Fragments of the Past – 4

Roll, roll, a hollow helmet rolled to my feet. I stomped on it to stop it and looked at the spot where it should have been.

Covered in gauntlets and leg pieces of armor all over its body, as if it had dozens of limbs, the being stood frozen, a gigantic something.

True to its appearance, it was a boss named ‘Armor-Eating Knight’.

I nudged the corpse of the Armor-Eating Knight, whose head had been severed in less than three minutes. The mass of armor, already precarious due to its center of gravity, toppled backward with a crashing sound.

Dozens of armor pieces that had detached from its body rolled across the floor. I vertically plunged the Wingless Nightmare, whose black flames had yet to extinguish, into the ground.

It was a buff I had used before entering the boss battle, yet it still hadn’t worn off. This was thanks to the significant increase in my magic stats, which in turn greatly extended the buff’s duration.

‘The feeling of increased stats is truly immense.’

In the past, even with the Wingless Nightmare and the Blazing Black Flames, it would have taken at least ten minutes of fighting. Now, it ended so quickly it felt anticlimactic.

Considering that it was an armored boss with a certain amount of resistance to slashing attacks, if I had exploited its weak attributes, I might have defeated it in less than a minute, let alone three.

‘It’s a bit disappointing that I haven’t found my memories.’

Even though I was deliberately picking and defeating only bosses that evoked the feeling of Black Desert 1 and 2, nothing was suddenly popping into my mind. It was a shame.

“Is there no way to retrieve specific memories faster?”

I asked Nyx, who was picking up a gauntlet that had fallen from the boss’s body and clapping her hands together. Nyx tilted her head.

“Specific memories? Like what?”

“Memories of magic I used in the past, or techniques I used. Things like that.”

Nyx pondered for a moment at my words, then shook her head.

“I don’t know. It’s true that I sealed your memories, but I can’t unseal them. The Goddess-nim said that your memories would return once you regained your power.”

“In that case, there’s nothing for it. I’ll just have to keep beating up everything that comes to mind, like now.”

If it were possible to recall specific memories first, I would have definitely started by looking for the magic from Black Desert 1. It was unfortunate.

Because the common opinion among players was that Black Desert 1’s magic was exceptionally efficient. Even from the user’s perspective, it made them wonder, ‘Is this right?’

Black Desert 4 generally had well-balanced roles, but Black Desert 1 was said to be a game where a few overpowered builds dominated everything.

‘Minerva would probably love it too.’

In fact, it wouldn’t be strange at all if she didn’t just like it, but went completely wild and pounced on it.

Considering that she lost her mind just by seeing an ancient scroll, which was simply magic from an incredibly old era in this world, her reaction to being shown magic from an entirely different world was obvious.

‘…Now that I think about it, that’s quite terrifying?’

Having experienced a similar situation in the Holy Kingdom, the moment I recalled Minerva clinging to me, begging and pleading, a chill ran down my spine.

“Couldn’t you have just asked the Goddess-nim? You could have asked if there was a faster way to find your old memories.”

“I forgot because I was too shocked by my past story. And when I tried talking to her just now, she didn’t answer.”

I didn’t know why. Perhaps the World Eater had temporarily fled, and she was recovering her strength.

“I understand. Your past was indeed shocking.”

From the informal Nyx, there was no longer any trace of her former gloominess. It seemed she had decided to act entirely like the Soul Guardian when the memory sharing was severed.

However, due to her appearance, she hardly gave off the vibe of a Soul Guardian. After all, her tall, slender physique, which was comparable to the protagonist of Black Desert 3, had completely reversed into the exact opposite body type.

“Delta.”

While I was thinking about the next destination, Nyx, with a very serious expression, approached me. I tensed up slightly in response, waiting for what she would say next.

“I’m going to hand over control back to Nyx soon.”

“Already? It hasn’t been three days yet?”

“I don’t plan to fill all three days. Your memories might suddenly return in the middle of it, you know. In that case, it would be much more helpful for me to be there than for Nyx to be.”

Indeed, Nyx’s true identity and my own were secrets to the other personality.

“So, I have a favor to ask.”

“What kind of favor makes you look so serious?”

“When you regain your memories later, could you hug my main body?”

“…What?”

At the sudden question, I reflexively asked back.

“Exactly as I said. I want you to hug me. In a sexual way, of course.”

“I understood perfectly, no need to emphasize. What I want to ask is something else. Why suddenly?”

“It’s not sudden. Besides the Goddess-nim, I’ve known you the longest. You know who I used to be and what our relationship was, don’t you?”

“That’s true, but…”

The Soul Guardian was one of the very few completely friendly NPCs in the entire Black Desert series, so the relationship between the Black Desert 3 protagonist and the Soul Guardian was quite famous.

There was also the side effect that no matter how many times she was killed, she would always revive, and no matter how many times she was killed, she would never get angry or betray, making her the target of all sorts of torment.

“Oh, of course, not right now. I told you. ‘When you regain your memories.’ If you don’t have your old memories, aren’t we just in a relationship where we put a magic seal on your memories?”

Nyx drew a clear line.

“It might sound like a sudden request. But I’m doing this because I know you heard the whole story from the Goddess-nim. I thought it was about time to mention it.”

“…”

“The fact that I took the negative emotions means, conversely, that all the positive emotions remained in the main body. Isn’t it obvious what those positive emotions include?”

“Yes. It is obvious.”

“Even I, who only receive the influence, am like this, so what about the main body that directly feels the emotions? Until now, you didn’t know her true identity, so she endured it, but she can’t do that anymore. No, she won’t.”

Her words were indeed reasonable.

The old Nyx was just a witch who followed me unusually because I had no past memories, but the current Nyx is the Soul Guardian who even crossed worlds to find me.

Now that I knew her true identity, I couldn’t just leave her be.

“If the main body hugs you, her mind will become much more stable. That means the side effects when the personalities merge back into one will be dramatically reduced.”

Nyx puffed out her chest with a ‘hem-hem’ expression. Then she glanced down at her chest, which was pushed out, and cupped it with her hands.

Her dainty fingers could barely encircle her nipples.

“And, aren’t I quite an excellent body, even by the standards here? Do you know how much I struggled to sculpt it to my taste?”

Her fingers pressed firmly into her chest. The overwhelming mass of flesh completely buried her fingers.

While the objective size might be similar to the Pope sisters or Rije, Nyx’s height was much shorter than theirs, making her proportions appear overwhelmingly larger.

Moreover, her attire was just as outrageous as theirs, so it was by no means a body that could be described with a modest qualifier like ‘quite’.

“…Wait. Whose taste?”

Did I mishear?

“My taste. Not yours, mine. When I came over here, only my soul was transferred, so I had to create a whole new body. My physique, appearance, and clothing are all my creations. Of course, the Goddess-nim made it for me, though.”

I re-examined Nyx’s body anew.

Breasts of a size that could easily occupy half of her upper body, a soft body with no trace of muscle, and a stubby height that barely reached my chest.

All of that was the Soul Guardian’s taste?

“My old body had no feminine charm whatsoever, did it? My chest was flat, I had a straight figure, and I was tall as a beanpole. Even though I look like this, that was quite a complex for me, you know? And this way, it’s easier to satisfy my preferences.”

“Do you still have more preferences to confess?”

“Oh? Didn’t I tell you? I really like masochistic things. In other words, maso-“

“That’s enough. I understood, so stop there.”

I felt a strangely familiar sensation as Nyx, once her reins were loosened, completely shattered the brakes with her words and actions. I clutched my dizzy head.

In Black Desert 3, the Soul Guardian in-game was definitely a very calm character. Was this a side effect of her personality splitting into negative and positive aspects?

‘Perhaps what’s attached to her chest isn’t breasts, but a lust pouch?’

Rije, the Pope sisters, and now even Nyx. Anyone with two large things attached to their chest invariably acted like this.

“Since you understood, I’ll be looking forward to it. You have to find your memories as fast as possible, okay?”

The moment Nyx smiled faintly, the atmosphere changed. A pure and innocent smile, not the meaningful one from before, appeared on her face.

Nyx, back to her usual self, fidgeted her fingers in front of her chest.

“Um, is something wrong? Hehe.”

“It’s nothing. I just want to regain my memories quickly. Let’s move to the next location.”

I inwardly sighed in relief and brushed it off casually. Although the atmosphere had changed to be like Rije, there was nothing wrong with what she said. I did need to pick up the pace for Nyx’s sake.

In that case, the destination was set.

If you were to pick the most malicious place in Black Desert 4, the number one spot might vary depending on the person, but there was one place that would definitely be in the top three, no matter who you asked.

It was the poisonous swamp terrain in the southern continent.

It wasn’t because it was difficult. Story-wise, the poisonous swamp was only a mid-game area, so the enemies weren’t particularly strong, and by vanilla standards, their patterns weren’t that malicious either.

Nevertheless, the poisonous swamp’s ranking was so high because of the enemies that appeared there.

-Kiiiiiiiiiiik!

“Hiiiiiiiiiiik!”

For example, the swarm of gigantic crickets over there, making a tearing sound peculiar to insects, in sync with Nyx.

Nyx poured black flames towards the crickets that were leaping and rushing at her. The black flames swallowed dozens of crickets whole, yet still seemed unsatisfied, continuously flicking their tongue-like tendrils.

Dozens of innocent trees were caught in the flames. The black flames equally incinerated insects and plants without discrimination. A dense part of the forest instantly turned into an open field.

“Huuuuhhh… Th-this place is strange…”

Nyx, with a tearful face, clung to me and buried her face in my embrace. I stroked her hair until it was thoroughly disheveled, comforting her.

“That’s why I told you. I’d go alone, and you stay on high ground. Those things don’t go that far.”

The poisonous swamp area that restricted player movement, and the disgusting giant insects scattered throughout the poisonous swamp.

All of these were long-standing traditions that continued from Black Desert 1 to Black Desert 4.

This also meant it was the place most likely to trigger memories from Black Desert 1 to 3. Throughout the series, the overall composition of this area was so similar it could be considered self-plagiarism.

Eclipse wouldn’t have created something like this in her world, so it was probably an aftereffect of the rift created by the World Eater.

Originally, I had planned to just briefly visit the dungeon here or skip it entirely, but I changed my mind.

“B-but…”

Before Nyx could finish shaking her head, the sound of something squelching and splashing through the poisonous swamp approached. Hearing dozens of sounds overlapping, I knew what it was without even looking.

“Here it comes. That thing I told you about.”

“…”

Stop. Her head-shaking ceased. Nyx’s body stiffened. It was only natural, as this was the creature that had made Nyx look tearful even when I simply explained the structure of the poisonous swamp before we came here.

“Th-thaaat…”

“It’s okay. If you’re scared, just stay here. I’ll handle it.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay. It’s natural for something like that to be disgusting. Rather, it’s abnormal not to be scared like me, you know?”

I comforted Nyx, who was trembling and apologizing repeatedly, and hid her in a burnt-out tree hollow. Nyx crouched inside, shivering.

I raised my head. The source of the squelching sound was approaching from a distance. Its appearance hadn’t changed much compared to Black Desert 1, but it was much larger and much more disgusting.

First, its face, which would inflict mental damage not just on the character but on the player outside the screen the moment you were hit by its grab attack while fighting it.

Finally, its damnably numerous legs.

This creature had given countless users trauma regarding grab attacks, but now I felt nothing. Only the thought that it was fucking annoying to look at and I needed to deal with it quickly came to mind.

“You’re disgusting to look at, so I’ll finish you quickly.”

I conjured black flames in my left hand. Since I could definitely use it twice, I would use the biggest and strongest one. So that not a single strand of hair would remain of that thing.

The creature spread its legs wide and charged at me.