26. Challenger Rank 8, Plea - (5)
26. Challenger Rank 8, Plea - (5)
***
Awakening Skill.
The countless classes in Another World each possessed their own unique Awakening Skill.
Its cooldown was so long that it could only be used once every six hours.
She had already confirmed the existence of Awakening Skills while watching the streamer Hana's broadcast. And she knew that she, too, possessed an Awakening Skill right now.
'Final Performance (終演).'
And this was the name of the Dancer class's Awakening Skill.
Interpreted, it meant the final act.
An Awakening Skill befitting the class name Dancer, and a technique she had never once used yet.
Considering the best-of-three rule, she had no intention of using it in the first match even if she lost.
Even if she did use it, she planned to finish scouting her opponent and use it in the next match.
And the Emergency Evasion she had mentioned alongside the Awakening Skill.
True to its name, it was a completely invincible evasive skill.
It was an absurd skill that could unconditionally deflect an opponent's attack, no matter the situation or danger.
Because of the sheer brokenness of the skill itself, even more than an Awakening Skill, Another World restricted its use to once every 24 hours.
'A handicap...?'
Could the user called Plea be facing her with a self-imposed handicap? That thought crossed Serin's mind, and she finally asked.
"Ah, Rin... I can see how you might think I deliberately didn't use them."
At her words, Plea opened her mouth with a startled expression, as if caught off guard.
"I'm saying this because I think you're misunderstanding, but I was saving my Awakening Skill for the next match. And Emergency Evasion's cooldown hasn't come back yet... So it's not like I was going easy on you or had that kind of leeway while fighting you."
"Is that what it was?"
As Plea explained each point one by one, Serin nodded and idly spun her Crescent-Moon Weight.
She felt awkward for no reason.
She had been needlessly sharp with her.
Because she'd thought Plea might have been going easy on her.
After that, she fiddled with her Crescent-Moon Weight and waited for the ten-minute break to pass quickly.
Whirrr.
Only the sound of the Crescent-Moon Weight whirling through the air broke the silence settled over the Colosseum.
"..."
And she felt like this was manageable. Sure, she was somewhat tense and her heart was pounding, but all of it was at a pleasant level.
It never felt overwhelming.
It was irritating that she couldn't properly read her opponent's techniques and had to react after she moved. But the same went for her opponent.
The Crescent-Moon Weight was still a non-mainstream weapon in Another World, and none of the opponents she'd faced so far had felt like they knew her techniques and were countering them.
Then a thought struck her, and her lips moved.
"...You said Emergency Evasion is on cooldown, so I won't use Emergency Evasion either."
......
"You really don't have to go that far..."
Plea, who waved her hand as if burdened, felt strange.
Before she knew it, she was the one being shown consideration.
Just moments ago, she had been the one saying she would carry a handicap and give her opponent an advantage.
In the span of only a few minutes, the situation had flipped 180 degrees.
On top of that, the moment the first match ended in her defeat, it was safe to say all her assumptions had shattered.
And the chat window she'd left open at the edge of her vision was pure chaos.
The fact that she, a Challenger Tier user, had lost to Rin.
The chat was burning up over it.
People claimed Plea had deliberately gone easy on Rin or even thrown the match to hype her up.
[Didn't Plea win every arena match yesterday except against 'Isrilda'?]
[Honestly this is so weird, lately streamers seem to be hyping up that Rin person or whatever]
[lolololol the "she's throwing" crowd is at it again, what a shitshow]
[If you're new to Plea's stream then shut the fuck up and watch, seriously]
[lolololololololololol]
[Mods, aren't you banning the trolls stirring shit?]
[Chat's filthy again lolololololol]
[Viewer count's getting pumped like crazy right now so all kinds of weirdos are gathering]
[Mod: Starting now, I'm banning anyone pushing the throwing or rigging nonsense, so keep it civil in chat.]
"Anyone who gets banned today is getting an IP ban, so just know that."
Plea, who had been watching the chat window, simply said that in a cold voice.
She didn't want to ramble on at length right now.
Just thinking about the user Rin's attack patterns and the way she dodged attacks like some kind of acrobat was enough to make her head feel like it would explode.
[RIP to the ones who crossed the line lololololol]
[Getting IP banned from Plea's stream? Then why even use tweetie? lololol]
[Among top-50 rankers who stream, there's no one except Gosu and Plea lololololol]
[lololololol getting banned for this, you idiots]
[As long as it's not meeeeeeee!!!]
[Then my victory of never having typed in chat pays off?]
[lolololololololol]
The viewers who had been spamming rigging and throwing accusations vanished in an instant. Watching that, Plea closed the chat window.
She tried to force herself to pay attention to the stream, but she couldn't focus at all.
Right now, the only thought filling her head was that she wanted to beat the user called Rin.
Biting her lip, Plea slowly rose from her seat.
"I think it's about time."
She tightened her grip on her weapon, the rapier, and turned her head.
Watching the user called Rin leisurely rise from beside an obstacle, she slowly calmed her thoughts.
A user who had appeared as if dropped from the sky.
A user who had become a hot topic across the community and NewTube, skyrocketing to fame in a short time.
At first, she'd felt it was all just a fuss.
Just some user with decent mechanics who had gotten lucky and blown up once.
That thought seemed to solidify when she clicked on a NewTube video that happened to appear in her recommendations and saw the character's appearance.
'She got famous because she's pretty.'
But contrary to that thought, she found herself watching the video with rapt attention, as if spellbound.
And what she felt by the end was that this was a user who could never be dismissed as simply lucky.
Parries executed as naturally as breathing, evasive movements that looked utterly effortless. Even her attacks had no wasted motion.
"...Duel request."
As she spoke the words using the voice recognition system, a notification appeared showing that a duel request had been sent to the user called Rin.
And immediately after, the "Accept" notification.
—The duel will begin shortly.
The idea that she wouldn't lose in the arena was close to arrogance.
There were certainly people in the world better than her, and she had encountered countless people she thought had exceptional talent.
In the first place, Another World was the first game she'd ever fallen this deeply into.
At first, she accepted losing in the arena as natural.
—3.
Losing didn't matter.
Because she still found it fun.
So at first, there were countless defeats. When she'd played hundreds of arena matches in Bronze Tier, commonly called the depths, at some point she felt something click in her hands.
When she grabbed hold of it and kept playing the arena, her tier began to climb as if shooting straight up.
Enlightenment. It was a word that didn't suit gaming, but that was when she first learned such a thing truly existed.
By the time her steeply rising tier reached Master Tier, which Another World users generally acknowledged, a year had already passed.
It was after an arena record of four thousand matches had been etched into her history.
After that, with the annual tier reset, she climbed up from the lower ranks again.
—2.
Three years had already passed since Another World launched, and before she knew it, she had poured over ten thousand hours into Another World.
And she had become a Challenger-tier ranker.
And at some point, she had become someone who was hung up on defeat.
She hated losing.
The moment she lost to someone, she would keep clinging on, trying to beat that user.
Before she knew it, she was that crazy about Another World.
—1.
The countdown ended, signaling the start of the duel. At the same moment, Plea moved.
She kicked off the ground and raised her rapier high.
A golden aura began to form clearly along the rapier's blade.
***
Seeing Plea move so differently from the first match, Serin felt intrigued and raised her Crescent-Moon Weight.
Without using the technique that had vanished like smoke, the blonde woman charged at her along an obvious path. Serin watched her and slowly took a step back, and with the hand not holding the weight, she yanked hard on the cord connected to her weight.
Creak.
A strange stance, as if she held the weight in one hand while pulling the black cord taut with the other.
It didn't matter what technique Plea, who appeared to be a Knight Class, used.
In the moment she was prepared like this, there was no attack she couldn't block.
Whoosh!
Watching Serin, Plea closed in quickly and thrust her rapier, wreathed in golden light, into the empty air.
A silent thrust without even a sound.
As she literally stabbed at the empty air, Serin released the hand holding the cord taut and swung her arm wide.
Swoosh!
A harsh sound, as if tearing through the air, rang out, and at the same time, the black Crescent-Moon Weight, now suffused with a blood-red energy, struck the empty air.
Clang!
That first clash of rapier and weight was like a greeting, creating a massive resonance. And soon the rapier and weight began to play out a savage rhythm.
Clangclangclangclangclangclangclang!!
As the rapier continued to embroider golden trajectories, the black Crescent-Moon Weight, suffused with blood-red energy, fiercely met each trajectory.
Through the endless exchange of blows, there seemed to be no opening for either of them to employ the technique of parrying, as they endlessly clashed weapons against each other.
—Bloodstained Star.
In an instant, the black Crescent-Moon Weight, suffused with blood-red energy, moved through the air at bizarre angles, creating countless blood-red trajectories.
As if painting stars across the night sky, the blood-red Crescent-Moon Weight swept through the air. Countless points of crimson began appearing in its wake.
Watching it, Plea's hand trembled around her rapier as she deployed her technique.
—A Single Line.
A golden line continued along the blood-red trajectories, smashing the blood-red points one by one.
As Plea dismantled the technique Serin had deployed, she glanced at Rin's figure and, without realizing it, was startled.
'...She's smiling?'