Fuck.
Something had gone very, very wrong.
The Dreamland dungeon was, literally, a dungeon.
It was not supposed to be a place where brilliant sunlight could shine down on you.
At level 1, the normal thing was to be greeted by low-level trash mobs like goblins in a cave.
Or else to face enemies you had defeated before.
Dreamland existed to supply items, but it was also a space created out of the developers’ consideration, letting you replay battles against enemies you had already beaten.
Of course, since I had not defeated anything, nothing like that should have appeared.
Right now, I was a fresh-faced rookie whose resume had only one line to write—or not write—about being the illegitimate son of a northern grand duke, with “I want to become a knight” as my motivation for applying.
On the inside, I was an experienced professional on my twenty-ninth run, but these days, twenty-nine runs of experience were not enough to get your foot in the door anywhere.
The cutoff for the job market had gotten fucking high.
Though these days, it seemed they were even taking people who had just sampled it and tossed it aside.
But those people got dragged through absolute hell in the prologue.
And seemed to end up carrying PTSD or mental disorders with them.
In any case, I was an inexperienced newcomer, so I should have been looking up at the unfamiliar ceiling of a cave.
Why the hell was I facing warm sunlight?
Where the hell was this?
Why had I been dumped in the middle of the road instead of in a dungeon?
How was I supposed to get out now?
You could only return from Dreamland after beating the boss.
There was also the option of pressing Back and giving up, but perhaps because this was reality, there was no such UI.
You knight bastards.
So this was how you were going to screw me over?
If I had known this would happen, I would have stocked up on food or money.
Grumbling, I walked through the forest.
I had no idea where this was, and standing still would get me nowhere.
Besides, I might have been dropped into a high-level zone.
I kept walking straight ahead when I heard snickering from somewhere nearby.
Following the sound, I parted the undergrowth and approached slowly. There, centered around a brown-haired girl, were two grown men snickering.
Just look at them. Judging by clothes that looked as if they had not been washed in a month, those two had to be bandits.
They had tied up a child who looked about fifteen and were standing around her, giggling.
Was this not precisely the moment for a knight to step forward?
Maybe the Oath of Chivalry would activate again, and I could collect another reward.
As I thought that, I loosened my wrists.
In preparation to bring down a holy mace upon those crazy tyrannical bastards.
But then—
My eyes narrowed.
One tied-up girl.
Two bandits tying her up.
And a forest.
It was a strangely familiar sight, one I felt I had seen somewhere before.
Hmm. I had definitely seen something like this.
Where had I seen it?
Whatever.
I would think about that later.
I slowly crept up behind one of the snickering bandits and swung a roundhouse kick straight into him.
A full-force roundhouse kick from a one-hundred-and-ninety-centimeter giant with monstrous biceps.
With steel boots thrown in as a complimentary service.
Craaaaaaaaaack—!
It was a mace in its own right.
The bandit bent at a spectacular angle as he flew away, crashed into something, and trembled violently.
Then he went limp.
And an odor of piss began to spread around him. Looking at the darkened patch around his crotch, it seemed he had wet himself.
This son of a bitch had made me look at his crotch.
Pathetic bastard.
Since I did not receive any experience, it appeared he was not dead.
There was still the bandit cursing at me, but I could deal with him later.
I decided freeing the girl came first, so I went to her.
Still, I really felt like I had seen her somewhere before.
Like I had seen her in a CG from the game...
I stopped in front of her.
[Insight Eye is activating.]
Insight Eye activated out of nowhere.
No, why was this suddenly... Huh?
I saw the information provided by Insight Eye and froze in place.
Because this was what it told me.
【Dolnesia Kihano】
◈ Level: 6
◈ The target is exhausted.
Dolnesia Kihano.
The young lady of Count Kihano’s family.
And one of Dawnstar Academia’s four heroines.
She was the protagonist who would come to the Logres family of her own accord and be adopted into the ducal house, the young lady responsible for the adoption-story genre among the four romance-fantasy genres.
The protagonist I had been trying to find.
It seemed the protagonist of this run was Dolnesia.
So that was why.
Only now did I understand why this situation had felt so familiar.
It was one of Dolnesia’s bad endings.
Here in this forest, Dolnesia was captured by two bandits. Right before they raped her, she bit off her tongue and died.
It was one of the endings I remembered well because it was exceptionally grim for a romance fantasy.
No, wait. Then if I had not torn up the Dreamland ticket, Dolnesia would have died here?
Holy shit, that had been close.
A chill ran down my spine at the fact that the protagonist had nearly died by the narrowest margin.
Just then, Dolnesia raised her head.
She was pretty, all right.
With the game’s illustration made real, her looks shone all the more brightly.
She was still a minor, and her current face was not even Dolnesia’s real face due to things like dye, but how should I put this?
There was a kind of beauty that could not be hidden no matter how hard one tried.
Though this was not the time to be admiring her appearance.
"Are you all right?"
At my words, Dolnesia slowly nodded.
First, I untied the rope around her wrists.
Then I looked at the brave fellow who had not yet run away.
"F-f-fuck, who the fuck are you?!"
Perhaps sensing my gaze, he looked over at me and spat curses.
What a loyal friend—a bandit whose companion had ended up like that, yet who did not run away and merely cursed at me.
Then I ought to personally send him on his way.
#
I did not receive any experience.
Meaning he had passed out, but had not died.
[You have punished villains and rescued a girl.]
[A reward for the Oath of Chivalry will be granted.]
There it was.
But unlike when I obtained the Dreamland ticket, nothing appeared in my hand this time.
Could it be in my inventory?
I opened my inventory, and just as I expected, something had filled one of its empty slots.
Should I look at it later?
After lightly shaking off my foot, I returned to her.
Perhaps because her legs had given out, she had not fled.
But her eyes were half questioning, half wary.
It could not be helped.
She had lived as a warmly sheltered noble until the age of fourteen, then immediately fallen into the abyss.
She must have wandered the back alleys, seen things she should never have had to see, and had nearly suffered something horrible at the hands of those bandits just now.
Even if I had saved her, I had appeared out of nowhere.
A suspicious tin can in armor, with his face hidden.
She did not know my identity or my purpose, so that stance was only natural.
Still.
"Thank you for saving me."
Her eyes held both suspicion and wariness, but perhaps she was grateful all the same for being saved. She greeted me and bowed her head.
"It was nothing. I merely did what I ought to do."
I shook my head.
Still, this was troublesome.
Learning through Dreamland that Dolnesia was the protagonist and preventing her death had certainly gone well.
But my situation was the problem.
I never imagined the Dreamland ticket would turn out like this.
Something I had thought would be a mere warm-up had grown far too large.
Once a little time passed, they would notice that the illegitimate son had vanished from the grand duchy.
Then I would be fucked.
If Ian had been some wastrel, they would have happily raised a toast instead, but he had not been that kind of young man.
How the hell was I supposed to return?
There was no surrender button.
That meant I had to kill Dreamland’s boss, but there was no boss here.
"Hmmm."
My sigh escaped through the gaps in my helmet like a whistle.
In short, I was fucked.
Should I just become a wandering knight at this point?
"...Who are you, mister?"
As I stood there in silence after sighing, Dolnesia apparently grew curious and asked me a question.
Mister, huh.
Did she know that despite this physique, our physical ages were only five years apart?
"A passing knight. But I took a wrong turn."
"Why did you get lost?"
Because some knight bastards screwed me over.
"I need to go back, but I cannot. In the literal sense, I have lost the place I am meant to return to."
"You too?"
Dolnesia’s eyes widened.
Come to think of it, this girl had lost her home too, had she not?
Had I just stirred up her trauma out of nowhere?
I said nothing.
I simply helped Dolnesia to her feet and brushed the dust off her.
She could have resisted, but she accepted my touch without resistance.
Perhaps she sensed that I bore no hostility.
In any case, now I had to decide.
Would I simply run away from the family as I was?
Would I somehow find a way to return?
Or there was the option of taking Dolnesia to the north.
Wait. Come to think of it, that should be somewhere around here.
If this was the very place where Dolnesia had nearly met her bad ending—
Then that might be somewhere nearby.
A dungeon with a hidden piece.
After discovering that location, it had become a mandatory stop whenever you started as Dolnesia, unless you were doing a challenge run.
I knew there was an incredibly useful item there.
One that was also tremendously important to Dolnesia.
And regardless, that place was a dungeon too.
If I cleared it, I might be able to return.
It would also strengthen Dolnesia, so would that not be killing two birds with one stone?
The problem was whether Dolnesia would follow me or not.
Grrrrrrumble—.
Then, all of a sudden, I heard a stomach growl.
Come to think of it, I had skipped breakfast this morning.
But the owner of that sound was not me...
Surely not.
I slowly turned my head.
At the end of my gaze, Dolnesia had her head lowered deeply.
Seeing how red her earlobes were, the source of the sound was probably...
If I carelessly said it aloud here, that would immediately earn me a penalty, right?
Without saying a word, I opened my inventory.
The key to everything was in there.
[Jerky]
The reward given to one who upheld chivalry was jerky.
I had carried out a chivalrous act by beating down villains, and all I got was ten pieces of jerky.
What the hell were the standards for chivalry rewards?
Did the Stars of Knights really just pick whatever the fuck they wanted?
Grumbling inwardly, I took out some jerky.
The instant I pulled it out, a faint scent spread through the air: salty soy-sauce-based seasoning and the rich aroma of smoke.
Dolnesia’s gaze immediately fixed itself on the jerky in my hand.
When I waved it around, her gaze followed the jerky as though determined not to lose sight of it, like a sunflower facing the sun.
When I silently handed it to her, she snatched it up and popped it into her mouth in an instant.
Where had that cool demeanor from earlier gone? She tore into the jerky.
Only after she had finished eating did she seem to remember I was there. After clearing her throat for a moment, she said,
"Ahem. Ahem. Um, do you have any more of this?"
She covered her mouth and returned to that cool demeanor from before, but—
When I took out another piece of jerky, she immediately threw that act away and once more stared at the jerky with burning intensity.
Well... jerky was tasty.
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