Chapter 185
“I don’t think it’s a bug.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“How could it not be?”
“Ugh.”
Rachel jumped up and strode over to her younger sibling.
She couldn’t stand just looking at it from afar, so now she was getting close to check for herself.
“It’s really not a bug?”
“How could it be a bug? For your information, this isn’t a screenshot. I looked it up directly on the official website.”
“Could it be a fake site?”
Even as she said it, she found it so ridiculous that she let out a scoff.
“What would they even gain by faking the Trials?”
“That’s true. Move over.”
She took over her sibling’s computer and first confirmed the facts.
No matter what she heard, she still couldn’t believe it.
‘It’s real. What is this? How on earth…?’
Could it be an in-game bug this time?
The bug she mentioned earlier was about the website.
Bugs aren’t tolerated inside the virtual reality anyway.
But at this point, she couldn’t help but be suspicious.
No system was completely flawless, after all.
‘Hmm.’
Of course, her refusal to believe it wasn’t just because she was shocked at losing the top spot.
She opened up a messenger app to discuss the situation in detail.
She didn’t have a smartphone.
Using a smartphone during vacation was forbidden.
“What? I just got a message?”
[Bernard: Did you just see that?]
It was a teammate.
Had he always been so interested in Korea?
No.
Of course, they were interested in Korea.
A gaming powerhouse. Despite having an overwhelmingly smaller talent pool compared to the US or China, it was the nation of the silent dawn, masters of war, claiming the title of the strongest.
Most teams that handed them defeats at the world championships were from Korea, so naturally, their interest was high.
But for that interest to extend to a mere streamer was nothing short of remarkable.
[Rachel: How did you find out so fast?]
[Bernard: Your sibling told me.]
Ah.
She turned to look behind her. Her younger sibling was fiddling diligently with their smartphone.
Her sibling, who was friendly with her teammates.
No doubt spreading all sorts of nonsense right now.
“Stop!”
“Never!”
“Damn it. First, I need to figure out what’s going on, so can you please stop sending messages?”
“Yeah, I already told them everything. What did I say earlier? No way from the start? Then what’s this?”
Her sibling jeered.
“Would my little sibling finally come to their senses after tasting the murderous New York rent?”
“I’m sorry!”
But what good did that do? It had probably already spread among the team.
American pros loved history books. It was because the American pro league, which started a little later than the Korean pro league, had a more relaxed schedule.
And within that, there was no such thing as team loyalty. They competed. They’d definitely demand that she keep her word.
‘Should I just ignore it?’
No.
First, she had to confirm exactly what had happened.
[Bernard: Check out this clip.]
[Bernard: It’s a 50-second clip. You know what this means, right?]
[Rachel: Did you watch it?]
[Bernard: No, I’m about to check it now. Your sibling sent me this clip, too.]
[Rachel: Let’s talk after we check it out.]
Rank 2, Rachel.
Rank 3, Bernard.
Just a moment ago, they had been rank 1 and 2. That was why her sibling had contacted him immediately, and why she had come onto the messenger site to ask for his opinion.
Rachel played the video.
Her sibling, who had been pushed aside, saw it and poked their head in.
“Haven’t you seen this?”
“No, I haven’t. I just sent the link.”
“Fine. Let’s just watch it for now.”
Just because it was a Korean stream didn’t mean she couldn’t watch it at all.
The streamer’s words in the video were translated simultaneously through subtitles.
It wasn’t quite on par with an expert’s touch that captures every last detail to the extreme, but it still conveyed most of them accurately.
But she would have no reason to watch it normally.
Who could do the Trial of Eid while talking without concentrating?
“He really used two? At this rate, isn’t he going to use four next?”
“Probably not. They say the sync rate is 10. That’s why it’s two, they said.”
Her sibling was also looking at their phone. They must be searching for other information, too.
Rachel’s eyes deepened. It was time for the secret to be revealed.
* * *
After watching the entire video, Rachel’s first thought was this:
“He’s talking?”
He talks. It’s what a streamer is supposed to do. But still.
“He’s talking?”
“Yeah. I saw it too, sis. You don’t have to say it again...”
“No, I’m saying, he’s talking!”
Rachel didn’t stop there.
[Rachel: Did you see it?]
[Bernard: Uh... it was pretty shocking.]
[Rachel: What is this?]
It was a trial you attempted to be counted among the top ten in the world.
Forget being able to speak; it was a situation where you had to cast aside all idle thoughts and focus completely.
[Bernard: He drew the shortest path for the orb’s trajectory perfectly every time. You can see it at a glance. Launching the orb like that is the shortest way.]
Oh.
That was amazing, too.
But he did that amazing thing while talking?
What on earth is that streamer?
How is that even possible?
“Sis. Aren’t you surprised about the sound play, like Bernard hyung?”
Rachel tapped her lips and said,
“No, well, it’s shocking... but other things are more mind-blowing to me.”
She was surprised that he could play by sound, but not so much that he was doing it itself.
She judged that if she practiced, she might be able to do it too.
But the other things...
[Bernard: Drawing the trajectory, never making a single mistake, even talking—it’s all insane.]
[Bernard: It’s an absurd level. Could the video be edited?]
[Bernard: I can’t take it. Let’s talk on the phone for a sec.]
After answering the call, she immediately began her analysis.
“Bernard, when we process 8 targets, what’s the delay time?”
8 was the number of targets that appeared per step, every second.
[When they only appear in front, it’s perfect. We process them all within 1 second, so there’s no delay.]
“Right. Then what about when they appear from behind?”
[0.1 to 0.3 seconds? Did it take that long each time we processed 8? Out of the 44 waves where they appear from behind, there are five waves where they only appear in front.]
“Right. You remembered well.”
They strived to exert ultimate concentration during those 44 steps where targets spawned from behind.
“If you process the targets with the best play, it’s 0.1 seconds. If you lose even a little focus, it’s 0.3 seconds.”
[That’s right. And the record you set, Rachel, 356. Wasn’t that the record users said no higher record would ever come out of? I gave up back then. How many months ago was it?]
The record possible when processing all 44 waves of targets appearing from behind with an average delay of just 0.1 seconds was exactly 356.
In other words, Rachel had repeated the very best any ranker could do over 44 times.
In the match where she set that record, Rachel had felt a special sensation.
A state of complete immersion where even her own self was forgotten, a state that hundreds or thousands of attempts couldn’t guarantee they’d ever experience again.
How hard had she tried to grasp that moment she had stumbled upon by chance again?
“Could that man have entered that state?”
Her teammate Bernard knew that fact, too.
[If that were the case...]
He was chatting perfectly fine with his viewers?
She tried to infer the unspoken words from Bernard’s trailing sentence.
This was the reason Rachel was so astonished.
“Damn it. While he was doing the sound play, how many seconds of delay was that streamer experiencing?”
[Hold on. The coach here will check it frame by frame and let you know.]
“You will?”
[No, the coach who’s here.]
“Okay.”
Rachel chuckled and then let out a sigh.
Maybe it was because she’d seen something so shocking. Tension had crept into her body before she knew it.
After calmly cooling her head, she twisted her blonde hair around her finger and fell into thought.
Sin Ha-yeon, her eternal rival (self-proclaimed) and nemesis (self-proclaimed). The homeland of Korea.
To think someone from there would bother her like this again.
Rachel swallowed hard.
Just what kind of country is Korea?
[I checked. When targets spawn in front, there’s a delay of about 0.06 seconds.]
That meant a state of full concentration.
That was likely the best that could be done with two orbs.
But the streamer hadn’t been talking during that time.
He started having somewhat strange conversations with his viewers in earnest after that point.
[When they spawned from behind, there was an average delay of about 0.08 seconds.]
“Ha...”
He was faster than them. That was why he had set the highest record.
“All 44 times?”
[Yeah. All of them.]
“Could that have been his best?”
[Hmm, Rachel. You saw it, too. The way he processed the targets. No matter how you look at it, shortening it any further is impossible. Even if you enter that state you talk about.]
He was speaking in terms of using two orbs.
It meant that reducing the delay below 0.08 seconds with two orbs was simply systemically impossible.
[Perhaps if we were doing sound play, since we’d have four orbs, we could shorten it a bit more, but anyway, the point is that he consistently performed the best play possible. While communicating with his viewers. I wonder if the human brain can even do that.]
“Damn it... Should I go to Korea?”
[What? Are you crazy? Are you abandoning the team?]
“No, that’s not it. I was just thinking of going to meet him. We have plenty of time. Or how about arranging a friendly match between our team and their team?”
“Sis, that won’t work.”
“Why?”
“That person is a pure streamer.”
“Ah, really?”
[Then how about this.]
“Is there some way?”
[Follow them around like an attendant in the history books and learn. Or, ask for their secret technique in exchange for a favor. Kehehe!]
“This bastard?”
[Well, we’ll meet them there, so there’s no need to go all the way to Korea. Ah. Then do you have to find a different hero? You’re unaffiliated; what heroes are coming out this time...?]
Now that things had been sorted out, Bernard immediately started getting on his teammate’s nerves.
Perhaps because he’d already lost interest in Eid, he seemed less affected.
She immediately hung up. Continuing to talk would only bring her losses.
Hoo.
Now that the analysis was done, she had to check it out for herself, right?
“Hey, little sibling.”
“Huh? Ah, hold on.”
“What are you watching?”
“Right now, that person... No, is this right?”
“Why.”
“While you and that hyung were analyzing, I heard that Kael also took 1st place? Overwhelmingly?”
Oh.
Hmm.
What’s this?
“Hey, that person who predicted Kael’s next vital point a while back. That person is this streamer.”
“Ah! I remember now.”
A while ago.
While she’d been on vacation for weeks, her coach had suddenly contacted her, even through her sibling, to ask if it was possible.
Since she wasn’t good with Kael anyway, she confidently replied that it was impossible and buried herself back in bed.
That user was Kael?
She revised her evaluation of the streamer. Not just someone freakishly good at the Trial of Eid, but someone special. Someone to keep an eye on.
Rachel swallowed hard once more.
Just what kind of country is Korea?
What kind of country produces players like that over and over again?
Sin Ha-yeon.
Baek Do-yul, who beat her.
And now even this streamer.
“This won’t do. Little sibling.”
“What.”
“While I’m out, gather every piece of information about that streamer.”
“No…”
“Rent.”
“Yes!”
“And where’s the nearest capsule room around here?”
“Huh? You’re going to play? You’re on vacation right now.”
Rachel stretched her arms wide and cracked her neck.
“How can I rest? Vacation’s over.”
* * *
After arriving at the capsule room and entering the virtual reality, Rachel thought:
‘Sword God. Sword God.’
The streamer’s ID rolled smoothly off her tongue.
She knew it wasn’t his real name, but she still didn’t know what it meant.
Well, her rent-threatened sibling would probably gather and organize that for her.
She had also briefly heard his name, but couldn’t remember it.
Korean-style names were simply too awkward for her.
He wasn’t an opponent she’d clashed with several times; she had only just heard a foreign name once. There was no way it would stick in her brain.
Rachel revived her senses for a moment in her lobby, then entered the training grounds.
The training grounds were the first place she went to warm up after her vacation ended.
Just because she didn’t often use sword-wielding heroes didn’t mean she was bad at them.
The sword was the fundamental.
‘Hmm.’
As always, she looked for the settings to summon a level 10 AI.
‘Has it been a while since I used a different server? No, it’s just been a while since I was in VR, so it’s been a while since I used a different server.’
In virtual reality, servers were divided.
North America, South America, West Europe, East Europe, Korea, Japan, etc., etc.
China was even known to have over ten.
Well, they were just divided. If you wanted, you could play on any server.
‘Here it is.’
Just like she was now connected to the Korean server.
She smiled in satisfaction and summoned the level 10 AI.
Three letters written in English.
“Jin. Seo. Jun? It’s not Sin Ha-yeon?”
Had the level 10 AI changed?
Would her rival (not) and nemesis (not), with that personality, ever let this position be taken away?
“Seojun Jin... I think I’ve heard that somewhere before.”
Korean-style names were still awkward.
“He must have joined a pro team somewhere. Judging by the fact I don’t remember him well, he’s probably a rookie or on the bench, so I haven’t heard of him since.”
I should face him.
It had been a while since her last fight.
She adjusted her grip on her sword.
Soon, the opponent rushed at her.
Clang!
“Huh?”
Starting a fight like this...?
Sin Ha-yeon?
Clang! Clang!
“Huh?”
This time, it was something like...?
Baek Do-yul?
“Huh? Huh?”
Her blue eyes trembled mercilessly.
“Wha, what is this? Did Baek Do-yul and Sin Ha-yeon combine?”
There was no way that could be true.
If true, that meant this person had blended the two’s swordsmanship.
Among pros, there was probably no one who didn’t know how difficult it was to blend swordsmanship to this level of completion.
Rachel swallowed hard once more.
‘He can’t be just a bench warmer, so is he a rookie? Another player of this caliber has appeared? In swordsmanship this time?’
Just what kind of country is Korea?