Meeting Is Always Sudden
Viewers were watching Journey’s broadcast, and among them—along with people who weren’t watching but still paid attention—there was a rumor making the rounds lately.
We know she’s insanely strong, but how strong, exactly, is hard to say.
In truth, it was awkward to even call it a recent topic.
Kana’s combat power had been a subject of constant speculation ever since long ago, back when she was still known as the Gravekeeper.
In other words, a fair amount of time had passed, and yet it was still interesting enough to keep drawing people’s attention.
And over that time, public opinion had changed countless times.
“Honestly, the Gravekeeper’s only dangerous because her pattern is bullshit. If you build a boss like that, what boss wouldn’t be hard?”
Sure, she was strong, but Demonicus had designed her to be obnoxious, which made her feel even harder than she really was. If you stripped that away, there were plenty of NPCs stronger than the Gravekeeper.
People even compared her to bosses that had already been cleared and reduced to mindless farming content for gear.
A water rocket blessed by the system.
That was the first reaction.
But then Kana’s hood was pulled back, and she slaughtered an entire squad of imperial knights with just two sword strikes.
Since when did a water rocket become a hydrogen bomb???
Fire a water rocket twice and you’d erase a country, what the hell;;;
People had come to accept that Kana was not merely a beneficiary of the system’s blessings.
Of course, that power was still something she could have because Demonicus had designed her that way—but wasn’t that true of the other NPCs too?
That only made the curiosity grow.
Even Yuki, considered the strongest among the players, couldn’t hope to stand against imperial knights.
So just how strong was Kana, that genius beauty swordswoman who made even those knights tremble and beg for their lives?
There had been a little stir when people learned her identity, but it hadn’t changed much.
“What?! She was the commander of the Crimson Knight Order of the ruined kingdom of Grasis?!”
...And what the hell was that supposed to mean, you nerd.
For Earthlings who weren’t even Grasisans, or even Silians for that matter, there was no way they could understand a dazzling title like that.
Maybe if it had been the imperial knights, known for being able to make birds fall from the sky, but the strength of a kingdom that had already fallen was hard for Earthlings to grasp.
So she was the commander of a kingdom’s greatest knight order—fine, that must mean she was impressive somehow.
That was about the extent of it.
But Kana shattered that perception once more.
By single-handedly bringing down a dimensional beast at level 78.
Who could possibly have imagined a dimensional beast shaped like a giant wolf, larger than a building, collapsing at the feet of a small girl?
If that were easy, there would be no need to divide weight classes in sports like boxing or wrestling.
Even in a world of swords and magic, the basic truth of combat remained the same: the bigger one had the easier time beating the smaller one.
It wasn’t for nothing that players hated facing giants, ogres, or golems.
And yet Kana, with that tiny body of hers, took down a dimensional beast so huge it seemed to blot out the sky.
...How?
With a single sword.
That day, among the players watching the broadcast, there were those who wept.
Those who had chosen the lonely road of adventure, with a sword as their companion and the wind as their friend.
How many years had they spent being mocked by filthy archers and mages as sword-fools?
They had no idea that the sword-fighters holding the line up front were the reason everyone else could safely hide behind them and deal damage!
That said, the melee DPS who used other close-range weapons didn’t exactly sympathize with them either.
People often called the sword a versatile weapon, but that only applied to skilled practitioners who had trained to a certain level.
It didn’t apply to most Earthlings, who had never properly held a weapon in their lives.
By the time you were swinging a sword, it was simply more efficient to stab with a spear or beat someone to death with an axe, so the sword’s reputation had fallen as well.
And yet plenty of people still chose the path of the sword.
Among players, sword users were more often called “sword-fools” than by the noble name of swordsman.
To those people, Kana’s existence was like a Bible.
A Bible proving their path had not been wrong.
That at the end of the road they walked, radiant light awaited.
Countless sword-fools...
No,
swordsmen were captivated by the sight of that little girl.
Kana’s impact was so great that some even gave up the weapons in their hands and took up swords instead.
But separate from that, the players’ curiosity still hadn’t been satisfied.
The level system was a tool that let players estimate strength.
As with some NPCs, Kana’s level couldn’t be seen either, so her exact level remained unknown. Still, the fact that she had slain a level-78 dimensional beast without so much as showing fatigue made it obvious she had to be far stronger than that.
“Maybe she’s stronger than the Emperor of the Empire?”
“Does being an emperor automatically mean they’re strong? The imperial swords might be stronger than the emperor...”
“Rumor says the great chieftain of the elves in the Great Forest is that strong.”
“Yeah, sure—one dragon breath and it’s roast bird.”
“Are you insane?”
By now, no one could deny that Kana was strong. The only question left was how strong.
And people knew, from experience, that the most efficient way to solve a question was to ask the person involved directly.
“Kanaa~”
“...?! ”
The pink hair that had been lazily hanging down shot up in a flash.
Seeing Kana instantly switch into guard mode, as if she were ready to peck her at any second, Daeun scratched her head.
...Was that a little too much?
Even Daeun thought the voice she’d just used was too soft.
So sweet it made goosebumps prickle all over her skin.
After the day she had finally had a real, honest conversation with Kana, it seemed the new Kana—now loaded with a hefty dose of deredere—still wasn’t exactly ready to accept Daeun’s voice.
“Ahem.”
Daeun’s face turned faintly red as she cleared her throat.
Then she spoke to Kana, who was still watching her warily.
“How strong is Kana?”
Kana blinked blankly at the question, which came out of nowhere.
But Daeun had a reason for asking.
It was because of donations.
The messages attached to those donations were all nearly the same.
They asked whether she could just go ahead and ask Kana directly.
For Daeun, who had already been seeing similar messages in chat for a long time, the request was familiar.
It was only that this was the kind of question that felt awkward to ask outright, so she’d been letting it slide—but today, for some reason, people were pouring in donations as if they’d all made up their minds at once.
Even the chat was being swept along by the wave of donations, throwing out question marks.
With the fire already burning this high, Daeun couldn’t ignore it anymore.
...It’s not because the money was too much to refuse.
It’s the atmosphere. The atmosphere.
...More importantly, what’s up with that Yuki person again? Is it really her?
Thinking the donor named Yuki might be an impersonator, Daeun checked the account—only to burst out laughing when she realized it really was Yuki herself.
Anyway, that was the story behind Daeun’s question.
But for Kana, who had been asked point-blank how strong she was, the whole thing was absurd.
How was she supposed to describe something as formless as strength in words?
If she at least had something to compare it to, she could explain it based on that...
...A comparison?
Suddenly, Kana’s face lit up as if she’d thought of something.
She hopped down from the rock where she’d been sitting and lifted the sword hanging at her waist, sheath and all, into her hands.
“!”
A, an attack!
Whenever Kana drew her sword, you took a defensive stance.
Memories etched into Daeun’s body by days of training were enough to make it a reflex.
If Kana had seen that reaction, she would have looked pleased and clapped her hands, but she had no interest in Daeun at all.
Ignoring the laughter spilling through the chat, Daeun awkwardly lowered her sword.
“What are you doing?”
“...Wait.”
Screeeech—
Kana set the tip of the sheath against the ground and dragged it, completing a long line.
At the sudden bit of dirt play, Daeun let out a puzzled sound.
Huh? Well... it was kind of cute, but...
“This is all, ...the level of Journey.”
“Ah?”
Oh. That’s what this was about.
Daeun nodded.
Seeing her nod, Kana drew another line a little farther away.
“This is the greatsword newbie.”
“Hmm... there’s actually a pretty big difference.”
“This has shrunk a lot too.”
Kana muttered under her breath that if it had been before, the gap would have been much larger.
Huh... so that’s how it was? Well, Yuki is pretty strong, after all.
And Kana had no reason to lie about something like this.
In any case, if she was saying she’d gotten stronger than before, Daeun accepted it happily.
“Then what about Kana?”
“I was just about to say.”
As if she had been waiting for those words, Kana hugged her sword and dashed off with pattering little steps.
At first Daeun watched her fondly, but by the time Kana had grown so small she was barely the size of a fingertip, Daeun was staring with her mouth hanging open like an idiot.
Kana, who was already tiny, raised her even tinier arm and drew a line.
Before long, the bird completed her task and returned.
“...See?”
There was pride hidden beneath that impassive face.
...Daeun wanted to flick that smug pink head.
But the law was far away, and her fist was close at hand.
If she did that, she might be sentenced immediately to “ten thousand times training.”
Besides, in this case, it would count as an adult resorting to violence because she couldn’t take a child’s teasing, so even the law wouldn’t be on her side.
“Local streamer commits violence against a young girl in a video game, sparking controversy...”
“Internet broadcasting has gone too far. Is this really okay?”
She had no desire to become the subject of headlines like that.
The kind of wish expressed in that old children’s song—“I really want to appear on TV”—was not something Daeun wanted to have fulfilled in that way.
So she forced the corners of her mouth upward and said, “Ah, ahaha~ Don’t joke around, okay?”
“...Joke?”
It wasn’t a joke.
Kana’s expression was utterly serious.
Daeun’s smile, too, slid back into place.
Just as Earthlings called an equally ranked mercenary a trash-rank mercenary and a silver-rank mercenary a tin-can, Silians had another name for the Master realm.
A word that meant a dream dreamed in broad daylight, an empty fantasy.
Daydream.
Everyone who threw themselves into battle dreamed of becoming a Master.
But among them, the number who actually reached that realm was microscopic.
There was only one rank difference between Expert and Master, but the gap between them was as vast as heaven and earth.
Players might reach it faster than Silians, thanks to the gods backing them, but...
Well.
For now, it looked impossibly far away.
Shaking her head, Kana held out a word card in front of Daeun.
“...Huh?”
Daeun, still looking dazed, sensed something and looked up.
Reading the word card held out in front of her, her eyes sharpened.
“What is this? He...ad? Wait, I never used a word like this!”
Kana must only learn good things!
With that conviction, Daeun had filled the word cards with proper, beautiful language, and yet there was a nasty word she had never written before, sitting right there on the card.
The word “loser,” scribbled in crooked, adorable handwriting.
Kana did know the word, but she didn’t know how to write in Arkish yet, so there was no way she could have written it herself.
Looking around with narrowed eyes, Daeun quickly found the culprit.
After all, there was only one person left besides Kana and her, and the likely culprit immediately looked away as if guilty.
Celine cleared her throat.
“Ahem! I’m sorry. Lady Kana asked me to show her how to write it, and before I knew it, I—”
“Celiiiiiine!”
But Kana ignored her and took up a pen, scribbling the Granic equivalent of the word “loser” beside it.
Journey.