Max smiled while looking at Rafael, who was now all fired up.

  Despite Rafael being highly petitive 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 gd 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 ey of HoL using one of these babies.”

  “HoL?”

  “Hero of Liberation.”

  “Ah!” The look in Max’s eyes ged. “You’re a clearer?”

  “Mm-hm~!”

  “Clearer?” Jasmine looked on in fusion. “What’s a clearer?”

  Lemonade expined, “Clearers are people who beat the first dive game, Hero of Liberation, from start to finish. Only around one ihousand pyers mao 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 aremely well-known figure in the gaming unity.

  Three years ago, a famous team from a professional esports anisation known as ‘Blue Furnace’ livestreamed one of their gamepy sessions i FPS game ‘ter-Strike’. However, they uedly decided to py public matches using smurf ats, which were alternate game ats kept in lower petitive ranking brackets for the purpose of being pitted against weaker and less experienced pyers.

  There were a few possible expnations as to why they did this. It might have been a publicity stunt to highlight the skill differeween them and regur pyers, or it might have just been for fuher way, they bulldozed through their matches without suspense, obliterating the helpless casual pyers. Against a team of five well-coordihletes with absurd rea speeds and world-css talent, all these yers could do was ment and type poetic, mother-tric tirades in the game chat while being handily massacred. Half of the matches ended in ht surrender, with most teams uo even a single point against the Esports powerhouse.

  This tinued until the team’s ninth game. During this match, Blue Furarted 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 eic advantage. One pyer from the opposite team mao achieve two double kills and a triple-kill against them, bringing the score to 3-3. Attributing this performao luck, the pros were not particurly ed and showed a cavalier attitude. However, it proved not to be luck at all, as they began haeming points on the scoreboard.

  Witnessing this, the athletes were armed, and the viewers watg the broadcast were thrilled. Wanting to know the identity of the opposing team’s star pyer, they looked him up online and found that he was also streaming!

  The pyer’s username was ‘Delt0id’, and it was found that he was also using a smurf at while pying with his friends. He did not want his friends to be unfairly matched against seasoned experts from his rank, so he used a spare at with a much lower petitive ranking and po just mess around while having fun.

  This pn ged whe0id entered some extremely skilled pyers who clearly did not belong in the bracket. Vexed, he took trol of the game, barking instrus to his friends and exerg his full ability, utilising his knowledge of the game map, grenades and callouts to turables on the enemy.

  Feeling a sense of crisis, Blue Furnace begaing to pro-league tactics, however, Delt0id expected this and was able to accurately predict these pys, even managing to kill one of the athletes with a knife, whily served to rub salt in the wound.

  With his friends also perf above their abilities, Delt0id’s team mao 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 fwless performance, managing to maintain an astonishing kill/death ratio of over 3; taking down three pinnacle-level pyers for every one of his own lives.

  The match tinued ned-netil on the final round, Delt0id’s friends were sughtered right at the start without being able to resist. Approag 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, ag the eeam and clutg victory at a final score of 16-14.

  This oute was unfathomable to viewers, and clips of the battle spread like wildfire across the i. Amidst the chaos, the esports anisation made an annouhat they had officially recruited Delt0id into Blue Furnace. From there, his popurity exploded, and he diversified into various ames, with petitors being overwhelmed by his inhumaion speed, as well as his unwavering dedication to advang 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 pleted by just 0.1% of people whilst simultaneously juggling a successful esports and streaming career was more than proof of that.

  Finishing his dispy, Rafael threw his spinning spear up into the air, looking away to face the others while catg the spear with a swipe in his peripheral vision. “Are we ready to keep goi?”

  “You tell me,” Lemonade responded, “You’re the one who stopped here to have a meltdown un’s archery.”

  “Meltdown? The only thied down is your brain; I just asked him questions.”

  “Right, right. Well, you were loud enough t over a whole bunch of hobgoblins, so why don’t you help us take them out?”

  Rafael looked behind him to find ay dungeon corridor, before turning baonade. “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 ctter 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 te, “...Never mind, let’s just keep moving.”

  —LOL not eveioning 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 searore hobgoblins.

  “Hey Gun...” Jasmine addressed Max, “why haven’t you learned any css skills yet? I saw that you have a whole bunch of subcsses, so you should be able to get some by now.”

  Max smiled. “My friend told me to hold off on learning skills, sihe skill points used to learn them are limited. Something about waiting for a ‘meta’ to e out.”

  “Ah, sounds like a smart friend.” Lemonade nodded his head in agreement.

  Skill points were used to acquire skills in the css skill trees. Since levelling up was the only knowhod of obtaining these skill points, they were quite valuable. For this reason, and sihe points could not be refunded after being spent, many of the more prudent pyers opted to wait until more information had circuted. That way, they would know what all the best options were when allog their points.

  “You at least see what’s avaible, right?” Jasmine was still curious. “What skills could you learn right now if you wao?”

  Max was also curious about this and opened up his interface to check. There were two skills avaible:

  Skill Name: Successive Speed

  Subcss: Sharpshooting

  Type: Passive

  Mana Cost: None

  Description: For every secutive shot striking an enemy, gain 5% arrow velocity on your shot. This effect repeats and stacks until the user misses a shot by failing to hit any meaningful target. The increased arrow speed will not affect damage, nor peion ce.

  Prerequisites: Lvl.5, DEX>35

  Skill Name: Arrow Retrieval

  Subcss: Rapid Fire

  Type: Active

  Mana Cost: 5 MP

  Description: When activated, all intact arrows shot by the user i 5 minutes will be returo the user’s iory. Effect fails if the user’s iory 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 oing 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 vinced 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! Uhe arrows break, I just get them bad 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 ter. As for now...”

  Max pointed his outstretched hand down the corridor, doing his best Jedi impression. To his immeisfa, the arrows he shot earlier slowly rose from the ground, before rushing toward him in a synous flurry. Turning partially transparent, they flew through the air until they reached Max and disappeared upon toug him.

  He turo Jasmih a face that said: ‘Impressed?’

  Jasmiried to pretend it was me but was betrayed by a smile tugging at her lips.

  ‘Damn right.’ Max replied with a smug expression.

  “What are you guys doing?” They turo 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 Lemoook positions oher side of the corridor and readied their ons 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 advaoward the group with violen their eyes.

  Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

  Max kept shooting without missing a shot. Although the horde was clearly moving irides, they seemed to be locked in one pce 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 eveo do anything. In addition... were the arrows getting faster?

  Every time an arrow passed, it seemed to move faster tha, crossing the full distao the goblins ihan a sed. Rafael had to be ho with himself and admit that this css looked anything but weak.

  Those forums posts were pletely wrong!

  Notig their ilk rapidly colpsing around them, the hobgoblins increased their pad transitioned into a sprint toward the pyers, jumping over the fallen who blocked their way. Despite this, they were now too few and too far, powerless sitting ducks iight corridor as Max peppered them with arrows. Only the st couple of goblins mao 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 tahey fell to the ground at his feet and disappeared into red particles.

  For a moment, other than the noise of the goblins’ ons cttering to the ground, no other sound could be heard.

  “...” In that moment, Rafael instinctively realised an unfortable truth. If things tinued like this, he would never be able to amass more kills than Gun. It was fually impossible. Almost reflexively, he turned around to face Gun, who stood in the tre of the passage donning a faint smile.

  Max locked eyes with Rafael and flicked his hand. “I have a fession to make,” he spoke as a sea of translut arrows passed into his body. “Actually, I’m also a clearer.”