Hero Academy (3-11)
A couple sat in a café.
The woman wore a pink knit sweater and a gray skirt that fell to mid-thigh.
Her wavy brown hair stretched long down her back, one strand cascading beautifully over her shoulder.
And the beauty mark under her left eye, just distinctive enough to catch the eye, was her most charming feature.
Her name was Yoon Jia.
She was Saint Blue, the same player who had teamed up with Seong Su-ho in Watch of Legends the day before.
Sitting directly across the table was her boyfriend—Bug Killer.
He took a sip of his drink, then slammed his fist down on the table and shouted.
Bang!
"Fuck! Haa… I just can't get it out of my head."
"Oppa… please stop. Brooding over yesterday isn't going to help anyone—it'll only wear you out…."
Yoon Jia covered his clenched fist with her palm, trying to calm him.
"Oppa, you said today was an important mission…. You can get angry later. What if something goes wrong because you're still hung up on yesterday?"
"Haa… sorry."
"It's fine. I know how hard it's been working under that person lately."
"Jia… huu… thanks."
"Don't mention it…."
Whether her comfort had actually gotten through or not, Bug Killer let some of the heat drain out of him, lifted his drink, and took another long swallow.
Bug Killer. His real name was Go Chung-shin and he belonged to the Church, an organization renowned worldwide.
Today he had been assigned an important mission.
'Haa… just adding that bastard as a friend still feels too shaky…. Even if Jia invited him, he could just delete her the second they stop talking…'.
But his head was full of nothing but the Plunderer he had met the day before.
He was terrified that the Plunderer, who had barely agreed to add Yoon Jia as a friend, might suddenly delete him from the friends list.
He was aware of it himself. That if things continued like this, it would interfere with his mission.
'That's it! That'll work'!
A single conclusion clicked into place.
"Jia! Do me one favor!"
"…What is it?"
The word favor sent a ripple of unease through Yoon Jia's chest.
Yoon Jia connected with Seong Su-ho and moved into his waiting room.
The moment she arrived, she smiled and greeted him.
"Looking forward to playing with you today."
"…."
Yoon Jia had received one request from Go Chung-shin .
It was to play the game with the Plunderer for a week and keep him in a good mood.
(Oppa! Why go that far….)
(Please. That bastard clearly had a thing for you. Just reel him in a little, keep him around, and later I'll….)
In the end she had sighed and agreed. She knew that once Go Chung-shin dug his heels in, he never backed down. So she had given up and said yes.
"Looking forward to it."
"You look nervous. Well, I did spring this on you out of nowhere—must've been a surprise."
"Yes. Thank you so much."
"For what?"
Yoon Jia tilted her head, not quite grasping what he was thanking her for.
Seong Su-ho smiled and offered the gratitude again.
"Thank you for agreeing to play with me. I know it must be a hassle…."
"Ah… it's fine."
Yoon Jia smiled, thinking to herself.
'Hmm… he seems like a decent guy…. Honestly, he never even picked a direct fight with Oppa…'.
Even someone naturally considerate as Yoon Jia was still a woman.
She was never going to look kindly on a person who had thoroughly crushed her boyfriend.
But speaking with him directly like this, it seemed that Go Chung-shin was the one who had actually started the conflict, and Seong Su-ho had simply focused on the game.
And besides….
'Well… like Oppa said, he never attacked me, so he probably doesn't think badly of me, right'?
It was only a game, after all. Even if someone wanted to harass you, the worst they could do was curse. And looking at Seong Su-ho, he didn't seem like that kind of person at all.
'Anyway… we're just playing games together. It's not like we're showing our real faces'.
With that thought, she asked him,
"Are we doing normal matches like last time?"
"Ah… let's do one of those first, then maybe ranked? I'd like to try that too."
"Wow… two days in and normal matches are already boring you?"
Saint Blue looked at me and laughed.
Definitely not a skeleton. She was pretty enough that you'd turn your head if you passed her on the street.
A long, long look.
'Damn… I don't usually go for beauty marks, but it really suits this girl'.
'…Just stay quiet and watch for now.'
Something about the atmosphere felt off.
While Saint Blue set the match options, I opened the friend-window settings and looked around.
Appearance Reveal had two options: Private, and Friends Only.
There was no "Public to Everyone." Given the nature of the game, they probably figured no one would walk around showing their real face to the whole server, so they never bothered adding it.
For the record, mine was set to Private.
'Huh? Why is it Private?'
'But yesterday I was laughing and chatting with Cho Seo-hyun just fine'.
Right now Cho Seo-hyun and I were friends on our VR accounts. A VR-account friend was less like an internet buddy and more like an offline contact whose number you actually had. A game-account friend, by comparison, was a pure online acquaintance—you had to log into VR first, then enter the game, before you could even talk.
My VR account already had the Friends Only setting active, so even though the game itself was set to Private, the higher-level system setting overrode it.
'So why did she set hers to public…'.
To Saint Blue, my appearance would still look like the archer character from yesterday. She finished the match settings without a care and smiled at me.
"Alright, let's go~"
Playing with Saint Blue, I roughly figured out why I could see her face.
It wasn't intentional.
"Sorry. You hate looking at a skeleton face, right?"
"No, it's fine."
"This is the only character I know how to play…."
She had messed with the settings by accident, and that was how I—her newly added friend—could see her real appearance so clearly. I deliberately didn't tell her.
'She probably meant to show it only on her VR account and accidentally opened it on the game account too'.
The "motivation" Armonia meant had nothing to do with the simple joy of gaming with a beauty.
A woman this pretty….
'Is dating that piece of shit? Did he get something on her? That dog… this time I'll be the one holding the leverage.'
I genuinely could not understand why she was with a guy whose personality had been pureed and served over rice.
Did he have dirt on her?
Then I would kill him.
Was he handsome?
That pissed me off, so I would kill him.
Was he rich?
Annoying, so I would kill him.
Was he alive?
I would kill him.
While I was half out of my mind drafting assassination plans, Armonia reined me in.
'Heh… I'll kill him calmly'.
I did my best not to stare at Saint Blue and focused on the game.
Normal matches… still nothing special. In under twenty minutes I racked up fifteen kills and the game ended.
She explained that because my record was still so thin, normal matches were only matching me against absolute beginners.
"As for ranked… honestly, I've never tried it either. I don't play this game much to begin with…."
"Then I can just go solo…."
"Still, we started together—might as well keep going together."
Saint Blue switched the option to ranked and hit queue.
Unlike the normal match, it took a little while. While we waited, she explained how ranked worked.
"In ranked, the first ten games matter a lot."
"Ten games? Why specifically ten?"
"Your win rate over those ten determines your starting rank.
Bronze, Silver, Gold.
When you first queue ranked, your win rate across those ten games places you into one of those three."
There were tiers inside each rank too, she said, but that didn't matter much right now.
"Most people settle into Silver—that's the standard. To hit Gold you usually need ten straight wins, and Bronze only happens if you basically lose all ten. It's not that common."
"This… might be rude, but can I ask one thing?"
"Sure, go ahead."
"…Your boyfriend's on a smurf, right?"
"…."
Saint Blue went quiet for a moment, then nodded and admitted it.
"Yes, it's a smurf. Oppa always uses a smurf when he plays with me."
"Then what's his main ranked at?"
"Oppa is…."
She hesitated over whether to tell me, then finally answered.
"Diamond."
She roughly explained that Platinum sat above Gold, and Diamond above Platinum.
And I was certain.
'…Shouldn't be a problem early on.'
As expected, we won easily.
If Bug Killer was Diamond, that meant anyone below him shouldn't be hard to beat.
Still, ranked gave me a lot of new experiences. Once again I thoroughly shattered the enemy ADC's mental state. But instead of just giving up, they stubbornly held on, and the game gradually ballooned.
Team fight.
Saint Blue and I stared at the corpses littering the ground and muttered.
"Wow… this is a mess."
"Haha… most games end up going like this."
Everyone farmed their own lane, grew, then the five of them pushed into the enemy base together. That was the core of the game.
Until now I had been stomping so hard that people just surrendered mid-game, so this was my first real team fight. But that was all it amounted to. I had already farmed so many kills that even in a full team fight I simply cleaned house.
By the time the ten games were finished, it was the middle of the night.
'…Armonia.'
'Why didn't you tell me to go to sleep?! It's three in the morning!'
I snapped at her. Armonia had promised to warn me when it was time to rest so I wouldn't game until dawn.
And yet—
…You did. Why don't I remember that?
'Haha… a guy's allowed to play a little, right…'
Terrifying….
I did my best to ignore the killing intent rolling off Armonia and spoke to Saint Blue, still in the waiting room.
"Thanks—that was fun."
"No, I had fun too. I never expected I'd end up Gold along with you."
Because she had stuck with me the whole time, she had accidentally ridden a ten-win streak and landed in Gold right beside me.
I asked her something I was curious about.
"You don't play ranked with your boyfriend?"
"Oppa just likes doing normal matches with me."
'So he's the type who relieves stress by massacring beginners….'
Come to think of it, Saint Blue didn't seem to like this game much to begin with….
'Wait…? Then why did she play with me?'
She had approached so naturally that I never felt any dissonance. And at the start I had been too busy staring at her real face to think about anything else.
Saint Blue yawned widely and started getting ready to leave.
"Haaam… sorry. That's my limit for today."
"I was about to sleep too."
"Ah, will you be on tomorrow?"
…She didn't seem like the type who fell for guys just because they were good at games. The vibe wasn't there either.
So why did she keep sticking close and wanting to play together?
Still… I wanted to get as tangled up with Saint Blue as possible, so I answered her question without hesitation.
"I'll probably be on around the same time tomorrow."
"Ah~ then let's play again tomorrow."
"Sure. Get some rest."
"Good night~"
Saint Blue said goodbye in a drowsy voice and left the waiting room.
After that I logged out of VR, pulled off the headgear, and lay staring at the ceiling.
"…Weird, right?"
Reading someone's nature inside VR was impossible.
But…
'Well, I already know her face. If I'm lucky, maybe we'll run into each other someday?'
With that empty hope of a future meeting, I closed my eyes and went to sleep.