I Reincarnated into a Game Filled with Mods – Chapter 75

Chapter 75

“We meet again, honored guest.”

Selene bowed her head slightly towards me. Unlike our first meeting, when she had her face barely visible under a deeply hooded robe, she was now dressed as an Inquisitor.

Her silver hair, mixed with gray, swayed slightly behind her back. Tied in a ponytail at the crown of her head, it was long enough to wrap around her body several times.

Her bangs partially reached down near her lips, revealing violet eyes, the same color as the Moon Pope’s. Perhaps it was her eyes, but she gave off a rather sharp impression overall.

Her toned, muscular body was clad in translucent tights, similar to the battle nuns under her command.

She wore armor, a mix of gray and silver, below her elbows and knees, but the rest of her body was covered in skintight tights.

The curves of her body were very prominently displayed, and the translucent material made it seem as though her bare skin was completely visible. Her muscles, which looked firm to the point of being hard, stood out even more.

It was clear she wasn’t wearing anything underneath, as there were no underwear lines. In fact, she was revealing far more skin than the battle nuns under her command.

Fortunately, thanks to her modest chest, which was comparable to Erika’s, it didn’t go any further than that.

“Tsk.”

Stella clicked her tongue disapprovingly. In contrast to Selene, who had her usual indifferent expression, Stella’s usual cheerful smile was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a very displeased look.

“…How did the Inquisitor-nim know to come here?”

“I came to help.”

It was a non-answer. I had asked how she knew the exact moment to come here, and she replied that she came to help. Could she have been watching me from afar?

“Shouldn’t you not be here, Inquisitor?”

Stella seemed extremely annoyed. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were not.

“The Sun does not interfere with the Moon. And the Moon does not interfere with the Sun. That’s the tradition, isn’t it? I’ll let it slide that the Moon Pope ordered you to bring these people to the Holy Kingdom, but what is it this time? Did Her Holiness perhaps order you to help the honored guest again?”

“I have not broken tradition, Inquisitor. I am not trying to interfere with the Sun’s domain, but to help the honored guest.”

From my perspective, it seemed like the same thing, but perhaps there was another meaning hidden in her words, because Stella seemed to understand it on her own and backed down.

After silencing Stella in one fell swoop, Selene took out the Divine Catalyst from her waist and infused it with divine power. The white light, mixed with gray, shimmered like moonlight.

“Please remain where you are.”

It felt like almost five seconds had passed after Selene spoke before a clear, ringing sound echoed.

The white light emanating from the Divine Catalyst began to envelop my body. The light spread thinly across my skin, and something resembling a thin film appeared.

My skin, enveloped in divine power, emitted a faint glow. I touched the faint halo surrounding my body with my hand. My fingers passed through the halo and touched my skin.

I couldn’t feel anything. There was nothing to grasp or obstruct my hand. It was like I was seeing a hallucination.

But it was definitely not a hallucination.

“It is done. You should have no problems now.”

Having finished her task, Selene fastened the Divine Catalyst back to her waist. Stella was staring at her with a disapproving look.

The divine spell that Selene had just used.

It was a divine spell called ‘Moon’s Blessing’.

Its effect was to nullify damage from an enemy’s attack if it would be fatal to the player. Simply put, it was a +1 to life. The duration was five minutes by default.

It was essentially like giving you an extra life, so it was a must-have spell in both vanilla Brightest Darkness 4 and Darkest Light mode.

That is, if you could use it.

Perhaps because of its ridiculously overpowered effect of preventing death, the required stats were incredibly high. It needed 30 Faith and 60 Divine Power.

In the first playthrough, it was practically unusable for builds other than Cleric, and even for Clerics, it was a burden to use in the first playthrough because you had to give up a lot of other stats.

Clerics, whose concept was already late-blooming and incredibly difficult to level up in the early game, would lose far more than they gained by investing their stats in Faith and Divine Power like that.

“So, will you challenge the Inquisitor to a duel once again, honored guest?”

After saying those words, Selene walked to a corner of the training ground, far away from us, as if her mission was complete. She sat down on the floor, knees bent, and hugged her legs.

Her face, resting on her knees, stared intently at me. Her violet eyes were fixed on me, refusing to look away.

“Did you hear her?”

I felt bewildered, but I couldn’t miss this opportunity. Stella, with a complex expression on her face, as if the whole world was weighing on her shoulders, finally nodded as if she had no choice.

I could ask Selene why and how she helped me after the duel. It didn’t look like she was planning to leave on her own anyway.

“You’ve run out of excuses. Alright, I understand. I have no choice.”

Stella shook her head and put strength into her right hand. The iron mace in her hand felt light as she slammed it 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, gripped their maces tightly, and formed a circle around us. The shields, bearing the symbol of the Church, faced inwards.

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

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

“This is fine.”

“Oh my, are you sure? I’ll ignore you if you later use the excuse that you lost because the space was too cramped.”

Stella covered her mouth with a surprised expression. It was understandable, as it was a space where you would bump into a shield if you took four or five steps back.

But the size of the training ground didn’t matter to me at all. It wasn’t like this was my first or second time fighting the Inquisitor boss, I could handle her regardless of whether it was narrow or wide.

Actually, a wider space would be more convenient for me, but I couldn’t change the size of the training ground if I wanted to break the Inquisitor’s pride.

In the game, if you defeated the Inquisitor without changing the size of the training ground, her dialogue would change. She would say something like she was truly impressed by your skills.

Of course, this wasn’t a necessary step. It was just a small revenge for her barging in last time and messing up the story.

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

“Let’s just say that if you feel like you’ve been hit enough, you lose.”

Systemically, the victory condition was to reduce the boss’s HP to 50%, just like the Silver Dawn Knights’ entrance exam, but I couldn’t mention specific numbers like that right now.

“…What if I don’t admit defeat?”

“Then we’ll have to fight until you do, what other choice is there?”

I drew the Bloodstained Sword. The blade gleamed red in the sunlight. Stella, with a look that said “Oh really?”, picked up her iron mace. That massive mace was easily lifted with one hand.

A white light, mixed with yellow, swirled around the spiky mace head.

“Isn’t it a bad idea to be so overconfident? What if you get knocked out in one hit?”

Ignoring her, I plunged the sword into my stomach. With the feeling of blood being drawn out by the blade, the red color of the blade deepened. As I pulled out the sword, blood dripped from the blade.

“Are you going to focus on the duel? Well, alright. Do you want to make the first move? Or should I?”

I silently flicked the tip of my sword up and down. Seeing that, Stella smiled brightly and slowly started walking towards me. The color of the divine power residing in the mace deepened.

The Inquisitor didn’t have a set opening pattern. She would just randomly use patterns depending on the distance and the player’s movements.

The mace was raised high above her head. After figuring out what pattern it was, I prepared to deflect it.

Stella swung the mace. The mace head was aimed directly at my head. I gripped the Bloodstained Sword with both hands and, following my arms’ natural reaction, drew an arc in the air.

With a clang!, the direction of the mace changed abruptly. The recoil that came to my arms wasn’t unbearable either.

The next attack followed without a pause. I deflected the mace swinging from left to right, and for the last one, I swung my sword a beat later, anticipating the off-beat timing.

As the last three attacks were deflected with a loud metallic clang, Stella’s body staggered for a moment. A look of surprise appeared on her face.

Stella tried to regain her posture as if to continue the attack, but my attack was faster. The crimson blade, formed by the gathering of scarlet blood, grazed Stella’s arm.

“…”

Stella looked back and forth between the Bloodstained Sword and her own mace with a dumbfounded expression.

One was an ordinary longsword with nothing special about it except for its red blade, and the other was an iron mace with a head twice the size of a human head.

Common sense dictated that the sword should shatter as soon as the two weapons collided. But not only was the blade not broken, it was perfectly fine, and it even deflected the mace, so she must have been confused.

“Goodness, how did you do that just now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can just say you don’t want to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Stella smiled brightly. As expected of someone who served the Sun Pope, it was a warm and benevolent smile, just like Floreta’s.

“Because I’m going to find out for myself from now on.”

“You failed in the end. I’m sorry.”

I sheathed the Bloodstained Sword, its buff having worn off. Gazes directed at me from all directions pricked my skin. It was the gazes of the battle nuns, including Selene.

Stella was sitting on the floor, staring blankly up at me.