Ch.144139 – Soap Bubbles Instead of Blood Drops

The victory structure in World of Arsheria can be briefly described in three stages.

Checkpoint capture, neutral boss elimination, and finally, destruction of Yggdrasil.

You need to capture specific checkpoints to continuously advance the respawn locations for your team and allied NPCs.

You also need to defeat neutral NPCs throughout the game who can provide beneficial buffs or join your team as allies. The kill is always credited to whoever lands the final hit.

And despite any failures throughout this process, you can still win through the complex yet simple structure of destroying the enemy’s Yggdrasil.

To oversimplify with a comparison, it’s like League of Legends with constant dragon fights from the beginning, or Overwatch where you need to focus on acquiring gold and experience to grow.

[Nocturne Nylink vs Prince Friedrich]

[Map: Arsheria’s Forest]

[Nocturne Nylink has joined your team.]

[Capture strongholds to secure advantageous positions.]

“I’m… I’m Nocturne Nylink!”

“Wow, who is this? They’re so cute!”

“Yeah, I don’t think we’ve ever met them in the story.”

“My name is Nocturne Nylink…! Oh, we need to hurry! Looking at our team composition, it seems advantageous to capture point A first. Will you follow me?”

Nocturne Nylink frantically waves their arms in the air, urgently hurrying everyone along.

“What should we do? Is splitting into pairs the standard approach at the beginning?”

“Let’s do that. Hey, you and I will go to point B.”

“Yes, brother.”

“Then the archer will come with me and follow the NPC.”

Naturally, I ended up paired with the young mage boy.

So that leaves point C for us?

“A healer and mage isn’t a good combination…”

“Why?”

“Ah… nothing! Never mind…”

-Why is this first-timer whining so much

-Wow this is seriously so lewd lolololol

└ For real, this is basically porn

-I can’t believe there are still newbies in this game

-What’s with this team composition?

-First match with 6 players against full pros lololol

-No matter how much they balanced combat power, this is ridiculous

└ NoName suffering already, delicious!

-lol did anyone successfully snipe?

-Is that Kariri’s alt character?

└ Wait, it’s actually her?

└ You call this coincidence?

└ 100% stream sniping

We started running toward point C on the right.

The forest path was slippery, likely from rain the previous night.

The endless forest scenery broke, and our view suddenly opened up.

A blue cube simply labeled ‘C’ was hovering in the sky.

“We’ll encounter enemies soon. When I signal, you charge in first.”

“But I’m a mage? Oh right, you’re a healer…”

Groups of NPCs were already clashing in the clearing.

We arrived at the strongpoint slightly late, but not enough to significantly impact the game.

-But this team composition is truly depressing lolololol

-You should always have at least one knight in each group

-For beginners, it might have been better to send all 6 to point A to secure at least one point

└ No no, send everyone to A and let NoName solo sweep B

└ lolololololol

└ The fact that this might actually work makes it even funnier lol

The boy diligently defeated the NPCs.

He wasn’t yet familiar with the concept of last-hitting, so gold was leaking away, but games should always be viewed from a broader perspective.

I sense enemy presence, but they’re not showing themselves.

I’ll have to play along with their strategy.

The boy and I entered point C and started increasing the capture percentage.

“Woohoo, gotcha!”

“Holy crap, it’s actually NoName? When did you finish the story? And what’s with your combat power?”

NPCs at the front line, men with axes and crossbows behind us.

They had been waiting for us without farming gold.

“What do we do now? With melee versus ranged, we’ll definitely die if surrounded!”

“I’m a healer. You need to go out and fight.”

“Damn it, I don’t know what to do!”

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen a newbie! We’ll save NoName for the main course, so just wait right there!”

* * *

The sky filled with bubbles.

Hot embers turned into sharp thorns, busily popping the bubbles, but they remained as numerous as tadpoles released into a pond.

-The mage is fighting surprisingly well?

-That’s not fighting well, this is lololol

-The healing amount is insane!

[Basic Heal]

I didn’t use it often in the story mode, so I didn’t realize that spamming heals wasn’t optimal.

Like injecting the right amount of mana into a magic circle, it was important to use skills proportional to the square root of reduced health.

Don’t use it too often, and when you do, use just enough to perfectly restore health.

That’s why the boy could still stand despite having lost a lethal amount of blood (bubbles).

“I might actually be good at fighting!”

The boy surrounded by bubbles shouted. The image wasn’t exactly beautiful.

-lolololololololol

-It’s all thanks to NoName!

-The healing amount is insane

-This is the ultimate character! (hopeful version)

-Only 3 minutes into the game and the stat difference is this big?

-So broken lolol

-The bubbles are seriously obstructing vision. Can’t they just change it to blood?

“Damn, they just won’t die.”

“This isn’t working, let’s go for the healer first.”

The men charged forward aggressively. In the early game, combat power differences weren’t significant, so they were trying to eliminate us.

Though their movements seemed predictable at first glance, they were already planning to change direction.

Oh, so you’re giving it your all?

Knowing my skills, their eyes all became intensely serious once the battle began.

I drew my Schiavona and cut through the space between the charging men.

A true PvP battle, the psychological warfare between people that couldn’t be perfectly experienced in story mode.

Who will attack first? Without time to think, an axe left an afterimage as it swept past my head.

“You dodged that…?”

In one-versus-many combat, you must use minimal footwork. I pulled my left foot back, ducked my body in one motion, and prepared my next move.

Muscle memory from thousands of daily swings took control of my arm.

A sky-cutting strike that begins at the waist and ends in the sky.

A blue flash of lightning, and a diagonal line appeared across the man’s throat.

[Critical!]

The man lost half his health instantly and tried to pull back belatedly, but I never let prey escape.

My following thrust made a dull sound as it was blocked by the man’s armor, but this was intentional. There was one more opponent.

I spotted the other opponent with my peripheral vision and exerted maximum strength in my grip.

I threw the man caught on my sword tip toward the person beside him.

Then my Schiavona spun once and delivered the final blow along a horizontal line.

“You dare engage in close combat with a crossbow?”

“But there’s no other chance to see NoName up close like this…!”

-Is he crazy lololololol

-That’s truly malicious

-Can’t resist being a fan lolol

Swoosh-!

I sheathed my Schiavona and helped heal the mage who was still suffering from the bleeding status.

“Are you playing an alt character, sis?”

“No, this is my main.”

“How can you be so good? You’re a healer… how?”

One class couldn’t use another class’s skills. But where’s the penalty in that?

If you can’t use skills, use basic attacks that look like skills. Finding it difficult to explain in words, I handed him my sword.

I stood right behind the boy, almost touching him, and placed my hand over his on the handle.

“W-wait a minute!”

“Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Then feel how your body moves.”

I corrected his foot position and manually bent his knees.

A sword isn’t something you swing, but something you harmonize with. Like holding a dog’s leash, allowing it to run freely within your control.

Well, everyone might feel differently about it.

[Kaizen-style Wrist Cut]

[System: Mittlehauw judgment]

Though his level wasn’t high enough to create visible air pressure, the soldiers in the path collapsed with critical wounds. Gold clinked in.

I provided all the strength, but it was the boy’s arm that trembled.

“Do you understand?”

The boy nodded. I popped a bubble stuck to his cheek.

This is probably blood too? He’ll think I wiped blood off for him.

“We’ve captured C, so let’s buy items and join the center. It’s almost object time.”

The boy became more obedient than before.

As soon as the checkpoint was secured, a shopkeeper emerged from the ground.

Having acquired a large amount of gold from the start, I bought items that maximized attack power.

-Aren’t you going to increase spell power?

-You should go AP, not AD!

-Wrong items!

“I think we need to go physical damage to win this.”

The only two we encountered at C were melee characters. And the skill gap between our teammates and the enemy was depressingly large.

It seemed like I would need to fight directly often, so this was a rational choice.

[1st Epic Boss: Rena Kailos]

A neutral NPC who provides useful shadow portals for allies.

Everyone gathered to hunt her, but they all looked quite intimidated.

“Not just one death, but two deaths each? Oh my!”

“They chased us to our respawn point and camped us…! We couldn’t help it!”

“Fortunately, we captured C. But Nocturne has no health left, so I don’t think they can fight this time.”

“Are the enemies at full health?”

“Probably over 90%… they should be almost full by now.”

“So it’s essentially 6 versus 7.”

“But the enemies kept saying weird things like ‘Give us NoName!’, ‘Return our NoName!’, ‘We’ll get revenge for NoName!’ It’s really scary.”

The boy’s gaze turned toward me.

Along with him, others also checked the nickname above my head.

[NoName(Priest)]

“Let’s go for now. We need to win the game.”

As soon as they realized it was my fault the newbies had suffered so badly, they each made sour expressions.

“Are you some kind of celebrity?”

The rogue gentleman with dual blades muttered as we headed toward the objective. I didn’t bother to answer.

Since I was saving mana by not using heals before combat, people had bubbles stuck all over their bodies.

[‘SaveMeFromGradSchool’ donated 1,000 won!]

-NoName, you can disable censorship mode in the options menu! When you have time, you should do that!

Viewers seem a bit bothered by it too. With combat approaching, I quickly accessed the interface to open the options menu.

[Options – Censorship – Blood]

[Warning: Do you want to change bubbles to red blood?]

[This setting is not available for users under 15 years of age.]

-?????

-???

-What?

-?

-What the hell?

“Oh right…”

What am I supposed to do about this?

“I’m not old enough yet.”

My managers later told me that the broadcast momentarily froze at that moment.