She Is a God
"What, it's easy?"
The moment Merhen said that, almost every viewer watching her stream foresaw the future. Oh, she's gonna get wrecked.She just raised a massive flag.
Merhen had basically cleared the tutorial at that point. She was a total newbie who'd just gotten a tiny taste of the 'S' in soul-like.
Newbies like that always think, Huh? That wasn't so bad? the first time they smoothly take down an early enemy. Yeah. That's how they let their guard down. And soul-like games? They love exploiting that complacency.
Almost every overconfident newbie ends up getting baptized—hard—by the soul-like genre. They put on a show of pure suffering. Someone once said, other people's pain is your entertainment, right?
Merhen's viewers were all united in hope. Please, let that smug grin twist into agony.
The second and third enemies appeared. A fight against multiples. A good chunk of viewers figured she'd die here at least once. Plenty more thought she'd struggle hard, even if she didn't wipe.
But Merhen shattered every expectation. She sliced through them without hesitation—like someone who'd been playing soul-likes forever.
In the end, she took zero hits and dropped them all. Instead of darkening, her face lit up even brighter.
"I get why you guys told me to play Shadow Wolf or Chaos Ring now. This is fun!"
"Nah? First time ever. What, you don't believe me? I'll show you my Steam account later. That cool?"
Even as she said it, Merhen kept pushing forward. Her character sprinted toward the city. It wasn't far—just a bit more and she'd arrive.
Then suddenly, her character's legs froze.
Of course they did. She'd let go of the stick on her pad.
Stopping control out of nowhere left viewers puzzled.
Viewers' curiosity flooded the chat. Merhen stared at it silently for a moment before speaking up.
"...Come to think of it, guys. Is this game really open-world?"
"What I'm saying is, I'm curious what happens if you don't head straight to the nearest city."
"Sweet. Let's head this way then."
No hesitation—she turned and charged straight ahead.
{Hmm. Kinda getting bad vibes here.}
A warning voice in her head. But she ignored it. And ignoring the warning came at a cost———
In a normal game's flow, going off the main path this early meant running into a boss you had no business facing. Everyone figured the newbie luck had run dry.
And———
A grotesque monster, wielding two axes and three times the size of my controlled character, charged in. The beast leaped high into the air.
In that instant, I intuited the next attack. A brutal axe smash—dumb but devastating. Could I parry it? Was parry some invincible defense?
Split-second questions to myself. The answer came fast: Don't parry.
I'd never played soul-likes. But I'd watched enough NewTube vids to predict. Attacks with that wind-up are strong, and parrying them breaks your stance—your character gets vulnerable after.
So what I needed wasn't parry to block. It was roll—invincible frames without burning stamina.
Timing was key. But my lack of experience didn't tell me the perfect window. I had to trust instinct.
And I didn't hesitate. I knew pad input delay. Didn't know roll i-frames exactly.
To figure it out, I couldn't eat hits from the start. I needed insane luck. Luck to rack up experience.
Mix parry and roll. Use parry to buy time for stamina regen, roll when ready. Swing at the enemy occasionally, but its HP barely budged.
To deal real damage, parry was the way. Roll. Block. Block. Roll again.
All focus on the game. No peeking at chat—not streamer-like. No chit-chat. Not my usual style.
Every minute, every second dragged. Cold sweat on my palms.
Finally, I ate a hit. HP plummeted. One attack shaved off over half. One more and I'm dead.
No healing items. Enemy at 70%+ HP. Anyone could see it was over.
But I didn't break.
"...Okay."
That hit taught me the roll frames. Not perfect, but close enough. No mistakes. And if heaven smiled on me.
"I got this."
Soul-likes are tough on first clears. Enemies have varied patterns; you read, time actions perfectly to break them.
Blind? No clue what's coming or how to counter. That's why you die a ton to learn.
But right now, Merhen was ignoring that. Breaking brand-new patterns on the fly.
After eating one hit, zero more. Chat slowed—everyone glued to the stream.
The graphics made the fight pulse with intensity. Merhen's godlike controls elevated the broadcast to art.
A smile crept on her lips. Some viewers caught on.
Enemy stopped showing new patterns. All out. She'd cracked every counter.
No luck now. Pure skill decided it.
Enemy HP melted. Down to 20%. Parry gauge full—staggered.
Merhen hit the skill key. Cooldown-ready ultimate—the long one.
Mistake. She'd saved it for a cinematic finish. Ult damage could chunk 10% off a staggered foe.
Meaning... 10% left after. She'd passed better chances for the show.
Deflated, she watched the screen.
Protagonist's ult fired. Face cam zoomed. She got it instantly.
"Cutscene?"
Fancy演出 to show it's no ordinary attack. Otaku-bait visuals, powered by killer graphics.
Sword trail of light cleaved the world. Explosion followed.
She went to follow up—but froze.
"...Huh?"
It was down. The boss I could confidently call strong.
What Merhen forgot: Ult had a slight crit multiplier in the description.
Odds were abysmal, so she'd mentally erased it. But those slim odds favored her.
Realizing victory shattered her focus. Only then did she remember the stream.
A year in, still green. She scratched her head sheepishly.
"Looks like straying off the main path spikes the difficulty hard. Whew. What kinda ramp-up is that?"
Ah, should've just played it cocky.
That thought hit, and———
Donos poured in like a dam burst.