Arena Tournament

The Round of 128 and Round of 64 of the Arena Tournament have concluded.

With so many people paying attention, interest in the Arena Tournament didn’t wane even after it ended.

Naturally, the main topic of conversation was a small girl named Yeon.

Not a pro. Just a regular Deron player.

It was extremely rare for a regular Deron player to defeat a pro and advance in the Arena Tournament.

Yeon was a user who had been receiving a lot of attention even before the Arena Tournament started.

However, starting today, with the Arena broadcast being televised, she garnered even more attention.

A spirit that didn’t back down even when facing pros.

Always a confident smile and skills that overwhelmed the pros.

During the Round of 128, there were many people who downplayed Yeon’s skills.

This was because Deron’s arena duels seemed strange to those who played VRS.

But in the Round of 64, public opinion flipped.

The opposing pro player [Storm-inzk] seemed to be ignoring Yeon.

The situation was being broadcast live. inzk wouldn’t have been unaware of the situation.

But he didn’t hesitate to provoke. This kind of behavior, insulting the opponent, was enough to create animosity even among users playing the same VRS.

Everyone thought Yeon would get angry and chop off inzk’s head.

But it was different. Yeon was calm. She didn’t fall for the opponent’s provocation.

The small girl started provoking her opponent by mimicking the sword stances she used in VRS.

Unfortunately, the content of the two players’ conversation wasn’t revealed, but it was clear that inzk fell for Yeon’s provocation.

After a brief pause, inzk started taking the same stance as Yeon.

That’s how the fight started. As if recreating a match in VRS, the two exchanged sharp sword strikes.

But this wasn’t VRS. Stats that didn’t exist there made impossible movements possible.

The girl’s body moved strangely, and she leaped high into the air, shoving her blade into inzk’s neck.

Whatever the viewers thought, inzk seemed to have acknowledged Yeon’s skills.

He approached the match with a demeanor that contrasted with his appearance.

He continued the match more cautiously, with careful and sharp movements.

But this time too, Yeon was the victor.

inzk, who had fallen to the floor, took off his helmet, revealing his bare face.

His expression didn’t contain any particular dissatisfaction.

[Deron Online Gallery]

[Kyakyakyakyakya]

[Blood Demon!!! Blood Demon!!! Blood Demon!!! Blood Demon!!!]

[Pro bastards get double-stuffed kekekekekeke] [6]

[It would’ve been different in VRS kekekekekeke] [5]

[Where are the VRS cucks now kekeke your pros got double-stuffed kekeke] [2]

[Saw her panties when she jumped just now] [21]

[inzk disciplinary action kekekekekeke] [3]

[Second Holy Sword on the server just dropped kekekekekeke] [17]

As Yeon continued her winning streak, the users who frequented the Deron Gallery started to explode with pent-up emotions.

Having been relentlessly beaten by the influx of users from the VRS Gallery, their animosity was incredibly high.

An undeniable defeat. The aggro-baiters who had come over from VRS quietly started to disappear.

In the midst of this, a post containing a question was uploaded to the VRS Gallery.

[VRS Gallery]

[Isn’t this Yeon person like, a pro???] [12]

(Video containing highlights from the Round of 64)

If you watch this video, Yeon and inzk are both taking the same stance.

That’s a swordsmanship style that’s only used by Team Storm.

There are a lot of guys who copy sword techniques, but how many people can actually do it?

It’s impossible unless you’ve practiced alone while watching the video.

And if you watch closely, she’s mixing in stuff that’s different from Team Storm’s swordsmanship?

She’s definitely not a regular person. It’s obvious she’s been professionally trained by a swordsmanship instructor on a pro team.

(Highlights from the Round of 128)

If you look here too, at the last moment, the sword blurs and moves strangely.

That’s a swordsmanship style used by players affiliated with W.S.

My guess is that they’re just putting on a show to debut a pro.

[Comments]

[Is the debuting player a girl?]

ㄴ[They’re just setting the character like that]

ㄴ[Female characters have weak strength.]

ㄴ[It’s different in this game.]

[She’s so pretty kekeke In VRS everyone makes male characters because of the strength points, so they’re all ugly]

ㄴ[fr tho, I hate seeing those faggots bumping bodies]

ㄴ[Female characters are weak tho]

ㄴ[High agility points tho?]

[Gonna go install Deron after seeing this]

[What is this, you weeb]

[So which team is she on???]

ㄴ[Isn’t it Storm?]

However, the post didn’t receive as much attention as the author had hoped.

This was because users who used VRS didn’t have much interest in the game called Deron.

So, the user headed to the Deron Online Gallery and created a new post.

[Deron Online Gallery]

[The middle schooler Blood Demon is definitely a middle schooler IRL] [37]

(Video explaining the side effects that appear when the virtual reality and real-world bodies are different)

(VRS pros’ character customization info)

(Miscellaneous wiki data and screenshots with useless memes)

Everyone knows that when you play VR games, you make your character settings similar to yourself.

If the difference is too big, you get side effects in your daily life.

VRS pro players also set their characters to be not too different from their real-world bodies.

But look at the user Yeon.

The person who’s being called a middle schooler or Blood Demon here.

(Image of inzk and Yeon facing each other)

According to his player profile, inzk is 178cm tall.

He looks a bit taller because of the armor he’s wearing, but he probably didn’t change the settings when he created his character.

Compared to that, look at Yeon.

Generously, 145? 140?

But even in that state, she moves so well, and her control isn’t lacking either.

That means she’s perfectly controlling this small character.

Which means there’s a high probability that she has a height that’s not too different from this character in real life.

There’s no way an adult male would be in the 140s, right?

So Yeon is definitely a short woman in real life.

Most people who play virtual reality games like VRS and Deron make their characters’ appearances similar to themselves in real life.

Even if they completely overhaul their faces, many people match the length of their height and limbs.

Since these are games where you actually move your body to play, that was the common choice.

Even people who played with a completely different appearance from their real selves would create new characters after a certain amount of time.

This was because the disconnect from reality was too severe, making it impossible to play properly.

It’s a fact that everyone knows. But it was also a fact that people didn’t think about deeply.

In the midst of this, a post that instilled conviction was uploaded. There weren’t many publicly available videos of Yeon’s gameplay, but this opportunity also revealed Yeon’s skills to many people.

The atmosphere of the gallery, which had been cheering for Yeon’s victory and mocking the VRS pros, instantly reversed.

***

Day 2 of the finals.

October 15th (Saturday)

Round of 32 begins.

The opponent I met in the Round of 32 was a magician wielding a staff.

Judging by the blue robe he was wearing, he seemed to have mainly leveled up ice-based magic.

The opponent wasn’t a pro player, but a regular Deron user.

“Blood Demon-nim!!!”

A brief waiting period was given.

He waved at me from across the way.

Judging by the bright smile under the large hat, he seemed to be a crazed fan of mine.

Was it because I had become too famous? There were people who occasionally expressed their delight at seeing me, as if they had seen a famous celebrity.

He wasn’t a user from a hostile guild, so there was no need to treat him coldly without reason.

The title “Blood Demon” was a bit grating, but since there was no malice, I smiled and waved back.

“I’m a fan!!!”

The magician user jumped around without restraint at my greeting.

The waiting time was starting to end. With my sword slung over my shoulder, I cast a strange smile and examined the opponent’s appearance.

The end of the staff wasn’t round. It seemed to have a sharp blade attached.

Not a magician who fights using ordinary casting. A battle mage who prefers close combat despite being a magician.

I identified the 1st rank, 2nd rank, and 4th rank jobs.

But the problem was the 3rd rank.

There were no effects indicating a specific job anywhere on his body.

After a brief search, the match began.

The opposing magician started pouring out ranged attacks, making the most of his specialty.

These were attacks from the 1st and 2nd ranks, with extremely short casting times.

Fast-flying ice arrows cover the front.

The accuracy wasn’t particularly high. But there were a lot of them.

I calmly narrowed the distance, deflecting the ice arrows.

Chaeng!

Blue ice shards that are broken by the sword blade scatter in all directions.

It was the moment when the distance became close.

A blue wave suddenly spread out from the opposing magician’s body, and he instantly disappeared from his spot.

It wasn’t the use of Blink to create distance.

I felt a presence and coldness right behind my back.

Chaeng!

The moment I immediately turned around and swung my sword, I barely managed to block the opponent’s staff attack that was flying towards me.

He wasn’t surprised. As if he had expected this to happen, he immediately used the next skill.

Jjeojeojeok-!

The sword that was facing the staff began to freeze.

An ice skill that briefly stops the opponent’s movement was activated.

There was no time. I immediately used the [Dash] skill.

At that moment, the ice covering my body fell off due to the blue mana.

A dash used at close range can’t be expected to deal much damage, but it had the effect of neutralizing the opponent’s crowd control like this.

I swing my sword, pushing the opponent’s body away. At that moment, a blue barrier created in the air blocked the attack.

The activation of [Mana Barrier], a basic defense ability possessed by magicians.

But it seemed that a cold effect was added due to the characteristics of the Ice Caster job.

A faint frost began to settle on my body.

The ice debuff effect started to stack.

Attack speed and movement speed slowly began to decrease.

The opposing magician designed his job tree with only PVP in mind.

It was clear that I would be in trouble if I rashly narrowed the distance.

But I couldn’t not narrow the distance either.

That meant I had no other choice.

The opponent, who had been casually using ice-based skills from a distance, slowly began to narrow the distance as the debuff reached full stacks.

Since he was also a job that preferred close-range attacks, he had no choice but to approach me in order to finish me off completely.

At the moment when the distance became close, I used Leaping Strike to narrow the distance.

Kwang!

The sword and staff lock together.

The opponent’s barrier was broken by a single attack, but his health didn’t decrease.

At that moment, a strange smile appeared on the opposing magician’s face.

-It’s a trap.

The moment I realized that, the magician used Blink with me.

The place we moved to was where the opposing magician had been standing when the match started.

The moment I arrived there, small lights flashed from all directions and explosions occurred.

Kwagagagagang!

My health rapidly decreased, and my vision shook violently.

The opponent’s 3rd rank job was a Magic Scholar.

Thanks to the numerous magic engineering mines, my health is rapidly decreasing, and [Continue Battle] is activated.

All of the Berserker’s unique passives were activated, but I couldn’t move because my body was frozen.

This match was my defeat.

In the arena, the effects of certain special skills are greatly reduced due to balance issues.

[Continue Battle] was also one of those skills.

The duration of [Undying] is 1 second.

The time it takes for the ice to melt is also 1 second.

The moment my coldly frozen body melted, my body fell to the floor.

Winner.

[SnowMage]

1 win 0 losses.

Loser.

[Yeon]

0 wins 1 loss.