Chapter 44
Chapter 44
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 44
Chapter Title: This Damn Gimmick
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—Thud!
The rock centipede that had smashed its own head into the wall began thrashing wildly once more. Hundreds of legs flailing, its segmented body twisting this way and that, the whole creature venting its agony.
‘Finally.’
I praised my own patience for enduring this filthy, cheap gimmick a whopping twenty times. That had just been the twentieth, so forty more to go until phase four.
The surrounding terrain had long been reduced to rubble. While the thing blindly rammed the walls and rampaged, it had churned up the entire floor, cracked the walls in places, and even outright collapsed sections of them.
After flailing for a good while, it dragged its massive body toward a crevice in the rocks, forcing its way through and shattering them as it lumbered off. Being so enormous, it took quite some time just to disappear from sight.
The droning rumble gradually faded into the distance. That marked the clear of phase one.
I brushed myself off and stood, heading through the path revealed between the crumbled walls. One phase down—it was time to carve through the trash mobs and tackle phase two’s gimmick.
The gimmicks for phases two and three ahead weren’t all that different. Lure the sluggish rock centipede charging at a yawn-inducing pace and trick it into smashing its head somewhere on its own.
The only change was the target switching from wall to pillar, then back to wall. No fun, time-consuming, and with a filthy high risk of getting pelted to death by flying debris.
So how could anyone like this?
‘In the game, no mid-save either—death meant starting all over from scratch.’
Worse still, the endless stretch from phase one to four all counted as one single boss fight, so no mid-save whatsoever.
Screw up the controls on the fifty-ninth gimmick and eat dirt on the sixtieth? Back to phase one. I’d seen plenty of players rage-quitting after that.
I’d suffered it once myself and just couldn’t drop the game.
‘Ah, time for it to come charging soon, huh.’
I hadn’t gone far when centipedes about my size started slithering out from between the rocks. The same ones that had been flattened under boulders when we descended underground.
No need to dodge or roll—these trash mobs went down easy. I flicked away the first lunge and lopped off its head. The centipede’s body chunked apart with every stab of my bloodied blade.
Its attack looked like it should chew right through with those mandibles, impossible to parry, but weirdly, swinging my weapon sent it rebounding into stun every time.
After slicing through about ten, a distant rumble shook the ground—ku-rung. Phase two was approaching. I quickened my pace.
Emerging from the narrow passage, I entered a chamber roughly the size of the previous one. The difference: a massive pillar stretching from floor to ceiling in the center.
That pillar was the key to phase two’s gimmick. Everything else the same, but now make the rock centipede smash into it twenty times instead of the wall.
‘Same crap either way—zero fun.’
If it were only five reps, maybe I could stomach it.
Kwaaaang! With an explosive roar, the rock centipede burst through the rocks opposite me. I slipped aside from the flying stone shards. Compared to phase one, it looked pretty battered.
Its head carapace, rammed into the wall twenty times, bore fine cracks, and it clacked its mandibles furiously at me, far angrier than before.
Its upper body slammed down right away, clearly intent on flattening me. I rolled aside, and a shockwave erupted behind me, debris spraying everywhere.
‘Parries sealed again.’
Just like that headless armored cavalryman’s specific pattern.
Parrying its full-speed leap and spear smash sent your body staggering back into a grab attack, guaranteeing the follow-up. Same with the rock centipede.
Every attack inflicted massive parry backlash, making the next one impossible to dodge. Forced to roll every time, turning an already dull boss fight even duller.
The rock centipede snatched up a nearby boulder in its mandibles and reared its head sky-high—actually bending its entire upper body backward.
‘Startup lag is filthy.’
Even after I ducked behind the wall, it took nearly five more seconds for the rock to fly. Something shattered on the opposite side, stone chunks raining down.
Confirming the human who’d toyed with it was still alive, the rock centipede twisted in rage. Its body slammed back to the floor. Signal for the charge pattern.
The rock centipede began inching forward. I watched calmly, matching its speed with slow steps. No need to run.
This was more annoying than phase one. Had to maintain distance to lure it to the pillar. Too far, and it’d cancel the charge.
Then back to square one luring it again.
‘Insane, really.’
If it charged faster than the player character’s run speed, sure, people would call it hard—but not hurl every curse in the book like now.
I circled the chamber, luring it to the pillar. The rock centipede charged with all it had—what a joke, still yawn-slow.
I waited until the distance closed, then rolled aside. Right beside me—kuwoong!
—Kuwoong!
“Again?”
An unidentified rumble echoed, shaking the entire cave, and Lize scowled deeply.
Who knew how many times this made. It had quieted for a bit, so she thought it was over—now starting up again.
“No way the whole place is collapsing, right?”
“Not sure. Too sporadic for ground collapse signs, but the scale’s absurd for anything else. It’s ambiguous either way.”
“Any chance it’s a monster?”
“A monster……?”
Erika faltered at Iris’s question. A monster big enough to shake the entire bedrock? That spelled trouble in its own right.
“Better if it were a monster. At least we could try killing it. Would have to be ridiculously huge to cause shakes like this, but in a collapsing cave, fighting that beats being buried alive.”
“True. Better to die fighting a monster than get buried and starve here.”
“Hey, why’s dying the premise? Keep the doom talk up?”
Lize whipped her head around, grumbling as she led the way. A hint of edge in her voice. Ever since the rookie started acting solo, she’d been like this.
“Just speaking hypothetically, sis. And I don’t think we’ll die here at all. You heard what the rookie said, right?”
Indeed, none of the three showed anxiety. Despite the risk of getting trapped in the collapse, starving or dying of thirst.
“I know. He said he’d wait below.”
It was because of the words the rookie knight—now far below after falling—had shouted. Just keep coming down, he’d wait at the bottom.
That held conviction nothing they feared would happen.
“Yeah. Since he said that, our job’s just to hurry down. Can’t leave him waiting alone. Plus, I’ve got words for him.”
“Right. Gotta give him a piece of our mind this time.”
Lize, Erika, Iris—all thought the same. Time to chew him out for spilling foreknowledge sooner.
No one imagined the rookie dead. He always seemed to know something, always surprising them.
This time would be no different.
—Kuuuwoong!
“Argh, seriously! What the hell’s going on?”
“……Hurry more. We need to link up ASAP.”
“Yeah. Whatever it is, dawdling here won’t help.”
The three dashed downward without scouting. He’d said it was safe, nothing there.
He was right. They encountered nothing—not the source of the quakes, not even regular monsters.
The path sloped smoothly down, and they plunged deeper underground.
“What…… is this?”
Deep below, they spotted part of a massive centipede-shaped rock.
Crushed flat beneath a thick pillar.