CH 51

Mincing Festival.

This was born by a simple and human mistake; a bug that can’t be called a bug. 

A mere 2 digit mistake created the most atrocious of slaughters.

Even now when I hear words related to it, flashbacks of it show up in my mind. 

I have actually experienced the Mincing Festival in my first play when the patch had not been applied yet. 

The first time we arrived at the capital, we were around level 55.

You technically can only level to 50 in Lamurick, but because we came to the capital by carriage and not Magic Airship, our levels had increased to a certain degree. 

I was told beforehand by the people of the city that the Deus Plain is the place with the weakest monsters around there, so I chose the Deus Plain as my first destination when I came to the city.

At that time, our party composition was: me as the DPS, the tanker DPS Edy, and the healer Thiel.

We didn’t have a mage, so it was difficult for us to deal with several enemies at once, but the Deus Plain is fortunately spacious, and the risk of fighting several enemies at once was low. 

I was a bit nervous about fighting in a new place, but I had a bit of leeway in my level, and we managed to defeat the first 2 Stray Wild Slimes that appeared.

And so, we rode that momentum and went a bit deeper, and what we encountered was the ferocious white giant, King Butcher. 

I was a bit scared by that appearance that was clearly that of an event monster, but there was no information in the city about a special monster in the Deus Plain.

I thought that maybe it was a rare monster that shows up at a low chance, so I tried getting closer to it and the next instant…

“…Eh?” (Souma)

The warrior Edy was crushed in half. 

Despite everything, Nekomimi Neko is rated E for everyone. 

Blood and wounds are not shown, and even the monsters that are defeated are made to get pretty comically distorted. 

Even when humans die, they simply turn into light particles for a truly clean death. 

Despite that, I felt goosebumps all over my body at that time. 

What this brutal monster did was to simply hit Edy with its abnormally thick cleaver. 

However, the result of being hit by that cleaver in the hand of the white giant was that Edy’s body was compressed to half of his height in an instant as he changed into light particles. 

No matter if it is a game, it is not a way for a human to die. 

That one instant was plenty enough for me to understand that we can’t win against this monster. 

I gave the order of retreat to Thiel and I also ran at full speed.

Judging from its appearance, it should be a thick headed enemy. It has that high of an attack power, so it must be slow too.

And so, as if proving me right, I could feel the heavy steps slowly growing further away, and right when I was about to breathe a sigh of relief…

“What is…?!” (Souma)

The ground suddenly rumbled to an astonishing degree, and I jumped to the side with High Step by reflex.

And then, a faint instant later, I saw a white giant body run past my side. 

“Thiel!” (Souma)

I shouted the name of my one other companion, but what I saw when I turned around wasn’t her, but her blue clothes turning into light particles and melting into the sky. 

“Damn it!” (Souma)

Even after I was now alone, I still tried to desperately run away. 

However, the result was that it was pointless. 

I miraculously avoided the next charge of the giant, and a shadow covered my face as I barely managed to survive. 

“…Ah.” (Souma)

When I raised my head, I fell into complete despair. 

What was standing there was the 2 meter tall white giant. 

The giant of before was still chasing me. 

There was no escape. 

The last thing I saw was a shout of joy and the fearsome giant swinging down its cleaver. 

Now that I think about it, there was absolutely no chance for me to win at that time.

Most of all, that white giant, the King Butcher, is a boss monster that should be in the lowest floor of a level 150 dungeon that’s 3 fields deeper from the Deus Plain. 

There’s no chance we would have been able to match it when we were around level 50.

In the first place, why did this level 150 dungeon boss appear in the Deus Plain that should be for level 50?

It is thought that’s because of a coding mistake in the spawn point. 

I have already explained what spawn points are. 

What monster comes out from those spawn points is decided by the number set in the monster group. 

However, that number is quite the radical one. With just one mistake in the number, there’s the risk of a completely different monster showing up. 

The Mincing Festival is a prime example of this. 

According to a self-proclaimed connoisseur of the situation, one of the staff members mistook the 205 number that represented [Stray Wild Slime x 3] with the King Butcher whose number is 502. It was mixed up in the Deus Plain. 

In other words, all the spawn points where 3 level 48 Stray Wild Slimes should be spawning, there was now a chance that the level 150 boss King Butcher spawns instead. 

The King Butcher would be roaming the level 50 field as if it were a normal field, moreover, the sight of several of them walking around must have been like seeing a hellscape for the people witnessing this. 

This of course made the Nekomimi Neko players rage to high heavens. 

The King Butcher has high attack power even within bosses of the same level. Its normal speed is slow, but it has outstanding charging speed.

Also, since it has high physical resistance, you can’t stop it with some half-baked attack. 

There’s no way mere level 50 adventurers coming to the Deus Plain would have any means to oppose it…

The lord of the dungeon that descended onto the plain would swing around its cleaver that’s like a blunt weapon, and minced up many players. 

This is what people call: King Butcher’s Mincing Festival. 

Well, we are talking about the Nekomimi Neko players who love adversities anyways. 

There would be cases where people would brag about having defeated a butcher at low level, and there were even players who polished themselves so much against them that they were overfishing, but those are only a really low minority. 

The reality is that I didn’t manage to kill a Plain Butcher in the time the patch came in. 

Since that day, the King Butcher has become a  symbol of fear in my mind. 

“Why is the King Butcher here…?” (Souma)

And the problem here is that that King Butcher has once again shown up in front of me. 

The patch should have fixed the King Butcher from appearing in the plains, and we are currently in the monster outbreak period. 

I really wanted to shout here why the hell this guy appeared despite all that, but I actually already have an idea as to why. 

It is true that the King Butcher didn’t appear anymore in the Deus Plain after the first patch.

This is probably because they fixed the coding of the spawn points. 

However, we are talking about the Nekomimi Neko staff doing the fixing here. 

There’s a good chance they didn’t fix the spawn point that is inside the rock. 

Or more like, I am sure they didn’t.

And so, King Butcher is originally a boss monster. 

Bosses don’t get overwritten by the monster outbreak. 

…Putting all those points together, it is by no means impossible for a King Butcher to appear.

While I was thinking that, Ringo and I couldn’t move, overwhelmed by the pressure of the King Butcher. 

However, there was one man who was looking up at the King Butcher and warping his face into a smile. 

It is of course Raiden. 

“Heeh, it has gotten pretty interesting.” (Raiden)

Raiden said this with a nonchalant smile and it melts my frozen body. 

It was simply that an emotion similar to anger welled up from me towards the carefree Raiden.

“This is not the time to be saying this is interesting! We have to run away at once or—” (Souma)

I raised my voice as if trying to punch that into him, but…

“Yeah, that’s why you should run away at once.” (Raiden)

Raiden easily brushed it off and stepped forward while bringing out his weapon almost too naturally. 

“What are you saying?! That guy is—” (Souma)

“Strong, right? I can tell that too.” (Raiden)

I was baffled by his words.

It sounds questionable, but Raiden has the ability to detect strong enemies. 

There’s no way he wouldn’t feel the strength of the King Butcher.

But even if that’s the case…

“Adventurers are…a gathering of idiots that plunge into monsters and ruins, and I am no exception. When I see a strong guy, I get excited.” (Raiden)

Even with that, he…the adventurer Raiden stood in front of the Butcher. 

“But those idiots…no, it is exactly because they are idiots that there are things they must do… Use their strength to protect the ones who can’t fight. That’s my…the duty of adventurers.” (Raiden)

That sight was truly like that of an ant against an elephant. 

Raiden didn’t falter a single step even in the face of the completely spawned giant. 

The white giant set its sight on Raiden in front of it as its first prey and let out a roar that would make even your soul tremble, but he glared back at it instead. 

And then…

“You guys, just watch over there! I will now show you the true form of an adventu—hibuh!” (Raiden)

“…Ah.” (Souma)

While watching how Raiden got hit by the attack of the Butcher and was flying beautifully in the air…

(Speaking of which, aside from Tea Drinker, he is also called stuff like: Punching-bag Horse, Yamcha, Flier, and Homerun. So that’s what it meant…) (Souma)

I was remembering this.