26. Challenger Rank 8, Plea - (3)
26. Challenger Rank 8, Plea - (3)
***
The word handicap.
The more she thought about how that word had been offered purely out of consideration, the more it just made her laugh.
She knew full well that the reason Plea had said something like a handicap against her was purely out of goodwill—not because she was looking down on her skill or being sarcastic.
Screeeak.
As she pulled on the black cord bound to the Crescent-Moon Weight, a distinctly different texture ran through her hand.
A peculiar texture that called to mind the Crescent-Moon Weight she had touched in the world of Black Ark.
"...So you really want to do it like that?"
Plea spoke from in front of her with an apologetic expression, but now Serin simply nodded without any particular words.
Plea asked again and again, as if she couldn't get over the fact that Serin wouldn't take a handicap, but Serin refused every time.
They would duel with no conditions on either side.
Handicap or no handicap, the truth was that in the world of Black Ark, if some overwhelmingly powerful existence picked a fight with her, she had either gritted her teeth and run if she didn't want to die, or forced herself to fight even if it meant getting beaten to the brink of death.
And now. Right now, wearing the equipment Plea had just given her, talk of item-grade differences honestly didn't even register.
No, really. It was nothing.
Of course, she knew her opponent was a Challenger Tier user—and not just any Challenger, but someone with overwhelming talent who ranked within the top ten among those who had reached Challenger Tier.
No matter how much attention I was getting on NewTube or in the community, Plea could still feel that we were on different levels, so I understood why she'd offered me a handicap.
But I had no intention of accepting it.
"You must be confident, then."
Even though Plea still looked flustered by my insistence on no handicap, she eventually accepted and slowly began putting distance between us.
Watching her, I spoke before I knew it.
"But isn't a single match kind of a shame?"
I couldn't predict whether the duel ahead would end quickly or drag on, but a single match still felt like too little.
The thought came to me before I knew it.
The sense of omnipotence from my newly equipped gear.
That sense of omnipotence felt clearly different from before, but more importantly—
my opponent was finally someone in this world against whom I could unleash my full skill. That mattered enormously.
Competitiveness.
Fighting spirit.
With those emotions boiling up for the first time in ages, just one match felt far too short. My body was already heating up; stopping there would only leave me wanting more.
Plea, reading Serin's intent, let out another small laugh.
Then, with no more hesitation in her manner, she spoke to Serin.
"Then best of three. How's that?"
"That sounds about right. And since I've received all this from you, if I disappeared from the stream too quickly, it might look like I took the gear and ran... you know?"
She deliberately gestured at her equipment as she said it.
She'd already become a hot topic even against the first Outlaw and streamer she'd faced, so there was no way this moment—right now, facing a Challenger—wouldn't become a hot topic.
She was giving Plea an excuse to get a little more footage for NewTube.
Plea smiled slightly at Serin's attitude.
At the same time, deciding they'd put enough distance between them, Plea manipulated the hologram.
Ding.
—'Plea' has requested a duel.
A small hologram decorated one side of her vision.
An image of two swords crossing each other, clearly different from ranked matchmaking.
But the image was also somehow different from the one the streamer named Hana had sent before.
The name Plea was embroidered with an elegant golden crest.
'...Is even a small detail like this different for a Challenger?'
Did such things exist for Challenger Tier? The thought flickered through her mind as she looked at the two choices beneath the image of crossed swords.
Between accept and decline, she placed her hand on "Accept."
In that moment, a smile settled on her lips for no reason.
—The duel will begin shortly.
A familiar system notification.
She gripped the black cord of her newly fitted Crescent-Moon Weight and slowly took her stance.
Screeeak.
The cord of the Crescent-Moon Weight pulled taut, and a strange sound rang out.
Her opponent was the genuine article—someone she didn't need to go easy on by giving her the first move.
Instead, I wondered whether I could really hold my own against a Challenger Tier user as I waited for the countdown.
—3. 2. 1.
The moment the countdown ended and signaled the start of the duel.
Plea's figure vanished from my sight like scattering smoke.
"...!"
Before I knew it, I urgently kicked off the ground and pulled myself backward.
My chest sank as I hurriedly swung the Crescent-Moon Weight straight ahead.
There had been no presence, no sensation. It was pure instinct.
Clang!!
Our weapons clashed, and the sharp metallic ring rang in my ears.
And then, before I knew it, she was right in front of me.
The blonde woman stood there with her rapier raised, looking calmly at me.
Her eyes were completely different from the gaze that had shown me goodwill only moments ago.
She slowly raised her rapier to horizontal, taking a stance as if to thrust.
With all emotion seemingly gone from her expression, I activated a skill without hesitation.
—Bloodstained Step.
As if embroidering space itself, Rin's figure clad in blood-red cloth darted through the air with no discernible pattern, closing in on Plea.
—Jeolyeon.
I swung the Crescent-Moon Weight with all my strength, chopping down in a wide diagonal.
Screeeak!
At the same time, the cord stretched to its limit as if about to snap, pouring the enormous force it had received into the weight at its end.
Whoooosh!!
With a strange tearing sound through the air, the black Crescent-Moon Weight crashed down toward Plea, who stood motionless.
Before she knew it, a vivid crimson energy was blooming at the tip of the weight.
Plea's eyes widened slightly at the sight of Rin approaching with those strange steps and swinging the weight.
But Plea had watched it all from beginning to end, so there was no chance of her losing track of the weight's movement.
Watching the crimson weight shooting in fiercely, Plea moved her arm slightly, predicting the exact trajectory where the weight would fall, and positioned the tip of her rapier as she activated a skill.
—Riposte.
Clang!
A massive burst of white light and a clear, ringing sound.
A flashy effect signaling a successful parry.
——!
The moment the white light burst out, Serin's expression turned urgent and she quickly kicked off with her feet.
The successful parry and Serin's body shooting backward happened practically simultaneously.
One of Serin's feet, which had been touching the ground, stepped back two paces against her will—but she was already out of Plea's range.
Rin's body, which had been about to show an opening from the recoil of being parried, instantly kicked off the ground and retreated. And the rapier thrust swiftly through the spot where she had vanished.
Swish!
When her attack—one she had expected to land—pierced empty air.
Plea stood there blankly, staring quietly at Serin, who had already put distance between them.
The parry Plea had executed wasn't simply a deflection of an attack—it was a parry using a "skill."
A skill used by precisely matching the direction and timing of the opponent's attack.
The mechanism was fundamentally the same as parrying, but Riposte was a skill one level above an ordinary parry.
The reason Riposte existed as a skill rather than just a parry.
It parried the attack and immediately thrust at the opening it created in the opponent's guard.
That was the skill called Riposte.
"...You dodged that?"
Plea spoke in disbelief, a hint of laughter in her voice as she looked at Serin.
It was truly beyond imagination.
Even among users in the highest tiers, there were plenty who, once parried, were left completely helpless.
Yet even after using the skill Riposte, the user called Rin had dodged it as if performing some kind of acrobatics.
The user called Rin, who Plea had assumed had probably never even been parried before, had pulled her body out at that moment as if she had predicted the parry.
That fact was simply absurd.
And it was a response Plea had never seen before either.
In fact, Plea herself was only now realizing for the first time that such a thing was even possible.
When someone was parried, the system should force them back two steps. Plea wanted to ask how Rin had canceled that forced movement and retreated on her own terms.
As Plea stood there motionless, Serin slowly parted her lips.
"...That just now wasn't a parry."
A voice half-filled with certainty.
"No. It's a skill called Riposte. Didn't you dodge because you knew what it was, Rin?"
At Plea's question—surely you didn't dodge that without even knowing—Serin gave a small nod.
It was obviously a skill that looked far more difficult than a parry.
Instead of merely putting your sword in the path of a descending attack, you had to meet it with the very tip of the blade. To Serin, that seemed insane.
"I didn't know. But if I hadn't dodged, I felt like I'd have lost right there."
With those words, they both stared at each other for a moment, dumbfounded.
An opponent who used a skill beyond parrying.
An opponent who had dodged it on instinct without even knowing what it was.
Serin let out a short sigh and collected her thoughts.
She wasn't showing it outwardly, but she was deeply startled.
She had certainly considered that her opponent might parry.
But she hadn't imagined that by striking the tip of the weight, Plea could do so without Serin feeling any recoil at all.
When a parry succeeded, the opponent should naturally have to step back a pace, but Plea hadn't moved even a single step just now.
The way Plea seemed to be taking in every part of me from the start—and predicting the weight's trajectory before extending her rapier—sent a chill through me.
The rapier had pierced the space where I had been at the exact moment I pulled myself away.
I didn't know what her skill was, but it felt like the kind of technique that would decide my defeat the instant it landed.
No matter how much my HP and defense had risen from the Unique set, it felt like the fight would end the instant that rapier, which had surged toward my heart, ran me through.
And so, after only two exchanges, Serin made up her mind to voluntarily seal away most of her skills.
She couldn't fight Plea with any skill that her opponent could deliberately parry.
As she quickly sorted through which skills to use, Serin saw Plea slowly raising her rapier and immediately tightened her grip on her Crescent-Moon Weight.
A starting stance, as if pulling back the hand holding the rapier.
Wondering what skill she was about to use, Serin watched carefully—and the next moment, her eyes went wide.