Week 12 PvP Assessment (5)
The strategy of Kim Ho and Hong Yeon-hwa's team was a simple one. Exploiting their mobility, they would seize the high ground quickly, then harass the opponents clambering up after them. And whenever the distance narrowed to a dangerous degree, they would simply flit higher still — harassment from above, repeated over and over. Blatant and obvious, but effective.
We still haven't found a way through. So thought Go Hyeon-woo as he swept his spell sword along a diagonal line. The wind coiled around the blade shot forth in a fierce edge, slicing apart the flame feathers raining down toward him.
— Swish!
But Hong Yeon-hwa's magic chained together faster than the eye could follow. The next wave of feathers came flying straight at him. No room even to catch my breath.
He did have the option of simply tanking them with his body — those feathers were harassment magic first and foremost, and their destructive power looked unimpressive. There was just one problem with that.
— BOOM!
Some of the feathers exploded mid-flight. That was because Hong Yeon-hwa kept mixing in her flame-burst spell, Outburst. With no way to tell which feathers would detonate, Go Hyeon-woo couldn't afford to ignore a single one, and his climb grew slower still.
Go Hyeon-woo83% ◆ Seo Ye-in87%
For all the time that had passed, surprisingly little of their health had been whittled away. And yet the situation was far from optimistic —
Kim Ho100% ◆ Hong Yeon-hwa98%
— because the other side had taken essentially no damage at all.
If this drags on, defeat is certain.
But as Go Hyeon-woo had judged early in the match, Kim Ho could have snatched an easy victory from them whenever he pleased. Which meant there had to be some intention behind deliberately dragging the game out.
...
Go Hyeon-woo kept cutting down flame feathers as he stared across the enemy position. Then his gaze met Kim Ho's, looking down at him with a face of perfect calm — and somehow, he felt he could read the man's intent.
He wants us to throw the first gambit.
Seo Ye-in seemed to have arrived at much the same conclusion. Her figure wavered once — and then she was simply gone. She had thrown the optical camouflage ghillie suit over herself.
Go Hyeon-woo's eyes flashed. In that case. Gathering his momentum, he stamped down hard on a cloud platform.
Hong Yeon-hwa, meanwhile, had been watching Seo Ye-in closely the whole time, and noticed her disappearance at once. But why? Why now, of all moments? True, she had been sending more flame feathers toward Seo Ye-in than toward Go Hyeon-woo — the long-range Seo Ye-in was the greater threat, and the more she kept her pinned down, the fewer counterattacks would come her way. But this didn't look like a simple dodge. There was clearly something else behind it...
Before long, Hong Yeon-hwa's eyebrows shot up. ...Ah! Her weapon!
Come to think of it, Seo Ye-in's magic gun could transform into several forms — an assault rifle, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, and more. And the form best suited to this moment was—
The sniper, most likely.
The assault rifle was barely scratching her through three layers of defensive magic, so Seo Ye-in must be planning to settle things with a single powerful shot from the sniper rifle.
Can I... block it? Things were already hanging by a thread — could she really withstand a sniper round? It felt like it would simply punch straight through...
A little unsettled, Hong Yeon-hwa glanced at Kim Ho, but he answered as though it were nothing.
"Don't worry."
"...Okay."
Apparently he already had something prepared. That easygoing confidence filled her with reassurance and relief all at once. Then Kim Ho added one more thing.
"If anything, this is our chance."
Switching the magic gun to a different form ate up a fair amount of time. Which meant that, for the duration, they could cast their magic free of interference from Seo Ye-in.
"Let's finish things on our end too, shall we?"
"...!"
Hong Yeon-hwa grasped his intent at once. If the enemy was throwing out a gambit, then they simply had to answer with a gambit of their own. And the trump card she held was—
A large-scale spell.
She already had one in mind, the spell best suited to this battlefield. She simply hadn't had the time to bring it out until now. But the moment had come.
A round magic circle rose beneath Hong Yeon-hwa's feet. It widened in the blink of an eye, expanding until it spilled past the edges of the cloud platform, and intricate formulas began filling its interior.
So that's the gambit. Go Hyeon-woo's eyes gleamed at the suddenly appearing magic circle. Just as he'd expected, Kim Ho had been waiting for them to come at him with their final trump card — responding with a large-scale spell of his own, as if to say he'd anticipated exactly this. That was why Go Hyeon-woo had been scrambling up the cloud platforms so desperately.
The seamless stream of harassment had stopped, and Hong Yeon-hwa now had to remain rooted atop her magic circle. Which meant this was his first and last chance.
— Thud!
Go Hyeon-woo kicked off the platform with everything he had — and at last, he stepped onto the same level as Kim Ho and Hong Yeon-hwa. The two men faced each other and smiled faintly.
"So you made it."
"That I have."
That was the end of the exchange. Go Hyeon-woo unfolded the technique he had prepared in advance. His golden spell sword, moving with liquid grace, pointed itself at Kim Ho — and an equally gentle wind came blowing toward him.
Crisp, blade-sharp airflows converged along the golden spell sword and surged forth.
Kim Ho, holding his position in front of Hong Yeon-hwa as though to shield her, drove his ink-black short spear into the platform. Beside him floated a fist-sized dark cloud — summoned who knew when — bobbing lazily in the air. Then Kim Ho gave a light flick of his hand,
— Whirrr—!
and in an instant the wind gathered into a whirlwind, which advanced slowly forward. And when the gentle wind and the whirlwind collided—
— CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
it sounded as though legions of weapons were crashing against legions more. The whirlwind gave way first, but Go Hyeon-woo's Clear Stream was nearly spent as well. Even so, a fragment of sword energy ricocheted out toward Kim Ho—
...
— and Kim Ho, as if he had anticipated even that, shifted the dark cloud this way and that, lightly deflecting the fragments aside. Then he gave his other hand another casual wave.
— Whirr—
"Oh no—!"
The moment wind began converging from every direction, Go Hyeon-woo flung himself backward. He had watched this play out at Kim Ho's side many times, and he knew it for what it was — the prelude to a whirlwind. And once the whirlwind finished gathering—
— BOOM!
— it invariably exploded on the spot. Sure enough, the cloud platform that had been there was gone without a trace. Kim Ho didn't stop there, either, unleashing Spiral Explosion again and again in rapid succession. Go Hyeon-woo flung himself from this platform to that to evade the blasts, clicking his tongue in disappointment all the while.
I wanted to trade more moves with him... so this is where it ends.
Now all he could do was hope that Miss Seo would do her part.
— THOOM—!
At that moment, a heavy gunshot rang out from somewhere. To Hong Yeon-hwa, it looked for an instant as though a blue line were being drawn toward her from that direction. The dark cloud darted into the line's path, but the magic bullet pierced straight through it, then shattered all three layers of defensive magic in a single breath before slamming into Hong Yeon-hwa's body.
— BANG!
"Ugh...!"
Hong Yeon-hwa 98%
Hong Yeon-hwa 95%
Fortunately, the damage was not severe — the defensive spells had been pierced one after another, but they had still served as a cushion of sorts. Hong Yeon-hwa stubbornly resumed her interrupted casting.
Just a little more...!
As if refusing to let her, a second sniper shot came flying before long.
— BANG—!
Hong Yeon-hwa 89%
...!
Hong Yeon-hwa's body swayed violently. With her barrier only half-restored, both the impact and the damage were greater than before. But there would be no third shot — because despite the unrelenting interference, her large-scale spell was finally complete.
— FWOARARARA!
Hong Yeon-hwa thrust her wand high. From the magic circle at her feet, a colossal flame bloomed upward, taking the shape of a phoenix. The phoenix beat its wings in a mighty flourish, and hundreds of fire feathers blanketed the sky before raining down in a rustling cascade.
Phoenix Flutter
— Fwoooosh...
Where the feathers poured down like rain and struck the cloud platforms, flames spread across them like wildfire. One of them even set Go Hyeon-woo's shoulder alight, but he paid it no mind, absorbed in the spectacle unfolding before him.
"Magnificent."
— FWOOSH!
In less time than it takes to drink a glass of water, every last cloud platform burned away and scattered. The sky that had been strung with scattered platforms was swept clean. With nowhere left to stand, Go Hyeon-woo and Seo Ye-in had no choice but to plummet.
...
Even as he fell, Go Hyeon-woo turned his head to look at Seo Ye-in. One side of her gray hair was on fire, and she was wearing a sullen pout. Somehow, Go Hyeon-woo found himself feeling cheerful.
"Haha, Miss Seo. It seems we have lost."
"Kim Ho, that's cheating."
Hong Yeon-hwa stared at the scoreboard, her face glowing with joy. We won...! That made two wins! With Kim Ho on her team, she had expected to win one way or another, but against opponents like Go Hyeon-woo and Seo Ye-in, she had braced for at least something of a struggle. Yet playing the match out exactly as he directed, victory had come far more easily than she'd imagined — and even in the occasional moments when danger loomed, he had stepped forward and resolved everything himself. Once again, Hong Yeon-hwa had confirmed it: Kim Ho was a signed guarantee of victory.
The two of them left the Arena at nearly the same moment. When their eyes met, Kim Ho tossed out a single remark in his usual deadpan tone.
"Good work."
"Y-yeah! You did great too..."
Kim Ho simply turned and walked out of the Arena. Apparently he had already run through all three of his required matches. Hong Yeon-hwa gazed blankly after his retreating back — and then something suddenly flashed through her mind. And so she hurriedly chased after him.
"U-um, wait!"
"What is it?"
Kim Ho answered without much interest. Hong Yeon-hwa spoke, her gaze darting every which way.
"Well... my sister was asking if you could come by sometime..."
"Right now?"
"If... if you're free...?"
Hong Yeon-hwa had received help from Kim Ho in all manner of ways. During the mentoring period, he had run tailored sparring sessions until she mastered Fire Pillar, and that mastery had bought her an easy victory over Bukgung Han-seol. The deserted-island midterm had been the same: back then, her partner had been knocked out of action and left her on her own, and Kim Ho had readily shared a place to rest — then traded with her until her Crystal set was complete. Without that, a high score would not have come nearly so easily.
For those reasons, Hong Ye-hwa had invited Kim Ho to stop by the clubroom whenever he had time — partly as a token of thanks, partly to talk over his path going forward. And... there was something she wanted to check, too...? But perhaps because she had left it vague as "whenever you have time," Kim Ho had merely said he would and then vanished without a word. It was only a few days ago that Hong Ye-hwa had finally asked, "So when exactly is this boy coming?" — and that memory was what had sent Hong Yeon-hwa hurrying after him now.
Hearing Hong Yeon-hwa's explanation, Kim Ho seemed to mull something over for a moment. Then, apparently deciding he couldn't put it off forever, he gave a ready nod.
"Alright. Let's go."
[223] The Support Ate It All