Watch Closely! And Don't Tell Anyone—!!!
“A-ah, why are you suddenly cussing at me…?”
I flinched so hard my lips started working uselessly. What on earth had I done to earn that kind of language?
[Haaah….]
A deep sigh came through the headset.
[Sorry for snapping like that. Sometimes I just… lose control of my emotions.]
“Y-yeah, I can tell… I-if it’s really that bad, maybe you should try seeing a therapist once or….”
[……….]
A freezing silence settled over the call.
“I-I’m sorry….”
Ah. I’d gone and said it again. Ever since I’d woken up in this body, holding my tongue had become strangely difficult. If I didn’t speak, something inside my chest itched until I did.
Whether that was the original owner’s personality or a side effect of the Cheat Program, I had no idea.
[…I’ll handle that myself.]
Her voice dropped low.
[Just get in already. And actually—that’s something I should be saying to you.]
“Huh? What do you mean…?”
[You know I’m a higher tier than you, right? So after I stomp you into the dirt, don’t start crying and begging me to keep you on the team.]
“I-I don’t think that’s ever going to happen… If anything, it’d be A-Aura-nim begging me to stay on the team… heeheehee….”
Just picturing it made me laugh.
AuraIsTheBest has sent you an invitation.
Instead of answering, Aura sent the invite.
[Map’s Scare Forest. Fine with you?]
“A-any map is fine… I-it won’t make a difference either way….”
[……Starting.]
With that icy voice, the match loaded in.
Which hero should I pick…?
The ability I currently had—Aim Assist—literally helped me hit people. But that didn’t mean it only went for the head.
Mostly it tracks the body, right…?
In NOVA Syndicate, damage dealers fell into roughly three categories based on aim style.
Flick.
Projectile prediction.
And tracking.
Flick showed up a lot on hitscan weapons—the kind where the bullet lands the instant you fire. You snap your crosshair onto the target in a single motion, and every shot packs serious damage.
Trade-off is, if you miss, the risk is huge.
Prediction types used weapons with travel time or drop. You didn’t shoot where the enemy was—you read their path and put the projectile where they were going to be.
It sounded like the hardest on paper, but it had real upsides. Rockets and arrows didn’t lose power with distance.
If you can actually land them, they’ve got the highest ceiling of the three. In theory, anyway.
Last was tracking: keeping your crosshair glued to the target and stacking damage over time. Per-shot damage was lower, but the fire rate made up for it.
Given my ability, a tracking DPS was the correct call.
So which one…?
[Hey, Bullet-nim? You coming out of base or what?]
The voice through the headset made me scramble to lock in a hero.
“I-I’m coming out now!”
[I-I’m coming out now!]
While Bullet flailed around, Aura had already been set up near the entrance for a while.
Unbelievable. “Any map won’t make a difference”?
Aura twisted her mouth into a smirk.
For all her faults, she had climbed as high as Diamond 3. Not Ranker-tier, sure—but among regular players, that was a rank that earned you a “yeah, she can actually play” reputation.
And this girl had just told her that the map didn’t matter. A nobody streamer who’d been shaking like a leaf until five seconds ago!
I don’t know how good you think you are, but…
Aura crouched low and locked her crosshair on the base exit.
I’ve already got the angle. From here, I’ve got every advantage. You’re done!
Her pick was Phantom—a hero who tore through fights with a shotgun and shadow mobility, melting people at close range with absurd DPS.
In other words, the second she’d closed this much distance, the win was basically locked in.
You dare look down on me? I’ll stomp you, laugh in your face, and kick you off the team on the spot!
Aura’s eyes burned. Her heart was hammering and her breathing had gone rough, but she forced a deep breath and shoved the excitement back down.
Click. Clack— Click. Clack—
Footsteps, drawing closer. Heavier than she’d expected.
Wait, is that…?
Before the thought finished forming, the enemy stepped into view.
A lens flashing red. A sleek frame washed in violet metal gleam. And a submachine gun mounted on the wrist.
BANG—!
The instant she confirmed the target, Aura’s Night Flame shotgun spat darkness into the corridor.
[Eh…?]
A startled voice crackled through. But the enemy’s response was vicious.
WHRR—
The second the pellets punched into the chassis, the robot’s head snapped around. The wrist SMG answered with a spray of fire.
DADADADADANG—!
Her health shredded in an instant.
Even so, at this range Phantom still held the edge. The rate their health bars melted was completely different.
You’re finished…!
The shotgun kept coughing out darkness, chewing through the robot’s HP. And then—
BOOM—!
An explosion erupted under the robot’s feet. The shockwave shoved Aura back, and the gap between them blew open in a heartbeat.
Damn it—!
She lunged to close with a shadowstep—and in that exact moment:
WUUUNG— CLANK—!
The floating robot’s frame folded, spread, and locked together again. Layers of sleek violet armor plating unfurled and reconfigured.
In the blink of an eye, the humanoid mech had transformed into something closer to an armored vehicle.
TUDUDUDUDUDUDU—!
The second Aura shadowstepped back into range, the turret opened up. She reflexively phased into shadow form.
It didn’t change anything. Death was delayed by a fraction of a second. The result was the same.
WUUUNG—
The instant her body reconstituted from shadow into flesh, the enemy’s barrel rotated.
TUDUDUDUDUDU—!!!
Dozens of rounds punched through her in a single burst. Her health hit zero and her body came apart like butchered meat.
The moment the words appeared in front of her, Aura slammed her desk.
BANG—!
[Kyaah—!]
“Huff… huff….”
Through the headset she could hear Bullet gasp and suck in a startled breath. Aura didn’t have the bandwidth to care.
She bit down hard on her lip and took up the mouse again.
[Y-you even got the Phantom ambush… a-and you still lost to me…? Wow, you’re a total scrub… a scrub…!]
“Shut your mouth.”
[Hiek….]
“I was going easy on you that round. No—more accurately, I got careless.”
Aura blew out a sharp breath and kept going.
“I’ll give you your skill. But from here on, things won’t go your way. Because starting now—I’m going full seriousness mode.”
Before the words had even settled, she locked in a hero with a Japanese blade in hand.
“Aah, I didn’t want to bring this out…! This cold, heavy weight in my hands…!”
Hagane Shinya
Cyborg Samurai — Blade & Wind
A cyborg samurai who commanded a sword and the power of the wind.
[Y-you didn’t just pick Hagane Shinya, did you? That’s an Odin counter…….]
It was also a hard counter to the hero Bullet had used in round one—Odin. In theory, if Hagane Shinya played well, Odin simply could not win that matchup.
[H-hey? A-Aura-nim…?]
Bullet’s awkward, uneasy voice came through.
“Shut up! Even a lion gives its all when it hunts a rabbit!”
Aura’s face burned red as she barked it out. She knew perfectly well that in situations like this, you had to double down and brazen it out.
[P-please don’t tell anyone….]
That crumpled voice came through the headset. I stared blankly at the screen in front of me.
AuraIsTheBest 0 : 10 BulletIsTheBest
I had wiped the floor with Aura so thoroughly the word “brutal” didn’t even cover it. Part of that was residual skill from playing NOVA Syndicate before—but the real reason was something else entirely.
Aim Assist — Lv.1
Aim Assist… this thing is actually broken.
At first I’d thought it just corrected my aim. It didn’t. The ability wasn’t only fixing my crosshair—it was controlling weapon recoil too.
Odin, true to its concept as a war robot, sat at undisputed number one in raw firepower. The problem was controlling that firepower.
Gunshots so massive they instantly gave away your position. A hitbox as huge as the chassis. Overheat-limited firing. And above all, recoil so violent it was basically impossible to manage.
Those drawbacks were why Odin got dismissed as a “good on paper” hero. Today, though, I’d seen what it could actually do.
If Aim Assist is this strong at Level 1…
My heart started pounding.
How disgusting is this going to get once the level goes up?
Maybe even those absurd aimbots you only ever saw in hack videos weren’t out of the question.
“Ehehehe….”
[Uh, Bullet-nim…?]
“Hss— Y-yes?!”
Aura’s voice snapped me back to reality. Drool had been running down the corner of my mouth; I hurriedly wiped it with a tissue.
[So… you’re doing Fall of the Great with us, right…?]
“Huuung…?”
Strange.
Aura, who’d been nothing but high-handed this entire time, was now watching my face for a reaction. Looking at that, I suddenly wanted to mess with her a little.
I’ve taken plenty of her crap already, haven’t I?
So a little teasing should be fine, right?
“Hmm, I don’t know? I think I need to think about that a little more? Ehehe… could I get back to you after I’ve considered it?”
I said it while fighting not to laugh.
[……Really?]
Aura’s voice came back small and dejected. Hearing that, my resolve wavered a little.
She’s the first person who actually tried to give me a chance, though.
It hadn’t been my doing, but the original owner of this body had committed some genuinely serious offenses. Sure, those had effectively been erased because of me.
But the tournament still took damage. That’s a fact.
And even so, she was trying to put me on the roster. No matter how big a corporate-backed streamer she was, that was never an easy choice.
The second she accepted me, she was going to get covered in the same filth. How was I supposed to throw harsh words at someone like that? Even an animal wouldn’t do that.
“I-it was a joke…! Let’s g-go win this thing together…!”
[Yes!]
At Aura’s bright, energized voice, the two of us yelled a victory cheer together. Even in the middle of it, though, a question snagged at me.
How desperate do you have to be to take in someone like me…?
[With Bullet-nim on the team, we’ve actually got a shot! Waaaaaah—!]
“W-waaaaaaah—!”
I almost asked—then shut my mouth.
Aura was so happy I couldn’t bring myself to ruin it. And asking now would look weird anyway. We’d been on the same team this whole time.
I’ll find out later.