.｡.:✧ Chapter 3 ✧:.｡.

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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The stone wall crumbled like styrofoam, and a hideously large monster burst out from within. With each step the creature took, the entire corridor trembled.

Just like before, seeing it in person, the overwhelming presence emanating from its grotesque appearance was immense. It was even more so because it was holding a massive club that was much taller than me and of incredible girth.

The monster walked out through the wall, causing thunderous footsteps. Upon noticing me standing ahead, it let out another roar.

─Kuoooooooh!!!!!!

The roar reverberated piercingly. For a moment, my ears stung. It was worse than playing music at maximum volume without realizing the headphones were turned all the way up.

If I were to run away here, I could simply turn around and sprint. Despite its impactful and shocking appearance, running away itself wasn’t very difficult as long as you knew how to properly press the Shift key.

However, I had to defeat that monster no matter what.

No matter how much I thought about it, progressing through the early game without the Blood-Stained Sword seemed impossible. Moreover, if I defeated the Human Butcher at our first encounter, the subsequent events were also extremely important for me in my current situation.

Holding the steel sword used by the mid-boss in my right hand, I faced the Human Butcher head-on.

In the game, even if you killed the mid-boss, it would disappear without dropping its weapon, so it was impossible for me to pick up and use the sword it was wielding.

But it was different here.

Assuming this was truly the same steel sword as in the game, I could probably kill it in about 20 minutes, even taking into account the increased health due to the Darkest Light Mod.

‘Dodging isn’t necessary, parrying isn’t available yet, so it’s just deflecting and rolling.’

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

When wielding a blunt weapon, deflecting was impossible, so I had to dodge attacks solely by rolling. But now that I was holding a one-handed sword, I could use deflecting as well. That was enough.

‘The first attack is always a charge.’

I took a stance. The Human Butcher let out a roar and charged towards me with thunderous steps. Due to its extremely obese body, it looked more like waddling than running.

The stone wall it collided with shattered and crumbled. I also slowly retreated backward in sync with it. To dodge the attack by rolling sideways, I needed to secure some space.

I waited for it to approach closely, and just before colliding with its body, I flung myself to the right. My body rolled perfectly on the ground, and its huge foot stomped on the empty air.

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

As I disappeared from its sight, the Human Butcher, who had been looking around in confusion, seemed to have heard my footsteps and turned its body. Upon seeing me running far away, it let out an angry roar.

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

Without hesitation, I ran towards that light. The monster was busy chasing me, almost destroying the prison walls as it closed the distance.

But I was faster. As I escaped through the hole where the light was coming from, a large square appeared right below. I leaped into that square.

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

I glanced at the large main gate of the prison located on the opposite side of me. That was the only entrance and exit to leave the prison. Why was it the only entrance and exit? Because the other three sides were all cliffs.

Even if I were to run away from the Human Butcher instead of coming here from the corridor, as long as it was before leaving this place, I could fight it here at any time.

I had merely skipped all the intermediate steps.

It wasn’t a trick discovered by users, but something actually intended by the developers of Brightest Darkness 4. If you went back to where the Human Butcher had come from while running away from it, you could immediately escape.

With a loud thud, the Human Butcher, who had quickly caught up with me, landed in the square. The ground it touched with its feet sank, unable to withstand the weight. The surrounding earth also cracked.

Perhaps irritated by its prey running around, it was snorting and exhaling rough breaths. Its misaligned teeth clacked against each other.

Now it begins. I raised the steel sword.

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

─Kuaaaaaah!

I quickly retreated back to avoid the tail thrashing in all directions. Immediately after that, the monster swung its right arm, swaying where I had been just a moment ago.

Even a grazing hit from that seemingly swaying attack would result in instant death.

The Human Butcher raised the massive club in its right hand above its head. It was the pattern of advancing forward while smashing the club down. As soon as I saw that, I adjusted my grip on the sword.

It was a pattern that could be parried. As if my body knew how to execute the parry rather than my head, it naturally assumed the stance.

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

With a clang, the blade, which was barely the thickness of a human wrist, blocked the wooden club that was even thicker than a human.

To be precise, it deflected the attack. The trajectory of the massive wooden club was bent sideways, slicing through the air.

‘It’s bearable.’

Although my palm was ringing from the impact, it wasn’t to the point of being unbearable. Considering the fact that all my stats were currently at 1, I would probably be able to deflect it even more easily later on.

‘It’s similar to the game. Without thinking too deeply, just swinging it with appropriate timing makes the body automatically deflect the attack.’

In the game, the player character could deflect all sorts of attacks with a single sword. It could even parry the smashing attack of a golem larger than an average castle without taking any damage, so that said it all.

Seeing myself deflecting the wooden club much larger than my own height with relative ease, it seemed that I wasn’t much different now either.

The attacks continued after that. Since I couldn’t reduce the power gap between the monster and myself, my legs kept getting pushed back, but my stance didn’t crumble.

I repeated the action of deflecting the monster’s smashing club with my sword several times.

Exactly after 10 such exchanges, the Human Butcher’s body faltered for a moment. As soon as I confirmed that the pattern had ended, I immediately dove in and swung my sword again. Another wound was carved into its abdomen.

Perhaps its anger had reached its peak after being toyed with and even wounded by a human several times smaller than itself, the monster tilted its body to the right and raised its left foot.

It was the foot-rolling pattern. Taking advantage of that opening, I quickly retreated far back and caught my breath for a moment.

With a thud, the Human Butcher stomped the ground. A cloud of dust rose in all directions, riding the shockwave. In the game, even grazing that dust cloud meant instant death, but I wasn’t sure about now.

‘Of course, I have no desire to test it out.’

Pulling out its deeply embedded foot, it approached again. Its right hand holding the club was raised sideways. It was the 3-hit combo pattern.

I rolled to dodge the horizontally swinging weapon and dove in again. Regardless of whether I dove in or not, the Human Butcher swung its weapon till the end, just like in the game.

The abdominal area was already a mess with long wounds and dripping black blood.

‘Such scars didn’t appear in the game.’

With that absurd thought in mind, I added a couple more wounds and distanced myself again.

If it weren’t for the foot-rolling attack, I could have toyed with it and finished it off by circling around until it died. But that pattern was added precisely to keep that in check, so I had no choice but to maintain distance.

The situation continued to flow one-sidedly after that. Consecutive smashes, 3-hit horizontal slashes, foot-rolling, body press, charge. I didn’t even graze any of them and pummeled the Human Butcher.

It roared with frustration and resentment, swinging its club like crazy, but it only sliced through the air.

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

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

I tried to gauge how much time had passed in my mind. It should be the time when its health was almost depleted, and it would transition to the desperate pattern. Not being able to see the health bar was inconvenient in many ways.

Even after applying the Darkest Light Mod, I had succeeded in an all-boss no-damage run and even recorded a video of it, so I had memorized the approximate clear times to some extent. The Human Butcher took about 20 minutes, right?

If I were to beat it to a pulp barehanded, it would take over 2 hours, but with just the basic wooden club, the clear time would drastically decrease to around 30 minutes.

But now I was holding a steel sword, so even considering the fact that all my stats were at 1, I didn’t think it would take more than 20 minutes at most. Hadn’t that much time already passed?

While I was sorting out my complicated thoughts, the monster suddenly stopped its movement and trembled.

‘Got it.’

I inwardly cheered. That was a signal that I had essentially cleared the Human Butcher.

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