Chapter 66 – Practice

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I headed to the training grounds to familiarize myself with the [Assassin]’s skills.

“Hooo… Haaa…”

Closing my eyes, I spread my hands wide and took a deep breath.

The air was clear and cool, a sensation I could never experience in the hospital. Of course, it was a fake sensation created through electrical signals, but I didn’t really care, since this virtual world was my second reality.

Hop. Hop. Hop.

I slowly jumped in place to check my body, which hadn’t moved in a week.

My body lifted easily. I stretched my arms and legs, awakening the senses in my limbs that had been dormant for the past week.

“Kkeueueueueueut…! Puhah! My body is alive again!”

Despite a week of inactivity, my body moved better than expected, responding to my will.

I drew the dagger from my waist and stared at the scarecrow.

My mind wasn’t as cold and calm as it was during my period, but I tried to recapture that feeling as much as possible.

Skills flowed as naturally as water, without conscious effort, and with such speed that it felt like I was just making normal attacks. It was like having two brains.

I mentally confirmed that I was using skills on both daggers and activated them, then rushed towards the scarecrow.

The attack speed was much faster than when I was a Sword Master. Perhaps it was because my body was already accustomed to the Sword Master, but I wasn’t used to controlling the daggers yet.

All the skills were new, and the pre-delay, post-delay, and abilities were all different, causing me to falter from time to time.

“Kkeueung… I can’t reproduce that feeling from when I’m on my period at all.”

If there were only ten or so skills, it would be manageable, but Sword Master was already pushing it, and most jobs had around twenty.

Having to choose and use skills from among twenty options according to each situation was tricky enough, but the [Assassin] had to use skills for each dagger, which made it even more challenging.

“I need practical training to get used to this.”

I spent almost three hours hitting the scarecrow.

I tried moving my body mid-attack, and I also tried deliberately disrupting the cooldown alignment by moving away, but…

I needed real-world experience. To deal damage in any situation, I needed to experience a variety of scenarios.

A Sword Master could avoid danger with Parrying in a sudden situation, but the Assassin’s dagger was much weaker than the Sword Master’s parry.

It was more advantageous for an Assassin to use a movement skill to get behind the boss and attack, rather than relying on Parrying.

‘Should I do PVP?’

When selecting guild members, I had also used PVP survival mode.

Until now, I hadn’t touched PVP because I was too busy reaching the max level in LEORE, doing raids from the previous season, and doing raids from the current season.

But now I had nothing to do until the next season. I thought now was the perfect time to get into PVP.

LEORE PVP was quite popular and even had tournaments, so it was well-established.

A tense situation, an environment where you couldn’t let your guard down for even a second, a PVP arena where you could consider various responses.

I had made my decision.

With only daggers in hand and no prior knowledge, I warped to a location with PVP content.

In LEORE, PVP differed from other RPG games in that there was no equipment. You simply played with the stats set by the game company.

Therefore, you could fight on equal footing without having to do raids. Of course, the balance between jobs was another matter.

In a huge, Colosseum-like space, many people were chatting.

Everyone was there to enjoy PVP.

Since I was quite well-known, I slipped into a corner before anyone noticed, opened the PVP-only window, and pressed the PVP 1v1 general match button.

I wanted to jump straight into ranked games, but I had to play ten general matches first.

Tting.

I was matched in less than five seconds.

My body moved smoothly, and I found myself facing another user in the center of the Colosseum.

A thirty-second timer was visible in front of me.

Presumably, this time was given to analyze the opponent you had to fight for 180 seconds and strategize.

A male user wielding a huge greatsword.

He wore massive armor to match. Normally, my attacks would penetrate the armor with my stats, but with the spec buffs in place, dealing damage with normal attacks seemed difficult.

“Oh, an assassin~ This round is an easy win. Huh?”

The Great Swordsman user looked at me gleefully after seeing [Assassin] displayed in the alert window and pointed at me.

“WFK Lee Arang…!? Wow, awesome. Are you doing PVP now, too?”

“Yes. I’m going to try PVP with Assassin starting today.”

“Wow… I’m honored. But you’re going to have a hard time trying to do PVP with that job?”

“We’ll see.”

Ten seconds remained. The beep… beep… sound effect indicated the time was running out.

With five seconds left, I drew my two daggers and assumed a stance.

The Great Swordsman user raised his greatsword above his head, adopting an upper stance. A pure white light subtly enveloped the greatsword.

I recognized that stance and effect from when I went to the dungeon with Mister Kang Hangil’s Great Swordsman last time.

It was the Great Swordsman’s only movement skill, [Charge].

With the Assassin’s pitiful health, each of the Great Swordsman’s attacks was fatal. To win, I had to ensure I didn’t get hit even once.

The Great Swordsman immediately launched forward the moment there was one second left.

“!?”

Only then did I notice the small line visible in the center of the Colosseum.

The battle didn’t start when the timer reached zero, but you just had to avoid crossing the line or attacking until then.

Before that, casting, using a cast skill, moving, or charging was all allowed.

You just had to avoid crossing the line before zero seconds, and it didn’t matter if the attack landed as soon as zero seconds hit.

In other words, it was okay to complete all attack preparations before zero seconds and have the attack connect the instant it arrived.

This was my mistake.

Zero seconds.

The word START! appeared in front of me, but I couldn’t focus on it.

The greatsword was already bearing down on me.

I had intended to observe the Great Swordsman’s PVP style and understand the flow, but that was too naive.

I raised the dagger to parry the greatsword—!

‘Ah!’

I had instinctively raised the dagger to parry, a habit ingrained from playing Sword Master for so long.

The moment the dagger and greatsword collided, I relaxed my arm and allowed the Great Swordsman’s Charge attack to flow past me.

‘Eueuk…!’

I didn’t take much damage from the Great Swordsman’s powerful Charge attack, but I was caught in a brief Stun.

As soon as the Stun wore off, I cast a backward movement skill to create distance. The Great Swordsman was also momentarily stunned, and since all of his attacks were slow, there should be enough time—

Thwack!

“Haaht!?”

The movement skill was interrupted by a sharp pain in my abdomen, and my eyes widened.

The Great Swordsman released his grip on the greatsword and punched my stomach.

‘He’s a user who’s familiar with PVP…!’

He had predicted that I would use a movement skill and canceled it by striking my abdomen with a fist faster than the greatsword as soon as the Charge skill ended.

I bit my lip, suppressing the pain in my stomach, and instead of using a movement skill, I retreated directly.

The Great Swordsman wasn’t about to let me escape, and he rushed forward.

I tried to keep him at bay with the dagger, but he intentionally pulled the greatsword back and thrust his right shoulder forward.

With his large armor, imposing size, and the way he twisted his body and led with his shoulder, the greatsword disappeared from my view.

‘He’s trying to obscure the attack…!? No, just how experienced is he!?’

I tried to anticipate the next attack, but I couldn’t predict what skill he would use because I couldn’t see the greatsword.

First, I grabbed both daggers in a reverse grip and activated an attack power buff. I would have to respond to the next attack with Parrying or Blocking.

“You’re not used to PVP!”

The Great Swordsman grinned and slammed his outstretched right shoulder into my stomach.

Bang!

‘My stomach again…!’

“Haaht…!”

The pain reverberated through my abdomen once more.

After enduring two attacks, I didn’t just experience pain and a brief Stun; I was now caught in a medium Stun.

“One shot~”

The greatsword, now enveloped in a red aura, came into view.

A single, powerful attack: [Spear]. It was the Great Swordsman’s strongest stab attack. I couldn’t avoid it, and the greatsword pierced my stomach, triggering an explosion.

Kwaaaang!

The force of the explosion sent my body flying towards the Colosseum wall.

==

The Great Swordsman user was currently ranked 80th.

Considering there were tens of thousands of LEORE PVP users, he was quite skilled. He always played one or two general games to warm up before heading into ranked matches.

Today, like any other day, he played a general game to warm up, and he smiled when he saw that he had been matched against an assassin-type job, which was weak against Great Swordsman in PVP.

After checking the job, he looked to see which user was playing PVP with the assassin job, and the name was quite familiar.

A small stature that didn’t even look like a middle school student and a mischievous face.

And the [Lee Arang] nickname that everyone in LEORE knew, along with the [Abyss The World First Kill] title that proved the nickname was well-earned.

It was the real Lee Arang.

The Great Swordsman user was looking forward to PVP with Arang, who was currently considered to have the best physical skills in LEORE, but he was also curious about her PVP skills.

Raids and PVP were distinctly different.

The Great Swordsman user felt a bit disappointed in Arang, who was as helpless as he had expected, as he watched her get hit by the greatsword and fly backward.

Arang’s HP was already down to just 5% after two melee attacks and one greatsword attack.

She was so weak that even a simple punch would finish her off.

The Great Swordsman user casually rested the greatsword on his shoulder and slowly walked towards where Arang had crashed.

Thud.

He prepared to finish her off as Arang emerged from the rubble.

‘Hmm? The atmosphere is… completely different?’