Though I Actually Know
My quickening breath pressed heavy against my chest, and the hand gripping my mouse trembled ever so slightly.
“Heh... heh.”
An aching, breathy gasp slipped out right after.
Making no effort to hide my emotions, I gazed fixedly at the monitor screen.
It felt as if time had ground to a halt. Only you and me—a world inhabited by just the two of us.
I had received a few confessions in my life, and confessed a few times myself. Yet right now, this nameless Berserker's confession felt more romantic than any I had ever known.
Our hearts were tender, but alas, ours was a forbidden bond that could never be. For a noble Priest and an uncouth ruffian of a Berserker to cross paths—the gulf between our stations was an impossible divide from worlds apart.
I'm so sorry.
As if turning away from my sorrowful heart, I averted my gaze back toward the Plaza.
Ever since his first assault arrived before the soldiers—or minions, in common parlance—marched in, the Berserker had been far too occupied mopping up the waves surging forward under my buffs to charge at me with ease.
The defining brilliance of the Watchtower Priest lay in this very dilemma. Out of the two prayers a Priest could select, the primary prayer was an area-of-effect buff dedicated to allied minions. The other was the crowd-control prayer I had hurled toward the Plaza moments ago.
What if the enemy Watchtower laner ignored the minions and dived straight for my throat?
Then his front line crumbled completely. Whether he took my life or failed in the attempt, regardless of the outcome, he would ultimately have no choice but to turn back and clean up the minion wave.
And if he ignored me instead, prioritizing the minions?
The disparity in team utility between a Berserker spec'd purely for dueling and a Priest standing atop the ramparts armed with cross-map crowd control was astronomical. Naturally, given that his build was tailored exclusively for single-target combat, his wave clear wasn't even remotely fast.
The enemy could do nothing but suck their thumbs and watch their shackled allies hand over deaths.
My duties here boiled down to just two: never push the enemy into their own watchtower, but never get pushed back either. And at the exact same time, tip the scales in the Plaza—the game's most vital battleground.
“Heheheh.”
Savoring the quiet pride of our team seizing momentum, I smiled for a moment. But as I turned my eyes forward once more, I caught sight of the enemy Berserker, glowing crimson as though incandescent with fury, painstakingly chopping down minions one by one.
Well, he was only red because of a skill that sacrificed his own health to boost his attack power. But to my eyes, at least, he looked positively enraged.
And who could blame him?
What kind of lane was the Watchtower? People called it the lane of real men. A 1v1 the instant the game started. Win or lose, respawn and 1v1 again. When he booted up the game and queued into matchmaking, that was undoubtedly the duel he had envisioned. Yet here he was... endlessly harvesting minion heads like a humble farmer tilling the fields.
As a fellow Path of Knight player, my heart went out to him in genuine sympathy.
Rustle.
Humans are social animals. While my social skills might be slightly lacking, they weren't entirely nonexistent. So, I decided to convey my heartfelt apologies through the game's entirely legitimate system: emotes.
Tapping the preset key, my camera pulled out to third-person perspective as my Priest bowed deeply.
Still, stopping at just one might fail to properly communicate my sincerity. I mashed the emote hotkey while whipping my mouse in circles, wiggling my character back and forth.
The so-called omnidirectional apology. The ultimate evolutionary form of repentance.
“Hehehe.”
But what was this? Despite such a heartfelt apology, not a single "It's fine" or "Don't mention it" came in return.
Instead, all that filled my vision was the murderous edge of a Berserker's battleaxe. Regrettably, it seemed our Berserker had zero desire to accept my apology.
Finishing my final emote, I took a single step backward. The Berserker's axe embedded itself right into the flagstones where I had stood just a split second before.
KABOOM! No sooner had the deafening roar rattled my headset than the Berserker surged toward me once more, his bloodshot eyes murderously stark.
“Oh dear.”
Yet that mindless charge was, in truth, an exceptional decision.
Apart from the advantages I had so passionately mulled over, the Watchtower Priest harbored several lethal flaws. The first, of course, was sheer helplessness in a straight duel. There were other counter-strategies that had completely driven this build into extinction, but...
The best option a solo player could take was relentless, blind aggression. To buff allied minions, the Priest had to remain well within the Berserker's threat radius.
So just as he proclaimed, all he had to do was slaughter the Priest in one fell swoop and clear the wave immediately. When the Priest respawned, kill them again. Clear the wave again. Repeating this simple cycle would gradually push the front line until the Watchtower was captured. Once the Watchtower fell, his team's minions would grow stronger while ours grew weaker. If he could manage that, he would swing the momentum of the entire game while rendering the Watchtower Priest utterly useless.
However... if I had fallen for such an obvious tactic every single time, there was no way I could have maintained this rank.
I triggered the emote while tapping the jump key in the exact same breath. It wasn't teabagging; it was for animation canceling. The difference was practically imperceptible whether I did it or not, but surely moving even a single frame faster was a clear advantage. ...Surely.
And as if to vindicate my judgment, the Berserker's axe whistled past by a hair's breadth. Across the gleaming edge of the blade, the heat haze from the fires outside the ramparts shimmered.
Truly a textbook performance befitting a top-tier Watchtower player. Leveraging the Berserker's traits, he bled his own health to amplify his stats, pressing the offensive without relenting.
Boom, slam!
Like a beast stripped of all reason. The colossal axe blade cleaved through the air and battered against the stone wall over and over. An explosive tremor rocked the ramparts. Even having dodged it cleanly, the ringing lingered in my ears.
Right in the heart of the impact, my emotes faithfully followed. I repeat: purely for animation canceling.
“Heh.”
And so it went. The Berserker attacked, and I dodged. With each razor-thin repetition, our allied minions clinging to his boots burst into mist one by one. And that meant the enemy's health was also being steadily chipped away by his own self-damaging skills and minion strikes.
Though blood poured from his entire body and his once-clean leather armor was soaked crimson... the Berserker paid it no heed, swinging his axe with wild, bloodshot eyes.
Crash!
The Berserker leaped toward me yet again. A move born of blinding wrath. This was precisely why keeping one's composure was so critical.
We had traded countless swings and dodges up to this point. But just as a match must draw to a close, just as a bitter winter must eventually pass... nothing in this world, and nothing in Path of Knight, repeats forever.
“Ah.”
The instant my boots touched the flagstones, the axe blade swept straight for my waist. Driving the axe at my ankles to bait a jump, then capitalizing on the exact landing frame with a horizontal cleave.
Can't dodge this one easily.
That Berserker might have been spewing profanities in chat mid-brawl, but his tactical read was razor sharp.
Rip, tear. The sound of individual white threads snapping as the axe edge grazed my robe resonated vividly. The blade was tracking directly toward my right flank. In moments, that barbaric hunk of iron would slice past the cloth, carve through my flesh, and sever my delicate ribs whole.
“Hah.”
As every nerve ending blurred with thrilling adrenaline and spine-chilling terror, I used the landing momentum to drop low, bending my knees as if sliding onto my backside. My boots skidded as though hydroplaning across a slick puddle of blood—the crimson pool the Berserker himself had bled until now. Right beneath the sweep of the blade, into the blind spot created the moment his vision was obstructed. Seizing that microsecond opening, I burrowed straight into his chest.
It was a double-bitted battleaxe with an exceptionally long haft. At such point-blank range, swinging that blade was an impossibility. Now, all I had to do was execute a simple input.
Thwack!
Rebalancing with a slight stutter-step counter-motion, I raised the staff gripped in both hands—and planted a forehead-flick right onto the Berserker's brow.
Despite my pathetic base attack damage, the Berserker's hulking frame collapsed from that single tap.
Instead of in-game chat, my feelings poured out through a head-shaking emote. Should have paid some attention to your health bar, friend.
After having so much fun with our Berserker friend, the match had reached its final stretch before I knew it.
Was that five deaths for their Priest now? ATG. Short for Alien Tech Gaming. A foreign pro team, if memory served. Seeing him repeatedly chopped down by our Plaza player stirred a twinge of pity in me. Though I suppose it made sense; no matter how cracked his mechanics were, he was essentially fighting 3v2 this entire time.
Our Waterway player seemed to be holding an even fifty-fifty split as well. At this rate, victory was in the bag.
The enemy Berserker surely knew it too. Yet the way he charged tirelessly at me made it feel as though, win or lose, he just wanted to murder me at least once.
“Hmm.”
Really, now. I had played completely honestly, so I couldn't fathom why he was directing so much fury exclusively at me.
“Heheh.”
Though I actually knew. Still, nothing changed.
I wasn't about to die for him despite his desperate yearning. If I were to donate even a single death now, he might walk away claiming a moral victory. And if that happened, the rich, savory flavor of the results screen—the match's main course—would be ruined. So for the remainder of this game, we would just keep enjoying our little league of our own.
While beaming brightly outside the screen, I was bracing for the Berserker's next leap in-game when—
Ba-ba-bam!
“Whoaaagh!!!”
Not the familiar grand orchestral score of Path of Knight, but a cheery fanfare sounded out.
Glancing over to a corner of the monitor, the sudden realization hit me that I was actually live streaming.
“Ah, right.”
Keeping my microphone muted was truly an inspired choice. If it had been on... wouldn't all those creepy, breathless gasps and wicked giggles from moments ago have broadcasted straight to the world? I was, after all, fully aware of my own unseemly habits.
“Mmm.”
In any case, a build explanation...
A thousand won was over one percent of my entire net worth. A pack of instant ramen. Precious funds to survive another day. Pocketing such a colossal sum and feigning ignorance would be shameful for a streamer—and unforgivable as a human being.
Taking a preemptive step to the side to avoid the Berserker's leap, I enlarged the tucked-away stream chat window.
In stark contrast to twenty minutes ago, when there had been just one viewer and two lonely lines of chat, a respectable flood of messages was scrolling up the screen. Glancing at the viewer count, I saw roughly seventy people. At this volume, word must have spread across some online gaming community.
Crash!
Jolted by the unexpected number, I took another sidestep. Evading the massive axe blade slamming into the stones beneath my feet, I tapped away at the keyboard.
Explaining a build I had personally developed and knew like the back of my hand was hardly a challenge, even in the middle of combat. And, well... neither was dodging the Berserker's attacks, which had now become entirely predictable.
Racking up yet another kill, I waited in quiet anticipation, but sadly the Berserker unleashed no further rage.
0 kills, 5 deaths, 0 assists.
Having died five times in a row, the poor guy's spirit seemed to have completely shattered. Waiting for the Berserker to respawn, I wrapped up the lengthy typing session.
People really come up with the strangest questions.