After chatting with Ben for a bit, Zack felt a little less anxious. He couldn't keep scaring himself.
Turning his attention back to the game, he used two successive jumps to move along the cliff face.
The cliff seemed bottomless, and Zack quickly looked away after just a glance.
He had to admit, even though he'd experienced high-altitude scenes in many games, each time he saw one, it still made him a little nervous.
After navigating the steep cliff, he crept through the nearby reeds, eavesdropping.
From the conversations of the nearby little monsters, Zack quickly understood his situation: he needed to find the young master of the wolves in the game, a character named Jiulang, and rescue him.
Zack clearly felt that this section was like a tutorial. Most areas required two successive jumps to reach.
It wasn't very long, only about a minute's walk, before he crawled through a room that looked like a doggy door.
Zack then saw Jiulang, who was sitting there reading a book.
"This young boy looks quite refined."
Glancing at Jiulang in the game, Zack smacked his lips.
After that, the game's story triggered. He received a gourd that could heal injuries from Jiulang, along with his own weapon: the Kusabimaru.
"Healing gourd..."
Looking at the gourd in his hand and drinking from it, which refilled half his health, Zack fell into silence.
Why was this giving him more and more of a Souls-like game vibe?
Thinking about his recent conversation with Jiulang, the lack of a clear mission objective UI, and only simple text descriptions.
Then, looking at the empty gourd in his inventory, which hadn't disappeared after he drank from it, Zack's heart started pounding.
He searched the second floor and found a healing pill but didn't take it.
Zack silently controlled the wolf in the game to push open the large door.
Seeing the prompt for a stealth kill appear, Zack's heart trembled slightly again.
It reminded him of backstabs in Dark Souls and the visceral attacks in Bloodborne.
He drew the little monster's attention but didn't try to attack or defend. He wanted to test something.
The little monster outside the door saw the wolf coming out and immediately turned, adopting a parry stance, but didn't attack right away. Its desire to attack wasn't strong.
Standing still for about two or three seconds, the grunt monster in front of him finally swung its sword and hit the wolf.
One hit, two hits, three hits...
The wolf, which had only half its health left, instantly fell.
'Death!'
A large, blood-red artistic font appeared in the center of the screen.
Then, he revived again in Jiulang's room. This time, his depleted health was full, and the gourd he had drunk from was refilled.
He hadn't seen the wolf's regenerative power displayed in the previous trailers. He wasn't sure if the conditions hadn't been met or why.
But at this moment, Zack had completely stopped paying attention to such details.
He was stunned!
This damage, this health, and that familiar 'Death' screen.
It was all too intense!
This was a Souls-like game!
"Ben, do you feel it? This is a damn Souls-like game!" Zack called out to Ben, sounding a bit frantic.
"I've already died 4 times," came Ben's voice from the other end of the call.
"How did you die so many times? Is it that difficult?" Zack was surprised.
Even though it was a Souls-like game, they had played Bloodborne and Dark Souls before, and they were high-cycle players.
Zack thought that even if Ben's skills were a bit worse than his, they weren't *that* much worse.
But in this short amount of time, he'd died 4 times?
Was the game difficulty that high?
"It's not that the difficulty is high. You haven't experienced the combat system yet, have you? You'll know when you play. Plus, there's a boss right at the beginning that's designed to make you quit. Dying is very efficient," Ben said.
Combat system?
After hanging up the voice call, Zack felt a bit curious.
He knew Ben well, and thinking back to the previous videos, this wolf really did look different from Dark Souls and Bloodborne.
He pushed open the large door again, and Zack controlled the wolf to charge forward. Before the enemy could even turn around, a red dot appeared in Zack's vision.
He attacked decisively.
The wolf in the game instantly darted behind the enemy and pierced them through with a single sword strike, causing blood to spurt out like a fountain.
At the same time, the little grunt monster below the stairs noticed the wolf. Zack controlled the wolf to dash forward and hit it a couple of times, filling its posture gauge, and the red dot for a deathblow appeared.
"This is kind of awesome!"
Zack looked amazed.
As is tradition in Souls-like games, the initial enemies aren't very difficult.
But when playing Dark Souls and Bloodborne, killing these kinds of small enemies didn't feel particularly special.
However, in "Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice," Zack inexplicably felt a sense of exhilaration.
And the most crucial point was that the removal of the stamina bar made the attacks much smoother.
"So how did Ben die four times? It doesn't feel like the game is as terrifying as I thought without a stamina bar?"
Having just killed two guards, Zack was feeling very confident and also a little puzzled.
However, soon after, he took some damage from a third small soldier.
This was different from the previous soldiers who could be finished off in two hits.
This soldier was wearing light armor and could calmly block the wolf's attacks.
Moreover, when he attacked, this soldier seemed to have a super armor state, and could also counter-attack.
He wasn't careful and got hit once. But according to the prompts,
just like shield parries and spear parries, perfectly blocking in the game using the Kusabimaru would significantly increase the enemy's posture gauge, and once filled, it would allow for a stealth kill.
Dealing with this kind of soldier, one perfect block would lead to a deathblow, so it wasn't considered extremely difficult.
After defeating the two small grunts, Zack quickly ascended through a stone staircase.
There were two paths: a large door and a small path leading to the back mountains.
The large door was tightly locked. At the entrance to the small path, Zack saw a leader samurai named Yamauchi Shigenori.
He looked like a mini-boss.
"Is this the 'quit game' monster Ben mentioned? But it looks like I don't have to fight him?"
Normally, in Souls-like boss battles, the surrounding paths are completely sealed off during the fight.
But Zack noticed that the path next to the samurai didn't have a white mist or anything similar, clearly indicating that players could pass through.
"So this is a monster that early players can't defeat, just like the 'Big Butt Demon' in the Dark Souls prequel!"
Zack had an idea and his eyes lit up.
He drew the aggro, but Zack didn't get entangled with the samurai for long. He ran directly towards the small path next to him.
He jumped from a dead branch onto the wall beneath the bridge, with the BOSS and his subordinates, who had drawn his aggro but couldn't do anything to him, behind him.
"Exactly! I don't have to fight this!"
Suddenly, a feeling of intellectual superiority washed over him.
He was underestimated; he wasn't the type to just charge in headfirst!
Boss Lucas's malice? Nothing to worry about!
This was the experience honed over a thousand hours of playing Souls-like games!
The trap had been sprung!
(End of this chapter)
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