Fragments of the Past – 5

-Kieeeek!

As I gathered black flames in my left hand and poured them over its head, the creature thrashed wildly, its countless legs crackling. Its massive body swayed back and forth, and its hair scattered everywhere.

Just as the black flames died down, a small red dot appeared in the center of its body. It was the effect of the Vampire Impulse Rune. I stepped on its leg and leaped high onto its head.

Ignoring the disgusting sensation on my palm, I positioned myself on the back of its head. I ripped off its long black hair, grabbed the back of its head, and plunged my knife deep into its neck.

As its dozens of legs began to tremble in their final convulsions, I fell counter-clockwise with the knife still plunged in, severing its neck halfway as I landed. Just in time, the black flames of the Wingless Nightmare extinguished.

The head, severed about two-thirds of the way, seemed to remain attached to the torso for a moment before snapping down with a jijik sound. Cheolpeok, its head plunged into the poison swamp. The headless torso toppled sideways, its legs bending and twitching grotesquely.

I frowned and flicked my finger, conjuring black flames. The black fire completely incinerated its corpse, leaving not a single piece of carapace. A disgusting smell emanated from the burning carapace.

‘Horrible.’

I rubbed the hand that had touched its hair against a charred tree to wipe it clean. Dark gray ash stained my palm, but I didn’t mind. It was far better to have ash on it.

After confirming that nothing else was moving around, I returned to Nyx, who was hiding in the tree hollow.

“Hoeengek……”

Nyx made strange noises with her mouth, her eyes tightly shut and ears covered, trembling and cowering inside the tree hollow in an awkward, half-kneeling posture due to her large chest.

“Nyx? Are you okay?”

“Hiiieek! Hieek! Hoeengek!”

The moment I gently tapped her shoulder, Nyx jumped as if struck by lightning and thrashed wildly. Her hair, half purple and half green, burst out, breaking through the charred wood.

Her already disheveled hair became mixed with wood fragments and ash, and anything that didn’t stick to her hair showered down onto her shoulders and chest.

“……Huh?”

Then, as our eyes met, she blinked a few times as if finally coming to her senses, then her face flushed crimson, and she bowed her head deeply. Her heated skin soon colored even her earlobes.

I wondered why a woman who had even encountered the Immortal Centipede in B-Dark 3 was so afraid of bugs, but then I realized that all those memories had been taken by a different Nyx. So, she must have lost her resistance.

“It’s okay. I killed them all. Calm down, Nyx.”

“Huuuuh……”

I pulled Nyx, whose entire face was crimson as if about to burst, into my arms and lifted her out. Soot and ash covered her body and even her white shirt in many places. I lightly brushed them off with my hand.

After wiping her face, I was about to brush off the last of the ash from her upper body when I naturally paused, seeing it mixed with sweat in her cleavage and upper chest.

Nyx was still covering her eyes with both hands, seemingly embarrassed by her recent outburst. After a moment’s thought, I wiped the area around her cleavage without actually touching it.

A few streaks of blackened sweat trickled into her cleavage. That was beyond my ability to help with.

“Are you a bit calmer now?”

Nod, nod. Nyx just nodded silently. Then, still embarrassed, she awkwardly opened her mouth to ask a question.

“Uhm…… over there…… did you, regain your memories?”

“What do you think?”

“Hehe…… I think you succeeded…… because you’ve never said anything wrong before……”

“You saw correctly. I succeeded to some extent.”

I gently stroked Nyx’s head.

It was only a half-success, as only a few spells came to mind, but the key was that my plan to search for landscapes that felt as similar as possible to B-Dark 1-3 had worked perfectly.

“Co-congratulations. Hehe…… So now……”

Nyx’s face brightened slightly. It seemed she thought that since I had succeeded in regaining my memories, we could now leave the poison swamp.

“We have to keep going.”

“……Huh?”

I’m sorry to crush her hopes, but there was still work to be done. Nyx’s expression visibly darkened at my answer.

“There’s still one boss left. I plan to take it down before we go.”

“……”

“It’s enough for me to go alone, so this time, please rest for a bit in the highlands. Even without teleportation, it should only take about 20 minutes on foot. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Of course, 20 minutes on foot through the poison swamp would be a somewhat unpleasant experience, but it was still much better than having Nyx tremble and follow me.

She hated bugs and insects this much, so I couldn’t take her to that dungeon, which was the very essence of the poison swamp, concentrated. Not even if she wanted to go herself.

But Nyx shook her head.

“Oh, no…… Hehe…… Regaining your memories is important, isn’t it…… I can’t let you waste time because of me……”

“The place we’re going next is much more disgusting than what you just saw, you know?”

“No……”

Nyx couldn’t even finish what she was going to say and swallowed her breath. Ttalkkuk, a hiccup sound escaped her adorably pursed lips.

“There are far more horrifying bugs swarming everywhere than that, and eggs are plastered all over the dungeon floor, ceiling, and walls, and among those eggs, countless bloated human corpses are hanging……”

As my description continued, Nyx’s face gradually turned pale. Her hiccups also grew more frequent.

After intentionally scaring her thoroughly, I finally managed to coax and persuade Nyx into promising to wait obediently.

‘I feel bad leaving her alone, but I can’t take her when she hates bugs that much.’

If she were only moderately scared, I would have taken her as she wished. But Nyx’s level of aversion was far from moderate. If she hated them that much, it was right to forcibly separate her.

Any discomfort on the way is something I can just endure.

“P-please go and come back…… And, I’m sorry I can’t go with you……”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll be back soon, so just wait a moment.”

“Hehe, yes……”

After ending our farewell with a hug, Nyx created a simple hut with magic and burrowed inside. Then, she peeked her head out the window and looked at me.

I had told her that once I cleared the dungeon and came out, I would shoot a spell into the sky, and she should come pick me up when she saw it, so she was checking the direction I was moving in.

I re-entered the poison swamp, seeing Nyx off. The terrain grew increasingly treacherous as I went deeper. The swamp water rose to my knees, and the number of attacking bugs increased.

If I hadn’t prepared poison resistance, immunity, and tolerance beforehand, I would have collapsed from poisoning before even getting halfway.

How long had I been walking, burning all the bugs that attacked me along the way, when a massive, vertically drilled hole appeared right in front of me?

‘There it is.’

It was the entrance to the dungeon.

After standing nearby and looking down, confirming it matched the image in my memory, I leaped down in the direction the liquid was flowing. A large pile of eggs was crushed under my feet, emitting a gruesome sound.

‘And the damn piles of eggs are still here.’

The inside of the dungeon was exactly as I had described to Nyx. It was a sight that seemed bad for mental health, let alone eye health. My hands were itching to burn it all down.

-Sasa-sasasak!

Whether to kill intruders or to use them as nutrients for their eggs, like the human corpses scattered everywhere, I heard the sound of bugs approaching from a distance.

It wasn’t just a few of them approaching; it was as if a wave made entirely of bugs had formed. The floor, walls, ceiling-everywhere was packed with bugs.

I had planned to just take down a few of the rushing ones and head straight for the shortcut, but I changed my mind. At this rate, it seemed I wouldn’t be able to take even a single step forward from this spot.

‘First, I should just throw down an area-of-effect spell and start.’

And there was no situation where the efficiency of the Vampire Impulse Rune and the Life Conversion Rune was maximized as much as when multiple small fry appeared. I created a large black flame in my left hand.

Calculating the consumption cost in my head, I swung my arm.

As if to prove that the biggest weakness of insectoid and bug-type enemies was fire-based attacks, the bugs that touched the black flames jumped and thrashed without a single exception.

In front of them, I extended my left hand and unleashed black flames. As the flame carpet on the floor combined with the flames spewing from my palm, the creatures couldn’t even get close to me and melted away.

-Kieeeek!

Along with the sound I had heard countless times before, their carapaces and flesh burned away, emitting a disgusting stench. Red dots occasionally appeared amidst the black flames.

I ignored the red dots. Not yet.

‘7 seconds…… 8 seconds…… Now.’

Just as 8 seconds passed since I cast the spell, I stopped the magic, approached the flame carpet, and decapitated the creature at the very front. My depleted vitality instantly surged back.

Laying down flame carpets, spewing flames, and if my vitality was low, approaching to absorb health. After repeating this process about three or four times, the number of approaching bugs had noticeably decreased.

Taking advantage of the lull in their assault, I dashed towards the adjacent passage. As it was a dungeon, I would normally have to explore its interior for a long time to reach the boss room.

With their eggs and bloated corpses scattered everywhere, and fending off bug attacks from every conceivable direction.

However, if it wasn’t a first playthrough but a multiple playthrough, and one knew the shortcut leading to the boss room, it was possible to go straight to it.

It was technically possible even on a first playthrough, but unless you were a pervert who messed with everything, you practically couldn’t find it.

‘Left at the first fork, then right at the next corner. The third room past that.’

I rushed into the third room as I had recalled in my mind. It was a place where eggs were far more densely packed than in other areas.

I conjured black flames and incinerated all the eggs directly in front of the room’s entrance. The eggs, engulfed in the inferno, burst with peok-peok sounds, revealing a small path hidden among them.

A path so narrow that only one person could barely squeeze through. I stepped into it without hesitation. Bugs followed me in one by one, only to die in the exact order they entered.

After fully restoring my health, I rushed into the boss room. As soon as I did, the wave of bugs that had been swarming me slowly retreated.

‘Let’s see, the boss is……’

I looked around. I had prepared myself to find it, but for some reason, there was nothing visible in this vast space.

‘What’s this?’

It was supposed to appear crawling on the floor as soon as the player entered.

Just as I began to wonder, a cheolpeok sound came from a distance. It was the sound of eggs being crushed. I turned my head in that direction.

“……Huh?”

What appeared was indeed the dungeon boss. However, its appearance was completely different from what I remembered.

Its size, which used to be four or five times that of the player character, had shrunk to roughly my height, and it walked on four legs instead of insect legs.

Most notably, a centipede was wrapped around its body.

A body with a black back and a gray belly, an arthropod’s characteristic carapace, and stubby legs that looked like more than a hundred pairs. A long, centipede-like creature was coiled around the boss’s body.

“Why is that here……”

It was the Immortal Centipede.