The New Suchi Arena, later that same real-life day, the swift-moving digital sun having fallen and risen twice.

Outside the stadium's armoury, duellists were served cooled beverages while the battle scars were buffeted out of their equipment. Amongst the waiting were a Cutthroat and a Beast Tamer with a Grey Wolf Companion.

"HasStevens28," said London Tremor, a levitating quill transcribing his words, "Cutthroat, 1478 rating. Do you have an official style?"

As part of the intern's write-up on Suchi's quirky duelling scene, he'd been conducting player interviews. This Cutthroat was a random, low-ranked newbie who happened to be sitting next to him while his armour was being repaired - no one of importance. Still, the everyman could occasionally cough up a novel quote or two.

"SRK," answered the Cutthroat. "But I obviously can't flex most of it yet, not until I upgrade to the Back-Alley Chef spec."

"SRK?"

The Cutthroat raised an eyebrow. "The Strategy of The Resourceful Komodo…the signature art invented by The Cripple during his legendary quest to reign Unrivalled Under The Heavens."

"The Cripple, hmm, that's one of the weirder nicknames I've heard."

"Dude, are you serious?" The Cutthroat was astounded by the intern's ignorance. "You've got to be pulling my leg, dude. How can you report on 1v1s without having seen The Way of Fighting Alone, the legendary series where The Cripple systematically dismantled—"

"Relax," London Tremor interrupted. "I'll be sure to add it to my list of research material."

He wouldn't.

Countless noobs had advised him to check out this or that bogus duellist from the past.

With the recent decrease in Saana's VR-Unit cost, there'd been an influx of players who, although they couldn't afford the game previously, had consumed it for years second-hand through streams and video. These noobs always overrated their idols, blinded as they were by nostalgia and biased editing. What they'd yet to grasp was that the modern duelling scene dwarfed that of the past. The game's user numbers had exploded, bringing in more talent, and a standardised, balance 1v1 format had evolved out of The Company's recruitment tournaments. Through the research dollars, through the public interest poured into Saana League, small-scale combat had been developed to the point that comparing modern duellists and their predecessors was like comparing a WWII army to one from the Napoleonic-era.

The old guard? Worthless.

"Dude, you've gotta watch it," insisted the Cutthroat. "100%. It's THE Cripple, the GOAT…"

While they rambled on, London Tremor glanced across the arena to the mysterious teen from The Company, who was scribbling in a martial art's manual and sipping a thickshake.

Following yesterday's events, London Tremor had almost needed to pull the trigger early on his report.

'Team Turbonoobs' claiming number one in The Community Service Event had churned up controversy on the local forums. After a clever sleuth deduced the teen's identity as a Scholar from Flaming Sun, protests sprang up demanding that he forfeit his placement and return his Slum Points for abusing his guild's powers.

From there, London Tremor had predicted that the teen's mysterious duelling exploits would have been picked up by the journalists from other news stations. As such, he'd readied a pre-emptive strike, drafting the material collected thus far to be the first to report on the topic. Ultimately, he was saved from this premature start. Public attention was soon gobbled up by the catastrophic collapse of the Slum Point, any threads complaining about the teen being drowned in the flood of demands for revenge against the manipulative, scheming Church.

Aside from the teen's guild status spreading amongst the duellists, nothing further had resulted from the issue. The Slum with its goldfish memory span forgot the controversy as it forgot most everything else.

"…it was revolutionary, dude," continued The Cutthroat. "You can split 1v1s into the pre-Cripple and post-Cripple era. No matter what the haters claim, none of us have escaped his shadow…"

At that moment, one of the few in this zone possessing a long memory entered the arena, a Crusader shimmering in gold from hair to sabatons. Like a knight strolling through a fabled, foreign city, they had a relaxed, invincible air - whatever danger this alien environs might pose, they were safe in the Lord's protection.

"Justinian!" shouted a passerby. "Here to train?!"

The Crusader shook his golden locks. "Not today, noble citizen. I've been sent on an official errand for Byzantium."

Sweeping his knightly gaze across the stadium, he spotted the mysterious teen now in an archery duel on the Graveyard of The Gods sub-map with a Bowman. His target acquired, he continued his golden march.

At the armoury, London Tremor apologised to the Cutthroat, stopping the interview to chase after Justinian. His Grey Wolf companion loped along playfully beside him, contaminated with its master's excitement.

After investigating Suchi's duelling scene, he was intimately familiar with Justinian The Great. Ranking in the zone's top 20 duellists, this hardcore roleplayer had been lingering at Tier-0 in Suchi for half a year, training noobs and participating in The Company's recruitment tournament.

London Tremor had once wasted three hours interviewing the perplexing Crusader. During that painful episode, Justinian never broke character once and they were constantly interrupted by Slumdwellers requesting assistance, which the Crusader always accepted. Some guy enigmatically referred to as 'He' would gift Justinian a sword for taking first place in the 6v6 tournament, that was the vague sum of what could be collected.

Recently, the intern's interest in the Crusader had renewed due to him and the teen both being in Byzantium. Up until now, he'd been unable to establish any further connection, neither of them interacting much. Perhaps that was about to change.

London Tremor hid amongst a tiny crowd of three dozen who'd been hanging out by the teen's sub-map.

Justinian gasped at a girl holding a straw-broom on the arena's edge, dressed as a medieval witch. "Lady Zhangmei, have you been tempted by the dark arts?!"

The mute Earthfriend shot the roleplayer a brief look of repugnance.

London Tremor was at a total loss regarding this quiet girl.

After her surprise decapitation of Artemis, many of Suchi's duellists were thrilled at the prospect of the zone having a second genius femme fatale. The attention given to her had actually dwarfed that of the mysterious teen. A fan-group with three hundred members had sprung up, Suchi's top Commander prospects had visited asking her to be part of their 6v6 teams, five weirdos had shot arrows at her with notes attached confessing their undying love, and of the spectators around London Tremor right now, 90% of them were here to admire her.

To all this affection, the mute Earthfriend seemed indifferent. Ignoring the suitors, she'd spent the day changing into random outfits, which the teen seemed to be critiquing via private message. To what ends? London Tremor didn't have the foggiest clue.

The teen, sheltering behind a statue of a king, his opponent's arrow pinging off the statue's royal sceptre, called out to the Crusader. "Ay, Sir Lancelot, what's up?"

"Please, Sir Henry, I'm unworthy of this praise." Nevertheless, Justinian grinned at being equated to such a noble hero. "I bring to you humble entreaties numbering three. For the first, I was hoping to borrow both yours and Lady Artemis's ears. It was my impression that she'd also been frequenting this battle-fraught environs."

Artemis, despite being humiliated in the feud, despite her fans imploring her to squash the beef, had continued to hover around, mouthing insults at the teen and her mute assassin. That was up until an hour ago, when she'd logged off abruptly.

"She's on time-out for being naughty." Giving this cryptic reply, the teen nocked an arrow while using the palm drawing the bowstring to shoot a 3-Charge . The arrow went flying simultaneously, striking the opposing Bowman first, in the leg, and crippling them to receive the through their chest.

"That's unfortunate news; I pray for her redemption. Then, to you alone, I must entrust the first request. Your charitable work for the ailing folk on the bygone eve was most commendable. Sir Walker, Sir Higgs, and my humble self, as representatives of Byzantium, ask that you and Lady Artemis jointly participate in The Hero's Climb, to raise—"

"Aciu. No thanks, my plate is already full with climbs. Bet. Second request. Ne."

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"Is that so? I'd assumed from your chari—"

"Matthew 6:1: take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them; otherwise, you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Showboaters go to straight hell, Justinian. Next request." The teen, having stocked up on Flora charges, sprinted at the Bowman, using the statues as cover for his approach.

Justinian, a fanatical Christian, was obliged to agree with God's holy word. "My second supplication is to revisit the erstwhile topic of the two hamm—"

"The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. After embracing Jesus, I've become a passivist and can never again offer instruction on battle." The teen, reaching the opponent, blocked an arrow with a , caught a spear materialising from his inventory, and showered them in feints. "Third."

Justinian, who'd been holding a golden zweihander throughout this conversation, lay it across his palms to present it. "Amongst the tales that came to me of your community assistance was one of a suffering soldier. Through your wise counsel, he acquired a splendid mace befit for conducting holy war. I beseech you to gaze now upon this paltry stick of mine." On close inspection, the weapon had an uneven thickness and a wonky, bent shape, its crafter being an incompetent Villager smith. "From its beggarly state, could you even recognise it as a reproduction of that noble sword which from my palms was cruelly torn and stolen, my most cherished World—"

"FalconLord2929 eliminated! HF wins! -3, +0."

The teen unsummoned his spear, its tip wet with eyeball juice and brain meat. "If I helped you upgrade your weapon, would you stop this abominable roleplaying? No, you wouldn't. No, no, no, those are my answers numbering three. It's possible, however, that my feelings could change after a good duel. Wanna fight?"

"Hmm...my presence is demanded elsewhere soon..." Justinian produced a sundial, aligning it with the sky to check the hour. "But I could spare a minute for a quick clash of steel."

London Tremor and the rest of the spectators moved around the perimeter, following the pair to the randomly-selected Hamlet map, from which the teen interrupted someone else's duel to kick them. The paltry number of observers tripled when OSmannNn, another high-ranking Crusader, a Pakistani player who practised Sacred Warrior, joined to spectate along with his fans. This second Crusader was ranked close enough to Justinian that the latter losing to the teen would cause them to swap places on the leaderboard.

In the arena, the golden Crusader prepared with a prayer. The teen, meanwhile, executed a set of complicated combos. Stabbing with a shortsword, flinging , he also through monster forms, headbutting with his Chameleon Monkey horn, slamming with his Silverback fists, pouncing with his Cheetah paws. These attacks were delivered with clean lines with an eye-catching explosiveness, and his shapeshifting had the unpredictable fluidity of a Sichuan face-changer swapping their mask.

London Tremor had been informed that this theatrical art was Tangye Opera Shapeshifting. From what he'd been told, its appearance at Tier-0 was not a tenth as dazzling as it would be at higher-levels, when the proper Fauna forms and Elemental abilities were unlocked.

Since yesterday, he'd been making a significant attempt to deduce the teen's identity from the many styles he practised, which should have traceable signatures. For this task, he'd anonymously created a fan club for the teen and utilised the assistance of others who joined. They had five members. The information on Tangye Opera Shapeshifting had been given to London Tremor by one of them, a knowledgeable San Franciscan player named Bob. This amazing helper had also alerted him that he'd been mistaken in yesterday's count of 20 styles. There was an additional unspecified Earthfriend art that the teen employed, which lacked any discernible origin and, by Bob's estimation, represented their unique, original style. (AN: from the brief survey of 63 Earthfriend arts learned during session 2).

Armed with this information, the five of them had searched for past players with a matching profile, focusing especially on those associated with The Company and its Saana II predecessor Flattening Mountains. So far, their efforts had yielded nothing. There were no similar Earthfriends.

After this failure, London Tremor had wanted to ask for help from Oliver Spears - his senior at Channel 5 was, after all, the foremost expert on The Company's inner circle due to his investigations into The Tyrant's identity. Oliver, however, was apparently out of communication while investigating a piece.

The teen opened the match out of sight, hiding himself in one of Hamlet's buildings. Justinian marched around searching for his foe, switching his zweihander from guard to guard with the vigilance of a knight entering the dragon's lair.

When the Crusader passed a pub, a Chameleon Monkey silently leapt out of a window behind him. The monster transformation fading mid-air, the teen emerged with his shortsword aimed to plunge through the lightly-armoured leather of the Crusader's back.

Justinian, with his lightning-fast reaction speed, side-stepped at the last moment, his body twisting to dodge the stab.

Both of them activating bullet-time, they engaged in a rapid exchange of shoves and blows, the teen sticking too close for the lengthy zweihander to be utilised and poking at weak spots, the Crusader struggling to create the distance he needed.

During a stab to the Crusader's throat, the teen's shortsword vanished. The hand that was wielding it enlarged and sprouted thick black hairs, the teen mid-lunge for a Gorilla grapple-hold.

Justinian snorted in victory. His legs moving with the jerky instantaneousness of a piston, he ducked the blow, stepped forward and under the teen's armpit. In the same motion, he'd spun his zweihander upside down. Ramming the weapon behind him, he stabbed it into the meat of the gorilla's back.

The zweihander was deflected by a shortsword, the teen having cancelled his transformation the instant it completed. From the teen's non-sword-hand, a shot forth and struck the Crusader in his own back, piercing his knightly heart.

The damage being negligible, Justinian span around instantly, chasing after the teen who, wolfing down a Duelling Bread Loaf to restore his expended Stamina, dove back through the pub window and escaped.

Beside London Tremor, OSmannNn pumped his fist in the air. "Nice one!"

A fan of the Pakistani Crusader was much less impressed. "Justinian will just heal the damage…"

To his followers, the flashy exchange had been rendered pointless by the teen's retreat. In matchups where both classes could heal, disengaging meant simply resetting the match.

"Keep watching," answered OSmannNn.

A second exchange followed in a similar fashion. Justinian dodged an ambush and they tangoed up close, blocking each other's attacks with their spell-shields, the teen performing his mesmerising shapeshifting. For all the latter's flashiness, he failed to land anything except two one-charge , before Cheetah away.

"Zabardast!" OSmannNn clapped in applause. "Good game! Great game!"

His fans were again confused.

London Tremor understood, having observed hundreds of the teen's duels.

The teen was currently going for a victory by points through inflicting a minimal amount of damage for every minute division of the match's five-minute duration. This approach was commonly employed by the best kiters, although amateurs tended to avoid it because of the finickiness of tracking health. What wasn't common at any level, and what made the teen remarkable, was attempting a point victory with a melee style. Conventional wisdom said that, in close-combat, fights were too chaotic and fast to play such an extended game of cat-and-mouse.

For the most part, though, the teen made it work. In fact, if London Tremor were tracking the numbers correctly, the teen had already beaten Justinian. His first had struck at 0:56, the second at 1:57, and the third at 2:01, netting him 3 points. Exploiting his class's mobility, he could flee for the remainder. Justinian would be awarded 2 points by default for the remaining two minutes due to playing more aggressively, but that would still give the teen a 3:2 victory.

"HF eliminated, Justinian wins! -5, +2."

While attempting an unnecessary third exchange, the teen made a single misstep. Justinian, using his godlike reflexes to capitalise on the millisecond fault, shoved him back then hacked off his left leg through the thigh.

"Imbecile!" OSmannNn threw his hands up in frustration. "Why'd you throw?!"

The teen, his severed limb flying back and re-attaching to his gushing leg wound, got to his feet. "The point of practice is to test your limits, grow comfortable with them, and then go beyond." He squinted in distaste at a figure standing arena side in a raccoon fursuit. "Never go that far, though. An animal roleplayer...that's a -1."

Justinian slashed his sword through the air in a gesture intended to convey disagreement. "You're mistaken, Sir Henry. A knight who puts his faith in God has no more limits than the Creator himself. Your possession of these defeatist thoughts is why I triumphed over you."

"Are you sure about that?" The teen smiled deviously. "Then, let's extend this baby to a best of 10. I win, you drop the toxic roleplaying; you win, I'll fulfil all three of those silly requests. You're up 1. Round two, let's go."

The Crusader responded with a heavy, blank stare that stretched out for several breaths. It seemed that he was tempted by the offer, but something deep and secret inside held him back, making the last leap of agreement impossible. (Actually, Justinian was very confident in defeating Henry, but Justinian, the character, couldn't register any of Sir Henry's sentences that included meta-commentary about roleplaying or the real world.)

Justinian broke the awkward pause by rechecking his sundial. "Since you have nothing further to say, I'll have to apologise for rushing off. I've an appointment with an Ibanmothe woman searching for a missing family heirloom. Would you care to join—"

"Nope. Not interested."

Justinian rankled. "Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. Be careful, Sir Henry. The Lord also repays the deed misdone and the deed not done."

"Oh, is that why you lost a fortune through the crash?"

Amongst the spectators, a look of revelation spread through their ranks.

The crash? Justinian? None had spared a thought for one of the incident's worst victims, this roleplaying Crusader who'd amassed a mountain of Slum Points through his compulsive quest-helping. Overnight, the fruits of six-months of labour had evaporated. Oof.

Justinian seemed unaffected. "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The only fortunes that concern me are those of the heart and the soul, and, in these, I'm still plenty rich." Spinning around 180-degrees for a dramatic departure, he flourished his cape, the flick of its tail flinging back a final word. "Can you say the same, Sir Henry?"

As the golden Crusader made his exit, the mysterious teen groaned in disgust.

With the duel concluded, the tiny crowd spectating resumed their usual activities, some remaining to ogle at the mute Earthfriend, most dispersing to once again harden their bodies through battle. Amongst the hundreds of matches taking place concurrently around The New Suchi Arena, this one brief bout between an Earthfriend and a Crusader had been too insignificant to leave an impression on most.

There was one exception.

While London Tremor walked back to the armoury, his Grey Wolf ran alongside him with even more excitement than before.

The mind vs the muscle, he was thinking, the moneybags vs the pauper, the thinker vs the brute , the calculating member of the big bad Company vs the innocent kid from The Slums…

At the armoury, the Cutthroat he'd been interviewing earlier was collecting their equipment, too. "I'm telling you, dude. Log off now and watch The Way of Fighting Alone. I'm not fanboying. Without knowing The Cripple, you're duelling blind, you're a baby, you're basically a pleb, you're worse than a pleb!"

"Yeah, yeah." London Tremor without truly registering the advice, preoccupied as he was with the article unfolding before him, with the story that he sensed would stretch far beyond this backwater zone.