[General/BeefStock: What is this? Is a 1:1 duel popping up?]
[System: Ornament performs a dance of joy.]
[General/Mikkuri: Hurry ㄱㄱㄱㄱㄱㄱㄱ]
[General/Amjeong: Selling appearance-change coupons, whisper first.]
[System: Pyeongchang-dong Sirasoni urges Ignis on.]
[System: BeefStock performs a cheering dance.]
What was this, all of a sudden? A 1:1 duel? Here?
It was swept away by the rapidly rising general chat and he could not see it, but whether a user named BbungBbungBbang was sending him whispers or not, the whisper notification kept ringing.
Without the slightest hesitation, Yeonjun pressed the reject button.
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: ?????]
BbungBbungBbang was flustered. Why was he rejecting it? Why was he not answering?
BbungBbungBbang had waited nearly two years for the day he could duel Ignis. He could not miss this chance.
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Why are you rejecting?]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Scared?]
[System: Would you like to accept a 1:1 duel with BbungBbungBbang?]
[Accept]/[Reject]
Yeonjun could hardly grasp what on earth was happening.
Why had users suddenly swarmed in like this? Who was this user who kept sending duel requests? What had people seen, and where, for the number of spectators to keep increasing?
Only after Yeonjun moved the tab to whispers so that general chat would not show did he finally confirm the whispers BbungBbungBbang had sent.
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Excuse me, Ignis-nim.]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Are you really Ignis-nim?]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Why aren’t you answering?]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Excuse me.]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Are you ignoring me on purpose??]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: ?]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Since you’ve returned,]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Could you have just one duel with me?]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Why are you rejecting?]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Scared?]
For a moment, everything around Yeonjun felt distant.
The feeling of becoming a spectacle for countless people. Since their gazes were by no means entirely positive, it stirred up an unpleasant sense of déjà vu.
Yeonjun remembered the sentences that had flashed past in general chat a little earlier.
They said he was a Named.
What is this?
Why isn’t he doing anything?
Why is his equipment like that?
I thought he’d be something amazing, but he’s doing nothing. Has he not even cleared the raid yet?
Isn’t that just max-level basic gear?
Boring. If he does a 1:1 with Bbang-nim, he’ll get crushed. When is it starting?
His head hurt from the endless text of people who did not even know him guessing and talking about him.
Voices of people whose faces he could not even remember overlapped over the chat.
Wow, he got moved from Cloud to Snow. How did he pull that off?
Did he use the CEO’s connections?
If he’d hit the CEO, it wouldn’t have ended with a demotion.
I knew something was strange from when he got promoted to senior associate so quickly.
Did he get pushed out after riding a line? Poor guy. Cloud must have had fierce competition during placement.
He wanted to run away somewhere, anywhere, from the voices of many people murmuring and chattering. But he could not.
What about now? If Yeonjun turned off the computer just like this, he could run away as much as he wanted.
But would that really be running away?
He did not know when, where, or what kind of talk had spread for people to gather this instantly, but now that his location had been exposed once, he would not be able to live like before, with no one recognizing him.
His character had already been exposed, so there were bound to be more than one or two users who had one-sidedly favorited him.
Since location tracking was possible with a one-sided friend add alone, users would follow him no matter where he went.
It would go up on the community too, and probably show up on game gossip channels.
Ignis-nim, why did you reject the duel back then?
Are you not confident?
They said you were a Named, but you’re just doing nothing?
What, you’re nothing special.
Imagined voices filled Yeonjun’s head.
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Say something at least.]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Try saying something.]
‘What the hell did you do?’
‘We need you to talk so we know what happened.’
‘Yeonjun, what happened?’
‘Why don’t you ever say anything?’
When his family collapsed because of his father’s illness and he had to hurriedly prepare for a rental home, when he withdrew from every club he had been active in, cut off contact with the friends he had hung out with, and disappeared.
When he rejected Chief Joo’s blatant advances and was demoted, he had heard the same thing countless times.
You don’t talk. Why do you try to carry everything alone?
Each time, Yeonjun swallowed his feelings by himself.
If I talk? Then what changes? Does someone else solve the problem for me?
Joy, when shared, becomes resentment.
Sadness, when shared, becomes weakness.
Even if he talked, the only things that would spread endlessly were rumors he could not control.
“I heard his family looked pretty well off, but they went completely under.”
“Did you know? Yeonjun-ssi seems to be popular with gay guys.”
This was the fate suffered by people who stood far above others.
When Yeonjun was doing well, everyone praised his abilities, but the moment he stumbled, they were fully prepared to laugh and say, See? No one in the world is perfect.
At the stories people spewed without knowing anything, Yeonjun felt as if the threshold he had kept pressed down until now had burst with a snap.
‘What, they said he was a Named, but he’s nothing special?’
The moment a chat from some user whose nickname he had not even seen shot up the scroll, as if provoking Yeonjun, he gripped the mouse tightly.
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: If someone talks to you, you’re supposed to answer.]
[Whisper/BbungBbungBbang: Are you going to keep ignoring me?]
To provoke Yeonjun, who was standing there blankly, BbungBbungBbang sent another duel request.
[System: Would you like to accept a 1:1 duel with BbungBbungBbang?]
[Accept]/[Reject]
Yeonjun recalled the conversation with Haesal, who had spent the past two weeks following him around and trying to persuade him until he was sick of it.
[Dohae] But hyung, I really can break this down and guarantee it. 9:54 PM
[Dohae] Among the current Flammer rankers, there isn’t a single Flammer who can maintain stacks without Fair Wind. 9:54 PM
[Dohae] Even if you don’t believe me, you can believe this. 9:55 PM
He had no idea what Haesal was “breaking down and guaranteeing,” but Haesal was not just some user passing by. He was a ranker maintaining his ranking in real time, so it probably was not wrong information.
Scared? Me? It was already ridiculous that a Flammer who could not even maintain stacks was sitting at number one as a ranker, and he thought I was scared?
They said that when a person received too much stress, something in their head could snap.
In a fit of anger, Yeonjun pressed accept.
Immediately, he was forcibly switched into combat mode, and his equipment changed to the level-80 crafted set Haesal had previously given him.
Crafted gear, not even raid gear? General chat seemed to stir once more, but it did not enter his eyes.
The 1:1 duel mode was a special state that could only be used in PvP zones. During the duel, except for the two participants, other users could neither attack nor be attacked.
Right away, a white guideline appeared on the field, marking the out-of-bounds line and designating the battle zone.
[System: The battle will begin shortly.]
[System: 3 seconds before battle begins.]
[System: 2 seconds before battle begins.]
[System: 1 second before battle begins.]
[System: Battle start!]
Yeonjun watched the countdown pass rapidly as if he were entranced, then adjusted his grip on the mouse.
If it was a 1:1 mirror match, he had done those to the point of exhaustion ten years ago.
There had been dozens, hundreds of Flammers who rushed in, desperate to beat Yeonjun somehow.
The pattern was so obvious that Yeonjun moved his character as if he already knew how BbungBbungBbang would come at him.
First, he would fire off a mid-range skill to try to create distance. Then he would fall back once and wait to see how Yeonjun approached for the first attack.
After that, he would dash in immediately and try to land a close-range combo.
So Yeonjun used a defensive skill, lowered his body, and the instant the guy tried to use a retreat skill to fall back, Yeonjun dashed after him.
[System: <Silent Vampire>]
Perhaps he had not expected Yeonjun to close in so suddenly, because BbungBbungBbang fumbled and dodged to the left. But Yeonjun’s close-range skill landed cleanly first.
‘Slow.’
[System: <Flame Slash>]
If he was going to retreat there, he should have gone to the right, not the left, and his timing was not just slow, but far too slow.
It was no different from begging Yeonjun to aim straight at him and hit him.
How was he a ranker when this was all his movement amounted to? Did anyone do PvP these days?
Was it considered manners now to just swing a skill anywhere and have the opponent come charging in with their body to take it?
Taking advantage of the moment BbungBbungBbang’s body froze from the first skill combo, Yeonjun immediately fed him the second combo.
[System: <Salamander Kiss>]
The long blade danced elegantly as it burned, drawing a semicircular arc.
BbungBbungBbang barely recovered from the stun and tried to counterattack, but Yeonjun was faster, creating distance with a backflip.
Then, before BbungBbungBbang could rush in again, he spun out an area-of-effect skill to buy time and keep him from coming closer.
[System: <Ignition Blade>]
In the past as well, the most common misconception people had about Yeonjun was the mistaken idea that, because it was a mirror match, his conditions and his opponent’s conditions would be similar.
Similar skills. Similar settings. In the end, wouldn’t it just be a fight decided by whose hands were faster or whose equipment was better? It was a very firm misconception.
The users watching Yeonjun and BbungBbungBbang were the same.
If both sides were Flammers and their skills and settings were identical, then shouldn’t BbungBbungBbang, whose equipment was obviously better, have the advantage?
But that question was wrong from the premise.
Yeonjun had no intention of taking even a single hit.
And he had no intention of missing even a single strike.
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