Tutorial Area – 3

The wall, built of stone, crumbled like Styrofoam, and from within it, a hideous, massive monster burst out. Every step it took made the entire corridor tremble.

It was the same earlier, but seeing it in person like this, the oppressive aura emanating from its hideous appearance was immense. It was even more so because it held a club far taller than me and incredibly thick.

The monster stomped out, breaking through the wall, and upon spotting me standing ahead, it let out another roar.

-Kuoooooooh!!!!!!

The roar echoed deafeningly. My ears throbbed for a moment. It was worse than when I played music without realizing the headphone volume was at maximum.

If I wanted to escape from here, I just had to turn around and run. Its appearance was impactful and shocking, but escaping itself wasn’t very difficult if one knew how to properly press the Shift key.

However, I absolutely had to defeat that guy.

No matter how I thought about it, without a blood-stained sword, the early progression seemed completely blocked. Moreover, the linked event that occurred if I defeated the Human Butcher in our first encounter was extremely important from my current perspective.

I held the steel sword that the mid-boss used in my right hand and faced the Human Butcher head-on.

In the game, even if you killed the mid-boss, it wouldn’t drop its weapon; it would just disappear, so picking up and using the sword it held was impossible.

But it wasn’t like that here.

Assuming this was truly the same steel sword as in the game, I could probably kill it in about 20 minutes. Even considering its increased health in Darkest Light Mode.

‘Evasion isn’t needed, I can’t parry yet, so it’s just deflecting and rolling, huh.’

I recalled the number of strategies I could use in my head.

When I held a blunt weapon, deflecting was impossible, and I had to evade attacks only by rolling. But now that I held a one-handed sword, I could use deflecting as well. That was enough.

‘The first attack is definitely a charge.’

I took my stance. The Human Butcher roared and stomped, charging towards me. Although, due to its extremely bulky physique, it looked more like it was waddling than running.

The stone wall, struck by its shoulder, shattered completely and collapsed. I, too, slowly retreated backward in response. To roll sideways and evade an attack, I needed to secure some space.

I waited for it to approach closely, then, just before it collided with my body, I threw myself to the right. My body rolled once on the ground in a perfect posture, and its large foot stomped on empty air.

Having cleanly evaded the charge attack, I immediately got up and started running in the opposite direction.

As I disappeared from its sight, the Human Butcher, which had been looking around in confusion, seemed to hear my footsteps and turned its body. Then, as soon as it saw me fleeing into the distance, it let out a furious roar.

Ignoring the roar, I found a hole created by the collapsing wall and entered it. Bright light poured in from nearby.

Without hesitation, I ran towards that light. The monster seemed busy chasing me, practically demolishing the prison walls as it closed the distance.

But I was faster. As I escaped outside through the light-emitting hole, a huge open space appeared directly below. I leaped down into that open space.

‘I could just run away like this, but…’

I glanced at the large main gate of the prison, located directly opposite me. That was the only exit from the prison. The reason it was the only exit was that the other three sides were all cliffs.

Even if I didn’t come out here from the corridor but instead ran away from the Human Butcher, I could always fight it here before exiting this place.

I had merely skipped all the intermediate steps.

It wasn’t an exploit discovered by users; it was actually an intended feature by the developers of B-Dark Part 4. They intended that if you escaped the Human Butcher and returned to where it came from, you could escape immediately.

With a *KWAANG!* sound, the Human Butcher, which had quickly caught up to me, landed in the open space. The ground where its foot touched couldn’t bear the weight and caved in. The surrounding earth also cracked.

Perhaps annoyed that its prey was darting around, it was huffing and puffing, exhaling rough snorts. Its misaligned teeth clacked together.

Now it begins. I raised the steel sword.

I rolled to the side of its left leg and swung my sword at its torso. The tip of the blade dug into its belly, adding another shallow wound. Black blood dripped from the long gash.

-Kuaaaaaaak!

I quickly retreated backward, avoiding its tail swinging in all directions. As soon as I did, it swung its right arm, sweeping the spot where I had just been.

Even a seemingly aimless swing like that meant instant death if I was grazed.

The Human Butcher raised the massive blunt weapon in its right hand above its head. It was a pattern where it slammed the blunt weapon forward and advanced. As soon as I saw that, I re-gripped my sword.

This was a pattern that could be countered by deflecting. My body, not my mind, naturally took the stance as if it knew how to execute a deflect.

I slightly twisted the sword and supported my right wrist with my left hand. Though I was a human who had never learned swordsmanship in my life, my body reacted and moved first.

With a *TUEONG!* sound, a sword, barely the thickness of a human wrist, blocked a wooden club thicker than a human.

More precisely, it deflected the attack. The trajectory of the massive wooden club bent sideways, cutting through the air.

‘It’s bearable.’

My palm vibrated from the impact, but it wasn’t unbearable. Considering that all my current stats were 1, I’d probably be able to deflect it much more easily later.

‘It’s similar to the game. Without thinking too deeply, it feels like my body automatically deflects attacks if I just swing at the right time.’

Even in the game, the player character could deflect all sorts of attacks with just one sword. It could even counter the downward slam attack of a Golem, which was much larger than an average castle, without taking any damage, so that said it all.

Seeing me deflect a wooden club much larger than my height with relative ease, it seemed I wasn’t much different now.

After that, the attacks continued. Although the power gap between that guy and me couldn’t be reduced, and my legs kept being pushed back, my stance didn’t break.

I repeatedly deflected the blunt weapon it slammed down with my sword, deflecting it again and again.

When that exchange had occurred exactly 10 times, the Human Butcher’s body hesitated for a moment. As soon as I confirmed the pattern had ended, I immediately dove in and swung my sword again. Another wound was carved into its abdomen.

Having been toyed with and wounded for over 10 minutes by a human several times smaller than itself, it seemed its rage had reached its peak, as it tilted its body to the right and lifted its left foot.

It was the foot stomp pattern. Seizing the opportunity, I retreated far back and caught my breath for a moment.

With a *KOONG!* sound, the Human Butcher stomped the ground. A dust cloud rose in all directions, carried by the shockwave. In the game, even brushing against that dust cloud meant instant death, but I didn’t know if that was the case now.

‘Of course, I have no intention of testing it.’

It pulled its foot, which had been deeply embedded in the ground, and then approached again. Its right hand, holding the blunt weapon, was raised sideways. It was a three-hit combo pattern.

I rolled to evade the horizontally swinging weapon and then dove back inside. Whether I dove in or not, the Human Butcher swung its weapon to the very end, just like in the game.

Its belly was already covered in long wounds and dripping black blood.

‘In the game, scars like these didn’t appear.’

With such idle thoughts, I added a couple more lacerations and then widened the distance again.

If it weren’t for the foot stomp, I could have practically toyed with it by circling around until it died, but since the foot stomp was a pattern added specifically to counter that, I had no choice but to maintain my distance.

After that, the situation continued to be one-sided. Consecutive downward slams, three-hit horizontal slashes, foot stomps, body presses, charges. I beat the Human Butcher without even being grazed by any of them.

It roared with frustration and resentment, wildly swinging its club, but it only cut through empty air.

As wounds increased all over its body, the nearby ground also gradually turned black.

‘It’s about time for the final pattern to appear.’

I tried to estimate how much time had passed in my head. It should be about time for its health to be depleted and for it to enter its desperate attack pattern. Not being able to see its health bar was incredibly inconvenient in many ways.

Since I had succeeded in an all-boss no-damage run even with Darkest Light Mode applied and even recorded a video of it, I had a rough idea of the clear times memorized. Was it about 20 minutes for the Human Butcher?

Killing it bare-handed took over two hours, but even with just the crude wooden club, the basic starting weapon, the clear time drastically shortened to around 30 minutes.

But now I held a steel sword, so even considering that all my stats were 1, I wondered if it would take more than 20 minutes at most. Hadn’t that much time already passed?

As I was sorting out my complicated thoughts, it suddenly stopped moving and began to tremble violently.

‘Got it.’

I cheered internally. That was a sign that I had, in effect, cleared the Human Butcher.