Part 1

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Volume 2

Chapter 6

— 1 —

–The Great Mincemeat Festival.

It was a bug that couldn’t even be called a bug, one that came from a simple, tiny, man-made mistake.

It was a great tragedy, caused by the most miniscule of mistakes: mistyping just two digits.

Even now, just hearing anything related to the event brings flashbacks of that time. On my very first playthrough, before the patch had been released, I had a personal encounter with the Great Mincemeat Festival.

When we arrived at the capital for the first time, our party was right around level 55.

While it was only possible to get to around level 50 in Ramlich, since we came to the capital not by Skyboat but via carriage, we had gained a few levels in that time.

Having heard from people on the streets that the Deus Plains had the weakest monsters in the area, I chose it as our first destination upon arriving at the capital.

At the time, our party was composed of an attacker, me; an attacker/tanker, Eddie; and a healer, Tieru; just the three of us.

Due to not having a magician, it would be tough facing multiple enemies at the same time, but luckily the Deus Plains was very open so there was little risk of enemies linking up. It was quite nerve-wracking fighting in a new place for the first time, but our levels were more than sufficient and we were able to defeat the two Wild Zlimes that appeared without much issue. It was when we ventured deeper in, carried by the momentum of our victories, that we ran into it. A grotesque white giant, the King Butcher.

We were slightly taken aback by its appearance as it looked obviously like some kind of event monster, yet we hadn’t heard anything about special monsters appearing in the Deus Plains back in the city.

Thinking that it might be some kind of rare monster, we tried approaching it, when…

“…Eh?”

First, it crushed the Fighter, Eddie, down to half his normal size.

Even after everything, Nekomimineko was still an all-ages game.

There was no blood or gore anywhere, and the deaths of monsters were all quite cartoonish.

Even when humans died, they just became particles of light. It was all quite clean.

But at that time, I felt goosebumps on my entire body.

All the grotesque monster had done was swing his abnormally thick knife at Eddie.

But the result was that Eddie’s body, unable to withstand the pressure, was instantaneously compressed to half of its original height, then it turned to light and disappeared.

It didn’t matter that it was a game, that wasn’t something humans could kill.

All it took was that one moment, one strike, for me to comprehend that I could not defeat this monster.

I commanded the healer, Tieru, to escape, as I also ran away with all my might.

From its looks, it seemed like it would be slow and heavy. Since it had such high attack power, it should have been quite slow.

As if supporting that hypothesis, I felt the tremor of its footsteps slowly getting farther away. Just as I was about to heave a sigh in relief…

“Wh-at…!?”

Suddenly, there was a huge rumble, and I instinctively jumped to the side with a Highstep.

Not even an instant later, I saw a giant white body barrelling past me.

“Tieru!”

I called the name of my one other party member, but what I saw when I turned around was not her figure, but particles of light dissolving into the air along with her blue clothes.

“Damn it!”

I was the only one left, so I continued to run for my life.

But, looking at the results, that had been meaningless.

After miraculously dodging yet another of the giant’s charges and somehow managing to survive, I found my vision eclipsed by a shadow.

“…Ah.”

As I looked up, this time I was filled with complete despair.

There was a second white giant.

Behind me, the first giant was closing in.

There was no place left to run.

–The very last thing I saw was the grotesque giant, swinging its knife down with a cheer.

 

Thinking back on it, there was no way I had any chance of winning back then.

After all, that white giant, the King Butcher, was a boss monster at the very bottom of a level 160 dungeon three maps beyond the Deus Plains.

There was no situation in which we, barely past level 50, could have done anything.

However, just why did the boss of a level 160 dungeon appear in the level 50 Deus Plains?

That was believed to be the result of a mistake in the spawn point settings.

As has already been explained regarding the spawn point settings, the monsters that appeared from each spawn point was determined by a number denoting the monster group.

But the danger with these numbers is that just one wrong digit could cause completely different monsters than intended to spawn.

The Great Mincemeat Festival was indeed a quintessential example of this.

According to a source that claims to have inside information, one of the staff mixed up number 205, “Wild Zlimes x3”, with number 502, “King Butcher x1”, and registered the wrong one in the Deus Plains.

In other words, what this meant was that all of the spawn points in the Deus Plains where a group of three Wild Zlimes, level 48 weakling monsters, was supposed to spawn, instead had a chance for the level 160 super boss King Butcher to appear.

That sight of many King Butchers leisurely walking around a level 50 low-leveled field as if they were normal field monsters could only be called a nightmare.

Of course, Nekomimineko players raised hell over this.

Even among boss monsters around the same level, the King Butcher possessed especially high damage, and while their normal walking speed was slow, they had a charge attack that was exceptionally fast. Combined with their strong resistance to physical damage, a half-baked attack wouldn’t even be able to make them flinch.

The king of the dungeon that had descended to the Plains had, waving around the chinese kitchen knife in his hand like a blunt weapon, reduced many players to lumps of meat.

–This was what became known as the King Butcher’s Great Mincemeat Festival.

But, well, Nekomimineko players loved adversity.

People started competing for low-level kills, and in the end, the most trained players could run around killing them as they pleased, but that was just one small portion of the players.

In fact, until the patch was released, even I wasn’t able to kill the Butcher on the Plains.

Since that day, King Butchers had become the symbol of fear inside me.

 

“Shit! No way…!”

The problem was that the King Butcher had once again appeared in front of me.

King Butchers appearing in the Plains was supposed to have been patched, and right now we were still in the middle of a mass spawning. I wanted to say that there was no way it should’ve appeared here, but I actually already had a guess as to why this King Butcher appeared.

It’s true that King Butchers stopped appearing in the Deus Plains after the patch. The reason was probably that the patch fixed the numbers for the spawn points.

But, in the end, the fix was made by Nekomimineko staff. It was more than possible that the spawn point in the boulder, which wasn’t actually spawning any monsters, didn’t get the fix.

In fact, I’d bet they definitely didn’t fix that one.

To begin with, the King Butcher was a boss monster. As long as the boss flag was set, it wouldn’t get overridden by the mass spawnings.

–Taking everything into consideration, it wasn’t impossible for a King Butcher to appear here.

That said, knowing any of this didn’t make the situation any better. In fact, both Ringo and I had been overwhelmed by the ferocity of the King Butcher, and we couldn’t even move.

However, in our midst, there stood one man looking up at the King Butcher’s giant body, his cheeks distorted in joy. That was, of course, Ryden.

“Hoo. Things have gotten quite interesting around here.”

Hearing Ryden say that with a confident look, my stun wore off.

I felt an emotion like anger rush through me towards the all-too-carefree Ryden.

“This isn’t the time to stand and gawk! If we don’t run away right now…”

I raised my voice as if to throw my words at him, but…

“Yeah. That’s why you guys should hurry up and run.”

Ryden quickly parried that, and in one clean motion, he readied his weapon and stepped forwards.

“What are you talking about! That thing is…”

“Strong, right? That much I could tell a long time ago.”

I was astonished by his words.

It wasn’t really reliable information, but I’d heard that Ryden had an ability that let him detect strong enemies.

There was no way he couldn’t tell how strong the King Butcher was.

But even then…

“You know, adventurers are giant idiots that charge straight towards things like monsters and ruins, and I’m no exception. I get super excited when I see someone strong.”

Even then, he, the adventurer Ryden, stood in front of the King Butcher.

“But even those idiots, or maybe it’s because they’re idiots, have things that they need to take a stand for… Using this power to protect those who are weaker, that is my, no, that is the adventurer’s way.”

The scene was quite literally one of David and Goliath.

The giant had completely finished spawning, but standing front of it, Ryden didn’t back down a single step.

He stared back at the white giant, who, having designated Ryden in front of its eyes to be its very first prey, let out a roar that seemed to reverberate deep in one’s soul.

And then…

“You guys just watch me from there! This is the spirit of an adven–gueh!”

“…Ah.”

Seeing the beautiful arc that Ryden traced out in the sky after eating the Butcher’s attack, I…

(That’s right, other than Tea Drinker and Spoiler, he also had a bunch of other nicknames like Yamcha and Pop Fly and Home Run, was this what they meant…?)

I ended up remembering more irrelevant stuff.

 

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