Max smiled while looking at Rafael, who was now all fired up.
Despite Rafael being highly competitive and a bit arrogant, Max felt a sense of kinship with him. As for why... the reason was rather simple.
He also hated to lose
“Haha, I’m glad to know I’m qualified.” Max’s eyes sparkled as he watched Rafael flourish his spear. “So, you’re a spearman, then?”
“Sure am. Cleared the entirety of HoL using one of these babies.”
“HoL?”
“Hero of Liberation.”
“Ah!” The look in Max’s eyes changed. “You’re a clearer?”
“Mm-hm~!”
“Clearer?” Jasmine looked on in confusion. “What’s a clearer?”
Lemonade explained, “Clearers are people who beat the first dive game, Hero of Liberation, from start to finish. Only around one in every thousand players managed to do it, so it’s used as top-tier bragging material.”
“Oh.” Jasmine nodded and observed the shamelessly-showboating spearman.
Despite having only met Rafael a few times in the past, she knew a fair amount about him. This was because Rafael was an extremely well-known figure in the gaming community.
Three years ago, a famous team from a professional esports organisation known as ‘Blue Furnace’ livestreamed one of their gameplay sessions in the hit FPS game ‘Counter-Strike’. However, they unexpectedly decided to play public matches using smurf accounts, which were alternate game accounts kept in lower competitive ranking brackets for the purpose of being pitted against weaker and less experienced players.
There were a few possible explanations as to why they did this. It might have been a publicity stunt to highlight the skill difference between them and regular players, or it might have just been for fun. Either way, they bulldozed through their matches without suspense, obliterating the helpless casual players. Against a team of five well-coordinated athletes with absurd reaction speeds and world-class talent, all these weak players could do was lament and type poetic, mother-centric tirades in the game chat while being handily massacred. Half of the matches ended in outright surrender, with most teams unable to net even a single point against the Esports powerhouse.
This continued until the team’s ninth game. During this match, Blue Furnace started out with a 3-0 lead against the opposing team, which appeared to be filled with noobs. Then, to their surprise, they lost the subsequent three rounds despite an economic advantage. One player from the opposite team managed to achieve two double kills and a triple-kill against them, bringing the score to 3-3. Attributing this performance to luck, the pros were not particularly concerned and showed a cavalier attitude. However, it proved not to be luck at all, as they began haemorrhaging points on the scoreboard.
Witnessing this, the athletes were alarmed, and the viewers watching the broadcast were thrilled. Wanting to know the identity of the opposing team’s star player, they looked him up online and found that he was also streaming!
The player’s username was ‘Delt0id’, and it was found that he was also using a smurf account while playing with his friends. He did not want his friends to be unfairly matched against seasoned experts from his rank, so he used a spare account with a much lower competitive ranking and planned to just mess around while having fun.
This plan changed when Delt0id encountered some extremely skilled players who clearly did not belong in the bracket. Vexed, he took control of the game, barking instructions to his friends and exercising his full ability, utilising his knowledge of the game map, grenades and callouts to turn the tables on the enemy.
Feeling a sense of crisis, Blue Furnace began reverting to pro-league tactics, however, Delt0id expected this and was able to accurately predict these plays, even managing to kill one of the athletes with a knife, which only served to rub salt in the wound.
With his friends also performing above their abilities, Delt0id’s team managed to hold a wide lead against the pros, though this lead gradually narrowed as the distressed pro team exerted their full strength. During this time, Delt0id showed a flawless performance, managing to maintain an astonishing kill/death ratio of over 3; taking down three pinnacle-level players for every one of his own lives.
The match continued neck-and-neck until on the final round, Delt0id’s friends were slaughtered right at the start without being able to resist. Approaching from the other side of the map, Delt0id pressed on without giving up. He fought tooth and nail, eliminating the athletes one by one, until with only a single health point remaining, he just barely defeated the final enemy, acing the enemy team and clutching victory at a final score of 16-14.
This outcome was unfathomable to viewers, and clips of the battle spread like wildfire across the internet. Amidst the chaos, the esports organisation made an announcement that they had officially recruited Delt0id into Blue Furnace. From there, his popularity exploded, and he diversified into various other games, with competitors being overwhelmed by his inhuman reaction speed, as well as his unwavering dedication to advancing his skills.
Needless to say, this user’s name was Rafael.
...
Jasmine had these thoughts in her mind as she watched Rafael. Although he held a high opinion of himself, he absolutely had the skills to back it up. The fact that he could beat a game completed by just 0.1% of people whilst simultaneously juggling a successful esports and streaming career was more than proof of that.
Finishing his display, Rafael threw his spinning spear up into the air, looking away to face the others while catching the spear with a swipe in his peripheral vision. “Are we ready to keep going yet?”
“You tell me,” Lemonade responded, “You’re the one who stopped here to have a meltdown over Gun’s archery.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Meltdown? The only thing melted down is your brain; I just asked him questions.”
“Right, right. Well, you were loud enough to bring over a whole bunch of hobgoblins, so why don’t you help us take them out?”
Rafael looked behind him to find an empty dungeon corridor, before turning back to Lemonade. “Dude, are you schizophrenic? It’s as empty as your scalp here.”
“What?” Lemonade checked again. “No, I’m sure there were enemies.” He squinted his eyes and caught notice of some small items scattered across the ground, including arrows.
A faint clatter nearby drew their attention to where Max was cramming an arrow into his quiver. Max stopped and looked up at them awkwardly. “...Uh, well you were busy talking.”
Lemonade blinked and responded a beat late, “...Never mind, let’s just keep moving.”
—LOL not even questioning things anymore
—*Pretend nothing happened*
—I heard him shoot the goblins; it was really quiet lol
—‘My bad, I defeated our enemies already’
The group moved further into the dungeon in search of more hobgoblins.
“Hey Gun...” Jasmine addressed Max, “why haven’t you learned any class skills yet? I saw that you have a whole bunch of subclasses, so you should be able to get some by now.”
Max smiled. “My friend told me to hold off on learning skills, since the skill points used to learn them are limited. Something about waiting for a ‘meta’ to come out.”
“Ah, sounds like a smart friend.” Lemonade nodded his head in agreement.
Skill points were used to acquire skills in the class skill trees. Since levelling up was the only known method of obtaining these skill points, they were quite valuable. For this reason, and since the points could not be refunded after being spent, many of the more prudent players opted to wait until more information had circulated. That way, they would know what all the best options were when allocating their points.
“You can at least see what’s available, right?” Jasmine was still curious. “What skills could you learn right now if you wanted to?”
Max was also curious about this and opened up his interface to check. There were two skills available:
Skill Name: Successive Speed
Subclass: Sharpshooting
Type: Passive
Mana Cost: None
Description: For every consecutive shot striking an enemy, gain 5% arrow velocity on your next shot. This effect repeats and stacks until the user misses a shot by failing to hit any living target. The increased arrow speed will not affect damage, nor penetration chance.
Prerequisites: Lvl.5, DEX>35
Skill Name: Arrow Retrieval
Subclass: Rapid Fire
Type: Active
Mana Cost: 5 MP
Description: When activated, all intact arrows shot by the user in the last 5 minutes will be returned to the user’s inventory. Effect fails if the user’s inventory is already full.
Prerequisites: None
Max’s eyes sparkled and he instantly purchased both skills, surprising Jasmine, who had barely finished reading the descriptions.
“Uh? Weren’t you going to hold off on getting skills?”
Max’s eyes twinkled as he answered her, “I was, but these skills are too great to pass up. I’m surprised they were even put into the game, they’re that good.”
Jasmine frowned. “Great? One of them makes arrows move a bit faster and the other picks them up, how is that good?” She was not convinced in the slightest.
“That [Arrow Retrieval] skill will save me a ton of time, but not only that, it prevents me from running out of arrows! Unless the arrows break, I can just get them back and keep shooting.”
“Okay...” she still thought it was bad. “What about the other one?”
Max made a low chuckle. “The other one I’ll show you later. As for now...”
Max pointed his outstretched hand down the corridor, doing his best Jedi impression. To his immense satisfaction, the arrows he shot earlier slowly rose from the ground, before rushing toward him in a synchronous flurry. Turning partially transparent, they flew through the air until they reached Max and disappeared upon touching him.
He turned to Jasmine with a face that said: ‘Impressed?’
Jasmine tried to pretend it was lame but was betrayed by a smile tugging at her lips.
‘Damn right.’ Max replied with a smug expression.
“What are you guys doing?” They turned to see Rafael staring at them with a raised eyebrow. “There’s a horde up ahead, so get ready.”
Max nodded and without waiting, took some arrows from his quiver and started loosing them. Rafael and Lemonade took positions on either side of the corridor and readied their weapons while waiting for the goblins to arrive.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Bodies impaled by arrows fell over like dominoes along the stone floor, while over a dozen more hobgoblins advanced toward the group with violence in their eyes.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Max kept shooting without missing a shot. Although the horde was clearly moving in large strides, they seemed to be locked in one place for perpetuity, as Max killed them off faster than they could collectively close any distance.
Rafael’s eyes grew wider with each passing arrow. At this stage, he wouldn’t even need to do anything. In addition... were the arrows getting faster?
Every time an arrow passed, it seemed to move faster than the last, crossing the full distance to the goblins in less than a second. Rafael had to be honest with himself and admit that this class looked anything but weak.
Those forums posts were completely wrong!
Noticing their ilk rapidly collapsing around them, the hobgoblins increased their pace and transitioned into a sprint toward the players, jumping over the fallen who blocked their way. Despite this, they were now too few and too far, powerless sitting ducks in the tight corridor as Max peppered them with arrows. Only the last couple of goblins managed to close the distance, choosing to move in on Rafael.
Rafael held up his spear and prepared to fight the two hobgoblins. Right as he was about to strike, two diverging arrows flew in and pierced the foreheads of both goblins in tandem. They fell to the ground at his feet and disappeared into red particles.
For a moment, other than the noise of the goblins’ weapons clattering to the ground, no other sound could be heard.
“...” In that moment, Rafael instinctively realised an uncomfortable truth. If things continued like this, he would never be able to amass more kills than Gun. It was fundamentally impossible. Almost reflexively, he turned around to face Gun, who stood in the centre of the passage donning a faint smile.
Max locked eyes with Rafael and flicked his hand. “I have a confession to make,” he spoke as a sea of translucent arrows passed into his body. “Actually, I’m also a clearer.”
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