Chapter 161 – The Third Rune – 2
Nix’s black eyes were fixed on me as she stood frozen in place. It was a gaze entirely different from her usual wary, shifty-eyed demeanor.
It was murky. The black pupils had turned cloudy, swirling with all sorts of complicated emotions, staring straight into mine. Before I could voice my doubts, she struck first.
“You know.”
“What?”
Nix sealed her lips after that statement. Based on the sound that accompanied her closing mouth, it seemed that this was not an intentional silence. This meant that her words were probably subject to similar restrictions as before.
I replayed her recent words in my mind. Had I dissected the corpse of a centipede that had long been dead, and she was implying I knew the reason?
Nothing particularly came to mind—
“Oh.”
Wait a second.
A faint possibility crossed my thoughts. Though it was slight, if it were true, it was absurd enough to warrant denying this world from its roots.
With a chill running down my spine, I looked down at Nix. The murky black eyes remained just as opaque.
The possibility I had thought of was tied to the background setting of Brightest Darkness 3.
Unlike the protagonist of Brightest Darkness 4, who achieved every feat without ever dying or failing, the hero of Brightest Darkness 3 was an immortal who could come back to life no matter how many times they died.
This was due to the entity known as the “Immortal Centipede” inhabiting the protagonist’s body.
A human host consumed by the Immortal Centipede would become an immortal being who could resurrect continuously, but on the flip side, their reasoning would be consumed as well, transforming them into a beast.
The hero of Brightest Darkness 3 was one of the few immortals who managed to retain their reasoning and intelligence despite being consumed by the centipede.
Perhaps due to such a backstory, most bosses in Brightest Darkness 3 were hosts of the Immortal Centipede, meaning players had to deplete their health and then use special weaponry to deal with the centipede itself to complete the boss battle.
In Korean, this was translated as “True Death,” a feature that distinctly set Brightest Darkness 3 apart from other installments.
Thanks to this background, there were only two ways to kill a living creature infused with the Immortal Centipede. Either stab its body with the aforementioned special weaponry to incinerate the centipede or…
“Force the centipede out and tear it to shreds, leaving not a trace.”
Just as Nix had done.
“…Could it really be for that reason?”
Since I had always been short on time to play Brightest Darkness 4, I had only managed to play the third installment for barely over 200 hours at most.
Thus, I couldn’t be entirely sure, but that was the only centipede I knew of.
‘Still, that’s all I know…’
The problem was that it pertained to the setting of Brightest Darkness 3.
Brightest Darkness 4 does not share a world with the previous series; it is entirely independent and begins anew, and the NPC that was the original Nix is a character in Brightest Darkness 4.
While Brightest Darkness 1 to 3 took place in the same world over a significant time gap, Brightest Darkness 4 was not even that.
Therefore, it meant that it was impossible for Nix to mention that setting.
It should have been impossible.
“…No way, right?”
I pressed Nix with many questions crammed in my mind. Nix stared at me with eyes far murkier than before, suddenly returning to her usual naive expression.
“Uh, huh?”
A confused voice escaped her lips. Nix blinked, glancing between herself and me, and then started fidgeting with her fingers in front of her chest.
“Hehe, did I make a mistake? Your expression doesn’t look good…”
She switched to a polite tone all of a sudden.
Instead of answering my question, she simply swapped personalities. I thought how convenient that was. I let out a sigh and was about to drop the matter when I suddenly remembered that personalities shared memories.
“Did you not hear what the other me just said?”
“No, I didn’t hear. Hehe. After the question was asked, the sharing was cut off…”
But it seemed she had prepared for this in advance.
After hearing my question, memory sharing had indeed been interrupted. This meant that the version of Nix speaking in informal language had deliberately severed the memory sharing to give that response.
I couldn’t hide my unease as I continued to ponder why Nix had said such a thing, while the polite Nix stood next to me with a grim smile, her expression restless.
After much internal debate, I clicked my tongue. Nix flinched at the sound of it, her shoulders gradually slumping.
“Ah, sorry. It’s not you. It’s the other Nix. I was just thinking about something for a moment.”
“…Okay.”
“Just in case, do you know why she did that to the centipede—”
Before I could finish my question, Nix’s lips firmly sealed shut. Judging by her dazed eyes, it was evident that this was not a voluntary act.
I decided to abandon my line of questioning. If there were any similar restrictions here, I wouldn’t uncover anything.
‘Should I ask the Pope later?’
This world clearly had the notion of a god. The Divine Power was the evidence of that. So perhaps the Pope could communicate with the divine.
I wasn’t entirely sure if I qualified to communicate with the deity, but if I asked the popes, they’d find a way to make it happen.
Floretta and Luna would be the type to help out even if it meant creating a reason if I didn’t qualify. I felt a bit guilty for potentially exploiting their feelings for me, but my curiosity was overwhelming.
I quietly added a visit to the Holy Kingdom to my mental checklist.
“Alright, understood. Let’s keep going.”
Nix, who had been glancing at me, slyly moved closer to my side again. I didn’t push her away. After all, the Nix that complicated my thoughts was the informal one.
From her first appearance until now, she had been a woman full of mysteries.
“Alright. Here we are.”
We stopped in front of a wall that was absurdly thin, cracked in many places, revealing the interior. A faint green light was seeping through the cracks.
After confirming the rune stele visible through the crevice, Nix turned her head.
“Is that the rune?”
“Yep.”
The informal personality was still silent. According to the polite Nix, once tucked away like that, there wasn’t much to do besides forcibly bringing out the other personality.
I told her to leave it be. Whether it was out of unwillingness to share or because she genuinely couldn’t reveal it, unless there was a way to break through that similar restriction, there was no reason to push harder.
“What do we do about this? Can we break it? Hehe, I’m really good at that. I did well so far, right?”
“No, that’s not allowed.”
It looked precarious enough to break easily, and since there had been a wall similar to it in the early parts of the dungeon, one would naturally think to smash it.
In reality, that was the case. No matter what weapon was used, it would break within three hits, and even with bare hands, it would shatter after five to six strikes.
When the wall broke, the rune stele inside would likewise be destroyed. This meant that to acquire this rune, I would have to proceed to the next playthrough.
True to its reputation as a trap dungeon, it could be seen that traps had been set until the very end.
“In that case, it’ll break that stele too. We can’t break it.”
“Ah… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
The dejected Nix apologized sincerely. I gently patted her head.
“Apology accepted. Normally, there would be a warning during the puzzle-solving process, but since we skipped all that, it’s understandable you didn’t know.”
Of course, it wasn’t like they had set such a malicious trap without any warning. It may be challenging, but it wasn’t unreasonable, as that’s the motto of the Brightest Darkness series.
After the player breaks the wall and enters the rune dungeon, there will be repeated warnings not to do such things again since irreversible events would occur if they did.
Though those warnings weren’t of much help.
Common sense dictates that if a player breaks a wall and then sees a warning saying not to do that again, how many users would think, “Oh, since I was warned, I shouldn’t do that,” and hold back? Most would just smash and go in.
In the 10th anniversary statistics, over 80% of users reported that they broke the rune on their initial playthrough.
“So how do we get that?”
Nix tilted her head, looking at me. Since breaking the wall meant the rune would also shatter, she seemed puzzled about how to obtain it.
“Like this.”
I turned to the side of the wall, locating a haphazard stack of boxes. For them to even be in the middle of such a deep rune dungeon, it practically screamed “hint.”
When we first arrived at the wall, they were cleverly hidden and were only visible if you circled around a bit.
I swung the Wingless Nightmare at the boxes. They were not very durable from the start, so making contact with them caused them to crash down with a loud bang.
Beyond the heap of wooden remnants lay a path.
“Let’s go in here.”
“Yes, hehe.”
With a light chuckle, Nix hurried after me. After turning two corners, the back of the rune stele came into view. The passage had the structure of the Korean letter ‘ㄷ’.
When looking through the crack in the wall, it appeared closed off due to the angle, making it impossible to notice unless one had exceptional observational skills.
I reached for the rune stele directly in front of me. I concentrated the strange sensation I had begun feeling in my left hand onto the back of my hand. Experience has made this easier than before.
In just a few seconds, a new line signifying the Mana Enhancement rune was tattooed opposite my current mark. It would be the fourth in sequence but practically the third rune I obtained.
It was “Bloodsucking Impulse,” a core component for the melee final build of the Dark Light Mod.
I shuffled my hand. The size of the tattoo was gradually expanding. I wondered if I would end up with my entire palm covered in tattoos once I obtained the fourth rune.
Yeah. That would be after I got the fourth rune.
The Abyss Rune I had gained from conquering Lucia had long since been erased.
‘I hope there’s no such thing as a replay play.’
The Abyss Rune does not belong to the player. This means that every time the player transitions between rounds, they must obtain that rune anew.
This is necessary to force players down to capture Lucia every time while navigating that damned terrain.
According to the setting, it was stated that the rune melted away since it couldn’t withstand the great power of the creature abandoned by God, but to the players, it merely seemed like an excuse made by the developers.
It would be ridiculous to suggest that a rune would disappear just because they didn’t conduct a boss battle with the creature.
“Nix. Do you remember the Dark Magic I mentioned last time?”
I opened and closed my left hand, posing a question to Nix. Now that I had acquired Bloodsucking Impulse, I could at least mimic a final build, if not perfectly.
“Yes? Oh, yes. You asked me to teach you, right? Hehe.”
“I think now is a good time to teach you.”
“I understand.”
Nix nodded and approached me.
In the game, you’d just select the spell to learn from the special UI window, so I wondered how she would pass the magic down to me. But just as she gently took my hand, knowledge flooded into my mind.
The lesson was instantaneous. Nix had released my hand in just a few seconds, and I was able to comprehend the magic I desired immediately.
“Now do we just return to that city?”
“That’s right. But first—”
Before I could finish, a thunderous rumble sounded, shaking the entire dungeon. I continued with my intended words.
“Let’s test what we just acquired.”
