I Reincarnated into a Game Filled with Mods – Chapter 44

Chapter 44

ㅡKWOOOONG!

The Rock Centipede, which had rammed its head into the wall on its own, started to go berserk again. It thrashed its hundreds of legs and twisted its body segments, expressing its pain with its entire being.

‘Finally.’

I praised my own patience for having endured this filthy and ridiculously petty gimmick a whopping 20 times. Since that was exactly the 20th time, I just needed to do it 40 more times to reach Phase 4.

The surrounding terrain had been practically devastated for a while now. The entire floor had been overturned because that thing kept ramming into the wall and thrashing about, and there were cracks all over the walls, with some parts completely collapsed.

The creature struggled for a while, then dragged its massive body, forcibly opened the crevice in the rock, destroyed it, and lumbered away. It took quite a while for it to disappear because it was so enormous.

The rumbling sound of *dddrrrrr* gradually faded away. With this, Phase 1 could be considered cleared.

I dusted myself off and stood up, moving towards the path revealed between the collapsed walls. Having finished one phase, it was now time to go slice up some regular mobs and carry out the gimmick for Phase 2.

The gimmicks for the upcoming Phase 2 and Phase 3 weren’t much different. It was about luring the Rock Centipede, which charged at me yawningly slow, and making it smash its head into something on its own.

The only difference was that the “something” would change from a wall to a pillar, and then from a pillar back to a wall. It was not fun, it took a long time, and the risk of getting hit by stray debris and dying was ridiculously high.

So, how could anyone possibly like this?

‘In the game, there were no mid-phase saves, so if you died, you had to start all over again from the beginning, no exceptions.’

What’s even more horrifying is that this seemingly eternal time from Phase 1 to Phase 4 is all treated as a single boss fight, so there are no mid-phase saves.

This means that if you perform the gimmick 59 times and then die due to a control error on the 60th and final time, you have to go back to Phase 1. I’ve seen quite a few people rage quit after that happened.

It happened to me once, and I couldn’t help but turn off the game.

‘Ah, it seems like it’s about time for them to start attacking.’

Even though I hadn’t progressed that far, centipedes similar in size to me started crawling out from between the rock crevices. They were the ones that got flattened en masse when they came down to the basement and got crushed by the rocks.

They were regular mobs that didn’t even have the option of rolling to dodge attacks or anything, so I just deflected the first attack and immediately cut off their heads. The centipedes were cut into chunks wherever the Bloodstained Sword dug in.

It seemed like it would be impossible to deflect the centipedes’ attacks, as they tried to bite with their mandibles, but strangely enough, whenever I swung my weapon, they would get hit by it, bounce back, and become stunned.

After slicing through about ten centipedes, I heard the ground rumbling with a *kurrrrung* sound from afar. It meant that the start of Phase 2 was approaching. I quickened my pace.

As I exited the narrow alley, a cavity similar in size to where I had been staying appeared. The difference was that there was a huge pillar in the center that reached the ceiling.

That pillar was the core element of the Phase 2 gimmick. Everything else was the same, but the Rock Centipede had to crash into that pillar 20 times instead of the wall.

‘This or that, it’s all equally boring.’

If only the number of times was around 5, I would have been reasonably convinced.

With a booming sound of *KWAAAAANG!*, the Rock Centipede emerged, smashing the rocks on the opposite side. I dodged the flying rock fragments. It looked quite messed up compared to Phase 1.

There were fine cracks on the head carapace, where it had smashed into the wall 20 times, and it seemed even more enraged than before, chattering its mandibles nervously as soon as it saw me.

Its upper body immediately slammed down. It seemed like it was trying to crush me completely. I rolled sideways to dodge it, and a shockwave hit me from behind. Fragments scattered everywhere.

‘Deflect is sealed again this time.’

It was a similar case to a specific pattern of the Headless Ironclad Cavalryman.

If you deflect the pattern where it charges at full speed, jumps, and thrusts its spear downwards, you get grabbed while your body is pushed back. Because of that, you get hit by the follow-up attack for sure, and the Rock Centipede was the same.

All attacks have a tremendous deflect post-delay, making it impossible to avoid the next attack. As a result, I had to use only rolling, and it had the side effect of making the already tedious boss fight even more tedious.

The Rock Centipede grabbed a nearby rock with its mandibles and lifted its head high. No, it wasn’t just lifting it; it was practically bending its entire upper body backward.

‘The pre-delay is ridiculously long.’

The rock flew towards me almost 5 seconds after I hid behind the wall. I heard something shatter on the other side, and rock fragments scattered everywhere.

The Rock Centipede, confirming that the human who had been toying with it was still alive, twisted its body and threw a tantrum. Its body slammed down onto the floor once again. It was a sign that it was preparing its charge pattern.

The Rock Centipede slowly started to move its body. I watched it and slowly moved my steps to match its speed. I barely even needed to run.

This time, it was even more annoying than Phase 1. I had to maintain a certain distance from it while luring it towards the pillar. If the distance became too wide, it would cancel its charge pattern.

Then, of course, I had to start luring the charge again.

‘This is crazy, seriously.’

If it charged faster than the player character’s running speed, it would have been criticized for being difficult, but it wouldn’t have been to the extent that everyone was cursing at it like they are now.

I went around the cavity once to lure it and stood in front of the pillar. The Rock Centipede was running towards me with all its might. Even so, it was so slow that it made me yawn.

I watched it, and when the distance closed, I rolled sideways to get out of the way. I heard a *KWOOOONG!* sound right next to me.

ㅡKWOOOONG!

“Again?”

Rize frowned deeply at the strange sound and the shaking of the entire cave.

She had lost count of how many times this had happened. It had been quiet for a while, so she thought it was over, but it had started again.

“Could it be that this entire place is about to collapse?”

“I’m not sure either. It’s too intermittent to be a sign of ground collapse, and the scale of the tremors is absurdly large to consider anything else. Both possibilities are ambiguous.”

“Is there a possibility it’s a monster?”

“A monster… you say?”

Erika was momentarily speechless at Iris’s question. If it was a monster large enough to shake the ground, that was a problem in itself.

“I wish it were a monster. At least we could try to kill it. If it’s a monster that can cause tremors of this magnitude, it must be an incredibly huge one, but fighting such a creature would be a much more worthwhile endeavor than being buried alive in a collapsing cave.”

“That’s certainly true. It’s much better to die fighting a monster than to be buried alive here.”

“Hey, why is dying the premise? Do you want to keep saying ominous things?”

Rize, who was walking ahead, turned her head and grumbled. Her words were laced with a slight edge. She had been like that ever since the new recruit started acting on his own.

“I’m just saying in case, Unni. And I don’t think we’ll die here at all. Didn’t you hear what that new recruit said, Unni?”

As she said, none of the three here showed any signs of anxiety. Even though there was a possibility that they might be trapped in this collapsing cave and starve or die of dehydration.

“I know. He said he’d be waiting down below.”

It was because of what the new recruit, who would be far below now, had shouted as he fell. He shouted that they just had to go straight down and he’d be waiting below.

His words contained the assurance that nothing the Knight Commanders were worried about would happen.

“Yes. Since the new recruit said so, all we have to do is hurry down here. We can’t leave him waiting alone down there. And we have things to say to him too.”

“Right. We need to give him a piece of our mind this time.”

Rize, Erika, and Iris all felt the same way. They were planning to nag him to tell them if he knew anything beforehand.

No one thought the new recruit was dead. He seemed to know something, and he always surprised them.

He would surely do so this time as well.

ㅡKWOOOONG!

“Ah, seriously! What is that, already?”

“…Let’s hurry up a bit more. We need to regroup as soon as possible.”

“Indeed. Whatever it is, it won’t do us any good to dawdle here.”

The three of them ran down without paying attention to their surroundings. This was because they had been told that there was nothing here and they could just go.

It was true. The three of them didn’t encounter anything. They didn’t even encounter a single ordinary monster, let alone the source of the ground tremors.

The path continued downwards smoothly, and the three went deeper into the underground.

“What is this, in the world…?”

And deep underground, they found a part of the giant centipede-shaped rock.

It was crushed under a thick pillar.