Chapter 3
Chapter 3
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: Mods in Full Effect
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“Who’s there?!”
The moment I stepped up to the upper level, an irritated shout rang out. I stopped in my tracks. Two rough-looking guys were approaching, each clutching a crude wooden club and wearing nothing but a loincloth—just like me.
It was exactly as it appeared in the game. Soon enough, the third one lurking in the back would join them.
They narrowed their eyes at the sight of me, similarly clad in just a loincloth, then relaxed their guard a bit as they exchanged words.
“What’s with this guy? One of ours?”
“Probably, since he came from below.”
“Jack said he checked everything earlier, though.”
“That slippery bastard—how many times has he cut corners? He might’ve just skimmed it and said it was clear.”
“Ugh, that idiot. Jack! Jack! Get your ass out here!”
Since I’d emerged from the prison’s lowest level and was dressed in the exact same way, they seemed to have mistaken me for one of their fellow inmates locked away down there.
There hadn’t been any dialogue like this in the game. They’d just charged the moment they spotted you.
The guy on the left started yelling Jack’s name irritably, and sure enough, another one stepped out from behind a pillar.
“What now?”
“What do you mean, what? I told you not to slack off and check properly, didn’t I? How do you explain someone else crawling up from below?”
“What?”
Jack scowled deeply at that and turned to look at me. He clicked his tongue in annoyance, then swung his crude wooden club around as he strode toward me.
“Fine, fine. I’ll handle it, okay?”
‘So they weren’t mistaking me for an ally after all?’
I’d hoped the initial exchange meant we could talk our way out of a fight, but since no one was stopping him even after he said he’d “handle” me, it looked like wishful thinking.
He closed the distance in big strides. If the pattern matched the game’s, his first attack was predictable. I glanced behind him briefly and focused on the arm holding his weapon.
His arm reared back.
‘Now.’
Recalling the feel of tapping the keys to back away my character, I quickly took two steps back. The club whistled through empty air right after I dodged.
“Huh?!”
His body lurched forward off-balance. Seizing the opening, I swung my club at his head. Thwack! A sharp impact rang out. His legs tangled from the shock, his eyes glazing over as he teetered on the verge of collapsing on his own.
Even in the game, it took three hits to kill them. Without giving him a breather, I landed two more precise strikes. He lost his footing completely and tumbled down the stairs.
Crash! The sound echoed. With his neck twisted a full 180 degrees at the end, he was definitely dead.
‘Good that nothing’s changed.’
The pattern and situation matched perfectly. The only difference was that in the game, there was no animation for tumbling down the stairs to your death.
Maybe because of that, even though I’d just killed a man, no particular emotions stirred. It felt far more like dispatching a game mob than taking a life.
“You bastard!”
While I was lost in thought staring at the corpse that had rolled to the bottom, the remaining two spat curses and charged at once.
I dodged the first incoming attack with a roll and struck at his back. While he stiffened from the direct hit, I rolled across the floor again and swung at his arm. Another clean hit.
I finished him off with one more swing at the guy reeling from two rapid strikes. The club cracked against his head, producing a much duller thud than before.
He crumpled to the ground and didn’t move again.
The last one, witnessing his two comrades drop in an instant, came at me in a desperate frenzy. Naturally, he ate three hits just like the others and sprawled out on the floor.
‘Kinda sucks there’s no UI.’
These introductory mobs seemed to die to three normal hits for a Forsaken, just like in the game. Enemy placements and appearances matched too. The bodies not despawning was a minor issue.
But the total lack of UI was a real letdown.
No health bars, no mana, no stamina, no combat fatigue. Not even faith points or quick slots for consumables once I started allocating stats.
I wasn’t asking for enemy health bars, but it would’ve been nice to have precise readouts for my own status.
Just now, each roll must’ve drained stamina and built up fatigue, but quantifying exactly how much was impossible.
I had a rough idea in my head, though. For a Forsaken’s first playthrough, three rolls bottomed out stamina.
‘I’ll figure it out in more detail later.’
Leaving the sprawled inmates behind, I headed for the door opposite the stairs. Behind it was the tutorial area’s mid-boss equivalent—a prisoner who was the leader of those three down there.
The real boss was the Human Butcher I’d encountered first, of course.
He was a pushover. Just a wooden club for a weapon, patterns so simple it wasn’t even funny. I remembered it took about ten normal hits.
I opened the door, and there was the silhouette of a massive human beyond it. A muscle-bound giant easily over two meters tall.
In his hand gleamed a fancy steel sword.
“...?”
Wait.
“No way.”
Leaving the muscle-bound giant’s corpse—head smashed in—behind, I slumped against a pillar with a hollow laugh.
“Is this mod still active?”
It was utterly infuriating.
If this were vanilla with no mods, my past exploits meant I’d struggle only a bit at the very start, then it’d be smooth sailing after a couple bosses.
I was the guy who’d cleared vanilla Brutal Dark 4 blindfolded, with mouse and keyboard swapped, even with my feet, at level 1 barehanded—endless no-hit, no-damage runs.
But no.
Realizing that the ‘Darkest Bright’ mod I’d installed right before getting isekai’d was fully active left me speechless, forcing out nothing but a bitter laugh.
I picked up the steel sword the mid-boss had wielded and examined it closely. No matter how I looked, it wasn’t a wooden club—it was a steel sword. Exactly the one from the Darkla mod.
‘This is insane.’
What was the Darkest Bright mod? The brutal thing that turned even me, with five-digit playtime, into a total newbie overnight.
And I’d gotten isekai’d with that crap active? It was too absurd for words.
‘Taking down the Human Butcher will be a nightmare from the jump.’
Thinking of the Human Butcher who’d appear right after escaping the prison’s lowest level made me sigh involuntarily. My original plan was to smash him.
He made a huge impact on first encounter to scare players, but his patterns topped out at six even with enemy buffs—and all slow enough to dodge with rolls easily.
He was a gatekeeper only for Brutal Dark 4 newbies; by playthrough two, you’d scoff and smash him.
The problem? In the enemy enhancement mod, brushing any of his patterns meant instant death.
Not just him, either. With Darkla mod buffs, every boss and mid-boss one-shot you no matter your HP investment.
Paradoxically, that made killing the Human Butcher even more essential.
‘I have to get that weapon no matter what.’
The reason I was dead set on taking him down was his guaranteed drop.
A weapon called the Bloodied Sword—cheat-level performance through the early and mid-game. The difficulty gap with and without it was night and day.
Even in vanilla, it made those sections a breeze; in Darkest Bright, it was practically mandatory.
Progressing early game without the Bloodied Sword was suicide.
Armor or no, max HP stats or not—boss attacks were always one-shots. Street mobs took you down in two hits max.
If every attack one-shots me, at least arm myself well enough to trade blows: one from you, one from me. If I die in one but you take five, that’s way too unfair.
“...”
Standing before the door out of the prison’s lowest section, I fiddled with the handle. Like in the game, the lock was busted, so I could leave anytime.
In Brutal Dark 4, the moment you exit this door, the patrolling Human Butcher busts through a wall right on cue, spots you, and gives chase.
You’d run laps around the prison in a pursuit until a knight’s help lets you barely survive.
You could also just beat him right here.
That skipped the chase and events, jumping straight to the knight and out of the tutorial—speedrunners’ go-to in vanilla.
Vanilla only, though.
In Brutal Dark mods where bosses had insane HP bloat, smart play was to just run.
“No choice...”
Yeah, no choice. In the game, I’d skipped the Bloodied Sword, died stupid amounts, and beat bosses barehanded. Now, I had to grab everything I could.
Decision made, I opened the door.
—ROOOOAAARRRR!!!!!!
The moment I stepped into the corridor, the Human Butcher’s roar echoed from ahead.