“Ughhh…! Seriously, you suck.”
“Agarri.”
The first game ended with a death count far exceeding kills, leaving only wounds behind.
As if losing wasn’t frustrating enough, Sunhyuk was scratching away next to me, doubling my annoyance.
Clicking to shoot in a game that requires adjusting the view with a mouse just isn’t for me.
A game where you have to operate both keyboard and mouse simultaneously.
It’s fine if it’s an RTS or AOS genre, but my RPG instincts deep-rooted since my previous life won’t allow for that.
In the end, I couldn’t handle the controls and shut off the shooting game.
“I’m playing something else.”
“Is there anything else to play?”
“Meore.”
I double-clicked the large icon that read ‘ML’ and covered my ears with my headphones.
Mecha of Legends, a mech-fighting AOS game.
Though the view is from above, the jagged design of the robots tugs at a man’s heartstrings.
It was a game I had been immersed in for years.
I logged in with familiarity and went straight to the character selection screen.
Through the sponge of my headphones and the partition, I could hear Sunhyuk’s voice.
“Wait, you’re playing that too?”
“Why, you wanna join?”
“I don’t play with noobs.”
Sunhyuk just uttered one of the sentences you should never say to a Korean.
How dare he call a gamer a noob?
I get it’s my first time playing, but that might sting a bit.
With a serious face, I stared at him.
“Get in here right now.”
“Looks like I gotta teach you a lesson, huh?”
“Your birthday’s slow, isn’t it?”
Sunhyuk, still cocky and clueless about the situation.
Without revealing any of my ID or rank, I decided to bet against his confidence.
“Loser of this 1v1 buys all the food at the PC room, deal?”
“Deal.”
Naively, Sunhyuk accepted my bet without suspicion.
It’s obvious; a girl who can’t even handle a famous shooting game won’t be able to do much.
…He’s probably thinking the same.
After sharing our IDs and adding each other as friends.
Once the 1v1 match was established, Sunhyuk’s face clearly showed his shock at the rank that appeared.
“Wait, what the hell… what’s her rank?!”
“I said I’d buy whatever you want?”
In Mecha of Legends, ranks are divided into a total of six.
From one to five, detailed by the number of stars: gray, bronze, silver, gold, white, and red.
And my rank? A single red star.
Compared to that, Sunhyuk’s rank was four silver stars.
Not low, but not particularly high either.
Unless someone is really good, it’s still a high rank compared to the average person who flits between bronze and gold.
It was only natural since I spent all my leftover time playing here.
Regardless of Sunhyuk’s surprise, our chosen characters appeared on the screen.
The main concept is a shotgun-like fan-shaped attack; a ranged dealer character called Shot Gun Shooter.
This mech shows up in every tournament, like a regular.
In comparison to Sunhyuk’s generic character choice, mine is….
“Wait, what kind of character is that?”
“You don’t know the Super God Defender? I’ll make a fool out of you.”
Considered a joke character down in the lower-ranked games, the Defender.
Despite not having a shield that naturally regenerates in battle, it has a self-repair skill that allows it to recover in the field during non-combat.
While its movement speed is 20% slower, it naturally comes with a 15% damage reduction.
It has no terrain-piercing emergency warps available to all characters, so it’s a mech where the disadvantages show more than the advantages.
Slow on joining large-scale battles, it lacks any surprising moments called instant damage that can be produced actively.
But still, it shines in honest operational fights.
“Yeah, that won’t work, huh?”
“Aw, damn it, everything’s blocked!”
The basic skill available is ‘Shield Concentration.’
It reduces damage from front attacks by 80% and reflects 75% of the original damage in a circular melee range.
The stance can be maintained for up to one second with a cooldown of seven seconds.
You might think the cooldown is quite long for a simple reflection skill, but the reason lies in the skill’s additional feature.
[On successful reflection of an attack, ‘Shield Concentration’s’ total cooldown is reduced by 50%.]
From the opponent’s perspective, even if they’re an attacking ranged dealer, when they attack from afar, they have to deal with the reflected damage through the skill meant to take down minions.
Yet trying to fight close up, where timing for reflection would be difficult, would favor the Defender’s side.
Of course, this is only when the reflection concept is effectively utilized.
These silver rank users make actions easily predictable, so they’ll easily get wiped out.
“Ugh, damn it, come on!”
“Wow, Mari, you’re using the Defender well, it’s supposed to be really hard.”
Taehyun and Dongha, who came out after finishing a round of Vigilante.
The two of them leaned back in chairs behind us, watching how the match was going.
“Ah! You’re dead-!”
As soon as Sunhyuk’s character died, the heads of the two who were resting against the back of the chair fell back in despair.
Confident of victory, I stretched my clasped hands forward and yawned lightly.
With black noodles exuding an alluring aroma, this is what PC rooms are known for.
“Bring me some japaXti.”
“I’ve not lost yet!”
In a usual match setup, or in a top-tier game, a slow Defender would be easily overwhelmed, but right now it’s a 1v1.
At the point where I’ve generously given money for kills, Sunhyuk had no way to win.
“Tsk, you really don’t know when to throw in the towel.”
I clicked my tongue and mocked him, continuing with the game.
Eventually, trapped in an honest battle of operations and self-repair, Sunhyuk pushed back to the second interception and finally had to admit defeat.
He probably didn’t expect it to be that humiliating, so mid-game, he quit and silently ordered food.
Then, still unable to comprehend it, he suggested a second match while shoveling fried rice into his mouth.
“Hey, let’s switch characters and do another round.”
“You suck, I’m not playing with a noob.”
“Aw, come on! It was totally a bad match-up!”
Returning his previous insult from the shooting game, Sunhyuk, unable to accept the difference in skill, argued that it was just a bad match-up.
How dare that low-ranked player rebuttal?
Slurping up my japaXti, I asked nonchalantly.
“Really? What’s the prize this time?”
“PC room time.”
“Deal.”
There’s no reason to turn down free money.
Thus began the second game.
We just switched our mechs and continued, but since I was a regular user of the Defender as my main, I….
Focused on players that would be the most infuriating to use the Defender against and wiped the floor with them.
I would dig into the weakness that only allows forward guarding with the initial defensive skill, deliberately mixing it up and hitting from behind.
Lightly knocking their skills out of the way with basic attacks, then using skills later.
Even if hit directly by interception, I’d come in at the self-repair timing and cancel it out.
Ultimately, it was around the time I pushed back to the second interception again that he finally admitted defeat.
“Ugh, I’m done, seriously, this game is stupid.”
“Thanks for the compliment, now about that PC room time.”
“Ah, shit….”
I accepted the 3,000 won for the two hours of pre-paid PC room time and tucked it into my wallet.
As I looked out the window at the darkening sky, I stood up while being conscious of the remaining five minutes on my screen.
It was quite a wholesome day when considered in terms of camaraderie.
“Ughhh…! Hoo.”
As I left the PC room, I stretched my hands upward while letting out a sigh.
It strangely felt more tiring than playing at home.
After stepping down from the third floor down to the city, I began to separate amiably, tearing ourselves apart at suitable locations.
“Bye-”
Since Sunhyuk and Dongha seemed to live in an apartment a bit closer to the PC room, they walked the same path together.
Meanwhile, Taehyun and I strangely kept crossing paths.
Contrary to my assumption that we’d naturally separate at some point, our steps kept overlapping, which made me question it.
“Taehyun, where do you live?”
“Huh? I live in Bitsaem Apartment.”
‘What? Same apartment?’
I asked for confirmation, and indeed.
I was surprised to find out that even though we hung out at school together, I didn’t even know we lived in the same apartment.
“What building?”
“I’m in Building 202.”
And once again, I was taken aback that we lived in the same building.
No way! We’ve never had overlapping school times?
It’s possible we missed each other, but did we never overlap school hours like this?
Of course, I did often take a detour to the laundry or a mart, but….
Thinking it over, I couldn’t really say we’ve never crossed paths.
Anyway, we got into the same elevator, with the first stop being the 4th floor.
Since I was closer to the buttons, I casually asked Taehyun.
“What floor are you on?”
“I’m on the 17th.”
“Whoa, you live pretty high up.”
Taehyun replied flatly that he was on the 17th, and I pressed the button for that floor while letting out a brief sigh.
I wonder why he lives up so high.
If it breaks down on inspection day, then what?
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