And the boompipe is not "horrible" it's just made for killing giant blobs, not for general use. If you use the boompipe for giants, and the machine gun for everything else, you'll be invincible... at least until you die...
When the balloon was at 99.9% health, the adventurer realized just how fulfilling his life of blob-slaughtering was. And so, he remained in the wasteland forever more.