Chapter 157 – Unforeseen Identity – 2

‘No, what the heck is that…’

The weapon-like, round eyes, forced off from a doll, seemed overly enlarged and were staring at me with a mineral-like quality. My hair stood on end.

I took a step back, stunned. I never even thought for fun that I would encounter something so ridiculous, so the shock was all the greater.

If there had been even a hint of something I could have anticipated, if I had realized this absurd mod was in effect, maybe I wouldn’t have been this surprised.

But it wasn’t the case, and the burden of the shock was solely mine to bear.

ㅡChiiiiiik…….

The blue steel body of the creature started moving slowly, producing the typical hissing sound of a steam engine.

As it moved, a murky gray smoke billowed from the long chimney above its head. It hadn’t emitted any smoke while standing still.

Its terrifying appearance was completely contradicted by its cheerfully smiling mouth, and the steam locomotive charged towards me with those deadpan round eyes.

The ground beneath the rolling wheels crumbled with a crack sound. There wasn’t any railway laid down, yet its wheels were coming closer, rolling on bare ground.

My body reacted before my stunned mind did. Just like in the games, I rolled diagonally to the left to escape the oncoming charge. Immediately, I felt a chill in the air around me.

ㅡKwaaaang!

The front of the train collided with the wall. The whole boss room felt like it was shaking. Only now did I realize that a coal-laden freight car was attached to its rear.

Even as it smashed against the wall with all its power, the coal in the freight car showed no sign of moving. If that was indeed coal, it should have spilled out long ago.

“……ha, seriously. This is ridiculous.”

I wanted to let out some choice profanity, but I held it back. I thought that cursing might only get me more worked up, and the more excited I got, the harder it would be to dodge.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm myself down. While I struggled to steady my mind, the blue train slowly turned its body, having just crashed into the wall.

Its face was unblemished.

‘Will the patterns come out intact?’

That was the first thought that crossed my mind as I aimed the Wingless Nightmare horizontally at it.

The charge pattern I just experienced was pretty easy to dodge since its movements were huge, and the startup was relatively long, but what about the others?

Especially since this thing had no lower jaw to speak of, if a biting pattern were to come out, I might have to predict its actions a split second sooner by watching how my body reacted.

I’d only realize what kind of attack it was just before being hit, so reacting to its motion would always be too late.

As I was caught up in these complicated thoughts, the terrifying face with the smiling mouth completely turned towards me, and the blue train approached again with another chiiik sound.

I remained tense, watching its movements. If I couldn’t recognize the pattern at all, I might have to bring Nix to help take it down.

While I had said I could handle it alone, asking for help would be embarrassing, and it would also waste valuable subjugation experience, but hey, my life was worth more than my pride.

ㅡThud! Thud!

Suddenly, I heard the sound of lights turning off.

I tensed up, looking around to see what was happening when the headlights near the corners of its mouth turned on and pointed upwards.

This meant that light was shining up from beneath its face. Consequently, its already disturbing expression became even more unsettling and creepy.

‘Of all things…’

I knew it; that character was famous for inducing the uncanny valley effect when seen up close, and that mod transforming specific enemies into this form was actively created in numerous games.

But seeing it through a monitor and experiencing it in person were two different dimensions altogether.

No matter how much the Rock Centipede was just a bad rendition of an ordinary centipede, it was merely a train-sized version of a creature the height of an apartment building. And a train is still unimaginably larger than a human.

In other words, a blue steam locomotive with a face several times larger than a human was rushing towards me, its headlights shining from below, maintaining a stoic expression.

The only thing changing was the background music; it could just as easily fit into a horror game with that look.

‘…Stay calm.’

Yeah, maybe it was a relief that the Rock Centipede had transformed into this thing.

Both the Rock Centipede and the blue steam locomotive had wide, long shapes. The similarity in form made it relatively easy to deduce the patterns.

I changed the Wingless Nightmare to a magical attribute. A soft blue glow surrounded the blade. True to its reputation as a poor copy of the Rock Centipede, it had very high resistance to physical damage.

Normally, it would be preferable to apply elemental enchantments and use magic or sacred spells to deal with it, but with the Wingless Nightmare on hand, I didn’t need to do that at all.

Just by changing the weapon’s attribute, I could easily inflict pure 100% magical damage.

The blue train charged at me again. It was another charge pattern. In the first pattern, I had panicked and failed to react properly, but this time was different. I quickly rolled diagonally to escape.

‘I can’t approach since I’m slightly too far.’

As I expected, it came to a screeching halt just in front of me without crashing into the wall. If I could lure it to crash into the wall, it would give me a nice long deal time, but missing it twice felt a bit wasteful.

‘It can’t be helped.’

I planned to use the basic method of only luring the charge pattern to take it down. Other patterns might yield decent deal time if I dodged or parried correctly, but it was too risky right now.

Since its appearance had changed, I couldn’t predict how it would strike from just the preliminary motion, and I had no idea how wide its parrying or collision detection would be.

There was no room for unnecessary risks.

Seemingly irritated at having missed me, its eyes began to rotate wildly.

Each eye spun in opposite directions.

The right eye spun clockwise, while the left eye spun counterclockwise, before the brightness of the headlights near its mouth increased. It was a truly maddening sight.

The blue locomotive came charging again. However, this time its speed was not as great as before. While earlier it felt like it was racing towards me, now it felt more like it was just approaching.

I could roughly guess what was coming next. With the Wingless Nightmare in hand, I got ready to parry it as the blue locomotive approached closer.

As it leaned its head towards me, the moment the headlights above it shot out, they suddenly plummeted and came flying towards me in an arc. Momentarily dazed, I recalled a similar pattern from watching its trajectory.

At the moment the headlights were about to cross, I swung the Wingless Nightmare. With a distinctive ping from the parry, its head hesitated slightly.

Taking advantage of its moment of hesitation, I slashed at its head. The blade glowing blue tore through near its mouth. The sound of metal clanging against metal echoed repeatedly with clang! clang! clang!

Seemingly annoyed by the fact that I hit it, it charged at me with increased speed. The smoke billowing from the chimney above grew denser.

Rolling to the side to dodge it, I heard a loud bang! as its face slammed forcefully against the wall of the boss room.

Taking advantage of its stun, I rushed for its rear. Doubting whether I should hit the freight car loaded with coal, I hesitated for a moment, then decided to swing my sword anyway.

The blue glowing sword descended in a trajectory from the upper right to the lower left, leaving a faint scratch on the similarly blue locomotive.

After adding five more scratches, I distanced myself. After three hard slams against the wall, its face, finally facing me, was still smirking, making it all the more disturbing.

‘This might not be too bad. If I can just keep my distance.’

Its enormous size made the patterns quite evident, even though its appearance had changed drastically. If it kept going like this, I wouldn’t even have to call Nix—

ㅡBANG!

Suddenly, a horn blared throughout the boss room. It was such a loud sound that I instinctively covered my ears. As I tried to regain my posture, I froze, watching its actions.

The brows rose as if it were angry and tilted diagonally up, and its smile slowly vanished into a blank expression. The skin around its eyes sunk deeper inside.

ㅡCrackle! Crack!

Then, legs began to sprout from its wheels.

They were centipede legs.

The sharp, blade-like tips of the legs stabbed into the ground for support. The joints in the middle twisted at right angles, lifting the wheels off the ground.

What had once looked like a steam locomotive now morphed into an appearance resembling a centipede, and the mouth that always smiled drooped horizontally. Behind it, dozens of pairs of legs lined up.

The blue steam locomotive twisted from a train shape into a centipede shape, now looking down at me with its nonchalant face, the headlights still illuminating the area under its face.

“…This is driving me crazy, seriously.”