Chapter 177
Chapter 177
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 177
Chapter Title: DLC (2)
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It was enough to take one’s breath away.
It was neither colossal like the Cancer Giant nor did it let out a threatening roar.
It simply looked down at the protagonist in silence, making only a grating, grinding sound, yet that alone evoked terror.
An overwhelming entrance.
In that instant, Seok-hun forgot all his previous thoughts, his gaze stolen by the Warden.
He couldn't help it.
“The quality is insane…”
This was the first time.
The first time the Warden had been rendered in such high-quality graphics.
While it had appeared in 3D in the previous *Hellic 2*, that was, at best, a polygon model.
It was simply incomparable to the lifelike graphics of modern engines.
Seok-hun’s heart pounded in his chest.
Su-jin had the same reaction.
The aura it exuded in its silence was that immense.
For the two of them, who knew the Warden’s true might, the pressure was doubled.
Were they supposed to fight again?
The question surfaced for a moment, only to be resolved soon after.
—*Grind…*
The Warden turned and walked away.
Its pace was neither fast nor slow, as if Jade Wilson wasn't even worth as much as a pebble on the path.
Only then could Seok-hun and Su-jin release their tension.
The question cautiously raised its head only after relief had set in.
“Wh-what was that?”
Su-jin tilted her head in confusion.
Seok-hun searched his memory, trying to figure out the reason.
He was a fan who had been with *Hellic* from the very beginning.
If he pieced together the lore, he could figure this much out on his own.
“…Because he’s not a sinner?”
The words slipped out. A moment later, Seok-hun’s eyes widened as he raised his voice.
“Ah! Jade isn’t a sinner from the hell this Warden oversees! That’s why it passed by!”
“Huh?”
“This is the Hell of the Self-Destructors! The Blue Warden is in charge of the sinners in *this* hell!”
So, to put it simply.
“Passing the buck, government-style!”
“Oh, ‘That’s not my department’?”
“Exactly!”
While the distinctions of time and space in hell were ambiguous, the characteristics of each hell were clearly defined.
For example, in *Hellic 2*, where the protagonist traversed various hells, there were doors connecting the different spaces Alice moved through, but wardens and sinners rarely crossed them.
The one exception was the Blue Warden they had just encountered.
As the final boss of *Hellic 2*, it had confronted Butterfly in a different space, but that was only because Butterfly was considered a sinner in the Hell of the Self-Destructors as well.
To sum it up, Jade Wilson was not a target for the Warden because the reason he fell to hell had nothing to do with self-destruction; even after his tragedy, he had lived for his daughter before dying in the line of duty.
Seok-hun, looking proud after his explanation, glanced at Su-jin.
She had a vague expression on her face.
Seok-hun asked.
“Hm? What is it?”
“No, it’s just… I get it, but…”
“But?”
“It suddenly sounds so cheap. Now that you call it ‘passing the buck’.”
Su-jin chuckled.
Seok-hun tilted his head, seemingly not understanding what the problem was.
But that moment didn't last long.
Whatever the case, there was still plenty of game left.
Su-jin voiced her next question to Seok-hun.
“So, does that mean we won’t have to fight the Warden?”
It was a natural question.
If the protagonist was never going to be the Warden's target, what was the point of it even showing up?
To exaggerate a little, one could even call the cinematic a bait-and-switch.
But Seok-hun firmly denied it.
“We’ll probably fight it.”
“Huh?”
“Our Yeon-ho isn’t that clueless.”
His nickname, of all things, was ‘Motherfucker.’
Not ‘that bastard’ or ‘that son of a bitch’—‘Motherfucker.’
He was the kind of guy who made games with such atrocious difficulty that both his staff and the players couldn't help but curse him. And when it came to fan service, he was undeniably at the top among all directors. Would a man like that really have the Warden make a brief appearance and then just disappear?
Seok-hun's belief was a conviction built on over a decade of experience dealing with the man named Cheon Yeon-ho.
“We’ll find out once we play.”
He gave his answer, and Su-jin nodded.
Their two characters began to move forward again.
* * *
The *Hellic 4* DLC, unlike Yang Gil-sang's hair follicles, was abundant.
Not that it was massive in volume, but that it was compactly packed with things to enjoy within its limited scope.
Su-jin exited the rift that led to the Hell of the Self-Destructors.
There, she defeated the Cancer Giant and obtained the item Seok-hun had so desperately wanted: the cancer club, the Cancer Bat.
“Yesss! I knew they’d put it in this one, too!”
The weapon type was a blunt weapon.
It was classified as a high-tier item for the longsword build path in *Hellic 4*, featuring slow attack speed, high attack power, and its signature random status effect.
In truth, it was treated more like a novelty weapon in *Hellic 4*, where one had to consider monster matchups.
However, if that was all it gave, there would have been no point in fighting the boss.
The Cancer Giant, as a DLC boss, dropped one other item.
“It gives a revolver accessory, too?”
As Su-jin said, a revolver accessory, an execution item, was also dropped.
Proliferating Bullets (Cylinder)
The revolver's bullets change into 3 bullets with 60% attack power.
The revolver's magazine size is limited to 4 rounds.
Cylinder recovery speed is reduced by 140%.
As the name suggested, it seemed to be an item themed around cancer cells.
The effect was an execution enhancement.
It was an item that dramatically increased damage at the cost of execution stack recovery speed and maximum ammo capacity.
No, in fact, the recovery speed wasn't even a penalty.
By reducing the ammo capacity, it allowed you to deal more damage than a six-shot execution with just four shots. How could that be called a penalty?
From Seok-hun’s perspective, it was a mouth-watering item, but for Su-jin, who had gotten used to the game and started using the execution move for utility, it was practically useless.
In *Hellic 4*, the more physically skilled the player, the higher the potential of a melee-based playstyle.
“I’ll keep this!”
Feeling like she had just added another piece to her collection, Su-jin tucked the [Proliferating Barrel] into a corner of her inventory.
On to the next stage.
“Ah, this time it’s *Hellic 2*!”
Chapter 4, the Hell of Annihilation. The boss was the goat-skulled fiend who impaled people on skewers.
Without another word, Su-jin started playing.
There were a few difficulties during the fight, but they weren't major.
After all, Su-jin was fundamentally a different type of gamer than Seok-hun, one with superior physical skill.
“Cleared!”
She easily broke through the Hell of Annihilation.
The moment she moved on to the next area.
Su-jin beamed at the unfolding scenery and slapped Seok-hun on the shoulder.
“It’s *Hellic 3*!”
The new map was the Hell of War.
It was Su-jin’s favorite game in the series.
It was purely a matter of taste.
Reviews for *Hellic 3* were generally polarizing, but those who loved its unique action considered it the best in the series—and Su-jin was one of them.
In fact, she still played *Hellic 3* whenever she had the chance. How could she not be delighted to see it in another game?
The map itself was a testament to that.
It was the latter half of the temple the four protagonists had passed through.
The various mechanics and monsters from *Hellic 3* had been reinterpreted to fit the Soulslight genre of *Hellic 4*, welcoming Su-jin.
As they say, a familiar flavor is the most addicting. Su-jin found joy just in finding the similarities and differences.
She smiled to herself, telling Seok-hun about this and that, while Seok-hun, reduced to the role of a spectator, could only nod with a sad smile.
The climax, of course, was the boss fight.
*Vwooom—!*
“War History!”
It was Su-jin’s favorite boss.
Beyond its difficulty, its varied combat style made it fun to fight.
War History, its white skin covered in flowing black spots, slowly walked forward.
And so, the combat phase began.
“Hah…!”
It was different.
This, at least, was definitely different from *Hellic 3*.
The combat wasn't focused on flashy action, but on the deliberate, stitch-by-stitch process of a Soulslight game.
The tension that arose from it, and the potential for variables.
It was thrilling.
Su-jin’s eyes sparkled.
As she tapped the controller, analyzing and breaking down the patterns, she had become a true gamer in her own right.
“Our Su-jin is the best…”
Which was, of course, a tragedy for Seok-hun.
* * *
After passing through maps that were nostalgic for fans of *Hellic 1*, *2*, and *3*, and new for recent players, they reached the final chapter.
It was a place one could only enter during the game’s ending branch.
Before watching the cinematic after defeating the final boss, through a rift that appeared where Olson Rick had died.
Everyone knew what lay there.
The DLC’s main boss: ‘Bad Ending Jade Wilson’.
For this reason, you couldn't meet this DLC boss if you took the bad ending route.
Though it wasn't a deliberate choice, Su-jin had proceeded with the normal route, and so she entered the rift in the final boss room.
Seok-hun let out a gasp of awe.
“Oh…”
The map area wasn't much different.
However, a few changes to the structures and color saturation had drastically altered the atmosphere.
This was the future of the bad ending branch, a phenomenon that occurred as Jade Wilson, not Olson Rick, became the master of this space.
“All those umbilical cord things are gone.”
“The walls have all turned a rusty metal color, too… It doesn’t feel like a pulsating living creature anymore.”
Jade Wilson’s sin was a single bullet.
As such, the space was dyed not in the colors of a living being, but in the hue of rusted metal.
“Where’s the boss?”
It was at that moment.
A cinematic began to play.
*Thud—!*
With a loud crash, two figures slammed down into the space.
It was the bad ending's Jade Wilson, whose heartbeat was the sound of a revolver cylinder clicking and turning, and the Warden from *Hellic 1*.
Anyone could see they were in the middle of a fight.
When the Warden charged with its hacksaw, the revolver cylinder in Jade’s chest spun, and the barrel spat fire.
The Warden parried it with its hacksaw, closing the distance, and at that moment, Jade’s tail clashed with the blade.
A tense situation, a battle where neither could gain the upper hand.
At one point during the unfolding scene.
*Bang!*
The bad ending's Jade Wilson rushed toward a wall and seeped into it.
The Warden paused.
A brief silence fell.
Then, the Warden’s head turned toward the player’s Jade.
Its grip on the hacksaw tightened.
The Warden took a step forward.
It was in a combat stance.
* * *
The reason the Warden only recognized Jade as an enemy in the final chapter was simple.
The bad ending route itself implied the meaning of ‘self-destruction.’
The Blue Warden was the punisher of all who self-destruct.
Thus, to the Warden who had already observed the self-destructing Jade, the Jade from an earlier timeline was also considered an enemy.
And so, the battle against the Blue Warden, the final boss of the DLC, was set.
Needless to say, the Warden was no pushover.
It had mechanics befitting its visual intimidation and narrative weight.
On the second day of the DLC’s release, players who began to reach the fight with the Warden groaned in agony.
『FutureNotSoBright: Warden you motherfucking piece of shit….
Why do his patterns get more fucked up with every game????
This is brutal as hell lolololol
WhatIsHellic: Don’t use such strong words. It makes you look weak.
└ FutureNotSoBright: stfu』
Of course, it was a positive kind of groaning.