Meanwhile, at the same hour that Go Tae-min was holding his modest party with Chae Geon-uk.
The news that the Japanese Amateur League's first warrior to promote undefeated had appeared was spreading across the whole world in a flash.
《We are witnessing the moment another star is born》 - The New York Times
《The night the word "amateur" lost its meaning》 - Asahi Shimbun
《This league tested him, and he passed. Perfectly》 - L'Équipe
《We have gained another 'warrior who is difficult to explain'》 - Xinhua
《One question remains. How far will he climb》 - FAZ
《The Japanese league has grown too narrow to hold him》 - Bloomberg
《We have watched another boundary collapse》 - Corriere della Sera
《His record left a question. There is as yet no answer》 - Der Spiegel
《An undefeated prospect emerges in Japan... are we ready》 - Daehyun Ilbo
The reason the whole world had its eye on this news was simple.
Because the Demon belonged to no Legion yet.
The rare record of an undefeated promotion, the mystique of an identity that had not been revealed, and above all the fact that he was an OA (Open Asset) belonging nowhere, drew the eyes of the entire world.
So the major Legions of every nation took an interest in the Demon's performance all at once, and watched his last match in order to confirm his skill for themselves.
And the result—
"Only C Grade, is it......"
"His fundamentals are dismal and his technique with a sword isn't good either. Though his stamina and physique do look fairly well developed."
George Miller murmured it quietly while running his eye over the data on his tablet screen, and Jack Morrison, standing beside him, picked up the thread as if he had been waiting.
The two were scouts belonging to Atlas, one of what people called America's 4 great Legions.
Atlas was a super-sized Legion that held even Super Warriors, and it was currently giving serious consideration to signing the Demon.
"Which is exactly why we have to take him. Coming up to the pros undefeated with no more skill than this means there is a talent in his play that can't be put into numbers."
George Miller, who had kept silent for a moment, spoke again.
"I agree. If this is what he manages with failing-grade fundamentals, I can't even imagine what kind of monster gets born once systematic education and care are added on top."
George played the final scene back in slow motion.
On the screen, the Demon was letting the Ninja's edge pass him by at the width of a sheet of paper and driving inside.
"This scene in particular. The timing where he evades the Ninja's attack and converts to a counter was enough to make even me shiver. Rather like a predator snatching up its prey."
A truly outstanding sense of distance, however many times you watched it.
That sort of thing was not something you could acquire by training or by drilled repetition.
And...... most of the Legions had surely recognized that talent in the Demon too.
"Did you find out where they're trying to make contact with the Demon?"
"What's confirmed is Korea's Oath Legion, and......"
"Hah, forget that one."
Miller gave a snort.
Korea was a peripheral country that didn't even have a proper warrior development system in place.
There was no way the Demon would go into a Legion from a country like that.
"Japan is showing interest, of course?"
"Naturally. Jin'en, Makazuki, Shiranui, Fudo, Kasaneba. All 5 great Legions have apparently jumped into signing the Demon."
"The competition's going to be fierce."
"And I hear Crownfall and Eisenlicht, Robe Noire and the Heavenly Demon Cult are all preparing contracts to put in front of the Demon too."
Which meant Legions from countries you recognized by name alone were moving as well: Britain, Germany, France, Canada, China.
But one unexpected name among them made George Miller tilt his head.
"The Heavenly Demon Cult? You're telling me China is showing interest? They don't scout anyone but their own warriors, do they?"
"There's a rumor the Demon is Chinese."
"Tsk, that's the worst of it in its own way."
It was hardly news that Chinese users slipped anonymously into the Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese servers and stirred up trouble.
He couldn't rule out the possibility this time either.
But Miller decided not to let it bother him.
Whether the Demon was Chinese or Japanese didn't matter.
What mattered was that he was a signable warrior, an OA.
"I don't care if he's North Korean instead of Chinese. Atlas has to get the Demon, no matter what. Stake citizenship on it if that's what he wants. Tell him we'll throw in a gleaming penthouse in Manhattan too."
"Understood."
George Miller closed his tablet.
What was left now was only one thing.
Who would take the Demon first, and at what price.
And the Atlas Legion was logging a fairly high win rate in that particular fight.
George Miller raised the corner of his mouth into a deep smile.
"Nova Arena is going to get more interesting from here."
***
The next day, my Pro License was successfully issued.
I decided to use 惡鬼 as my handle, written in hanja. It was my senior's idea, to make it harder still to tell where I was from.
Thanks to him taking on the complicated administrative procedures, the Legion business and the rest of it, I was able to concentrate purely on preparing for the Pro League.
The first thing I did was study the Pro League.
Depending on what rules you fight under and what format the match takes, the kind of groundwork I needed to lay right away changes.
To pull a result called victory out of a battlefield thrown at you at random, I first had to get how this game worked into my head.
Fortunately, I knew very well how to study an unfamiliar field so as to grasp it fastest and most accurately.
"From the Pro League on it's very different from the Amateur League. What do you think the difference is?"
I yawned hugely in answer to my senior, who had now taken to channeling a schoolteacher.
"Yeees, well, the name's different, I suppose."
"......First, in the Pro League you can only enter a match if you receive an offer. It isn't the concept of running matchmaking and joining a match like the Amateur League."
He tapped the monitor.
In a word, if no proposal came in, a Pro License was nothing but an ornament.
"And the matches aren't simple one-on-one duels either. You get given a specific mission and carry it out. In Ashmoon Knight 189, the one right before this, the mission was a siege defense. The number of participants was a thousand. The number of NPCs who came at them was around ten thousand."
My senior worked the keyboard and brought up a video.
The still screen gradually brightened, revealing the silhouette of a massive rampart.
"......Whoa."
Beyond solid battlements piled up out of gray stone, a thousand people in outfits bursting with individuality are moving busily about.
Clad in armor and weapons of every description, they shouted as they formed up, and inside the wall smoke billowed thickly off oil boiling in enormous cauldrons.
The camera went past that smoke and this time showed the foot of the wall.
Soldiers laid out black to the end of the horizon were advancing, shaking the earth.
And then a vision of hell unfolded.
Catapults at the rear roared as they launched boulders the size of houses, and after them a rain of arrows that blotted out the sky came pouring down over the wall.
I couldn't close my mouth while I watched.
"That's insane."
I understood in one go why people were so wild about Nova Arena.
Soccer? Baseball? Or mixed martial arts?
No sport can manage a scale like this.
This overwhelming spectacle of tens of thousands colliding was something you could only see in Nova Arena.
"Well? It's no joke, is it?"
My senior stopped the screen and asked it obliquely.
I nodded, dazed.
At the same time my chest had already started to pound.
The number of people who had watched this match was a full 500,000.
Before long I too would be standing on a stage like that in person. No, depending on how things went, I might even become the lead on that stage.
For a man who had lived his whole life like a shadow, it was a picture I simply couldn't imagine.
"Right, shall we look at the next match then? In match 7...... looks like monster subjugation came up?"
"Monsters?"
My imagination snapped at the word that had popped out of nowhere.
"Yeah. Goblins and orcs and ogres and stuff like that. You don't know them?"
"I know them, but....... Things like that come out too?"
"Hey, do you think Nova Arena is called Nova Arena for nothing? In here you have to assume anything that can be implemented as data comes jumping out. If it was only going to be fighting humans, there'd have been no fantasy tag on it in the first place."
My senior answered as if it were obvious and started tapping the keyboard again.
Before long, in place of the rampart from a moment ago, a dense and humid jungle appeared on the screen.
"This is the match 7 footage."
The instant it started playing, a shriek that seemed to tear your ears came through the speakers.
Several hundred orcs with forearms as thick as a grown man's thigh were pouring out in a mass.
Behind them, a monster with a frame the size of a house swung an enormous wooden club and laid waste to the trees around it.
Carrying out all kinds of battles and missions inside the fantasy settings we commonly know.
From the Pro League up, it seemed matches proceeded in that fashion.
I let out a disbelieving laugh as I watched people tangled in life-and-death struggles with monsters.
"Hah. This is absurd. At this rate why don't you tell me there's magic as well?"
Obviously it was a joke.
But the answer that came back from my senior sailed clean past what I expected.
"There is."
"......There really is?"
At my follow-up question my senior nodded, unperturbed.
"Yeah. There's an energy called mana. Process it with an incantation or a magic circle and fire it and it's magic; condense it inside your body and load it into a weapon and it becomes aura, basically."
"How are we supposed to face guys like that? That's far too unfair!"
It wasn't as if I had a deep knowledge of fantasy settings, but I did know the basics.
Magic as I had met it through films and games wielded supernatural power, and a swordsman clad in aura moved at superhuman speed beyond human limits.
There was no way an ordinary person could handle beings like that.
But my senior went on as if laughing at my worry.
"You guys can handle it too."
"Huh? Us too? Really?"
"It's a concept that clearly exists in that world anyway. So naturally it's a law that applies to anyone who moves in that setting. The problem is that just because anyone can handle it doesn't mean anyone can feel it, though."
My senior tapped the screen and continued.
"For the record, from the World League up, handling mana is a basic option. People who can't feel mana end up blocked by the wall called the Pro League and can't climb above it."
"Then what about me? Will I be able to feel it?"
At my question my senior took his eyes off the monitor and looked at me steadily.
Then he snorted and nodded.
"From the you I've watched all this time, you'll feel it and then some. Your senses are out of this world, aren't they."
"Right?"
"If a guy like you, who lets an incoming attack pass at the width of a sheet of paper, can't feel it, then who can? That's not a domain you reach by effort; you need an innate sixth sense."
At my senior's assurance I scratched the back of my head.
The truth was that it wasn't possible because my reflexes or my senses were good, the way he thought.
I had only been moving my body along a red line that only my eyes could see.
'What if I can't feel it?'
Just as anxiety was about to come over me, a thought flashed through my head.
Hold on a moment.
My senior had said mana was an energy that actually existed in the world.
A power that becomes magic if you chant it, and aura if you condense it.
Chewing those words over, I slowly raised my head and looked around me.
The fact is that my field of view holds countless other lines besides the red ones.
Only, unlike the red, they don't clearly tell me the trajectory of an attack; they simply drift about in the air like ghosts, which is why I had gone to the trouble of ignoring them.
Tens of thousands of strands of line, seemingly transparent and yet carrying a strange coloration.
Those white lines were grazing my fingertips even at this moment, flowing on past my senior's shoulder, filling the very air in the room.
'Surely these lines of unknown identity aren't mana?'
TL Notes:
TL Note: 惡鬼 — the hanja (Chinese-character) form of "Demon", chosen because a handle written this way is legible to Korean, Japanese and Chinese audiences alike and so gives nothing away about Tae-min's nationality.