The Art of Proof, Part 7
"I'll start on the upper lane. But..."
"What? You won?!"
Five minutes into the scrim, just as we were finally starting to push out of the absolute early game, something impossible happened. It was so sudden, so hard to predict, that even the others on the team—Im Chan-gyu included—stared in shock.
"You can keep using me if it means we keep winning."
Snorting a laugh, I stomped on the corpse of the enemy I'd just dropped on the screen and kept moving my character while savoring the satisfaction of it.
Did it happen because I was careless in a practice match? Because I relaxed and made a mistake? None of that mattered. What mattered was that I had crushed my opponent outright with sheer force. And not just any opponent, either, but a solid A-rank player with an actual championship pedigree.
I knew it. I had been right all along. Everything I had accumulated until now had been for this moment. To win, to trample, to stand above others—when it felt this intoxicating, this thrilling, how could there be anything more valuable in the world?
The emotions of the strong, tasted by the weak, really were lethal.
"...I'll change my route. Since Hajin won, I'll move into the enemy jungle."
Im Chan-gyu's role was to roam freely across the map, hunt neutral monsters, and support the three lanes—top, mid, and bottom—wherever help was needed.
And now, using my solo kill as a basis, he was revising the strategy in real time.
So familiar.
I felt a strange sense of familiarity in scenes like this.
Of course, I had spent years as a professional gamer in Redfield. But this wasn't the ordinary familiarity of simply playing a game.
"Let's just take them together."
"That might be a little too reckless—there!"
Having already established superiority through a one-sided victory, I began moving with Im Chan-gyu. As we tore through the enemy's territory, they kept falling further and further behind, and our advantage only widened.
"Got them. Both of them."
In the end, we even won a small 2v2 skirmish near the enemy jungle. Our picks were at a disadvantage in terms of matchup, yet we still came out on top. Naturally, the reward for that kind of risk was all the bigger.
"Well, this is going smoothly, huh?"
"Keep your confidence up. Feels like we're matching well, doesn't it? The two of us."
The tension that had been freezing Im Chan-gyu's face melted away completely. He didn't answer me directly, but he was now playing with confidence, shaping the game on his own initiative.
And there, I finally understood the nature of this strange familiarity.
Make a choice, then lend it power. And those who received it would use it to accomplish the miracle they desired.
How was what I did in Pandemonium, as the Great Lord Ascalas, any different from this?
"Today's going well."
"Yeah. This is the first time we've ever synced this well."
Before long, all of the team members were smiling as they played.
The result of the practice match, completed in less than fifteen minutes, was overwhelming. The kill score was 12 to 0, a brutally fast, explosive game that no one had seen coming.
Part of it was because our individual mechanics were solid, fitting for players who had already been receiving favorable evaluations as promising rookies. But the real reason this match had turned into a landslide victory no one could have predicted was our eerily perfect team synergy.
Still, for some reason, I felt like I knew the secret behind it. I knew what it meant to be connected through a single communications network, to have countless individuals functioning together as one hive.
"Room's busted."
"It's over? Just like that?"
Not long after that, the room collapsed completely. The other side decided the practice no longer served any purpose and surrendered.
"You guys did amazing. Seriously, you were incredible."
And then Coach Park Yong-bin, grinning from ear to ear, sprang up from where he'd been watching and hurried over to us.
"I didn't think it'd affect reality too. I didn't even take some kind of enhancement potion, so how is this even possible?"
After the scrim ended and the coaching staff finished their feedback, I went up to the rooftop alone, turned on my phone, and contacted Agares.
"Naturally, it's separate from the stats enhanced by potions. Isn't it delightful? You can grow stronger even in the real world."
"I know the secret of Synchronization Rate, too."
I frowned at his slick reply. My Synchronization Rate had climbed to 29 percent, and before I knew it, it was already approaching 30.
That could only mean my avatar, the Great Lord, and I were steadily becoming one.
"You're not telling me my body is going to turn into that giant spider, are you?"
"Of course not. Nothing of the sort. An avatar is, by nature, only an empty shell. With special exceptions, even if you reach 100 percent Synchronization, you will appear the same on the outside."
"What's this special exception?"
"As you already know, depending on the tendencies and traits you set when you first start the game, your style of play changes dramatically. Some become lords of a faction like you, while others move about in freer bodies and act much more actively. Those people... begin with 100 percent Synchronization from the very start."
Still smiling as he explained, Agares added that there was no single correct answer in this world.
I didn't really care. It was shocking enough that there were people who acted in complete unity with their avatars from the beginning, but truthfully, the world was full of all sorts of freaks.
What matters is that I do what I need to do.
"Good. Then let's get back to the game. You've cleared another achievement in reality. Your first practice-match victory... gets converted into experience and paid out to Pandemonium as well."
On the screen, the game—no, my other life—began again.
Even as I went down from the rooftop, packed my things, and headed back to the dorm, I never let go of my phone. The other team members seemed to be doing individual practice even at this hour, but I had already decided not to bother with solo queue anymore. After all, my real skill came from this.
"You're still playing phone games? What about practice? Solo queue?"
"This is my job too."
Im Chan-gyu let out a disbelieving laugh at the sight of me glued to my phone all day outside practice hours, but I ignored him with a shrug.
***
"...! It really was me!!"
Deep in the forest, late at night, a small figure suddenly shot upright from where it had been perched on a rock. A delicate girl with beautiful features, including large red eyes.
Yet from the middle of her neck downward, her body was covered in something that didn't match her face at all—hard black carapace and leather-like plating, almost like a knight's armor.
Because of her sudden movement, the two Minions supplying her with nourishment through the tendrils attached to her body staggered unsteadily. The more she evolved, the more she became a weapon of the hive devoted solely to battle, and now she could no longer take in or digest nourishment on her own. If she wanted to replenish herself, she needed help from other units.
"Ahh."
She looked up at the sky with a face full of anticipation, only to sit back down again in disappointment. Her god had not answered her wish.
He had used the experience she'd earned somewhere else instead of on her.
"So I still wasn't enough... I have to achieve even greater feats. Only then will he..."
But her disappointment was brief. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, then lifted her darkened eyes and burned with an even fiercer hunger.
For her, malformed and fixed in a twisted state because she had never grown properly, there was nothing more important in this world than loyalty—and the reward and grace that answered that loyalty. Affection. Love.
I don't have time to stand around like this.
As soon as the nourishment was finished, she yanked out the tendrils and rose to her feet. She could work until her body broke apart. If he desired it, she could kill anything and everything in this world.
Investigate the anomaly that appeared to the northeast.
"Yes!"
The order arrived at just the right moment. It meant a chance to earn merit.
Lena spread out her back armor and drew out a massive pair of transparent wings from between the plates, then shot into the sky in an instant.
More merit. Joy to our Lord!
From the beginning until now, Lena's mind held only one desire—whether awake or asleep.
But now she no longer flew alone.
Warrior(C) · Wasp
Minion(C) · Wasp
Several allied units beat their wings beside her, keeping pace at her side.
They were new monsters bred by merging their own essence with the human essence devoured by the Great Lord—creatures that were similar to Lena, yet just different enough. They still barely retained a human shape.
But what in the world is going on?
As she cut across the sky, Lena felt a flicker of curiosity.
The Great Lord, who could know everything about those who belonged to him, knew all things. But the mental network of Ascalas was still not advanced enough to exchange huge amounts of information.
All she could know was the order.
She had been told to go because an anomaly had occurred, but she didn't actually know what had happened there.
"What is that?"
By the time she reached the area near her destination, a little after that, Lena's sharpened vision pierced the ground below, and something caught her eye.
Screams, shouts, beast-like howls, and cries of anguish drifted faintly on the wind.
And the sight that came with them was a horrifying one: one human attacking another.