Arena Finals (8)
Kelberos’s character lost its strength and collapsed.
A brief silence. The message floating before my eyes somehow refused to feel real.
A breeze stirred the bamboo grove for a moment.
I had won.
Which meant I was the champion.
Really?
It still wouldn’t sink in, so I dismissed the system message.
An idle flick of the hand. The notification window vanished from my vision as naturally as breathing, but the second it was gone a sudden fear seized me.
Should I have left it up? What if something had gone wrong?
Anxiety drained the strength from my fingers.
The sword I was holding clattered to the floor. There was no one left to fight anyway, so I didn’t pick it up.
I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to. While the metallic ring still echoed, my body stayed locked in that awkward half-stance.
Lucky, maybe. Or just inevitable.
None of my stupid worries came true.
When my vision flickered back, the stage filled my sight once more.
The first place my eyes landed was the giant central monitor.
There, on the largest screen, my nickname stood proud and clear.
Champion: Ga-wol
Only then did the fog that had smothered my chest finally lift.
Thump. Thump. My heartbeat seemed to pound all the way up into my skull.
I stared at the screen as if entranced, and bright lights flooded the darkened stage.
White at the base, shot through with red.
Colors chosen with my hair and eyes in mind. They had picked the palette that represented me.
The beams stretched upward like pillars; confetti and flower petals drifted down with the fireworks.
There must have been a small glitch with the audio.
A faint crackle arrived late, and then music I’d never heard before began to play.
It had already been running; by the time it reached my ears it was already past the midpoint.
The quick, bright melody suited my taste surprisingly well, and right after it the casters’ excited voices came pouring in.
Being praised always feels good.
The official broadcast chat scrolled so fast I couldn’t even read it properly.
Not that I would have understood anything except the Korean anyway.
Sounds and information piled on top of one another until it got a little noisy.
Chaotic. Boisterous. Overwhelming.
Still, it wasn’t bad.
Even when I won nationals it hadn’t been quite like this.
Staff approached from behind and draped a broad cloth over my shoulders.
What people usually call the champion’s robe—a huge cape-like thing.
Walking toward me from the side of the stage was Caster Ho-eun, the same one I’d seen at the group draw, and the female announcer who had been handling the winner interviews.
Her name was Lee Yeon-bit, I think?
When the two of them offered their congratulations I moved like a broken robot.
“Congratulations on the win.”
“Congratulations!”
“Ah, um…… yeah, thank y— I mean, thank you. Ow, that hurt.”
Huh?
My stuttering seemed worse than usual.
My mouth just wouldn’t cooperate.
The words I needed were already lined up in my head, yet what came out of my throat was completely different from what I’d planned.
The pronunciation was off and my voice trembled.
I even bit my tongue mid-sentence.
Hard enough that it hurt……
The announcer looked at me and smiled with her eyes, all soft and sparkling.
Is this funny? That’s a little mean.
“Well then, Ga-wol. You’ve overcome countless adventurers to become the champion of Infinity Arena. We simply have to hear your thoughts.”
“Uh…… well, first of all I’m happy. And…… uh, just really happy. It still doesn’t feel real.”
“Yes, you look extremely happy. Such a cute reaction.”
“Cute…? No, I’m not. I’m not cute……”
“Pffft. Is that so.”
Come to think of it, she’d called me cute last time too.
I knew there was no malice in it.
Not even a speck of ill will showed in those eyes.
But still. Isn’t that the kind of thing you usually say to little girls?
I’m a proper adult. Old enough to legally buy alcohol and cigarettes.
And originally I wasn’t even a girl to begin with.
But I’d always been the type to shrink in front of women.
Unfamiliar territory, I guess.
My social skills had never been great, and my entire school life had been boys’ middle school, boys’ high school, then the pure-male sports-scholarship track in college.
Across my whole life I’d almost never had a real chance to talk openly with women.
So I couldn’t even work up the nerve to protest.
All I could do was answer the questions properly.
“Looking back, Ga-wol showed tremendous confidence right from the start of the tournament. Did you expect to win all the way?”
“A little. Not ‘I’m definitely going to win’ or anything. More like, if I give it everything I’ve got, I can climb high.”
“So you were certain you’d achieve a good result.”
My own words had been a mess.
But once Announcer Lee Yeon-bit polished them, they sounded pretty decent.
Thanks to that, even if I stumbled over my tongue the interview stayed on track.
Until I made a slip, that is.
“On the flip side, in today’s third set you dropped two consecutive sets to Kelberos and were driven into a corner. How did you feel at that moment?”
“Ah, this is f— ahem. I was screwed. What do I do? That was the feeling. Definitely felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff.”
The swear word I’d almost let slip, and the recovery.
The caster who’d been listening quietly jumped in.
“Wow, truly the skill of the greatest assassin. The broadcast itself almost went over the edge, but Ga-wol’s quick thinking saved the day. Extremely impressive!”
“Pff— cough cough! Kack. Kek!”
Ah, I couldn’t hold the laugh in.
No matter how I looked at it, the one with the real quick thinking was him, not me.
His instantaneous wit had neatly covered my mistake.
I guess that’s what pro caster experience looks like.
After that came all sorts of questions.
Small details about the exchanges, what I thought had decided the match, and so on.
When the dual-blade swordsman questions arrived I thought, here it comes.
“The reason I didn’t use dual blades…… it wasn’t because I was looking down on my opponent or anything. Just…… bad memories with swords? Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t put it that way. Let’s just say there were personal…… reasons.”
I’d finally done the championship I’d always wanted to try.
I’d thought things would get a little better. Pure delusion on my part, apparently.
Just a few sentences and my stomach was already churning.
Luckily they seemed to notice my state; no more dual-blade questions came.
They kept everything carefully indirect. I received a lot of consideration in many ways.
Even so, no one saw this next part coming.
Not the people asking the questions, and not me either.
Almost every question had been asked and we were drifting into lighter topics.
“There’s one light viewer question here. What did you eat before the match?”
“Salmon…… I ate salmon. Grilled. I always seem to eat it on important days.”
“Salmon! I love that fish too. Do you usually enjoy it often?”
“No, not really. It wasn’t because I particularly like it. Just, a long time ago…… hic!”
I’d been holding it together so well. Why.
Why did tears come from something this small?
A sob slipped into my voice.
Human emotion is like a dam holding back a river; once it breaks, it doesn’t settle easily until everything has poured out.
Live on air, my hiccuping, crying voice came through clear as day.
Total disaster.
The first champion of Infinity Arena…… had become the girl who cried while talking about salmon.