Chapter 249 – Fragments of the Past – 4
Clicking sound, an empty helmet rolled to my feet. I stomped on it to stop it and looked at the place it should have been.
A massive something, with armor gauntlets and parts clinging all over like it had dozens of limbs, stood frozen like a giant statue.
It was a boss named ‘Knight Who Consumes Armor.’
I shoved the severed head of the Knight Who Consumes Armor without even spending three minutes. The heavy armor crumbled backward with a crash due to its unstable center of gravity.
Dozens of armor pieces rolled across the floor. I had already planted the wingless nightmare with its black flames still burning straight into the ground.
It was supposed to be a buff I had used before starting the boss fight, yet it hadn’t worn off. Thanks to a significant boost in my magic stat, the buff’s duration was absurdly long.
‘The boost in stats really feels immense.’
In the past, even with the wingless nightmare and blazing black flame, it would have taken at least ten minutes to finish it off. Now it was over in a trivial amount of time.
Considering it was an armored boss with some resistance against stab attacks, if I had targeted its weak points, I could have taken it down in less than a minute.
‘It’s a pity I couldn’t find the memory.’
I was intentionally hunting down bosses that evoked the feelings from Brightest Darkness 1 and 2, yet nothing was bubbling up, not even a pop. That was disappointing.
“Is there any way to recover specific memories quicker?”
I asked Nix, who was busy clapping her hands with a gauntlet that had fallen from the monster’s body. Nix tilted her head.
“What specific memory are you talking about?”
“Like memories of magic I used in the past. Or my old techniques. Those kinds of things.”
Nix showed a look of contemplation before shaking her head.
“I’m aware I sealed your memories, but I have no idea how to unseal them. The goddess said that once you regain your power, your memories will return too.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do. I’ll just have to keep bashing things like I am now.”
If recalling specific memories had been possible, I would have definitely started looking for the magic from Brightest Darkness 1, which was unfortunate.
The consensus among players was that magic in Brightest Darkness 1 was uniquely efficient. It would elicit thoughts like ‘Is this really how it works?’ even from the user’s perspective.
While Brightest Darkness 4 generally has a well-balanced role distribution, I’ve heard that the game was dominated by a few overpowered builds from Brightest Darkness 1.
‘Minerva would probably be thrilled.’
In fact, it wouldn’t be strange if she flipped out and charged at me when she saw it. Just seeing an ancient scroll—magic from an incredibly old era—caused her to lose her mind; showing magic from an entirely different world would undoubtedly trigger quite the reaction.
‘…Thinking about it, that’s pretty frightening, isn’t it?’
I shuddered at the thought of Minerva begging and clinging to me after experiencing something similar in the Holy Kingdom.
“Couldn’t you just ask the goddess? You could have asked if there’s a way to find your old memories faster.”
“I forgot after being shocked listening to your past story. I tried talking to her now, but she didn’t answer,” I said.
For whatever reason. She might be recovering her power while the creature that devours the world is temporarily out of sight.
“I understand. Your past is shocking indeed.”
There was no trace of the dim tone I once sensed from Nix anymore. It seemed she decided to act as my spirit guardian now that we had severed the memory sharing.
Despite her appearance, the vibe was hardly that of a spirit guardian anymore. She had completely transformed from the tall, slender shape that matched the protagonist of Brightest Darkness 3 into an entirely different form.
“Delta,” Nix said, approaching me with a very serious expression as I was pondering the next destination. I instinctively felt a bit tense, waiting for what she would say next.
“I’m going to hand over the reins to Nix again soon,” she said.
“Already? It hasn’t even been three days!”
“I don’t plan to wait for the full three days. Your memories could suddenly come back at any time. It would be much more helpful if I were around rather than Nix.”
It was indeed a secret from the other personalities about both Nix’s identity and mine.
“So, I have a request,” Nix said.
“What kind of request makes you look so serious?”
“Once I recover my memory, can you give my true self a hug?”
“…What?” I reflexively asked back at her unexpected remark.
“Just as I said. I want you to hug me. Of course, in a sexual way.”
“I’ve understood enough, so there’s no need to emphasize that. What I want to know is why all of a sudden?”
“It’s not that sudden. Excluding the goddess, you’re the one I’ve known the longest. You know who I was before and what our relationship was, right?”
“That’s true, but…”
The spirit guardian was one of the few truly friendly NPCs throughout the Brightest Darkness series, and the relationship between the protagonist of Brightest Darkness 3 and her was fairly well-known.
She would come back no matter how many times you killed her, and she never got angry or betrayed you, making her the target for all sorts of torment.
“Oh, but it’s not like I want that immediately. I said ‘when I regain my memories.’ I mean, without any past memories, we only have that memory-sealing relationship where you used magic on me, right?”
Nix clearly drew the line.
“It may sound like a sudden request, but I know you heard all that from the goddess. I thought it was the right time to say this.”
“…”
“The fact that I took the negative emotions means that all the positive feelings are left with your true self. It’s no mystery what those positive feelings include, right?”
“Yeah. That’s pretty obvious.”
“If I’m feeling this way just through the influence, how do you think your true self feels? Up until now, you didn’t know your true identity, so you managed to endure it, but now, you can’t just ignore it. No, you won’t.”
That statement was indeed true.
Before, Nix was just a witch who followed me with an odd level of devotion since I lacked memory, but now Nix has crossed worlds to find me as a spirit guardian.
Now that I’ve learned her true identity, I couldn’t leave it be.
“If your true self hugs you, it’ll help calm your mind a lot. Then the side effects when our personalities merge again will dramatically decrease.”
Nix cleared her throat and puffed out her chest. Then, she glanced down at her prominently protruding bust and grabbed it with her hand.
Her tiny fingers could barely cover around her nipple.
“Besides, don’t I have quite an excellent body by the standards here? I’ve worked hard to get into this shape.”
Her fingers pressed into her chest. The overwhelming weight of flesh sunk her fingers deep.
Objectively, her size could compare to that of the Pope Sisters or Lize, but since Nix was much shorter than either of them, she appeared vastly larger proportionally.
On top of that, her outfit was simply outrageous, so it definitely couldn’t be described as just ‘quite something.’
“…Wait a minute. Whose preference is that?”
I wondered if I had misheard.
“My taste. Not yours, mine. Since I had to shift only my soul over when coming here, I had to create a completely new body. The shape, appearance, and clothing are all my own work. Of course, the goddess made it possible.”
I checked Nix’s body again.
A chest size that could easily take up half of her upper body, a completely soft form with no trace of muscle whatsoever, and her short stature barely enough to drape over my chest.
Is all of that truly her preference as a spirit guardian?
“Before, I didn’t have any charm as a woman, right? My chest was flat, I had a straight silhouette, and I was just tall. Even though I look like this now, I had a complex about it. Plus, this is way easier to satisfy my tastes.”
“Do you still have more preferences to confess?”
“Uh? Didn’t I tell you? I’m kind of into pain. In other words, I’m a maso—”
“Stop right there. I’ve got it, so let’s leave it at that.”
I couldn’t help but feel a sense of familiarity with Nix’s behavior after the reins were fully handed over to her, and I held my dizzy head in disbelief.
The spirit guardian had been very calm in the previous game, yet now it seemed her personality had fractured into negatives and positives.
‘Could it be the thing on her chest isn’t a bust but rather a desire pouch?’
For Lize, the Pope Sisters, and now Nix, every single one of them seemed to have gigantic things on their chests.
“I’m looking forward to it since you understood. Do we need to find those memories as soon as possible?”
Nix smiled slightly, and in an instant, the atmosphere shifted. Instead of that profound smile, a simple and pure smile graced her face.
Returning to her usual self, Nix started fiddling with her fingers in front of her chest.
“Uh, is something wrong? Hehe.”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just want to regain my memory quickly. Let’s move to the next location.”
I felt relieved internally, having sidestepped the subject. There wasn’t anything inaccurate about what I said; I just had to hasten things up for Nix’s sake.
That meant the destination was set.
When you ask to name the most devious location in Brdnk 4, opinions might vary on who would place it first, but there is one place that would undoubtedly be in the top three for anyone you ask.
It was the Poison Swamp terrain in the southern continent.
It wasn’t because it’s hard; story-wise, the Poison Swamp is merely a mid-game area, and the enemy specs are not particularly high. Moreover, under vanilla standards, the patterns weren’t too dangerous either.
Still, the ranking of the Poison Swamp is high due to the enemies appearing there.
Eeeeeek!
“Eeeeeek!”
For instance, there’s the humongous swarm of giant crickets making a tearing sound typical of insects, which Nix and I synced with.
Nix poured her black flames down on the leaping crickets. The black flames swallowed dozens of crickets whole and appeared to still want more as they lashed out with their tongues.
Poor trees were swept up in it as well. The black flames indiscriminately burned down everything, including the insects and plants. Parts of the dense forest rapidly turned into open fields.
“Ugh… th-this place feels weird…”
Nix, with a pout, buried her face in my arms. I stroked her head until it became a tangled mess to comfort her.
“I told you, didn’t I? I’ll go alone, so you stay in a high area. Those things won’t come that far.”
The Poison Swamp region restricts the player character’s movement, and the hideous giant insects scattered all over it.
This has been a long tradition from Brightest Darkness 1 through 4.
This meant it was quite possibly the place where I could recall the memories from the earlier games best. Throughout the series, the overall structure was so alike that calling it a mere replication wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
Eclipse wouldn’t have made such a thing in her world; it was probably a breach caused by the creature that devours the world.
Originally, I had planned to just drop by the dungeon here or perhaps skip it entirely, but my thoughts had changed.
“B-but…”
Before Nix could finish twisting, I heard the sound of something approaching through the swamp with a splash-splash. Since there were dozens of overlapping sounds, I didn’t even need to see what it was.
“It’s coming. That thing I mentioned,” I said.
“…”
Nix froze, her body stiffening. It made sense, as this was the creature that made her frown when I quickly explained the structure of the Poison Swamp before we came here.
“Th-th-that’s…”
“It’s okay. If you’re scared, just stay here. I’ll handle it,” I reassured her.
“I-I’m so sorry…”
“It’s fine. It’s completely normal to find that stuff disgusting. Honestly, it’s more abnormal if you’re like me and don’t feel fear at all, you know?”
I continued soothing Nix, who was shivering and apologizing, and hid her in a nearly burned-out tree hollow. Nix crouched there, shaking.
I looked up and saw the owner of that splash-splash sound approaching from a distance. Although it hadn’t changed much compared to Brightest Darkness 1, its appearance was much larger and far more grotesque.
This thing, with a face that could psychologically damage players watching from outside the screen the moment it grabs you, had a truly absurd number of legs.
It had given countless players a trauma regarding grab attacks, yet now I felt nothing. All I thought was how annoying it was to just stand there staring, and I wanted to finish it off quickly.
“Since it’s troubling to look at, I’ll take care of this quickly.”
I conjured black flames in my left hand. Since I could use it at least twice, I would make it as big and strong as possible. I wouldn’t leave a single hair on that thing’s head.
The monster spread its legs wide and charged at me.
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