“These damned Arenas really are fascinating…….”
Arenas during the Tutorial Season were very peculiar structures.
From the outside, they looked like ordinary stadiums, but once a Quest was announced and the designated number of Players entered, the interior transformed into a variety of environments based on the Quest.
Sometimes it became a dark maze, sometimes a ship in the middle of the sea, and sometimes, like now, an ordinary stadium covered in grass.
Another strange characteristic of Arenas was their connection to the media.
As a rule, machinery could not be brought into an Arena, yet strangely enough, the Arena itself could freely connect to the internet or terrestrial broadcasts as though it were one enormous platform.
Because of that feature, quite a few Players used Arenas for streaming.
“Isn’t that why everyone’s so crazy about Arenas? You can watch content more vivid than a reality show for free, and you can even support your favorite Players.”
Two men sat in the Arena stands, leisurely chatting as they watched the field.
They were scouts from a mid-sized Guild who had been keeping a close eye on this Arena.
And naturally so.
There was no telling when or where a promising talent worth recruiting might suddenly appear.
“Oh! It’s starting.”
***
The moment the Quest window appeared, the Players inside the Arena began moving.
Most of them had no particular strategy, tangling with one another and causing a commotion as they tried to grab the discs.
“That one’s mine!”
“Watch where you’re going!”
“Agh!”
But even snatching a disc was no easy task for F-Grade Players.
Awakening as a Player overnight did not suddenly turn them into superhumans like Rankers.
“Damn it!”
Even so, there were some who stood out.
They were the ones who had Awakened early and already undergone Player training.
“Fireball!”
A female Player who had Awakened into a magic-type Class repeatedly cast a flame magic Skill at the discs.
Her performance was broadcast in full to viewers and Guild scouts alike.
- Wow, that woman’s been aiming for places where a bunch of discs are clustered together, right?
- Yeah. F-Grades don’t have much mana.
The viewers cheered whenever a Player delivered an eye-catching performance.
“<Fireball>, huh…… Elemental magic. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Mage Class.”
“Find out her name and affiliation! Quickly!”
There was also a male Player who was breaking discs while working as part of a team.
His subordinates gathered the discs for him, and he shattered them one after another with his bare hands.
“That guy’s the grandson of Haetae’s chairman?”
“I heard the old man even spent money setting up a Guild for him. Talk about pissing money away.”
“It is letting him destroy the discs pretty quickly, though.”
The viewers watching him voiced their dissatisfaction.
- Getting carried right from the start?
- No wonder rookies grit their teeth trying to join Guilds.
- Agreed. These days, having a dragon rise from a stream like back in the first generation seems impossible.
- Still, breaking a disc in one hit is impressive. The other guys need two or three attacks.
It was while the scouts and viewers were busy watching and chatting among themselves that they suddenly noticed one particular Player.
- Hey. What’s with that Player?
- Spirit Summoner? Tamer?
- Those are skeletons!
SWOOOOOSH!
With Apostle at the lead, the five Crow Skeletons targeted the discs in the air like trained fighter aircraft.
From above to below.
From right to left.
And then in the opposite direction.
THUD! CRACK!
With their high speed and precise movements, the Crow Skeletons overtook the other Players and destroyed every airborne disc they encountered.
“Damn it! They stole it!”
“Th-That was mine…… Argh!”
Even Players capable of flight or long-range attacks struggled desperately.
But they could not match Crow Skeletons that were naturally adept at aerial combat.
“You little……! Take this!”
Unable to endure it any longer, a Player with the Archer Class raised his bow and aimed at Apostle.
However…….
“Excuse me.”
“Huh?!”
The bow was shattered before it could even serve its purpose.
Another Player standing beside him had destroyed his weapon with a single kick.
“What the hell?! Who are you?!”
“Me? Their master.”
The Player who had appeared before him was a young man whose face had not yet completely lost its youthful look.
He was not even wearing a single proper piece of equipment.
Yet the Archer immediately tensed.
‘This bastard…… He broke my bow with one hit.’
Fundamentally, there were no restrictions inside an Arena as long as the Clear Condition was fulfilled.
Naturally, conflicts between Players competing to clear the Quest were extremely common.
There were even Streamers whose broadcasts primarily focused on clashes and conflicts between Players.
But that sort of thing usually began in C-Grade Arenas or higher, after Players had gained a certain number of levels.
Almost no one established a particular concept for themselves starting from their debut in an F-Grade Arena.
“You don’t even know who I am, yet you dare pick a fight with me?!”
“You’re the one who picked the fight.”
The Archer tried to intimidate Dojin and seize the initiative, but Dojin did not care.
An F-Grade Player throwing a tantrum could not even get under his skin.
“You dare aim a bow at my Minion?”
“What?”
The Archer flinched at those words.
But he never got the chance to respond.
WHAM!!!
Dojin’s fist sent the Archer flying.
“Ghk……!”
Several people nearby noticed what was happening and began whispering among themselves, but Dojin merely looked at the scene and thought calmly.
‘My body still feels heavy. I need a few more warm-up opponents.’
With that thought, Dojin chose his next target.
A fool who did not even realize he had become one.
“What? Those skeletons belong to you?”
A group that clearly did not look like newly Awakened Players was glaring at Dojin.
They slowly advanced, tightening the encirclement around him.
“Listen, rookie. You don’t seem to understand, but Arenas have their own rules.”
“Exactly! If you try to hog everything by yourself……?”
At that moment, the Players surrounding Dojin exchanged glances.
“Someone has to teach you a lesson!”
Several Players attacked together at once.
But all that appeared on Dojin’s lips was a sneer.
- Hey, hey, look over there. It’s PK.
- Looks like that guy summoned the Crow Skeletons?
- But what kind of Class even summons skeletons?
- Looks like we finally got an interesting new Player, and he had to run into those guys.
- Still, I can see why they stepped in. Those Skeletons are sweeping up all the discs right now lol.
Meanwhile, the viewers were also watching Dojin’s situation.
The chat filled up in an instant.
- Aren’t those the guys who’ve been picking out rookies to slaughter for a while now?
- Guild lackey bast*rds.
- They never go anywhere near guys with backing lol.
- But did a Necromancer Class even exist?
The same question spread among the scouts.
“First time I’ve ever seen a Necromancer.”
“Judging by his movements, he looks like a Warrior-type.”
“He could be a Player brought in as the Necromancer’s bodyguard or stand-in.”
“More importantly, his skill at controlling his summons is remarkable. Those Skeletons have already destroyed nearly half the discs.”
“He’s controlling the Skeletons while fighting other Players at the same time? How does that make any sense?”
Their doubts were entirely reasonable.
An F-Grade Player capable of simultaneously controlling summons and engaging in close combat?
That should have been impossible.
But if, by some chance—it was true.
“It’s been a while since the major Guilds had a reason to make a move.”
***
SWISH! CRACK!
Apostle pierced a disc with its beak and shattered it.
As though following its lead, the other Crow Skeletons each attacked a disc with their beaks.
CLACK! CLACK! CRACK!
Perhaps because of the difference in size, the other Skeletons could not destroy their discs in a single strike like Apostle.
The moment they were attacked, the discs began moving away to another location.
WHIR! WHIR! WHIR!
And it was not only the discs targeted by the Skeletons.
Every disc targeted by another Player that had not been completely destroyed immediately fled its original position.
Discs cleverly escaping from Players.
Players chasing after them and destroying them.
And at times, even clashes breaking out between those Players.
All of this was part of what made Arenas so compelling to viewers.
And now, the attention of those viewers had split cleanly in half.
- Wow, that big Skeleton is awesome!
- One-turn one-kill. Holy crap.
- Since they’re bird-shaped Skeletons, they’re really good at catching targets moving through the air.
- The little ones are herding the discs that try to run.
The spectators in the stands were reacting the same way.
“Remarkable. Don’t those Skeletons move almost exactly like real birds hunting in a flock?”
“At first, I thought the smaller Skeletons were just clumsily missing the discs…… but if you watch carefully, they’re blocking the discs’ escape routes or body-checking them toward the leader Skeleton.”
As they spoke, their gazes shifted toward another group of Players employing similar tactics.
“It resembles the tactics used by Haetae’s Beast Guild.”
Some watched the Crow Skeletons practically monopolize the discs.
Meanwhile—
- Five, six, seven!
- How many Players has he taken down already?
Other viewers cheered as they watched Dojin fight several Players at once.
- I don’t see a single Item on him.
- He’s hunting Players solo lol.
- Isn’t he either ex-special forces or some kind of real combat fighter?
- At first he was only fighting weaklings, so why did so many swarm him?
- They came to complain because the Skeletons kept stealing the discs, then ended up like that.
- This is fucking entertaining lolololol.
What the viewers were saying was true.
Only a handful of Players had picked a fight with Dojin at first.
But after Dojin beat down every Player who came after him—promising prospects from the major Guilds finally sought him out.
“Those Skeletons are your Minions?”
“Learn when to stop!”
“Read the room a little, huh?”
From their perspective, their complaints were understandable.
The Arena was fundamentally structured around competition.
If they left that bastard alone, it was obvious that all their own performances would be completely overshadowed.
Moreover, he was a Player they were highly likely to encounter again in other Arenas later.
So they might as well crush him now.
In a sense, it was only natural for Players to arrive at such a conclusion.
“What a nauseatingly familiar competitive society.”
A mob of Players had gathered to surround one person, hurling hostility and accusations at him.
Meanwhile, spectators in the stands and beyond the screens watched eagerly, waiting for something exciting to happen.
At that moment, Dojin felt it all over again.
And the realization escaped his lips along with a mocking laugh.
“Yeah. I really did come back.”