“...”
I try my hardest to stay quiet as I fall. I also must stay vigilant and ready to activate the skill with the right timing. Regarding this, you don’t really know how many times had to practice this ‘free falling’, or how many times ended up dying, my body splattered on the ground…
I think I’ve gotten a little height aversion from this.
The important thing about this tactic is that I must activate Grand Finale right before I smash into the ground. This way I won’t die from the falling damage, because I’ll be invulnerable, but it isn’t the important part… the important part is that if the skill activates just as I impact the ground, the area of effect will be right next to Makarel, and there won’t be any way for her to avoid it at all! Not even with the Blink skill!
I see Ricard, waiting right below. He then disappears as the shuttle opens, leaving only Makarel and all her kobolds - Ricard’s undead are already… well, mostly dead - in the area. Hey, yeah! I’ll manage to kill them all at the same time! Hahaha!
I manage to activate the Grand Finale skill right before impacting on the ground with a resounding thud.
Omg, this is painful! Ok, ok! It isn’t, because I’m invulnerable right now… but the image of it, and the experience of hurting so many times, are still engraved in my mind and I can’t stop myself from feeling the phantom pain.
Not like damage ‘hurts’ in the game. But I like to complain anyway. It’s because of the roleplay, I swear! Don’t look at me with those eyes!
“...human… nuke…! Hahaha…”
I barely manage to squeeze out those words before the Grand Finale’s light explosion activates. Right in front of me, Makarel’s looking back with a surprised expression on her face.
Hahaha! It serves you right! Your oh-so-high and mighty self is going to die because of a stupid scheme like this! I’m sure you never expected anything like this to happen!
She does manage to activate Blink, but it isn’t enough to escape the explosion because she was right at the center of it.
We got her! WE GOT HER!
Makarel is now history! We’re going to win this! Nobody believed in us, not even us, but we managed to do the impossible! Hahaha!
The light blinds me for a moment, as the brutal damage from the Grand Finale skill annihilates everything on its path. The Kobolds, the very few remaining undead, and Makarel will soon be turned into corpses.
It’s a shame I can’t see her expression right now. I would love to see it, and relish in this sense of superiority from having achieved something impossible! …it looks like I’ll have to settle with watching the replay later on.
“Ugh… huh…”
I sluggishly rise from the ground. It’s annoying having the stats reduced to a fourth. I feel weak now.
I look around, at the destruction caused by my skill. The corpses of the kobolds and undead fill my field of view. There’s not a single enemy or ally standing. Every single one of them is dead!
“Fufufu! Hahaha!”
I raise my hand in my usual laughing pose as I start my monologue. It’s the monologue required after one of my crazy plans works. I’m sure all the viewers are waiting for it.
“It all went according to plan! Nothing can survive the human nuke self-destructing plan! Hahaha!”
My gloating drops to a halt when I hear a voice talking behind me, from a slightly elevated position.
“Did you really think this would kill me?”
Like a robot, I slowly turn my head around, then the rest of my body. And when I see the speaker, I swear I can feel my soul leaving my body.
“H-how…? W-why?”
Fully encased in fire, and flying a meter over the ground, Makarel is looking at me with a nasty smile. Like what I did a moment ago, she’s relishing in her victory. Let’s be honest, having the stats reduced to a quarter is the same as being dead. There’s absolutely no way for me to survive if she decides to attack me.
Ugh, disgusting! Was I making such an appalling expression an instant ago? There’s no way, right? I’m sure I looked more normal.
“You see, Mad Rat… I knew you would try something crazy like this, I just didn’t know what you would do exactly! So I prepared for anything you could throw at me! Hahaha! So naive, to think your petty tricks would work against me!”
Makarel lets herself fall to the ground elegantly as she speaks.
She’s only slightly shorter than me, so now there’s no need for any of us to raise or lower our heads. Now that she’s this close, I can finally see her properly. Of course, I saw her in the replays, but it isn’t the same as seeing each other face to face.
Her champion has clear dragon traits. Were they called dragonoids? No, was it dragonewts? Hmm… maybe dragonborn? Aaaagh, I can’t remember! And Ricard corrected me quite a lot of times already…
Anyway! Her champion is slender, and scales cover most of the limb area. It also has big dragon wings, which allow her to fly, and a pair of pointed and sharp horns on her head. If they weren’t only aesthetic, I’m sure she could impale someone with those…
But the most striking is her face. Her sharp features and slightly prominent pointed teeth give her a fierce look. And those bright golden reptile eyes! So imposing and intimidating! I feel like a worm in front of her!
I unconsciously shiver. This is the gaze of an apex predator… not only because of her race but also because of her skills.
Oh, yeah! And fire is currently covering her whole body.
Hmm… how weird. I could swear there was no fire covering her before… It must be some kind of skill, then. Maybe she survived the Grand Finale thanks to it?
“Though I must admit you managed to surprise me and forced me to use my last resort…” She raises her sword up high once again, ready to deal the final blow. “Now, are you ready to die? This time, it’s finally my victory!”
“W-wait a moment!”
I can’t stop myself from asking her to stop. There’s no way for me to survive this with the lowered stats, but there’s something she said I can’t let slip.
“What do you mean by ‘finally’? Do I… know you somehow!?”
“...”
Her eyebrows twitch. Hah! Am I right, then?
“Tsk! So annoying!” She spits her next words. “What do you mean by ‘I know you’? I knew you were a dimwit, but are you really this dumb? Did you already forget about this name?”
She points over her head, at the champion’s mark. There, her name is clearly displayed for me to see.
Makarel.
Yeah, it says Makarel. I already knew your name, so what?
“...and?” I ask. I still don’t understand anything!
Her eyebrows twitch once again. “...’and?’, you ask!?” She angrily points her finger at me. “Are you trying to make a fool of me!? After so many times playing together, how can you forget about this name!?”
In anger, she raises her sword, ready to strike me and send me to my grave.
“W-wait a moment! I-i… I think I remember now!”
She lowers the sword. Haaa… looks like I can survive for a little while longer…
Now, think, Andreu! Think! Quickly! I must find an answer before she kills me, or I won’t be able to find the truth once I die and it’ll bug me eternally!
Makarel… Makarel… As I said before, this name reminds me of something… Where did I hear it before…?
Also… that condescending attitude, treating me like a fool… Not like I’ll refute her point of view because it’s kind of true, but… it still kind of hurts.
Wait a moment! That way of speaking, that nickname! And the fact that we played a lot in the past! There should be only one person who fits everything! But it can’t be! She should be somewhere else right now!
Because… the only one that can fit everything is my older sister, Marta…! She liked to use that nickname when we were kids!
Andreu.exe has stopped working.
Please wait while we reinitiate the OS… Aaaagh! Once again with this!? It is happening a lot more than usual lately… there must be some hardware problem somewhere.
I hit my head a few times until my thoughts clear up. The good old trick of hitting it until it works, hahaha…
Where was I? Oh, yeah… Marta. My older sister.
“M-mar…” Oh, no! I shouldn’t say her real name here! I don’t want to infringe upon the rules and be disqualified because of it! “I-i mean… sister... Sister!? Is it you!?”
She grins as I finally recognize her.
“It took you long enough! Hey there, brother… long time since we last played together, isn’t it!?”
“B-but why!? Why are you here?”
“*Sigh!* Do I really have to explain everything to you!? You never want to play with me, I had to think of something myself! So I decided to come and have some fun with you! Hahaha!”
Yeah… and I’m sure part of that fun is killing me in the most humiliating way imaginable… Like right now, when I can only drag myself around like a pathetic worm due to the reduced stats! Figuratively speaking.
“Anyway! I’ve always been beaten by you in games, but not this time! My time to destroy you has finally come, and you can do nothing against it! After so many defeats, my victory has finally come! Hahaha! I’m the best! And I’ll prove it now!”
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about this…
It’s been so long since we last played together. When was it? Was it… about the same time when Clara had those problems? Yeah, I think it was since then.
The thing is that Marta is very competitive. And I mean VERY competitive. Since we were kids, and because we’re only one year apart, we used to play together quite a lot. And she managed to beat everyone… except for me. And she’s still angry because of it.
Don’t misunderstand. It isn’t like I am better than her in every game, it’s just that my approach to games has always been… different.
While she perfected her moves and tried her best to improve, I just did random stuff that, somehow, worked. Well, sometimes. But the funny thing is that it always worked when it was AGAINST her.
You can imagine it like a rock-paper-scissors game. She won against most other players, while I lost against them. But when it came to me against her, she couldn’t predict my random actions and ended up losing.
She used to call me a cheater by then… How nostalgic.
“Aaagh! I hate that foolish expression! I’m sure you’re in your own world right now, thinking about unrelated stuff!”
Her shout snaps me out of my memories.
“N-no, wait! I swear I wasn’t!” Well, she got it right, I was. But I’ll first try to calm her down. “So, how are you doing, sis? Weren’t you supposed to be playing in the level 20 tournament? Why is a player like you in the lowest-level tournament!?”
“So what? I’m tired of serious fights, and it’s been so long since the three of us played together… And since you never want to play with me, I decided to come and force you into one of my own games!”
She smiles evilly. I’m sure that ‘game’ was to ‘punish’ me.
But that isn’t true! It isn’t like I have too much free time between the college stuff and the persistent insistence of Clara to spend time together. Plus I spend all my free time playing DMA…
Hahaha, now that I think about it, what a shameless excuse! If we both play DMA, we could easily play together at any time… It just never crossed my mind.
But she never asked either, so it isn’t only my fault!
I try to refute her words, but before I can, she puts her index finger on her lips, telling me to shut up.
“Not now, brother. We’ll talk about this later. Remember we’re not alone right now.”
She gestures with her hand, as if waving through something imaginary floating in the air. Oooh, yeah… the audience.
“Now then…” She grins. “This is goodbye, brother!”
“Wait…!”
I try to stop her, but it’s too late. Her sword pierces through my body and I receive the message that I died. When she retrieves her sword, my body falls to the ground, lifeless.
Aaaagh! I forgot about it because of the surprise, but the idea was to kill Makarel here so that we could have a chance to win this match! And now I’m dead but she’s still doing ok!
It looks like we lost this fight… I’m sorry, guys!
Or maybe not, because…
“SISTEEER!”
Oooooh, that’s a deafening and scary shout! It looks like a small but very dangerous monster is coming!
Hahaha! Put her in her place, Clara! Kill her! So we can win this match!
“Hooo, my cute little sister decided to show up to avenge our foolish brother!”
In my phantasmal form, I prepare to enjoy what’s going to happen next. I sit down on top of the nearest rock and take a comfortable position. Not a single one of the players can interact with me right now, but I can still see and hear everything.
It’s a shame there’s no popcorn...
A horrendous figure comes from one of the side passages. Wildly swinging her tentacles around, the figure closes up to the proud dragon humanoid. In contrast, the dragon calmly waits for the other to come closer.
Meanwhile, I feign eating imaginary popcorn. There aren’t real ones here, but I can still feign to eat them.
“Fight! Fight!” I say.
Not long after the conversation between Andreu and Marta, and using the rumors that were already circulating as a base, the viewers found the truth about Makarel. That she was one of the most famous players, and that she was using a side account so that she wouldn’t be recognized.
Some players complained about it being unfair. But the DMA staff ignored them, explaining that everything in the tournament is balanced and the only thing that matters is the players’ skill. And that only the dungeon stuff unlocked at or before player level 5 could be used, so everyone was playing on the same limitations and the matches were fair.
“...”
I try my hardest to stay quiet as I fall. I also must stay vigilant and ready to activate the skill with the right timing. Regarding this, you don’t really know how many times had to practice this ‘free falling’, or how many times ended up dying, my body splattered on the ground…
I think I’ve gotten a little height aversion from this.
The important thing about this tactic is that I must activate Grand Finale right before I smash into the ground. This way I won’t die from the falling damage, because I’ll be invulnerable, but it isn’t the important part… the important part is that if the skill activates just as I impact the ground, the area of effect will be right next to Makarel, and there won’t be any way for her to avoid it at all! Not even with the Blink skill!
I see Ricard, waiting right below. He then disappears as the shuttle opens, leaving only Makarel and all her kobolds - Ricard’s undead are already… well, mostly dead - in the area. Hey, yeah! I’ll manage to kill them all at the same time! Hahaha!
I manage to activate the Grand Finale skill right before impacting on the ground with a resounding thud.
Omg, this is painful! Ok, ok! It isn’t, because I’m invulnerable right now… but the image of it, and the experience of hurting so many times, are still engraved in my mind and I can’t stop myself from feeling the phantom pain.
Not like damage ‘hurts’ in the game. But I like to complain anyway. It’s because of the roleplay, I swear! Don’t look at me with those eyes!
“...human… nuke…! Hahaha…”
I barely manage to squeeze out those words before the Grand Finale’s light explosion activates. Right in front of me, Makarel’s looking back with a surprised expression on her face.
Hahaha! It serves you right! Your oh-so-high and mighty self is going to die because of a stupid scheme like this! I’m sure you never expected anything like this to happen!
She does manage to activate Blink, but it isn’t enough to escape the explosion because she was right at the center of it.
We got her! WE GOT HER!
Makarel is now history! We’re going to win this! Nobody believed in us, not even us, but we managed to do the impossible! Hahaha!
The light blinds me for a moment, as the brutal damage from the Grand Finale skill annihilates everything on its path. The Kobolds, the very few remaining undead, and Makarel will soon be turned into corpses.
It’s a shame I can’t see her expression right now. I would love to see it, and relish in this sense of superiority from having achieved something impossible! …it looks like I’ll have to settle with watching the replay later on.
“Ugh… huh…”
I sluggishly rise from the ground. It’s annoying having the stats reduced to a fourth. I feel weak now.
I look around, at the destruction caused by my skill. The corpses of the kobolds and undead fill my field of view. There’s not a single enemy or ally standing. Every single one of them is dead!
“Fufufu! Hahaha!”
I raise my hand in my usual laughing pose as I start my monologue. It’s the monologue required after one of my crazy plans works. I’m sure all the viewers are waiting for it.
“It all went according to plan! Nothing can survive the human nuke self-destructing plan! Hahaha!”
My gloating drops to a halt when I hear a voice talking behind me, from a slightly elevated position.
“Did you really think this would kill me?”
Like a robot, I slowly turn my head around, then the rest of my body. And when I see the speaker, I swear I can feel my soul leaving my body.
“H-how…? W-why?”
Fully encased in fire, and flying a meter over the ground, Makarel is looking at me with a nasty smile. Like what I did a moment ago, she’s relishing in her victory. Let’s be honest, having the stats reduced to a quarter is the same as being dead. There’s absolutely no way for me to survive if she decides to attack me.
Ugh, disgusting! Was I making such an appalling expression an instant ago? There’s no way, right? I’m sure I looked more normal.
“You see, Mad Rat… I knew you would try something crazy like this, I just didn’t know what you would do exactly! So I prepared for anything you could throw at me! Hahaha! So naive, to think your petty tricks would work against me!”
Makarel lets herself fall to the ground elegantly as she speaks.
She’s only slightly shorter than me, so now there’s no need for any of us to raise or lower our heads. Now that she’s this close, I can finally see her properly. Of course, I saw her in the replays, but it isn’t the same as seeing each other face to face.
Her champion has clear dragon traits. Were they called dragonoids? No, was it dragonewts? Hmm… maybe dragonborn? Aaaagh, I can’t remember! And Ricard corrected me quite a lot of times already…
Anyway! Her champion is slender, and scales cover most of the limb area. It also has big dragon wings, which allow her to fly, and a pair of pointed and sharp horns on her head. If they weren’t only aesthetic, I’m sure she could impale someone with those…
But the most striking is her face. Her sharp features and slightly prominent pointed teeth give her a fierce look. And those bright golden reptile eyes! So imposing and intimidating! I feel like a worm in front of her!
I unconsciously shiver. This is the gaze of an apex predator… not only because of her race but also because of her skills.
Oh, yeah! And fire is currently covering her whole body.
Hmm… how weird. I could swear there was no fire covering her before… It must be some kind of skill, then. Maybe she survived the Grand Finale thanks to it?
“Though I must admit you managed to surprise me and forced me to use my last resort…” She raises her sword up high once again, ready to deal the final blow. “Now, are you ready to die? This time, it’s finally my victory!”
“W-wait a moment!”
I can’t stop myself from asking her to stop. There’s no way for me to survive this with the lowered stats, but there’s something she said I can’t let slip.
“What do you mean by ‘finally’? Do I… know you somehow!?”
“...”
Her eyebrows twitch. Hah! Am I right, then?
“Tsk! So annoying!” She spits her next words. “What do you mean by ‘I know you’? I knew you were a dimwit, but are you really this dumb? Did you already forget about this name?”
She points over her head, at the champion’s mark. There, her name is clearly displayed for me to see.
Makarel.
Yeah, it says Makarel. I already knew your name, so what?
“...and?” I ask. I still don’t understand anything!
Her eyebrows twitch once again. “...’and?’, you ask!?” She angrily points her finger at me. “Are you trying to make a fool of me!? After so many times playing together, how can you forget about this name!?”
In anger, she raises her sword, ready to strike me and send me to my grave.
“W-wait a moment! I-i… I think I remember now!”
She lowers the sword. Haaa… looks like I can survive for a little while longer…
Now, think, Andreu! Think! Quickly! I must find an answer before she kills me, or I won’t be able to find the truth once I die and it’ll bug me eternally!
Makarel… Makarel… As I said before, this name reminds me of something… Where did I hear it before…?
Also… that condescending attitude, treating me like a fool… Not like I’ll refute her point of view because it’s kind of true, but… it still kind of hurts.
Wait a moment! That way of speaking, that nickname! And the fact that we played a lot in the past! There should be only one person who fits everything! But it can’t be! She should be somewhere else right now!
Because… the only one that can fit everything is my older sister, Marta…! She liked to use that nickname when we were kids!
Andreu.exe has stopped working.
Please wait while we reinitiate the OS… Aaaagh! Once again with this!? It is happening a lot more than usual lately… there must be some hardware problem somewhere.
I hit my head a few times until my thoughts clear up. The good old trick of hitting it until it works, hahaha…
Where was I? Oh, yeah… Marta. My older sister.
“M-mar…” Oh, no! I shouldn’t say her real name here! I don’t want to infringe upon the rules and be disqualified because of it! “I-i mean… sister... Sister!? Is it you!?”
She grins as I finally recognize her.
“It took you long enough! Hey there, brother… long time since we last played together, isn’t it!?”
“B-but why!? Why are you here?”
“*Sigh!* Do I really have to explain everything to you!? You never want to play with me, I had to think of something myself! So I decided to come and have some fun with you! Hahaha!”
Yeah… and I’m sure part of that fun is killing me in the most humiliating way imaginable… Like right now, when I can only drag myself around like a pathetic worm due to the reduced stats! Figuratively speaking.
“Anyway! I’ve always been beaten by you in games, but not this time! My time to destroy you has finally come, and you can do nothing against it! After so many defeats, my victory has finally come! Hahaha! I’m the best! And I’ll prove it now!”
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about this…
It’s been so long since we last played together. When was it? Was it… about the same time when Clara had those problems? Yeah, I think it was since then.
The thing is that Marta is very competitive. And I mean VERY competitive. Since we were kids, and because we’re only one year apart, we used to play together quite a lot. And she managed to beat everyone… except for me. And she’s still angry because of it.
Don’t misunderstand. It isn’t like I am better than her in every game, it’s just that my approach to games has always been… different.
While she perfected her moves and tried her best to improve, I just did random stuff that, somehow, worked. Well, sometimes. But the funny thing is that it always worked when it was AGAINST her.
You can imagine it like a rock-paper-scissors game. She won against most other players, while I lost against them. But when it came to me against her, she couldn’t predict my random actions and ended up losing.
She used to call me a cheater by then… How nostalgic.
“Aaagh! I hate that foolish expression! I’m sure you’re in your own world right now, thinking about unrelated stuff!”
Her shout snaps me out of my memories.
“N-no, wait! I swear I wasn’t!” Well, she got it right, I was. But I’ll first try to calm her down. “So, how are you doing, sis? Weren’t you supposed to be playing in the level 20 tournament? Why is a player like you in the lowest-level tournament!?”
“So what? I’m tired of serious fights, and it’s been so long since the three of us played together… And since you never want to play with me, I decided to come and force you into one of my own games!”
She smiles evilly. I’m sure that ‘game’ was to ‘punish’ me.
But that isn’t true! It isn’t like I have too much free time between the college stuff and the persistent insistence of Clara to spend time together. Plus I spend all my free time playing DMA…
Hahaha, now that I think about it, what a shameless excuse! If we both play DMA, we could easily play together at any time… It just never crossed my mind.
But she never asked either, so it isn’t only my fault!
I try to refute her words, but before I can, she puts her index finger on her lips, telling me to shut up.
“Not now, brother. We’ll talk about this later. Remember we’re not alone right now.”
She gestures with her hand, as if waving through something imaginary floating in the air. Oooh, yeah… the audience.
“Now then…” She grins. “This is goodbye, brother!”
“Wait…!”
I try to stop her, but it’s too late. Her sword pierces through my body and I receive the message that I died. When she retrieves her sword, my body falls to the ground, lifeless.
Aaaagh! I forgot about it because of the surprise, but the idea was to kill Makarel here so that we could have a chance to win this match! And now I’m dead but she’s still doing ok!
It looks like we lost this fight… I’m sorry, guys!
Or maybe not, because…
“SISTEEER!”
Oooooh, that’s a deafening and scary shout! It looks like a small but very dangerous monster is coming!
Hahaha! Put her in her place, Clara! Kill her! So we can win this match!
“Hooo, my cute little sister decided to show up to avenge our foolish brother!”
In my phantasmal form, I prepare to enjoy what’s going to happen next. I sit down on top of the nearest rock and take a comfortable position. Not a single one of the players can interact with me right now, but I can still see and hear everything.
It’s a shame there’s no popcorn...
A horrendous figure comes from one of the side passages. Wildly swinging her tentacles around, the figure closes up to the proud dragon humanoid. In contrast, the dragon calmly waits for the other to come closer.
Meanwhile, I feign eating imaginary popcorn. There aren’t real ones here, but I can still feign to eat them.
“Fight! Fight!” I say.
Not long after the conversation between Andreu and Marta, and using the rumors that were already circulating as a base, the viewers found the truth about Makarel. That she was one of the most famous players, and that she was using a side account so that she wouldn’t be recognized.
Some players complained about it being unfair. But the DMA staff ignored them, explaining that everything in the tournament is balanced and the only thing that matters is the players’ skill. And that only the dungeon stuff unlocked at or before player level 5 could be used, so everyone was playing on the same limitations and the matches were fair.
