Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 185

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 185

“Doesn’t seem like a bug.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“How could it not be?”
A sigh escaped her.
Rachel shot up from her seat and strode over to her brother’s side.
Unable to see it clearly from a distance, she moved closer to check for herself.
“You’re sure it’s not a bug?”
“A bug? How could there be a bug? And for the record, this isn’t even a screenshot—I checked the official website.”
“What about a fake site?”
The absurdity of her own question made her break into an involuntary smile.
“What would anyone gain from faking an Ordeal of Id result?”
“Yeah, that’s true. Move over.”
She pulled her brother’s computer toward her and started verifying the facts herself.
No matter what she heard, she wouldn’t believe it.
‘It’s real. But what… how is this possible?’
Was this a bug within the game itself?
The bug mentioned earlier was a website glitch.
In virtual reality, bugs weren’t tolerated.
Still, at this point, suspicion was unavoidable.
There was no such thing as a flawless system.
‘Hmm.’
Of course, her inability to believe this wasn’t simply because she’d lost her top ranking. It was deeper than that.
She logged into the messenger site to discuss this more thoroughly.
She didn’t have a smartphone.
You weren’t supposed to use one during vacation.
“What’s this? I just got a message?”

[Bernard: You seen it yet?]

A teammate from her Professional Team.
Was Korea always a focus for them?
No.
They naturally took a keen interest in Korea.
A gaming superpower—a land of quiet mastery in warfare technique that claimed the top spot despite an absurdly narrow talent pool compared to the United States and China.
Most teams that dealt defeats to them at international tournaments were Korean, so their interest was inevitable.
But for that interest to reach a mere streamer was simply remarkable.

[Rachel: How did you figure it out right away?]
[Bernard: Your brother told me.]

Ah.
She glanced back over her shoulder. Her brother was busy tapping away at his phone.
Her brother, who was friendly with her teammates.
He was probably running his mouth about nothing important, as always.
“Stop!”
“No way!”
“Damn it. I need to figure out what’s going on first, so would you mind stopping those messages?”
“Sure, I already told them everything. What did I say earlier? That it wasn’t possible? So what’s this then?”
Her brother teased her.
“Maybe you need to experience New York’s murderous rent prices to come to your senses.”
“Sorry!”
Well, it’s too late now. It’s probably already spread among the team.
American professionals loved historical records. The American Professional League started slightly later than the Korean league, so their schedules were more relaxed.
And within that space, there were no teams, no boundaries. They competed. They’d certainly hold back what they were told to keep quiet about.
‘Should I just ignore it?’
No.
First, I need to confirm exactly what happened.

[Bernard: Check out this clip]
[Bernard: It’s a 50-second clip. You get what this means, right?]
[Rachel: Have you watched it?]
[Bernard: No, I’m about to check it now. Your brother sent me this too.]
[Rachel: Let’s talk after you confirm]

Ranking 2nd: Rachel.
Ranking 3rd: Bernard.
Until just moments ago, they were ranked first and second. That’s why her brother contacted him, and why she’d come to the messenger site to get his opinion.
Rachel played the video.
Her brother, pushed to the side earlier, craned his neck to watch as well.
“You haven’t seen this yet?”
“No, I just sent you the link.”
“Right, let’s watch it for now.”
It wasn’t that she couldn’t watch Korean streams at all.
The streamer’s dialogue came with simultaneous subtitle translation.
While it didn’t match the meticulous detail of an expert’s handiwork, it retained most of the important nuances.
But there was likely nothing to watch.
Who would talk while trying to concentrate on the Ordeal of Id?
“Really, two Orbs? What if later he does four?”
“No way. His synchronization rate is 10, so it stays at two.”
Her brother was checking his phone at the same time, probably searching for other information.
Rachel’s eyes deepened. Now it was time for the secret to be revealed.

* * *

After watching the video, Rachel’s first impression was this.
“He talks?”
He talks. Something a streamer should naturally do. But…
“He talks, seriously?”
“Yeah, I saw it too, unnie. You don’t need to say anything more…”
“No, he actually talks!”
Rachel didn’t stop there.

[Rachel: You watching?]
[Bernard: Uh… pretty shocking, I’d say.]
[Rachel: What is it?]

This is a trial meant to get into the world’s top ten.
Normally you’re supposed to abandon every stray thought and focus completely.

[Bernard: He traces the Orb’s trajectory along the shortest path every time. You can tell at a glance. The way he launches the Orb is clearly the shortest.]

Right.
That part was impressive, too.
But he was talking while doing something that impressive?
What is this streamer?
How is this even possible?
“Sister, aren’t Bernard and the Sound Play guys shocked?”
Rachel tapped her lip thoughtfully.
“I mean, sure, it’s shocking, but… there’s something even more incredible.”
She was shocked that Sound Play was possible, but she wasn’t deeply surprised by the fact that he was doing it.
She figured that with practice, it might be possible for her as well.
But the other things…

[Bernard: The way he traces the trajectory, never making a single mistake, talking the whole time—it’s all insane.]
[Bernard: This is beyond reason. Could the video be fabricated?]
[Bernard: This won’t do. Just pick up the call.]

She took the call and immediately began her analysis.
“Bernard, when you and I handle eight targets, how much delay do we have?”
Eight is the number of targets that spawn at once, appearing every second.

[Perfect when they only spawn from the front. We handle all eight in under a second with no delay.]

“Right. And when they spawn from behind?”

[0.1 to 0.3 seconds? That’s about how long it takes us per eight targets. There are 44 waves where they spawn from behind and five waves only from the front.]

“Right. You remember well.”
They push their focus to the extreme during the 44 waves where targets spawn from behind.
“With the best play, you handle targets in 0.1 seconds, but drop your focus even slightly and it’s 0.3 seconds.”

[Yeah, seems about right. And your record of 356—that’s the one users said was unbeatable, right? I gave up back then. How long ago was that?]

356 is the score you can only achieve by handling all 44 waves where targets spawn from behind with an average delay of just 0.1 seconds.
In other words, Rachel repeated the best performance Rankers are capable of 44 times over.
When she set that record, Rachel felt something extraordinary.
A state of perfect immersion where even the self was forgotten—something you couldn’t guarantee would return even after hundreds or thousands of runs.
How hard had she worked to recapture that moment she’d touched by chance?
“Did that guy enter that state?”
Her teammate Bernard knew this fact as well.

[That would be hard to believe…]

He was communicating so naturally with the viewers.
She inferred Bernard’s unfinished thought.
This was the reason Rachel had been so shocked.
“Damn it. When the streamer did Sound Play, how much delay did he have?”

[Hold on. Let me check frame by frame.]

“You?”

[No, the Coach here.]

“Got it.”
Rachel laughed softly, then sighed.
Maybe because she’d seen something shocking—her body had grown tense without her noticing.
She calmed her mind, twisting her blonde hair between her fingers as she fell into thought.
Korea—the homeland of Shin Ha-yeon, her eternal rival (self-proclaimed) and nemesis (self-proclaimed).
And now someone from there was getting in her way again like this.
Rachel swallowed hard.
What kind of country was Korea?

[I checked. When targets spawned from the front, there was about 0.06 seconds of delay.]

That meant full concentration.
It would be the best possible with two Orbs.
But the streamer wasn’t talking at that point.
He only started having that slightly odd conversation with viewers after that.

[When targets spawned from behind, there was an average of about 0.08 seconds of delay.]

“Hah…”
Faster than them. So he’d set the highest record, then.
“All 44 waves?”

[Yeah. All of them.]

“Was that his limit?”

[Look, Rachel. You saw it yourself. The way he handles the targets. There’s no way he could have gotten faster than that. Even in that state you talk about.]

He was talking about two Orbs as the baseline.
Getting below 0.08 seconds with two Orbs was simply impossible from a system standpoint.

[If we ever pull off Sound Play, we’d have four Orbs so we could shave off a bit more, but regardless—that guy maintained the highest level of play the entire time. While talking to the viewers. I’m not sure the human brain is capable of that.]

“Damn… should I go to Korea?”

[What? You insane? You dumping the team?]

“No, that’s not it. I’m just thinking of going to meet him. We have time. Or should we set up a friendly match between our team and theirs?”
“Sister, that won’t work.”
“Why?”
“That person’s a pure streamer.”
“Really?”

[How about this instead?]

“Is there a way?”

[Follow them around like a servant in the historical records, and learn from them. Or you could ask what their secret technique is for a price. Khaha!]

“Bastard.”

[Well, you’ll meet them there anyway, so no need to go all the way to Korea. Ah, so what about you then? Should you be looking for a different hero? They’re unaffiliated, so what heroes are coming out this time?]

As soon as things were settled, Bernard started poking at his teammate.
Maybe because he’d lost interest in the Ordeal early on, the jab wasn’t hitting as hard as it should.
She hung up the call immediately. Saying more would only hurt her.
Phew.
Now that she’d analyzed it, she should check it out in person, right?
“Brother.”
“Huh? Wait a sec.”
“What are you looking at?”
“That person right now… wait, is this right?”
“What?”
“While you and that guy were analyzing just now, Kael hit rank 1 too? Overwhelmingly?”
Oh.
Um.
What?
“Wasn’t that the guy you mentioned before? The one after Kael who had Vital Point Prediction? That guy’s this streamer?”
“Oh! I remember now.”
Not long ago.
A few weeks into her vacation, the Coach had suddenly reached out through her brother asking if she could do it.
Since Kael wasn’t even good anyway, she’d confidently answered that it was impossible and buried herself back in bed.
That Kael guy was this streamer?
She revised her assessment of the streamer. Not just someone incredibly good at the Ordeal of Id, but someone special. Someone worth paying attention to.
Rachel swallowed hard again.
What kind of country was Korea?
How was it producing players like that one after another?
Shin Ha-yeon.
Baek Do-yul, who’d beaten her.
And now this streamer.
“This won’t do. Brother.”
“What?”
“While I’m out, gather all the information you can on that streamer.”
“No way…”
“Rent prices.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“And where’s the nearest Capsule Room around here?”
“Huh? To play? You’re on vacation.”
Rachel stretched her arms wide and cracked her neck.
“Rest only works if it’s actually restful. My vacation’s over.”

* * *

Rachel entered the virtual reality inside the Capsule Room.
‘Geomsin. Geomsin.’
The streamer’s user ID rolled naturally off her tongue.
She knew it wasn’t his real name, but she didn’t know what it meant yet.
Well, her brother with the rent-money incentive would sort it out properly.
She’d heard his name in passing, but didn’t remember it.
Korean names were just too unfamiliar to her.
It wasn’t a team she’d clashed with multiple times, and hearing a foreign name just once there was no way it would stick in her memory.
Rachel refreshed her senses in her Lobby and entered the Training Facility.
This was where she came first after vacation to warm up.
Not using sword heroes often didn’t mean she couldn’t use them.
Sword was the basics.
‘Hmm.’
She looked for settings to summon a Level 10 AI, as she always did.
‘Is it been so long since I’ve played Nathan? No, it’s just been so long since I’ve been in virtual reality that Nathan feels long.’
In virtual reality, servers were divided.
North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Korea, Japan, and so on.
China supposedly had over ten.
But they were just divisions—if you wanted, you could play on any server.
‘Here it is.’
Just like she’d accessed the Korean Server now.
She summoned the Level 10 AI with a satisfied smile.
Three letters in English.
“Jun. Seo. Jun? Not Shin Ha-yeon?”
The Level 10 AI had changed?
Her rival (not really) and nemesis (not really) wouldn’t have let this position slip away. Not with that personality.
“Seo Jun… I feel like I’ve heard that name before.”
Korean names were as unfamiliar as ever.
“Probably signed with a Professional Team. Since it doesn’t ring a bell, he’s either a rookie or riding the bench, so I haven’t heard from him since.”
Time for a match.
It had been a while since she’d fought.
She adjusted her grip on her sword.
Her opponent charged at her.
Clang!
“What?”
This way of starting the fight…
Shin Ha-yeon?
Clang! Clang!
“What?”
This style…
Baek Do-yul?
“What? What?”
Her blue eyes trembled uncontrollably.
“What… what is this? Did Baek Do-yul and Shin Ha-yeon combine their styles?”
That couldn’t be.
Which meant this person was blending both their sword styles.
Every pro knows how difficult it is to blend sword techniques to this level of perfection.
Rachel swallowed hard once more.
‘There’s no way he’s a bench player. A rookie? And this level of skill with the sword? Again? What’s happening in Korea?’
What kind of country was Korea?

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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