162. Face Genius Seo Eunwoo
162. Face Genius Seo Eunwoo
***
-...You couldn't parry that one.
At Eunha's voice, whispered as if right in her ear, Serin let out a small laugh and shook out her hand.
Swish.
Following the light gesture, a blood-red cord embroidered the air with a soft flutter, and the uniquely shaped Crescent-Moon Weight attached to its end gave off a blood-red glow that was almost bewitching.
"I don't parry everything."
The sudden long-range strike that had flashed in with a burst of blue light had clearly been unexpected, so she hadn't managed to parry it.
She'd been taking it lightly, and in that split second she'd nearly embarrassed herself in front of nearly 100,000 viewers, but honestly, deflecting it hadn't been that hard.
[Jeanne d'Arc pointing out a failed parry lmao]
[No but it's weirder that Rin deflected that at all]
[Ichinokata!!]
[Isn't the opponent that NewTuber Byeokryeokseom?]
[No, it's a copy. There are a few people who do iaido following Byeokryeokseom]
[Byeokryeokseom's in upper Master right now? Around there]
She glanced at chat while keeping her eyes on her opponent.
Wondering if there really were people who insisted on iaido alone, she found the opponent's appearance a little fascinating.
Shing. Clack!
He sheathed a sword she hadn't even seen him draw, then lowered his upper body again. He gripped the sheath at his waist and took the distinctive iaido stance, and the movement was so disciplined it looked like watching some traditional martial art.
'So there's a class like this too.'
The opponent wore samurai clothing that looked like it belonged in an anime or manga and took the distinctive iaido stance.
In a way, that look was a kind of romance, if you wanted to call it that.
Hummmm!!
Blue light seeped and condensed into the opponent's sword hand, and a faint sound resonated. The thought that he was going to use a completely different technique this time sparked her curiosity.
"Ah. Jeanne d'Arc, please don't tell me about the opponent's skills in advance."
She said it to Eunha first.
If she knew in advance, it wouldn't be fun, so no coaching.
-Yes. I won't.
Leaving Eunha's calm voice behind, I recalled the purpose of this stream.
Right now, showing the viewers was what mattered most. In that case, there was no need to crush the opponent.
Even if I'd made a name for myself to some degree, an opportunity to show myself in front of 100,000 viewers would clearly be rare.
So I needed to show them now.
What kind of person I was,
how much skill the streamer called Rin possessed.
——!!
Even while thinking, I stayed focused on the opponent, and when the blue light flashed brightly once more, the movement was now clearly visible.
—Second Form: Cloud Thrust.
The samurai swiftly drew his sword and thrust it straight through the empty air in an instant.
The condensed blue light gathered in his hand traced a blue arc, beautifully embroidering the space, and at the end, like a giant balloon pierced by a needle bursting all at once, the condensed blue light shot out as if exploding in a single moment.
The movement lasted only an instant, but Serin was focused, so she caught all of it while quickly swinging her Crescent-Moon Weight.
—Jeolyeon.
A blood-red line bloomed large, and as if it would split the space itself, it surged out with an eerie light and collided with the bursting blue light.
CLANG!!!
Technique against technique.
In that moment, Serin felt she had deflected something, but she wasn't satisfied at all.
"..."
She looked at the hand holding the Crescent-Moon Weight and felt a strangely unfamiliar sensation. The fluttering blood-red cord still embroidered the air, but perhaps because the weight felt different from the Crescent-Moon Weight she'd worn before, she felt like her timing was off.
Then, suddenly, she looked at the samurai and tilted her head.
Unlike what she'd expected—that he would close in and dance with his blade—he was using ranged techniques from far away.
"Isn't iaido supposed to not be a ranged class?"
And he kept attacking from a position that barely reached the very edge of her Crescent-Moon Weight's range, which felt strange even while fighting him.
-He's probably an iaido user specialized in sword energy.
At Eunha's voice, I found myself wondering what she meant.
'Iaido specialized in sword energy?'
Maybe it meant firing sword energy the moment he drew—and I couldn't help but let out a small laugh.
"There really are all kinds of classes."
The opponent's appearance came into focus again.
Shing. Clack!
Every time he finished an attack, he sheathed his sword. It looked like a kind of ready stance, and watching it made me look forward to what technique he'd use next.
......
Until the opponent's next attack, Serin slowly swung her weapon through the air, partly to get used to the Crescent-Moon Weight.
She yielded the first move, and even after receiving the second attack, she showed no intention of attacking at all. It was clearly nothing more than a simple warm-up. But that alone was enough to make the opponent feel a certain irritation.
***
An entertainer under SJ Entertainment, and one of the actors whose name comes to mind first when people think of handsome men in this era.
—Seo Eunwoo.
He even carried the special epithet "next-generation face genius," but he had not been an actor from the start.
He had originally debuted as a member of the male idol group 'SJJ.' But with his looks, which drew attention even among the other members, and his naturally bright personality, he had attracted major attention within just a few months of debuting.
So much so that his personal fandom as Seo Eunwoo grew even larger than the fandom for the idol group SJJ.
After that, he appeared in everything from variety shows to dramas and gradually made his name widely known, and as if it were only natural, he left SJJ and began promoting as a solo artist.
He had always stood out even while promoting with SJJ, like a crane among chickens, so perhaps going solo had been an entirely natural progression.
Having just finished filming the drama 'A Thousand Faces,' he was now enjoying a sweet rest at the luxury home under his own name.
Rustle.
Late in the afternoon, Eunwoo, who had just woken up, ran a hand through his tousled blond hair and picked up his smartphone with bleary eyes to check the time.
"...It's already 6 p.m.?"
Muttering blankly, Eunwoo checked the time and wondered just how many hours he'd slept.
'Ten hours...?'
No, was it eleven?
He'd played Another World until dawn and then slept, and before he knew it, it was afternoon.
After days of being crushed by his schedule and only sleeping four hours a night, this was a rare sweet break...
He let out a small sigh and touched his smartphone.
Click-clack.
The distinctive sound, like chocolate snapping and breaking. Tapping his smartphone with the sound he'd set only for rest days, he soon entered the Another World community.
With the drama filming he'd only recently finished and other schedules, he truly hadn't had a single moment of free time. So he'd deliberately avoided even going on Another World-related community sites.
Actually, he hadn't just avoided the community—he'd deliberately avoided checking Another World-related NewTube videos and even articles. Even that much had felt like it would interfere with filming and work.
Just seeing it made him want to play Another World so badly that he'd forced himself to hold back. He didn't even know how many days it had been since he'd last gone on the community.
"Is Jeanne d'Arc doing okay now?"
Seo Eunwoo was a rather unusual celebrity who proclaimed himself a huge fan of Jeanne d'Arc.
There had certainly been cases before of celebrities with star-level names proclaiming themselves fans of someone else, but usually it was nothing more than a formality or politeness.
But Seo Eunwoo's interest was so great that he consistently showed interest in Jeanne d'Arc even in his SNS activity.
As soon as he connected to the Another Level site, Eunwoo looked at the trending posts and blinked.
[Is it real that Jeanne d'Arc appeared on a stream??]
[Jeanne d'Arc says Rin is prettier in real life.AVI]
[Jeanne d'Arc collabing with Rin...a collection of her adorable way of talking.]
[tweetie lowest-hours highest viewer count renewed!!]
[What is Jeanne d'Arc's influence...?]
[Rin and Jeanne d'Arc being lovey-dovey, I wrote this down for myself.txt]
The trending posts were practically plastered with posts about Jeanne d'Arc.
Wondering who this Rin person appearing here and there was, Eunwoo clicked through the posts one by one, and his eyes were drawn to the word "stream."
"Jeanne d'Arc is appearing on something like an internet broadcast?"
Eunwoo, who knew how important a celebrity's image was, couldn't understand why Jeanne d'Arc, whose name value was as high as his own, would appear on a stream.
SJ Entertainment would surely have tried to stop it. But that question lasted only a moment before he turned on the PC nearby and sat down in the chair.
He couldn't miss a chance to see Jeanne d'Arc.
......
Tap-tap-tap.
—Tweettie
Having made a typo, Eunwoo immediately searched again.
—tweetie.
He pressed Enter and connected to the site right away.
Several streams were visible, but the very first one showed an incredible viewer count of 100,000 along with the stream title.
[Collab with Jeanne d'Arc]
The stream title alone made it impossible not to click.
Relieved that he wasn't too late, he quickly clicked.
Click.
But the moment he entered the stream, what appeared was a beverage ad.
Frowning at that, Eunwoo waited for the ad to end.
Then the screen appeared.
"Who's that?"
The screen clearly looked like the Colosseum in Another World, and inside the Colosseum he could see a silver-haired female character and a samurai character.
The Jeanne d'Arc he'd expected was nowhere to be seen.
—Ah. Jeanne d'Arc, please don't tell me about the opponent's skills in advance.
As Serin's confident, beautiful voice rang out, Eunwoo's eyes returned to the screen.
'You can make a character look like that?'
Admiring Serin's appearance without realizing it, Eunwoo looked at the chat window to find Jeanne d'Arc.
[A samurai using iaido and a dancer using a Crescent-Moon Weight, my heart is swelling for real]
[A matchup like this would be hard to set up even if you tried lmaoooo]
[Rin deflecting Jeanne d'Arc's own coaching, what even lol]
[Rin tells the world's best player not to backseat her, OMG]
Still not understanding the situation, Eunwoo looked at chat but still couldn't grasp what was happening.
-Yes. I won't.
But at the voice that followed right after, Eunwoo immediately recognized it.
Jeanne d'Arc's distinctive calm voice.
"Who's Rin...?"
Muttering the channel name he saw, Eunwoo still didn't understand the situation, but for now he focused on the screen.