The Well-Behaved, Passionate Newbie
"Phew... finally got it..."
Celial stood rooted in place, her sword clenched tight in both hands, looking thoroughly worn out.
I put my whole soul into a round of applause for our King, our Champ, our God-Emperor Celial.
She'd blown right past my expectations. This newbie was overflowing with talent—I could have clapped until my palms went numb and it still wouldn't have been enough.
Hearing the sound, Celial came over with an awkward little look on her face.
"Um... was I okay?"
"Of course you were. You looked amazing."
"Hehe... it's actually pretty tiring..."
"Well, yeah. Look at the level gap."
There's a truth that holds in every RPG. In the early game, level is king.
Of course, some of the older titles will stock the opening zones with deliberately weak monsters so you can blow through the beginning, or they'll just nerf the early mobs into the dirt. Ellemo went with the former—and those would be the rabbits. Which is another way of saying the wolf Celial had just taken down was no pushover. It was the kind of monster most newbies couldn't handle alone.
I handed her two potions. One health, one mana.
Celial received them with both hands, all polite and proper, then—still using both hands, for some reason—tipped the bottles back and drank with little glug-glug sounds. I had no idea why she drank them like that, but it was pretty adorable. Some kind of habit, maybe.
Anyway, while she was drinking, I told her honestly what I'd seen. I added a disclaimer, too.
"Just take this easy. Filter out whatever doesn't land. I'm not right about everything, and I'm not even sure this stuff will suit you."
What I was offering was advice, nothing more. This wasn't some immutable law you'd find in a textbook, like the sun rises in the east.
"First off, your situational judgment is excellent. You popped Mana Shield right when you needed it, and even at the end—when the wolf bit your arm and you must have been panicking—you still drove your sword into its throat. That's exactly what I mean."
Celial nodded along, still glugging down her potions.
It felt like I'd gained an adorable little sister. She was supposed to be my age? Really?
...Anyway. I kept going.
"There's a problem, though. Celial, your swordsmanship is... a little shaky."
She understood what I meant right away, and nodded again. Then, as if she had something to say, she pulled the potion bottle from her lips.
"You mean how I couldn't land my hits on that wolf, right?"
"That's it. The wolf was strong and fast, sure, but not so fast you shouldn't have been able to hit it."
For a newbie who'd been showing a sense well beyond her experience, that had been the most newbie moment she'd had all day.
A Magic Swordsman can lean into magic or lean into the blade, but either way, the ultimate skill is a sword technique. Go the magic route and you flood the blade with so much mana it fires like a beam—Sword Burst. Go the sword route and you wrap the blade in layer after layer of enhancement magic, so that every swing sends out a wave of mana—Exceed Sword. Whichever path you take, you still have to know how to use a sword.
Celial was in a relatively decent spot, at least. Unlike Exceed Sword, which demanded you actually cut things yourself, Sword Burst just needed you to swing in the right direction. Even so, if she was going to play a Magic Swordsman, she needed at least a baseline of sword work.
"Later on, looking things up on YouTube wouldn't hurt, and sitting in on a lecture or two would be good too."
"Is it bad enough that I need actual lessons...?"
"Using them as a reference is plenty."
There was actual data on this. In VR games, people with a real martial arts background tended to perform better. There had been boxers who hit ranker the moment they rolled a brawler, and kendo athletes who climbed into the top ranks the second they picked up a swordsman. I guess you could say that if you already had a foundation in something related to your class, you just... did better.
That was why people who wanted to get good at VR games would sometimes enroll at a dojo and actually learn martial arts. I was the same. The moment I decided to take my main swordsman seriously, I blew my part-time wages on a kendo dojo membership. The problem was that it happened to be my senior year of high school.
For the record, I still went every weekend. The instructor there took good care of me. This time, when I told him I wanted to try Dual Swordsman and practice the two-sword style, he even offered to teach me himself.
Celial had been turning something over in her head. Then she spoke.
"Um... could you teach me, Taeyang...?"
"Me?"
"Yes. I think it would be nice if you were the one who taught me..."
It wasn't that I couldn't. I just wasn't good enough to play instructor. So I turned her down as politely as I could.
"I'm sorry. I'm not skilled enough for that..."
"Ah... that's too bad..."
"If it comes to it, I can recommend a good dojo or some YouTube channels."
"Ah... then could I ask you for the YouTube recommendations...?"
"Of course."
I'd been worried I might have been a little too nosy, but thankfully our kindhearted Celial took the advice with genuine gratitude.
I was still sitting in that warm glow of appreciation when a low sound rolled in from behind us. Grrrrrr...
"Huh? There's another wolf...!"
I turned to look. A brown-furred Brown Wolf. Same level as a Gray Wolf, but with lower attack in exchange for greater speed.
Celial lifted her sword again and stepped forward.
"I'll take this one too—"
This time, I stopped her.
"No. I'll handle that one."
The reason was simple. I was the teacher here. I wanted to look cool at least once.
"Thanks for all your hard work~"
"You power-leveled today, huh. What level are you now?"
"I'm twenty-one!"
"Eleven levels in two hours. That's excellent."
Taeyang held out his hand. I knew exactly what that meant, so I stepped in close.
A light smack of a high-five. Taeyang smiled at me, bright and easy.
"Alright, I'm going to head out. I should grab dinner, and I need to get on my main."
"Ah...! Then I'll hunt a little more before I go!"
"At this rate, I'm going to have to carve time out of my breaks just to catch up to your level."
"As if you won't catch up in no time~"
Taeyang waved, still laying it on thick about how good I supposedly was.
"Alright, I'm off~"
"Yes! Thanks for everything! See you next time!"
Taeyang dissolved into a flash of blue light and was gone. He'd logged out.
Wolf Lake, which had been noisy only a moment ago, fell quiet. In the sudden hush, I found myself thinking of him.
Taeyang had been incredible.
We were the same level. Our gear had looked about the same. And yet he had been nothing like me at all.
The moment the brown wolf lunged, he twisted his body just so and let the sword in his left hand glance the beast aside. The instant its flank lay exposed, the sword in his right carved through it in a single, brutal stroke. Then he sprang after the wolf as it tumbled sideways and took its throat.
Taeyang had said it himself: Wolves are weak in the belly and the neck. Aim for those and they're easy. But knowing a tip and being able to actually use it were two different things. I had spent those two hours trying so hard to hit those exact spots, and the number of wolves I'd dropped with a clean weak-point strike I could count on one hand. I'd killed dozens in that time. If the ones I'd properly punished at their weak points were that few, it only meant I still had a long way to go.
Taeyang, on the other hand, had been spotless. He would catch a wolf's attack and cut back. If a wolf didn't come to him, he would strike first and put it down. And through all of it, his blades were always, always aimed at those weak points.
It had been so cool. It was the exact image I had always pictured for myself.
My thoughts drifted to him, unbidden.
Taeyang was so kind. He was nothing like the people in other games who had found out I was a girl and come sidling up, putting on a show of being nice. He looked at me not as a "girl gamer" but as a gamer. He helped me not because I was a girl, but because I was a newbie.
It could have been a hassle, and still he tried to teach me everything. He handed over genuinely precious items without a second thought. He didn't treat me like some accessory. He treated me as an equal—one gamer to another. I was just grateful. That was all.
And a dream had taken root. A big one, if I was being honest.
If I kept playing—if I just kept going—I wanted to run a raid with him. I didn't want to only take his teaching. I wanted to be able to help him, too. I wanted to take down a hard boss at his side and share that rush when it finally fell. I wanted to keep playing with him.
And for that...
"...I have to level up, don't I?"
I needed to climb, and fast. The last time I'd seen it, Taeyang's main account had been level 320. The highest-level player in Ellemo right now was 331. He was one of the very best in the game. Catching up might take a lifetime. I was going to do it anyway.
Maybe the universe had heard me. A wolf came pacing toward me.
It bared its teeth, gathering itself to lunge—and for some reason, it felt like the wolf was saying something else entirely.
Kill me already, and go higher. Go run a raid with Taeyang.
...Was I reading way too much into this?
I shook the stray thoughts off and raised my sword. Then, calling up the memory of the way Taeyang had moved, I met the wolf head-on.
And at the same time, a thread of unease wound itself through my chest.
If—if Taeyang ever found out I was a girl...
Would he react the same way those other people had?
He wouldn't. Taeyang wasn't like that.
...Probably.