After learning Whirlwind Sprint, Choi Ha-neul asked me a question as we were making our way down the mountain.
"Mister, where exactly is Ustengrav?"
Since I already knew every detail of the quest, I explained the location and the secret behind the mission.
"It's near a city called Morthal, but we don't actually need to go there."
"Huh? Then how are we going to recover the horn?"
"Simple. The horn isn't even there in the first place. You know the innkeeper in Riverwood? She beat everyone to it."
In the main quest, exploring Ustengrav for the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller is ultimately a wild goose chase. Delphine visits first, takes the horn, and leaves nothing but a note behind.
Using my knowledge of the 'original' feels strange—like I've actually become some protagonist in a novel.
"So we just head straight back to Riverwood?" Ha-neul asked.
"Exactly. We skip a dangerous dungeon crawl and save a lot of time."
"You really are a hardcore gamer, aren't you?"
"Hmph. That stings, but I can't really argue with it."
After an exhausting trek back to Ivarstead, we headed straight for the inn. Scaling that mountain and coming back down had taken the entire day; it was already evening.
Wandering through the freezing blizzards on the climb had left everyone completely drained. We decided to eat an early dinner and set out again at dawn.
As for me? I was beat. But there was a quest in Ivarstead I wanted to resolve while we were here.
The main quests don't show up in my log, but side quests do. It's a way to get stronger while helping people—killing two birds with one stone.
The person in this tiny, remote village who needed my help was none other than Narfi.
For those who don't know the game logic, Narfi's only family was his older sister, who disappeared one day. The quest is to find a clue about her whereabouts. However, the circumstances of the case are suspicious as hell.
I headed toward the half-collapsed house across the river and found Narfi huddled there in rags.
As I approached, he jumped up, startled.
"Who are you! Narfi doesn't know you...!"
The trauma of his sister's disappearance had broken Narfi's mind; he was little more than a simpleton now.
"Easy, friend. Do you recognize this necklace?"
The necklace belonged to Narfi's sister. Sadly, she was long dead, her remains nothing but bones submerged in the riverbed next to the village. I had stripped down to my underwear, dived into the freezing current, found her remains, and retrieved the necklace still hanging from her skeletal neck.
"You found my sister! Where is she! Is she coming home?"
Here, a player has a choice: give him false hope and let him wait forever for a ghost, or tell him the brutal truth.
I believed he deserved the truth. I told him straight.
"Actually, your sister is dead... I found her body at the bottom of the river."
"What!? No... NOOOOO!"
Narfi burst into tears, wailing in agony.
"Uuuugh... Narfi is all alone now. I'll never see Reyda again! Aaaaah!"
No matter how dirty or ragged the man was, it was impossible to watch someone lose their last scrap of family and feel nothing. Even though my emotions had grown calloused since arriving in Skyrim, this sight still hit me.
"Sob... thank you anyway. Narfi will remember his sister every time he looks at this. Here, I saved these to give to her. You take them."
Narfi handed me some Lavender and Nirnroot. Just like in the game, the reward was alchemy ingredients.
[Quest: 'Find Reyda' completed!]
- Reward: Stamina increased by 20.
I gave Narfi a few words of comfort and turned away. The quest was done, but I was about to do something that isn't possible in the vanilla game.
As I mentioned, there are too many oddities surrounding Narfi and his sister. There are arrows found near her body, and later, an assassination contract is even put out on Narfi himself. It's obvious her death wasn't an accident.
I'd always been curious about this back when I played the game, so I decided to dig deeper.
I went straight to Klimmek the fisherman. He was my first suspect because, in the game, he's always seen acting like he's keeping a watchful eye on Narfi.
I approached him while he was leisurely fishing by the river. I'd intentionally left my weapons at the inn and put on the most innocent, naive expression I could muster.
"Excuse me, I found an ownerless fishing rod over there. Is it yours?"
"What? A good rod? I'd better check. Might be mine."
Klimmek bit the bait. I led him toward a secluded part of the woods.
"Wait, this is suspicious. Why are you leading me all the way out here? I'm not going any further."
'Damn, he's cautious.'
We weren't far from the village, but I judged it was far enough that no one would stumble upon us. I turned and drove my fist directly into Klimmek's face.
It was rough, sure, but I had a healer back at the inn. If it turned out I was wrong, I'd just have him patched up.
"Gah!"
He let out a pathetic yelp and clutched his face. Years of just fishing by the river had left him soft. I grabbed his collar as he tried to stop his nosebleed and started the interrogation.
"Listen to me carefully. From now on, you answer with 'Yes' or 'No'. Got it?"
Klimmek nodded frantically.
"You know something about Narfi's sister disappearing, don't you?"
He hesitated. When I raised my fist again, he started waving his hands in a panic.
"Alright, alright!! I'll talk! I'll tell you everything!"
And so, the truth came out.
It turned out that when Narfi and his sister were children, their parents had a thriving herbal business. Their house was the wealthiest in Ivarstead. But the parents worked themselves into an early grave, leaving the massive inheritance to Narfi and Reyda.
Reyda was kind to Narfi, but she was abrasive and arrogant toward the rest of the village. She liked to flaunt her wealth, and the villagers hated her for it.
On the day of the 'incident,' she'd gotten into a heated argument with Klimmek. In a fit of rage, he had killed her and staged it as a disappearance. When Narfi lost his sister so soon after his parents, his mind simply snapped.
Klimmek had embezzled the family's fortune, split it with the other villagers to buy their silence, and kept everyone quiet. He'd been pretending to fish for years just so he could watch Narfi and make sure the 'simpleton' never remembered anything.
"So that's how it was..."
"Look, I'll give you some of the gold. Just... just spare me—"
The woman might have been a brat, but they didn't just kill her—they robbed her and left her brother to rot in the ruins of their life. In the game, they even eventually put a hit on Narfi just to tie up loose ends.
'Narfi is all alone...!'
The image of Narfi's despair flashed through my mind. And now this bastard was trying to bribe me? I lost it. I tightened my grip on Klimmek's throat, putting my full weight into it.
"Ack— wheeze—!"
"..."
Thud.
By the time I snapped out of my rage, Klimmek's heart had stopped.
"Ah..."
I backed away, my hands trembling. I'd killed him. I'd killed bandits before, plenty of them, so I didn't panic—but this was the first time I'd killed a named 'villager.' My stomach churned. More than that, I had to hide the body.
I dragged Klimmek's corpse to the entrance of a nearby bear cave. If the bear ate him or someone found him there, I had to hope they'd assume it was a wild animal attack. I could have thrown him in the river to be more thorough, but the river leads all the way to Riften; the body would likely be spotted.
Feeling like some kind of urban serial killer, I tried to convince myself it wasn't my fault as I walked back to the inn.
"Oh! Mister, you're back? Where did you go?"
"Just... for a walk."
They say a guilty man always stutters. I definitely tripped over my words. I went to sleep as quickly as possible, trying to wash the feeling away. A few days after we left, Klimmek's body would be found by his fellow fisherman, Bassianus.
Early the next morning, we set out for Riverwood.
"Mister, you're unusually quiet today. Is something wrong?" Ha-neul asked, her arms wrapped around my waist as we rode together on the horse.
I clearly wasn't over it yet.
"Tickle attack!"
"Pfft! Hey!"
Ha-neul's sudden assault nearly made us lose our balance on the horse.
"Watch it! That's dangerous!"
"Hehe, there's the grumpy mister I know."
Her antics were annoying, but they actually made me feel a bit better. Fine. I should forget it. I killed someone who deserved to die.
We took the southern route through the snowy pass connecting Ivarstead to Helgen. There were Skeletons and Draugr out in the wild, but we handled them with ease. After clearing out the mobs along the way, I finally hit level 8.
We eventually arrived back at Riverwood. Near the village entrance, I spotted an Orc with particularly massive tusks hanging around.
Finally, the next part of the main quest was starting.