chapter 20

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'Did you come to the right place?'

I was secretly relieved that I had finally come across the familiar scenery I had been seeing so many times in the game. I was worried that I had taken a wrong turn, but I was very thankful that I had come to the right place.

I literally had to run for two whole nights before I could finally reach the boss field of the Headless Horseman, when in the game it would have only taken about 10 minutes on horseback.

After two days of riding, I tied the horse, which still looked more energetic than me, to a nearby tree and took out the items needed for the boss battle from the saddle.

'One, two, three, four, five... ‥ Okay. They're all there.'

He checked the number and put it in his waist bag. This was the key item for attacking the headless iron cavalry. He even practiced throwing stones of similar weight and size to make sure he wouldn't miss.

The moment this goes awry and the gimmick is destroyed, it is virtually impossible to clear the Headless Armored Cavalry.

Of course, it's not physically impossible, and assuming there are no mistakes, you can somehow beat it if you focus for a little over 20 hours.

It's literally possible. That's something that humans can't do.

-Kueeeeek!

I pulled out my bloody sword after hearing a roar that sounded like a pig being slaughtered nearby. It was the sound of mobs wandering around the boss field.

As we continued forward along the road, we could see in the distance a group of creatures that looked like dried, twisted wild boars shrunken down to the size of medium-sized dogs, wandering around.

There are a total of 8 trash mobs that you have to kill on your way to the Iron Cavalry boss fight. They are all of the same type, and as befitting their name as trash mobs, their pattern is to run at you and do two body slams and bites.

If you just keep your wits about you, it's harder to get attacked.

I approached slowly, adjusting my distance. And when I took six more steps, I stopped. The closest one flinched and reacted when he saw me.

The other guys lined up behind him were busy doing their own things. It seemed like the game's recognition system was being applied as is, seeing that they were doing that even though they were clearly within my sight.

'It's a good thing for me.'

Because I already know in my head how close I have to get to lure just one person.

In the combat system of Blizzard 4, fighting multiple street mobs was much harder than fighting a boss 1v1. Needless to say, both Blizzard modes were extremely frustrating.

So, the key was to aim for 1v1 battles as much as possible. One at a time. This is an immutable truth that applies to all the Blizzard series.

The boar monster that recognized me rushed at me without any consideration of direction. Then, it jumped a few steps away from me, opened its mouth wide, and exposed its teeth. It was a biting pattern.

I swung my bloody sword at its teeth. With a thud, its body jerked backwards slightly. I took advantage of the gap and quickly stabbed it in the lower jaw with my sword.

With the sensation of the blade digging into the withered flesh, the tip of the sword that had been stuck into the lower jaw popped out from the crown of the head. The struggle stopped in an instant.

I pulled out my sword, but no liquid came out. If it were a game, it would have displayed on the HUD how much experience I gained. But since there wasn't any, I wondered if I had done it right.

Well, he's probably dead since his head was pierced and he's not moving at all. In the game, he died with one normal attack after being bounced.

"next."

I took a few more steps forward. A gnarled boar that had been far away reacted to my appearance again and ran towards me, thumping.

If you were to point out the core combat element of the Blizzard series, the first thing that would come to mind would be the concept of 'battle fatigue', which is essentially a second source of stamina.

Battle fatigue is a concept that accumulates in a certain amount when defending against an attack, deflecting an attack, being hit by an attack, and rolling. In some ways, managing this battle fatigue is much more important than managing stamina.

If you are hit by an enemy or fail to properly deflect an attack while the battle fatigue gauge is full, the gauge will reset and your character will be incapacitated for 2 seconds.

In a disabled state, the character cannot perform any actions until he recovers, and all damage is multiplied by 1.5. Even in vanilla, in boss battles, you had to be prepared to die the moment the gauge exploded.

In Darkest Light mode, the duration of the incapacitated state increases to 4 seconds, and the amount of damage taken is doubled instead of 1.5 times. It basically means that you should just die.

That's why deflecting was considered important. If you can deflect enemy attacks properly, your battle fatigue gauge will never explode and will remain full even if it builds up to the max.

Of course, enemies also have a battle fatigue gauge. Filling it up was a prerequisite for using a special attack called 'parrying'.

And, this headless armored cavalryman was the only boss that could be parried despite being a monster type enemy.

-Purururuk!

A heavily armored horse covered in armor all over its body lurched at me. Atop it, the rider, also heavily armored and with nothing above his shoulders, swung his spear around in a threatening manner.

This perfectly explains why this boss is called the 'Headless Horseman'.

Compared to a normal horse, its shoulder height was at least twice that of a normal horse, and it was covered in an iron armor of ridiculous thickness, so it was incredibly intimidating.

To be honest, I'm not exaggerating at all, I was just running around and the ground was shaking so much.

-Heeheeheeheeheeheung!!!!!!

The horse neighed loudly as it raised its front legs. It was time to start. I held the bloody sword tightly in both hands. As the distance narrowed, I heard a sound that was not a cute sound like a doo doo doo doo, but a thud thud sound.

'Once from left to right, once from right to left. And then down.'

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It was a pattern that I had already explained to the knight commanders. I deflected each horizontally swinging spear and avoided the downward slashing attack by rolling.

The rider pulled out the spear stuck in the ground with his right hand, spun it around above his head a few times, and shook off the dirt. Then he swung it forward once, then rode his horse again and disappeared into the distance.

The cavalryman who had been running in a large circle came back and stabbed me with his spear. I deflected the attack, and a heavy "Chaeng!" sound was heard along with the recoil that swept through my entire body.

The next attack followed immediately. The horse raised its forelegs and the rider prepared to bring his spear down from above his head. I saw this and put my hand on my waist.

'It's deal time.'

The term deal time also meant that the armor-breaking gimmick could be performed: the horse would slam its forelegs on the ground at the same time as the cavalryman would swing his spear down with both hands with all his might.

But I had already rolled away from that place. The tip of the spear was stuck in the poor ground, raising dust. While the rider was retrieving the spear, I took out the key item for this boss attack.

A small bomb that explodes at the point of impact. It was the only item that could destroy that armor.

'now!'

Just as the cavalryman drew his spear, he aimed at the horse's head, activated the bomb's fuse, and hurled it.

The bomb flew straight for the horse's head, and as soon as it hit the armor, it exploded in a huge burst of flames.

-Heeheeheeheeheeheung!!!!!!

The horse, startled by the flames and noise, neighed and jumped up. The cavalryman on top of it stumbled. I thought about throwing another one, but decided not to be greedy and to go safe.

In vanilla, if you land just one properly, you can quickly break the armor by throwing the rest one by one while it is stunned, but in the mod, the stun time is so short that you have to be extremely precise with your timing.

'Let's not be greedy. Let's go safely. Safely.'

If you hit the horse's head with a bomb five times like you just did, the armor surrounding the horse's body will break, exposing its bare skin. From then on, you can hit anywhere without any problem and it will take damage.

In vanilla, there was a merchant in the field nearby, and you could buy unlimited bombs from him for a very cheap price. According to the setting, the merchant was the inventor of the bomb.

If you choose to talk to the merchant instead of buying the item, he will give you a hint about this boss fight by saying that this bomb is his invention and that "if you hit the weak spot multiple times, it can break even the thickest iron armor."

Of course, breaking iron armor was a gimmick limited to the Headless Iron Cavalry boss fight. It couldn't be broken even with a hundred strikes against other armored enemies.

But unlike vanilla, where there was a merchant who sold unlimited bombs, allowing you to try again as many times as you wanted even if you made a mistake, the conditions in the Dark Mode were much more vicious.

There were no merchants, and players had to search for bombs one by one by going around the nearby fields. Furthermore, there were only five of them.

It takes five hits to remove the armor, and there are only five bombs available in the field nearby.

What this meant was that if even one of the five was wrong, it was over.

-Pururururuk!

The horse glared at me with angry eyes, his entire body covered in a red glow, giving him a murderous look.

I laughed at that and waved my finger as if to say, "Come if you want." I don't know if he'll notice the gesture though.

An iron cavalryman charged at me, shaking the ground.