263. Knights of Charlemagne vs Rin - White-Night Aurora (白夜極光) (12)
263. Knights of Charlemagne vs Rin - White-Night Aurora (白夜極光) (12)
***
When the fourth scrim between Serin and Astolfo ended, the result could only be described as utterly one-sided.
Serin had won four out of four.
And as a result of those scrims, the contrast between the two of them had become starkly clear.
......
Once even Astolfo, who was normally regarded as the team's ace, lost to Serin, the Knights of Charlemagne players in the spectator seats were blinking blankly.
"...Even Astolfo lost?"
"It just means Rin's that strong."
When Seojin remarked that Astolfo's defeat was a little surprising, Sihyeon, seated nearby, looked as composed as if he had expected Astolfo's loss all along.
Whoosh!
A cluster of light formed in one part of the spectator seats and Astolfo appeared. Mina was the first to approach him, ahead of the other players.
"...Hamin. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
As Mina openly showed how disappointed she was and fussed over him, Astolfo sat down and nodded.
When Mina, seated beside him, went on about how regrettable the match was, how he could have won, Hamin let out a short laugh.
'I'm disappointed too, but.'
Even so, he didn't feel that much lingering attachment.
He had vaguely guessed it would be difficult the more he watched the earlier matches.
If anything, looking only at the match he'd just played, he was reasonably satisfied.
"I thought I'd won at the end there. Rin used a status effect skill, right?"
"Right. I felt like I shouldn't take a direct hit from the Crescent-Moon Weight. Really... now that I've faced her directly, I can feel again that she's definitely beyond what I imagined."
As Hamin answered Mina with a brief impression, the end of the match he'd just played came back to him.
He hadn't known either that a dancer using a Crescent-Moon Weight could chain techniques like that.
He'd never seen it in Solo Rank or in tournaments, so it felt like she'd caught him completely off guard.
While they were talking, a blond knight on the other side of the spectator seats rose to his feet.
The fifth match was Roland. That was him.
"You're going to do your best, right? Do your best?"
"Thanks. I'll give it my best."
As Yena looked at him standing and cheered him on, Sihyeon smiled faintly.
Step.
While the Knights of Charlemagne team was talking about the scrim results like that.
......
Serin, holding her position in the Colosseum, was relatively calm.
She had been gauging the players' skill levels even before the scrims, so she considered even the result of four wins out of four to be only natural.
'Angelica and Astolfo. Why on earth is a team like this in the lower ranks?'
If anything, some of the players were better than they'd looked in the videos, so she was a little surprised by that rather than by the match results.
And now, one person was visible in her field of view.
The captain of the Knights of Charlemagne, player name Roland.
The very person who had made this scrim happen was stepping into the Colosseum.
Serin absently looked over Roland's appearance once more.
He had the look of a knight with a composed impression beneath brilliant blond hair, and the silver armor with a large embroidered lion emblem had no particular insignia, so compared to his position as a pro team captain, he looked rather plain.
"Rin, if it's possible, could I ask you to use a sword?"
When Roland, who had descended into the Colosseum, spoke with a cautious attitude, Serin immediately dismissed her Crescent-Moon Weight.
Clink.
Then she gripped Durandal, a sword of beautiful appearance boasting a blood-red blade.
Roland gave a small nod as if to express his thanks.
Watching him, Serin casually opened her mouth.
"This scrim."
When Roland reflexively looked at her, Serin smiled faintly.
"I accepted it because of you, Roland."
At Serin's calm words, Roland suddenly blinked and stared at her.
'What does she mean?'
From her outward appearance as she said she was doing this scrim because of him, he couldn't feel any particular emotion.
Because she'd said it so very calmly.
So he couldn't make any more sense of what she meant.
They weren't acquainted before, and even if they had some point of contact, there shouldn't be anything between them.
"...Thank you."
After a brief moment of thought, Roland expressed his thanks, and Serin nodded.
Then Serin suddenly made a small gesture as if adjusting the scrim settings, taking action before the duel start notification appeared.
Soon a notification appeared in Roland's view.
Ding!
*
————
Rin has proposed a settings modification.
[Y / N]
Remove restrictions on Awakening Skills and item special abilities.
————
*
"Will you accept?"
When Serin, who had made the proposal, spoke with a smile, Roland quickly checked the conditions and nodded.
Even as he tilted his head at the condition removing the restrictions on Awakening Skills and item use, Roland found no reason to refuse.
—The duel will begin shortly.
Immediately after, the familiar duel notification appeared in both of their views, and the countdown began as well.
—7.
As the countdown time passed, Serin lowered her sword with a relaxed air, while Roland, in contrast, raised his sword with a tense expression.
The two of them were opposites even before the match began, but ironically, the outcome they were both imagining was the same.
—1.
When the countdown ended, Serin and Roland kicked off the ground toward each other as if they'd agreed on it.
The distance between them closed rapidly.
WHOOOOM!
Then, even though they were using the same weapon—Durandal, which boasted a blood-red blade—opposing auras of light began to shimmer around each of them.
Serin's Durandal surged with a deeper blood-red aura, while Roland's Durandal surged with a pure-white aura like driven snow.
'A coincidence...?'
And Serin, confirming that, let out a hollow laugh as she launched herself forward.
In Black Ark, the color of the aura Roland emitted had also been a pure white close to snow.
Before she knew it, they were within arm's reach.
As they moved into the first exchange, Serin deliberately did not use any skill.
With other players she might have, but in a scrim against Roland, the win or loss wasn't what mattered.
Unlike her, Roland deployed a skill as if following the textbook.
—Aurora.
Roland's Durandal, surging with a pure-white aura, emitted a bright light and scattered it broadly to the front, tracing an arc. Serin stepped back and swung her own sword upward in a swift rising slash.
Clang!
Meeting an opponent's skill with an ordinary attack rather than a skill was like a feat of technique that required perfectly precise timing, and Serin pulled it off calmly.
"..."
Conscious of his sword being knocked far back, Roland did not panic.
Recognizing that his opponent had deflected his skill without using any skill of her own, he sank his gaze into stillness.
Aware of the gap between himself and his opponent, he simply accepted it and burned with fighting spirit.
—Mount Tai's Presence.
Roland's knocked-back sword suddenly righted its path in a wide arc and surged toward her once more, as if condensing enormous power.
One step.
This time Serin stepped forward, calmly watching it, and swung her sword upward again in a large diagonal slash.
Clang!
The moment they met again, a massive metallic ring resounded and both swords were knocked far back once more.
And this time, Roland could not remain composed.
'...A movement I've never seen before.'
He had deployed two skills, yet his opponent had used no skill at all.
And on top of that, she had countered everything with movements he'd never seen before.
By common sense, a sword coming down from above naturally carried more force than one rising from below. Even in Another World, that basic principle was subtly maintained.
Enough that a small weight was applied even when skill met skill.
So Rin's movement, canceling out even that advantage in force with an attack that wasn't even a skill, felt truly bizarre to Roland.
Swoosh!
Immediately after, Serin extended her sword first.
A blood-red arc slashing broadly across. At a glance, it was nothing more than an ordinary attack that looked easy to deal with.
Roland swung Durandal straight and met Serin's sword head-on.
Flick.
And Serin, who had been watching his movement, suddenly twisted her wrist ever so slightly just before the swords met.
The blade that had been cutting straight across twisted at the very end, shifting its angle by a hair.
Clang!
As a result, Roland's sword, which had met Serin's broadly slashing blade, bounced high into the air, while Serin's sword was knocked back only slightly by the aftershock.
Staring straight at Roland's expression as it filled with urgency, Serin deployed a massive skill.
—Great Severance.
Durandal, which had been surging with a blood-red aura, then erupted violently with energy, and Serin cut a massive diagonal line with the same restrained movement as before.
And Roland, facing it head-on, also deployed a skill.
—White-Night Aurora.
The Durandal in Roland's hand vanished in an instant, as if buried in light.
At the same time, as the surrounding space was dyed pure white, Roland brought his sword down to meet the fiercely surging blood-red blade.
CRACKLE!!
When Serin's Durandal, laden with a massive blood-red aura, met Roland's formless sword, it created a storm with enormous repulsion and fierce scattering of light.
Whoooosh!
Serin's silver hair whipped about without pause, and Roland's blond hair was also tossed wildly by the storm-like wind.
But neither of them pulled their sword back.
The result of the enormous force where sword met sword was decided surprisingly easily.
Slaaash!!
The blood-red line rebounded fiercely and split the pure-white light filling the space.
—!
Roland's body was flying through the air as if unable to withstand the enormous force.
Just as Roland, flying back so quickly, was about to crash hard into one side of the Colosseum,
Skid...!
He barely twisted his body and landed precariously on the ground.
Minimizing the damage just before falling was certainly a professional display of quick thinking.
"..."
Serin, holding her position and watching him indifferently, was thinking about something else.
'It's subtle.'
Her impression of Roland after directly crossing swords with him just now.
In many respects, he had certainly reached a high level.
Enough that she felt the match couldn't be decided in a short time.
But that was all.
Compared to the other players, he felt well-balanced, but on the other hand, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was lacking.
The players she'd faced just before each had their own distinctive traits.
In the momentary sharpness shown while switching between offense and defense, he was outmatched by the player named Olivier.
In the way he erased openings while defending, he was inferior to the player named Angelica.
And in the speed of judgment when skills clashed, he was slower than the player named Astolfo.
He was merely well-balanced. Ironically, there wasn't a single aspect of Roland that felt special.
She got the sense that he was a textbook player with a fairly high degree of polish.
But in the end, he was only at the level of the textbook.
'It's strange.'
Crossing swords while recalling the original Roland, Serin was seized by an odd feeling.
Because compared to the real Roland she had faced, he was woefully lacking.
Even at this very moment, Serin was evaluating Roland as nothing more than a player with faint individuality.