Sir Xavier Pendragon sat at the corner of the tavern where he drank a glass of beer alone. The shiny armor he wore distinguished him as a knight, unlike most people around who were travelers, merchants or novice mages. The man’s tall build and his icy blue eyes made him look quite intimidating to anyone.
Despite his unusual appearance, Sir Xavier did not want to create an image of an aloof knight who could not bother to mingle himself in mundane affairs. In fact, he did have friends who finished missions together, but they had other affairs so they could not join him. Besides, this knight already had something on his mind.
“Trash game,” he muttered. You heard me right, our hero Sir Xavier Pendragon was merely an avatar of the popular online fantasy RPG game League of Knights. “Dumb Ayesha can’t even remind me to exchange my drops before 8pm,”
Players were required to exchange the event drops into currencies before the next event started. Ayesha, the system pixie, did not give him the deadline reminders even though he had requested her to do so.
“Players are required to read the newsletters frequently,” she told him in a monotonous, Siri-like voice. He really hated the trashy attitude she gave him. He really wanted to quit the game, then give a 1-star rating along with an essay-long comment. The real problem was, he was fancying a certain non-playable character in the game. Who did not have a fictional crush anyway?
“Sir Xavier Pendragon, right?” A young maiden approached him, whom he recognized as the beautiful Liselle. She was known as the daughter of this town’s mayor, who was as attractive as Helen of Troy with her golden locks and captivating smile. However, she was rarely seen around as her father was strict about her whereabouts. It was quite atypical for her to leave her manor.
“How can I help you, m’lady?” he asked with a charming smile. Deep down, he was cringing at himself for saying something so cheesy.
“Oh well, how do I put this?” her cheeks flushed in bright red. “I sneaked out from the house as I saw Father leaving town. Now it was already late night and I could not go back alone.” “So you want an escort?”
She nodded. Sir Xavier went to pay his bill before heading to the mayor’s manor with Liselle. Throughout the entire journey, he kept his distance even though his heart was anticipating to hold her hands and court her. It was a short journey to the manor, where it was two streets away from the tavern.
“Thank you, Sir Xavier.” she bashfully said. “Now I can go to my room without being caught.”
“It’s my duty,” the knight replied.
Liselle then slowly leaned on Sir Xavier’s chest and kissed him on the lips passionately. He never actually kissed a girl in real life, but to be kissed by his game crush was worth celebrating. Sir Xavier was so engrossed in the kiss to the point he did not realize that his fully-charged HP bar was slowly depleting.
The poor knight only found out that his own lust had taken over his vigilance when he saw the two big red words in front of him:
YOU DIED.
Awarded first place for UNMC's WriteSoc x Gaming Society Final Pentasy Competition
https://drafts.home.blog/2020/12/23/a-knight-in-the-tavern/