I Reincarnated into a Game Filled with Mods

As an unexpected situation unfolded right before my eyes, my mind went blank.

The NPC knight from the tutorial area that I remembered was a middle-aged man with wrinkles all over his face and a bushy gray beard.

But the knight in front of me was a completely different gender.

Glorious moonlight danced on her silver hair, cascading down her back, reaching the middle of her thighs. Her bangs partially covered her forehead, divided neatly into three strands.

Below that, her eyes shimmered silver, mirroring the moonlight, revealing a stunningly beautiful face, both objectively and subjectively.

Maybe it was the impact of the shock, but I couldn’t seem to think straight. Noticing my gaze, the knight, who had been kicking a corroded helmet with her foot, turned to look at me. Her silver eyes were focused on me.

“What’s wrong? Is there something you want to say?”

“Uh, well, that is, I mean… you’re a woman…?”

“Do you really think I’d be a man with a face like this? That’s quite the strange question.”

She chuckled slightly. That faint smile was disgustingly beautiful. She seemed to think I was joking.

To me, it was a serious question.

‘What the hell is going on…’

I desperately tried to calm my shock, racking my brain to understand what the heck was happening. Wasn’t this knight someone different from the NPC in the tutorial area?

But aside from her gender and appearance, every other detail matched my memory of the NPC. This meant there was no room for doubt about her identity.

Even in the Darkest Light Mod, I hadn’t changed genders—

‘Wait, the mod?’

Suddenly, a possibility flashed through my mind.

Concerned that I might come off as rude or suspicious, I cast a sidelong glance at the knight’s face. Her long silver hair reached down to her waist, and her silver eyes sparkled like her hair.

It was an image faintly imprinted in my memory.

‘That looks like the appearance from the appearance change mod.’

Given that the world of the Brightest Darkness series is so grim and devoid of hope, most of the notable NPC roles were filled by men.

The Empress of the Empire, knights, the Pope of the Holy Kingdom, clerics, the head of the mage tower, wizards, and even most mid-boss enemies and street mobs— they were all men.

There were female NPCs, but there were so few that you could count them on one hand throughout the entire game.

Initially, it was common for mods that made female NPCs prettier and more beautiful to emerge. They had no reason to touch male characters when there were already female ones available.

However, as days went by, modders refined their retouching skills and eventually devised mods that transformed the appearances of major male NPCs into female ones, going above and beyond.

I had once given in to my curiosity and installed it.

It was indeed a well-made mod. The NPC appearances were beautiful and natural, and there were hardly any crashes with other mods, making it easy to dodge attacks during boss fights.

The only issue was that while the appearance was that of a beautiful woman, the voice was still that of a man. Touching the voice was beyond the modders’ reach.

Many chose to overlook the dissonance between appearance and voice, but I couldn’t adapt and ultimately uninstalled it when the Darkest Light Mod was released.

‘…Could it be that?’

There was no other way to explain the current situation besides the appearance change mod, or the NPC retouching mod being applied.

“I can’t deal with this anymore.”

While I desperately tried to piece together my thoughts, the knight, wiping blood off her armor, frowned and slightly clicked her tongue. The black blood-stained areas were corroded and rusty.

Without hesitation, she tossed aside her armor.

“…?”

As her bare skin emerged, I doubted my eyesight.

Her white sleeveless top revealed arms free of excess fat and smooth armpits. This was her attire underneath the armor. Her skin was fair, matching the outfit.

The size of the clothes clung tightly to her body, leaving nothing to the imagination about her figure and shape. The flesh peeking out here and there from her abdomen and sides was a bonus.

But that wasn’t all. On her lower half, she wore silver dolphin shorts. Her slender thighs and calves peeked out from her falling armor.

‘What the heck? What is going on?’

My head spun even more than when I first confirmed the knight’s gender. Dolphin shorts and a sleeveless top? Under full plate armor?

I racked my memory. As far as I remembered, the appearance change mod and the NPC retouching mod had only altered appearances honestly. And yet, the clothes had changed unexpectedly, too. To something ridiculously suggestive.

Regardless of how confused I was, the knight tossed aside her shin guards and gauntlets, leaving just her sleeveless top and dolphin shorts, fastening a sword to her belt at her waist.

‘…This is insane.’

It was an extremely provocative sight. A white sleeveless top slightly damp with sweat, clinging to her body; the buttocks wiggling beneath the silver dolphin shorts; and her incredibly smooth thighs.

I desperately averted my gaze to avoid being too aware of the scene.

This time, I quickly grasped the situation better than in the previous two instances. Clearly, alongside the mod that changed the NPC’s appearance, there was also a mod that altered clothing.

Given that the Darkest Light Mod was already in place, along with the appearance change mod, there was no reason why there wouldn’t be a clothing change mod.

I vaguely remembered whether I had installed any of those mods, but it was likely bundled in a pack.

“Hey, prisoner?”

While I was lost in thought about the list of mods I had installed, the knight’s voice startled me into looking up.

“Y-Yes?”

“Do you have anywhere to go now?”

Hearing a familiar dialogue line brought my senses back to some extent. Right, confusion was one thing, but I had to focus on surviving by doing whatever I could.

“No, I don’t.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. The only places to go from here are either becoming a fugitive or being transferred to another prison. So here’s my proposal: are you interested in following me and joining the knights? With your skills, you could be quite useful with just a bit of polishing. I can vouch for that.”

‘This is it.’

When an option identical to what I’d seen in the game appeared, I cheered inwardly.

If I could defeat the Human Butcher on my first encounter, an event that allows me to immediately join the knights along with the NPC would trigger. This was the easiest route to get through the early game.

With only one life, it was best to take the easiest path possible.

“Considering that you took down that beast without any decent weapon or skills, your capability is proven. And judging by your bravery in facing such a monster, I think it’d be a waste to let your potential go to waste. Oh, don’t worry about your status. I won’t care if you were a prisoner or not. I can gauge someone’s nature just by looking into their eyes. You’re someone I can trust.”

Hearing that very line, which had become a meme on the internet, felt surreal as it resonated in front of me.

That was a line uttered consistently by the knight NPC for recruitment events. They could tell a person’s nature by looking at their eyes, and that’s why they said they trusted the protagonist.

At first glance, it seemed like a generic line, but the reason it became a meme was that as long as you proceeded with the recruitment event, it appeared irrespective of the character’s appearance.

Even if players customized their characters to look completely inhuman, that line would still be used. In fan creations, it often depicted the NPC suffering from serious vision problems or being completely blind.

Yet that didn’t mean that I currently had purple skin, eyes larger than my mouth, and a distorted face.

“So, what do you think? Interested?”

If this were a game, a choice would pop up here: ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

Of course, I knew exactly what I would pick.

“Yes. I will.”

“Good. Then we’ll leave right away. There’s no point in lingering here, especially for you.”

With that said, the knight turned and walked toward the exit.

With each step, her dolphin shorts wiggled lewdly, and I could see the slight indentation along her slender waist and spine.

No matter how many times I looked, that outfit was something I couldn’t come to terms with. It was bizarre that just above her were full plate armor and that she didn’t seem to feel any uneasiness about her attire.

“Oh, hold on a moment.”

The knight paused, then again locked eyes with me.

“I just realized I almost skipped over introductions. My name is Iris.”

‘Iris?’

That was a name I hadn’t heard in the game. Since her gender changed, did her name shift from a male to a female name as well?

“What’s your name? I can’t just keep calling you ‘you’ or ‘prisoner’ forever.”

Now that I thought about it, I realized I had never considered what my name would be.

In the game, you could just slap together random letters for a name, and it was understood, but I couldn’t get away with that here. Using my real name felt a bit off, too.

After a moment of contemplation, I finally remembered a good idea and opened my mouth.

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