First Preliminaries (3)

For a moment the world seemed to black out — then the sharp, briny smell of salt hit my nose.

Rain struck my face before my vision even returned. The floor swayed beneath me with a strange, lurching rhythm, and somewhere wood screamed as it twisted and groaned.

My senses had already told me what battlefield this was, long before any system message appeared.

Sure enough, the instant my eyes opened, a gloomy blue-black sky greeted me.

Where the Tempest Sleeps was a battlefield fought atop the wreckage of shipwrecks. Being a field out on the open sea, waves battered the ruins without rest, and the debris tangled and shifted so often that the floor tilting underfoot was practically routine. On top of that, this rain. The driving downpour and the pre-dawn darkness made spotting a hidden enemy nearly impossible.

For an assassin, it wasn't a bad environment. The more a battlefield constrained the senses, the easier it was to land an ambush.

The problem was that my opponent's advantages were just as significant.

Of all places to run into a witch.

On any other map, the matchup would have been completely in my favor. But this rain-soaked sea was practically a witch's home ground.

I was standing on a shattered fragment of a ship, and the rain that had been falling since the moment I arrived had already soaked my clothes through. Take a hit from a witch's signature lightning magic in this state, and my health bar would evaporate on the spot. For an assassin — already frail by design — every single hit would be lethal.

Same as always. If I don't score on the first ambush, this gets ugly.

But hey — perfect timing, actually. I'd been wanting to test something out.

Splash. Splash.

Water sounded with every step the girl took. Light from the tip of her staff drifted across the deck like a living thing, swimming through the dark. The dilapidated ship seemed empty, but her blue eyes swept the surroundings just in case. Only after securing her flanks and rear did she speak.

"The map luck went my way. Spawn point doesn't look bad either. First I'll check if there's a wider area and claim a position."

"Empty house? Come on, I'm right here. This house is fully occupied now."

A soft, playful giggle drifted through the air. She wasn't being careless, exactly — but she didn't look like someone who considered losing a real possibility either. The slight curl of her lips radiated pure confidence in her own skill.

And it wasn't baseless confidence.

Sylphie — the witch specialist of the European League. Character pool issues had kept her off the starting roster more often than not, but whenever a situation called for a witch, she delivered exactly the performance people expected. When it came to that one character, she was good enough that people could seriously discuss her as world-class.

Besides, most of the pro gamers and streamers who'd declared for the Arena had already advanced to the second preliminaries. It was only natural that none of her viewers were predicting a loss.

Amid that atmosphere, Sylphie began to feel something off.

Where the Tempest Sleeps wasn't a particularly large map. The shipwrecks themselves generated randomly, but the overall battlefield size always stayed the same. With an assassin's mobility and detection, her opponent should have found her ages ago.

And once they had, they should have forced a fight immediately. Instead, the other side was being far too quiet.

"That's weird. Why aren't they coming?"

In this setup, the longer time dragged on, the worse it got for the assassin. Unless her opponent was a complete beginner who didn't understand the witch-versus-assassin matchup at all, there was only one conclusion left.

They had some kind of scheme cooking.

Sure. Everyone has a brilliant plan — right up until they get hit.

Sylphie's staff swung toward the bow.

She didn't need the system message. She'd already been tracking her familiars' health and positions. Before the red marker even appeared at the edge of her vision, a bolt of lightning slammed down.

For a split second, the assassin's silhouette flickered through the darkness. Faster than she'd anticipated — much faster. Just high specs? Or traits focused on mobility?

Either way, it was a far cry from any mainstream setup.

Sylphie raised her internal threat assessment. She shifted a little further sideways from where she'd planned to land her follow-up, scattering magic to match that blistering speed. A powerful electromagnetic field flooded the air, and freezing mist locked the rainwater on the deck into ice.

No real payoff. She'd been a beat too late, it seemed — the assassin weaving through the wreckage looked largely unharmed. Watching them glide across the frozen floor like it was nothing was almost enough to piss her off.

"Not bad movement. Who even is this? I'll have to check the username after."

Sylphie shifted further back. Keeping distance from an assassin was the most basic of basics. Not "this should be far enough that they can't approach" — the key was holding the absolute edge of her own range. And this opponent was especially fast. Factoring in a stealth window of five seconds at minimum, ten at most, she couldn't afford to measure distance optimistically.

So Sylphie didn't let her guard down even a fraction.

"They used stealth. I'll fire the second it drops."

Human perception relies most heavily on sight. Stealth — the ability to erase one's form from view — was arguably the most powerful utility in the game. But if you stayed focused, it wasn't completely undetectable. In an environment like this, with rain falling, you could spot stealth by the way water bounced off an invisible body.

The distance was too ambiguous to land a skill right away, but at least she'd confirmed the opponent's presence. Hold the range. Ride out this window. Given the nature of this battlefield — having to cross shipwreck decks — there wouldn't be many places left to hide.

Four seconds at most… three. Sylphie's lips curved into a confident smile. Magic gathered at the tip of her staff, ready to fire at any moment.

And then — one second. Even with heavy trait investment, the duration limit should be hitting right about now.

Sylphie's eyes, tracking the assassin's estimated position, flew wide open.

"What? Why aren't they there?"

The assassin who should have been visible simply wasn't. Had she been wrong about when they entered stealth?

No chance. Sylphie hadn't earned the title of witch specialist for nothing. She'd faced assassins on Where the Tempest Sleeps more times than she could count — she didn't make mistakes like that.

If the opponent wasn't where they should be, then they were somewhere they shouldn't.

The thought hit her, and she whipped her gaze around. Her eyes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠swept the surroundings — and then climbed toward the sky.

Something caught around her neck, and the world flipped upside down.

"Ghk—! Kuh—!"

A sensation of being yanked by some overwhelming force. Under normal circumstances, her body would have scraped across the floor in searing pain — but Infinity Black's system filtered out excessive pain signals. Thanks to that, Sylphie could calmly process what was happening.

The sensation in her hands… a chain?

So she was being dragged by a chain wrapped around her throat.

People said confusion came from ignorance. Somehow, the more she understood, the more confused she became.

Before her questions could even finish forming, her body was hurled off the hull. The last thing she saw was an assassin of roughly her own height, silver hair streaming in the wind — and the blade of a sickle rushing in from the end of the chain.

Ga-wol? Who the hell was that?

Sylphie spent over an hour combing through pro gamer databases and streaming platforms. She found nothing satisfying. A few mentions here and there, but it seemed this person had never broken into streaming or the pro leagues.

Which left her with only one option: watch the replay and figure out exactly how she'd lost.

"Ha. You've ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠got to hand it to them. I didn't know a Chain-Sickle was even a usable weapon."

From the start, the assassin had never walked on the deck. After deliberately letting Sylphie register their presence, they'd hooked the Chain-Sickle onto a corner of the hull and approached along the ship's outer wall. Once stealth dropped, they'd used centrifugal force from outside her field of view to launch themselves high into the air — wrapping the chain around her neck without ever entering her line of sight.

What followed was a conclusion she knew all too well. The chain released in a sudden snap, and the sickle at its tip came down — thunk. Registered as a critical hit to a vital point, her health bar vanished in a single stroke.

"Interesting. I didn't know this game still had hidden masters left. This person is definitely making it to the main tournament, right? I really want to face them one more time."

—And at that same moment, Daeun was also looking at Ga-wol on her screen.

"What the hell is this…?"

The gallery boards. The general strategy sites. Anywhere that collected popular posts, the same thread had gone up without fail.

A video of herself — looking for all the world like she was cooing and fawning over a male character.

In some places, two or three posts of the exact same content had been uploaded. Looking at the hundreds upon hundreds of comments, Daeun's eyelids began to twitch.