Normal Run 1
After all that suffering, struggling, getting hurt, and dying, that was only Easy Mode?
Fucking game company.
Fucking studio.
Fucking developer.
Fucking game.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…….
Normal Run 2
Ha.
Sure, the monsters got stronger because the difficulty increased.
But this game was already fucking difficult, and now they made it even harder?
Those lunatics.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…….
Normal Run 3
I have to do all of this again?
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…….
Normal Run 4
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…….
. . . . . .
Normal Run 43
I do not want to do this.
Normal Run 44
Why does it not end?
Normal Run 45
Staying still did not make anything progress, nothing changed, and time simply continued flowing endlessly, so eventually I had no choice but to move.
I wandered outside in a daze and died the moment I left.
Normal Run 46
Does the old man not remember Easy Mode?
At the beginning, I was so furious with the boss and the woman that I cannot remember how anything progressed.
I do not remember what I traded with the old man either, but judging by the increased number of candles, I must have bought them out of habit.
Haah.
Why do I remember how fucking painful dying is while forgetting the important things?
Normal Run 47
Nothing was different except that all the Golems on floor 1 had become tougher and faster.
That alone made things much harder.
. . . . . .
Normal Run 72
The floor 10 boss's patterns changed.
At least the types of attacks themselves are the same, so I should figure it out after getting beaten around a few more times.
. . . . . .
Normal Run 103
The monsters on floor 11.
They were already disgusting because they looked like insects, and now every one of them is faster too.
Normal Run 104
Fine, I can accept the insect bastards being poisonous, but why the hell are the rats poisonous too?
I suppose I should be grateful that the poison appears randomly and there are more without it than with it.
. . . . . .
Normal Run 189
Fuck.
All three heads used to breathe fire, and now each head spits out something different?
I can understand fire because it fits the whole hellhound concept, but where the hell did poison and lava come from?
. . . . . .
Normal Run 399
Something new had been added to every boss, so I was nervous about what might have changed on floor 30, but it was not as bad as I expected.
Then again, simply adding more types of Magic for it to use was already terrifying enough.
Its patterns became more varied too.
Normal Run 400
The ghosts in Easy Mode really were too easy.
Physical attacks were the only things that did not work against them. Otherwise, they were basically just transparent things floating around.
They seemed to inflict Debuffs and Mental Attack-type effects, but other than being unable to sleep, I could not even tell what those effects actually did.
But come on.
Paralysis is going too far.
. . . . . .
Normal Run 627
The floor 40 boss still seemed to evolve from a scrap of cloth into a human form.
But its appearance was very different from Easy Mode.
Back then, it had been fully armed, helmet and all, like a properly equipped Guard Knight.
Now, with its ornate clothes and staff, it looked more like a Mage.
But I feel like I have seen that appearance somewhere before.
. . . . . .
Normal Run 639
I remembered.
It looks like the man the Doppelgänger copied in Easy Mode.
I did not recognize him immediately because his clothes were different, his hair was tied back, and he was holding a wooden staff as tall as a person.
On top of that, since he is fundamentally a ghost, his entire body is drenched in blue, which made him even harder to recognize.
Then do ghosts imitate people just like Doppelgängers do?
. . . . . .
Normal Run 666
Floor 41.
I met the woman again.
I tried to grab her by the collar the moment we met, but unfortunately, I was Paralyzed at the time, so I could not.
The strange thing was that she acted as though she had never seen me before.
She said her name was Elessia von Grenesian, that she was the daughter of a ducal house, and that she would reward me later if I took her with me.
She seemed to talk even more than she did in Easy Mode, and her complexion looked worse too.
I do not feel sorry for her.
Normal Run 667
Fortunately, these Golem Knights were no different except for being tougher and faster.
Their swords were not coated in poison, they did not use Magic, and they did not suddenly start breathing something new like Cerberus.
. . . . . .
Normal Run 669
Does she really not remember?
Then does the old man truly not remember either?
. . . . . .
Normal Run 671
She followed me in the end.
I expected as much.
That was why I did not bother saying anything.
Even if I deliberately tried to leave her behind, she would probably cling to me like a leech again, just like last time.
Normal Run 672
Come to think of it, I met her ten floors earlier than before.
What changed for me to encounter her already?
. . . . . .
Normal Run 896
The inscription in front of the floor 50 Boss Room changed.
I may not remember exactly what the old one said, but there is no way I could miss a change this large.
The writing on the stone monument in front of the floor 50 Boss Room.
The Run Away message that had been written at the very bottom was gone.
So was the name of that guy Exia or whatever he was called.
Even the color of the writing had changed.
Instead of the unpleasant shade that looked like dried blood, the letters were now simply ordinary red.
Perhaps it had something to do with the floor 40 boss now taking the appearance of that woman's brother.
“I do not think this was what it said before.”
I could not remember the details, but I vaguely recalled something about rewarding those who endured and bringing suffering upon those who refused to challenge.
No mercy for those consumed by excessive greed.
Punishment for those who challenge recklessly.
Annihilation for those who regret too late.
The wisdom of enlightenment shall be granted to those who act foolishly.
“Is there…… something important written there?”
“Can't you read it?”
“No. I can read it.”
There was hardly any need to write something like this here.
It was basically declaring outright that it intended to beat intruders to death.
“Haah.”
Fighting the boss itself was not the problem.
I had spent all of Easy Mode learning strategies with my own body anyway, and as long as I properly figured out the strategy, I could survive.
An Instant-Death Attack was different.
Whether I understood the strategy or not, once it activated, my chance of survival became zero.
“Please, just do not have an Instant-Death Attack…….”
“What? What is an Instant-Death Attack?”
I pulled out the shield I had left unused because I had never managed to remove its Curse Option.
Once I equipped it, I would never be able to take it off.
“Excuse me! I asked what an Instant-Death Attack means!”
Still, it had the best performance of all the shields I currently possessed.
Even though the Curse had reduced its Defense, its additional Options were excellent enough that using it now was not necessarily a bad decision.
The problem was that I still had another fifty floors to go.
I was using it because if I failed here, I would die immediately.
“Are you ignoring me right now?”
“Yes.”
“What? What did you just…….”
I was using it because if I failed here, I would die immediately.
At least I had possessed some basic information about the other bosses.
I had never fought this boss even once.
The only thing I knew was that it possessed an Instant-Death Attack.
The problem was that even the activation condition for that attack might have changed.
‘Judging from the monument, perhaps it did not change…….’
But there was no way to know.
The monument's contents might not even have much to do with the strategy.
“Why are you ignoring me? What did I even do wrong?!”
“Ha.”
She was just as shameless as ever.
And I was not saying that merely because of what happened in Easy Mode.
Even this time, I had nearly died more than once because that woman screamed and clung to me in the middle of combat.
“Do not scream while I am fighting, and do not stand right beside me.”
“W-Well, of course I would not…….”
She had already done exactly that.
I stared at her incredulously and added,
“If you promise to stay far away, keep your mouth shut, and remain quiet, I will stop ignoring you.”
“Of course I will!”
“Haah…….”
Were all the things she had already done somehow not her responsibility?
Did she only remember what she wanted to remember?
Sighing repeatedly, I drew a One-Handed Sword with my free hand and took out the key with the hand holding the shield.
“Is that…… a key?”
The shield's size made inserting the key difficult, but I somehow managed.
Golden light flashed, and the door slowly began to open.
CREEEEEAK……
Remembering Easy Mode, I immediately raised my shield.
“…….”
“…….”
But even after the door had opened completely and I heard the woman breathe another couple of times, nothing happened.
Had this changed too?
Perhaps in Easy Mode, because the floor 50 boss itself never attacked, traps had been placed throughout the room to fulfill that role instead.
A Gatekeeper could hardly stand there without even pretending to stop anyone.
“Whew…….”
I relaxed my tightly wound body slightly and lowered the shield just enough to see ahead and move forward.
At a glance, the floor looked no different from before.
I circled the perimeter to inspect the room.
The walls, which had once been ornate, had all been replaced by plain, unobtrusive patterns.
If anything had been concealed there, it would have stood out immediately.
‘Did they remove all the traps?’
The more I examined the Boss Room, the more certain it became that I would have to fight the boss directly this time.
The only thing I still could not confirm was whether stepping backward would trigger the Instant-Death Attack……
But I could hardly throw away a perfectly good life just to test that.
‘I will have to make sure I do not step backward.’
I would not be able to consciously think about it throughout the entire fight, but I would have to pay as much attention as possible.
“Um…….”
The woman spoke, then immediately fell silent before I even looked back.
Perhaps she remembered what I had told her outside.
Or perhaps she simply had nothing to say.
I had not yet approached the center of the Boss Room, so it was still dark there, but the enormous silhouette was faintly visible in the torchlight from the edges.
Had it……
gotten a little larger?
GRRRRRR……
I had approached without making a sound, yet somehow the boss noticed me and moved.
[No mercy for those consumed by greed.]
A circular red light flashed across the floor around the boss.
“This part is the same.”
The boss's two eyes were also glowing red.
RUMBLE……
It rose to its feet, now holding the shield and sword that had been nothing more than decorations in Easy Mode.
THUD, THUD, THUD……
Thanks to all the pointless things I had tried while attempting to clear this boss in Easy Mode, I already knew exactly how tough it was.
But I had no idea how different it would be now that the strategy had changed from simply ‘waiting’ to actually fighting it.
If it had become stronger like the monsters on the previous floors, I had no idea how I was supposed to deal with it.
[Punishment for those who challenge recklessly.]
Reciting its predetermined line, the boss raised its sword high.
“Aah!”
I told her to be quiet.
WHOOSH.
As the sword came down rapidly, the woman screamed again.
“Watch out!”
Matching the boss's movement, I rolled to the side.
BOOM!
Apparently, it lacked the flexibility to alter the sword's trajectory mid-swing, because the blade slammed into the place where I had been standing.
While its sword remained embedded in the floor, I rushed at it.
SHNK!
I drove my sword between the gaps in its armor, and the creature jerked with a grinding motion.
More precisely, it looked less surprised than broken.
The foreign object lodged in the joint of its sword arm prevented it from performing its predetermined movement.
‘I was originally aiming for its neck…….’
But this was not bad either.
Still, if I had known this would happen, I would have jammed something else in there instead.
It did not last long.
CREEAK, GRIND, CREEAK……
[Durability 56/67]
[Durability 52/67]
[Durability 49/67]
“Damn it.”
The boss kept forcibly trying to move its arm, rapidly grinding down the item's Durability.
I had considered leaving the sword wedged there and continuing even if it meant sacrificing it, but……
THUMP.
I quickly pulled the sword free and moved aside.
WHOOSH.
“Aah!”
I narrowly avoided the sword as the boss yanked it free.
That nearly took my arm off.
Not being able to retreat backward made situations like this incredibly inconvenient.
“Watch out!”
The woman's scream.
At the descending sword, I reflexively stepped backward.
“Ah.”
Damn it.
In that instant, the boss's eyes flared with an even more intense light.