It’s not that kind of malicious broadcast

Chapter 74 – Not the Sound I Expected

Due to the game’s heavy emphasis on combat, it was easy to misunderstand, but a one-on-one match could never be the true measure of skill in KoK.

Even though players were often overpowered in one-on-one scenarios, there were quite a few who would still win the overall game in a peculiar manner—

In the first place, if the tiers were roughly similar, over 30% of the outcome would be decided by the difference in builds.

Bringing a build that was useful for backdoor infiltration and team fights but being overpowered in a one-on-one frontal clash did not necessarily mean that one lacked skill.

However—

This was the story of an official ranked game, which was played six-on-six. When it was just the two of them underground, fighting one-on-one with pride on the line, the story was different.

In such cases, the winner was the skilled one who preached the truth, and the loser became the incompetent trash—a part of our familiar culture, wasn’t it?

If you got crushed in a one-on-one in a custom game, and audaciously claimed, “True skill lies in ranked matches.”

“What does one-on-one even mean.”

“Does killing one-on-one make the opponent’s fort crumble?” or any such excuses—

You would face a dreadful outcome.

“If it were during Season 8… I would have surely felt the endless malice of the excited specters indulging in the recent content.

First of all, my ID would have been prominently displayed on the defeat screen, which would have been posted as a temporary notice on the forum.

Some participant would have come up, drawing speech bubbles over every single one of my excuses and synthesizing them onto the dead body.

In cases like these, there were always crazy people who would translate every single incident and export it to English communities like Reddit… Within about a week, even the American specters would have been laughing at the loser along with everyone else.

Anyways, the hardcore enthusiasts who actively participated in the community up to that point, regardless of the East or West, were mostly lunatics.

Probably, I was the only normal one.

… Anyway.

At first, I used to prove my points through duels… but after Season 7, I didn’t engage in one-on-one duels unless absolutely necessary. And even when I did, I never used the rogue.

As an experienced old-timer, it was practically common knowledge among the community veterans that my weakness was chaotic combat.

After builds specializing in chaotic combat were developed, I simply had no way to gain an upper hand if forced into a reaction speed competition.

In particular, the most ruthless ones were the Small Round Shield Sword-Wielding Indomitable Knight and the Dual Ax Warrior, who became popular around Season 5.

Among them, the latter…

It was an infuriating build that degraded a sacred duel to a brawl between elementary school kids.

Just thinking about that build made my blood pressure rise.

Wielding small axes that didn’t even deal proper damage, they clung to you like leeches, swinging their axes recklessly.

Even if you managed to gain the upper hand in the melee, from the moment the Warrior’s health dropped below 30%, they would stick to you even more ferociously with boosted movement and attack speed—

—Vroom!

That filthy build was being demonstrated four years ahead of its time. I had to admit, this sub-character deserved the name “Craftsman of Builds”.

In gaming, being called dirty is synonymous with being highly skilled. If you narrowly parried an axe coming from the left, a shoulder charge would follow, and then a continuous strike from your blind spot.

I stepped sideways. From my right ear, I heard the sound of the rough wind.

I had evaded it, but it wasn’t perfect.

Nevertheless, I managed to buy myself a drop of time with the action, so I extended my dagger.

The warrior before mi intercepted the dagger with his arm, swinging his axe in response as if it was the natural course of action. It was anticipated. I leaned my upper body back slightly and twisted the dagger out.

The axe cleaved through empty air, and the dagger scattered blood. Even so, I didn’t feel even a bit closer to victory. This exchange had already happened five times. Not once had the exchange truly been in my favor.

I needed to change the flow. One step, two steps, three steps. I widened the distance to break the tempo, but the warrior closed it with a single leap.

Blood dripped from the warrior’s charge, the dark crimson appearing like a dangerous warning light.

He was coming.

The moment his right shoulder flinched as it entered the range of the axe, I couldn’t tell if it was just paint or something else. There was no time to make a judgment.

I had to predict. Of course, I remembered the general flow of the patterns Revan had favored up until now…

The warrior who lunged at me, scattering blood droplets in the air, abandoned all seasoned combo moves and surrendered to his instincts. It was the style I hated the most.

Lower right, upper left, a tackle, and then again a lower swing followed by a downward strike.

I dodged the rushing axe and tackle with three movements and tried to parry the final attack, but—

It was too late. Even though my reaction was not delayed, the rogue’s hand didn’t move at the right moment. I barely managed to gain a deflection judgment, but the fierce attack succeeded in grazing my shoulder.

-Slash!

Blood splattering obscured part of the screen. A reward for a successful attack. It was a system that facilitated combo attacks.

Whenever there was a heated debate in the community about how annoying and distracting it was, there was always the argument that it was realistic for one’s vision to blur slightly after being slashed by a blade. It was a system I had subtly defended.

But right now, it was the worst.

I busily moved my fingers while predicting the next move.

Lower. It was going to be a lower attack. No matter how much I relied on instinct and continued attacking with pure reactions, I ultimately couldn’t stray from natural body movements.

It would aim for the thigh. I needed to parry it and land a critical hit. The longer the fight dragged out, the more advantageous it was for the warrior.

He confirmed the tilt of the opponent’s shoulder and, convinced it was a lower strike, moved my hand to input the command. Then, a strong sense of incongruity struck me.

‘Deeper.’

At that angle—

The target was not the thigh, but the shin, which was heavily protected by thick plate greaves.

Yeah. That dirty build didn’t need precise hits as long as it could continue the brawl through collisions.

The moment the axe’s trajectory began to wrap around like a whip, I had already input the command to move— but right after, I instinctively knew I couldn’t dodge it.

The avatar’s feet on the screen were moving slowly, as if being dragged.

Biting my lower lip hard, I executed the evasion skill.

With the shadowy effect flickering, the rogue spun around and took a step back. This was the only survival skill in the battle, and its cooldown wouldn’t reset again for the rest of the duel.

It was a single move, and it even missed—but I took a critical hit.

In the past, it would have never been such a decisive hit. Glancing quickly at the gauge on the top left, I checked my stamina. It was sufficient. But my health… around 70%.

Considering the effective hits I had landed so far, the warrior’s remaining health should be about 35%.

So… even before the berserk mode was activated, the life-saving skill had been used up.

From the warrior’s perspective, this was a situation where it wouldn’t have been strange to provoke the opponent for not surrendering yet. If things were like this before berserk mode was activated… once it kicked in, a one-sided massacre would have been inevitable.

Perhaps the feeling that my skills had improved was an illusion. In reality, had I rusted during the few months he had spent idling around as a master?

There was no time to be lost in such thoughts. The warrior lightly stomped the ground. His movements were faster—a hesitation-free motion. I even abandoned the minimal time required for psychological warfare.

My movement conveyed that closing the distance would guarantee victory. After all, without the rogue’s life-saving skill, it was now a battle to see who would die slower, and the warrior would surely emerge victorious.

With a bitter smile, I rolled. Twice backward. Then, squeezing out the last bit of stamina, sideways once.

Having secured the minimum necessary distance—

I hid myself.

—

The rogue on the screen turned semi-transparent, blending into the background. The common consensus was that the rogue’s unique skill, stealth, was utterly useless in one-on-one duels.

Sure, it helped when avoiding fights and fleeing, but—what’s the difference between fleeing a duel and losing?

An ambush? The moment a rogue approached while stealthed, the sound of their footsteps to the opponent might as well have been thunder.

In a battlefield with just two people, there was nothing else to hear but the opponent’s footsteps, so it was only natural.

However, I thought differently.

There were two useful applications for Stealth.

Firstly, tea-bagging…or rather, finishing. Without a doubt, nearly winning and then having a rogue show up, juggling their daggers while slowly fading away, was as aggravating as it gets for the opponent.

If they got emotionally agitated and rushed in, finishing them off became easy.

… Anyway.

The second usage is pace control.

Naturally, stealth has the effect of pausing a battle. After all, it’s impossible to swing a sword randomly without knowing where the opponent is.

Even though the stamina of a rogue is higher than any other character, there really isn’t a reason for them to take a break. This means that a rogue can, if they so choose, split a duel into a first half and a second half.

Like this.

The translucent rogue on the screen removed the plate gauntlets from both arms. Next, I unfastened the plate greaves from his legs and threw them aside.

-Clank.

The plate armor fell onto the sandy ground. Though the expected ‘Thud!’ sound didn’t happen, and no dust was stirred up—

Well, so what.

Phase 2 had begun.

TL’s Corner:

I just remembered, the MC is wearing heavy gloves and greaves to nerf herself because her reaction time is too fast. And not that she removed them, she will be faster.