This Time Will Be a Little Different
"This time will be a little different."
"The first round of the Mock Siege Battle has finally begun!"
"Lily's team has been assigned Blue, Leo's team Purple, and Chukachip's team Red. The color balance between teams looks even on paper, but each team's territory has different monsters, doesn't it?"
"That's right. The monsters vary in color and abilities alike, so each team will need to move strategically depending on what they're up against."
"And if you look right now—here comes Lily's team!"
The camera swiveled with the commentator's words, catching Vlack and Devil hunting in a nearby forest, and Lily and Redberry moving rapidly toward some unknown destination.
"Two members of Lily's team are hunting Blue Oaks, I see."
"The Blue Oak is the best early-game target, and the experience payoff is substantial. Going after them seems like a smart choice."
"Meanwhile, though, Lily and Redberry are rushing somewhere without hunting or gathering a single resource. Could they be planning to strike an opponent directly?"
Luna nodded.
"From my own experience in these Mock Sieges, an early rush is hardly ever the easy path in fights between rankers like this. It's the early game, which means enemies are spread all around you, and you fall behind the other teams in growth."
"But heading straight in like that means…"
"Yes."
As expected.
Luna's lips curled upward with anticipation.
"It looks like they're willing to absorb some losses in order to eliminate one team quickly. Taking a team out grants experience and buffs, after all."
On the screen, Lily and Redberry entered the Plains.
A vast expanse of gray stone connected to the forest. Follow it straight ahead and you'd reach Raizaka's nest; branch left and you'd hit Purple team's territory, right for Red.
Redberry activated the mage skill Eye of Surveillance and scanned the far distance.
"…It looks like Purple is on Leo's side. The life-sign density is pretty high over there."
"The Dinosaurs Are Alive guy, was it?"
A druid who commanded a whole menagerie of animal summons. Dinosaurs Are Alive had always been strong, and teamed up with Leo for this Mock Siege, the two were putting out terrifying synergy.
Redberry closed her Eye and nodded.
"Yes. If we're rushing early, the smaller side will be easier to deal with than the swarm."
In terms of raw power, Chukachip's team was indeed the better target than Leo's, with her horde of summons and an absolute powerhouse at its core. Fewer enemies to fight through, too.
I deliberated for a moment, then turned my head to the right.
Sorry about this, Yena.
"Then let's finish this quickly, shall we?"
Redberry and I surged forward.
Took!
Pitter-patter-patter!
A small shape went bounding off across the Plains as well.
The golden twin spears were on the move.
Enemies along her path were cut down, and every piece of terrain that blocked the forest simply ceased to exist.
She ran like that for a while.
Kiii-gik…!
"Whew… running at full power is exhausting."
Burning skills and even a Mythic-grade hidden piece, she had arrived in a single burst at the front of Lily team's river.
She had confirmed it was Lily's team through Raguel of the Angel Guild and her Archer's Eye—Ten-Thousand Li Vision. The skill had an enormous cooldown, but for that one cast, it could peer at any single point across the vast map.
She'd checked the moment the game started, so she couldn't be wrong.
Having thrown out a rough update in team chat, Chukachip spun her two spears in wide arcs and swept her surroundings.
Lily is somewhere around here.
She'd leveled up in pockets along the way, and she was buying buffs in real time even now. And she was far stronger than she'd been a month ago—stronger still than two weeks ago.
She could win this.
"So first, let's see…"
Golden mana flowed.
A wave of mana running through the fortress and the river and forest around it.
She'd even burned a Legendary-tier hidden piece, so surely something would turn up.
For one full minute she felt out the abnormal currents, and her eyes slowly lifted.
"…Why isn't she here?"
Lily wasn't there.
That spine-chilling presence was nowhere in the vicinity.
Don't tell me she'd gone after the enemy team, just like her?
Flustered but composed, Chukachip began preparing her next move. Something very simple. Something easy.
"If she's not here,"
then I'll just call her out.
The golden twin spears moved.
Among all the mana she could sense, she picked the weakest presence.
"…!"
"Hello there, pipsqueak."
FWOOOOSH!!
The twin spears tore through Devil's body.
Drip, drip…
Blood seeped out in fine particles. One of his eyes had apparently lost its sight—the world swam blurry on that side.
"Oh? You withstood it?"
"Y-you human…!"
"What did you even do? That shouldn't have been nearly enough to stop it."
He couldn't type in chat anymore.
He'd taken a massive wound the instant the ambush began, and now a golden spearblade came flying straight through his layered Black Flame.
KRAKA-KAGAGAK!
His hand was impaled.
His body, blessed by his class as a Brawler and the power of the dragon, recovered at ferocious speed—but that was merely holding the line. The wounds only grew deeper.
When he couldn't just take hits forever and pushed his stamina to the absolute limit to close the distance, the golden shield orbiting her body drove him back.
'That damn Mythic gear!'
Shluk!
And the price of approaching was one more wound.
Chukachip gave her spears a lazy twirl.
"How long do you think you can block?"
"If it weren't for your gear!"
"You wouldn't be a match for me even without it."
The twin spears moved with liquid grace. Dozens of spearblades seemed to move at once, shredding Devil's small body to ribbons.
Devil was a ranker hovering around the top 100—but as a mere Level 3 General, that was all he was. His opponent, by contrast, was Rank 4 in the ladder, the undisputed top pro ranker—a Grand General.
Her level was 5.
Chukachip had designed her route with surgical precision, so in both levels and buffs, he was hopelessly outmatched.
"Grrgh! Black Flame Dragon!"
KROOOOAR!!
A mechanical-shaped Black Flame Dragon materialized behind Devil, gathering its breath—reminiscent of a colossal dragon—ready to unleash it.
Her lips curled upward.
"A dragon, hm. I've seen plenty of dragons. Killed plenty, too."
The golden spear erupted with wild demonic power, its technique's aftereffect far exceeding anything before it. The spear shot out at a speed Devil's eyes couldn't even register.
'Twin Spear Art—Swift Spear.'
Two spears punched clean through the dragon's gaping maw.
At the same moment, both of Devil's arms went flying.
"…Ah—!"
"Go call your noona. Then."
Swish.
Shaaaa… KRA-KANG!
"…!"
A sword strike wreathed in moonlight, the one that had saved Devil's life, drew a gleaming arc through the air. Chukachip retreated a short distance, glanced at her humming twin spears as though she'd expected this all along, and shrugged.
"Can I come over now? Don't tell me there's no one home."
"There's always a way in."
"My, my… Forget that—just call Lily out. I want a match with her."
"Lily?"
Right. So that was the goal all along.
"And you're confident you can get past me?"
"If I weren't, I wouldn't have come. Although—you're one to talk, oppa. Can you really be a match for anyone with a title like that?"
Chukachip was a Grand General. She'd started with a bonus 3 levels and an attack buff of 1—but Vlack was only a General, with nothing at all.
Vlack smiled and raised his black greatsword.
"Come at me, then."
Greatsword and spears collided.
White arrows came pouring down.
Arrows flying in from positions she couldn't even see.
Redberry wreathed herself in rings of fire. The lingering embers spread like a spider's web, intercepting as much of the arrow baptism as they could—but her opponent was a ranker backed by Light's Grace, a game-breakingly powerful guild buff.
The arrows punched through the fiery afterglow and struck Redberry.
The gap between Raguel and Redberry was more than sixty or seventy ranks deep.
'Tch! At this rate—'
Behind Redberry as she gritted her teeth, fireworks of flame burst to life. Each tiny spark detonated in a violent explosion, blasting apart everything around them.
Fssssk—!
Her Eye of Detection read Raguel's movement. Right. She was moving right.
Toward terrain she hadn't yet set ablaze.
"…!"
White-hot fire spread outward like a shockwave. The flames would consume the trees and the forest whole—
"Target locked."
Vmmm.
A fresh white sigil engraved itself above Redberry's head. The power dwelling in Raguel's left eye fixated its Gaze upon the 'enemy' ten thousand li away.
Her bow gleamed blinding white. The string drew back.
"Sure-Hit."
The arrow ignored every law of the world and pierced Redberry's heart.
Devil was combat-incapacitated. Redberry was dead, waiting to respawn.
Vlack was fighting Chukachip, but the outcome was anyone's guess.
As expected, the enemy was stronger than I'd imagined. Every one of them was formidable in their own right, but Chukachip's team in particular carried the highest team average rank of the three, sitting in the top 30s on average.
Chukachip's team was everything we'd observed and rated them to be—and then some.
And the bigger problem was that Leo's team, still lying in wait, was watching for its own opening.
'Redberry too… Maybe sending us out purely to scout was a mistake.'
Perhaps it was time for me to get a little serious as well.
"You think so too, right?"
"…How are you getting stronger AGAIN? Insane."
Yena panted, laughing in sheer disbelief.
In front of the fortress, Truck Shield lay dead and crumpled where he'd fallen, and Yena, riddled with wounds, gripped her two daggers tight.
Truck Shield—the man rated the best tanker in the game—gone with a single swing of a hammer. How did that make any sense?
"Your casualties are getting serious, so I'll wrap this up quickly."
"Ah— no way, that's not happening. I'm winning this whole thing. If I lose this time I literally won't be able to sleep, nya."
"Not allowed."
The spear moved.
The divinity-soaked spearhead pierced through Yena—
Sllk…
—pierced, precisely, the crimson smoke that had been standing in Yena's place.
Yena reappeared behind me. She licked her lips, crimson aura seething off her body.
"Death is coming."
[Death… is coming!]
Those who defied death awaken.
"This time will be a little different."