Ch.339334 – Slump

NoName’s one-handed sword sliced through the flames and smoke, cutting across the knight’s abdomen.

It was a lightning-fast strike that left no room to react in the limited field of vision.

The knight, clutching his stomach as he fell backward, looked up at the woman and shouted.

“Kuh, kill me!”

He hadn’t given up on the game.

If he stalled any longer here, his respawn timing would be out of sync with his allies, preventing him from participating in the upcoming objective fights.

The woman’s expressionless eyes turned red.

‘She knows too. That killing me now would be disadvantageous…!’

If even a Gold rank player like himself knew this fact, how could a former Challenger not?

“If you won’t come, I’ll go to you!”

The knight desperately lunged forward, throwing a punch toward the woman’s throat.

Perhaps he might get a lucky punch.

But that hope quickly vanished.

NoName twisted her body sharply to avoid his desperate attack.

Clang-!

His knuckles met the hard gauntlet, creating a crisp sound.

“Stay still.”

NoName grabbed the knight’s wrist, kicked his shin to break his balance, and twisted his arm behind his back to subdue him.

In the blink of an eye, the knight was pinned beneath the woman, unable to move.

Clatter-

The woman dropped both swords to the ground and pulled out a third weapon.

“Just kill me cleanly! What are you doing every time?!”

“Don’t you find it fascinating that the feather duster deals damage proportional to lost health?”

“I don’t want to know about that!”

A new teabagging weapon had appeared in World of Arsheria.

NoName took out a feather duster and gently tickled the back of the knight’s neck.

“AAAAARGH!”

The knight’s waist arched like a bow.

-That feather duster is insanely strong lol

-33 kills! Can she get to 33 kills?

-Don’t end the game! Kill more!

-How did you find out about the proportional damage? It wasn’t in the tooltip lol

-Perfect teabagging item lol

-Name is the Cleaning Queen! Name loves cleaning!

[Yggdrasil has been destroyed.]

[Victory]

The once brilliantly rainbow-colored feather duster was now stained red with the dirty blood of knights, mages, and priests.

[‘ILikeCateMatesBest’ donated 3,300,000 won!]

-You thieving rogue!!!!!

Name removed her stuffy mask and spoke.

“Thank you for the 3.3 million won donation. I’ll end the stream here for today.”

-Was today’s stream just one game?

-This isn’t right, Name!

-Come back to being my small, penniless Name crying

└ Name is still small

-Name is worth 200 billion…

-Having to pay 3 million won just to watch one game

Name stared blankly at the viewers expressing their disappointment.

‘What 200 billion? I only have debt…’

Even in the comment sections of uploaded VTube videos, people only talked about her being rich, wealthy, and the “200 billion girl,” so there wasn’t even any fun in checking the reactions.

She needed to properly explain things someday.

[Video Share – ‘Adella1Bing’ shared for 10,000!]

“Hmm?”

A viewer shared Adella’s broadcast video.

‘She ended right on time?’

Actually, the reason Name had impulsively started streaming was to wait until Adella’s VTuber broadcast ended.

In the video, Adella collapsed to the floor, pounding the ground and wailing.

[This can’t be happening…]

-Wow, did Adella get demoted?

-Look at that bright red match history lol

-The 10-patty hamburger is complete!

-How desperate for a win do you have to be to abandon rogue and play shield knight? lol

[Please give it back to me. The vast vision like the wilderness, the quick reactions like a beast. Please give me back my Challenger emblem! AAAAARGH! Oh heavens!!!!!]

“Whoa.”

Name gasped.

Madwoman.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Adella currently looked like a madwoman.

She turned deathly pale and let out a hollow laugh.

[I fell so quickly that I don’t even remember the scenery I passed… I’m so drained, I have nothing left…]

Name went to the stats website to check Adella’s record.

-Wow, that’s pitiful

-It’s true that rogues are trash in the current meta, but that win rate is just…

-How does her score drop like a stock market crash? lol

-Her mental breakdown is understandable, I admit

Recent record: 2 wins, 26 losses.

She had lost 7 games in a row, then barely managed to win 2 precious games, only to lose 19 more in a row.

With a 7% win rate, she had plummeted from Challenger all the way down to Diamond.

Amidst the mockery of countless viewers, Adella ended her broadcast.

* * *

[First floor.]

Even though the sun had set, it wasn’t particularly chilly.

Late at night, Adella and I went for a walk wearing windbreaker hoodies.

Adella wore a black cap pulled down low.

With her small head, the brim covered half her face.

Today, her expression seemed as dark as the shadow cast over her face.

Let’s talk as we walk.

We left the well-maintained apartment complex and soon entered a deserted walking path.

We went through a small path between fences and climbed up and down some stone steps.

Eventually, we reached an open space with abandoned construction materials, beyond which stretched a lush reed field.

Scattered streetlights illuminated the reeds swaying in the spring breeze with a yellow glow.

We usually walked for an hour or two at this time every day for our health, and we frequently used this path because hardly anyone came this way.

“How’s streaming going?”

I started with a light question.

Adella let out a deep sigh and answered “So-so.”

“Well, life has its ups and downs. It would be boring if everything always went well, right?”

To feel a sense of achievement, adversity and effort are necessary.

Even if you win a prestigious competition by cheating, wouldn’t you feel emptiness rather than achievement?

“It’s not just about losing… My mental state is in shambles. Losing repeatedly lowers my energy. Even viewer comments somehow feel like they’re all scratching at me. And I’m most angry at myself.”

If she still had cat ears and a tail, they would surely be drooping right now.

Adella maintained her low-pressure mode, far beyond what my comfort could help.

I held her hand tightly and gently rubbed the back of it with my thumb.

“Was it bad team luck?”

“I should have killed that fire mage… Sigh, bad team luck is part of it, but my skills aren’t what they used to be.”

“Really? A slump?”

“Yeah. My concentration is lacking, my body doesn’t respond as well as I thought it would, and most critically, my reaction speed has dropped. I keep losing in one-on-one situations…”

“I see.”

I expected there would be some disconnect in adapting to a new body.

After all, virtual reality with a realism setting of 0.9 couldn’t perfectly match a real physical body.

“And why is this body so slow? Remember when I took that reaction test and got 120ms?”

“You were in virtual reality before, so you used it without delay. Technically, that’s like cheating too.”

“Well, that’s true, but…”

“Besides, the average human reaction time is 0.2 seconds. Consider your speed a blessed talent.”

It makes sense since I based it on my 16-year-old body.

Thanks to that, my face looks a bit younger, and my chest hasn’t grown as much. Though she wouldn’t admit it.

“So all the Challenger players have been conducting one-on-one battles as psychological warfare? Predicting what skills the opponent will use without even seeing them?”

“If you want to climb back to the top, you’ll need to develop that ability too.”

“Sigh… They really were monsters. Ugh, I don’t care anymore, I just want to go to school soon. Living only at night like I’m Dracula…”

Adella kicked the pebbles lying on the road to vent her frustration.

“Want to go for a run?”

I stopped walking and adjusted my shoelaces.

When thoughts get complicated, physical activity helps.

Adella smiled brightly and stretched upward until her heels lifted off the ground.

“Sure. Sis, stop using aura so much. That’s why you’re not building muscle.”

“You never wait for me, what can I do?”

“…”

“Adella? Hey, let’s go together!”

“The catfish monster is chasing us! Run for your life!”

Catfish?

Is she referring to my twin tails?

One thing’s for certain: Adella is always the first to earn a scolding.

This is why I always fail at exercising naturally.

* * *

“Huff… huff… My legs are giving out… Ugh, another cramp!”

“Still can’t use aura well? Like this, like this.”

“That’s what I’m saying! You need to explain what ‘like this’ means for me to understand!”

“Like this, like this.”

“Argh! You tiny little thing, seriously!”

“It’s only been a week since you started learning. It’s natural that you can’t do it at first.”

Adella was struggling quite a bit with handling aura.

Having inherited some abilities from her past life’s body, she had more than enough talent.

She just lacked a bit of know-how.

And I’ve never been particularly good at verbal instruction.

I prefer Spartan education, or the eagle method of dropping the baby from the nest.

“Hmm, I wonder if it’s going to rain. It’s cool but humid, so the sweat isn’t drying.”

“You go in first and shower. I’ll do it later.”

“Come on, sis, why don’t we shower together to save water? Hmm?”

“Please stop saying weird things.”

We were bickering about nonsense on our way home.

“I’m always serious about… Huh?”

[Can’t live without love… Really… Can’t live…]

A person staggering in a zigzag pattern approached from the opposite direction, humming a cheerful tune.

Since the path wasn’t wide enough for three people to walk side by side, Adella and I pressed ourselves to the left to make way.

But the person moved to the same side as us.

When we moved to the right, they also moved right, blocking our path.

“Sis, I think that man is drunk. Let’s just quietly pass by.”

“Yeah.”

The strong smell of alcohol stung our noses.

“What’s this? Young ladies wandering around fearlessly at this late hour?”

A shabbily dressed man said with droopy eyes, taking a sip from an empty soju bottle.

“Want me to take you home? Where do you live? Hmm? Uncle will kindly escort you.”

When the man tried to grab Adella’s hand, she recoiled in horror and backed away.

“No thanks, we live nearby, so we’ll be going now.”

“Look at this girl?”

“Sis, let’s go quickly, it’s dangerous.”

“Are you laughing at meee!”

Crash-!

The soju bottle hit the wall and split horizontally.

“Huh? What’s this? It broke? Haha, my mistake. There, there, did I scare you, little miss? Uncle isn’t such a bad person. Hiccup!”

Now that I look closely, his face is completely red.

Determined not to let us pass, he stretched out both arms to completely block the path.

“Please just let us pass, okay?”

The moment Adella stepped forward to push his arm away, the man let out a yell and wildly swung the soju bottle.

“Kyaaah! This guy’s crazy!”

“This guy? Hey! Do you want to die? I’m asking if you want to die!”

It wasn’t just a threat.

The man was genuinely trying to bring the sharp soju bottle down on Adella’s head.

I pulled Adella’s wrist, throwing her behind me, and wrapped aura around my entire right arm.

“And who are you?!”

“Just a person, for now.”

“What…!”

Crash-!

The soju bottle shattered against my arm.

In a narrow path, possible movements are limited.

So I placed my legs parallel front and back, and shifted my center of gravity from back to front in one motion.

Adding semi-elasticity, I drove my fist squarely into the man’s abdomen.

“AAAAARGH!”

Whoosh-!

The man’s body folded in half and flew far into the darkness where even the streetlight couldn’t reach.

Thud-

With the sound of something hitting an object, silence returned.

Adella got up, dusting off her bottom, and said with a frown.

“I told you… our sis is dangerous.”

“What?”

“Ah, nothing! We should have just taken the long way around instead of the shortcut, hehe…”