Chapter 4: Tutorial (4)

Including the initial charge that he always uses upon first encounter, the boss alternates between four patterns during the battle, and the last one, which was about to start right now, would be activated the moment the HP of the “Human Butcher” dropped below 10%. This was his so-called “final struggle”. If you saw this pattern, you were essentially victorious.

He would draw blood from his body, turn it into a bomb, and fling it at the player, which drained his health by simply dodging it, all the way until there was only 1 HP left.

When his HP dropped to 1, he would succumb to exhaustion and collapse. Whether it was with your bare hands or anything else, all you had to do was lightly touch him and the boss battle against the “Human Butcher” would be over.

Of course, as the saying goes, you’re ‘virtually’ cleared, but you absolutely could not let your guard down until the end.

In the vanilla version, you could get away with just a few dodges, but with the mod, you had to frantically dodge until the very last blow.

“Arrrgghhhh!”

He roared and slammed his mace into the ground, then strutted to the center of the arena and started tearing his flesh with his nails.

Black blood flowed from the wounds he ripped open with his nails. As he roared again, the droplets of blood near him started gathering into clusters about the size of a human head.

In the vanilla version, you only had to dodge about 9 or 10 of these, but in the “Darkest Light” mod, you had to avoid close to 50. And the fact that you would die instantly if you were hit by even one of them was an added bonus.

Moreover, you couldn’t dodge them by rolling. If you were hit by a bomb during the brief delay between one roll and the next, you would instantly die.

Once I confirmed that the blood droplets were merging to form a shape of a human skull, I retreated all the way to the arena wall. Sticking to the wall and spinning counter-clockwise was the most reliable way to evade.

The “Human Butcher” looked up at the sky and howled. The blood bombs, which had formed into round human skulls, were launched at me in response to his howl.

From the perspective of the “Human Butcher”, the bombs on the right, or on my left, were fired first. So, to increase the distance they had to travel as much as possible, it was best to rotate counter-clockwise.

You could dodge them by rotating clockwise, but the bombs would land slightly closer than when rotating counter-clockwise, causing an occasional unlucky hit.

It was not worth the risk.

Blood bombs were thudding into the ground behind me, creating massive acid explosions. The black liquid spread out, eating away at the walls and floor. I had a pretty good idea of what the scene behind me looked like.

When I’d almost made a full circle around the arena, I realized that the noise behind me had quieted down, and I stopped. The “Human Butcher” had used up all his energy and sat down on the spot, gasping for breath.

I approached cautiously, keeping my guard up, mindful of the 50 hits I mentioned earlier.

Often in this desperate state, a final desperate act would be to launch a last blood bomb.

As I had feared, a sphere in the shape of a human skull once again floated above his head.

‘It’s always good to be cautious.’

I prepared to roll in the opposite direction of the incoming bomb. Dodging a single shot with a roll was entirely possible.

However, the final bomb didn’t head in my direction.

The blood bomb soared high into the sky and flew to the top floor of the prison, causing a massive explosion there. With a deafening blast, half of the top floor was blown away.

Having completed its final act of defiance, the human butcher collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath. A mere touch, with my bare hands or whatever, would be the end of the boss battle.

“What…?”

But at that moment, I had no time to think about such things. I stared in disbelief at the collapsed human butcher and the half-blown prison top floor.

This was an event that had never occurred in the game before.

As I stood dumbfounded by the unexpected situation unfolding before my eyes, a knight in armor burst through the cloud of dust from the top floor of the prison.

With a light clank of metal, the knight landed lightly on the open field and stood up.

The once brilliantly shining silver armor was now covered in black blood, emitting smoke as it melted. It was corroded in many places, almost losing its function as armor.

Considering the blood coating, it appeared to have taken a direct hit from the blood bomb, but since all the limbs were intact, the armor had served its purpose to the end.

It was an armor I recognized, but somehow, its appearance was significantly different. While I was tilting my head, feeling a strange sense of discomfort, the knight, who had approached me, muttered something.

“I didn’t expect the final attack to be directed at us. That was my mistake.”

A neutral voice flowed from the rusted and dirty silver helmet. The armor was different from what I remembered, and so was the voice.

Something was strange. Quite a bit, actually.

“Did you take that thing down by yourself?”

At the same question I would get in the game, I snapped back to reality. If this were a game, I would see options for ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, but now I had to answer myself.

“Yes, I did.”

“That’s impressive.”

The knight scrutinized the collapsed human butcher, panting heavily on the ground, and then turned back to me.

“It seems to be alive. Aren’t you going to finish it off? You took it down, so it’s your job to wrap this up.”

“Ah, yes. I suppose you’re right.”

I picked up the sword I had discarded on the ground. Even as I approached, it didn’t react at all. The knight took a few steps back and gave a light nod.

The blade plunged deeply into the abdomen. It effortlessly penetrated the human butcher who, upon receiving the fatal blow, let out a dying roar before tumbling down diagonally.

In the game, when you kill an enemy, their corpse automatically disappears and items drop, but I wondered how it would work here as I intently observed the fallen body.

Bubbles and smoke began to emanate from the area around the human butcher’s head as it started to melt down. Melted flesh and black blood pooled beneath the dissolving corpse.

As the flesh melted away, leaving a gaping hole, something shiny caught my eye.

‘So, this is how it works.’

Discarding the now useless steel sword, I carefully reached out to the glistening object, ensuring my hand didn’t touch the decaying flesh. I gave it a hard tug and surprisingly, it came out with ease.

What I held in my hand was a sword, its blade gleaming a sinister red hue. The familiar sight brought relief.

‘One less worry now.’

This was the weapon I absolutely needed. I had worried about what would happen if the items didn’t drop, but that fear turned out to be groundless.

The reason this weapon, known as the ‘Bloodstained Sword,’ is praised as an early-game cheat key is simple.

Despite being a weapon that can be obtained in the extremely early tutorial area, its damage output rivals that of weapons acquired mid-game.

Even though its stat adjustments and enhancement growth rate significantly make its efficiency wane over time, this trait had ironically only enhanced its reputation as an early game cheat key.

In the early stages, it’s impossible to properly enhance weapons, and the character’s stats are so low that a weapon with high base damage and basic stats has several times the benefit.

The power from this weapon alone can supplement the attack power, allowing one to invest the stat points meant for strength into other key abilities. This single factor significantly stabilizes early game builds.

Of course, this only applies to the vanilla version of the game, in the brutal mods where you can die in one hit from a common roadside mob, it’s a different story.

As I held the Bloodstained Sword and watched the whole process unfold, I turned back towards the silver-armored knight who had been observing me. From within the helmet, a gender-neutral voice flowed again.

“That weapon is…?”

Before the knight could finish the sentence, a large crack formed in the struggling helmet, creating a creaking noise. It seemed the helmet had fulfilled its purpose of saving its wearer’s life and was at the end of its lifespan.

Although an NPC’s armor breaking was not something that happened in the game, it didn’t matter much here. After all, if I were to take issue with that, I’d have to start with the fact that the final blood explosion went elsewhere.

It seems the overall storyline hasn’t changed much, and it just feels like reality has been enhanced, like the human butcher’s abdomen wound or the ground shattering when the beast stomped its foot.

The knight, with a tutting noise, grasped the splitting helmet and forcibly tore it off. The helmet fragments clanged as they rolled on the ground.

Hidden within, a flow of silver, long hair had spilled down.

‘…Hold on, what? Long hair?’

Caught off guard by the unexpected sight, I momentarily paused, locking eyes with the knight.

The face gazing back at me was as beautiful as anyone could objectively or subjectively claim, framed by silver eyes the same shade as the hair.

Yes, what was hidden in the armor was a young woman, not a middle-aged man like the NPC in my memory.