansion.”
To put it bluntly, it meant that since we didn’t get anything from the dungeon, she would compensate us, but Cassandra nodded obediently and turned around, probably because of what she had said.
As Cassandra walked away, I quietly called to Helga and whispered.
“I’m leaving the rest to you, Helga. Take the others and return to the mansion first. I have something else to do. If they ask why I didn’t come, tell them that.”
“Understood. Does the thing you have to do have something to do with that witch?”
“That’s right. I can’t just leave her here and go back by ourselves. I’m leaving all the authority to you, so you decide.”
“Yes, Commander. Safe travels.”
Helga gathered her subordinates and followed Cassandra.
She paused for a moment when she saw the Deputy Commander standing in the spot where I should have been, but after Helga whispered something, she resumed walking.
After confirming that Cassandra, her direct knight, Helga, and her subordinates had completely left, I went deeper into the forest to prevent anyone from hearing my voice.
And then, I shouted loudly.
“Nix!”
As soon as I did, Nix appeared right in front of me. It was a level of responsiveness that suggested she had been waiting for me to call her.
Nix, who had suddenly appeared in front of me, smiled creepily.
“Keeheehee, did you call me?”
“Yes. Were you hiding because of Lady Cassandra?”
Nod nod-
Her head shook violently up and down. Her breasts bounced with it. I stroked her head. It seemed that I had completely gotten used to this action.
“Aren’t you going to follow them? I could’ve just waited here by myself until you guys were done.”
“I’ve done it a lot before.”
“Not really. I didn’t come here wanting something like that.”
That was the same for the others as well.
They didn’t come here wanting a reward, but that didn’t mean they should just do the job for free, so I was going to ask for something. And I was also going to lessen Cassandra’s psychological burden.
It was much more helpful to lessen her burden by receiving a reward and leaving than to say that they helped her out of pure goodwill.
She would feel more at ease if there was something that they had to give and take.
“So, let’s go somewhere for a bit while we wait for them. You can still use teleportation, right?”
I was originally going to pick a proper time to do it, but since Nix couldn’t go into the city, I decided to take advantage of the time I had.
I couldn’t just wait in the forest all day while they received their rewards, and since she could use teleportation, it was much better to just quickly do it while I could.
“Okay. Keeheehee. Where should I go?”
Nix didn’t even ask what we were going to do, and asked where we should go.
I took out the map that I had put inside my uniform pocket and carefully compared it to the map in my memory and found the location of the dungeon.
I could feel a gaze staring at me right next to me.
I ignored the gaze and pointed to a valley that was somewhere in the middle of the mountains of the Empire.
“It’s here. Can you go there?”
Nix nodded her head vigorously and prepared to teleport next to me. I waited while holding the map in my hand. It wasn’t time to fold the map yet.
Compared to Minerva, who could accurately go from one end of the Empire to the other end of the Holy Kingdom as long as she knew the exact coordinates, Nix’s teleportation lacked precision.
When we had come from Aurora’s territory to this city, Minerva could have simply waved her staff once and arrived, without needing to take several hours.
But that just meant Minerva was an extraordinary anomaly, and that Nix wasn’t lacking. So, I just waited quietly.
Soon, a black magic circle swallowed us both.
“We’re here.”
Nix was only able to successfully teleport right in front of the Rune Dungeon after correcting the coordinates about six times. I confirmed that and put the map back in my pocket.
The entrance to the dungeon was exactly the same as I had seen in the game.
It was an appearance that would convince anyone who came to look at it that it was a dungeon.
Except for the fact that it was located in the middle of a steep cliff, and that the surroundings were cleverly hidden by rocks and trees, making it impossible to even guess that something was there using normal methods.
“Let’s go in.”
“Okay.”
Nix silently followed me into the dungeon.
I put Wingless Nightmare, which I had been holding just in case, back into its sheath. There was no need to fight any enemies in this dungeon.
Because this was a trap-type dungeon.
Just like the place where I had gone to find the crystal scroll before.
‘It’ll be fine this time since Nix is here.’
Back then, Minerva, who had completely lost her mind, had taken care of all the traps, but this time, Nix was going to take her place.
That was why I had brought her with me from the beginning.
Trap-type dungeons had a higher chance of being called ‘a shitty game’ than dungeons where monsters appeared.
Because of the damn traps, you might have to go around for more than 10 minutes just to get to a place that was right in front of you, or you had to go all the way down a valley and then back up just to jump over it.
But it wouldn’t be like that this time.
“This is a place with a rune, but it’s a dungeon that’s filled with traps.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be handling the trap disarming and finding the path, but sometimes there are traps that can’t be disarmed, or that are annoying.”
“Okay.”
“You can break them all while we go.”
“Keeheehee, okay.”
‘……She isn’t asking anything?’
If it were anyone else, they would have asked how I knew that, how I found this place, how I knew there was a rune here without even checking the rune’s energy, etc.
Well, it was a good thing for me, so I decided to just let it go.
Even if Nix asked me how I knew all of that, I wouldn’t be able to give her a proper answer anyway.
“Wait a moment. Stop.”
We hadn’t gone far inside when a cleverly protruding trap greeted us on the floor.
At first glance, it looked like a slightly protruding brick because it was misaligned, but the moment you stepped on it, your ankle would be caught in a snare, and a large rock would fall from above.
It would be an instant kill.
Many users were shocked by the sight of a large rock crushing the player with a gruesome sound and blood spreading across the floor, and then having to say hello to Yudahee.
“Be careful not to step on that. A rock will fall from above.”
“Okay.”
Nix only replied briefly and followed me around the switch.
After that, it was easy.
I disarmed every trap I could, and I had Nix destroy all of the traps that I found annoying, like ones that required you to go around a maze or had a troublesome process.
Especially the areas where you had to solve a puzzle to open a door, where you had to go to all sorts of places to collect materials, and where there were more puzzles in the process of collecting the materials.
I just melted the door down with force. It felt really refreshing.
As I disarmed all of the mazes and traps without a single moment of hesitation, I entered the center of the dungeon with Nix, who was constantly giving me admiring glances.
We were almost there.
Nix destroyed a round boulder that was rolling down a slope with magic.
It was a section where you were supposed to keep jumping and stopping at the right time, but we were both walking leisurely.
I opened my mouth to take advantage of the short break. Now was my chance to ask.
“Nix.”
“Yes.”
“I heard it from Helga. You said that destroying the centipede corpses was useless here, what does that mean?”
“…….”
Nix stopped dead in her tracks.
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Tftc