Sparks Fly
Today's Purge Day ran for a total of one hour.
Mist wasn't about to back down so easily. The moment he respawned in bed, he came charging right back in for another round.
Did he have spare gear stashed somewhere?
Of course, he was going to lose even more spectacularly than before and respawn in bed all over again. There had been a gear gap from the start — spare equipment wasn't going to close that conversation.
"Ryuu ga waga teki wo kurau!"
"This isn't Overwatch!"
Whatever anyone else had to say, I was having a blast loosing arrows. Mist, stripped of even his diamond gear now, cut a pathetic figure as he fled for his life. You could watch his viewer count dropping in real time. Nobody had tuned in expecting a former pro gamer to look this miserable.
My stream, on the other hand, was filling up by the second. The classic bandwagon crowd was rallying hard.
Even his spare gear stripped away, Mist stood at the edge of the plaza with a vacant stare — a thoroughly pitiful sight. When he'd first heard the Purge Day briefing, he probably never imagined a future like this. He'd just shown up expecting to be the star of the show.
Without me in the picture, that future was honestly pretty likely.
Oh-ha had gear issues of her own and still wasn't fully fluent in Minecraft, while Endu was deep in small-streamer syndrome — too busy reading the room to make any aggressive plays. So if the variable called "me" hadn't existed, Mist's breakout performance would have been a constant.
"Alright, hand over the gear."
"What lane do you play in LoL?"
"Me? Uh, jungle."
"Mayo hates junglers so much, geosida!"
"Aaaagh!"
Mayo was going full unstoppable against the rest of Bad Potato Company. Mist had been fed all the good gear from the start, so everyone else on his side was running even worse kits. Mayo had a full endgame set just like me, solid physicals, and actual Minecraft experience — of course nobody could touch her.
Current rankings update! First place: Mayo with 4 kills. Second place: Seo-a with 3 kills. Third place: Apple-mong with 2 kills. Everyone, keep pushing!
Whoops. I'd been playing with Mist a little too long. Every kill was worth the same point value anyway — no reason to fixate on the hard targets.
If I handed first place to Mayo like this, I'd have to sit through her getting all puffed up and insufferable, so I decided to get serious about the kill hunt myself.
"Oh-ha-sensei, nothing personal. You know that, right?"
"Seo-a, this is so wrong. How can a student hit her teacher?!"
"No further questions!"
I took out my main rival Oh-ha first, then went hunting the small fry. Apple-mong and a whole crowd tried to coordinate a counterattack, but unfortunately for them, we had wings. The second things looked bad, we swapped gear and shot up onto the rooftops.
"Hey! That's cheap! You can't do that!"
"Just topping off my health, then I'll come down. Hold on, hold on."
Actually, wait — no need to come down at all. Mayo and I swapped to bows on the spot and started raining down unilateral fire. The other streamers hadn't even finished enchanting their diamond swords properly, much less thought about bows. Our attacks were a natural disaster.
"If you keep camping up there without coming down, we're attacking the V-Live building!"
Apple-mong's threat — a declaration that they wouldn't just sit there and take it. In an instant, we felt like public enemy number one. Oh-ha had already respawned and rejoined, bringing her crew with her. Over at the plaza's edge, Bad Potato Company looked like they were having some kind of internal spat.
"Okay! Coming down now."
I'd only been hanging around up there because watching them stamp their feet staring at the rooftop was funny — it wasn't like I was scared of a melee. Mayo and I dropped back to ground level on a shared signal.
"……"
The other streamers had us surrounded, and somehow they looked more nervous than we did. I swung my diamond sword through the air a few times, like I was issuing a challenge to the heavens, then shouted:
"Who among you dares cross blades with me!"
"……"
The whole area went dead silent.
Ah. Was that a little too wuxia?
"Kill her!"
"Waaaaagh!"
And just like that, the free-for-all began in earnest.
We'll now begin the awards ceremony. When your name is called, please step forward to the stage. First up — third place, Oh-ha!
"Woooah! We did it!"
Having barely edged out Mist for third, Oh-ha bounced her way toward the makeshift awards stage in a thoroughly undignified hop.
Third place receives 300,000 Rena. Additionally, until next week's Purge Day, a title will appear in front of your nickname in chat. Want to try it out right now?
Oh-ha came down thoroughly satisfied, declaring she'd massively upgrade her gear and go for first next Purge Day.
Hmm. Would it really go the way she imagined?
Second place! Our server's youngest resident — eighteen-year-old Mayo! She claimed second with style. Prize money of 500,000 Rena is awarded.
Grumbling all the way, Mayo collected her prize money to a warm round of applause. The surrounding streamers looked freshly stunned. Honestly, being eighteen was basically a cheat code in this industry. Even twenty-year-olds got called young on the streaming scene.
And now — the moment you've all been waiting for. Drumroll! You already know who it is, but I bet a lot of you were surprised. Honestly, I was too. Someone I never even had on my radar as a contender, dominating with overwhelming skill to take the win. Everyone, give it up! V-Live's leader Seo-a has claimed first place in Rena World's inaugural Purge Day!
Clap clap clap—!
Applause poured in from every direction. I strode forward with my head high, cutting through the noise. Along the way, I caught Mist's character looking over with studied indifference. His mental game must have been slipping — his clapping was faint. Hmm. I wondered if he was managing his facial expression. Slip up and get screenshot-posted as a hot thread on FM Community, and that would be a serious humiliation.
Seo-a receives a full 1,000,000 Rena! By the way, when did you put together a kit like that? And what's the secret to first place? I knew you were grinding hard on private streams, but still.
A little casual mental damage directed Mist's way. I could practically feel the intensity of the stare coming off his character. Even as a former pro, was a gamer's competitive fire really that fierce?
I planned this, but he took the bait so easily it's almost funny.
This was all part of a strategy to build a storyline. He'd taken a massive humiliation today, but he still had the excuse of a gear-spec gap to fall back on. So even with a slight dip in influence, Mist would remain a mainstay of Rena World.
A rivalry setup is pure profit for me. The weight-class difference is massive.
Until the big-corp streamers rolled in, Mist still had plenty of utility. He'd cause problems down the line, so there was no need to get friendly — but this exact distance felt about right.
"Wooooah! Great Seo-a! Great Seo-a!"
I'd barely stepped off the awards stage when Oh-ha came barreling over, making a huge racket. What was this about all of a sudden? I stared at her pointedly until she started reading the room and finally got to the point.
"Um, so… Seo-a, could you maybe give the items back?"
Ah. That explained the fidgeting earlier. And looking around, the other streamers seemed to have the same request on their minds.
But I wasn't about to just hand everything back for free.
"Ten thousand Rena per diamond piece! Dirt cheap, absolute steal."
Factoring in the enchants, the market rate was way higher — but if I nickel-and-dimed that hard, I'd get branded a looter. Official Rena World Villain Number One, permanently on record. I'd also earn the lasting resentment of every streamer who'd lost precious gear, plus their fans.
In that sense, pricing it at a mere ten thousand Rena — well below cost — was a perfectly calibrated move to keep the whole situation light.
Even with looting allowed under the rules, there's a limit to how much of a blind eye people will turn. At this price, nobody's really hurting.
Anyone who couldn't even afford that got their gear back on credit.
But for some reason, Mist and the rest of Bad Potato never came forward to reclaim theirs. What was this — wait, was it…?
Once everyone else had cleared out, Mist — the last one remaining — finally approached.
"I won't be taking the gear back. Next week, I'll pay you back in kind. Let's have a proper match."
"……"
Push him any further and the real serious mode might kick in, so instead of baiting him I just quietly nodded. If he paid for his gear back now, he'd have no justification for keeping mine after a win next week — so he was forfeiting on purpose? He seemed convinced he'd take the next match.
"Alright. See you next week."
"You're not going to run, are you?"
"Me?"
"As in, not logging in for the next Purge Day at all."
"……"
Haha. Now I was the one who felt a little scraped. What was this guy even saying? Had he learned nothing from today's loss? If he still hadn't felt how terrifying complacency could be, I'd just have to educate him all over again…
I casually pulled out Mist's own diamond sword, gave it a swing through the air, and said:
"Don't you worry. I'll put this to good use. The gear itself is innocent — it just had the misfortune of meeting the wrong owner."
"……"
Between our locked gazes, sparks flew with fierce intensity.