Chapter 74

Seo Dami’s Legendary Challenge stream returned, just like last year.

As she calmly logged into the game and started the stream, viewers quickly filled the chat.

It was thanks to her having notified her fans in advance that she would be streaming.

-She’s finally here.

-The one and only savior who will sort out this chaotic Jjamtong Patch…

-Even for General Seo, I don’t think it’ll be easy. Can she carry again this year?

-Whether you make it or not, I’m cheering for you, Dami.

The Rank Game was in chaos due to the massive influx of never-before-seen skills.

Because of this, many players had stopped their Legendary Challenge streams.

After all, wouldn’t it be a loss of face if they were to lose repeatedly?

Yet, Seo Dami had steadfastly announced she would stream, so the viewers had no choice but to cheer on her challenge.

“I took a bit of a long break from the game, so I’ve become a Master Tier. I’ll climb up slowly, and quickly~?”

-What do you mean slowly and quickly, Dami?

-You don’t have to climb quickly, just stream for a long time!

She had said she wouldn’t be able to stream with high energy, but it must have been an exaggeration, as Seo Dami announced the start of the challenge with a smooth delivery.

“Today, I’ll be joined by a guest who will help with the stream.”

-Who?

-Could it be…?

A flood of names poured into the chat, a significant number of which pointed to the correct answer.

“Then let’s welcome her! Please come forward!”

“Hiyo!”

As Yunseuli’s face appeared on the stream camera, a series of “I knew it” reactions followed.

“Alright, from now on, we’ll be climbing the ranks as a Duo. Player Jung Yunseul! What is the strategy we’ve prepared for today?”

As if she were holding a microphone, Dami held out her lightly clenched fist, and Yunseul’s eyes went wide.

“Huh? You didn’t say anything about that…?”

The viewers burst into laughter at Yunseul’s flustered reaction.

-LOLOL

-The setup is so clumsy…

-Who cares if their banter isn’t great. As long as pro gamers are good at the game, that’s all that matters.

-I want to see the skills of the next National Representative pick Duo.

The next National Representative.

It was still a bit early, but thanks to her skills improving by leaps and bounds in the Second Half of the year, Yunseuli was now at a level where she was often mentioned when the topic of the national team came up.

Perhaps with just one more step up, she could at least make it to the reserve Entry without much difficulty.

“Alright then, let’s start the Rank Game.”

And so, Day 1 of the Legendary Challenge began.

“Whoa! It’s Seo Dami!”

“I’m a fan!”

“I’ll be cheering for you to reach Legendary again this year!”

The atmosphere was quite different from last year.

Back when she did the challenge then, there were more cases of people not recognizing Dami, but now, her recognition was so immense that it was safe to say every User she encountered knew who she was.

The chat was filled with comments like “I want to play with General Seo too,” and the users who ended up on our team followed our Orders quite cooperatively.

But apart from that, the game was a complete mess.

My impression, watching from inside Yunseul, could be summed up in one word: ‘wild.’

<What in the world is that skill.>

A lightning-like Effect exploded, its effect being player paralysis.

With one of her feet bound, Seo Dami couldn’t completely hide her bewilderment as she rolled on the ground to evade.

With a drrrrk- sound, an attack grazed the spot where Dami had been.

The enemy Attacker, who had brought out a minigun—a weapon with low accuracy but high Firepower—began to Spray Fire in our direction, turning the wall to dust.

What was a minigun?

It was a heavy weapon with multiple barrels that rotated rapidly.

A thing that devoured an enormous amount of ammunition and laid waste to the area with a drrrrk sound.

A beast that weighed well over 25kg.

Why on earth was it called a minigun?

Shouldn’t it be called a heavy gun?

Anyway, due to these points, the minigun’s practicality in actual combat was somewhat lacking.

Its Aim wasn’t good, and it was hard to run fast while carrying it.

It was merely an item that pursued the fun of overwhelming the opponent with sheer Firepower.

In the Pro Scene, where Agility, reflexes, and Stamina decided the match, you would never encounter it, but in Rank Games, there were many users who pursued pure fun, so such extreme weapons could be easily seen.

“Heal me. Heal!”

Hiding behind the wall that was turning to dust in real time, Seo Dami crouched down.

Looking at her, Yunseuli requested that our team’s Supporter quickly remove the paralysis.

The paralysis-type Debuff the enemy had hit Dami with could be easily removed by anyone using a Release Skill.

But there was a Trap here.

It was the Skill Matchup Compatibility between positions.

Healing-type skills like heals or status recovery were most Mana Efficient when used by a Supporter.

Similarly, Attack-type skills were best used by an Attacker, and Shield-type Defense Skills had to be used by a Defender to save Mana.

An ordinary User would just remove the Debuff themselves and escape the crisis, but a Pro Gamer couldn’t do that.

To be precise, they felt a sense of aversion to choosing the second-best option over the best one.

An ally can remove it, but I have to spend double the Mana to do it myself?

Do you guys not want to win this game?

That’s not a game! It’s trash! Trash!

At Jung Yunseul’s nagging, the Supporter quickly fired a Release bullet.

On top of that, the first shot missed, and watching them have to fire a second time, I slapped my forehead.

Right, this is it.

This is Rank Game…

If a regular person could provide Support according to Orders, why would they be here?

They could be eating and sleeping at a pro team’s Team House and even debut.

<Still, this is Master Tier. How can you not hit that?>

While I was internally swallowing my complaints.

Yunseuli attempted an Attack.

The enemy Attacker, who had taken his eyes off the hiding Seo Dami, turned the Muzzle of his minigun toward Jung Yunseul.

<You look down on a pro?>

There was even a saying that you didn’t deserve to be a pro if you got hit by a minigun with your eyes open.

Dodging the enemy’s linear attack was an easy task.

Jung Yunseul scaled a wall, building up speed.

But then, an unexpected variable occurred.

Mid-air bind.

The moment the enemy Supporter’s Debuff was directed at Yunseuli, her speed dropped sharply, and her body fell to the ground.

<…A Debuff!>

Realizing it too late, I shouted, but I was a step behind.

The Firepower of the minigun poured down like a shower.

Yunseuli’s body was swept away by the Firepower, and the enemy team scored a point.

Three hours into the stream.

The score increase was slower than expected.

Even if the girls played well, if their matched teammates floundered, they would lose. That was just the nature of Rank Game, so it couldn’t be helped.

But the viewers didn’t take these circumstances into account and just kept saying the game was ruined.

After all, the players who had been called the next National Representative picks weren’t even in Grandmaster, but were failing to hyper-Carry in the Master bracket.

However, despite these reactions, Dami and Yunseuli’s moods weren’t bad.

The same went for me.

“This is surprisingly doable, don’t you think…?”

<I think I see the answer.>

“I think so too.”

We turned off our mics for a moment and entered a discussion.

To the viewers, it probably looked like we were having a strategy meeting because our score wasn’t going up.

But the reality was a little different.

During these three hours, our bodies were gradually getting used to the new patch.

At first, I was also on the side of complaining about the Jjamtong Patch, but now I had to admit it.

Jake Browning.

This man was certainly exceptional when it came to business.

Even when he drew attention by increasing freedom and attracted users with all sorts of Aggro, I thought it would cause problems for the game.

This was because the latest patch was an act that twisted the entire framework UA had maintained for years.

From the perspective of users who had been playing the game just fine, it was bound to be demoralizing.

How could they look favorably upon a situation where users who had just entered the game were trampling on the experience they had built up and taking victories?

But after getting some hands-on experience, I began to see the parts of this patch that weren’t visible before.

First of all, the framework of custom skills—freely granting effects that match the Mana cost—was being strictly adhered to.

Let’s take an example.

What would happen if there was a skill that attached a Bomb to the entire enemy team with a single snap of the fingers?

If such a ridiculous skill existed, it would become a garbage game where everyone just threw bombs instead of shooting guns.

Therefore, such a skill couldn’t even be registered in the system.

The same went for the bind skill that Yunseuli was hit with in the Early Game of the challenge.

To bind Yunseuli’s Attack, the opposing Supporter had to pour in an amount of Mana that was close to an all-in.

When I checked the Replay, I could see that the skill was a targeted skill.

Because it was easier to hit than non-targeted skills, it was given that much of a restriction.

On the other hand, if we had anticipated that the opponent would use a bind-type skill, we could have dealt with it in any number of ways.

We could have requested our Supporter to remove the Debuff skill, and if we kept a safe distance, the opponent couldn’t recklessly cast the skill.

And if all else failed, it was also possible to use a cleanse skill on our own.

In this case, we would also consume a large amount of Mana, but it was still better than just taking the hit and dying.

This was because in the game of UA, even without Mana, as long as you had a gun in your hand and bullets in your Magazine, you could continue to Attack.

Even at this very moment, when the update called the Great Cataclysm had taken place.

As long as you prevented dying without using up all your Mana, victory ultimately followed UA’s fundamental formula of who was better at shooting.

<The reason veteran users’ Win Rates have dropped is because they’re flustered.>

A situation where the game goes south because their attention is stolen by a skill they’ve never experienced before, leading them to make the wrong judgment.

This was a problem that time would solve.

Even a skill you see for the first time becomes familiar if you keep getting hit by it.

For example, the Flying Skill.

A skill that allowed one to fly, surpassing a jump by pouring in Mana.

However, a few days after the patch was completed, you could hardly find any flying users in the Upper Bracket of Rank Games.

This was because in most situations, this flying skill was nothing more than a waste of Mana.

The evasion ability of someone floating in the air by consuming Mana and someone on the ground was almost the same.

In fact, there were many cases where evasion was better if you used Acceleration on the ground.

Moreover, around the Master Tier, people were hell-bent on getting the maximum result for the same Mana value.

At first, users who weren’t in the habit of looking up at the sky would get caught by ambushes, but now that they included the air in their perimeter checks, the merit of the Flying Skill had naturally decreased.

<If you don’t know, you get hit. But if you know, you can counter it.>

I decided to think of it roughly.

This was simply a slight increase in the number of possible scenarios one could encounter in a real match.

‘Slight?’

<Tsk.>

‘My apologies!’

A tree with deep roots does not sway.

In order to re-establish the foundation of UA.

I gave Dami and Yunseul Orders that were faithful to the basics.

<Alright, shall we go again?>

“It’s Seo Dami!”

“Seo Dami is over there!”

“Who’s that?”

At the same time that Seo Dami was playing Rank Games for her challenge.

The users who were matched on the opposing team were talking amongst themselves.

“You don’t know Seo Dami? The UA Pro Gamer.”

“Ah, I only played Gaia, so I don’t really know. But is that player, Seo Dami, a woman?”

“Yes. A woman.”

“Isn’t the level of the Women’s League kind of obvious…?”

Saying something that would have made Super Sylph fans ask, “Where do you live?” without a second thought, he checked his Skill Setup.

“I was pretty good in Gaia, you know. If you just back me up, I’ll carry.”

“……”

Boasting unnecessarily, the man coordinated with the friend he had come with as a Duo.

What’s so special about a pro?

At the end of the day, isn’t it just the number two game?

The duo of men in their 20s, who were chatting dismissively about the UA Pro Scene, were young men who had once challenged themselves to become Gaia Pro Gamers.

Although they couldn’t advance beyond being trainees and had to give up their dream, being a pro team trainee meant they had Talent that far surpassed the level of an ordinary person.

“But UA is really nothing special.”

“I know, right? Who knew our Tier would get this high in just a few days?”

“If we had just aimed to be UA pros, couldn’t we have actually become pros?”

“Wanna do it now?”

They chuckled and took the lead.

The Battlefield was the Garden of the Gods.

On a Battlefield where they had to capture the Central Point, they bravely took the lead.

As they were running toward the Control Point, at the moment that felt like a flash of light, a sharp attack flew in.

The first shot was a blue beam reminiscent of a comet.

The man was greatly surprised and dodged the first attack, but he couldn’t dodge the second.

It was a 2-shot Burst Fire from the start.

Because it was a Rapid Fire attack.

Letting out a choking sound as he collapsed, his colleague who was watching the scene was also greatly flustered.

“From this far away…?”

The man, who had put up a Shield and taken refuge inside a pillar, was amazed at the opponent’s shot accuracy.

Only then did he belatedly realize the fact that his opponent was a Pro Gamer.

The Universe Arena 1st Division Pro League.

A world where you could only survive if you could land all your Rifle shots from within 150 meters in an area the size of a fist, even with Rapid Fire.

The Seo Dami pair knew their strengths well and entered a distance-gauging battle, capitalizing on their shooting accuracy.

What good was a Debuff Skill, no matter how great?

At this distance, you couldn’t even use it.

A skill that could cast a Debuff on an enemy beyond 150 meters did not exist in UA.

In the end, they ended up losing the first Set without even being able to properly step on the Control Point.

This was because every time they tried to enter the Control Point, mid-range shots would explode, and their allies would be swept away.

‘Look at these guys? They’re playing dirty, huh?’

The highest compliment for an opponent.

The thoroughly pissed-off Gaia Duo swallowed their anger as they prepared for the next Set.

They were only beaten just now because the Map was big.

If a cramped Battlefield with frequent close-quarters Engagements came up, they would have a fighting chance.

Thinking so, they waited for the next Battlefield.

And luck was on their side.

A Battlefield with lots of Cover and a short Attack distance, just as they wanted.

The Arc Factory Munitions Factory was decided as the Set Battlefield for Set 2.

“Hyunseung. You take charge of the Debuffs.”

“Got it.”

“W-wait a minute.”

“What is it?”

As the Gaia Duo arbitrarily changed their positions to secure an Attacker-Supporter combination, their other teammates raised an objection.

“This way, we have two Supporters. And we’re even down one Attacker.”

“What about it.”

“UA doesn’t use two Supporters.”

“Why not? Gaia does.”

“No… Anyway, we just don’t.”

“Then can’t you guys change?”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re former Gaia trainees. Trust us, we’ll carry.”

Looking at the completely self-centered Duo, the teammates had expressions that said, “What kind of people are these?”

But what could they do?

They were the ones who were desperate to raise their score.

In the end, they changed their positions, and Set 2 began.

Arc Factory.

A Battlefield with lots of Cover where Engagements happen immediately after passing through the passage in front of the base.

The Gaia Duo moved quickly, closing the distance with the enemy.

The strategy was for the Supporter to be in charge of Debuffs, and the Attacker to sweep up the opponents.

‘So that Seo Dami person is the Ace, right?’

It was common sense that if you took out the opponent’s Ace, you could easily take the victory.

Using Cover as a Shield, they closed the distance, and the moment they spotted Seo Dami, the Supporter attempted an Attack to cast a Debuff.

Complete Bind.

A targeted skill that restricted the opponent’s movement in exchange for Mana.

At this distance, it was a skill that would never miss, so the Supporter smiled triumphantly and stretched out his hand, but at that moment, with a bang, his head snapped back.

‘Huh?’

He didn’t even know how he had died.

It was understandable.

Seo Dami was bait to draw out the enemy in the first place.

And toward the enemies who came to take the bait, Jung Yunseul’s Gun Kata coolly opened fire.

Set 1 was shooting accuracy.

Set 2 was team play.

The shallow skills of the dabblers began to be exposed by the play that contained the foundation of UA.