I only had fragmentary memories of the accident in the tunnel and being wrapped in a warm light afterward. And when I opened my eyes a while later, I woke up in a completely unfamiliar place. Where is this? A room with walls made of plaster, wooden pillars supporting the ceiling, and a few pieces of furniture arranged around.
At that moment, I felt a sense of dissonance and déjà vu.
I wasn't sure what this strange feeling was.
And then I felt a sudden dizziness. It felt like countless pieces of information were being forcibly input into my head, pushing their way in. After complaining about the dizziness for a while, when it settled down somewhat, I unconsciously looked at a small mirror hanging on the wall.
Blond hair and blue eyes, a typical pretty boy face.
This isn't my face, though? This is me?
I touched my face, made various movements, and tried different expressions, but this face reflected in the mirror was definitely my face now. I'd complained as a joke about wanting to try living as a handsome guy, but I never thought it would actually happen.
My race was even different.
I don't know when I became a white pretty boy.
What's certain is that even if it's a dream, I feel good.
"This scene looks familiar."
But the structure of the room was somehow familiar. I don't think I saw it in a movie, and I don't know the details this precisely, so why do I feel this déjà vu? Then something flashed through my mind: it was similar to the starting scene of Medieval Knight.
No way.
No matter how you look at it, I thought I died but when I opened my eyes, I'm in a game world?
That seems like too ridiculous a thought.
Is this a dream or reality? I honestly couldn't tell the difference. I definitely thought I'd died, but I don't know why I opened my eyes in a place like this. The vivid sensations and feeling of being alive are definitely not those of a dead person.
All kinds of speculations and imaginings churned through my mind.
But no matter how intensely I debated internally, reality didn't change.
I looked at my face again. And after a while, I became certain.
The face of a typical white pretty boy with blond hair and blue eyes is the default appearance that comes up when you first start customizing. But why specifically the default appearance? When I created my character in the game, I just made it with the default appearance because you can't see the face well when wearing a helmet anyway.
Is that the reason? Because customizing was annoying?
I also gave myself a cool German-style name, Wolfgang.
The game's setting was one of the Holy Roman Empire's feudal states, it was the name I liked most among the ones I picked. The wolf is considered a sacred animal that prophesies victory in war in the German regions, which was the origin of my name.
The world of Medieval Knight, me as a modern person and another me.
The "setting" that had been branded into my head without permission was very irritating. I am Wolfgang von Streit and the last heir of a family that hasn't received hereditary honors. My father died five years ago in a war with France, and after struggling, I've just come of age (15).
This is the starting setup you first encounter when beginning Medieval Knight.
The Duchy of Beren, one of the Holy Roman Empire's feudal states, was the country I belonged to, and I was living in the capital, Breisburg. When you first start Medieval Knight, you can choose from five feudal states of the Holy Roman Empire, and among them, I chose the Duchy of Beren, which was said to be fun to play.
The prologue of Medieval Knight came to mind: the last head of the Streit family and a duchy knight who has just come of age sets out into the world for his ambitions and the prosperity of his family.
What's scary is the undeniable reality, even if you want to deny it.
I had to realize that the current situation is an absurd reality.
My goal in the game was to gain a cool nickname as a knight, a beautiful wife, and claim territory. But if this becomes reality, what am I supposed to do? Can a modern person really adapt properly to medieval times? In these plaster walls and the faint stench?
[Medieval Knight System is being applied]
"What's this now?"
[Greetings, Wolfgang. Welcome to the world of Medieval Knight]
[To help you achieve the best gameplay, the Medieval Knight System provides the best service to help Wolfgang adapt to this bewildering reality. Wolfgang can use the shop and secure various points and money through quests. However, selling items purchased from the shop is illegal, so please keep this in mind]
I understand what it feels like to see text in front of your eyes. Surprisingly, it doesn't block your vision that much. The reason I could maintain my composure like this was because it was so absurd and ridiculous. They say when people face unexpected situations, they actually become calmer. That's me right now.
"A system to help me adapt? Then let me ask one thing. Why am I here?"
[Because the operator of the Medieval Knight System granted Wolfgang's last wish]
"I made a last wish? I don't remember that at all."
No matter how much I like games, who would realistically wish to live in a game world at the moment of death? I didn't remember making any wish at the time of death. The fact that I died was already bewildering, and there's no way I had the presence of mind to make a wish in that urgent situation.
[The operator simply granted Wolfgang's wish]
"Who is this operator?"
[An existence that exceeds all domains that Wolfgang can understand]
It was too abstract an expression to gauge well, but since it was an existence that created a world, it definitely exceeded the scope of what I could understand. I don't know what wish I made, but as a result, a world was created based on a game. A world made from my wish, haha.
It's so ridiculous that only a dry laugh comes out.
Could this operator possibly think of me as an ant?
[The world of Medieval Knight is a living world where each birth, each life, and each death are organically connected. Please respect their lives. Create the story of a great hero who will be remembered in their lives. That is the ending condition]
[Great Hero] was one of Medieval Knight's representative endings, and they set it as my ending condition. I haven't even reached any ending yet, having only played for 30 hours. I was just starting to enjoy it when I happened to die then, so I must have felt regret. That's why I'm here now.
Medieval Knight is basically a game with very high freedom, so you can choose various options. You can become a tournament knight fighting for a noblewoman you admire, a free knight wandering and enjoying adventures, a bandit knight who raids and plunders others, or a mercenary knight moving from battlefield to battlefield.
My gameplay goal was to become a lord.
Because the life of a lord ruling and governing a village looked fun. Unfortunately, I didn't become a lord before I died. An office worker whose daily life included overtime didn't have much time to play games for long. Plus, I didn't like playing while looking at strategy guides.
So I couldn't even compare to the information power of hardcore players who dug into this game like crazy, and in a situation where I only knew what I knew, I lacked information about the overall flow of the game and main quests. If I'd known it would come to this, I should have watched the various strategy videos uploaded on YouTube.
But the system said it's a living world and to respect their lives. Can the flow of a real living world really be the same as a world programmed for events to unfold differently according to various conditions? It's true that strategy information is helpful, but it probably won't be absolute.
[Repeated Quest: Training]
[30-Minute Run]
[Empty your mind through training]
[Reward: 50 points, 50 copper coins]
So I should stop thinking complex thoughts and just run for now?
Right, that's correct. Worrying won't change this situation.
Maybe if I get some fresh air, my mind will calm down a bit?
For now, I was wearing a dark green tunic made of relatively good fabric, like a dress. The pants were made of breathable fabric so they had good mobility, and the shoe shape was very unusual. I don't know why only the toe area is long and pointy without any practicality. Is it a fashionable design?
The hat and coat hanging on the wall had a distinct stench. It smelled like ammonia or something kind of rotten. I didn't really want to wear them. This house had an L-shaped structure with a room, living room, and kitchen connected in order. And it was a two-story house where I lived on the first floor and the landlord lived on the second floor.
Located in the northeast district of Breisburg, this was a residential complex where the knight class lived. The knight class is classified as lower nobility in aristocratic society. Nobles with titles (duke, marquis, count, viscount, baron) are upper nobility, and among them, upper nobles with territories are called feudal lords and were like kings of their regions.
CREAK!
When I opened the door and went out, I saw a medieval European residential area. Before I could feel like I was on a European trip, I unconsciously noticed a pile of filth in the corner of the street. That seems to be the source of the stench. That looks like poop no matter how I look at it. So this is real reality, unlike the game?
Come to think of it, I heard that in medieval times there wasn't a separate bathroom, so after doing your business in a chamber pot, you'd throw it into the street. Just the thought makes me want to go home. Will I die if I die again? Can I, who likes cleanliness, endure this unsanitary place? What if I catch a disease?
It was a terrifying sight that made me feel like I'd die of disease even if not the Black Death. So I could understand why the hat and coat were hanging by the front door. Those were protective gear to protect yourself from the filth pouring from above.
It's gross, but I had to at least wear this to go out.
The long cloak-like coat that came down below the knees was called a surcoat, one of the representative clothes of medieval times along with tunics. It had an attached hood, so when you wear it, it looks completely like a robe. Wearing this somehow made me feel reassured.
"..."
Similar brick houses lined up in a row, the large castle wall surrounding them in the distance, people walking the streets in various medieval-style clothes. And mixed among the people were livestock, hunting dogs, and children running around energetically. Definitely not a sight I'm familiar with.
In the game, citizen NPCs don't move around this detailed. So seeing this scene made me realize it's truly a living world. That's not something created and moved by programming. It was organic and each had a clear purpose.
Each person's life, each person's existence.
I confirmed that.
I noticed the winding alleys and vagrants sitting here and there. And there were more of them than I expected. Among them, what appeared to be a Gypsy family had pitched a small tent and was caring for a newborn inside. There was a dirty puddle on the ground and the smell was overpowering.
"Sir, won't you give me just one coin in charity for my injured leg? To receive blessings, you should donate to me. The kindness you show will be repaid by God."
A vagrant with his leg bandaged and leaning on a crutch boldly demanded charity from me. If you donate, God will repay you? When I said I couldn't give charity because I had no money, the vagrant smiled and said if I come back to give charity next time, he'll give me blessings. I was dumbfounded and left the alley.
A vagrant boldly demanding charity.
I haven't even seen that in the game.
There were more vagrants and what appeared to be Gypsies than expected.
Between the vagrant boldly begging and seeing filth pouring from the sky, I couldn't help but receive culture shock. How long will it take to adapt to this medieval environment? It's definitely not a place where a clean modern person can live. The fortunate thing is that it's an era after the Black Death epidemic passed.
Because the game's setting was a mixed era of the 15th-16th centuries.
The Black Death raged in the 14th century and has subsided now.
The world of Medieval Knight is basically set in fictional history. It's fine that famous historical events and research are reflected, but you shouldn't believe it's actual history. The Duchy of Beren that I belong to is a duchy that rules the Swabia and Baden regions, but it's a duchy that didn't exist historically.
Except for the filthy ground and stench, I could definitely feel that this was the most prosperous city in the Duchy of Beren. As expected of the duchy's largest city, it was the center of culture and economy with many people, and the market was full of merchants selling various goods.
After escaping the maze-like alleys where beggars and Gypsies coexisted, the cross avenue of Breisburg that I'd seen in the game revealed itself. The cross avenue divided into east, west, south, and north also served as boundaries dividing each district into four major areas. The place I lived was in the northeast district.
Coming out onto Kiessling Avenue (east side), I could see the procession of carriages and people heading toward the plaza.
If you follow this avenue toward the center, you reach a huge plaza where all the avenues converge. There was the government complex where the four ministries (Public Administration, War, Finance, Justice) gathered and an execution platform, and the spire reaching toward the sky and the massive Gothic-style church, Breisburg Cathedral, showed off its majesty.
The pointy Gothic style is very impressive.
Besides that, there's the duchy hospital and university, and a market displaying various goods. The grim execution platform also occupied its place in front of the government office, creating a bleak atmosphere. So you could easily see people dressed in clothes symbolizing various classes in the plaza. All these facilities were gathered in the plaza.
The duchy hospital and university are operated by the church, and especially the university can be said to be a specialized institution for training Catholic priests. Of course, besides theology, they teach law, medicine, mathematics, etc. When I played Medieval Knight, I frequently visited the duchy hospital and university, so I knew them well.
When people wearing monastic robes pass by carrying crosses, each person prays and shows respect. Then I suddenly realized that I'm a non-religious person who doesn't go to church. I could say I'm closer to Buddhism due to my mother's influence.
I realized this was a fairly dangerous situation.
They won't burn me at the stake just for being non-religious, right? For now, I think I should at least pretend to believe. It would be best to avoid encountering church people, but since the church's influence is strong throughout life and I can't risk being burned, I think it's good to study enough about the church.
Anyway, I received a repeated quest at home, and looking at it, it seems better to circle around this plaza rather than running on the avenue with lots of people. So I did some simple stretching. But some young nuns nearby looked at me and giggled.
Why are they laughing? Is my posture strange?
After warming up, I started running slowly at first. Because this 35-year-old office worker has terrible stamina. But as if I'd returned to my youth when I was full of energy, far from getting tired, I actually felt bored. So when I started to speed up, only then did I feel all the muscles in my body moving.
30-minute run. At first, I wondered if it was too difficult a quest. How could I run for 30 minutes when I can't even run for 3 minutes with my terrible stamina? But my body was that of a fresh, healthy, and very sturdy 15-year-old. So the more I ran, the more I felt strength welling up inside me.
This feeling is really after such a long time.
In middle school, I boasted vigorous stamina to the point where I could play basketball under the blazing sun for 8 hours with friends without getting tired. I was confident in my stamina in the military too, but in my thirties, my physical abilities gradually declined and becoming low stamina happened in an instant. The flexibility I was proud of also disappeared.
So when I started running, after a long time I really liked my current self who didn't get tired even when running steadily without stopping. If I'd run this much before, I would have been panting and bending over at the waist. My legs didn't hurt either, and I was so energetic I could run more.
The body of a 15-year-old was this sturdy and recovered this quickly.
[Repeated Quest: Training Complete]
[50 points, 50 copper coins paid]
The 30-minute run finished quickly. A leather pouch appeared in the inner pocket of the surcoat. When I opened it, there were 50 copper coins inside. Does money come in like this? The copper coins are smaller than I expected. How big are they? About slightly bigger than a 10-cent coin?
Running definitely cleared the miscellaneous thoughts in my head. I received an additional running quest. I wanted to run more. I wanted to enjoy this fresh body a little more. The prime that I thought would never return after becoming mid-thirties had returned to me.
"Phew, now I feel like my body's warmed up."
I feel very refreshed after completing the repeated quest.
But somehow it seems like the number of nuns watching me has increased. Most of them were young nuns, and when I looked back at them, they giggled and chatted excitedly among themselves. Then a solemn-looking senior nun appeared and dragged the young nuns away while scolding them. What was that about?
The avenues extending long in all four directions from the plaza each had names: Linz (west), Kiessling (east), Neuden (north), and Beyen (south). The royal castle was at the far end of the northwest district, originally a fortress city, but as the population increased, today's Breisburg was completed.
So in the northwest district, upper nobles with titles and court nobles sitting in high government positions have established themselves. The northeast district is inhabited by lower nobles of the knight class and some titled nobles, and among the knight class, the lower the status, the closer to the avenue. That's why my house is near Kiessling Avenue.
The south side of the avenue is an area where commoners live, where the southeast district was relatively wealthy with commoners, merchants, and various guilds established, but right across in the southwest district, from prostitution streets to slums created by the poor, security wasn't good.
There was a stark class discrimination across the avenue.
"Fabric from Venice! Beautiful lady! Please take a look!"
"Selling rose perfume from Rosenheim! The perfume used by Madam Beatrix!"
The market was rich in things to see. Each shop had a tent set up like a roof. There were livestock merchants selling pigs and chickens, fabric merchants appealing clothes to noblewomen, craftsmen selling baskets made of straw, artisans displaying various crafts, and many other merchants.
And agricultural products brought from nearby villages accounted for 50% of all shops. Many people gathered to look at goods, watch hawking, or buy snacks from street stalls, no different from the traditional markets we know.
Occasionally there were relic merchants making noise about suspicious veil fragments they claimed were from Rome or Saint Peter's finger bones. Who on earth buys things like that? And there were many flocks of geese and pigs roaming the market floor.
After looking around enough centered on the avenue, I returned home. I didn't forget to carefully check if there were any wives throwing filth from the upper floors. Because you might get hit by filth if you're not careful. Personally, I wanted to wash this smelly coat and hat, and I wanted to bathe too.
So for now, I tried to light a fire in the furnace to heat bathwater.
I somehow struck what appeared to be flint to make sparks fly and managed to light the firewood, but it took about an hour. Hmm, not bad for a first try.
The problem is there are absolutely no toiletries.
There was one bar of soap made from strange oil, but it was very black.
So I accessed this thing called the shop for the first time.
I went into the miscellaneous goods section and could easily find a toiletries set. A week's worth of toiletries was 50 points. The points I got from completing the repeated quest twice were 100 points, so wouldn't this be enough to pay?
As I soaked my body in warm bathwater and looked at the toiletries I thought I'd never see again, the frustrated feelings and tension seemed to melt away. The very fact that I could wash cleanly in this medieval era with something called points seemed to bring peace of mind.
But the happy feeling was brief. Rubbing my hungry stomach, I searched the kitchen and found 3 pieces of black bread and 1 bottle of wine in a small wooden barrel. I touched the hard black bread, but can people really eat this? I searched to see if there was anything else.
"Is this kind of thing all there is to eat?"
I don't enjoy wine often, but the moment I tasted it, it tasted like it was made from grape pomace, so it wasn't my taste at all. The 10-dollar red wine from the convenience store was perfect for my palate. And this hard black bread was difficult to cut with a knife.
How can bread be made this black and hard?
Did impurities get in? Or has it spoiled from being too old?
After mustering courage to chew the black, hard bread like sand and barely swallowing it with cheap wine, I reflected on my past days when I wasted things without being grateful for the abundance of civilization I took for granted. If this is the typical staple food, I have no confidence I can survive eating it.
However, what's fortunate is that I have the shop service provided by the system. I purchased toiletries from the miscellaneous goods section and enjoyed bathing in my own way. So when I accessed the shop, the first thing I discovered was food. Inside were countless types of dishes.
It felt like seeing paradise.
In Catholic terms, God was there.
"Thank goodness. I almost lost heart."
I'm a modern person who took abundant meals for granted. Of course, it's true that there are still many people suffering from hunger around the world, but by my standards, I lived eating abundantly. I'm not wealthy, but I was the type who didn't spare money for the pleasure of eating.
So the shop service provided by the system was like light and salt to me.
Starting with food, there was Eastern, Western, even traditional food from various countries around the world, and there were various ingredients, alcohol, and even desserts. Naturally, I searched for something familiar and comforting, and there I discovered the most basic stew set meal.
20 points per meal.
After paying 50 points for a week's worth of toiletries and 20 points for a meal, the points I earned from the running repeated quest were reduced to 30 points. But it was definitely worth paying. I don't know by what principle it appeared, but a stew set meal was showing off its beautiful appearance on the table.
With trembling hands and an excited heart, I carefully brought it to the table and quickly tasted it, and the familiar yet utterly satisfying taste spread from my tongue throughout my whole body. Ah, this is what delicious means.
Just being able to taste the taste of home that I thought I could never taste again, the system shop gave me tremendous motivation. Personally, I believed that if I have familiar food, I can easily adapt to any place. So I need to consistently perform repeated quests.
After scraping clean without leaving even the soup behind, I finished a satisfying meal. I must have eaten like I was possessed. No need to wash dishes since I ate it so cleanly. Then the dishes disappeared in the blink of an eye. Well, that's convenient and fascinating.
With my body clean and stomach full, I drew the longsword engraved with the Streit family crest that my father left me. Our family crest was a relatively simple design of two longswords crossed in an X shape against a blue shield background. A lower knight family's emblem wouldn't be fancy.
This is my first time seeing this thing called a longsword in real life. It's a representative sword that appears in almost every game as essential, but most of the time it's depicted as a one-handed sword. A longsword isn't a one-handed sword but a two-handed sword. It was heavier than I expected and similar in length to a bamboo sword.
The handle, the straight crossguard to protect the hand, and the blade that gets thicker closer to the handle was unusual in that the blade wasn't sharpened, so there was no problem grabbing it with bare hands. The long blade at the sword's tip is sharply honed. The sword itself is more appealing than I expected.
The problem is that I, who don't know even the "s" of swordsmanship, need to be able to freely use this longsword. The only weapon I can handle is the M416 I learned in the military. I can't even trim ingredients with a kitchen knife, so can I really handle this sword well? That's what the shop is for.
[German Swordsmanship Manual]
This is the first thing I found in the shop's secret techniques section.
If I, who knows nothing about swordsmanship, can learn swordsmanship through this manual, couldn't I live without shame as a knight? It was expensive at 1,000 points, but if I consistently do repeated quests, I should be able to purchase it within a week. According to the system's explanation, repeated quests are endless.
So my current goal was to secure the German Swordsmanship Manual.
"Alright, let's keep our spirits up. I'll adapt slowly and live on."
I muttered like that, as if to encourage myself.
Because I had no choice but to adapt and live in this world.