[Maneater Mildred], an enemy NPC from Dark Souls, was the series' traditional "man-eating girl." Every Souls game just had to include one.
She was practically on the same level as the ever-persistent Patches.
Unfortunately, Maneater Mildred herself wasn't all that popular. Though, to be fair, people had already drawn doujins of her.
But anyone capable of getting turned on by that was truly hardcore.
Still, the quality was genuinely high—cough.
Tami stared at Mildred, who wielded a giant cleaver in one hand and a shabby wooden shield in the other. She wore nothing but a tube top and a loincloth, her body plump and misshapen.
He felt like his eyes had just suffered critical damage.
Combined with the square-shaped sack-like helmet on her head, she gave off the unmistakable vibe of a deranged butcher.
The kind that made people instinctively ask:
"Why is the top of your head so flat?"
Tami's instincts immediately told him that the invader before him wasn't a living human, but something more akin to an echo or phantom.
But…
He stared at her for a long time before revealing a suspicious expression.
"She doesn't really seem that strong, though? Maybe only a little stronger than a Carthus Warrior."
Sure, her appearance was intimidating, but adventurers had seen far scarier things before.
A psychotic butcher?
That was child's play.
Out here, strength was what mattered.
If you weren't strong enough, then even if you dressed like the Dragon Slayer Armor, people would only laugh at you.
"You'll understand soon enough," one mercenary said with exhausted eyes as he looked toward Elsa. "Captain, please handle it again."
Elsa nodded and immediately charged into battle against Mildred.
Maneater Mildred had clearly invested all her stat points into intimidation. Her defensive capability was probably worse than wearing paper armor.
Combined with her mediocre combat strength, she naturally got completely overwhelmed by Elsa. Before long, the message appeared before everyone's eyes:
[Invader Defeated]
"Nice!" Tami pumped his fist triumphantly.
But when he turned around, he realized nobody else looked happy.
In fact, their expressions had become even gloomier.
What a strange bunch of people.
After dealing with Maneater Mildred, the group returned to the pot field and began desperately smashing pots in search of food.
Because of the dynamic difficulty adjustment, they encountered Carthus Warriors after only smashing a few pots this time. The drop rate for offensive magic had also increased significantly, and both the damage and attack speed were much stronger than when Tami had been alone.
What followed was yet another torturous period of suffering.
The only silver lining was that they really did find food—not much, but enough to restore their stamina.
Tami sat nearby watching the mercenaries struggle.
Originally, he had planned to freeload off them for food and supplies before leaving, but—
[Invaded by "Maneater Mildred"!]
The sudden notification caused the mercenaries, who had been immersed in eating and drinking, to freeze instantly. Their expressions turned ugly once more.
Maneater Mildred appeared again.
But this time, instead of swaggering openly toward them, she remained completely out of sight.
And the longer they couldn't see that crimson figure, the more anxious everyone became.
Then—
BOOM!
A loud crash came from the ceiling above them!
Everyone immediately looked up.
Maneater Mildred dropped from above, her massive cleaver swinging straight toward one of the mercenaries!
The mercenary screamed and desperately dodged, but his arm was still slashed open, causing blood to gush out violently.
Before Mildred could even stabilize herself after landing, Elsa's giant sword came crashing down and smashed her flat.
[Invader Defeated]
Watching the slowly fading red phantom and the mercenary screaming in agony, Tami finally began to understand.
"This invader… is immortal?!"
"You can't exactly call her immortal."
While using low-level healing magic to treat the mercenary's wounds, Sali began explaining everything.
"It all started with that bastard named Patches."
"That guy acted way too realistically. So realistically that he didn't feel like an echo at all. We were completely fooled and thought he was just another adventurer who had accidentally entered the dungeon."
"He tricked us by saying there was treasure somewhere. But when we got there, we discovered it was full of skeleton monsters fused with giant wheels."
"Three of our teammates got run over to death. Three!"
"But after we defeated the monsters, we really did find treasure there… so at the time, we still trusted him."
"Afterward, he recommended several more locations. Every one of them had powerful monsters and valuable loot. We gradually got used to it. Sure, we suffered casualties, but at least we gained something."
"But then, during the final time, he guided us into a huge empty room and volunteered to activate a mechanism from the upper floor."
"The instant he triggered it…"
"The floor collapsed!"
"We fell into a place that looked like a slaughterhouse. Everyone was badly injured from the fall, and that bastard stood above us mocking us the whole time!"
At this point, even Sali unconsciously clenched his fists.
Just remembering Patches' smug expression made him furious.
"And after that, we encountered Maneater Mildred. No matter how many times we kill her, she just keeps invading us endlessly. Recently, the interval between invasions has become shorter and shorter. We can't shake her off!"
"And she jumps out from the most unexpected corners too. There's no way to guard against it!"
Tami had no idea how many people the Light Eagle originally entered with, but judging from the current state of the survivors, they had clearly suffered both physical and psychological torment over the past four days.
"…"
Tami didn't know what to say.
This was genuinely a tragic story.
If it weren't for Patches, they probably never would've encountered Mildred in the first place.
Speaking of which…
Why did the name "Patches" sound so familiar?
It felt like he'd heard it somewhere before…
Suddenly, Tami realized it.
He had seen the name before on an abandoned wanted poster at the Adventurers' Guild.
That bald bastard who scammed people in Farron Keep!
Thousands of adventurers had fallen victim to him. Because the guy acted so unbelievably punchable, people eventually began hunting him voluntarily, causing his bounty to rise higher and higher.
Only later did they discover that Patches wasn't a real person but merely an echo, and the wanted notice was eventually withdrawn.
However, his infamy remained perfectly intact.
Still, compared to all the other horrors of Sein Dungeon, the Patches incident only caused a brief stir before everyone's attention shifted elsewhere. Gradually, fewer and fewer people cared about him.
Thinking of this, Tami looked at Sali and the others with sympathy.
These mercenaries were too isolated from current information. If they had been adventurers from Bedford City, they would've become wary the moment they heard the name "Patches."
Heh. Ignorant countryside bumpkins from the royal capital.
"Well, enjoy yourselves. I'm leaving first."
Tami decided to get out as soon as possible. If he stayed with these people too long and Maneater Mildred started targeting him too, it definitely wouldn't be fun.
"Stay safe. Hopefully we'll meet again someday."
Sali and the others bid him farewell before continuing to smash pots in search of supplies.
But less than fifteen minutes later—
They received another invasion notification.
"Does this ever fucking end?!"
Everyone immediately became vigilant, searching every possible blind spot for signs of an enemy.
But instead of an attacker, they heard rapid footsteps rushing toward them.
Looking up—
It was Tami.
And behind him, the bright-red Maneater Mildred was chasing him relentlessly.
Several ferocious Carthus Warriors were chasing behind her as well.
"So she's targeting me now too, damn it!" Tami cursed through gritted teeth.
At this point, staying with the mercenaries was probably safer.
Sali burst out laughing helplessly and ordered everyone to rescue Tami before extending a hand toward the exhausted boy.
"Then I guess we're allies now."
"Yeah… temporary cooperation…" Tami wheezed between breaths.
And so, the adventurer and the mercenaries formed a temporary alliance, struggling together to either escape the dungeon or locate a bonfire.
With additional manpower and replenished supplies, everyone's mental state seemed relatively decent.
Surely exploration would become smoother from here onward, right?
That was what Sali thought as he led the group upward through the catacombs, continuing their exploration from where they had left off.
But in reality—
The moment they encountered Patches, their adventure had already been doomed from the start.
The defining characteristic of the Carthus Catacombs could be summarized in one word:
Confusing.
Nobody knew how many layers the catacombs contained. Everywhere looked exactly the same, with identical pathways connecting everything together.
It was already easy enough to get lost.
Then there were the occasional teleportation traps that randomly transferred people between upper and lower floors…
"I don't even know where I am anymore…" one mercenary muttered with a nauseated expression.
"Don't throw up. That thing's coming again…"
What did it feel like to be hunted by a relentless invader inside a dungeon as complicated as a labyrinth?
At first, the Hawk of Light mercenaries thought the greatest danger would be the dungeon itself.
Only now did they realize—
Maneater Mildred was the real nightmare.
As mentioned before, each time she died, the interval between her invasions became shorter.
And now—
[Invader Defeated!]
A few seconds later—
[Invaded by "Maneater Mildred"!]
The invasion frequency had become so absurd that she was reappearing every few seconds!
Mildred launched surprise attacks from every imaginable corner. Combined with the dark atmosphere of the underground catacombs, the psychological pressure multiplied exponentially.
This thing was ridiculously bugged!
Even with a "Hero" protecting them, the mercenaries still died one after another.
Some were even dragged screaming into the darkness by Mildred, after which horrifying crunching noises echoed out.
"AAAAAHHH!"
Another mercenary was suddenly grabbed by Mildred from the darkness. She bit a massive hole directly into his neck in an incredibly gruesome scene.
Elsa swung her sword and severed Mildred's legs, intentionally sparing her life.
But Mildred then did something nobody expected—
She killed herself.
The red phantom gradually dissipated.
A few seconds later, the invasion notification appeared once more.
"Has Sein Dungeon seriously become this terrifying now?" Cold sweat covered Sali's forehead. Somehow, Sein felt even scarier now than before he had fled from home!
"I-it wasn't like this before either!" Tami stammered in fear. "Is something broken?!"
Out of the once-large group, only three people remained alive:
Tami.
Sali.
And Elsa.
Everyone else was dead.
And yes—
Something actually was broken.
The problem was Elsa's strength.
As a Hero who had yet to fully mature, her combat power was already comparable to nearly half of Sword Saint Gapar's strength. Dealing with ordinary dungeon monsters was effortless for her. Killing Maneater Mildred was practically casual.
Originally, Mildred had been designed so that "once she encounters people tricked by Patches, she invades infinitely."
But even infinite invasions had a cap.
At most, she was supposed to invade once every ten-plus minutes. After dying enough times, she would eventually give up and leave behind rewards.
Her strength also wasn't particularly high—she was only meant to be a troublesome nuisance.
However, because of the Hero's overwhelming power, the dungeon's Balance of Strength authority had produced an error.
Mildred's mechanic had mutated into:
"Every time she dies, her respawn speed increases slightly."
And there was no upper limit.
Eventually, it evolved into the horrifying state they were currently facing.
This bug would probably get patched tomorrow.
"I never want to come back here again…" Sali muttered with hunched shoulders. All the composure from earlier had vanished completely.
Several giant skeletal hounds suddenly rushed toward them. Elsa immediately charged forward to intercept them.
Just as Tami was about to say something comforting to Sali, he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet loosen.
Two large hands burst out from underground and grabbed his legs!
"Wait, no way—WAAAH!"
Before losing consciousness, he saw Maneater Mildred giggling while lifting her mask to reveal sharp, monstrous fangs.
Tami opened his eyes.
Only then did he realize he was sitting before a bonfire.
"What the hell was wrong with that invader…"
The bonfire brought him a sense of safety.
Just as he was about to relax, he realized the surrounding scenery was completely unfamiliar.
He still seemed to be inside the catacombs.
This was a spacious burial chamber, and behind him stood a portal leading to the outside world.
"If I leave through here… will I return to Bedford City?"
He hesitated.
Everything that had happened today was simply too bizarre.
That invader called "Maneater Mildred" was obviously abnormal. The dungeon would have to be insane to design a monster like that.
Part of him wanted to wait here and see if Belto and the others would arrive.
But after checking his equipment, he discovered all his supplies had been depleted and his weapon had become damaged.
Under these circumstances, the smartest decision was naturally to return and regroup.
"How embarrassing…"
Tami sighed and walked through the portal dejectedly.
The blinding sunlight made it almost impossible to open his eyes.
In his dazed state, he vaguely noticed that many people were standing around him.
And every single one of them was armed.
Wait.
Armed people?!
Tami instantly snapped awake.
But before he could react, the Light Eagle mercenaries surrounding him waved their hands and shouted:
"Arrest this guy too!"