Chapter 3: chapter 3
"Who's there!"
As soon as I entered the upper floor, I heard a nervous shout. I stopped walking. Two men, carrying crude clubs in their hands and wearing only a pair of visors, were approaching me, just like me.
It was just like what I saw in the game. The other one who was wandering around behind me will join me soon.
The two narrowed their eyes at the sight of me, who was wearing only a veil over my bare body like them, but then let their guard down slightly and began talking to each other.
"Who is that guy? Is he the guy who was in the same situation as us?"
"It could be so, since it came from below."
"Jack said he checked everything earlier?"
"How many times has that guy been acting like a jerk? He could have just roughly checked and said it wasn't there."
"Ah, that little brat is for real. Jack! Jack! Get out there quick!"
I appeared on the lowest level of the prison, and I was wearing clothes that were just like them, even a piece of rag to cover my groin, so it seemed like they mistook me for a fellow inmate who had been locked up on the lowest level.
There was no such line in the game. They just rushed at me the moment they were caught.
As the one on the left nervously called out the name Jack, another one walked out from beyond the pillar.
"Why this time?"
"Why, you idiot. Didn't I tell you to do the check properly and not try to trick you? What do you think about someone else crawling out from under there?"
"what?"
Jack looked at me with a frown on his face at those words. Then he clicked his tongue and walked towards me, swinging the crude wooden club in his hand.
"Okay, I got it. I'll just deal with it, okay?"
'I thought you were my colleague?'
I thought that since the first conversation was like that, we could probably get through it without fighting, but judging by the fact that the others showed no sign of stopping him even though he said he would deal with me, it seemed like I was mistaken.
The bastard strode closer. If the pattern was the same as in the game, it was obvious how the first attack would come. He glanced behind him and focused on the arm holding the weapon.
The arms were raised.
'now.'
I quickly took two steps back, imagining the feeling of my character walking backwards as I pressed the keys. As soon as I dodged, the wooden plank split the air.
"Huh?"
The bastard's body swayed violently. Taking advantage of the gap, I quickly struck his head with my club. Thud! A refreshing sound of impact was heard. His feet twisted due to the impact, and his eyes half-opened, just before he fell to the ground.
In any case, in the game, you have to hit him three times to kill him. Without giving him a moment to rest, I hit him exactly twice more, and his body lost its balance, tilted, and rolled down the stairs.
There was a thud, a sound. At the end, his neck was bent 180 degrees, so death was confirmed without a second thought.
'I'm glad nothing has changed.'
The pattern and the situation were all the same. The only difference was that the game didn't have a motion like falling down the stairs and dying.
Maybe that's why, even though I just killed someone, I didn't feel any particular emotion. Rather than killing someone, I felt more like I had taken care of a mob in the game.
"This kid!"
While I was lost in thought, looking at the dead body that had fallen down the stairs, the other two rushed at me at once, swearing.
I rolled over to dodge the first attack and slammed my back. The guy who was hit straight through the attack was momentarily paralyzed, so I took advantage of the moment to roll on the ground once more and swing my arms. This time, it hit the mark.
I swung my arm one last time at the man who had been hit twice in quick succession and was still unconscious. When the club struck his head, I heard a much duller sound than before.
The bastard fell to the floor and never moved again.
The last one, who witnessed the scene of two comrades dying in an instant, rushed forward as if he was in a desperate situation. Of course, he was hit three times in the same way and collapsed on the ground.
'It's a bit disappointing that the UI doesn't appear.'
The mobs that first appear here are the same in that they die in three normal attacks based on the abandoned ones, and even the enemy placement and appearance are the same. The corpses don't disappear, but that doesn't matter.
However, it was a bit disappointing that there was no UI at all.
That means that none of your health, mana, stamina, battle fatigue, or even your faith or the quick slots where you place consumables that you will later gain by leveling up your stats will be displayed.
I don't even want to see the enemy's health bar, so it would be nice if there was a way to accurately determine those things.
Just now, every time you rolled, stamina would be consumed and battle fatigue would accumulate, but it was difficult to determine the specific figures for how much was consumed and how much was accumulated.
First of all, I had a rough estimate in my head. I also knew that if I rolled 3 times in the first round of the Abandoned One, my stamina would be depleted.
'I'll have to look into it more later.'
Leaving the prisoners lying on the floor behind, I headed toward the door on the opposite side of the stairs. Behind this door was a prisoner who was like a mid-boss in the tutorial area. He was the leader of the guys lying there.
The real boss was, of course, the first human slaughterer I encountered.
It was nothing special. The weapon it was holding was just a wooden club, and its pattern was extremely simple. I remember that it could be taken out with about 10 normal attacks.
As I opened the door, I saw a huge human silhouette beyond. It was a muscular giant, easily over two meters tall.
In his hand he held a handsome steel sword.
"...?"
Oh, my.
"No, fuck."
He sat down against the pillar, his back against the body of a muscular giant with his head smashed in, and he let out a hollow laugh.
"This mod is still in effect?"
It was an incredibly unfair thing.
If this was vanilla without any mods installed, it would have been a bit difficult at the very beginning due to past history, but after defeating one or two bosses, it would have been smooth sailing from then on.
Because I was the one who cleared Vanilla Blizzard 4 without any hits or damage by engaging in all sorts of strange activities, such as breaking it blindly, holding the mouse and keyboard in the opposite direction, breaking it with my feet, and running barehanded at level 1.
But that wasn't it.
I was speechless and could only laugh when I realized that the 'Darkest Bright' mode that had been installed right before I was transported into the game was still in effect.
I picked up the steel sword that the middle boss was swinging and examined it from all angles. Even after rubbing my eyes and examining it closely, I could see that it wasn't a wooden club, but a steel sword. It was the same one that I had been carrying in the Bella mode.
'I'm going crazy, really.'
What kind of mod was Darkest Bright? Wasn't it a mod so vicious that it instantly turned me, a player with five-digit playtime, back into a newbie?
Why did they apply something like that to the iceberg? It was so ridiculous that it made no sense.
'It's a big deal to catch the human butcher right now.'
I sighed as I thought about the human butcher who would appear as soon as I left the lowest level of the dungeon. My original plan was to catch him.
Although it shows an incredible impact from its first appearance, making players terrified, the pattern itself is only six at most, even with the enemy enhancement mode equipped.
Plus, all the patterns were slow, so it was very easy to avoid them by rolling.
He was called the goalkeeper by newbies who had just started playing Blizzard 4, and he was someone who could be beaten and laughed at in just the second round.
The problem is that in enemy reinforcement mode, even just brushing against any of the Human Slaughterer's patterns will result in instant death.
No, it wasn't just a problem for the Human Slaughterer. As long as the enemies were powered up in Bella Mode, all boss and mid-boss enemies would die if they were just touched, no matter how much health they had.
Ironically, that's why we had to catch and pass over the human butcher even more.
'I absolutely have to get that weapon.'
The reason I was trying to catch the Human Butcher was because of the weapons he was guaranteed to drop.
Until the early part of the game, the weapon called the 'Bloody Sword' had performance that was almost like a cheat key. The difference in difficulty between using it in the beginning and not using it was like heaven and earth.
Even in vanilla, it was a weapon that made the early and mid-game extremely enjoyable once obtained, but in Darkest Light mode, it was practically a necessity.
Because getting through the first half without a bloody sword is literally suicidal.
Regardless of whether you have armor or not, or whether you have maxed out your health stat or not, the boss's attack is a one-hit kill. You can never withstand more than two hits from street mobs.
If I can get a one-hit kill from every attack, shouldn't I at least have a good weapon so that you can hit me once and I can hit you once? If I can get a one-hit kill and you can get a five-hit kill, I feel a bit wronged.
"...."
I stood in front of the door leading out of the lowest section of the dungeon and fiddled with the doorknob. Just like in the game, the lock was broken, so I could leave as soon as I wanted.
In Blizzard 4, the moment you exit this door, a human butcher who has been wandering around will break the wall with perfect timing and appear, spot the player, and chase after them.
After a chase around the prison, he barely manages to survive with the help of a knight.
Conversely, you could have just beaten the guy up here and there.
This was a popular method among speedrunners, as it allowed them to skip the chase and the events that followed, and go straight to meeting the knight and leaving the tutorial area.
Of course, it's limited to vanilla.
If you're going to speedrun in the Blizzard mode where the health of the bosses increases to an absurd level, then you'd better get out of there and run.
"There is no choice… …."
Yeah. I had no choice. In the game, I skipped the bloody sword and just went around beating up bosses with my bare hands while retarding like an idiot, but now I had to grab everything I could.
I made a decision and opened the door.
-Koooooooooooo!!!!!!
As soon as I stepped out into the hallway, I heard the roar of a human butcher from beyond.