Reborn as the Black Knight - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Acacia Odofredus Krone

Human, Female, Initiate

Level 05

Location: The City, Home

It’s gotten more expensive again.

“…Pardon me?” asks Acacia, not sure if she heard the alchemist right.

“Two-hundred for one,” replies the woman behind the counter, holding the vial between her fingers and shaking it gently, the thick, pink fluid bubbling somewhat from the motion.

That’s exactly double what they cost last week.

Seeing her pale face and quietly horrified expression, the alchemist shrugs and puts it away, this being a face she has seen often today. “With the attack on the city and supply chains being what they are… you understand,” explains the merchant, making a sad smile with pursed lips as she shakes her head.

Of course, the attack on the city is over and didn’t actually affect logistics at all, but what exactly is she going to do about the woman raising her prices?

Acacia turns her head to the door, wondering if she should just ask another alchemist.

“Come back when you’re ready,” says the woman. “I’ll have plenty for you, dear,” she says.

No… It’s like the other merchant. They’re all in collusion here in this city. If this woman has raised her prices, then the others all will have done so as well. The free market in this place is tightly controlled by the guilds and confederations of the many trades. These are all tightly held family businesses that stem back generations, and they’ve long since worked out their differences with one another, coming to happy compromises that allow them to hold control of their domains.

In essence, merchant families are like noble families in a way, just on a much smaller, city-bound, scale.

Acacia turns back to the woman, who is clearly waiting for her to leave. “I’ll take two, please,” says the girl, reaching into her bag and placing down several large denominations on the counter and sliding them toward the alchemist, who blinks in surprise.

“Oh… well then!” she says, clearly surprised, her forced smile becoming more relaxed as she takes the coins, inspecting one of them closely for a moment to determine if it’s actually real, before taking the rest and sliding them into her till. “Let me get that ready for you!” she says, setting to work now and making small talk on how to dose the medicine and how to take it so that she can’t be held liable if anything goes wrong.

Acacia listens to her talk, even though she’s been taking this medicine all of her life and even if she’s bought it from this woman dozens of times already.

Repeat business means very little here, on the scale of an individual. The merchant was ready to throw her out entirely, to let her die, even given the nature of the medicine — even if she'd been here several times because if she couldn’t pay, there were still hundreds of other people who could.

Her life, to a merchant, is worth exactly what she can pay for it, and if she can’t pay what they ask, then it’s worth… Well, nothing.

But Sir Knight is right. She’s going to need the alchemist, just like the general merchant and everyone else she can make a connection of some kind with — even if it’s a business one.

“Have a blessed day,” says the alchemist, handing her the small fabric satchel with the two vials.

“Thank you, ma’am,” replies Acacia, turning to leave, her eyes wandering over the crate in the corner of the room, full of hundreds of the small glassware tubes, filled with the pink medicine. “You too,” she says, walking out into the sunlight of a new day, which serves as a painful reminder that — if not for someone else — it would have been the start of her last ones.

Without Sir Knight, she wouldn’t be able to afford this medicine at all as of today, and, ignoring everything else, that doesn’t feel good.

_____________________________________

The Consumption, the illness under which she suffers, is something relatively common within the population.

Acacia sits on a bench in a quiet square, away from the adventurers’ guild; the fresh wounds of the days prior have not yet healed enough for her to want to sit there where anyone could recognize her.

It’s not so common that everyone has somebody in their family who has it, but it is common enough that everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who has it. It derives its name from the fact that, given the decaying and withering appearances of a person who suffers from it, the illness literally seems to be eating them away. The truth is, however, that it just simply fades one’s strength; it makes the body weak and the mind tired. It starts in the lungs, and then it spreads its way out, like roots trapped in a cistern that are trying to press their way out.

— Acacia tilts her head back, drinking the medicine. The sunlit, thick goo slides down her throat, not easily being drunk given its thick, starchy texture and deeply earthy taste.

As she understands it, the thick medicine coats a person’s throat, creating a barrier of sorts that these ‘roots’ of the illness can’t touch, essentially trapping them in the lungs with nowhere else to go. Each dose lasts for about a week, ideally, before it needs to be taken again. But in times of exertion or stress, or if the medicine is diluted, it will need to be taken more often.

Failure to do so will allow the roots to enter into the throat from the lungs, where they will then finally move to the rest of the body, snaking toward the head and the heart.

The medicine isn’t so much a cure as it is a treatment. It’ll suppress the growth and allow a person to live a fairly normal life, assuming they can sustain a certain level of inactivity, which is impossible for those of the lower class to do for any extended period of time.

More often than not, families with children who suffer from it will often try to save them by buying the first few doses.

But as the years go by and the stress grows, the child is sent to work to help pay for its own life, which has been burdening the family. Even if it does have some success in making money as an apprentice or assistant, the additional stress will cancel out the medicine and cause the Consumption to fester.

It’s entirely survivable in theory, but in practice, the life expectancy of someone in the general population is within eight years for someone in the lower population. Children of wealthy families who can coast by will probably easily make it to their twenties with little trouble, and for those of the most proud and powerful families, with access to ancient and secretive healing magics – there are cases of people making it to fifty and onward.

But she’s not in a family like that anymore, and those treatments, while having given her a boost over anyone else out here with the illness, have now come to an end, and she’s slowly dropping down to their level.

She breathes for air, letting the vial fall free from her lips as she looks down at it.

Ever since she had to leave, she can feel it happening — the consumption of her body, which has always happened on a muted scale, is intensifying. She’s been becoming thinner, and despite her being officially an adult now, her body had stopped growing in frame a while ago, coming nowhere close to her sisters and brothers, who are heads over her in height, size, and shape.

She’s a runt, sickly.

By nature’s laws, she should be dead. Only wealth and power kept her safe this long, and now she has neither.

“Acacia?” calls a voice from the side. Acacia blinks, turning her head to look at the familiar voice, and quickly tucks away the vial. “It is you! I thought I recognized you,” says an elf girl, Junis, whom Acacia knows from her time at the magical academy — so, two days ago. “You missed class today,” she says, the others in the group walking up too. “Are you ill?” she asks, looking vaguely concerned.

Acacia looks up at her.

Junis obviously knows why she isn’t in school anymore. It’s not exactly a secret. This is just her poking a finger into the fresh wound. Acacia’s not really sure why, but Junis has always been a bit hostile, a bully. She just enjoys a position of social popularity, given to her by confidence gained through beauty and family wealth, that has allowed her to flourish, and she has made it her life’s mission to absolutely make that everyone else’s problem.

Acacia, being smaller and untalented, was an easy mark from the get-go.

“No,” replies Acacia, rising to her feet. “I’ve left the academy, Junis,” she says, grabbing her things and turning to leave.

"Oh, no!” says Junis, placing a hand on her upper arm, her fingers holding her there. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” says the girl, as Acacia turns to look at her. “How come?”

Junis obviously knows why she isn’t in school anymore.

This is her way of doing things. Junis isn’t a physical bully; she’s a social one. She loves to play all sorts of disarming games with words, showering other people with false pity and twisted stories in order to manipulate conversations that make her look good no matter what. It’s a unique art that she’s mastered far more than any of her actual classes, in which she also gets excellent grades, thanks to her using this particular gift on the board and the professors too.

It’s so insidious because there’s no way to call her out for it without looking like an abusive, insecure bully herself. How would you even explain to anyone that this conversation is designed to make her feel bad without coming off as a sad, insecure narcissist?

“My grades didn’t hold up, and they threw me out,” replies Acacia, being honest about it to disarm her. In a situation like this, her rearing in the noble houses of the world comes in handy. There’s no way to leave this situation shame-free, but she can lessen the blow like a fighter turning their body into a strike to dampen its force. “Unfortunately.”

Junis gasps, letting go now that she’s secured a ‘win’, in whatever context applies to this little game. "Oh, no!” she repeats again, her voice trailing off with the ‘o’ sound as she likes to do, as if she were constantly talking to a sad animal. “You always did your best too…” she says, shaking her head, her short, dark blue hair shaking past her face, a few of the girls in the back of the swarm quietly snickering at this remark and what it implies.

She shrugs. “Oh well, you have a good life, Acacia,” she says. “We have to get back to class now,” says Junis, waving to her and then walking off, the rest of the pack following her as they go, not even waiting ten steps before they start laughing and giggling to themselves, looking back at her as she stands there, holding the little bag in her hands, leaving her only with the word ‘loser’, which floats back her way through the noise of the city.

____________________________________

“Make me stronger,” says Acacia first thing as she opens the squeaky, loosely hinged door to the basement room below the adventurers’ guild, her voice traveling into the small, empty closet of a room.

She steps inside, closing the crooked door behind herself, and then leans her back against it, her eyes staring down at the floor for a while, since she deeply feels like laying down on it and staying there forever. “I’m not really useful, but that’s just because I’m low-leveled!” she explains, piecing it together in her head. “I couldn’t get my adventuring license because I got thrown out of the academy,” says Acacia. “I’m basically classless. I don’t have any abilities that work.”

The girl looks back toward the bed that nobody is on. “But if you helped me kill some monsters in the dungeon, then I could get stronger!” she says, piecing the plan together in her head.

— No response.

“Sir Knight!” says Acacia, pulling away from the door and crawling down on all fours to look below the bed, into the darkness there. “You’re strong. We can just go together and fight our way through!” says the girl excitedly, all the pieces clicking together nicely. Why not? It’s a perfect plan. Sir Knight is clearly absurdly strong, and since he’s dedicated to helping her, her being stronger would make his life easier and, in turn, make this entire endeavor of theirs easier.

“What would you do?” replies the voice, answering for the first time.

“Huh? Me?” asks Acacia. “I… I’d…” She racks her brain. “- Why do I need to do anything?” she asks. “You’re strong enough. It only makes sense,” says the once-princess. “Sir Knight,” she says, narrowing her eyes and staring at the shadows below the bed. “I order you to help me get stronger!” she commands.

That’s how this works, right?

He’s a knight in this game of theirs. Her knight. That means he has to listen to her. If she tells him to jump from a cliff, then he better do so and then land on a dragon on his way down too. That’s what the relationship between a knight and a noble is.

It isn’t subservience. It’s total, utter devotion of body and soul to the point of outstanding excellence in service to another.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” says Sir Knight’s voice into her ear. Her eyes perk in excitement, until a strong hand grabs the back of her robe and pushes her flat down toward the floor.

“Push ups. We’re starting the count at one,” says the heavy voice.

“H… Huh?” asks Acacia, nervously looking back and up over her shoulder at the giant who had materialized out of nowhere, his palm resting just below the back of her neck against her spine.

“Push-ups,” he repeats, lifting her body up so that her arms are locked straight. “We’re starting at one.”

“Huh?!” asks Acacia. “That’s not what I meant!”

His helmet looks down at her, the gaze coming from within the empty visor, staring at her as she vaguely half lays there on the floor, her arms and legs outstretched. “You want to be stronger?” he asks.

“I want you to make me stronger!” argues Acacia. “There’s a difference.”

He nods. “There is,” says Sir Knight, staring at her and saying nothing else.

The two of them look at one another. “…Really?” asks Acacia, after a moment of silence. “I’ve never…” She turns her head, looking down at the floor below her face. “I’ve never done any for real before,” she explains. “I’ve only ever watched the guards do them.”

“That’s fine,” says Sir Knight, his hand moving from her back to the floor to her left, slowly lowering itself toward the boards. “That’s why we’re starting at one.”

“I’m sick!” she argues quickly. “I can’t exert myself too much.”

“That’s why we’re starting at one,” he repeats again, his voice not changing its tone as he clearly only needs this statement as is to make his point.

The once highly esteemed and desperately delicate princess of the nation, the youngest daughter of the royal family, purses her lips, looking down at the dingy, old floorboards of the underground room as she fumbles with any sort of plan or scheme for a moment, anything that could come to mind, but nothing does.

And so, knowing that he’s right at the end of the day and having nothing that she can do about it, Acacia does her first push up, bringing her total count to a number that is higher than zero.

She manages three before she’s laying there on her side, wiggling her fingers to spread the blood evenly back through her body, and gasping for air.

“Great job,” says Sir Knight, rising up and opening one of the tiny windows to let in a ridiculously meager exchange of air into the subterranean room. “You’re stronger now than before,” he explains, looking down at her as she looks his way, clearly wanting to be annoyed and displeased but not managing.

She knows that she has to let go of the princess lifestyle, and she’s been doing well to adapt to this new life, all things considered. But it’s hard to let go of the things that have been ingrained in you all of your life, even if you’re ready to accept change on some level.

“My medicine’s gotten more expensive,” she says, telling him this personal problem of hers openly. The statement isn’t so much a matter of fact explanation to the matter as it is in a way also a piece of bait cast into the waters in the hopes of receiving something akin to pity or advice.

It’s strange. They have a weird thing going on here. Obviously, there are many questions and paranoias that move through her mind, but she’s immersed in the game they’re playing. Sir Knight is a total stranger, someone she met yesterday, and, in all reality, is someone she should be terrified of in any normal context. She’s trapped down here with, what is very likely, some kind of horrific demon or monster from times immemorial, if not something worse. But she feels like it just makes sense to be open with him.

They’re connected in a way that she doesn’t really get.

Sir Knight reaches into his cloak, pulling out a fistful of bloody, gore soaked knives and goblin teeth, the fluids of which drip through his fingers and onto the floor next to her. Acacia scrambles, letting out a disgusted yelp as it lands next to her. “I’ve already taken measures,” he explains.

“STOP MAKING A MESS!” yells Acacia, looking in horror as, what is very likely a piece of something’s entrails flops out from between his fingers.

Sir Knight looks down at the spot on the wood and then back toward her. “We’re going to sell this,” he explains, ignoring the issue at hand. “And then, we’re going to go to the adventurers’ guild.”

Acacia blinks, looking at him, her concern suddenly changing to this other matter at once. “Huh? No, no,” she says, defeated, waving him off and shaking her head. The girl looks to the side of the tiny room at the wall that is inches from her face as if there was something of interest there, her hand rubbing her arm. “I… I can’t,” she says, the humiliation still being too fresh. “It’s not… It’s not for me.”

She gets ready for him to push her with a ‘why not’, or, given that he should already know since he was in her thoughts, another aggressive move like the push-ups. Instead, he just nods and puts the gunk away and back into his cloak.

“Okay,” says Sir Knight, nodding to her. “You did great with the push-ups.”

“…Thanks…” says Acacia, quietly surprised and not sure if this isn’t some kind of set-up just yet.

He nods his head toward the door. “Want to go buy some bread and throw it at ducks?”

“…What…?” she asks.

“There are ducks in the pond down the road; I saw them in your memory,” he explains. “Want to buy some bread and throw it at them?” asks Sir Knight.

She stares blankly at him for a while. “You mean… to them. To feed them with, right…?” asks Acacia, tilting her head slightly.

He stares at her blankly for an unnervingly long time before then looking at the floor for a second as if considering something. His eyes wander back up to hers. “Yes.”

Acacia sighs in relief. That sounds nice, and she’s starving anyway. She nods to him, and he nods back, opening the door out into the dingy, broken down alleyway that is above them, lined with trash and swept away rubble. “Your Majesty,” he says, holding his hand out to guide the way.

She grabs the corner of her dress, which is definitely not as clean as it used to be, and does a half curtsey. “Sir Knight,” replies Acacia, walking out over a vague puddle by the door that may or may not be some drunk’s urine from a few days ago and stepping out into the city.

___________________________

The two of them go to buy some bread, which is actually very hard to do because Sir Knight draws a lot of attention. But by the time they get to the park, they’ve somehow managed to lose the crowd, and they sit there, watching the ducks.

She actually eats most of the bread herself, biting into it from the side like an animal, only looking at him out of the corner of her eyes after she’s started already tearing into it with her teeth.

She’s ravenous. She hasn’t really eaten anything in a while, with money being so tight and then all of the drama.

Acacia clears her throat, tearing off a piece from the safe end and holding it out to him.

“Thanks,” he says, taking it and looking at it.

“…Do you eat?” asks Acacia, hoping that her rudeness will be overlooked. She clears her throat.

He turns his helmet toward her and then looks back at the piece of bread. Sir Knight shrugs, a tendril of whispering shadow reaching out of his visor, grabbing hold of the bread, and then pulling it inside of the helmet with frightening speed.

After a second, he turns toward her nervous expression again. “’Eating’ is a relative term,” says Sir Knight.

“Oh, huh…” says Acacia, biting back into the bread and looking out at the water of the small lake in the park and at the ducks swimming over it.

There’s a splash in the water and a ripple moving outwardly as someone throws something into it. “You know. They say bread is actually bad for ducks,” says Acacia, regurgitating some useless life fact she picked up somewhere as she chews on the bread. Its crust is very flaky and hard, almost shell-like, but then breaks away to reveal an interior fluff that is steaming with heat and pillow soft. It’s just plain bread, but it’s delicious by itself, especially as hungry as she is, with the strong tastes of sweet flour and salt landing on her tongue.

“Yeah, I know,” he says.

She looks over at his hands, seeing not bread but rather small, slimy bits of entrails from before, and watches in quiet horror as he chucks another into the water.

The ducks go crazy for it.

“…That’s just wrong,” says Acacia.

He looks at her, holding out his hand, and she lets out a disgusted yelp, pressing herself away. “Why? Did you want some?” he asks jokingly.

“EW! Get that stuff away from me!” she yells, crawling back and away as far as she can, almost falling off of the bench.

He shrugs. “More for the ducks then,” says Sir Knight, throwing another piece of what was presumably once a goblin to the birds, who seem to enjoy it.

It beats eating nothing.

____________________________________

~[Somewhere Far Away, In Another Nation]~

The orb stops glowing, and the man’s hands, which are wrapped around it, contain the last of the dimming light as the magical residue fades away.

He stands there in silence for a while, contemplating, now that the communication has come to an end.

For a time, he stands there, stroking his beard and staring at his reflection in the empty orb, the man across from him on the other side nervously fidgeting and waiting for an update to be carried on to the powers that be.

“Master, what is the statement?” asks the messenger.

The scrying wizard looks up at him, a curious expression on his face. “Tell his majesty that the abduction has failed,” he says. “The girl escaped due to… unforeseen circumstances.”

“Yes, master,” replies the messenger, bowing his head as the caster walks away, moving to a fully laden, old, and dusty shelf. “Did she fight them off?”

“No,” he replies, browsing through the books, his fingers moving over the thick tomes, which slide out by themselves one after the other as he grazes over them, as if each of them was desperate to share its secrets with him before any of the other books could, until his fingers finally come to rest on one. “Tell the Emperor that it has returned,” says the man, the highest and most esteemed official in regards to the magical affairs of the country — the king’s very own.

“’It’?” asks the messenger, lifting his gaze to look at the stern, time-scarred face of the old caster, his fingers digging through his beard as his eyes wander over the pages of a tome that floats before him by itself, suspended by his powerful influence on the ambient magics of the immediate world around him.

“It’s been hundreds of years, but it finally happened like we always knew it would one day,” replies the man, walking around the room and pacing as he tries to understand something. “But how… it’s not meant to be yet…” he says, staring out of the tower window out over the glowing city below and into the dark, empty night above them — the starlight being drowned out by the glow of the city, making them barely, if at all, visible.

It’s as if the sky itself here were simply…

- Empty.

How could he have missed this?

“Master Croat?” asks the messenger, as the old caster turns his gaze to look at him, his grim expression curtained by the total blackness of night behind him.

“Der Schwarze Ritter…” says the seasoned wizard, Croat, the messenger stiffening up as if he had died on the spot, as if the night itself had crept in and crawled down his throat and pressed itself against his spine. “He found her,” says the man. “Tell His Majesty. Go.”

The boy doesn’t need a second command, stumbling over himself and knocking over a stack of books as he tumbles, scrambling to his feet and sprinting out of the door, the books neatly rearranging themselves on their own as Croat turns to look at the void of night, devoid of stars and moon, the omen of the return of the thing, the beast, the totality of darkness that had once in the distant past threatened to destroy them all.

— And now that it’s here again, it's found her despite everything.

He closes the shutters, holding them shut himself, as if to brace the emptiness away from his tower, his eyes staring down into the ground as his memory races to the stories of that world, which is now long, long gone.

Or so they had thought.

________________________________________

Acacia

“Quack,” says Sir Knight, having had no choice. It was a direct order, after all.

Acacia laughs, almost barreling off the bench as she holds her gut, not able to catch her breath. “Sir- Sir…” Her throat cracks with a croak as she tries to hold down the laughter. “Sir Kn- knight!” says Acacia, pursing her lips to try and fight it down. “Quack again.”

Sir Knight turns his head to look at her and then back at the ducks.

“Quack,” says Sir Knight, and, by the grace of fortune, one of the ducks randomly quacks too.

Acacia howls, starting to cry from the ache in her gut and the laughing. It aches so much, and she’s so light-headed, she could almost die.