Middle School Samurai

,Wow… Did you perhaps do something like gymnastics in real life?”

The Paladin user, who was looking at me, said with admiration the moment I got off the Butcher’s corpse.

Gymnast? That’s absurd. I gave an awkward smile and turned my gaze away.

The Knight user, who had been crawling on the floor, started to slowly get up, panting.

It seemed that the Knight character didn’t have a way to recover on their own.

I looked at the blue gauge bar floating above my head.

It was a sign indicating the occupied area. Thanks to the absence of enemies around, the occupation gauge was rising rapidly.

,Hey, Samurai-nim?”

,Yes?”

,Since there’s a Butcher, it’d be better to take out the Nodachi. You can rearm here once we occupy this place, so how about changing it then?”

,Nodachi…?”

At the Paladin user’s words, I thought of the weapon I had chosen at the very beginning.

Certainly, if I used that huge greatsword, I would be able to deal damage to the Butcher, who was covered in heavy armor.

,But I don’t have enough Strength stat.”

,From what I saw earlier, you were dodging everything, so how about taking off your armor instead?”

,Take off my armor?”

,Yes, you can put all the Strength stat needed to wear the armor into the weapon.”

,Is that possible?”

,Yes, there are people who play like that. Of course, it’s not a good method, but…”

As I was talking with the Paladin user, the staggering Knight user approached and opened their mouth.

,Aigo… Thank you. I’ve shown you a shameful sight.”

The Knight user said that and sat down on the floor.

The heavily dented armor was covered in dirt and blood, making it look very dirty.

,Yeon… Yeon-nim. Am I reading that right?”

,Yes, it’s Yeon.”

,Yeon-nim, are you perhaps a smurf account? Or did you come here after being an athlete outside?”

It was a similar question to the one the Paladin user had asked.

I shook my head. An athlete? In reality, I’m just a middle school student who lacks exercise.

How could I, who spends all day cooped up inside a capsule playing the game Deron, possibly be an athlete?

Still, I could understand their reactions.

I must have looked cool. They must have been impressed by my amazing skills, which is why they reacted like that.

I covered my slyly rising lips and cleared my throat.

,Ahem… So, when the gauge above our heads is completely full, does that mean we’ve successfully occupied this area?”

,Ah, that’s right. This is an occupied area. You see the strange marks around here, right?”

At the Knight user’s words, I looked around.

Then, things that I hadn’t seen because I was fighting started to come into view.

As the Knight said, there was a very faint and transparent wall rippling around the area.

,Yes, so all these places are occupied areas, right?”

,That’s right. If you occupy an area, you can rearm there and recover any lost health.”

,It’s quite slow.”

,This is actually quite fast. There are three of us in the same area, after all.”

Time passed as we talked.

The time it took to occupy the area was one minute, and that was the amount of time that was shortened by having a total of three people working on it.

If I were to occupy an area alone, how long would I have to defend the area?

I shook my head and started setting up my equipment status that appeared before my eyes.

As the Paladin user said, I unequipped my armor.

The greaves, pauldrons, armor, and helmet, which took up the most weight, were removed.

I rotated my shoulders and took out a new weapon.

,Oh…”

The Paladin user was right. When I unequipped the armor, it didn’t feel as burdensome as it did when I first chose the Nodachi.

With this much weight, it seemed like I could use it in actual combat.

As I was swinging the huge greatsword around, the Knight user, who had finished recovering next to me, asked in surprise.

,Nodachi… You unequipped your armor to use that, right? What’s your Strength stat?”

,Ah, my Strength stat is 6. That’s the end of the Strength stat that can be set with this key.”

,Wow…”

Is this really something to be so surprised about?

Even the Paladin user next to me showed a surprised expression.

,Ah, Yeon-nim. Have you set up your skills?”

,Skills?”

,Samurai have two skills at the beginning, and the default setting is the ‘Iai’ skill. You know that, right?”

,Yes.”

,As your level increases, you can use several at the same time, but since you’re level 1 now, you can only activate one skill at a time.”

,Oh…”

As expected, the Knight user was kind.

I listened to their words and went into the skill slot.

Then, as they said, I could see two skills sparkling.

[Iai]

[Samurai’s Spirit]

,The ‘Iai’ skill would be better when using a katana, but the ‘Spirit’ skill would be better when using a Nodachi like now.”

I listened to the Knight user’s words and checked the description of the ‘Spirit’ skill.

[Samurai’s Spirit]

Only occurs in 1-on-1 situations with the enemy.

Ignores 5% of the enemy’s defense.

※Defense ignore stat increases by 20% when using a Nodachi.

It seemed that the Nodachi, one of the Samurai’s weapons, was a weapon specialized in slicing through the high defense of those pig bastards.

As the Knight user said, when I activated the ‘Spirit’ skill, a faint wind scattered around my body.

,Have you set it up? Let’s get going now. The enemies should be done respawning.”

,Ah, yes.”

I listened to the Knight user’s words and looked around.

The Paladin user, who had been standing here checking their equipment status, was nowhere to be seen.

Looking at the minimap floating at the top, they were already running far ahead.

I wasted too much time.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t played this kind of game before, so I had a rough idea of how things worked.

I left the occupied area with the Knight user and ran forward.

The lightened body from unequipping the armor and the total of 15 Agility stats were creating a tremendous synergy.

Fast. The body running forward was excessively light.

It wasn’t comparable to Deron, but in this state, it felt like I could run on walls.

Uwoaaaaaa!

Chang! Chaeng! Chang!

At that moment, the sound of weapons clashing was heard from not too far away.

The NPCs and the Paladin user who were running ahead had started fighting.

,I’ll go first!”

The Knight user also couldn’t stand seeing that and ran forward.

Ignoring the Knight who ran out ahead, I looked around.

Unlike our team, who were diligently swinging their weapons at the NPCs, the enemies were nowhere to be seen.

According to the Knight user, it was time for the dead enemies to respawn.

But why weren’t they visible?

I only had an ominous feeling.

How much time had passed as I watched the situation?

A faint warning message appeared before my eyes.

[The occupied area is under attack!]

The ominous feeling was right.

The enemies had avoided direct combat and headed to the occupied area by detouring around the path.

I wasn’t the only one who saw the message.

Everyone on our team, who had been mindlessly swinging their weapons, checked the message.

It was a very basic tactic, but it worked.

I bit my lip and turned around to run.

It’s my first game. I wanted to decorate it with a victory if possible.

At the occupied area, which I quickly reached by running, a total of four enemies were gathered.

A large Butcher user was blocking the wooden bridge, and a Viking and a Knight user were standing next to them.

I bit my lip and looked back.

Thanks to the high Agility stat and the speed gained from removing the armor, I was able to reach the occupied area quickly, but as a result, I was too far away from our team.

I can’t break through alone.

I grabbed the short bow that was hanging on my back.

The feel of the wooden bow in my hand was very unfamiliar.

I held the bow with my left hand, took an arrow from the quiver attached to my right thigh, and pulled the string.

It may be a sub-weapon, but the tension that is pulled taut is considerable.

I narrowed my eyes and glared at the enemies.

Behind the sweaty pigs blocking the bridge, a relatively thin user caught my eye.

They didn’t have a helmet to protect their head. All they had on was a gambeson-style armor that looked quite thick.

That’s the guy I’m going to aim for.

All my experience was shooting at practice dummies, but I was confident.

Hwarang used a bow like this to play Deron at first.

He did it. There’s no way I can’t do it.

Kkiiiiii-

The bowstring, pulled to its limit, began to scream.

I gritted my teeth and pulled it back further.

Now.

The moment the wind blowing around me stopped for a moment, I released my hand from the string.

Pyoote-!

The elasticity that felt light sent the arrow flying.

However, the arrow I shot did not hit its target.

This is because the arrow, which had been flying powerfully, plummeted to the ground.

,Ah…”

I shot too, too low. It was because I shot without thinking about the drop of the arrow.

I caught my breath and pulled out another arrow.

I will definitely hit it this time.

Hoo-

As I breathed out like that, I felt something approaching with a sensitive sense the moment I pulled the string.

Footsteps that couldn’t be heard unless I concentrated, and the sound of breathing above them. The very subtle noise created by clothes brushing against clothes could be heard in my ears.

I quickly scan the enemies who occupied the area.

Definitely four people.

But this game has five people on a team.

In other words, another enemy is hiding and doing something else.

In fact, I was used to this kind of approach. Since I was always under the threat of assassination, my body naturally started to move.

At the same time as letting go of the bow I was holding, my hand moved and took out the Nodachi that was slung behind my back.

The size of the blade alone is already over 120cm.

If you add the size of the handle, it’s like swinging something as tall as me, so the movement is bound to be big and slow.

But it was enough to blow away the head of the approaching guy.

Buuwoong-!

As if using a large centrifugal force, I twist my waist and swing the sword in my hand wide.

Then, I felt a thud at the tip of my hand, and a head wearing a black mask flew up into the sky with a *peok* sound.

As expected, the enemy assassin was carefully approaching with a dagger drawn.

,Oh…”

This time, I cut off the enemy’s head with one blow.

It felt like I was playing Deron.

I smiled brightly as I looked at the assassin user’s corpse falling powerlessly.