241. Option 3
241. Option 3
***
—Oh, were you watching my stream, Rin?
As if Sua's startled remark had set off a spark, even the chat window erupted over Serin.
[Rin??]
[lololol she hosted and then was watching Sua's stream]
[what the hahahaha]
[number 3 let's gooooooo]
[333]
[111 I wanted to see the Demon Realm]
[Rin turn your stream on!!]
[just party up and do a collab stream let's goooooo]
[Can Plea even solo the Demon Realm?]
[I think the voting options were set too high]
Serin, who had been watching the stream, let out a dazed, hollow laugh.
'I really am out of it.'
Because I had typed in chat without thinking, the chat window—which already had plenty to say about me—had completely shifted its attention onto me.
Immediately after, Serin sent Sua a whisper to apologize, and Sua on screen smiled faintly and shook her head.
—Rin whispered me to say she was sorry for drawing attention. You really don't need to be that sorry! I bring you up because I like doing it.
Sua smiled brightly, said over and over that it was fine, and then closed the vote.
—I'll take votes up to here. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who can guess the result, right?
Watching the stream, Serin muttered blankly.
"Is it because of me...?"
Since the result of the vote was predictable, Serin felt awkward for no reason.
Because of the chat she had sent, the previously split opinions in chat had undeniably tilted toward option 3.
The vote result revealed right after showed, as expected, that a majority of voters had voted for option 3.
—Then, as the vote decided, I'll head to the Ruined Relic Site.
As Sua calmly stated this and began moving toward the location, Serin hurriedly sent a whisper.
—[Rin : How about we just party up? That Ruined Relic Site place looks dangerous]
On Sua's world map shown on stream, it did appear as an appropriate hunting ground, but that was by party standards—it didn't mean it was an appropriate hunting ground for solo play.
In the first place, just because I do solo play didn't mean there was any reason for Sua to follow suit and solo as well.
It wasn't that I doubted Sua's skill or anything, but I couldn't just send nothing and felt a twinge of conscience.
—Rin whispered asking if I wanted to party up, but I'm really okay. It's not like anyone's making me do this—I'm doing it because I want to. And the Ruined Relic Site isn't a dungeon-type hunting ground, so if it feels dangerous, I can just leave.
Sua smiled and said she was really okay, then summoned a mount. Immediately after, a magnificent black horse with a burning mane appeared.
Neigh!
Sua mounted the black horse, which had let out a cry, with practiced ease and set her destination on the world map before moving out.
"...I don't know anymore."
Serin, who had been watching the stream, felt ambivalent.
Sua had clearly said she was okay, but... she couldn't shake the feeling that she had influenced the result.
......
Clank, clank.
The distinctive metallic sound of iron armor interlocking rang out, and a blonde female knight clad in splendid silver-gleaming armor walked steadily through the Abyssal Ruined Relic Site while keeping watch around her.
This place fell within the territory of the Great Demonic Beast Zervallua. Zervallua itself didn't appear here, but it was a region where quite dangerous monsters spawned in large numbers.
Because monsters tainted by the so-called "Abyss" appeared here.
"Coming in here alone... should I say it feels new? It definitely seems like there's a thrill to it..."
Even as Sua voiced her impressions, her feelings were strange.
Because she was far more tense than she had expected.
In a normal party, a melee class in the vanguard would usually take the lead, followed by melee-type damage dealers or buffers in the middle row, and ranged classes positioned in the rear, forming a formation.
But right now she was advancing entirely alone, so she had to handle all of those roles by herself.
Aside from having to watch the front while also keeping an eye on the rear, there was more than one thing weighing on her mind.
'Is this... the secret to Rin's skill?'
Sua even found herself thinking that without realizing it.
Solo play was convenient and offered more rewards, so anyone who could do it would want to, but there was a reason countless users didn't solo and instead formed parties.
Because doing it alone was far harder and actually less efficient. Even when hunting a few monsters, there was a difference in fatigue between hunting in a party and hunting alone.
Feeling that firsthand now, Sua thought of Serin anew.
She couldn't understand how Serin managed to solo every time.
And in response to Sua's current state, the chat window was full of messages cheering her on with a mix of worry and anticipation, but Sua's attention was entirely focused on watching her surroundings, so she didn't notice.
Step.
Walking with her nerves stretched taut, Sua suddenly stopped and looked around.
'...This is way too stressful.'
Before she knew it, she was surrounded by demonic beasts.
Every one of them was a menacing-looking demonic beast with glowing red eyes.
Grrrr...! Grrrr...!
As the wolves' howls echoed like a resonance, Sua raised her sword.
Hummm!
As a golden radiance slowly began to shimmer over the blade of the raised rapier,
the dozens of demonic beasts surrounding her also threw themselves at Sua as if pouncing.
—!
At that moment, Sua's form turned gold and vanished from the spot.
Immediately after, as the demonic beasts stopped at the sight of Sua's vanished figure, a golden line was carved across the space.
Grrrr...!
As the neck of a wolf-shaped demonic beast was severed, countless golden lines began slicing through the space one after another, as if cutting it apart.
......
Before long, an hour had passed since Sua entered the Abyssal Ruined Relic Site and began hunting.
And Serin had continued watching Sua's stream.
She was worried about Sua, who was soloing because of her, but at the same time, a great curiosity had welled up.
Before she knew it, she was watching the stream as if entranced.
"What the—she's good?"
Sua was doing far better than expected.
Demonic beasts with red eyes that moved in packs had appeared to attack Sua over and over, and each time, Sua calmly deployed her skills and responded.
The sight of golden lines rapidly embroidering the space looked completely different from when they had faced each other in the arena. Sua's divine presence, enhanced by the effects of her mythic item, looked truly peerless.
[Plea! Plea! Plea! Plea!]
[Whoa, look at how clean and refreshing that is]
[That's practically slaughter-level, isn't it?]
[She might actually be able to solo this, damn]
[fr at Sua's level it just seems doable]
[Plea's totally geared out too, so she's always been good at hunting]
The chat was full of people marveling at Sua's performance, enough that Sua's strength was on another level.
"The arena adjustment really was absurd."
Serin felt anew that the arena adjustment was bigger than she'd thought.
Sua's current on-screen performance was at a level the broadcast could barely keep up with. Sua appeared and disappeared across the screen over and over.
If I had shown acrobatic moves like parrying or deflecting monster attacks, then Sua's current performance on stream was all-out offense—rather than deflecting or blocking, she was rapidly carrying out a slaughter.
Swift swordplay and flashy golden skill deployment that left even the viewers feeling refreshed.
As if embodying the saying that the best defense is a good offense, she was using only skills meant to attack demonic beasts, so in a sense it was no different from Sua's one-sided rampage.
"Knight seems really fun too."
Watching Sua's increasingly flashy play, Serin was fully appreciating the appeal of the Knight class.
Pursuing fluid movement and speed was, in a way, similar to a Dancer, but while Dancers specialized in deflecting or countering, the playstyle Sua was showing now was completely different.
A style that seemed to prove that if you pushed an all-out offensive playstyle to its limit, defense became unnecessary. Sua's movements like that were utterly novel.
Moreover, even among the same Knight class, playstyles differed completely depending on the person.
The G1 player Jinhyeok, whom she had faced in the last scrim, valued balance and used a one-handed sword and shield, but he showed the quirk of splitting his play between extreme defense and extreme offense.
And Jeanne d'Arc, who also used a one-handed sword and shield but thoroughly countered her opponents, was like an enormous wall.
Her combat style, which leaned toward neither offense nor defense, countered opponents after just a few exchanges and carried a sharpness that ended fights in a single blow.
In a way, she was like the textbook ideal closest to the fundamental "knight."
Beyond that, the knights on the Knights of Charlemagne team all had highly varied playstyles as well.
While Serin was thinking that, Sua on screen stopped moving and let out an excited breath.
—Plea-lings. Has it been two hours since I started hunting now?
When Sua spoke for the first time in a while, the viewers all answered quickly.
[It's been about an hour now]
[It's been an hour lolol]
[Looks like Plea was super focused]
—It's only been an hour? What do I do... I don't think I can hunt anymore.
When Sua laughed awkwardly and said that, Serin wondered, "Why?"
From her perspective, Sua looked like she could keep going.
She hadn't taken any damage, and Sua's current appearance showed no problems at all.
Sua on screen slowly shook her head and explained.
—Hunting alone, the stress is seriously no joke compared to anything else. I feel like a fatigue accumulation warning is about to pop up even now... I think stopping here is the right call.
Even with Sua explaining her reasoning, Serin found it hard to understand.
To her, only "one hour" had passed.
"...You're stopping already?"
Even as she said it, Serin felt a deep sense of disappointment.
Just watching, she had found Sua's play quite impressive, but since Sua said the stress was severe, she couldn't bring herself to whisper and ask for more.
'Did Sua have something tiring happen too?'
So she even had that thought.
Because Sua hadn't seemed to have been streaming that long, yet she was struggling.
Right now, Serin completely failed to understand Sua.
Hunting alone for a whole hour in an appropriate-level "party hunting ground" was already beyond ordinary.
But to Serin, who had experienced real solo hunting every day since her Black Ark days, it felt somehow lacking.
Serin was now unconsciously judging Sua by her own standards.
Ding! Ding!
In an instant, the stream screen turned red with danger warnings. At the same time, warning alerts popped up from both the front and the rear.
The moment Sua realized she had been flanked, her expression hardened and she tried to escape the area in one move. But black spears were already slicing through the air toward her.
"Ah."
Watching the screen blankly, Serin thought Sua wouldn't be able to dodge the spears.
It wasn't that Sua's reaction was slow, but the timing of the spears shot from the front and back looked far too exquisite.
The thrown spears, fired like long-range sniper shots, seemed almost unfair.
——!
But contrary to expectations, Sua's body twisted bizarrely and evaded the spears like some kind of acrobatic maneuver.
Immediately after, Sua's surprised expression shifted, and without hesitation she began withdrawing from the area.
Swish!
Sua's form moved rapidly, golden lines continuing to embroider the space. Within a few minutes, she had completely escaped the hunting ground and burst out laughing.
—Whoa... seriously, Plea-lings, did you see the ring skill activate just now!?
Sua held up the ruby ring on her index finger and smiled brightly.
—No, seriously, it felt like Rin was protecting me just now. When it activated, wasn't it really amazing?
Serin blinked, then let out a dumbfounded laugh.
"That movement... was a ring option?"
She had been momentarily speechless, wondering if that had been Sua's own skill, but since it wasn't, she even felt a little deflated.
She had genuinely admired the acrobatic movement.
Still, she had worried Sua might die with no way out, so she was relieved.
BaTalk!
At the sudden BaTalk notification, Serin belatedly checked the message.
Kim Hayoon.
[Have you seen the RinTube reaction right now!?]
Park Soyul.
[A famous celebrity left a comment on RinTube! Wow... no, seriously! How is this happening? RinTube is even on the trending search terms right now!]
At the editors' BaTalk messages, Serin blinked blankly.
"Why is a celebrity suddenly showing up?"