.｡.:✧ Chapter 4 ✧:.｡.

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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Including the charging pattern that was always used during the first encounter, the remaining 4 patterns appeared alternately during the boss fight, and the last one was about to begin now.

It was the so-called final struggle that activated the moment the Human Butcher’s health dropped below 10%. Seeing this pattern meant that you had essentially cleared the fight.

It created bombs by drawing blood from its own body and hurled them at the player. As long as you dodged them, the blood would naturally deplete until only 1 health remained.

When its health reached 1, it would collapse on its own, exhausted. Then, you just needed to approach it and touch it with your bare hands or anything else, and the Human Butcher boss fight would be over.

Of course, as I mentioned that you had “essentially” cleared it, letting your guard down until the very end was strictly prohibited.

In vanilla, you could just roll around a few times and be done with it, but in the Darkest Light Mod, you had to run around desperately and dodge with all your might until the very last shot.

─Kuaaaaaaah!!!!!!

The monster let out a long roar and threw the club on the ground. Then, it walked to the center of the square, snorting, and frantically clawed at its own body.

Black blood seeped out from the wounds torn by its claws. As another roar erupted, the dripping blood drops began to gather near the monster, forming a size as large as a human head.

In vanilla, you only needed to dodge about 9 or 10 shots, but in the Darkest Light Mod, you had to dodge close to 49 or 50 shots. Plus, if you got hit by even one of them, it meant instant death.

Moreover, you couldn’t dodge those with rolls. If you tried to roll and got hit by a bomb flying at you during that brief delay while preparing for the next roll, you would instantly die.

After confirming that the blood drops had gathered to form the shape of a human skull, I retreated all the way to the wall of the square. Sticking closely to the wall and spinning counterclockwise was the most surefire way to dodge.

The Human Butcher wailed at the sky. The round blood bombs that had gathered into the shape of human skulls were fired at me, using that roar as a signal.

‘Counterclockwise.’

Since the bombs on the right side of the Human Butcher, which was my left, were fired first, it was definitely better to spin counterclockwise to increase the impact distance even slightly.

You could still dodge by spinning clockwise, but the impact distance of the bombs was microscopically shorter compared to spinning counterclockwise, so sometimes you would unluckily get hit once in a while.

I refused to take such a risk.

The blood bombs smashed into the ground behind me, causing massive acidic explosions. The black liquid spread in all directions, melting the walls and floor. I could easily imagine what the scene behind me looked like.

Just as I had almost completed a full circle around the square, I noticed the silence behind me at one point and stopped my steps. The Human Butcher was sitting in place, exhausted and panting heavily.

I slowly approached without lowering my guard. That was the reason I mentioned 9 or 10 shots, or 49 or 50 shots.

In this collapsed state, there were times when it would fire a final blood bomb as its true last struggle. If it fired that, it would be 10 or 50 shots, and if it didn’t, it would be 9 or 49 shots.

And as I had feared, a spherical shape resembling a human skull rose above the monster’s head once again.

‘It’s never a bad idea to be careful.’

I prepared to roll in the opposite direction of where it was flying from. One shot could be easily dodged by rolling.

However, the direction the final bomb flew was not towards me.

The blood bomb soared high into the sky and flew to the top floor of the prison, causing a huge explosion there. With a loud boom, half of the top floor was blown away.

Having finished its final struggle, the Human Butcher sat on the ground, exhausted and panting heavily. Now, if I approached it and touched it with my bare hands or anything else, the boss fight would be over.

“…What?”

But at the moment, I had no time to think about that. I stared blankly at the Human Butcher sitting on the ground and the prison’s top floor that had been half-destroyed, alternating between them.

It was something that had never happened in the game.

As I stood there, stunned by the unexpected situation unfolding before my eyes, a knight clad in armor leaped out of the prison’s top floor, piercing through the cloud of dust.

With a light clinking sound of metal, the knight landed in the square with an extremely light movement and stood up.

The silver armor that should have been shining brilliantly was covered in black blood, smoking and melting away. It was severely corroded in various places, almost losing its function as armor.

Judging from the blood-covered appearance, it seemed to have been directly hit by a blood bomb, but since the knight’s limbs were still intact, the armor had fulfilled its original role before being destroyed.

I recognized the armor, but the appearance was quite different from what I remembered. As I tilted my head, feeling a strange sense of discomfort, the knight walked towards me and muttered as if talking to himself.

“I didn’t expect it to aim its final attack in this direction. That was my mistake.”

A neutral voice flowed out from within the rusted and dirtied silver helmet. Not only was the armor different from my memory, but the voice was also different.

Something was off. Quite a bit.

“Did you defeat that thing alone?”

As the exact same question from the game was asked, I suddenly came to my senses. If this were the game, dialogue options like “Yes” or “No” would appear, but now I had to answer directly by opening my mouth.

“Yes, I did.”

“…Impressive.”

The knight observed the Human Butcher, who was sitting on the ground, exhausted and panting heavily, and then turned his head back towards me.

“It seems to be still alive. Won’t you finish it off? Since you’re the one who brought it down, it’s your role to deliver the final blow.”

“Ah, yes. I will do that.”

I picked up the sword I had thrown on the ground. Even though I approached right in front of it, the monster showed no reaction at all. The knight took a few steps to the side and gave a light nod.

I stabbed its belly deeply. The sword went in easily. The Human Butcher, having received the final blow, let out a dying roar and collapsed diagonally.

In the game, when you killed an enemy, the corpse would automatically disappear, and items would be dropped. I stared intently at the monster’s corpse, wondering how it would work here.

With a bubbling sound, the area around the Human Butcher’s head began to melt, emitting foam and smoke. Liquefied flesh and black blood spread beneath the corpse.

Where the flesh had melted away, leaving a gaping hole, something shiny could be seen.

‘So this is how it works.’

I casually tossed aside the steel sword that was no longer needed and carefully grabbed the shiny object, trying not to touch the flesh as much as possible, and pulled it out with all my strength. It came out surprisingly easily.

In my hand was a sword with a blade that had an ominous red color. I felt relieved inwardly at the familiar sight.

‘One less thing to worry about now.’

This was the weapon I absolutely needed to obtain. I was worried about what I would do if items didn’t drop, but it was an unnecessary concern.

The reason this weapon, called the Blood-Stained Sword, was known as a cheat key in the early game was simple.

Despite being a weapon that could be obtained in the very early tutorial area, its damage was not inferior even when compared to weapons acquired in the mid-game.

As a trade-off, its stat scaling and enhancement scaling were significantly lacking, so its efficiency decreased over time, but that characteristic made it even more renowned as an early-game cheat key.

In the early game, you couldn’t properly enhance weapons anyway, and the character’s stats were at rock bottom, so having higher base damage and basic stats was several times more advantageous.

You could handle the attack power with this one weapon and allocate the stats you would have invested in strength to other key attributes instead. This alone made a huge difference in the stability of early-game builds.

Of course, considering stability only applied to vanilla, and in the Darkest Light Mod, where you would die in one hit even from regular mobs on the streets, it was a different story.

Holding the Blood-Stained Sword, I turned back to the knight in silver armor who had been watching the entire process. A neutral voice flowed out from inside the helmet once again.

“That weapon is—?”

Before the knight could finish speaking, a loud cracking sound rang out as a large crack appeared on the precariously holding helmet. It seemed that after saving its wearer’s life, the helmet had reached the end of its lifespan, having fulfilled its role.

The armor of this NPC breaking was something that never happened in the game, but it didn’t matter anyway. If we were to nitpick, we would have to go back to the fact that the final blood bomb flew in a different direction.

In any case, it seemed that the overall storyline hadn’t changed, and just like how wounds remained on the Human Butcher’s belly or how the ground shattered when it rolled its foot, it could be thought of as added realism.

The knight clicked his tongue and grabbed the helmet that was about to split in half, then tore it off directly. The helmet pieces, broken in half, clattered on the ground.

From within, long silver hair that had been hidden flowed out and cascaded down.

‘…Wait, what? Long hair?’

Startled by the unexpected sight, I hesitated for a moment, and my eyes met the knight’s.

A face with silver eyes the same color as the hair, possessing a beauty that could be described as flawless both objectively and subjectively, was looking at me.

Yes, inside the armor was a young woman.

Not a middle-aged man like the NPC in my memory.

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