Episode 24: Can You Pull It Off? (3)

Through forums and news outlets alike, word of a certain player had begun to creep.

He had uncovered the legitimate clear method for an underground prison that no one before him had ever found. He possessed absurd skill and terrifying insight. And countless league teams—K1 among them—had been the ones to reach out first, asking to meet.

The supernova Warrior who had shot to the top of every conversation in a matter of days.

Shin Jaeha.

Shin Jaeha was fresh content in a Korean player market that had scarcely produced a star since Nam Siwoo. And Korea, already short on Warriors with any real backbone compared to Japan, the United States, or China, felt the spark all the more keenly. The solo wave defense he had shown at Valkyrie Gorge in particular lodged itself in people's minds and sent their imaginations racing in exactly the direction he would have wanted.

Which meant, of course, that a certain argument was inevitable.

Nam Siwoo—the finest player Korea had ever produced, a top-class Warrior risen out of a country everyone called a Warrior wasteland. And Shin Jaeha, arrived like a comet and currently shouldering the attention and expectations of half the internet by himself. For people who lived on gossip, it was bait they could not possibly leave alone.

A player who, from the day he walked in as a K1 trainee, had piled up one feat after another until he stood as KPL's mountain—the one no one could cross.

One player had opened with overwhelming play and built a monstrous reputation in the shortest time anyone could remember. The argument over which of them was the greater Warrior set the internet on fire.

And in the end, the noise collapsed into a single conclusion.

The easiest yardstick for comparing the two of them.

Start with the first placement rank, and go from there.

And so the anticipation for Shin ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Jaeha's first broadcast climbed higher still.

Higher, even, than Shin Jaeha himself had expected.

If I said I wasn't surprised, I'd be lying.

Twenty thousand people, watching? My first broadcast? Whew. I'd figured eight thousand at the outside. This was more than double what I'd expected. The chat was scrolling so fast I'd already given up on reading it, and even though I'd handed manager duties to Suhyuk—who actually knew his way around a broadcast—the sheer number of viewers had flattened him.

"I'll switch us over to follower-only chat for a bit~."

The change settled things, at least a little. It was still absurdly fast, but if I worked at it I could catch a line or two. We already got the small talk out of the way up front. All that remained was clearing the last match of the Placement Test.

"All right, we're starting! The final match of the Placement Test!"

Same as always. I called it out like I had the whole thing in my pocket, and connected to the Channel.

…

This time I wasn't dropped straight onto a map. A vast corridor opened around me, as if someone had carved a slice out of the middle of the universe, and enormous books hung embroidered across the empty air. The Cradle of Lore. There was only one reason this place would appear: the solo match I'd drawn was Story.

So-called story mode. Ordinary Channel games handed you an objective the instant they began. A story, by contrast, carried a narrative of its own—though calling it a narrative was dressing it up. Characters showed up. A tale existed. That was about the size of it.

And every scenario carried a different goal. The Goblin Hut Subjugation people were mentioning in chat meant raiding a goblin nest alongside a mercenary company. Escorting the Cargo Wagon meant seeing a wagon through bandit country and delivering it safely to its destination. That was the whole of it.

At this stage, none of the scenarios were especially difficult. Most of them sat around E-rank. Even so, I can't afford to relax. Things have kept going like this, and a trap has shown up every single time. I waited with my guard deliberately unlowered.

One of the gray books drifting nearby swept forward, opened, and became a door.

"Not the best draw, but I can't complain."

At my current level, the bandits that spawned on a wagon escort were something I could beat with one hand. I let the tension out of my shoulders and started in—and in that instant, the world shrieked with static. The space in front of my eyes stuttered as if it had thrown an error, and then it began to twist.

"What is this...?!"

In all the time I had been connecting to the Channel, I had never seen anything like it. The closest thing I could name was the last moment before my regression—the sensation of landing one clean hit on the being from outside, and dying as I did. I held on through the confusion, and a sentence shattered nearly past reading spilled out in front of me.

The gray book that had held the wagon escort burned away to nothing, and a new book took its place—one that blazed in every color, as if the Milky Way had been set into its cover, motes of light orbiting it in slow circles. A kind of book I had never seen in my life.

The viewers, it seemed, hadn't seen the phenomenon at all.

"Hah......"

So what—was the world handing out special treatment because I'd regressed? I had no idea what that thing was. Doesn't matter what it is. This was still a Placement Test. Clear it, and that was enough.

"Looks like there was a slight error just now. By the way, have any of you seen something like that before?"

If no one recognized the scenario, then it had been given to me alone.

"I should change the stream title. Final match of the Placement Test—and the first public reveal of an unreleased scenario!"

I stepped through the door in the book, already picturing how much higher my name would climb.

If I had to put the sight that met me the moment I opened my eyes into a single phrase—

"It's ruined."

Ruined. That was the whole of it. Not my situation, to be clear.

"Yeah. This whole place is done for."

Buildings collapsed to their foundations. Wreckage smashed so thoroughly I couldn't tell what any of it had been. Corpses strewn wherever they had fallen, and bloodstains dried to black crust. A great city that, had it still stood, might have called to mind the royal capital of some magnificent medieval kingdom—destroyed in its entirety. It was too wretched to look at with both eyes open. So that's why the map name has "Plain" in it. The surroundings really had been scoured clean. The view ran unbroken to the horizon.

"Figures. It's an escort."

The objective itself was the sort of escort other scenarios handed out as a matter of course: stay near the designated person and keep them alive. If they died, the clear failed. It said three days, but finish the important events and the day advanced on its own, so the structure wasn't really about enduring three full days in this place. In game terms, it's basically the same as a cutscene playing. In practice, I only had to play the scenes that mattered.

I shoved the unhelpful chat aside and looked around. An escort usually started you right beside the target, but nowhere I turned was there anyone who looked like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a princess. There wasn't a person at all.

"And what exactly am I supposed to protect."

I had barely muttered the complaint when a scream tore the air, sharp enough to stab at my ears.

"Kyaaaaaaaah!"

No way...!

An event, the instant the scenario began? I ran toward the sound without another thought, pouring mana into my legs and driving my speed as high as it would go. A moment later, an ugly little scene came into view.

"Keheheheh...! It's all going to hell anyway, so one last time...!"

"We've got to get our hands on a royal at least once before we die, don't we?"

"Princess, think of it as doing us one last kindness. We're pitiful subjects too. Surely you can grant a request like this?"

Three burly men had a woman backed into a corner. Lush blonde hair, clear sapphire eyes, and a refined face that all but announced, to anyone looking, that the woman before them was royalty.

"E-everyone, please... none of you are in your right minds! If we join our strength, we can defeat that monster!"

"Bullshit! Listen here, you flower-brained miss—how are we supposed to beat that? We're all already dead!"

"Heheheh...! So quit fighting and come here!"

"Eek! D-don't, please...! I'm begging you...!"

Tears stood in the princess's eyes as a rough hand dragged her off—and in that instant, I grinned and took the hammer in both hands.

"Luckily—"

"I'm not late!"

KWAANG!

The hammer came down on one man's skull and sent him flying like a baseball off a home-run swing. He planted in the ground somewhere far off.

"Gyaaaaaah! Wh-what are you!"

"What the hell is this, all of a sudden...!"

The other two stumbled back in a panic.

"Ah......?"

The princess stared up at me, struck dumb. I had made it with no time to spare. I didn't want to imagine what would have unfolded if I'd been even a little later, or if I hadn't heard the scream at all. I wiped the sweat from my brow as if it were nothing, and answered their question kindly.

"Who am I, you ask?"

The final match of the Placement Test.

This was the beginning of Princess of Ruin.