Third Rune – 2

Nyx, who had stopped abruptly in her tracks, turned her black eyes towards me. It was a gaze completely different from her usual eyes, which were incomparably gloomy and constantly scanning her surroundings for reactions.

They were turbid. A whirlwind of complex emotions churned within them, and her black pupils, which had become incredibly murky, met my gaze. Before I could feel any doubt and open my mouth, she spoke first.

“You know, don’t you?”

“What?”

Nyx closed her mouth after that remark. Judging by the sound her mouth made when it closed, it seemed she hadn’t closed it of her own volition this time either. In other words, a similar kind of restriction applied to that statement as well.

I replayed the words I had just heard in my head. She had torn apart the corpse of a centipede that had been dead for a long time, and now she was saying I knew the reason why?

Nothing specific came to mind-

‘Oh.’

Just a moment.

My thoughts turned to one possibility. It was a very faint possibility, but if it were true, it was also an absurd possibility that would require me to deny this world from its very roots.

With a chilling feeling, I looked down at Nyx. Her black eyes, directed at me, were still incomparably turbid.

The possibility I recalled was the background setting of Brightest Darkness 3.

Unlike the protagonist of BD 4, who, according to the setting, achieved all feats in the story without ever dying or failing, the protagonist of BD 3 was an immortal who revived infinitely no matter how many times they died.

This was due to a creature called the ‘Immortal Centipede’ that resided within the protagonist’s body.

Humans whose bodies were encroached upon by the Immortal Centipede and became hosts would become immortals who continued to revive no matter how many times they died. However, conversely, their reason would also be encroached upon by the centipede, turning them into beings no different from beasts.

The protagonist of BD 3 was one of the few immortals who could maintain their reason and intelligence as they were when they were human, even after their body was encroached upon by the centipede.

Perhaps because of this setting, most of the bosses in BD 3 were in the state of being hosts to Immortal Centipedes. To fully clear a boss battle, one had to deplete their health and then use special equipment to deal with the centipede itself.

This process was translated as ‘Soul Requiem’ in Korean, and it was BD 3’s most distinctive feature compared to other series.

Due to this background setting, there were only two ways to kill a creature possessed by an Immortal Centipede. One was to stab its body with the aforementioned special equipment and burn the centipede, or….

‘Forcibly pull out the centipede and tear it to shreds, leaving no trace.’

Just like Nyx had done.

‘…Is it really for that reason?’

For me, there was always too little time to play BD 4, so I had only managed to play the third installment for a little over 200 hours, at best.

So, I wasn’t entirely sure, but that was the only centipede I knew of.

‘That’s all it is, but….’

The problem was that it was a setting from Brightest Darkness 3.

BD 4 was not a world that continued from the previous series but a completely independent and newly started one, and the NPC that Nyx was based on was a character from BD 4.

Brightest Darkness 1 through 3 were set in the same world, albeit with significant time gaps, but BD 4 wasn’t even that.

Therefore, it meant it was impossible for Nyx to mention that setting.

It should have been impossible.

“…Surely not, right?”

I asked Nyx the question, suppressing many thoughts. Nyx stared at me blankly with eyes that seemed even more turbid than before, then, out of the blue, returned to her usual naive gaze.

“Huh, oh?”

A bewildered voice popped out of her mouth. Nyx blinked, then looked back and forth between herself and me, before starting to fidget her fingers in front of her chest, gauging my reaction.

“Heh, hehe… Did I perhaps make a mistake? Your expression doesn’t look good….”

It was the polite-speaking side.

Instead of answering my question, she had simply switched personalities. I thought it must be quite convenient. I sighed, about to let it go, when I suddenly remembered that the personalities shared memories.

“Didn’t you hear what the informal-speaking side just said?”

“No, I didn’t hear it. Hehe. The sharing was cut off after I heard the question….”

But it seemed that had been prepared for in advance.

The memory sharing was cut off after she received the question. That meant the informal-speaking Nyx had deliberately cut off memory sharing to give that answer.

Unable to hide my unease, I kept replaying why Nyx had said such a thing, while the polite-speaking Nyx stood beside me, letting out a gloomy laugh with her mouth but looking restless with her expression.

After much deliberation, I clicked my tongue softly. Nyx flinched when she heard me click my tongue. Her shoulders gradually hunched.

“Ah, sorry. It’s not because of you. It’s because of the informal-speaking Nyx. My head was complicated because I had something to think about for a moment.”

“……Yes.”

“Just in case, do you also know why Nyx did that to the centipede-“

Before I could even finish my question, Nyx’s mouth clamped shut. Judging by her bewildered wide eyes, it wasn’t of her own volition.

I cleanly gave up on pressing her. If a similar restriction was in place here too, there was nothing I could find out.

‘Should I ask the Pope later?’

This was clearly a world where the concept of God existed. Divine power was the proof. So, the Pope might be able to communicate directly with God.

I don’t know if I’m qualified to communicate with God, but if I ask the Popes, something will work out.

Floretta and Luna would probably try to grant my request even if I wasn’t qualified, by creating a qualification for me. I felt a bit sorry for using their feelings for me, but my curiosity was too great.

I quietly added a visit to the Holy Nation to my mental plan.

“Alright, for now. Let’s keep going in.”

Nyx, who had glanced at me to gauge my mood, slowly sidled up beside me again. I didn’t bother pushing her away. After all, the Nyx who complicated my head was the informal-speaking one, not the polite-speaking one.

From her first appearance until now, she had been a woman full of secrets.

“Alright. It’s here.”

We stopped in front of a wall. It was ridiculously thin, with cracks everywhere, clearly revealing what was inside. A faint green light seeped out through the fissures.

Nyx, who had confirmed the rune stele visible through the cracks, turned her head.

“That’s the rune, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

The informal-speaking personality was still nowhere to be found. According to the polite-speaking Nyx, if she was stuck deep inside like that, there was no particular way to get her out other than forcibly dragging the other personality out.

I told her to leave it. Whether she was doing that because she didn’t want to tell me or couldn’t tell me, there was no reason to put effort into pressing her unless there was a way to break through that restriction-like thing.

“What should we do with this? Can we break it? Hehe. I’m really confident in doing that. I’ve done well so far, haven’t I?”

“No, you can’t do that.”

It was a precarious wall that looked like it could be broken at a glance, and since a similar-looking wall actually appeared in the early part of this dungeon, one would think that this one could also be simply broken.

And it was true. It was a wall that would definitely break within 3 hits with any weapon, and even with bare hands, it would break in about 5-6 hits.

Along with the rune stele inside.

The moment this wall broke, the rune stele would break along with it. If that happened, to obtain this rune, one would have to proceed to the next playthrough.

True to its reputation as a trap dungeon, it could be seen that traps were laid until the very end.

“Then that stele will break too. You can’t break it.”

“Oh… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

A dejected Nyx offered a docile apology. I gently stroked her head.

“No need for apologies. Originally, there are warnings when you solve puzzles in the middle, but since you skipped all of them, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t know.”

Of course, such a malicious trap wasn’t placed without any warning. The motto of the Brightest Darkness series was ‘difficult but not unreasonable.’

After the player breaks the wall and enters the rune dungeon, they are warned multiple times not to do such a thing again, stating that irreversible things will happen if they do.

Of course, it didn’t help much.

Logically, how many users, upon breaking a wall and entering, would see a warning saying ‘Don’t do that again’ and think, ‘Ah, I’ve been warned, so I shouldn’t do it’? They would just smash it and go in.

Even in the 10th-anniversary statistics, it was revealed that over 80% of users destroyed the rune in their first playthrough.

“Then how do we get that?”

Nyx tilted her head and looked at me. She seemed to be wondering how to obtain it if breaking the wall also broke the rune.

“Like this.”

I went around to the side of the wall and found a clumsily stacked pile of boxes. A pile of boxes like this in the middle of a deep rune dungeon was practically a blatant hint.

Although, when I first arrived in front of the wall, it was cleverly hidden and not visible, placed in a spot where you had to turn slightly to see it.

I swung the Wingless Nightmare towards the boxes. They didn’t have very high durability to begin with, so they collapsed with a loud crash as soon as the blade touched them.

Beyond the pile of wooden fragments, a path appeared.

“Let’s go in here.”

“Yes, hehe.”

Nyx, laughing idly, scurried after me. After turning two corners, the back of the rune stele appeared. The passage had a structure shaped like the Korean character ‘ㄷ’.

When looking through the crack in the wall, it appeared like a closed space due to the angle, making it impossible to notice unless one had exceptionally keen eyesight.

I reached out my hand to the rune stele placed directly in front of me. Then, I focused the strange sensation that had begun flowing into my body a while ago onto the back of my left hand. Perhaps because of accumulated experience, it was easier than last time.

Within a few seconds, a new tattoo stroke was drawn opposite the tattoo signifying the Mana Enhancement Rune. It was the fourth rune in terms of acquisition order, but effectively the third.

It was ‘Vampiric Impulse,’ which formed one of the pillars of the melee character’s final build in Dark Lord Mode.

I fiddled with the back of my hand. The size of the engraved tattoo was gradually growing. I wondered if my entire hand would be covered in tattoos if I obtained the fourth rune later.

Yes. After obtaining the fourth rune.

The Rune of Rest in the Abyss, which I had obtained after defeating Lucia, had already been erased a long time ago.

‘Surely there isn’t something like New Game+ here, right?’

The Rune of Rest in the Abyss is not bound to the player. That is, the player had to acquire that rune anew each time they went through a playthrough.

That way, they could make players descend that damned terrain and defeat Lucia in every playthrough.

Although the lore stated that the rune melted because it couldn’t withstand the immense power of a creature abandoned by God, from the users’ perspective, it was just an excuse made by the developers.

What do you mean it couldn’t withstand the power, when it disappears even if you skip the creature’s boss battle and proceed to the next playthrough?

“Nyx. Do you remember the black magic I mentioned last time?”

I clenched and unclenched my left hand as I asked Nyx. Now that I had even Vampiric Impulse, I could at least roughly imitate the final build, even if not perfectly.

“Huh? Oh, yes. You mean the one you asked me to teach you, right? Hehe.”

“I think I can teach you now.”

“I understand.”

Nyx nodded and approached me.

In the game, you just selected the magic to learn from a dedicated UI window, so I wondered how she would transfer the magic. But as soon as Nyx gently held my hand, knowledge flowed into my mind.

The learning was instantaneous. Nyx let go of my hand within seconds, and I could immediately understand the magic I wanted.

“Now, can we return to that city?”

“We should. But before that-“

Before I could finish my sentence, the entire dungeon vibrated violently with a rumbling-! sound, like thunder crashing. I calmly continued what I was about to say.

“And test out what I just got.”