I Reincarnated into a Game Filled with Mods – Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Including the charge pattern that’s always used in the first encounter, the remaining 4 patterns alternate during the boss fight, and the last one was this one that’s about to start now.

The so-called last stand, activated the moment the Human Butcher’s HP falls below 10%. If you’ve seen this pattern, it practically means you’ve cleared it.

It draws blood from its own body and makes it into bombs to throw at the player. Just dodging those makes its HP decrease automatically, until it has exactly 1 HP left.

When its HP drops to 1, it collapses from exhaustion, and if you approach it and just touch it with your bare hands or anything, the Human Butcher boss fight is over.

Of course, just as it means you’ve ‘practically’ cleared it, you must never let your guard down until the very end.

In vanilla, you could just roll a few times and be done with it, but in Brightest Darkness mode, it’s a pattern where you have to run around like crazy and desperately dodge until the very last projectile.

ㅡKuaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!!!

The monster let out a long roar and flung its blunt weapon to the ground. Then it walked, panting, to the center of the open space and started to tear at its own body with its fingernails.

Black blood gushed out from the wounds made by its fingernails. Another roar erupted, and the spilled blood droplets began to gather near the monster, growing to the size of a human head.

In vanilla, you only need to dodge about 9 or 10 projectiles, but in Darkest Light mode, you have to dodge close to 49 or 50. And it’s instant death if you get hit by even one of them.

Besides, you can’t dodge those by rolling. During that brief post-roll delay before you can roll again, you’ll get hit by a flying bomb and die instantly.

After confirming that the blood droplets had gathered and formed the shape of a human skull, I retreated to the wall of the open space. Sticking to the wall and circling counterclockwise was the most reliable way to deal with it.

The Human Butcher howled while looking up at the sky. The round blood bombs, clustered in the shape of human skulls, were launched towards me as if taking that roar as a signal.

‘Counterclockwise.’

The bombs are shot from the Human Butcher’s right, which is my left, so to increase the impact distance even a little, it’s best to circle counterclockwise.

You can dodge them by going clockwise too, but the bomb’s impact distance is ever so slightly shorter than when going counterclockwise, so sometimes, if you’re really unlucky, you can get hit by one.

I refused to take that risk.

Behind me, blood bombs crashed into the ground, causing massive acidic explosions. Black liquid spread everywhere, melting the walls and floor. I could easily imagine what the scene behind me looked like.

When I had almost circled the open space, I confirmed that it had become quiet behind me and stopped. The Human Butcher was sitting down, exhausted, gasping for breath.

I approached slowly, not letting my guard down. It was because of the reason I said 9 or 10, or 49 or 50.

There were times when it would launch one last blood bomb as a true last stand in this collapsed state. If it launched it, it would be 10 or 50, and if it didn’t, it would be 9 or 49.

And as I feared, a sphere shaped like a human skull appeared once again above the monster’s head.

‘It’s better to be safe than sorry.’

I prepared to roll in the opposite direction of where it would fly. I could easily dodge one projectile by rolling.

But the last bomb wasn’t launched towards me.

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

Having finished its last stand, the Human Butcher collapsed to the ground, completely exhausted, and gasped for breath. Now, if I approached and touched it with my bare hands or anything, the boss fight would be over.

“…What?”

But right now, I didn’t have time to think about that. Dumbfounded, I stared alternately at the Human Butcher collapsed on the ground and the half-destroyed top floor of the prison.

This had never happened in the game.

As I stood there, stunned by the unexpected situation unfolding before my eyes, a knight in armor jumped down from the top floor of the prison, through the dust cloud.

With a light clang of metal, the knight landed in the open space with incredibly light movements and stood up.

The silver armor, which should have been shining brilliantly, was covered in black blood, smoking and melting. It was heavily corroded in many places, almost completely losing its function as armor.

Judging from its blood-soaked appearance, it seemed to have been directly hit by the blood bomb, but since its limbs were still intact, it seemed the armor had fulfilled its role even as it was being destroyed.

It was armor I remembered seeing, but its appearance was quite different. As I tilted my head, feeling a sense of unfamiliarity, the knight walked towards me and muttered as if to himself.

“I didn’t expect it to launch its last attack in this direction. My mistake.”

A neutral voice flowed out from within the rusty, dirty silver helmet. The armor was different from my memory, and the voice was different too.

Something was strange. Very strange.

“Did you defeat it alone?”

As the same question from the game came out, I quickly snapped back to reality. If this were the game, a choice would pop up with yes or no, but now I had to open my mouth and answer directly.

“Yes.”

“…Impressive.”

The knight observed the Human Butcher, collapsed on the ground and gasping for breath from exhaustion, then turned back to me.

“It seems to be still alive. Aren’t you going to kill it? Since you defeated it, finishing it off is your responsibility too.”

“Ah, yes. I will.”

I picked up the sword I had thrown on the ground. The monster didn’t react at all even though I had come right up to it. The knight stepped back a few paces and nodded slightly.

I stabbed its belly. The sword went in easily. The Human Butcher let out a dying roar as it received the final blow, then tilted and fell diagonally forward.

In the game, when you kill an enemy, the body automatically disappears and items are dropped, so I stared intently at the monster’s corpse, wondering what would happen here.

Bubble, bubble, the area around the Human Butcher’s head started to melt with bubbles and smoke. The softened flesh and black blood spread beneath the corpse.

In the spot where the flesh had melted away, creating an empty hole, something shiny was visible.

‘So this is how it is.’

I tossed aside the now useless steel sword and, being careful not to touch the flesh as much as possible, grabbed the shiny object and pulled it out with force. It came out surprisingly easily.

In my hand was a sword with a blade of a sinister red color. I felt relieved at its familiar appearance.

‘Now I can breathe a sigh of relief.’

This was the weapon I absolutely had to get. I was worried that the item might not drop, but it was a needless worry.

The reason this weapon, called the Bloodstained Sword, was called a cheat code in the early stages was simple.

It was a weapon you could obtain in the very early tutorial area, but its damage was comparable to weapons you get in the mid-game.

As a trade-off, its stat scaling and enhancement growth were significantly lacking, making it less efficient as time went on, but it was precisely this characteristic that made it even more famous as an early-game cheat code.

You couldn’t enhance weapons properly in the early game anyway, and the character’s stats were at rock bottom, so it was several times more beneficial to have high base damage and stats.

You could rely on this weapon for attack power and allocate the stat points you would have invested in strength to other important stats. This alone made a huge difference in the stability of the early-game build.

Of course, stability is only a concern in vanilla, and in Darkest Light mode, where you can die in one hit from a random mob on the road, it’s a moot point.

As I returned to the silver-armored knight, holding the Bloodstained Sword, the neutral voice flowed out from the helmet again.

“That weapon isㅡ?”

Before the knight could finish speaking, a large crack appeared on the precariously held-together helmet with a cracking sound. It seemed to have reached the end of its lifespan, having fulfilled its role in saving its wearer’s life.

The destruction of this NPC’s armor didn’t happen in the game, but it didn’t matter. If I were to nitpick, I’d have to start from the last blood bomb flying to a different location.

The main framework of the story didn’t seem to have changed, and I could just think of it as added realism, like how there was a stab wound on the Human Butcher’s belly or how the floor shattered when it stomped its feet.

The knight clicked his tongue and, grabbing the helmet that was about to split in two, tore it off himself. The broken helmet pieces rolled on the floor with a metallic sound.

The silver, long hair hidden inside swayed and cascaded down.

‘…Wait, what? Long hair?’

As I hesitated at the unexpected sight, my eyes met the knight’s.

Silver eyes, the same color as the hair, and a face that could objectively and subjectively be called beautiful, were looking at me.

Yes, inside the armor was a young woman.

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