I'd Like to Face Her Once

What is a "tier" in a video game? It could be defined as an indicator of a character's performance, or perhaps a system that categorizes players into brackets based on their skill ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠level. I am referring to the latter.

According to Han-ah, Asteria was divided into eight tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger. It was a standard setup found in almost any competitive game. Han-ah belonged to Diamond, while the rest of our teammates in this match were Gold. The stream-sniping duo on the enemy team was estimated to be high Diamond.

Stating it like that might not make it hit home, but Han-ah's Diamond rank was actually incredibly high. On average, it represented the top 1 to 2 percent of the player base. Roughly speaking, that was only one or two people out of a hundred. It made sense why Han-ah took so much pride in her gaming skills.

Then what about the stream-sniping duo? Though their label as "snipers" sounded ridiculous, they were undoubtedly highly skilled players. If we assumed they were high Diamond, perhaps even touching Master, they were definitely a cut above Han-ah. At that level, you entered the top 0.x percent—statistically, only one to nine players out of a thousand. It was a pyramid structure where the numbers thinned out the higher you climbed. As with any field, those who could stand at the absolute peak were few and far between. It was like trying to pass a camel through the eye of a needle.

But enough with the long introduction. The reason I brought this up was simple: if I were to be assigned a tier, where would I land? That was the question on my mind.

The world of Asteria was deeply familiar to me. That was why I hadn't struggled or gotten lost from the very first moment I played the game. Since there was no one who knew this world better than I did, I could proudly boast that my understanding of the game was superior to any other player's.

The same went for combat. It had been ten years. Ten long years of cutting down enemies, living the life of a human butcher—could anyone possibly be more skilled with a blade than me? Even now, it was obvious. The stream-sniping duo that had Han-ah trembling in fear, players of a higher tier than her, people who could walk around with their chests puffed out boasting about their skills anywhere else—they weren't even a match for me.

"...Huh?"

The man froze just as his hands, gripping his tachi, reached the peak of their upward swing. He belatedly clutched his severed throat, but it was already too late. His trembling eyes stared straight at me, and with a final, bewildered gasp, his body collapsed to the ground.

It certainly took a bit more time to take them down compared to the players in normal matches or my previous ranked games. But did that make them difficult to deal with? Not at all. It just required a tiny bit of effort. That was all.

The fact that they were ghosting to track my location in real-time had absolutely no bearing on the outcome of the match. It wasn't as if our team was executing some top-secret strategy that would ruin everything if exposed; having our positions revealed was a perfectly manageable handicap. Of course, Han-ah and the rest of our teammates took some heat from them early on, but I had run around providing backup and successfully shut down every single attempt.

They probably saw us as mere prey, but that dynamic was reversed in an instant. To be precise, the relationship between me and the snipers had flipped. Like predator and prey, I was a hunter fully capable of slaughtering them. Before long, they were scrambling to run away the moment they laid eyes on me.

"F-Fuck! You monster of a bitch!"

Was that all he had to say? He attempted a desperate counterattack with a voice full of resentment, but there was no way it would work. I eliminated the player with the username Hanya'sPersonalDoctorFish. Doctor fish... wasn't that those things that nibbled on the dead skin of people's feet? I was slightly curious why anyone would choose such a name, but the dead tell no tales. There was no one left to answer.

I felt absolutely none of the life-threatening tension I used to experience on the battlefield. Even as our blades clashed and we traded blows, the thought of losing never once crossed my mind. If anything, seeing my opponent somehow hold out against my onslaught made me want to gradually raise the level of my swordplay, which was quite fun. It felt like sparring with the kingdom's knights back in my prime.

"Hmm."

I thought, habitually flicking my katana clean, even though there was no blood on it. If Diamond, which was clearly a high rank, was only at this level, then where on earth was my true opponent? Master? Grandmaster? Or perhaps Challenger, a tier limited to only two hundred players in the entire game? Yet, even in those wild imaginations, I couldn't picture myself losing.

Of course, because team games always had variables, we could still lose the match itself. But that wouldn't mean I had been defeated. In truth, it was only natural. That was simply what a Hero was. Even if these people were Challengers, belonging to the top fraction of a percent with only a handful of them in the entire game, they couldn't possibly compare to a Hero.

After all, I was the one and only, a truly unique existence. Mathematically speaking, I was one in several billion—the population of the entire world. That "one" was me. Although my body had changed, the world had transformed, and all evidence of my past had vanished, it was a fact still engraved in my mind, remembered by me alone. Therefore, at least in Asteria, in this world, I would never lose. It was a very simple, yet absurdly absolute truth.

"This ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is insane, absolutely insane..." Han-ah muttered with a dazed expression, holding up her greatshield. Her eyes were glued to the kill feed in the top-right corner of her screen.

How many times had it been now? Jeong-ah was repeatedly solo-killing the malicious stream snipers who had previously stomped Han-ah without mercy. These were high Diamond players. Normally, they were opponents that average gamers would hit a brick wall against. Yet, watching Jeong-ah slice through them as if swatting away annoying pests sent a strange shiver down Han-ah's spine.

It was for that very reason she committed the ultimate taboo of looking at the chat during a battle. Her eyes had drifted to the chat on their own, driven by curiosity about what the viewers were thinking. There were those marveling at Jeong-ah's play just like her, those teasing her for getting carried, and those calling her out for not focusing on the fight. Just as she warily took the hint from the last message and raised her shield again—

"Whoa...!" Seeing Jeong-ah take down yet another sniper, Han-ah couldn't hold it in any longer and screamed, "Geummisa! Geummisa! Geummisa! Geummisa! Geummisa!"

Making a mockery of her pre-game worries about needing to dodge, Jeong-ah was playing with the snipers. Literally. She was completely toying with them. As if to show that no matter how hard they tried, they were no match for her, they remained entirely in the palm of her hand. It was simply mind-boggling, as if she could read the snipers' minds. Despite the massive handicap of having her and her teammates' locations exposed due to ghosting, she was effortlessly leading the team to victory.

It was incredibly cathartic. Feeling as if a heavy weight she had carried for months—if not ten years—had finally been lifted, Han-ah shouted with a refreshed face, "Take that, you stream-sniping griefers! How do you like a taste of Geummisa?!"

They were definitely listening to this right now. What kind of faces were they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠making? Imagining the utterly defeated expressions of the snipers, Han-ah grinned from ear to ear.

"She's good..." muttered a man who had completely crawled out of his bed and was now sitting upright, intently watching the stream. He was the streamer known as "Samurai."

Blonde Beautiful Girl Samurai, was it? She certainly possessed the skill to back up the title of Samurai.

'She completely read the ghosting snipers.' It wasn't just raw physical mechanics. The way she analyzed the enemy's psychology and used it to counter them made her feel like a battle-hardened veteran who knew every single element of the battlefield inside and out.

'And she's supposed to be a newbie?' He had learned more about Geummisa through the chat. It was simply unbelievable that a newcomer could pull off such seasoned, veteran plays.

"We won, we won! All hail Geummisa!"

As the streamer Hanya cheered in triumph, a deep smile spread across Samurai's face. It wasn't because he was happy to see Hanya win, nor was it because he felt relieved that the snipers had been thoroughly defeated.

"With that kind of skill, she'll climb the ranks in no time..."

Anticipation. It was anticipation that drove his reaction. Samurai felt a profound interest in this suddenly appearing super rookie. From the fact that she used a katana as her primary weapon just like him, to her being a complete newbie who had barely started playing Asteria—every single detail was impossible to ignore.

"I'd love to face her once."

Not as a streamer, but as a fellow gamer, Samurai began to look forward to his encounter with this other samurai. He etched her rather peculiar username, BlondeBeautifulGirlSamurai, deep into his memory.