It’d been a few minutes since Cal had left the outskirts of Riversdale when Penbrooke returned and retook control of his body, as before experiencing a moment of confusion at the novel surroundings.

The knight poked at the air in front of him whilst his gaze systematically moved – left to right, line by line – across the backdrop of rolling hills, almost as if he was reading something.

Could it be there’s an invisible newspaper there that only spirits can see? A sort of phantom terminal, perhaps. If so, that would make sense of why he started randomly conducting a phantom orchestra in front of Auntie Jane; maybe it was just him turning the page on his terminal because he wanted to check out another article.

Several minutes of concentration passed before Penbrooke spoke. “It’s like what ManMuncher3000 said in the forum: you have to first reach level 3, and then spend an ability point to unlock the AI Control Settings. Only then is it possible to adjust the AI behaviour away from its default option of automatic quest progression.”

He sighed in frustration, though he got over it quickly. “Eh, I guess it’s not all bad since the AI is skipping over the boring early-game fluff for me. Like it’s already given me an ability point from handing in the fishing rod quest, which reminds me that I should have a look at what I can spend it on from the level 1 selection.”

Once more the phantom terminal absorbed Penbrooke’s attention; Cal didn’t need to see what was going on to sense the knight’s palpable excitement from his hastened breaths and elevated mood.

Noting the surprising strength of this emotion, Cal wondered if this level 1 selection had something to do with why Penbrooke had elected to take over his body in the first place; after all, the possession certainly appeared optional seeing as Penbrooke could leave and return whenever he wanted. So there had to be something drawing him to this world, right?

Of course, it could well be that ghouls and spectres intrinsically possessed a desire to return to the corporeal realm and cause mischief. Or, perhaps there was something deeper driving Penbrooke, something that could explain his bizarre behaviour. Could level 1 selection be that reason?

Cal mused on the topic but found only blanks for answers, eventually resigning himself to the fact that he wouldn’t find any satisfactory answers anytime soon when he knew so little about the oddball knight beyond his dubious morality and inexplicable supernatural powers.

To distract himself, Cal turned his attention to their surroundings; Penbrooke had stopped by a dirt path that bordered an expanse of forest, with the other half of his vision filled by a plain prairie that eased into grassy hilltops in the distance.

Wind blew in from the plains, noticeably cooler at this time of day with not long to go before the sun set. In the sky, there were flocks of birds travelling this way and that, their cries distant and warbled.

A few other people shared the dirt path with Penbrooke, but these travellers gave him a wide berth as a result of his erratic motions and nonsensical mutterings, which were typically signs of demonic possession; Cal could hardly fault their prejudice either when they were as accurate as they were.

Since Penbrooke had shown no signs of being an experienced traveller, Cal’s chief concern right now was for how the spirit would fare camping overnight.

Although this was the furthest Cal had been from home, he knew from the extensive tales told by local woodsmen that the forest was largely safe: there were no monsters hiding inside, nor any guardians of the forest to threaten you simply because you didn’t subscribe to their vegetable line of thinking or accidentally broke some bullshit rule of theirs.

Hence, Cal hoped Penbrooke would camp in the forest overnight, and use the trees as a buffet against the winds that would grow increasingly fierce and frigid as the night grew long.

Another reason to favour the forest was that local woodsmen had warned of certain birds of prey in the region that were known to pick off travellers in the open, typically doing so just for the hell of it as they’d harass and bully their quarry until it ran out of energy to resist anymore, whereupon they’d leave, perhaps in a hurry to get to the much-vaunted mountain goat milk that was running a two-for-one promo deal while stocks lasted.

Altogether, any decision to head deeper into the prairies would mean a deeply joyless experience that Cal would be forced to experience first-hand; yet, for some reason he couldn’t shake the feeling the knight would do exactly that.

Cal’s musings were put on hold as Penbrooke came out of his reverie muttering to himself in typical fashion. “So I can choose between [Quest Locator], [Item Identification], and [Basic Combat Skill]. The others sound good but who am I kidding, what good is a knight who can’t fight?”

No longer muttering but proclaiming loudly, he continued: “What better way to clear cunning traps than with a cleave of my sword? To banish scheming villains than with a slash of my sword? To soothe damsels in distress than with a thrust of my sword?”

The chivalrous knight cracked up in laughter at his joke, apparently oblivious to the pair of milkmaids passing nearby who wrinkled their noses in distaste and further widened their berth from him.

Penbrooke pressed down decisively on his phantom terminal, flicked his finger a couple times, then suddenly frowned. “It says I need a weapon to execute the skills. I wonder if there’s one in my inventory.”

After a pause, his frown deepened. “Shoot, nothing in the packed goods… I guess I really should have taken something from that house I was in.”

He spied along the dirt path to see if there were any large sticks he could pick up and use as a weapon. It was only when he peered behind himself he noticed the straps on his shoulders and became aware again of the weight of the bag on his back.

With a chuckle at himself, Penbrooke took it off and had a look inside. The first thing to catch his eye was Rudy’s mask – its garish red feathers shimmying a flirtatious wave to him to come check it out – that Cal had yet to shove to the bottom of his backpack.

Fuck! I’d meant to reorganise the stuff inside after I left Riversdale, but this guy returned too quickly.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

It didn’t surprise Cal whatsoever to now see the knight pick the mask up like it was his family’s long-lost heirloom; this was the man who’d walked around in public with a broken bucket on his head, so it went without saying he was also the type of man to wear pompous hats, pretentious masks, and even other people’s underwear on his head: these varieties of men shared the same malady, just at differing stages of severity.

Penbrooke admired Rudy’s mask from all its angles. “Woah, this is sick.”

In a certain sense of the word, yes.

“How am I supposed to put it on, though?”

By tearing it in half and shoving it deep into my backpack – that should do the trick.

Against Cal’s advice, however, Penbrooke pressed the mask against his upper face, where it automatically attached itself to the contours of his skin and adhered snugly.

Satisfied, he brushed a hand through his hair and flicked his head from side to side as though he’d just emerged from a pool of water. “Now I feel like a true dashing hero!”

Who happens to look like a deluded teenager, right.

Penbrooke continued digging through the backpack’s contents until he came across the weapon Cal had packed for security purposes: a wooden cudgel with a head covered by a studded metallic cast bearing large, rounded stubs. Although largely non-lethal, it was capable of dealing serious blunt damage if need be.

The knight tested the weapon’s weight and feel with a few swings, and summed up his review with a satisfied grunt.

Weapon acquired, he put the backpack on again and restarted on his way, cudgel in hand. Cal wished he could tell Penbrooke this was a safe area, and that there weren’t any bandits or monsters plaguing the roads, only other civilians to whom he himself appeared a belligerent thug seeking out a fight; but alas, some things were not meant to be.

As time progressed, fewer and fewer passersby shared the road with Penbrooke, until by sunset it seemed he was the only one still travelling at this hour. He’d come across no enemies so far as Cal had predicted, but Penbrooke was far from grateful for this fact as he continually grumbled about shoddy game design and how snail-paced progression sucked.

As if in response to these complaints, there was a sudden flurry of movement some ways ahead where two diminutive greenskins slipped out from the forested underbrush beside the path.

So abrupt and unexpected was their appearance that Penbrooke failed to register their ambush at first, all his attention occupied by his ongoing lecture on the top ten issues with walking simulators. The greenskins were forced to give off rather cute roars to get his attention, lest he trod right over them.

Eyes flicking down and finally noticing the entrants to the scene, the gallant knight gave a shrill scream and scampered back, dropping his weapon in the process.

Contrary to how this may appear to an untrained viewer, Cal understood this was actually Penbrooke imitating a maiden’s scream and method acting their response to being accosted: he was training his ear to more easily hear damsels in distress, as well as placing himself in their mindsets in order to better learn how to allay their fears afterwards.

How very noble.

As for the dropped weapon, well, this had to be because beating the greenskins would be too easy otherwise: he was doing his assailants an act of charity by honourably granting them a chance at victory.

Truly a model knight for the ages.

It was clear his two assailants were goblins. This was the first time Cal had come across goblins, and he had to admit they were far cuter in person than the ghastly drawings in bestiaries had led him to believe.

Dressed in muddy loincloths, they reached roundabout his hip height and weighed perhaps a third as much. Like elves, they had long, pointed ears, with their other distinctive facial features being their hooked noses and large, round eyes. They looked almost pet-like with those squishable chubby cheeks.

The only thing that hinted at their monstrous nature was the menacing way they flashed their daggers – but even then, at least it was daggers they flashed and not other things best left unsaid.

Despite being the only ones armed, the goblins were evidently also keen observers of chivalry for they didn’t charge their defenceless target or anything ungentlemanly like that, instead hopping on the spot and waving their daggers as if inviting Penbrooke to a dangerous dance.

“Uh,” Penbrooke said with a nod towards his weapon. “Do you guys mind if I pick that up real quick?”

I don’t think goblins can understand Felsian, ser knight.

Yet to Cal’s astonishment, the goblins stretched their necks towards the cudgel as if they had not only understood but were urging him to do so already and to hurry up with it: they had places to be, civilians to mug, villages to burn.

Contemporary goblin hustle culture mandated they regularly steal the product of other people’s labour; become deadbeat dads at the earliest age their weenies started working; and still return home daily to beat their spouses, only to leave right after lest their progeny caught a glimpse of them and started getting funny ideas about having a father figure in their lives. Frankly speaking it was all too much to handle, but what could you do when that was the criteria to be seen as a competent goblin male in modern society.

Meanwhile, wilfully ignorant to the societal pressures faced by his overstretched foes, Penbrooke edged towards his cudgel while keeping an eye out for any sudden actions from them.

“Its handle was so slippery, it was like someone had lined it with butter. That’s why it fell out of my grip, because I didn’t expect the combat tutorial to start here,” he explained.

Ser knight, I experienced you dropping it first-hand, so I can assure you that it didn’t feel slippery in the slightest.

Hearing no response, he tried again. “I swear I didn’t mean to drop it. It just slipped, that’s all. Anyway, I haven’t done this before, and there’s nothing embarrassing about a little fumbling on your first time, right?”

Please stop talking. These goblins may look pretty low-intellect, sure, but even they’re not buying it.

Indeed, one of them rolled its eyes, while the other stared at him with an utterly unmoved expression; the knight pretended not to see this as he rearmed himself, then took a handful of steps away from his assailants.

Suppressing his shame through an effort of will, Penbrooke raised his weapon in challenge and pretended the last few seconds had been nothing more than a figment of their collective imaginations. “So you thought I’d be easy pickings, eh? Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you chose the wrong target today. Now come forth and face my wrath!”

If not for their chivalry, I fear we would have been the very definition of easy pickings.

Returning to script, the goblins replied with angry (yet squeaky) roars whilst still holding their positions.

Penbrooke gave no further warning and at once charged at them, raising his cudgel high as if to blot out the setting sun.

“[Log Splitter],” he roared while cleaving down. The target goblin – which, coincidentally, happened to be the one that’d rolled its eyes – could hardly raise its arm in time before it got clubbed on the head, the force of the attack causing it to momentarily bounce back before collapsing unconscious.

The plucky knight immediately directed his attention towards the other goblin, which bravely raised its blade in defence. “[Home Run Hitter]!”

He swung his cudgel as if batting a ball and made contact squarely in between the goblin’s ribs, whereupon it flew off the ground and landed with a sorrowful groan, folding over just like its kin had.

“Justice served,” Penbrooke declared, nodding with self-satisfaction.

On the other hand, Cal, having been the sole witness to the fight, couldn’t help but (figuratively) scratch his head in confusion. Even when ignoring any points regarding the peculiar ambush and inexplicable bandit behaviour, there was still one particularly glaring detail he couldn’t get his mind around.

He’d personally felt Penbrooke operating his body at maximum force; the knight had not held back whatsoever, as shown by attacks that’d sent his enemies flying. So why then is the aftermath of these attacks little more than faint bruises on their slight bodies? There’s no ruptured flesh, no flowing blood, no serious injuries, really.

And why did the goblins totally still after being downed? They’ve not tried to get back up or had any motions since, no writhes in pain or death throes even.

It all just seems rather unreal, to be honest…