Do Dreams Come True Just by Dreaming? (1)

The battlefield RNG was screwing with me again today.

Come to think of it, I couldn't remember a single map this entire Arena that had actually worked in my favor. Even when Shadow Hall came up, the lighting had done nothing but get in my way. And now it had gone full home-field advantage for the other side. At this point, I was starting to feel like the entire world had decided to dump its malice on me personally.

Pilgrim's Desert. And a Dancer.

A class that used wind as its primary weapon, dropped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠onto a field of raging sandstorms. The Dancer's attacks were already hard enough to track with the naked eye — on this map, it was going to be even worse.

"Haa…"

This was irritating.

My feet sank deep into the ground with every step, like wading through a swamp. The blazing sun was an unwelcome guest for any Assassin, and the cover on this desert was pitifully sparse. On top of everything else, it was getting hot.

If it had been a lava zone, I could have dumped points into fire resistance and been fine. Unfortunately, for a superhuman playable character, this level of heat fell into the category of "tolerable enough." Even if I unluckily caught heatstroke, toughing it out was still the better option.

But for someone with a high Sensory Synchronization Rate, the story was a little different. Desert dust coated the inside of my mouth with a dry, chalky film, and the longer I kept moving, the more my body grew clammy with sweat. The discomfort was real. Zero in-game benefit, and yet the game kept making me suffer through this kind of nonsense.

The one silver lining was that I'd found my opponent early.

In the middle of the desert, a woman with copper-toned skin came into view. True to the Dancer class, her top barely covered her chest, draped in cascading chain ornaments. Translucent chiffon fabric left the curves of her body completely unfiltered, and in her hands she held a curved blade and a fan, one in each.

The blade looks heavier than I expected. That means it'll be awkward for thrusting, though.

I ran a quick appraisal even as I closed the distance. Using a sand dune as cover, I circled around and claimed her back through stealth. The first ambush was an Assassin's privilege. My dagger sliced across the Dancer's Achilles tendon. The chain wrapped around her ankle snapped with it — but the hit felt shallow. Her reaction had been faster than I'd anticipated.

Shame. I was aiming to take the whole ankle off.

Guess that was too much to ask in broad daylight. Crippling her mobility would have made the match a lot easier, but the plan had already gone sideways from the opening move.

My first-strike window was over, so now it was her turn. The elegant curve of her blade came straight at me in a check. I stepped back to evade, and her kick followed immediately — aimed somewhere between my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠head and my neck.

…Except from this range, it shouldn't have reached.

My instincts weren't wrong. And there was no way her distance calculation was off either. If she didn't have that much sense, she wouldn't be standing in front of me right now. The leg she'd swung was the injured one, of all things. The moment that thought clicked, I understood.

I dialed back my greed and dodged by exactly half a step.

A thin current of wind left a small cut across my cheek. The spray of red blood that followed spattered just beneath my eye with a soft pat-pat-pat, carrying a faint metallic scent. If I hadn't figured it out in time, I would have lost my vision.

"Ha. Figured as much."

"Not bad. So you didn't just luck your way past Ripper after all?"

"Don't look down on me while you evaluate. Arrogant."

"My, my."

Being the shorter one wasn't anything new for me. But having some woman I'd just met look down at me while running her mouth about my skill level was hard to swallow. Little brat. If my body were still intact, tch.

No point dwelling on things already past.

Infinity Black didn't show graphic depictions of bodily destruction or dismemberment. But when it came to blood, the rendering was fairly close to reality — clothes soaking through, wounds left on the skin, that sort of thing. And the Muse standing in front of me was a player who made excellent use of blood and environmental elements. Meaning her popularity wasn't built on a provocative appearance and flashy play alone. As I'd said — if her skill had been lacking, she never would have made it to the Round of 8.

A gale from her fan shattered my stance. Sand whipped up by the wind blanked my vision, and before I knew it, a chilling blade was cutting in a straight line toward the crown of my head. I knocked the flat of the blade aside and recovered my dagger, leaving a cut between my thumb and index finger — the muscle you use when you bring your thumb in. Not major damage, but fine-tuning the trajectory of a blade was going to be slightly harder now.

Maybe she was annoyed about taking a loss in the first exchange. Muse pressed in with an aggressive flurry of consecutive strikes.

"You mad? Cute."

"Cute… what? You've got to be kiddi—"

Opening found.

You couldn't afford to lose focus even while talking. I ducked my head and drove a thrust into her thigh. Between my fingers, I shifted my grip on the dagger. Flipping my body, I lightly scored the area around her neck — but unfortunately, all I managed to cut was the veil.

If I didn't get a harvest, I'd just make a new one. Pulling her head back meant her body had pitched relatively forward. I carved a long gash across her unprotected six-pack abs, and with my other hand I drew a throwing weapon and flung it.

It would have been nice if the throw had landed too. The fan's wind swept every projectile clean, and from within that wind, the curved blade moved.

Here it comes.

The Dancer's curved sword fired sharp currents of wind along its blade path. The incoming wind was only distinguishable by a slight warping of vision — and in heat this blistering, with heat haze shimmering everywhere, that method was practically useless. Fortunately, the wind's raw power wasn't particularly high. It was originally designed as a gimmick you were meant to block by burning guard gauge, but that wasn't a great option for an Assassin. So I had to read the blade path itself, not the wind.

The blade moved with the flair of a dance. Every so often it caught the sunlight and the tip flashed, glitter-glitter. If I could just sit back and watch, it would have made for a pretty good show — but zoning out right now would mean paying my life as the admission fee.

I moved my dagger to match the blade paths I'd committed to memory. The clear ring of metal meant the parry had succeeded. After landing all eight consecutive parries, the Dancer herself went low.

"I'll give you the skill. But your luck's rotten, isn't it?"

"You know what happened to the last person who said that to me?"

"…?"

"Actually, you don't need to know. I'll just let you experience it."

That the desert favored a Dancer was nothing new. So bringing up "bad luck" at this point could only mean one thing — a sandstorm was coming. I'd been feeling the sand stir restlessly between my legs myself.

Sure enough, a sand-laden wind began to rise. From the far side of the map, a yellow-tinged storm was closing in at high speed.

For a moment, both our collars and hair whipped in the wind. Muse grinned and settled into the opening stance of her Blade Dance.

At this point, I had no choice but to play a card I'd been saving.

Muse's form vanished into the sandstorm. In that hellish place, I could barely move properly — but a Dancer was different.

I could see it. The silhouette of a woman dancing inside the sand-choked wind. A Blade Dance performed with the wind itself as a vast ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠curtain, baring its fangs.

Burning my main buff purely on defense wasn't ideal. But it was the only way to push through the disadvantage of this battlefield.

Wind launched from the tip of her dancing blade scraped across the sand. I met the surging sword-wind with my dagger and scattered it. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠broken wind became a gentle lamb, fluttering against my collar — then the fan's heavy gust shattered my guard in a single blow and left its impact behind. My health bar was relatively intact. Still, from here on out, I'd need to dodge.

Seventeen seconds until the sandstorm ends. Blade Dance ends two seconds before that.

The reason an Assassin was at a disadvantage in this desert was simple: shadows were hard to use. Blazing sunlight. Insufficient cover. With usable shadows so limited, it was practically the same as fighting without one of your weapons.

But when that storm blew in, the story changed. The thick cloud cover and dust created plenty of shadows to work with.

It was always like this. Opportunity arrived at the most dangerous moment.

Taking the Dancer's blade-winds head-on — I advanced, step by step.