Chapter 69. Kill! Kill! Kill!
"This starting map should be Bronya's work, right?"
With no on-screen tutorial text at all, the player can still grasp basic and even advanced inputs through a series of simple yet clever stage designs, and there's even a faint shadow of the previous Arhat α in there.
After chaining jumps across several protruding platforms and cutting down a few buzzing little bugs midair, Sirin basically breezed through without a hitch, even narrowly dodging a tiny trap Bronya set—a small bug that suddenly appears exactly where the Knight would land.
She almost lost HP to that small fry and would have "flown into a rage," so she turned back and carved it up with two quick slashes.
"That's it?
That thing wanted to ambush Lady Sirin?!"
A smug grin spread across her face, and the taunting started to roll off her tongue.
Clearly, she was getting full of herself.
Soon, a floor of spikes blocked Sirin's path.
She tried a few times and found she couldn't reach the other side with jumps alone.
Everyone widened their eyes, hands poised on the keyboard, ready to laugh at the "pufferfish."
Who knew Sirin would just glance at the bullet comments with disdain and say confidently, "Heh, don't underestimate the dozens of times I studied the trailer!!!"
Saying that, Sirin jumped again without hesitation, then performed a quick Down Slash right as the Knight was about to land on the spikes.
A crisp ding rang out.
Using the reaction force between the Nail and the spikes, the Knight popped upward.
Then came a chain of clean ding-ding-ding sounds as Sirin guided the Knight smoothly to the far side.
"This is called skill.
Got it?"
The corner of her mouth curled up with the air of a master.
[Uh-oh, she actually pulled it off.]
[Tch, how did she make it?
I came for the fail.]
[Please, clearing a tutorial section isn't impressive.]
...
Completely ignoring the snark in the bullet comments, Sirin grew even more pleased with herself and fully inflated.
She pushed the Knight forward, soon cleaving open a stone gate.
Bright light washed over the Knight as she passed through into a decayed little town called Dirtmouth.
The town's sole Elderbug welcomed the Knight like the "village chief" in every RPG's starter village and began to narrate the world's backstory.
"A once-prosperous bug kingdom.
Unknown catastrophe.
Vanished citizens.
Madness in the air.
Wish-granting.
Graves.
And the seal in the opening cutscene..."
Watching the story earnestly, Sirin muttered what she believed were the key points.
Her meticulous look even made viewers start to feel a bit of anticipation.
Could Sirin really figure something out in such a short time?
She seated the Knight on the bench and didn't touch the menu that popped up.
Frowning, she shut her eyes.
Several dozen seconds later, she opened them again and looked at the screen with a serious face.
Just when everyone thought Sirin was about to offer some brilliant insight, a slightly irritable voice came out: "What kind of riddle-talk is this plot?
I don't get it."
[We don't get how you were pretending to be a genius!!]
[I really thought the pufferfish got smarter.
Guess we expected too much.]
...
"Tch."
She clicked her tongue in annoyance, closed the empty Charms menu, and ran straight to the right.
In no time she dropped down a vertical well into a new area called the Forgotten Crossroads.
"Even if I don't understand what this game is talking about, and I don't know where I'm supposed to go next, still—"
Sirin's expression hardened, and she raised the Nail toward the small enemies appearing on the map.
"All I know is, I'm going on a killing spree!!!"
Crawlid—kill!
Tiktik—kill!
Vengefly—kill!
Aspid Hunter—kill!
Nature births all things for bugs, while bugs return nothing to heaven.
Kill kill kill kill kill kill!
Mobs, kill!
Breakables, kill!
Mini-bosses, kill!
Even passing spikes had to eat two swings of the Nail.
Crisp ding-ding-ding sounds rang out without end, and blossoms of "orange juice" exploded across the screen.
Who cares about Hallownest or any kingdom?
As long as my Knight slaughters everything here, then none of it will be a problem!
But as she killed and killed, Sirin suddenly froze.
She looked at a screen that looked suspiciously familiar and asked in confusion, "Didn't I just come through here?"
She instinctively glanced at the top-left corner and found nothing there.
At that moment she realized this game didn't have a minimap.
A bug?
No.
With those two's skill level, such an obvious mistake wouldn't happen.
So it's a game feature?
Did they remove the minimap to deepen exploration?
Thinking that, Sirin simply gave up on thinking.
Why bother?
If she chops every moving thing on the map into orange juice, she'll find the road forward sooner or later!
Keep killing!!
Viewers in the stream started praising how Miss Pufferfish was not only brainless but also flat-chested.
Slicing her way forward, Sirin only occasionally made a mistake and lost a bit of HP, which she quickly healed.
It wasn't until she reached the False Knight that she paused a little.
The bulkier size compared to the Knight cooled her inflated ego slightly, but after a few probes, Sirin had learned the False Knight's attack patterns.
Soon, she pushed forward, trading blows with the False Knight.
This starter boss basically isn't that hard.
Plenty of people clear it without dying.
Although she got greedy and was left with only one mask at the end, she still barely managed to make good on her earlier bragging.
Just as Sirin thought she could continue charging straight ahead, she met the second boss.
Brooding Mawlek.
Remembering the first boss's difficulty, Sirin swung with total confidence.
But after watching her masks drop to zero in under twenty seconds, she fell silent.
Wait, shouldn't boss difficulty scale linearly?
Never mind clearing it deathless.
At least let me feel evenly matched and actually participate, right?
Watching a sky full of splattering "orange-juice shells," Sirin suddenly felt like she didn't know how to play anymore and got sent home by the Mawlek in a few moves.
Of course, that alone wasn't enough to make her truly upset.
Talking big and getting slapped down is nothing new.
It's fine—she could just play ostrich and not go…
"Huh?"
Seeing the screen, she realized she had to run all the way back after the Knight died, and that little puzzled noise betrayed the turmoil in her heart.
If that was still barely within her tolerance, then after returning here again and again only to be sent home by the Mawlek again and again, her mentality inevitably started to crack.
Half an hour later, when Sirin felt she was just one step away but got butt-slammed back to the bench by the leaping Mawlek, she finally snapped.
"Seriously, does this game have a screw loose!!!!"
At that moment, the smile on Sirin's face finally moved over to the viewers' faces.
[Don't be sad, streamer.
Here's a joke: earlier a certain pufferfish said she could clear it in one life, and now she's been beaten into silence.
Funny, right?]
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