Think They'll Stay Away?

I wrapped up a match without breaking much of a sweat and returned to my room.

"The payout's fatter than I thought."

Turning it over again, I felt a smile creep across my face.

A level-up handing me an Ability Point wasn't enough on its own. Strength and Mana had each climbed by one on top of that.

Every game on the Channel judged how a player performed and paid out accordingly. Under ordinary circumstances you had to take first a few more times, grind like your life depended on it, or pull off something outrageous before the system, as if it were doing you a favor, tossed you a single stat.

One match in first place, and I walk away with two stats.

It had to be a result that took my situation into account. I was still Level 5, ranked matches not even open, and next to the standouts at my level my stats were nothing worth mentioning. And with that, I'd killed 286 goblins and taken first by an absurd margin. The same lobby had even held a first-division league trainee plated in good gear.

"Figure it weighed all of that and decided this was what I was owed."

I couldn't complain. No—this was as good as it got.

"Ability Point stays in the bank for now."

An Ability Point was exactly what it sounded like: a point that raised one stat of your choosing. You earned them by leveling, and a few other sources existed besides. Later, when training can't push a stat ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠any higher no matter what you do, spending them then is several times more efficient. A tip from someone who'd actually climbed to Challenger, if it counted as one.

For the record, back when my mana circuits were ruined, even Ability Points couldn't raise my Mana. They were only a means of increasing stats you already had.

"If Hyung's coming... there's still some time."

Until then, I'd run more normal matches. I wanted my constitution evolved, and past that I wanted ranked unlocked as soon as possible. Every scrap of experience I could bank would help.

The weapon.

I glanced at the wooden club in my hand. Three hundred credits was too much to throw away after a single match, and having just used it, I found it sturdier than expected. The swing didn't feel bad either.

"Might as well keep it."

I'd wring every last drop out of the thing, at least until it broke. Grinning, I started the next game at once.

My vision flashed, and I was somewhere else.

The last map had been a forest crawling with goblins. This one was a city that called up medieval Europe—ash-gray brick streets, low buildings, a great castle planted magnificently at the center, and banners of every color snapping in the wind. The air was nothing like before. Of course it wasn't.

That one was Hunting. This is Survival.

Solo matches split into their own categories. Hunting ranked you by who cut down more monsters. Survival was the word itself: who drops more of the other players. That was why these maps landed on city streets and tangled terrain, where things turned dramatic faster than they ever did on an open plain, more often than not.

Players were being summoned one after another. Unlike Hunting, there was no translucent wall. The wait let you roam the map freely, and given how the mode worked, the difference was inevitable. Attacking each other during the wait was, of course, impossible.

"Ah... of all things, Survival..."

"Finally get to try out the gear I just bought."

Other players waited for the start some distance off. A few of them were already picking out prey to jump the instant the match began. Let them.

"Helleim... Helleim... hss..."

I worked my temples with a slow massage, chasing a strange memory that kept drifting through my head. There had definitely been something on this map.

"...Ah!"

It came back. The moment the thought struck, my legs were already moving. I deliberately ignored the odd sensation at my back and followed the faded memory to a certain place: the third building along the north-south road, with the central castle as my marker.

A sign I couldn't read, and an exterior that was conspicuously shabby. From the outside it didn't even look fit to use as cover.

What this place is really worth is somewhere else.

I opened the door like I had something to prove and stepped inside. Sure enough, the interior looked as if no hand had touched it in years. A large board hung on the right-hand wall, and a counter sat in the center. I walked up to that counter.

I converted one hundred credits into a coin and set it down. Then I said the line.

"I've come to be assigned some work."

Something strange happened. The credits vanished into empty air.

"Hahh...!"

Just as I thought. Nobody had claimed the Hidden Quest here yet.

Maps hid all sorts of quests. Among them, the ones you could receive only once, and only one person could receive—paying out rewards far beyond their size—were called Hidden Quests. The Outlaw Hunt I'd just taken was one of them.

"Of course, the goal isn't easy, not with a payout like that."

A kill count of thirty. Considering first place in a normal Survival match usually landed around ten kills, that was triple. I didn't care in the slightest. Right now there was only the anticipation of how sweet this reward was going to taste.

"Hss."

I wiped the saliva gathering at the corner of my mouth and took my place in front of the building's door.

"Hm... two of them, maybe? No. Counting the one behind them, it might be three."

I sketched a rough plan off the sense I'd felt a moment ago.

The moment the start was announced, I stepped outside. Just as expected.

"Hraaaap!"

"Hyaaap!"

Two players charged me, eyes bright with anticipation, ambushing me as if they'd been waiting for me to come out.

I must look pretty wrecked.

From the look of it, they'd seen the state I was in, decided I was a free kill, and tailed me the whole way. In a low-level game even one kill was precious. They had to be starving, to go that far.

Not that I'm in any position to talk.

I wasn't the only one moving for a free kill.

I slipped out of both sword-paths as smoothly as flowing water. The blades carved nothing but empty air.

"Huh... huhh?"

"...!"

They'd been certain the ambush would land, and the instant it missed they froze so hard it was a spectacle. I held the posture I'd dodged in and planted both feet.

The mana knotted beneath my solar plexus began to move. From my chest to my shoulder, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my elbow, my wrist, and at last through every joint of my fingers, I kept the current fluid and amplified it as it went.

"Hss—!"

I swung the club.

A sound a human head should never make rang out. I caved in the skull of the one who'd rushed me head-on, and the sensation of bone and everything inside it shattering traveled up through my fingertips.

One kill.

I counted it inwardly, then kicked off the ground, snatched the sword from the man I'd just dropped, and drove it into the other's throat in a single breath. Flesh split. His balance collapsed.

"G-gaaaaah!"

His throat was opening, and he was still screaming from shock more than pain. He must have dialed his sync rate down hard.

"Next time you ambush someone, size them up first."

I offered the advice like it might actually do him some good, then twisted the blade and cut off his breath.

Two kills.

The moment I finished the count, both corpses and their gear dissolved into motes of light.

Two free kills, right as the match opened. Unlike Battle Royale, you couldn't use the gear of anyone you'd eliminated. A shame. But if it keeps them underestimating me, maybe it isn't entirely bad.

I waited with a thin smile, and sure enough several arrows came flying toward where I stood.

"Wondered when you'd show."

The angle was up and to the right, the roof of a building. Whoever it was had picked the sniping line well enough that they weren't a complete novice. I ducked the arrows, loaded mana into the soles of my feet, and launched myself high.

"—!"

Just as I thought, a woman stood on the roof. A warrior suddenly flying at her was enough to rattle anyone, but she recovered and set an arrow to the string. At this distance, she seemed to figure she could drop me before I hit the ground.

"And what are you going to do about this?"

"I'm a little faster."

A violet barrier unfolded, and my falling speed doubled. I slammed into the building before she could draw the bow. The structure came down around me.

"Kyaaaah!"

The archer's thin scream brushed my ear.

"There you are."

I'd had trouble pinning her down. Kind of her to help. I released the skill and grabbed whatever piece of rubble fit my hand. Mana gathered in my right arm—racing from the shoulder, circling the wrist, hauling the strength up with it. I hurled the fragment with everything I had, straight toward the sound.

Dust hid the impact, but something definitely connected. I knew because my kill count had just become three.

"Hoo."

I let out a clean breath and swept my bangs back. Less than three minutes in, and I'd taken three kills for free. A ridiculous start, and nowhere near enough. My target was thirty. Not that I needed to go looking for the rest of them. They were going to come to me.

"I put on a show like this. Hyenas really think they can stay away?"

I'd brought down an entire building. Every player in earshot would come running.

And they did. Footsteps began closing in from all around. I gave the club a light swing and stepped outside.

Time to eat again.

Meanwhile.

"Waaaaah!"

The woman Shin Jaeha had just hit with a stone jolted upright in her room as if she were convulsing. She blinked, dazed, and asked the air.

"Um... what did I even die to?"

"Hey! You guys were the ones who told me to tail him and take the free kill!"

Channel Streamers—people whose living was broadcasting matches on the Channel.

"Damn it... guess I'll watch the kill cam."

The archer, a Channel Streamer herself, replayed the last moments of the match. Out of nowhere her opponent had dropped at a brutal speed, brought the building down, and then she was simply dead.

"...?"

She tore the footage apart frame by frame. Through the dust, a small stone came screaming in and buried itself in her head.

Chat watched the clip and answered with pure disbelief. The streamer herself was even more dumbfounded. An archer dying to a warrior's ranged attack was strange enough on its own.

He got that much power out of throwing a rock...?

Players were superhuman, their bodies corrected by their stats. To kill someone in a single thrown stone, you needed at least Bronze-level Strength—or Mana beyond even that. And on top of it, the mana control to keep the rock from shattering while pushing its force to the limit.

"Crazy... a monster..."

The words slipped out of her before she knew it, half lament and half awe.