Chapter 21 - The One Who Enjoys
ILoveFlameBirdILoveSaha.
My past glory.
As soon as I saw those eight characters, cold sweat ran down my spine.
“It’s stagnant water…”
“Myong?”
…I decided not to worry about why my (former) account name popped up here.
Surely.
It’s not going to be a development like ‘the female characters in the world I left behind are obsessed with me’, right?
That can’t be.
It’s already unrealistic enough with just the game incarnation.
But that defense deck is rock solid.
It’s my masterpiece deck containing all my know-how…
Dark clouds gathered over the future of hitting 1st and quitting.
Still, the fortunate thing is.
The group my (former) account belongs to is a group that hasn’t been ‘shuffled’ for long.
What’s shuffling?
Randomly mixing groups to prevent stagnant water from rotting together.
In other words.
All sorts of monsters inhabit the upper ranks, but it’s still a fight we can compete in up to the middle ranks!
“Phew.”
Still, I’d prefer sucking honey while beating up bots.
Tsk.
Swallowing my disappointment.
“Attention! Let me explain the ruuuules! Of the Dimension Arena to the Revealer visiting for the first time!”
Through the announcer’s voice.
I could understand the differences between in-game and now more accurately.
The battles here are said to be fought with ‘clones’ that replicate the heroes’ appearances.
Because they exist in different dimensions, they can’t exist in the same dimension simultaneously, and so on── the announcer explained.
He said some strange things about contradictions and doppelgangers, but I wasn’t interested in such setting details.
Conclusion.
The fortunate point is.
Because we fight with clones.
Our heroes won’t get hurt unnecessarily in D-Arena.
The unfortunate point is.
I can’t directly give orders from the side.
Like playing Pok*mon, go Lumi-mon! Body Slam!
…Like that.
So for now, let’s see how it goes── with that feeling, I jumped right into the first match.
[Battle Result]
[Victory: aaa] [Defeat: TinyaSoftBellyButtonSniff]
[Your rank has risen to 9532nd!]
“Hmm, this might work?”
I glimpsed the possibility.
The clones of our heroes in the arena clearly moved with their own ‘selves’.
“Yohena, how did it feel?”
“Umm. Like moving a doll with your thoughts? It wasn’t much different from moving your actual body. And I didn’t feel any pain.”
That’s good.
You got hit directly by a fireball and were sizzling earlier.
“How about Ari?”
“It’s a bit ambiguous! Like shooting arrows with imagination?”
“Lumi?”
“Woof! Bite woof! Hit woof!”
Yeah, yeah.
Well done.
“…Aren’t you going to ask me?”
“Uh… Saha, well, you held up so firmly and reliably at the front?”
“Uhyaaaaaaaa…”
What’s with that, why are you taking such a deep breath.
Anyway.
I formed a hypothesis.
With my current character pool, no, hero lineup.
We can’t do luxurious things like countering according to the situation or matching attributes.
But.
If we implant in their heads how to deal with the tricky ones that often come out?
Wouldn’t their autonomous performance improve?
“Everyone, shall we study for a bit?”
“Hieeek…! An orc’s hammer is 115 gold…! Hieeek…!”
Tinya had a seizure at the word study, but.
Life is a continuous study originally.
If you don’t hard work, hard study, you’ll be left behind in this cruel society!
You might go bankrupt after fully buying into scam coins like ‘You can live as you want once you get into college’…!
Kuhuk.
Let me wipe my tears for a moment.
“You don’t need to memorize everything at once, let’s go step by step.”
If we diagram the D-Arena process──
Choose an opponent’s defense deck from the list of other Revealers.
Our heroes enter the waiting room to prepare for attack.
I’m also summoned to the Revealer’s exclusive viewing room.
Finally, watch the clones fight it out.
Later, as the rank gets higher, it becomes ‘blind’. That is, you can’t check the defense deck.
But for now, based on my brilliant brain, I can give instructions in advance on how to attack!
Whisper whisper.
Explain explain.
“Now, Lumi. When the blue-haired swordsman raises his sword high?”
“Woof woof! Bark woof!”
“Good. Ari, who first?”
“Yohena first!”
“…This feels a bit strange.”
“Aha! The fake Yohena from another dimension first!”
After establishing such strategies, the second match.
[Battle Result]
[Victory: aaa] [Defeat: GodOfNormalization]
[Your rank has risen to 9104th!]
The hypothesis was perfectly verified.
Q.E.D.
Games are easy, right?
The pattern is complete! Let’s go win!
And so, consecutive victories.
“Voice breathing! Money to voice! That’s right! Lumi is the best!”
“…C-could you be quiet?”
“Ah… So that’s how it is… This is the voice of the loser…”
“Uuugh…!”
…In the process, meeting other Revealers and teabagging them was more fun than expected.
I wanted to ask questions like ‘Are you perhaps incarnated too?’
But whenever I tried to mention anything related to reality.
As if under a taboo, blub blub, only goldfish sounds came out.
Tsk.
Enjoy.
Those who enjoy are first-class.
“No, no… How is this possible?”
The Revealer ‘SelectPDOUT’ burst with indignation.
He had fought countless battles in the Dimension Arena until now.
But the scene unfolding before his eyes was extremely unreasonable.
“As expected of Ari! Ari is the best! All dead! That’s right! From behind!”
‘SelectPDOUT’s eyes caught the opponent Revealer── a blonde young man.
An unfamiliar face he’s seeing for the first time.
But there wasn’t any particular sense of discomfort.
The mint-haired robot girl enthusiastically doing parries.
The strange cat beastwoman shouting chinyapongnyakangnya.
The chunnibyou pretentious lanky guy with ‘gears’ in his eyes.
The idiot wearing a straw hat and poking chopsticks in his nostrils.
As a result of various ‘isekai’ and ‘collaborations’ besides these.
The appearances of Revealers became extremely diverse.
Therefore.
Well, there might be one guy like that, he could accept.
“This is cheating!”
Looking at specs alone, it was a fight he should definitely win.
However, seeing his heroes starting to lose in that fight, ‘SelectPDOUT’ felt dejected.
The Revealer’s voice doesn’t reach the clones.
Of course, he can’t give orders either.
A battlefield where only heroes judge and clones move according to the heroes’ thoughts.
They are supposed to act according to set patterns and set logic.
“That’s right! Lumi! You should use taunt there! Good job!”
But.
This Revealer’s heroes, and their clones were different.
The opponent Revealer, fluttering about very noisily and babbling with his mouth working hard.
It should have been a voice that couldn’t reach them originally.
As if the snarky voice could be heard by the clones──
《Fall into hell──》
《Woof! Woof!》
《──.》
Seeing them use skills so appropriately and grind down his heroes.
‘SelectPDOUT’ could only swallow his irritation.
“You? Are you perhaps communicating with the heroes right now? How is that possible?”
He asked the question hoping to learn the secret, but.
“Is that so. You don’t know… So that’s how it is. However, I am under a taboo against revealing… It seems this information is too early for you to know…”
“Eek.”
Despite hearing only a few syllables, the snark that made anger rise from deep in his chest.
“Haa, I give up.”
[Battle Result]
[Victory: aaa] [Defeat: SelectPDOUT]
[Your rank has fallen to 2377th!]
In the end, ‘SelectPDOUT’ acknowledged defeat.
What is our angel doing.
I’m gonna die of stress just defending.
I’m pissed so I should go post on the Revealer community.
[Battle Result]
[Victory: BbipikippyeotEombeolgi] [Defeat: aaa]
[Your rank has remained at 1943rd.]
“Aing, tsk.”
Starting from 10000th place──
We climbed up and up, reaching 1943rd place, but.
“We lost woof…”
“It’s frustrating, but we couldn’t overturn the difference in capabilities even with strategy. I’m sorry, Revealer-nim.”
Because it wasn’t a newbie group.
With our hero party that just opened D-Arena, there was bound to be a limit to climbing.
The opponent’s level is now at least 60. The rank difference is over 2 levels.
Of course, because there was a difference in equipment and skills.
An insurmountable gap opened in damage, skill cooldowns, etc.
Unless we diligently break through the tower, climbing will be a bit difficult for the time being.
…Stagnant water shit game, rotten water game.
If we climb just a bit more, there are people who open their defense decks for newbie welfare.
Tsk.
“Good work everyone. You’re all tired, right? Let’s stop here for today.”
Still.
There was a calm and warm smile on my lips.
In my pocket, jingle, no, sloshing divine stones!
They say leisure creates dignity.
Just by climbing to around 2000th place, we could rake in 1/3 of the total first rank achievement reward.
Even after consuming quite a bit for attack count resets.
A whopping 1300 divine stones!
Enough for 70 pulls with some left over!
But I firmly made up my mind after the previous incident.
Especially if I fail to manage my expression, our Saint-nim, Yohena, gets hurt that much…
“Tinya? Don’t sneak away. You have to go to work.”
“Demon, demon…! Master is a demon…! Tinya is hurt…!”
Let’s gather enough to definitely hit the ceiling before pulling.
We still have the tower first clear rewards left.
Daily and weekly shop divine stones are still coming in.
And 2/3 of the D-Arena mine is still left.
……
Ah.
I want to do gacha pulls!
“…Today too, huh.”
The Revealer ‘ILoveFlameBirdILoveSaha’ sighed.
“Revealer-nim?”
“…Saha? Just call me by name.”
“But, ILoveFlameBirdILoveSaha is a bit much for me to say…”
Yeah, I guess so.
I guess it would be a bit much…
The Revealer just scratched his head, looking at Saha who now confidently struts around in a swimsuit.
“It’s been two weeks already, but still no news?”
“No…”
As Saha said.
It’s been two weeks since the Revealer stopped hearing the angel’s voice.
This has never happened before.
Even on the quietest day.
He would at least whisper for about 10 minutes on which direction to go forward.
And if we just followed those words, we would always succeed.
But.
Now that the angel’s voice has disappeared.
The Revealer has lost direction on what to do.
[WARNING: An attack has come in from the Dimension Arena.]
[Prepare to defend.]
“Well, let’s go defend today too.”
“We should.”
Actually, there’s a part I can somewhat guess.
Dimension Arena.
In the battlefield where we fight with Revealers and heroes from other dimensions──
The angel attacked a whopping 84 times to break 1st place together with us.
After being broken, broken again, and broken yet again──
We finally grasped victory in the end.
Perhaps because too much mental energy was consumed in the process.
The angel hasn’t returned since then.
Looking at the other four heroes gathered around Saha.
“Yes, let’s go today too.”
The Revealer, ‘ILoveFlameBirdILoveSaha’ whispered softly.
They go to fight in the Dimension Arena.
To prove they are still the best when the angel returns.
To demonstrate their worth by conspicuously defending 1st place.
If we keep doing that.
We’ll be able to meet the angel again.
We’ll be able to hear the voice again.
We will never lose again.
No matter who the opponent is.
Don’t show mercy even to newbies.
Upholding the teachings of the holy angel!