255. Knights of Charlemagne vs Rin - The Blue-Haired Female Knight (4)
255. Knights of Charlemagne vs Rin - The Blue-Haired Female Knight (4)
***
When the first match ended and Seojin, now a cluster of light, appeared in the stands, the next person to rise was a knight.
A blue-haired knight clad in armor the deep red of blood—an unusual knight who wielded a heavy mace, ill-suited to her delicate appearance.
Player name: Bradamante. Park Mina.
In the middle-to-late season, when the Knights of Charlemagne were said to have lost their form overall, she was the one said to have carried the team alone.
"You're better than I expected."
Mina, who had spoken offhandedly as she descended toward the Colosseum, glanced over at Hamin.
At her look, as if asking whether he had anything to say, Hamin grinned and offered a word.
"Fighting?"
"Fighting!"
Mina answered with a matching "Fighting!" as if pleased by his encouragement, then headed for the Colosseum.
Hamin, who had been watching her with an expression that found her cute, slowly let his smile fade.
Because he could guess how Mina's expression would change next.
When he turned his head, he saw the silver-haired woman standing in the Colosseum, still holding her position after finishing the first match.
Gripping Durandal, she watched Mina descend with a calm air, utterly composed.
A composure that did not consider defeat even in the slightest.
Seeing that, Hamin found his gaze drawn to Mina for no particular reason.
Even now, as she descended while sneaking glances at him, she looked as though she wanted to show him something good.
But that was, unexpectedly, a very difficult wish.
'She's probably going to get hurt...'
The thought came to him without meaning to.
When Mina, whose self-esteem was especially high, faced yet another wall, would her mental state survive?
She would realize the insurmountable gap between them.
For a pro, there was nothing more terrifying than that.
Objectively recognizing one's own position, and therefore striving harder and aiming higher, was an essential mindset for a pro.
But people were not beings who could speak purely rationally.
When actually confronted with an existence like an insurmountable wall, most people struggled to even look up at it.
Even with just a steep uphill slope right in front of them, people instinctively feel resistance.
When they look at something that feels like a wall, most people either collapse there or give up on climbing.
It wasn't for nothing that pro players in the top 0.001% of Another World fell into slumps when they first faced Jeanne d'Arc.
The pure difference in talent, the difference in skill, and even the judgment and momentary unorthodox movements—all of it forced you to feel an innate genius.
Most people inevitably fell into deep disillusionment and doubt about their own abilities.
Even I had experienced that myself.
So usually, there were only two ways out of that slump.
Either judge Jeanne d'Arc as a player outside the norm, treat her as a separate case, and force yourself to accept it.
Or instead think of someone like her as a goal and burn with even greater determination.
The Mina Hamin knew had a winning mindset and belonged to the latter, but her mental state was severely flawed.
While Hamin was lost in such thoughts,
"...Ha, seriously."
Seojin, who had sat down near Sihyeon after the first match ended, let out a hollow laugh and rubbed his neck once.
The sensation of that moment when his throat had been pierced was still vivid.
The instantaneous chain of attacks was unbelievable even after being on the receiving end. No matter what technique he tried to recall, nothing came to mind.
"With skills like that, she's a streamer?"
When Seojin spoke offhandedly, Sihyeon answered with a faint smile.
"Right? I don't know why she isn't going pro either."
Seojin, who had been staring blankly at Rin still in the arena, roughly ruffled his hair.
"That Rin person seemed to drag out the match on purpose just to show off that movement. It's annoying, but in the end I lost completely, so I can only blame my own skill."
At Seojin's resigned tone, Sihyeon looked at him with a faintly pitying gaze.
Even from the stands, he had noticed several moments where the match could have been ended. There was no way the person facing it directly hadn't felt it.
The thought crossed his mind that she might be toying with him or looking down on him, but he sensed a different intent in her.
For example, like that bizarre technique from just now.
"I think she might have learned some kind of swordsmanship separately somewhere. And she's actually reproducing it in Another World. Honestly, it's hard to believe, but Rin seems capable of it."
"Sihyeon, do you have any information that this Rin person was a knight user?"
When Seojin asked as if it were strange, Sihyeon shook his head as if he had no idea.
"When I looked into it, she definitely only played as a dancer. There's no known alt character record or anything like that. Even if she wasn't a knight, she showed on stream that she could handle a greatsword too."
When Yena, who had been watching the timing, spoke up, Seojin frowned even more.
"Next time I face her, I'll probably have to go in focusing entirely on variables... Honestly, it feels like I've hit another wall."
"Seojin, did you eat something weird? Why are you being so honest today?"
"...You'll understand if you fight her. It feels exactly like going up against Jeanne d'Arc."
Yena, who had been listening to Seojin's assessment of Rin, blinked.
She wasn't even the same knight class, and he was praising a dancer by comparing her to Jeanne d'Arc—it was absurd.
"...Feels like going up against Jeanne d'Arc?"
"Yeah."
Even when Yena asked again, Seojin answered coldly.
Sihyeon, who had simply been watching their conversation, suddenly saw Mina step down into the Colosseum.
***
"Honestly, I wasn't expecting it, but you're quite good with a sword too, Rin."
When Mina, now in the Colosseum, spoke brightly, Serin answered with only a small smile.
Unlike the scrim with G1, the scrim with the Knights of Charlemagne felt very strange to her now.
It was like showing off Roland's movements.
The scrim itself was enjoyable, but the purpose was clearly different from back then.
"I'll be looking forward to it."
When Serin spoke calmly, Mina nodded as well.
And so they took their positions at opposite ends.
—The duel begins.
Immediately, along with the duel start notification,
—10. 9.
The countdown began.
Looking at the blue-haired knight in red armor, gripping a vicious mace in her hand, Serin felt the corner of her mouth rise without thinking.
Bradamante.
As if by coincidence, Bradamante in Black Ark had also used a two-handed mace as her main weapon.
Feeling that this world and that world strangely shared commonalities, Serin slowly raised her sword to chest height.
A different stance from when she had first faced Olivier.
—1.
The moment the countdown ended, they kicked off the ground just as in the first match.
But the pattern was completely different.
The movements of the knight in blood-red armor were utterly domineering.
Immense power was imbued in her movements, and the Colosseum floor caved in with each step.
Crunch!
Suddenly, Bradamante stomped down with force and leaped high—the red-armored knight rose into the air abnormally.
'Did she use Leap?'
As Serin watched her, recalling a skill at that abnormal leap,
Bradamante raised the mace gripped in both hands high and activated a skill.
—Great Destruction.
As the body of the heavy mace began to glow blue, Serin was dumbfounded.
Her opponent was showing unexpected movements from the very first attack.
Watching that, Serin couldn't stay on the ground, so she kicked off and activated a skill.
—Soaring Melody.
Following the blood-red trail of Durandal cutting through the air, Serin's body shot upward and escaped the attack range.
In contrast, Bradamante dropped her body as if falling vertically from the air and slammed the massive mace down with full force.
BOOM!
A massive crater erupted around Bradamante as she struck the Colosseum floor, the ground collapsing. Serin, suspended in the air, took in the destructive sight and slowly righted her posture.
And at that moment, Mina's pitch-black eyes, gripping the mace driven into the ground, sharply locked onto her.
She lifted the mace with force and spun her body violently, a massive blue aura tracing an arc through space as she activated another skill in succession.
—Detroit Force.
A sharp blue light carved along the path of the mace's wide rotation, and as the mace was swung fiercely toward Serin in the air, a violent blue aura surged forward like an explosion.
Bradamante's seamless chain of skills.
As she activated the skill as if predicting that the first Great Destruction would be dodged, Serin's gaze went to her in midair.
'She's serious from the start.'
The intense blue light was surging toward her, timed to catch the moment she landed.
Swish!
Serin swung her sword with force in midair, using the slight recoil to activate a familiar skill.
—Single Kick.
As the momentum of the sword swing rotated her body half a turn, her blood-tinged leg naturally struck the air.
Boom!
At its tip, blood-red light flared savagely and space burst open, and Serin's body veered off its falling trajectory like a shot.
CRACKLE!
The energy that had lost its target struck the outer edge of the light pillar and dissipated with resistance.
Tap.
Serin landed on the Colosseum floor, now wrecked by Great Destruction, and said what she had planned to say.
"Two left."
Mina, who had been watching Serin's acrobatic midair movements with fascination, tilted her head at the sudden words.
"Two left? What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I don't intend to drag this out like the first match."
"..."
After that, as if she had grasped the meaning, Mina's expression hardened in silence.
This player was more than merely emotional—she was so swayed by emotion that it could ruin her matches, so there was a need to provoke her openly.
She was an outstanding player with no real shortcomings in judgment, mechanics, or unorthodox attacks, but the reason she couldn't rise higher was none other than her mentality.
Even a brief search turned up countless issues related to her mental state.
So since we would face each other at least twice today, I intended to go after her mentality from the start.
Unless I broke that mentality—her stubborn pride in herself—no advice, no display of technique would mean anything right now.
"Ha, anyone listening would think you were Jeanne d'Arc or something."
At the knight's fierce words, forgetting even her polite speech, Serin twisted the corner of her mouth.
"Do you think I'm worse than Jeanne d'Arc?"
"You, listen... do you realize you're saying something absurdly arrogant right now?"
The blue-haired knight gripped her mace as if offended and shot her a savage glare.
Serin drove the wedge in completely.
"If you end up losing pathetically, I'm sure that one person watching right now... would be disappointed."
Serin turned her gaze toward the stands, directing it as if singling out one player among them.
"...!"
Mina, realizing who Serin had been looking at when she spoke, glared at her with sharpened eyes and ground her teeth.