I Reincarnated into a Game Filled with Mods – Chapter 74

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“We meet again, esteemed guest.”

Selene slightly bowed her head towards me in greeting.

Unlike our first meeting where she had only barely revealed her face while wearing a deeply flipped robe, she was now dressed in the attire of an Inquisitor.

Her silver hair mixed with gray swayed lightly behind her back.

Although tied in a ponytail at the top of her head, it was long enough to wrap around her body several times.

Some of her bangs reached down to near her lips, and through the gaps, purple eyes identical to the Pope of the Moon could be seen.

Perhaps due to the shape of her eyes, she gave off a rather sharp impression overall.

Covering her body, filled with firm muscles, was translucent tights like her subordinate battle nuns.

Below her elbows and knees, she wore armor that was half gray and half silver, but everything else was covered by tights that clung tightly to her body.

The curves of her body were very blatantly exposed, and due to the translucent material, her bare skin was almost fully visible.

The muscles that looked not only firm but also hard to the touch stood out even more.

Of course, there were no underwear lines, as if she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

Rather, the area of clothing covering her body was significantly less than her subordinate battle nuns.

Thanks to her breasts, which were as meager as Erica’s, it was fortunate that it ended there.

“Tsk.”

Stella openly clicked her tongue.

In contrast to Selene, who had an expressionless face as usual, Stella had a very displeased look, her usual beaming smile nowhere to be seen.

“…How did you know to come here, Inquisitor?”

“I came to offer assistance.”

It was a non-answer.

I had asked how she knew to come at this exact moment, but she said she came to help.

Could it be that she had been watching me from afar?

“You’re not supposed to come here, are you, Inquisitor?”

Stella seemed extremely displeased.

Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes weren’t smiling at all.

“The sun does not interfere with the moon. And the moon also does not interfere with the sun. That’s the tradition, isn’t it? I’ll let it slide since it was the Pope of the Moon who instructed you to bring them to the Holy Kingdom, but what about this time? Don’t tell me Her Holiness the Pope ordered you to assist the esteemed guest again?”

“I haven’t broken the tradition, Inquisitor. I’m not trying to interfere with the sun’s domain but to offer assistance to the esteemed guest.”

To me, it seemed like the same thing, but perhaps there was a hidden meaning in her words that made Stella understand and lower her momentum at once.

Selene, who had instantly silenced Stella, took out the sacred catalyst hanging from her waist and infused it with sacred power.

The white light mixed with gray sparkled like moonlight.

“Please stay still in that spot.”

Even after Selene said those words, it took nearly 5 seconds before a clear bell-like sound rang out.

The white light that had risen from the sacred catalyst began to envelop my body.

The light thinly spread over my entire skin, and a thin film-like substance appeared.

The skin wrapped in sacred power emitted a faint glow.

I touched the thin aura surrounding my body with my hand.

My fingers passed through the aura and touched my skin.

I felt no sensation at all.

There was nothing to grasp or catch.

It was like watching a hallucination.

But it was definitely not a hallucination.

“It’s done. Now you won’t have any problems.”

Selene, having finished her task, tied the sacred catalyst to her waist.

Stella was looking at Selene with a dissatisfied gaze.

The sacred spell Selene had just used.

It was a sacred spell called “Blessing of the Moon.”

The effect was to nullify the damage if the enemy’s attack would cause the player’s death.

Simply put, it was an extra life.

The duration was 5 minutes by default.

Since it essentially increased one’s life by one, it was an essential spell used in both vanilla Brightest Darkness 4 and the Darkest Light Mod.

That is, if you could use it.

Perhaps because of the ridiculous option of nullifying damage that would lead to death without question, the stat requirements were insanely high.

It required 30 Faith and 60 Sacred Power.

In the first playthrough, it was practically unusable for builds other than clerics, and even for clerics, they had to give up quite a few other stats to use it in the first playthrough, so it was a burden.

Clerics, whose concept was to be passive and wait, already had a terribly difficult early game growth, and if you dumped stats into Faith and Sacred Power like that, you would lose much more than you gained.

“So, will you challenge the Inquisitor to a sparring match once again, esteemed guest?”

With those words, Selene seemed to have finished her mission and walked to the corner of the sparring ground far away from us, sat down with her knees raised, and hugged her legs.

Her face resting on her knees stared intently in this direction.

Her purple eyes were fixed on me as if nailed down, unwilling to let go.

“You heard her?”

Although I felt absurd, I couldn’t miss this opportunity that had come to me.

Stella made a complicated expression as if the whole world was troubling her, then nodded her head as if she had no choice.

I could ask Selene why and how she helped me after the sparring match.

She didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving on her own anyway.

“I have no more excuses. Fine. I have no choice.”

Stella shook her head and put strength into her right hand.

The flail in her hand was lightly lifted and slammed down with a thud.

As if that was a signal, the battle nuns around us moved in unison around Stella and me.

They picked up the shields they had placed on the ground, firmly grasped their flails, and drew a kind of circle surrounding us.

The shields with the crest of the denomination were facing inward.

The inside of the circle surrounded by the battle nuns was the sparring ground.

“I’ll let you decide the size of the sparring ground. Of course, it can’t be too big. How much wider should I make it?”

“It’s fine as it is.”

“Oh my, are you sure? Even if you make an excuse later that you lost because the space was too small, I’ll ignore it, you know?”

Stella covered her mouth with a surprised expression.

It was understandable since it was only wide enough to take four or five steps back before bumping into the shields.

However, the size of the sparring ground was of no concern to me at all.

I had fought Stella’s boss battle more than once or twice, and I could sufficiently deal with it whether it was narrow or wide.

In fact, a wider space would be more comfortable for me, but in order to break the Inquisitor’s pride, I couldn’t change the size of the sparring ground.

Even in the game, if you defeat the Inquisitor without touching the size of the sparring ground, the dialogue changes.

She genuinely admires your skills.

Of course, this wasn’t a necessary process.

It was just a small revenge for her arbitrarily coming and twisting the story last time.

“Your defeat condition is the disappearance of the Blessing of the Moon residing in your body. The moment the blessing disappears, you lose. Understood? And, um, my defeat condition is…”

“Just consider it a loss when you think you’ve taken enough hits.”

System-wise, the victory condition was the same as the Silver Dawn Knights’ entrance exam, reducing the boss’s health to 50%, but I couldn’t mention such specific numbers now.

“…What if I don’t acknowledge defeat?”

“Then we’ll have to keep fighting until you do. There’s no other way, is there?”

I drew the blood-stained sword.

The blade, bathed in sunlight, glowed red.

Stella picked up her flail with a look that seemed to say, “See?” That huge flail was easily lifted with one hand.

The weight with protruding spikes was enveloped in white light mixed with yellow.

“Isn’t it unwise to be too arrogant? What if you get knocked out in one hit?”

Ignoring her, I deeply stabbed the sword into my stomach.

Along with the sensation of blood draining from the blade, the color of the red blade became even darker.

As I pulled out the sword, blood dripped from the blade.

“Will you focus on the sparring match? Well, fine. Do you want to charge first? Or shall I?”

I silently flicked the tip of the sword up and down.

Seeing that, Stella smiled brightly and began to walk slowly.

The color of the sacred power imbued in the flail intensified.

The Inquisitor didn’t have a specific opening pattern.

She just used random patterns according to the distance and the player’s movements.

The flail was raised high above her head.

After identifying the pattern, I prepared to parry it.

Stella swung the flail.

The weight was aimed precisely at my head.

Gripping the blood-stained sword with both hands, I followed the natural movement of my arms and traced a trajectory in the air.

With a clang, the direction of the flail abruptly changed.

The recoil that hit my arms with a zing wasn’t too unbearable.

The next attack followed without a moment’s rest.

I parried the flail swinging from left to right again, and for the last one, I swung my sword a beat later, taking into account the syncopation.

As the last three hits were deflected with intense metallic sounds, Stella’s body staggered momentarily.

A look of surprise appeared on her face.

Stella tried to regain her stance as if to continue her attack, but my attack was faster.

The blade formed by the gathered crimson blood grazed past Stella’s arm.

“…”

Stella looked back and forth between the blood-stained sword and her own flail with a dumbfounded expression.

One was an ordinary longsword that didn’t seem to have anything remarkable except for the red blade, while the other was a flail with a weight the size of two human heads.

Common sense dictated that when the two weapons clashed, the sword should have been shattered.

But not only did the blade not break and remain intact, but the flail was even deflected, so she must have been puzzled.

“My goodness, how did you do that just now?”

“Who knows? I don’t know either.”

“If you don’t want to tell me, you can just say so.”

Stella smiled brightly.

As expected of someone who served the Pope of the Sun, her smile was as cozy and benevolent as Floretta’s.

“I’ll find out for myself from now on.”

“In the end, you failed. What a pity.”

I sheathed the blood-stained sword with the buff expired.

Gazes from all directions pierced my skin.

They included the battle nuns and even Selene.

Stella sat on the ground with a thud, looking up at me blankly.

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