In the Duel Arena

"Wh-what can I do for you?"

The part-timer's face had gone scarlet, and he was stumbling over the words. I tilted my head before I even realized I was doing it.

Is he like that because of me?

I was usually willing to understand and let a thing pass, but this reaction was unusually sharp. Most people stopped at a sidelong glance. I didn't want to fuss over every little incident, so I brushed it off and said what I had come to say. I had already looked over the menu and found a dish I liked, and I ordered it.

"I'll have the spicy pork rice bowl."

"Ah..."

He let out a strangely awkward sigh, then scratched his head.

"You can order that from your seat..."

"Huh? Was there a bell?"

"No. Not that. If you look in the corner of the screen, there's a food-order function."

"......"

A brief, suffocating silence followed. I answered with the calmest smile I could put on.

"Right. Thank you."

I fled the counter, and the self-reproach came down on me at once.

You stupid bitch. You're a gamer, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and your field of view is that narrow? You couldn't even see it?

But what was I supposed to do? I never even imagined a thing like that, so of course I might not notice.

That's nothing but a filthy excuse. He's definitely going to decide I'm some pathetic technophobe. A tacky hick.

And what am I supposed to do about it? How was I supposed to know a PC Bang could change this much in five years? Back when I practically lived in them, the iron rule was buying a cup ramen and boiling the water yourself.

Self-loathing and self-justification crashed into each other without end. In the end it was nothing but a war in which every side lost, and all it left behind were wounds.

Back at my seat, I studied the screen and found the order button in the upper corner, just as he had said.

"Make it that small, and how is anyone supposed to see it..."

I clicked it, still grumbling, and a window came up like a restaurant kiosk, ready for me to choose.

If they're going to set it up this way, why leave a paper menu at the seat at all? I could just look here and decide. Five years on, the feel of the world was still strange to me. Am I already that much of an antique?

Anyway, the order went through without further disaster. Spicy pork rice bowl, a cola, and a hot dog on top of that. For payment I chose the prepaid option, deducted from the time I had already loaded. Convenient, I had to admit.

"Hm."

Once it was in, the doubt arrived. Did I order too little? It's a PC Bang, so it probably won't even come out right. Well, if I'm still hungry afterward, I can always order more.

I couldn't just sit still while I waited. I meant to play in the meantime, but I wanted to go in fully focused, especially if I was going to grind ranked. Eat while I played and I definitely wouldn't be at my best. Jump to some other game, and nothing in particular called to me...

I thought for a moment, then made up my mind.

Maybe I'll give the Duel Arena a try.

He was staring at the screen, waiting, when the order finally came in.

"Oh."

Spicy pork rice bowl, and a hot dog too? That was a lot of food for one woman. The hot dog, especially, wasn't the corn dog people usually pictured. It was the meal kind, a sausage with vegetables and cheese stuffed between bread. There was a photo on the menu, so she probably hadn't ordered it by mistake. Even so, once he called her figure to mind, a pointless worry rose about whether a body like that could even hold it all.

And once he had her figure, her face came with it. So did the short exchange they had just had.

"...Heh heh."

Before he knew it, he was laughing like a pervert.

She was really cute just now.

Right up until she opened her mouth, the impression had been cold and proud. Then that vacant, airy charm arrived together with the embarrassment, and the shock of it was genuinely fresh. He wasn't joking. If she had a fan club at this moment, he wanted to be member number one. Not that he meant to confess, or even to get close to her. More precisely, he didn't have the nerve. The only thing he could do now was make the food she had ordered as good as it could be. It was still nothing more than heating instant food, but he was going to let that part go.

About ten minutes passed. With everything ready, the part-timer gathered up his shaking nerve and headed for her seat.

"Your order's here."

Good. Said it clean this time. No stammer.

Pleased with himself, he stole glances at her profile.

Wow. How is even the side of her face that pretty? She feels like someone from another world. So a person's nose can actually sit that high.

She was buried in the game. She spared the food a glance and answered offhand.

"Yeah. Just leave it."

"Yep. Enjoy."

He didn't have anything else to say anyway, but he wanted to stay beside her, so he dawdled on purpose. Only then did he sneak a look at the game, and once he had, he couldn't pull his eyes away.

The fight on the screen—how was he even supposed to put it? It looked less like a fight than a dance. Like standing before a work of art that pulled a gasp out of you whether you wanted one or not. It ran on an entirely different track from every battle he had ever watched. For a moment he even wondered if she was watching a YouTube video, or a stream. The level was too high to believe she was playing it herself. But she was unmistakably on the keyboard and the mouse, deep in the fight, working both with everything she had.

Just how high is a rank like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that?

Even the glimpse from earlier had felt ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out of the ordinary. Watching a fight he couldn't begin to attempt, she was Master at the absolute minimum. Maybe higher still. Grandmaster, the rank they called the Heavenly Realm. And beyond that, Ranker. That was the band where you stopped getting offers to stream and started getting offers to turn pro. If a woman that beautiful had skill like that, there was no way she could stay unknown. Looks aside, female players themselves had to be almost nonexistent.

The admiration and the awe toward her lasted only a moment. Then a question occurred to him. It still took two hands to clap. If a fight at that level refused to end quickly and only stretched on, didn't that mean her opponent was every bit as skilled as she was? Once the thought reached that far, helplessness washed over him.

What kind of place is the Heavenly Realm, that monsters like that are crawling all over it?

He was only Gold. Turning his own rank over, he shrank.

Still... Gold is inside the top thirty percent...

Forget it. Go back and do the dishes.

Shoulders slumped, he trudged back to the counter.

The Duel Arena. The third mode added to Eternal Battle, and the least popular of them—a fringe mode. As the name suggested, it was easiest to think of it as a mode that stripped everything else away and focused on combat alone. Unlike battle royale, the field was absurdly small. One opponent. You and them, and no one else, and a winner at the end. Closer to a fighting game.

Of course it differed from an ordinary fighting game in plenty of ways, so the comparison only went so far. The Duel Arena was still just a slight twist on Eternal Battle's basic systems, which made it a mode that belonged to this game alone.

Matchmaking took a surprisingly long time. For a one-on-one mode, it was nearly as bad as filling a lobby of sixty-six. It couldn't be helped. The Duel Arena had stagnated so completely that it had curdled into a private league, and a single match was enough to see why.

When the match locked in, both characters appeared on one screen, and every main weapon in Eternal Battle came up in a selection window along the bottom. That was the Duel Arena's greatest feature. Before the fight began, you chose your own main weapon. Performance shifted from map to map, but the thing that mattered most, when you picked, was what the opponent was holding. Land the matchup and people said you had won before the fight even started.

"What do I take."

I thought for a moment and went with twin daggers. Short range, but the Weapon Skill was a dash, so the mobility was a serious advantage. The moment I locked it in, my opponent chose as well.

A crossbow. Of course. A counter-pick. Short reach for something ranged, but the stopping power that denied an approach was monstrous, infamous enough to be called a melee player's nightmare.

I didn't particularly care. I hadn't spent any real time in the Duel Arena, but that didn't erase live combat. Across a hundred fights, I had run into this exact setup until I was sick of it.

Once both of us had chosen, the characters immediately equipped the full Set Equipment for those weapons. From the first instant, you fought with the set bonus already live.

Then the map.

A battle-royale map, the Sea of Enchantment, rebuilt as a stage that belonged only to the Duel Arena. And a map I was playing for the first time. Fair enough. Today was only my second time in the Duel Arena at all.

When the load finished, the screen had become a wrecked ship on the open sea. I toyed with the daggers and looked my opponent over.

I had no idea what it meant. A nickname didn't have to mean anything in the first place. They had probably just thrown it on.

The countdown started.

I broke into a run at once. Against ranged, melee lived or died on the approach, and they were never going to allow it. They were already trying to fall back. I used the skill without hesitating and blinked forward.

The answer was too obvious. Sure enough, they met me with a skill of their own.

A kick.

Get hit, and you were shoved back. No question. The problem was that the kick was a guaranteed skill. Stand inside its cast range and you were pushed, every ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time.

Fine.

If we both spent a skill, I was the one who came out ahead. Their cooldown was longer. They never should have thrown the kick away that cheaply. Understand that much, and they might have belonged in the Heavenly Realm.

The match ended as my win, without a single reversal. It had been decided in the first five seconds, so it wasn't particularly fun.

"I'm hungry."

Is the food still a ways off?

I queued another one. This time it popped even faster than before. I read my opponent's name.