I Reincarnated into a Game Filled with Mods – Chapter 159

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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Nix’s black eyes, which had been standing still, were fixed on me. It was a gaze that was completely different from her usual eyes that were gloomy and always glancing around.

It was murky.

All sorts of complex emotions were swirling around, and her black pupils, which had become extremely clouded, were meeting my gaze. Before I could even feel the confusion and open my mouth, she spoke first.

“You know it.”

“What?”

Nix closed her mouth after saying that.

Judging by the sound her mouth made as it closed, it didn’t seem to be a voluntary action. That meant that her words were also affected by some kind of restriction.

I replayed the words I had just heard in my head.

After tearing apart a centipede corpse that had been lying dead for a long time, she said that I knew the reason why?

Nothing came to mind—

‘Oh.’

Wait a minute.

One possibility came to mind.

It was a very faint possibility, but if it were true, it was such a ridiculous possibility that I would have to deny the very foundations of this world.

With a chilling feeling, I looked down at Nix.

Her black eyes, which were facing me, were still extremely clouded.

The possibility that had come to mind. It was the background setting of Brightest Darkness 3.

Unlike the protagonist of BD4, who had never died or failed and had accomplished all of the feats in the story, the protagonist of BD3 was an immortal being that endlessly resurrected even after dying.

It was because of a creature called the ‘immortal centipede’ that had taken root in the protagonist’s body.

Humans who had been infected by the immortal centipede became immortal beings that continued to resurrect no matter how many times they died, but conversely, their reason was also consumed by the centipede, and they would turn into beings that were no different from beasts.

The protagonist of BD3 was one of the few immortal beings who could maintain their reason and intelligence as humans even after being infected by the centipede.

Because of that setting, most of the bosses in BD3 were infected by the immortal centipede, so even after depleting their HP, you had to use special weapons to kill the centipede to completely clear the boss fight.

It was a process that was translated as ‘Soul Burial’ in Korean, and it was the most unique feature of BD3 compared to the other series.

Because of this setting, there were only two ways to kill an immortal centipede.

You could either stab the body with the aforementioned special weapon to burn the centipede, or……

‘You could forcefully extract the centipede and tear it to pieces without leaving behind a single trace.’

Just like Nix had done.

‘……Is that really the reason?’

I had always been short on time when I was playing BD4, so I had barely played BD3 for a little over 200 hours at best.

So, I wasn’t completely sure, but that was the only thing I knew about centipedes.

‘Well, that’s the only thing……’

The problem was, that was the setting for Brightest Darkness 3.

BD4 wasn’t a world that was connected to the previous series, and was a completely independent world that was starting anew, and the NPC that Nix was based on was a character from BD4.

Brightest Darkness 1 to 3 shared the same world, although there was a large time gap, but BD4 wasn’t even like that.

So, it meant that it was impossible for Nix to mention that setting.

It should have been impossible.

“……No way, right?”

I asked Nix, holding back a lot of thoughts.

Nix stared at me with eyes that looked even more clouded than before, and then, out of the blue, her eyes went back to her usual naive look.

“Uh, uh?”

A bewildered voice came out of her mouth.

Nix blinked, and then looked back and forth between herself and me, and then started fidgeting with her fingers in front of her chest as she glanced at me.

“Heh, hehe…… did I make a mistake? Your expression doesn’t look good……”

She was using formal speech.

Instead of answering my question, she had simply switched her personality. I thought how convenient that was.

I sighed and was about to let it go, when I suddenly remembered that the personalities shared their memories.

“Did you not hear what the one who was speaking informally said just now?”

“Yes, I didn’t hear it. Hehe. The sharing was cut off after I heard the question……”

But it seemed that she had prepared for that as well.

The memory sharing was cut off after hearing the question.

That meant that Nix, who spoke informally, had deliberately cut off the memory sharing to give that answer.

I couldn’t hide my unease as I continued to ponder why Nix had said that, and Nix, who was using formal speech, was standing next to me, looking anxious despite the creepy smile on her face.

After thinking about it over and over again, I clicked my tongue.

Nix flinched when she heard me click my tongue. Her shoulders started to slump.

“Ah, sorry. It’s not because of you. It’s because of the Nix that was speaking informally. I was just thinking about something and my head got complicated.”

“……Yes.”

“Just in case, do you also know why Nix did that to the centipedes?”

Before I could even finish my question, Nix’s mouth snapped shut.

Judging by her bewildered eyes, it wasn’t something she had done on her own.

I cleanly gave up on pursuing it. If there was some kind of restriction placed here, there was nothing I could find out.

‘Should I ask the Popes later?’

This was a world where the concept of God was real. Divine power was proof of that. So, the Popes might be able to communicate directly with God.

I didn’t know if I was qualified to communicate with God, but if I asked the Popes, I was sure they would be able to do something.

Floretta and Luna would try to grant my request even if I wasn’t qualified. I felt bad for taking advantage of their feelings for me, but my curiosity was too great.

I quietly added a visit to the Holy Kingdom to my plans.

“Okay, I understand. Let’s keep going.”

Nix, who had been glancing at me, slowly stuck next to me again. I didn’t push her away either.

Nix, who had complicated my head, was the one who was using formal speech, not the one who used informal speech.

From her first appearance until now, she was a woman who was full of secrets.

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“Okay. It’s here.”

We stopped in front of a wall. It was a ridiculously thin wall with cracks in various places that revealed the inside.

A faint green light was flowing out of the cracks.

Nix, who had confirmed the rune stone that was visible through the cracks, turned her head.

“Is that the rune?”

“That’s right.”

The informal personality was still nowhere to be seen.

According to the Nix who was using formal speech, there was no way to forcibly bring out the other personality when they were hiding like that other than to forcefully pull them out.

I had told her to leave her alone.

Whether it was because she didn’t want to tell me or because she couldn’t, there was no reason to spend time pursuing her unless I found a way to break that restriction.

“What should we do about this? Should we break it? Hehe. I’m really confident in doing that. I’ve done well so far.”

“No, we can’t do that.”

It was a wall that looked as if it could be broken at any moment, and at the beginning of this dungeon, I had actually made a wall that looked similar appear, so I could understand why she would think that it could be broken.

That was actually the case.

No matter what weapon you used, it would break after 3 hits, and even if you hit it with your bare hands, it would break after 5 or 6 hits.

Along with the rune stone inside.

The moment this wall broke, the rune stone would also break. If that happened, you would have to go to the next playthrough to obtain this rune.

As expected of a trap dungeon, they had laid a trap right until the end.

“Then the rune will break with it. You can’t break it.”

“Oh…… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Nix, who had become dejected, apologized obediently.

I stroked her head.

“It’s fine. Usually, I give a warning when we get to the puzzle, but we skipped all of that, so you wouldn’t know.”

Of course, they hadn’t placed such a cruel trap without any warning.

It was difficult, but not unreasonable, which was the motto of the Brightest Darkness series.

After the player broke the wall and entered the Rune Dungeon, they would warn you several times not to do that again.

They would say that something irreversible would happen if you did that.

Of course, it wasn’t very helpful.

Logically, how many players would see a warning that they shouldn’t do it again after breaking a wall and think, ‘Ah, I got a warning, so I shouldn’t do it.’? They would probably just go ahead and break it.

Even the 10th anniversary statistics showed that over 80% of users broke the rune on their first playthrough.

“Then how do we obtain it?”

Nix tilted her head and looked at me.

She seemed to be wondering how she was supposed to obtain it if the rune would break along with the wall.

“Like this.”

I went around to the side of the wall and found a pile of boxes that were piled up clumsily.

A pile of boxes like this in the middle of a deep Rune Dungeon was practically like throwing a hint right in your face.

Although when you arrived in front of the wall at first, it was cleverly hidden and you could only see it if you turned slightly.

I swung Wingless Nightmare towards the boxes. Since they didn’t have high durability from the beginning, they collapsed with a loud sound as soon as the blade touched them.

Beyond the pile of wooden fragments, a path appeared.

“Let’s go in here.”

“Okay, hehe.”

Nix, who was smiling foolishly, quickly followed behind me.

We turned a corner twice and the back of the rune stone appeared. The path was in the shape of the Korean letter ‘ㄷ’.

When you looked through the cracks in the wall, it looked like a closed space because of the angle, so it was impossible for anyone to notice unless they had really good eyesight.

I reached out to the rune stone that was right in front of me. And then, I focused the strange sensation that had started to flow into my body a while ago onto the back of my left hand.

It was easier than last time, probably because I had some experience.

A few seconds later, a new line was drawn on the opposite side of the tattoo that represented the mana enhancement rune.

It was the fourth rune I had obtained in order, but the third rune in practice.

It was ‘Vampiric Urge’, which was one of the cornerstones of the Darkest Light Mod’s melee character’s final build.

I rubbed the back of my hand.

The size of the tattoo that was engraved on my hand was gradually getting bigger. I wondered if my entire hand would be covered in tattoos later if I obtained the fourth rune.

Yes.

After I obtained the fourth rune.

The Rest in the Abyss rune that I had obtained after defeating Lucia had been erased a long time ago.

‘I hope there isn’t something like a playthrough.’

Rest in the Abyss wasn’t tied to the player.

That meant that the player had to obtain the rune again every time they started a new playthrough.

That was so that they could force you to climb down that terrible terrain and defeat Lucia every playthrough.

In the setting, it was said that the rune had melted because it couldn’t withstand the great power of the creature that had been abandoned by God, but to the users, it was just a flimsy excuse made up by the developers.

It would also disappear even if you didn’t fight the creature boss and went to the next playthrough, so how could they say it couldn’t withstand the power?

“Nix. Do you remember the black magic I mentioned before?”

I asked Nix, clenching and unclenching my left hand.

Now that I had even obtained Vampiric Urge, I would be able to roughly replicate the final build, even if it wasn’t perfect.

“Yes? Ah, yes. You’re talking about the thing you asked me to teach you, right? Hehe.”

“It seems like now is a good time to teach it to me.”

“Okay.”

Nix nodded and came closer to me.

In the game, you would just select the magic you wanted to learn from the UI, so I wondered how she was going to teach me magic, but the moment Nix gently grabbed my hand, knowledge flowed into my head.

Learning it was instantaneous.

Nix had released my hand in just a few seconds, and I could immediately understand the magic that I had wanted.

“Now we just need to go back to that city, right?”

“That’s right. But before that—”

Before I could even finish my sentence, a Rumble! sound like thunder echoed, and the entire dungeon shook greatly.

I calmly continued what I had been saying.

“Let’s test what I just got.”

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