Chapter 16
The swordsman advances, deflecting the swiftly flying dagger.
A sign appears indicating that the opponent has been incapacitated from the parry.
The swordsman, quickly moving with the sword sheath clattering at his waist, swings his sword,
and with a dazzling flash, the enemy falls.
Bam!
The swordsman nonchalantly shakes off the blood from his sword as if nothing happened,
and returns the sword to its sheath.
“Ah… This taste. This is why I become a swordsman.”
It was just now that Sua had taken down an enemy in a one-on-one.
Caught up in her own play, Sua was waving her sword around.
A voice came through the headphones.
“Who do you think made this all possible?”
“Thanks to you, teacher… I guess.”
“Why does your voice sound a bit weak? Did you skip training? We should do it again after this match—”
“It’s all thanks to you! I’ve gotten this good all because of you, heh heh…”
“Something feels off… Let’s just heal up and maintain the line. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
With every kill, Mollru demanded praise from Sua as proof of her training’s success.
Though tired of it, she answered dully, she also recognized it.
Mollru’s training had been effective.
The one-on-one lasted about three hours, awakening the combat sense that Sua had lacked.
Some might think, “What difference can three hours of training make?”
Sua had thought that too.
However, standing before the fallen opponent was herself.
It was an understatement to say it had worked.
Through the training, Sua could feel her perspective on the game had completely changed.
At first nervous, making small mistakes in battle, it was only a moment,
as the words she heard while training with Mollru in the training grounds came to mind.
“Stay calm.”
“Watch the motion until the end.”
“Attack while mixing in fakes.”
“Don’t overdo it; save some leeway.”
As she focused on recalling the lessons during the battle,
before she knew it, the enemies were already falling.
Compared to Mollru, the diamond-tier users Sua faced were ridiculously easy.
Unpredictable as Mollru’s sword was, the opponents’ swords were just too slow.
No one can’t parry a flabby sword.
It must be called reverse perception.
This sense—
Like how when you use a more expensive headphone just once, you can’t go back to the cheap 20,000 won ones,
you don’t feel it until you know it, but now that she has experienced this sense, there’s no turning back.
To say there’s no turning back feels a bit suggestive.
Ah, another sacrifice is coming.
An axe warrior armed with a shield raises his axe high and swings it fiercely.
What he thought was a fierce swing only appears slow to Sua.
She cleanly parries the axe, swung honestly without a fake motion, with a sharp clang.
Ching!
The balance of the opponent’s character is disrupted, and they can’t hide their panic.
They could have rolled sideways, but instead, they just stand there awkwardly and end up getting hit and dying.
It seems they couldn’t even imagine that the first attack would be blocked.
Sua chuckled lightly.
With such a slow attack, how could she get hit?
[Parry success rate 100% ㄷㄷㄷ]
[Why is this person so good?]
[What? What? What? What? What?]
[Is there really parrying in FPS games? LOL]
[But is having knives, axes, and swords in FPS games reasonable?]
[Can you hear the sound of more parry enthusiasts rising?]
[I guess I can’t play ranked today.]
“Ahem.”
Every time Sua easily wins in battle, the chat room buzzes.
Except for the viewers who got tired of the long training broadcast and left,
some seemed to have been drawn in by the game screen.
Fueled by the rising public sentiment, Sua was jolted again by a voice.
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Okay…”
“When you get excited, the tip of your sword tends to shake.”
It was a natural statement, but there was something mystical about what Mollru said.
It felt like someone who had truly wielded a sword was speaking.
It didn’t seem like Sua was the only one who felt that way.
[Mollru has become the swordsman itself…]
[Are you a master?]
[What’s important is the mind, as long as you have a solid heart, you can break anything, keep that clear mind, Sua… @@]
[Moothdakk appeared]
[Seu’s heart is soft though]
[Oh ho]
[This is quite romantic.]
Ignoring the nonsensical chatter of the viewers, Sua dove back into the game.
Winning streak.
She had won all three matches she played so far.
Though she couldn’t say she dominated the team, her skills were significantly better than usual.
It’s a fundamental truth: The more you win, the more fun the game is.
Especially if it’s a victory she had never felt before.
“Let’s reach Diamond II today.”
“Isn’t Diamond II too high?”
“If you just play like you learned today, you’ll be a master in no time.”
A voice without highs or lows came from beside her.
If someone else had said it, it might have felt like lip service, but—
it sounded so natural like commenting on the nice weather.
“You have to go for master.”
Unconsciously, Sua nodded her head.
*
The educational broadcast ended successfully.
Despite a few weak points due to it being a sudden content,
the achievements were enough to cover them.
“Wow…”
Sua reached Diamond II.
After playing seven matches today, she had a total of six wins and one loss.
Her score climbed steadily, finally reaching her goal.
She blinked repeatedly, unable to believe the tier she was looking at.
Sua was a student worth teaching.
With a slightly stronger self, she struggled a bit to erase her bad habits, but she was basically quite talented.
When it came to physicality, she could feel she was better than her past self while teaching.
Seeing her so happy, I couldn’t help but feel proud as a master.
Wanting to savor this emotion longer, I ended the broadcast.
It turns out the Switch has this awesome feature called hosting.
[GrandmaMollru donated 1000 won!]
[Teacher, you must be proud of your student’s growth! What’s the next content? Maybe calm ranks?]
A donation message seemed to fly by, but since I had already ended the broadcast, there was nothing I could do.
I would have to prepare a reaction for next time.
About 2000 viewers who were watching from my room moved over to Sua’s room.
Why were so many people watching this?
Given that today’s protagonist was Sua, it would be better to watch from her room.
There were a few messages looking for me in Sua’s room, but I didn’t pay them any mind.
They seemed confused about me ending the broadcast without notice.
They weren’t kids looking for their moms, they’d figure it out.
Honestly, I could have continued the broadcast, but I had something to do.
I stretched my stiff body and looked at the clock.
4 PM.
Six hours had passed since I started the broadcast.
Even on a late weekend, the reason I woke up early at 10 AM to do the broadcast was that—
I had a promise to keep.
-Ji-yeon: Did the broadcast end, sister?
-Ji-yeon: You haven’t forgotten our promise, right?
-Ji-yeon: Please reply if you see this.
Was having a sibling such a bothersome thing?
I’d never had a sibling before, so I didn’t know, but even though she was so annoying, I felt it was cute that she cared about me.
5 PM.
I received a message from my sister wanting to have dinner and go shopping together yesterday.
It wasn’t a difficult thing to do, so I said okay.
Forcing my drowsy eyes open.
I got up early in the morning to do the broadcast.
Well, this would also be a good chance to adjust my daily routine.
From before, small messages indicating she had been following my broadcasts,
asking if I had eaten or if I was getting enough sleep—
It was Ji-yeon, who even asked for trivial greetings.
No matter how I looked at it, she was more like a sister than a sibling… Almost like a mom?
I felt maternal love from someone worried about a child who was lacking in many ways.
I remembered what a friend of mine once said that all women are born with maternal love.
Getting ready to go out was a hassle.
To be precise, going out with someone was what made it so.
Normally, I would have just put on something and gone out.
But because of the burden of accompanying Ji-yeon,
I was pondering whether I should even wear makeup, something I usually didn’t do.
Even though I didn’t even know how to do it.
After about ten minutes of searching for makeup techniques, I decided to skip it.
Makeup was a skill honed by women over a long period.
Which meant it looked pretty difficult.
Though the makeup products lying on the dresser looked lonely,
if it went wrong, nothing would be worse than being a mess.
I figured it was fine since I was pretty without makeup.
Having given up on makeup, I turned my attention to my outfit.
This part was just as difficult.
Yet, outfits were something I could at least try to handle.
It was just a matter of combining the clothes I had.
Do women really have that many clothes?
That was a thought I often had while pulling out Ji-eun’s clothes from the closet.
While pondering between the clothes hanging in neat rows, a phrase I’d seen somewhere popped into my head.
“They say people who know fashion can coordinate.”
It would be a way to show Ji-yeon, who overly protects me, that I’m an older woman than her.
Once I decided on a concept, picking clothes became easy.
After all, the hangers were overwhelmingly good.
As the chilly late autumn weather set in,
I wore a black turtleneck underneath and threw on a black trench coat over it.
I also chose dark jeans that were fully black.
I liked how it was all black.
Why? Isn’t black nice and neat?
I wanted to give off the vibe of a mature city woman, but I wasn’t sure how well that turned out.
I gazed at the woman in the mirror.
A pale face popping out among the black clothes.
Her tightly shut lips and languid eyes looked tired.
It seemed like it would be hard to even strike up a conversation, so I guess I was successful.
After all this pondering, I would be late for my appointment.
I stepped out of the cozy house.