Sparrow’s Departure

“Hmm…”

Ellie, no, Jupiter, looked down at her body and nodded.

The feel of the shimmering armor enveloping her entire body and the firm yet soft gauntlets was quite familiar.

After setting a nickname, she created her character.

The final stats of the knight character Jupiter created were as follows.

Strength 6

Agility 10

Stamina 14

Now it was time to choose her basic weapon.

Ellie stroked her chin as she looked at the weapons floating before her.

The main weapons given to a knight were a claymore and a longsword.

A familiar longsword, or a claymore with heavy destructive power.

Jupiter pondered for a long time in front of the gleaming swords.

“Hmm.”

In the end, the weapon Jupiter chose was the longsword.

The weight felt quite heavy in her hand.

Jupiter blankly opened her mouth at the completely unfamiliar feeling compared to Deron.

She realized it as soon as she held it. She couldn’t swing the sword around haphazardly like she did in Deron.

It would strain her wrist. If she didn’t grip it properly, the sword would surely slip out of her hand.

[Attack the training dummy using your weapon]

Rather than blindly following the quest, Jupiter brought up the help guide provided to beginners who were new to the game.

The help guide described the characteristics and skills of her character, as well as effective attack methods depending on the type of weapon used.

If she had skipped this help guide, she would have had quite a hard time.

“Hmm…”

Jupiter checked the skills her character, the knight, possessed.

There were two passive skills that could always be activated by default: Defensive Stance and Offensive Stance.

As the names suggested, they had the effect of increasing attack and defense capabilities.

What Jupiter paid attention to was the skill called [Composure].

It was a type of buff skill that, for a brief moment, buffed herself to greatly reduce the damage of an opponent’s attack, characterized by a very short cooldown and duration.

Currently, Jupiter could only activate one skill.

Jupiter seemed to hesitate for a moment, then deactivated the default Offensive Stance skill and activated the Composure skill.

She checked all the information that could be checked by default.

Now all that was left was to beat the crap out of the training dummy in front of her.

Jupiter calmly took a breath and carefully took a step forward.

“Hayat!”

With a short shout, Jupiter’s longsword struck the dummy’s head.

Thwack-!

It was a light impact sound rather than a heavy weight being felt.

Jupiter frowned and retrieved her sword.

The power wasn’t properly applied. If it had been Deron, she would have cut down such a dummy in one strike.

“I see…”

Jupiter was finally able to understand.

Even though it was the same virtual reality game, Deron and VRS were completely different games.

The small girl knight took a deep breath with a serious expression.

***

It was two hours later that Jupiter left the training dummy area.

The thought of meeting the Blood Demon King had long disappeared from her mind.

“Heh heh…”

This is perfect.

Jupiter clenched her fists and nodded.

She had been holed up in a room with only a dummy for a long time.

Now it was time to go into actual combat.

With a confident expression, Jupiter started queuing for 1v1 Deathmatch mode.

Through the help guide that beginners could check, she grasped the characteristics of each mode.

Jupiter’s choice was without hesitation.

“Oh-”

Perhaps about 10 seconds had passed since she started matching.

A match was immediately made.

It was a significantly faster speed than the arena matching time in Deron.

Jupiter thought to herself as she flew to another space with a flash of light.

The musty smell of dust disappears.

The place Jupiter arrived at was an arena with all sides open.

It was wide open without any obstructions. That meant she could push her opponent out of the arena to their death.

Jupiter felt the faintly blowing wind and looked behind her.

Outside the arena, the deeply stretched dark darkness was faintly flickering as if tempting people.

“Nice to meet you!”

Jupiter was startled by the voice coming from across and shifted her gaze.

Her opponent was already preparing.

The silver armor covering his entire body and the long longsword stretched out gleamed in the sunlight.

He was a knight user like Jupiter.

“Are you ready?”

“Ah, yes.”

The opponent’s kindness was excessive.

Jupiter awkwardly cleared her throat and nodded.

The head wearing the helmet creaked-creaked- as it shook.

The opposing knight immediately entered battle stance as Jupiter nodded.

He seemed quite serious, and his appearance as he slowly narrowed the distance with his sword pointed forward looked plausible.

Jupiter also raised her sword.

She had confirmed it through the help guide. The larger the body in this game, the higher the strength stat that could be set.

Unlike Jupiter herself, the opponent must have allocated a strength stat of 10 or higher.

It was a disadvantageous fight. She absolutely had to avoid a strength fight where swords clashed.

Jupiter swallowed hard and slowly moved forward.

The armor on her body and the sword in her hand felt heavy.

Jupiter frowned and carefully watched the opposing knight’s movements.

Whoosh-!

The opponent, who had been approaching slowly, swung his sword when the distance became close enough.

The widely spread blade swept forward.

Fast but slow.

In Jupiter’s eyes, the opponent’s attack looked endlessly slow.

That was all.

The fact that the attack failed meant that the opponent’s upper body was wide open.

Jupiter moved forward and swung her sword.

The sword that popped out from the small girl knight’s chest with a *shush-* sound stretched out like an awl.

Thud-!

From bottom to top, an upward stab aimed at the opponent’s neck.

The strike aimed at the gap in the helmet hit accurately.

“Cough…”

But it was shallow. Perhaps because she was short, the tip of the sword didn’t go in far enough.

Jupiter frowned and twisted the sword in her hand to pull it out.

A *crack-* feeling caught at her fingertips, and then blood gushed out from between the gaps in the opponent’s helmet.

“Uh, uhk…”

The knight user’s body shook weakly, and eventually collapsed to the ground.

Jupiter moved her heavy-feeling body around and returned to the waiting room.

Her whole body felt heavy. She needed to be a little lighter in order to properly demonstrate her skills.

Jupiter went into the character settings and deactivated her basic armor.

She deactivated the helmet, pauldrons, armor, and leggings.

In the end, all that remained were the gauntlets that covered her entire hands and wrists, and the boots that protected her feet.

Her body felt light.

Jupiter swung her sword in the air and let out a satisfied smile.

An hour passed since then.

That was the time Jupiter spent playing Deathmatch mode.

Jupiter checked her level and nodded.

As a result of continuously playing the quickly ending Deathmatch mode, her level rose considerably and she reached level 10.

She had become accustomed to the state of her equipment, and she had also become accustomed to fighting enemies with larger heights than herself.

It was enough to say that all preparations were complete.

At least, that’s how Jupiter felt.

The Knight of Light, Jupiter, nodded as she selected the Domination mode.

With this level of skill, she wouldn’t be a nuisance to her teammates.

Just like when a Deathmatch mode match was found, Jupiter was transported to a wide map with a bright light.

A cool breeze blew, and a chilly smell of oil wafted from all directions.

As she blankly looked around, soldiers in shabby equipment were holding weapons and staring ahead with determined expressions.

“Everyone, nice to meet you~”

At that moment, a man’s voice was heard from behind Jupiter.

It wasn’t loud, but everyone around could hear it.

Jupiter turned around and looked back.

Except for Jupiter, the four teammates were each checking their equipment while maintaining a reasonable distance from each other.

Only Jupiter was standing there doing nothing.

Jupiter, who almost shrunk back, spread her chest wide with a confident expression.

Although this wasn’t Deron, as long as she was using the nickname Jupiter, she always had to be the Knight of Light.

“Um… Jupiter… -nim?”

The man who had greeted everyone first spoke to Jupiter.

Jupiter glanced at the user’s appearance.

The horned helmet pressed down on his head, the leather vest covering his upper body, and the chainmail draped over it were impressive.

This man’s character was a Viking.

“Viking, do you have business with me?”

Vikings, in the setting, were true warriors who never backed down.

They considered dying in battle with a strong opponent to be the greatest honor.

The Knight of Light, Jupiter, liked warriors like Vikings.

“Um, aren’t you wearing any armor?”

The Viking user looked over Jupiter’s appearance with a sullen expression.

The small girl knight had deactivated all armor except for her gauntlets and boots.

“Armor? It’s an unnecessary item for me.”

“Yes…?”

“It’s cumbersome and heavy.”

“Ho, how much is your strength stat, by any chance?”

“6!”

At Jupiter’s confident answer, the expressions of the other teammates who were watching changed instantly.

“You’re joking, right…?”

“I’m not joking, Viking.”

Jupiter said that and laughed coolly.

The bright sunlight pouring down from the sky fell onto Jupiter’s white face.

“Uh…”

“The game will start soon, Viking. It would be good to go back to your position and prepare.”

Jupiter sent the Viking user who had approached her back and calmly took a breath.

It was her first time experiencing Domination mode, but it wouldn’t be too difficult.

She had learned how to proceed in that mode through the help guide, so she just had to do as it said.

At that moment, the transparent barrier blocking Jupiter’s path disappeared.

The game had started.

Leaving behind the worried expressions of her teammates, Jupiter mixed in with the NPC soldiers and started running forward quickly.

If she ran straight along the path, she would encounter the first battleground.

Jupiter recalled the information she had confirmed through the help guide and continued to run forward.

How long had she been running?

Jupiter could see that the speed of the NPCs running in front of her had slowed down.

At that moment, the sound of loud clashing weapons could be heard from right in front.

Dieeeee-!

Clang-! Crash-!

Clang!

Kkyaaaaaa!

Shouts and screams mixed together and spread in all directions.

Jupiter frowned as she heard the sound.

Because she was short, she couldn’t see what was happening on the other side.

“Eek…!”

Jupiter jumped up and down in place.