HQ Target

The secret target of the Cruelty Squad Headquarters is the only target of the mission and the final boss of the second ending. The target wears the same colorful armor that the Protagonist earns in the Life ending and wields a Parasonic C3 DNA Scrambler which can quickly disable the player. The boss boasts so much HP (20000 normally) that much of the difficulty in defeating them is in finding out how to conceivably whittle them down. Once the boss is defeated, the player is free to proceed to the second ending.

They only appear on Hope Eradicated difficulty.

## Tactics

Once engaged with the target they will attack as any ruthless gunman might, though the DNA Scrambler they fire makes the battle particularly tricky. Being shot with the Scrambler causes the text "Your body feels weird" to appear on the screen and the player shrinks. In only five shots the player will be rendered unable to battle, and the target fires fast and true. For this reason, a useful tactic is to utilize the large arena by shooting from a far distance before the target can fire at all.

Because of the boss's massive HP pool, prolonged battles can be excruciating. To that end there are a couple different methods for draining the boss's health in a safe and effective manner.

### The ZKZ Transactional Rifle Method

Stairs leading up and away from the target's arena lead to a gauntlet to acquire the ZKZ Transactional Rifle. Using this weapon is an extremely fast and efficient way to defeat the target provided the conditions are right.

To use the rifle to quickly kill the target, it is recommended that you have at least one million dollars invested in various stock/organ/fish holdings. Since the rifle's damage output scales with money invested, the rifle at this much power can kill the HQ boss in a single shot from any distance provided that there's a clear line of sight.

Using this method is highly recommended as it is also how the player unlocks the ZKZ Transactional Rifle anyway.

### The Bolt ACR Method

The Bolt ACR is a perfect weapon for patient planners and schemers, and this tactic is no exception to that. To use the Bolt ACR to defeat the boss, all the player must do is create a cloud of radiation so thick that it will rapidly deplete the boss's health even relative to the boss's pool. This is accomplished by firing the rifle an enormous number of times in the same spot and then luring the boss into the cloud by shooting at them with a regular firearm.
It will take 30 seconds to kill the boss using this tactic.
Alternatively, the player can stun the boss with a SNOOZFEST Animal Control Pistol and build the cloud of radiation around the tranquilized target, thereby bypassing the potentially dangerous tactic of luring the boss into a cloud.

### The Riot Pacifier+Ammunition Gland Method

If the ZKZ Transactional Rifle and Bolt ACR are out of your reach, a third tactic can be chosen. The Riot Pacifier and Ammunition Gland, combined make for a slower, but still effective source of damage. Because the Ammunition Gland regenerates one ammo every second, and The Riot Pacifier has a shot interval of about one second, you can constantly bombard the target with Toxic gas, dealing damage in a manner similar to the Bolt ACR. However, the damage of the Toxic gas is much lower, and will take about 1 minute and 30 seconds to kill the target.

### The Burst-fire gun / Baton method (bugged)

This method is a bug, and may be fixed in an update. A bug in the game has been found where if you charge and swing the baton and switch to a burst-fire weapon (like the K&H X20) mid-swing, it will cause the game to crash unless aiming at an enemy due to the way burst fire weapons work. In this way, the boss of Cruelty Squad HQ can be killed with only stock weapons.

## Gallery

The HQ Target in position before being engagedYour body feels weird.The HQ Target's corpseDitto
1. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/CrueltySquad/comments/p1ndmc/spoilers\_whats\_the\_trigger\_for\_the\_cosmetic/