Nightfall - The Time to Kill Gods (5)

In the action RPG genre, the inclusion of puzzle elements has long been something of an unspoken rule.

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In truth, most players never particularly welcomed those puzzles. Outside of a tiny minority, few people wanted to rack their brains even inside a game.

Naturally, the developers were well aware of this. They also knew that stuffing a game with more puzzles than necessary would bring a flood of colorful abuse raining down on the development team.

Yet they kept cramming puzzles in anyway—not because they enjoyed getting cursed out by players. Strip away all the fancy excuses and the real reason was simple: to pad out the game’s length.

Faced with a puzzle blocking their path, a player would either sit there pondering for ages or go back to scour maps they had previously breezed through, hunting for some key they must have missed. Players got more things to do; the company artificially inflated playtime. Happy ending for everyone… if you ignored the inevitable rage the player was forced to feel along the way.

And right now, the event Yuria was proposing—activating the devices installed on the outskirts of the city—contained exactly that sort of puzzle element.

That did not mean the Nightfall developers were simply making players run in circles for the sake of playtime. In the game’s lore, the minions of R’lyeh possessed power on an entirely different level from the beasts that roamed Arkham. Roughly speaking, a random mob wandering R’lyeh was about as strong as a mid-boss on the normal route.

Even without that, the company was already drowning in protest emails and phone calls complaining that Nightfall was far too hard. If the developers had faithfully reflected the lore and unleashed R’lyeh’s minions at full strength, it would not have been strange at all for Powell Software’s offices to get firebombed that very day.

To prevent such a catastrophe, the team had prepared an event that naturally weakened the R’lyeh minions encountered on the hidden route. Along the way they also packed in cutscenes, gimmicks, and mid-bosses, conveniently expanding the game’s volume. Truly killing two birds with one stone—an elegant two-for-one deal.

Unfortunately for them, Yujin was currently playing the game in a way that completely ignored every route the Nightfall developers had envisioned. They had never imagined, not even in their wildest dreams, that someone would forcibly skip the prepared events and charge straight at the boss.

“…Master. It is not too late. The minions of R’lyeh are beings even you cannot easily face. For a human body to stand against them, we must first weaken their power—”

“Hm? What was that?”

Slash—!

Yujin bisected a bat-shaped monster diving at him with a single stroke and tossed the question toward Yuria.

“I was thinking about something else just now and missed what you said. So what were you trying to tell me?”

“.....”

In the end Yuria clamped her mouth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shut without another word, lips pressed tight.

While the viewers snickered at the sight of Yujin and Yuria, something unexpected happened.

The sudden appearance of the official Powell Software account! Since Yujin was under exclusive contract with them and was currently the only player in the world progressing the hidden route, it seemed the developers had been watching his stream as well.

At that very moment, the empty air folded at sharp angles. Smoke billowed forth, and something suddenly burst into existence.

[Kyaaaaaaak—!]

What emerged amid the eerie smoke was none other than a dog. A scrawny, emaciated dog that looked, at a glance, as if it possessed no strength at all.

The instant she saw it, Yuria cried out in a voice thick with dread.

“Hunting Hound!”

“…What?”

“You must flee! That is an immortal pursuer that crosses time and space! Even in the domain of R’lyeh, for something like that to appear so casually…!”

[Kraaaaaang!]

Before Yuria had even finished speaking, the Hunting Hound vanished from right in front of Yujin and reappeared at his side in a sudden lunge. An attack method that leapt across time and space itself, nullifying every defense the target might possess!

What truly shocked the viewers, however, was the way Yujin responded to the sudden assault.

Grab!

“Whoa, what a fascinating little mutt.”

As if he had anticipated it from the very beginning, Yujin simply flicked his hand once and seized the Hunting Hound by the throat.

There had been no need to use Combat Foresight. More accurately, he had not even felt the technique was worth drawing his sword for. That overwhelming ability to leap through time and space might as well have never existed—the Hunting Hound was subdued in Yujin’s grip with almost pathetic ease.

[Kyaaaaaaak—!]

Yujin slammed the hound into the ground, crushed its skull underfoot, and spoke with a wry smile.

“Lucky me. I may not be confident about everything, but when it comes to dealing with four-legged beasts, I’ve got this.”

Especially when the beast in question was a dog. Back in his hero days, a good number of the demonkin he had fought day in and day out had been demonized hounds.

No one realized it because Yujin had subdued it so effortlessly, but the Hunting Hound was never meant to be something the player fought. As a literally immortal being, the player’s role was to avoid and flee from it by any means necessary. Watching such a creature get casually manhandled left the developers feeling thoroughly absurd.

Unfortunately for them, their miscalculations were only just beginning.

Puhak—!

[Kiyaaaaaak—!]

Even the green lump of flesh covered in eyeballs all over its body,

[Grarararara—!]

even the demon-shaped monster with bat wings that came charging in—the result was always the same. Every monster that lunged at him had its heart burst into pieces under the swing of Yujin’s sword. Far from giving him any trouble, barely any of them even managed to properly receive a single blow.

At Powell Software’s subtle urging, Yujin simply shook his head from side to side.

“I’ll pass. The game’s finally starting to get interesting. Going back would just make it boring again.”

“Besides, Yuria said it herself. The world is in an infinitely dangerous situation right now. That means I have to go save it as soon as possible. No time to waste on unnecessary detours.”

While Yujin bantered with the chat, he arrived before long at the entrance to the tower that now stood at the heart of the transformed Arkham.

“…Hm? What’s this?”

About to open the door and enter the tower, Yujin frowned upon realizing it was sealed by some means.

“This is a curse of the Ominous God. Ariandel must have placed it to bar our path.”

“What’s that?”

“A curse that absolutely refuses entry without a predetermined ‘key.’ The door under this curse has its physical durability massively reinforced, making it nearly impossible to force open with raw strength.”

Yuria spoke with a strangely lively tone.

“But there is no need to worry. I know how to break this curse. If you prepare a few materials for me, I can create the key to open the door—”

“…Nearly impossible to break physically, you said?”

At that moment Yujin muttered while staring at the door.

“So that means it’s not completely impossible, right?”

Lately Yujin had grown quite accustomed to virtual reality games, and with that, quite proficient in the use of Willpower. Willpower was the power to distort reality according to the user’s desire. As long as the possibility was not zero, he could manifest any result he wished into reality!

Click—!

A flash of light seemed to streak past, and Yujin slid his sword back into its scabbard. At the same instant, a thin line was drawn across the massive door; it split cleanly into two pieces and collapsed.

“There. No problem now, right? Shall we head inside?”

“.....”

Yuria felt like crying.