The New Guild Showdown
-Kyah.
-Da Roo Roo.
-GOAT.
-Smash the guild showdownwwww.
It wasn't just the broadcast chat. The guild members listening in seemed to have caught fire too, each of them tossing in a line or two.
I was so fired up after saying all that that the words just spilled out of me.
"Yeeeeah! Everybody together now! Ha! Ru! Ru! Fiiiight!"
-Ha
-Ru
-Ha
-Ru
-Fiiight
-Tama's the best
-Haruru is so cuuute
-(Haruru cheering stick)
◈ Message: Fighting for the new guild showdown!
"What is this?! Now it sounds like I'm only doing that fighting pose because I'm trying to shake people down for money. Anyway, I'll put it to good use."
-She's really the Gold-Rice-Box Lady lol
-The boss even changed her nickname, whoa
-The Harusalidan commander has arrived
"All right, here comes the dog-barking reaction I couldn't do last time! Thanks for the 100,000 won, Mone-nim..."
I gathered strength in my core and, with more force than I had used during the interview last time, I gave it everything I had and barked like a dog.
"Hah-hah-hah-hah... urururururu... woof! Arf arf!"
-???
-What the hell, that actually sounds like a dog
-They say foxes are part of the dog family...
-What is this? How can a person make dog noises this accurately?
-For real lol
-That tracks
-Streaming a fox they picked up somewhere, yep
"That's enough. But me, I'm Shining Parade's cool-and-suave specialist, so I'm not sure whether it's okay for me to show a reaction like that."
-???
-Weren't you the comedy member?
-Aren't you the cow specialist?
-Did she just call herself cool and suave? lol
-Aha lol
-That was a highly advanced reaction after all, huh
"Khk..."
Next, I talked about the defensive formation. I explained each piece carefully, one by one, but honestly it was all useless filler, so I couldn't get into it. Still, I had to act like the humor had been wrung clean out of me. That bastard called Meuseung mustn't catch on.
I was worried he'd noticed something, but was this guy too transparent? He just came right out and asked. At this rate, even if I didn't have Insight, I would've been suspicious. Still, I hid my real thoughts again and said,
"A cosmic defense battle has to be treated as a long war. So... no, wait! Everyone, enter total caution mode! I'll post the details in the guild notice. Keep it secret."
-Mmm, yes~
-General Haruru
-Total caution!!!
-Secret discipline, whoa
If I wrote it in the guild notice, they'd probably think it was even more real. People tend to believe information is more truthful when it's hard to get.
I should've said that on stream to make myself sound smart. Shame. For the record, the reason I knew that was because, while preparing for the guild showdown, I'd read somewhere in a military strategy book or a psychology book that it worked that way.
I put this in the guild notice:
We'll have the guild members hold the line in the early phase while I conserve mana, then I'll make my move late in the fight.
That way, the enemy would think, So we need to hit fast and hard at the start, right? It's all going according to plan. I'll go the other way, assemble my formation, and wipe out all of Muah Guild's front-line members in one early push. By myself.
***
Today was Saturday, the day of the new showdown. It was 11:50 a.m., and the match would begin in ten minutes, but I still hadn't even logged into Unknown Universe.
The cafe was in chaos right now, filled with posts asking where I'd gone. Since I knew the public opinion would turn anyway, I sat in the broadcast studio reading them with a smirk.
[Where's Haruru? Where's Haruru? Where's Haruru?]
[They say superstars drive both haters and fans insane, and it was true after all, you crazy fox!!! Hurry up and start streaming!!!]
[Can't even start the cosmic defense battle before total collapse lol]
[Ten minutes before the new guild showdown, exposing No-Ru as an evil guild master]
Chaos. Proper chaos. Those kinds of storms don't come often, so I savored it slowly. Then another interesting post popped up.
Attached to the post was a screenshot of Mone's chat. So our vice guild master really was carrying out what I'd asked her to do last time. What kind of reaction would this get?
-Haruru doesn't have enough desperation
-Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
-How can you oversleep on the day of a new guild showdown... I'm starting to question whether she's fit to be guild master
-Mone-nuna should probably be guild master
-This is bad, Haruru...
-Can public opinion even turn after this?
Even on the cafe, where only the better posts tended to survive, that was the reaction. So what about the domestic VTuber gallery, where you could post without real-name verification?
-Haruru lol sleeping through the new guild showdown with two minutes left lol
-I genuinely don't get why she's like this
-Yep, classic Shining Parade level
There were plenty of posts that were too ugly to keep reading. No good. That was enough community browsing. Time to get ready.
It was now 11:53 a.m. I logged into Unknown Universe. Even so, no one knew I'd come online. Unknown Universe supports offline login too, because it's a god-tier game.
From there, I quietly boarded the interplanetary shuttle. The F-grade starter model was still annoyingly inconvenient in a hundred different ways, but it was manageable if I put up with it once. A little while later, a green planet filled the entire monitor.
Muah Guild Headquarters Planet
"Oho."
They really hadn't been bluffing when they said they'd target us; everything needed was already in place. They'd prepared a lot. It looked less like a new guild and more like an ordinary small-to-mid-sized guild. I'll let them keep it warm for now and take it for myself later.
"Wow."
They'd even installed a detection radar, when our own guild didn't have one yet. But did they not know that in front of fully transcended Mika, that sort of thing was worthless?
Mika's Blazing Light activated.
The principle was simple. I would move at the speed of light so the laser couldn't keep up, and reach the planet before it could lock on.
"Heh heh heh."
Seriously, Unknown Universe is addictive because the feel of throwing money at it is just that good. After landing silently, I stored the basic shuttle in my inventory and checked my surroundings. Quiet. They were probably getting ready for the invasion inside their elite base. Just then, a black mansion came into view ahead of me.
Muah Guild Base
My heart was pounding with excitement. I took a breath to calm myself for a moment, then steadied it. Slipping in and slicing through them, that's how it would go. When you're infiltrating, that's the moment the Cosmic Blade shines.
Veil of the Cosmos activated!
The Cosmic Blade's secret technique for hiding the body for a short time! With this, I can do assassinations and all that. But it wasn't widely used, and the reason was this.
...
...
Since Cosmic Blade has no inherent attribute of its own, installing just a few attribute traps is enough to make people turn away. For a moment I wondered whether things would be different if I had equipped a +9 Four-Elements Necklace...
But then again, there were mixed-attribute traps like that, too, so one Four-Elements Necklace alone wouldn't really cover it. Of course, I'm different.
+10 Additional Effect
You can grant fire, earth, wind, and water attributes all at once.
Light attribute
Fire attribute
Water attribute
Wind attribute
Earth attribute
Bang!
With a refreshing crack, the traps shattered all at once.
"Nice~."
Normally, this would be the point where they'd notice the trap being broken and realize someone had infiltrated the base. But the Muah Guild idiots were so focused on their opening blitz that they weren't even paying attention to who had slipped into the base.
"Let's see..."
I set the broadcast to go live exactly at noon, and now all I had to do was wait for the new guild showdown to begin.
***
At the same time, inside the Muah Guild base, in that black mansion, the gloomy atmosphere was gone. They were laughing and joking, chewing over Haruru, who still hadn't logged in.
"I checked the cafe. She's apparently oversleeping."
While everyone burst out laughing without a trace of suspicion, one of the guild members spoke up.
"Isn't this bait? Like when we sent out that Meuseung guy?"
"No, no way."
Meuseung, who had only been with them for a short time, let out a little snort as he answered.
"That girl only knows how to throw money around. She's dumb as rocks; she's definitely still asleep."
And the biggest reason they believed she'd overslept was that she had been streaming steadily morning and night for guild recruitment.
"She should've managed her stamina better. A guild showdown is, quite literally, war."
The biggest obstacle, Guild Master Haruru, wasn't there. On top of that, they'd already stolen the whole plan. Since she'd written it in the notice, copying it over had been easy.
"She said she'd make her move in the late phase, so let's crush them from the very start. Let's end it in three seconds flat and raise the reputation of the Sandman Doom Guild."
"Excellent."
It was noon.
At that exact moment, the new guild showdown began.
⊳ Battle begins now
⊳ All guild members deployed
"All right. Then, just as planned...!"
"W-what the hell?! Are you kidding me?!"
...
...
One by one, the characters' screams rang out.
And when everything finally fell quiet, only a single chat message appeared.