A high skylight cast a slanted beam of light into the cell, banishing the total darkness. Rats and cockroaches scurried back into the piles of straw, but the ever-present stench of filth clung to the air.
"How many days have I been locked up?" The dark-haired young man leaned against the cold stone wall, his gaze fixed on the single ray of light from the skylight above. He muttered to himself, his voice hoarse, "The penalty for failing an initial mission is way too harsh, isn't it?"
His face was gaunt, his wrists raw and chafed from the heavy manacles. A massive iron ball was chained to his right ankle. He was, without a doubt, a prisoner.
He touched his chest. There, an eerie brand had appeared, seemingly composed of interlocking rings and lines. When he reached out to touch it, words only he could see flickered to life before his eyes.
「Grace-Given Mark」
「Name」 Nidhogg Uktra-shir
「Level」 LV 0 (Mediocre)
「Armor」 Vagabond Knight Helm / Vagabond Knight Armor / Vagabond Knight Gauntlets / Vagabond Knight Greaves
「Weapons」 Longsword (Skill: Square Off)
「Shield」 Heater Shield (Skill: Parry)
「Long-term Quest」 Reach one of the following: The Age of Darkness, The Never-ending War, or The Age of Dawn.
「Mid-term Quest」 Golden Seed & Sacred Tear Flask (Condition: Reach Level 27)
「Short-term Quest」 Escape from Prison
「Initial Quest」 Join any Knightly Order or Mercenary Company within 3 days. (Failed. Penalty: Confiscation of Halberd and Imprisonment)
Nidhogg hadn't failed the initial quest on purpose.
After all, he was a time traveler. One moment he was safe at home, about to start up Elden Ring, and the next, he was dumped into what looked like medieval Europe, waking up in a mass grave. Anyone would have panicked.
It was then that this so-called "Grace-Given Mark" had appeared, giving him a new name, a new origin, a full set of armor and weapons, and assigning him that first quest.
Nidhogg couldn't process any of it. His only goal was to get back to the modern world. In his panic, he had fled the mass grave and started searching for a way home.
And so, the time limit for the initial quest expired, and the penalty was enacted.
First, one of his starting items—the halberd—vanished. Then, he had run straight into a bloodied patrol of knights led by a towering, imposing figure named Jackson, the so-called "Ashen Knight."
For the past three months, the lord's castle had been under siege. It was Jackson and his knights, along with a skilled and fearless mercenary company, who had repelled wave after wave of enemy attacks.
Jackson had just thrown back another assault and was returning to the castle when he encountered the suspicious-looking Nidhogg on the road. He immediately ordered his knights to surround him.
Nidhogg was dressed as a vagabond knight, but he was furtive and evasive. When Jackson demanded to know where he came from, Nidhogg's hesitation only deepened his suspicions.
With the two armies at war, Jackson concluded Nidhogg was an enemy scout, sent to probe the siege lines. He ordered the knights to arrest Nidhogg, throw him in the dungeon, and interrogate him thoroughly.
They stripped him of his helm, his armor, his gauntlets, his greaves, his sword, and his shield. For days, he was tortured, until he finally "confessed," claiming to be an enemy scout and fabricating information on the spot.
The torturer, pleased, had stopped the flogging and gleefully left with the "intelligence." He hadn't returned for days.
Locked in the darkness of his cell, Nidhogg silently recovered.
The good news was that the beatings had stopped. The bad news came from a guard: the torturer had been shot and killed by the enemy while trying to ascend the wall to report to the lord, during a near-successful assault on the ramparts.
The lord and Jackson were so consumed with defending the castle day and night that they had completely forgotten about Nidhogg.
Nidhogg didn't know how long he had been there, nor how much longer he would remain. The uncertainty left him feeling listless and furious.
In this situation, desperate to get back on his feet, Nidhogg had pinned his last shred of hope on the "Grace-Given Mark" on his chest.
His helm, armor, gauntlets, greaves, longsword, and heater shield... he couldn't rely on them. He didn't even know where they had been tossed.
His only hope was the Level 0 status, and the so-called long-term, mid-term, and short-term quests.
The meaning of the long-term quest was obscure. The mid-term quest required reaching Level 27, which felt impossibly distant. That left only the short-term quest: Escape from Prison.
He couldn't find any information on how to level up, so he connected the dots and concluded that improvement was tied to completing quests. Fulfilling them was the only real way to grow stronger.
But that brought him back to the paradox.
He had thought that after leveling up, he could break out of prison. But his gut told him he needed to escape first to level up. It was a vicious cycle.
Nidhogg slumped into despair.
Suddenly, noise filtered down from the skylight. He could faintly make out the sounds of shouting and the clash of steel—sounds that didn't stop.
He knew the castle was besieged, but he had never heard the sounds of fighting coming from within the fortress walls.
Had the enemy breached the castle?
If so, this was his chance to escape!
Heart pounding with excitement, Nidhogg scrambled up, pressing his back against the wall and rising on his toes, straining to hear more from the skylight above.
The chaos outside was too loud to discern clearly, but the dungeon was tomb-quiet. Soon, he heard something else: hesitant footsteps.
Turning, Nidhogg saw the middle-aged jailer who usually guarded this level, pacing nervously back and forth in the corridor, muttering under his breath.
Nidhogg's heart leaped. Silently, he crept closer to the bars of his cell, holding his breath.
He couldn't miss this chance to escape!
The dungeon was dim, and the distracted jailer didn't notice Nidhogg's movements. He stood there, his face pale.
"He's actually come... Damn it, damn it! What's Jackson doing? What about the Eagle Company? Weren't they supposed to be veterans? How can they not even hold a castle? I should have run three months ago..."
"The other guards were either pulled to defend the walls or fled long ago. I'm the only fool left in the castle. They owe me months of wages, and I still haven't seen a single copper coin... I should have run!"
The middle-aged jailer was frantic, scratching his head and muttering, his back turned carelessly toward Nidhogg's cell. He remained utterly oblivious to the danger behind him.
Nidhogg clenched the length of his chain. He slipped his shackled hands through the gaps in the bars, then swiftly looped the chain around the jailer's neck. In one fluid motion, he pulled his arms back, twisting and dropping into a crouch.
The cold iron bit into the jailer's throat. He jerked in shock, his whole body yanked backward. His spine slammed against the cell bars as the chain tightened with a sharp clink!
"Ghk... ghhk... unnh..."
On the other side of the bars, Nidhogg sat with his back to him, hunched over on the floor, pouring every ounce of his strength into the chain. He paid no mind to the jailer's thrashing limbs or the strangled, gurgling sobs from his throat.
"Ghk... ghhk... uuuhn..."
Only when silence returned to the dungeon and the jailer behind him went completely still did Nidhogg maintain his grip. He held on for several more minutes before finally loosening the chains and gasping for air.
He felt no guilt for his first kill. This man had participated in his torture, and this was simply revenge. It was a pity the torturer himself had died too soon.
Nidhogg turned and began searching the now-lifeless jailer. He found a ring of keys, snatched them up, and began trying them one by one in the lock of his cell door.
Finally, a key turned. The door creaked open. Nidhogg was free.
He didn't need to touch the brand this time. The words simply materialized before his eyes.
「Short-term Quest」 Escape from Prison (Completed. Reward: Level Up from LV 0 → LV 1)
「Short-term Quest」 Retrieve the Vagabond Knight Set (0/6) / Eliminate Obstacles on the Castle Battlefield (1)