Chapter 108: New Game Plus Difficulty... Activate!
Having taken in the full appearance of the incoming party through the skeleton soldier's third-person view, Ross decisively hit the restart button on the Little Tyrant console.
The flickering soul-fire in the skeletal skull went dark. The skeleton soldier, no longer under Ross's control, reverted to its default state: almost no self-awareness, knowing only how to wander within Castlevania's designated zones, shambling slowly toward any human scent, using its paper-thin body to dutifully attempt to repel invaders.
The screen flashed. Back to the original title screen.
This time, Ross selected PASSWORD.
First, a name entry: all English letters, so Ross jumped through with AAAA. Then came a 4x4 grid, sixteen squares total, where three different symbols could be placed to activate various special modes.
[Whip] [Cross] [Heart]
Due to technical limitations, ordinary 8-bit games generally had no save function. Only those later games that had built-in save chips and button batteries could actually save in the conventional sense.
So in those days, most 8-bit games used code entry as pseudo-saving.
The special modes worked the same way: just calling up data already built into the game through the right code.
What Ross was currently entering was:
[Whip][Whip][ ][ ]
[ ][ ][ ][Whip]
[ ][ ][ ][ ]
[ ][ ][Cross][Heart]
"Whip, whip, whip, cross, cross, heart..."
He murmured to himself as he placed each symbol.
Grid password complete. He pressed START and once again selected the DRACULA option.
In an instant, the ground outside Castlevania's outer perimeter began to shake.
The sudden change dropped all four Phantom Troupe members into defensive alert positions immediately.
"What is it? What's happening!?"
Nobunaga, one hand already reaching for his sword hilt, looked around.
Feitan said nothing. His eyes had locked onto the ground, which was trembling with something obviously breaking through the surface.
Moments later, one after another, reeking ghouls and dusty grey skeleton soldiers began "growing out" of the earth.
For this particular group of "adventurers," most of whom came from Meteor City, these ghouls and skeletons didn't trigger any fear. Years of diverse experience had long since taught them one fundamental truth:
Humans were far more terrifying than monsters.
And just as the ground was producing a large number of dark monster units, a string of notifications appeared in front of Ross.
[Password accepted.]
[Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse area has fully entered New Game Plus mode.]
[The Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse area will be treated as a "synchronized Secret Realm stage." Relevant rules have been updated.]
The intruders being the Phantom Troupe was genuinely beyond what Ross had anticipated.
He had considered Satotz. He had even considered Ging Freecss. Phantom Troupe members had not crossed his mind. Looking at the current numbers, the full group clearly wasn't assembling here, but a fair amount seemed to be coming.
So these "adventurers" were not adventurers at all.
They were invaders.
Right now, I'm the landlord. Since you came, don't expect to leave.
Ross was not the type whose moral compass bent toward pretty faces. In fact, looking across the entire world, there were probably very few people with a cleaner moral compass than someone who had grown up in a straightforward environment and had a genuine baseline of normal values.
So the moment he confirmed the invaders were Phantom Troupe members, Ross decisively restarted and used the password to push the entire Castlevania directly into New Game Plus mode.
If first-run Castlevania III had a monster spawn rate of 1, New Game Plus had a spawn rate of around 5 to 10. Monster AI aggression was universally increased. Certain areas ran on infinite respawns. Certain areas gained upgraded elite enemy variants. Monster strength was slightly but broadly elevated across the board.
In short: a significant difficulty spike.
Of course, Ross wasn't expecting to kill anyone with inflated grunt numbers alone. His real play was being saved for the BOSS rooms. But using the game's mechanics combined with direct manual control to harass this group continuously, draining their Nen and stamina, was absolutely within his ability.
If they accidentally lost one of their own inside, that was already a massive win for Ross.
And if losing one Troupe member sent the rest into revenge mode, that was even more welcome.
Whoever took a spider's leg, it was the landlord's monster's-- the actual monster's doing! Nothing to do with the sub-landlord.
Just let me try to become—
Crack.
Accompanied by a crisp metallic sound, Franklin's ten fingers had all snapped apart simultaneously, each suspended by a small chain, revealing ten hollow black gun barrels.
With a sound like a Gatling trigger being held down, skeletons and ghouls fell in swathes like wheat being harvested.
For Franklin, shattering these monsters was barely different from shattering ordinary people. The expenditure meant nothing to him.
But when Franklin stopped firing, the ground churned again. The exact same ghouls and skeleton soldiers crawled back out.
This was Castlevania's outer perimeter zone. Its other name: the Grand Cemetery.
This was one of the areas in New Game Plus that ran on infinite respawns. No matter how many were killed, it didn't matter. As long as Castlevania's magical power persisted, even reducing these ghouls and skeletons to powder wouldn't interrupt the spawning.
Franklin paused. Then aimed directly at the monsters still half-crawling out of the ground and swept through them with another burst.
Almost no resistance at all, they shattered. Then respawned.
"Don't waste your Nen, Franklin."
"This must be some kind of rule of the ruins. These things are probably driven by something similar to post-mortem Nen. Walking skeletons and moving dead. They probably can't be eliminated through ordinary means."
Nobunaga had released the sword hilt after watching monsters this visually impressive but practically null in real threat be shattered so easily. He rubbed his chin and delivered his analysis in a level voice.
"Absolute waste of time."
Feitan said it, and stamped his foot hard onto the skull of a ghoul just poking through the soil.
The instant his sole connected, a piercing pain shot up from the foot and radiated through his entire body. He lost control, bent backward, and stumbled involuntarily away. His body flickered into a brief semi-transparent state.
And the ghoul whose skull should have been crushed had merely been driven deeper into the dirt. It was currently still wriggling its way back out, as if the stomp had done no effective damage whatsoever.
At the same time, the third-person perspective on Ross's screen was being provided by this exact ghoul unit, which was still fighting to claw its way back out of the ground.