Arena Tournament

I defeated my opponent and advanced to the Round of 64.

To be honest, it wasn’t a particularly special match.

I thoroughly analyzed my opponent, and they failed to do the same.

Of course, even if my opponent had known my play style, the result wouldn’t have changed because my talent was superior.

But people didn’t seem to think so.

The guild chat and world chat started to burn up.

My nickname and guild started to be mentioned constantly.

Frankly, I felt a little good, but the title of Blood Demon that followed was too embarrassing.

With my eyes closed, I slowly replayed the duel from earlier.

What if I had swung my sword in a different direction then?

To the left instead of the right, or what if I had used a different skill in that situation?

In the scene drawn in my head, I was continuing a new duel.

The opponent was still the pro player using the nickname Kiki.

But the result didn’t change. No matter how I fought him, he could never beat me.

As I spent time alone like that, the Round of 128 ended.

The Round of 128, which was given a total of 50 minutes of match time and 10 minutes of break time.

After the 10-minute break, the Round of 64 started immediately.

Like the other players, I also got up from my seat and drew my sword.

After the arena matching started, my body was moved along with a very small cluster of light.

The wide and flat arena map always made me feel a strange tension, as always.

I slowly swept the floor of the arena with the tips of my toes. The calmly conveyed sensation of the hard floor was excessively realistic.

I felt an intense gaze from across the way.

A male character, appearing to be about 180cm tall, was glaring at me with a sword and shield.

He was wearing full plate mail. A faint light was flowing from his body.

The opponent must have chosen Paladin as his 2nd and 3rd rank job.

The 1st rank job wasn’t that important. If he had considered the compatibility between jobs, he would have chosen Knight, and for the 4th rank, he would have chosen Paladin, the higher job class of Paladin.

It’s a job with extreme sustain and high defense.

It was a job choice that allowed me to glimpse the opponent’s personality, which values safety.

After a brief waiting period, the match began.

The opponent hid his body behind his shield and slowly began to advance.

The sight gave the feeling of a huge castle wall moving.

[Storm-inzk]

This opponent was also a pro player.

Even in the VRS world, he showed a fight that pursued extreme safety, wearing such a huge shield and heavy armor.

His personality didn’t change here either.

He couldn’t break away from his existing play style.

The moment the distance closed, I immediately swung my sword.

There was no need for a probing match to gauge the opponent’s skill. I intended to show my full power from the beginning.

Swish!

The opponent reacted to the quickly thrust sword.

His huge leg came forward, and he held out his shield.

A movement that seemed to push the sword away, an incomprehensible choice.

Why did he hold out his shield?

At that moment, with a clear Kang-! sound, the sword and shield collided, and my body shook greatly.

I take a step back. But the opponent also stepped back.

I couldn’t see his expression because he was wearing a large helmet, but his breathing was momentarily disturbed.

He was flustered. He evoked the emotion of fluster from this one clash.

-Why?

My head starts to spin quickly.

A search to find the reason for the fluster. My eyes move non-stop, watching the opponent’s reaction to the end.

The body that had stepped back rotates slightly, and his waist straightens.

The leg that had stepped back rather served to transmit power to the upper body.

Saaak-!

The opponent’s sword, stretched out long, barely grazed over my head.

The opponent’s path was accurate and sharp.

It’s just that my reaction was fast.

Using the low posture, I quickly approach and stab with my sword.

At the trajectory of the pure white sword flying Hook-, the opponent raised his shield.

Kagagak-!

The tip of the sword grazed the shield, creating rough sparks.

The opponent’s body was pushed back greatly.

At that moment, his breathing was disturbed again.

It was strange. And I understood.

“Th-this…!”

I stop moving at the opponent’s voice mixed with dismay.

The opponent, who stepped back and hurriedly moved his sword and shield to take a defensive stance, looked puzzled at my appearance.

This bastard.

He didn’t understand the game system.

In Deron’s arena, all stats are basically corrected equally.

The appearance of the character also cannot affect the stats.

There may be an effect on the reach due to the length of the arms and legs, but it means that the power they possess is the same.

“You.”

“…”

“Do it properly. Don’t underestimate me just because I’m small.”

It’s easy to cut off the neck of an opponent who isn’t using their full power.

But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to draw out the opponent’s full power and crush them miserably.

This guy in front of me was also the guy who refused my favor and refunded all the sponsorships.

He was one of the guys who gave me the humiliation of being called a *jaemmin*.

“That’s strange.”

“What’s strange?”

“If it were VRS, I wouldn’t have been able to play the game with that kind of character.”

“Hey…”

“I know, this isn’t VRS, it’s a game called Deron.”

The opponent said that and shook the shield and sword he was holding around.

As if it were considered a toy.

“It’s light, too light. It doesn’t feel real.”

“It’s a tournament. Focus.”

“Focus? There’s no way I can focus. The difference from VRS is so big that I feel a sense of alienation.”

The opponent let out a small laugh at my frowning face.

Then, he randomly fired skills into the air and said to me.

“I’ll let you win if you want to win. Honestly, I’m not very interested in this game.”

“L-let me win…?”

“Yeah. It’s so boring, I can’t do it anymore.”

Boring, he says. This game? Deron?

The opponent really seemed to think so, and spread his arms wide.

As if telling me to end it quickly.

Power enters the sword in my hand. My head starts to heat up at the opponent’s insulting words.

It was a slightly different feeling from the pain of burning white.

The more my head heats up, the calmer my mind becomes.

“What are you doing? Why don’t you end it quickly?”

Dozens of videos come to mind in my heated head.

My body starts to move. I started to reproduce the movements of a swordsman that came to mind.

The blurry pain begins to become clear. A white pain begins to come into my heated head.

“That’s…”

The left hand makes a fist and holds it out as if wearing a shield.

The sword held in the right hand is held in reverse, with the blade going backwards.

The legs, spread shoulder-width apart, are slightly bent.

It will be familiar. It has no choice but to be familiar.

Because the posture I’m showing is the posture he took at the most important moment in VRS.

The players belonging to the Storm team took a similar stance, although they were slightly different.

“Pick up your sword.”

“You, no… are you by any chance from our team…?”

“Pick up your sword. Before I kill you.”

The opponent, who was taking an awkward posture, hesitated a little at my words, then took the same sword stance as me.

A strange silence descends.

“I’ll fight you the way you like.”

“The way I like…?”

“Like VRS. I won’t use skills.”

It won’t be completely the same.

But it is possible to recreate a similar situation.

The opponent seemed to feel that my words were sincere, and let out a hollow laugh, then began to build up his momentum.

“If that’s a plausible imitation, I’ll forfeit immediately.”

“Try it if you have time.”

The moment the words ended.

The swords are swung without anyone going first.

The pure white sword strikes meshing in the air make a cheerful sound and move away.

Chaeng!

I’m using the same swordsmanship, but I didn’t have the shield that the opponent had.

The opponent also knows that it cannot be perfectly reproduced.

So I reproduce it in my own way. I crudely piece together the various swordsmanships that I have encountered so far and that I have hammered into my head through videos.

The start is the foot.

A small rotation starts from the slightly moved ankle.

The opponent starts to react to the movement of the calf and thigh that transmits that power as it is.

The opponent’s shield comes towards me.

It was the best choice to block movement and block attacks.

But the sword held in reverse started to shake as if riding the wind.

There’s no need to follow perfectly. This was Deron, not VRS.

There is a stat correction that doesn’t exist there. The movement that makes the impossible possible brings unexpected results.

Kang!

An attack that seems to throw the whole body falls on the shield.

The opponent is pushed back greatly by the greatly swung sword.

I didn’t miss that gap. I kicked off the ground and jumped up, making use of the remaining rotational force in my body.

Thanks to the upper body being pushed forward, the body starts to rotate forward.

The moment the highly raised body soared above the opponent, I swung the sword held in reverse once again.

Seugak!

The tip of the sword aims for the connecting gap in the helmet and splits the opponent’s neck.

The fatal blow to the vitals went in as it was.

But I didn’t stop. The moment I fell behind the opponent’s back, I immediately rotated my body and swung my sword.

Jjeong!

The greatly swung sword hits the opponent’s waist. The blade didn’t get stuck because of the thick armor, but the opponent’s body started to stagger as if he had received a big shock.

The health decreases rapidly. Unless he uses the Paladin’s heal skill, he will surely die from the continuous damage of bleeding.

But the opponent didn’t use the heal skill.

He fell as he was, turning gray.

Winner.

[Yeon]

1 win 0 losses.

Loser.

[Storm-inzk]

0 wins 1 loss.

After the results of the victory or defeat appear, each other’s bodies return to their original places with a blurry light.

The opponent was staring at me without saying a word.

There was no forfeit. After a brief waiting period, he took the same sword stance as before and rushed at me.

Every moment was careful, and every attack was sharp.

But there was no change. It was obvious. My talent was superior to his.

Winner.

[Yeon]

2 wins 0 losses.

Loser.

[Storm-inzk]

0 wins 2 losses.

The opponent, stained with a dull gray, took off the helmet he was wearing and asked me.

The emotion of bewilderment was rising in his gaze.

“You, which team do you belong to?”

Which team do I belong to, of course, if I had to pick one, there was something similar to a team I belonged to.

“Chewy-Squishy Cow.”

“Th-that’s what kind of team name is that…”

Ending the last conversation with the opponent, I was ejected out of the arena with a blurry light.

[Yeon advances to the Round of 32.]