Duel

Once the timer hit zero, all noise from the stands muted somehow.

The audience was still chattering, but inside the ring, we couldn't hear them.

A good system for a duel I suppose, people can't fight at their best while being distracted by an audience.

However, I wasn't given any more time to think about that, because the drunkard calling himself 'Daisuki' was sprinting towards me.

He wasn't very fast, I noted.

Rushing forward to meet his strike with my spear, he swung his sword horizontally, aiming to cleave my ribcage open.

How do I block?

No, don't block, dodge.

Jumping backwards with strengthened muscles, I narrowly avoided the swipe. To my surprise, he managed to disperse the momentum of his fruitless strike by throwing the sword in the air and nimbly catching it right after. I had no time to counter-attack.

Isn't he supposed to be drunk?

It's difficult to predict his moves: he stumbles around as if drunk, but he doesn't always act like it.

And it looks like I got my answer as to whether or not beta testers have experience using their weapons.

But my Agility is much higher, so that must count for something.

Making sure I'm not the passive one in this battle, I rushed towards him as well.

He stepped forwards suddenly and swung his sword upwards, but he was too far out of range and missed completely, although his sword glanced the edge of my spear as I tried to thrust it forwards. The spear spun out of position until I couldn't control it while moving at this pace.

Trying to still get a strike on him, I gripped my spear by the near end of it and swiped horizontally, not realizing how idiotic the move I had just tried really was.

He quickly recovered and tried to cut my spear in two by swinging downwards, and while he didn't manage to break it or knock it out of my hands due to my strength, he managed to loosen my grip, which was already loose due to holding the spear by the near end of the shaft, removing nearly all control I had over my weapon. Further, his sword was now pointed towards my chest.

Bringing his sword back near his body in a thrusting movement, positioning the hilt near his chest, he thrust towards my heart, aiming to kill.

I will not die to some cowardly Japanese gamer!

Having little control over my spear, with no time to reposition my grip, I was forced to drop it and get my hands dirty.

He didn't expect me to drop my weapon, but due to my superior Agility I was able to sway far out of the way of his blow and quickly retreat. It would have been foolish to attempt continued close combat - his sword was hovering right next to me, and could have easily cut through me while I stood there attempting a strike.

I hovered just out of reach of his sword, trying to rile up this drunkard. After all, even if he could still pull off skills easily, he had declared this fight in a rash temperament, and now followed me angrily around the arena.

He occasionally charged forwards, but I stayed on my toes and easily kept out of reach. He was becoming increasingly more desperate, chasing me around the area. I would occasionally take a few steps towards the fallen spear, and he would step back aggressively in that direction, as if guarding it. However, I kept my fists up, and he was reluctant to risk a strike by a player with much higher stats. This led to a stalemate for about 30 seconds.

Suddenly, he lunged far forwards, grunting loudly as he tried to pin me against the edge of the arena. I sidestepped, but this time I rushed right at him after this, grabbing his sword by the hilt with one hand and punching him firmly in the face with the other. After the punch, I shifted subtly and gouged at his eye in the aftermath. As he tried to keep a hold on his sword while flinching backwards and partially blinded, I delivered a cut to the throat with my hand, and he keeled over and fell back.

I swarmed over him, punching, eye-gouging and kicking until he let go of his sword.

I grabbed his sword, and used its hilt to smash his skull, causing a crack.

This means I might've just given him brain damage, but he's Japanese so it won't make much of a difference.

Besides, I've trained at boxing enough that I have plenty of damage to the frontal lobe, but I enjoyed it. I'm just spreading the fun.

And he will die soon after, so it didn't make a difference.

As he lay on the ground, I boastfully show a middle finger to the worried, squealing crowd, and walk towards the spear. Picking my spear from the ground, I launched myself at him as he blindly shuffled to his feet, intending to finish this in one blow.

One of his eyes was blinded, he was in too much pain to function properly, and he had no time to respond to my attack.

If this attack doesn't end in my victory, I blame the Japanese's cursed lands for it!

Impaling his chest with the tip of my spear, I simply smiled at the man's face; his lungs were punctured and he had no air to even scream.

I expected something as he reached towards his pocket, using the last embers of his life force, but in the end, his arms went limp before he came within an inch of his goal.

[WINNER: HEGEMANIAC

LOSER: DAISUKI

REWARD: EVERYTHING

VICTOR, PLEASE SPEAK TO THE CROWD, TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR SUPPORT]

I have slain this Japanese devil, and I feel no regret for my righteous actions.

Looking towards the stands for the first time since the match started, I saw the audience's face contorting with horror, with a few even vomiting.

However, no one had left during the match, no matter how disgusted they were.

'Tis human nature after all, whether they admit it or not, everyone is interested in brutality.

There's a reason why the Colosseum in Rome was so popular; people enjoyed seeing the warrior equivalent of slaves fighting for their lives and slaughtering their enemies in the most brutal way possible. It was even built as a "gift" for the citizens.

"M-MONSTER!" screamed one man in the crowd.

This led to more people raising their voices and screaming discontent.

Truly, what happened to the Japanese? They went from committing war crimes to complaining over one man's death. Not to mention how they seem to enjoy dressing men up as girls nowadays.

I think the radiation from that nuke mutated their brains. No wonder they seem to be getting worse and worse, the radiation is still present in the Japanese lands.

That must be why I've felt cursed since I came here.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" screamed one female, who was standing in the front of the audience and insistently following me around to scream at me.

In response, I recited a Chinese poem which I half-remembered learning to sing in my childhood, although I'm sure that I got some of it wrong since I was distracted by inspecting my rewards from the battle.

"wǒmén yòng yǐncáng de huǎngyán qīpiàn shìjiè

zài wēixiào bèihòu

bìng shèxiǎng yī gè xīnhuái juéwàng de jiāyuán —

zhēnxiāng yǐ cóng yōuyǎ zhōng zhuìluò."

Getting a display screen in front of me, asking if I "would like to leave the stadium", I decided to wait until I had sorted out what exactly I had gotten from this duel.

Dropping some of the items in my inventory that I had stolen to make room for the man's items, as a display screen told me my inventory was full and couldn't receive his items until I made space.

Checking my inventory, I noticed all the items I had gotten from the man were highlighted in red until I clicked on them to dismiss it.

Most of his stuff was useless or things I already had, but there were a few interesting items as well.

Like a stack of poison.

I assume he wanted to get those from his pocket since there were no other items that could be used to deal damage in his inventory.

After seeing the description of the item saying that "the poison had to be ingested through eating it or injecting it directly into the bloodstream", I lamented his stupidity.

The poison wouldn't have done anything to me even if he had gotten it, and why didn't he coat his blade with poison? Was he so hasty?

Then I got lucky.

Seeing virtually no other items of worth, I threw a hair tie - most likely a memento of his dead wife - on the ground and proceeded to check my stats page.

It looks like this time I couldn't choose which stat the points went to, as I noticed my STR stat had gone up by six and my AGI stat had gone up by three.

So he was a level three? Maybe if he wasn't Japanese and wasn't depressed he would've posed more of a challenge.

Now my STR was twenty-one and my AGI was eighteen. Not a balanced build, but I won't complain over free stat points.

Checking my level, I saw it had only gone up by… zero? So I was still level ten, just with a more filled EXP bar. Clearly the EXP I had gained from the fight wasn't that meaningful to me at this point.

It had said 'everything,' including levels, but it clearly had meant EXP. Though I'd prefer getting three levels and becoming strong incredibly fast through this, from a game designer's perspective it makes sense. I'd hoped for this idiotic Japanese game to have yet another bug I could exploit, but such an obvious thing is hard to get wrong, even by a Jap.

Looking back at the battle itself now, while I struggled at the start with this cheating Japanese beta-playing scumbag weasel, I can say I did well for someone with little experience in fighting here.

Also, wasn't that man supposed to be drunk? He was using techniques and executing moves that would cause a drunk man to keel over.

Perhaps it was ingrained from his time as a beta tester? Or the game was rubber-banding, to make the fight 'fair' in spite of his drunkenness?

I need to train my technique most of all. Using my spear for a horizontal sally was a silly idea, it's completely missing the point of the weapon - no pun intended. Clearly my instinct with the weapon wasn't honed enough, and I would need to put in further practice to become proficient in a tense situation.

This also revealed more important info: beta testers are a huge threat.

Sure, sure, I defeated one today, but he was a depressed, drunk man after his wife died, and this was only the beginning of the second day. He reached level three in around one day.

What'll happen when I meet a more skilled beta tester than him who's had much more time to hone their skills even further, players who are at the pinnacle of the game skill-wise? And not to mention how their knowledge of this game will still be a huge help even if some of it no longer applies, and they'll have all the time in the world to take advantage of that.

So this game is still risky, though I'll try to be cautious and minimise risk.

This game should quit playing games with my heart. In fact, I should stop with these games. I won't be able to have fun in the future if I die after all, sacrificing some temporary fun for long term gains is wholly worth it.

"But first…" I murmured while looking down at my spear, which had cracks in it and looked like it would break next time I used it. "I need a new weapon."

Retrieving the sword that Daisuki used, while still worn out after our battle and from his "adventuring" that most likely got his wife killed, it was better than the spear's pitiful state and good enough to be used temporarily.

While I'd prefer the spear, I'll use what I have to. I can't use the guardsman's lance properly unless I get on a horse or get more STR stats, and using it in this town would be too risky. I'll have to leave and level up first.

Clicking the "leave arena" button on the display screen in front of me, I got teleported back to where I met that pitiful Jap and wondered about my next plan of action.

POV Switch - 3rd

Inside a large, red room that radiated prestige and power, a man dressed in red and yellow and a woman dressed in blue were sitting at a table together.

It was a round, elegant room, with red carpets and a few religious paintings hung across the walls, although it had once been a shoddy office building.

The woman looked around, impressed but seemingly nervous.

The marble stoop she had climbed to enter was hidden as the man gently closed the door, before he came to sit opposite the woman, ignoring her quizzical looks.

"Why have you invited me?" she asked.

"Why so serious? You only just got here, why don't you appreciate the tea before asking so many questions?"

The man's words were hospitable, but his tone was mocking.

"I only asked one question. And of course I am being serious and want to get this over with, I have work to do," said the woman while starting to sip the tea laid out in front of her, despite her words.

"What work? You watch over a block of ice with no players. Speaking of which, you should be grateful to me, I have given you something to distract you from that crippling boredom of yours, after all," he said with a straight face.

Seeing her looking pale and slightly ill because of her depression and boredom being discovered so easily, Xing took the chance to humiliate her further.

"First you reject my goodwill, now you make as if to vomit over my table?" he said with mock surprise. "Truly disrespect of the highest order!"

"Shut up! What do you want?" she grumbled, snapping her fingers as the tea was cleaned up. "And where is this?"

"It is the Fallen God's Chinese boardroom, honestly just an office block - but he has decorated it so deceptively that it looks like something out of an old mansion. You said you were watching that player the imbecile Japanese have, what do you know about him?" he asked, getting to the point.

"Not much," she replied. "While I watched his actions after he robbed the whole marketplace, there isn't much information to glean from that. The system has him registered as 'Hegemaniac,' he uses a spear, and he is extremely ruthless in his actions."

"So you know nothing that I can't find out myself," he murmured while pulling out a cigarette. "Well, even if you're worthless- I mean, even if your information is quite worthless, would you like to watch this with me?" he said while pulling up a screen of a duel that was about to start.

As the woman looked closer, she saw it was a duel of 'Hegemaniac' against 'Daisuki'.

The fight started with Daisuki rushing towards his opponent, and the latter doing the same shortly after. The swordsman tried to slice the spearman's ribcage, with the latter dodging at the last second.

"Hmm. It seems that 'Daisuki' is a beta tester," said the woman after checking the records in the system.

"Yes. The Jap clearly has more combat expertise than this 'Hegemaniac' due to being a beta tester, as shown by that exchange. Although the spear has an advantage of range, Hegemaniac did not take advantage of it properly, and was reduced to dodging. But maybe he will get the hang of it now?"

Xing seemed almost disappointed when Hegemaniac was caught out trying a horizontal strike with the spear.

"This is a shame, the beta tester has far more skill. And our guy isn't doing great... Hegemaniac made a foolish attempt at a horizontal slash with his spear. His weapon had longer range, so all that he had to do was be patient and strike the opponent while remaining out of the sword's range. It's how a spear works, you just have to penetrate the other guy a few times before they can reach you."

The woman turned to the man, "I didn't know you were- cough, cough…" Cutting off her sentence by blowing his cigarette smoke in her face, the man turned his attention back to the battle.

Watching the spearman grip his spear loosely by the end of the shaft after a failed horizontal swing, the woman agreed, "Amateur move."

"Indeed."

They stayed silent as the swordsman nearly cut the spear in half, not managing to break it, but he managed to loosen the enemy's grip.

Daisuki returned his sword to his side, and thrust.

"He took too long to do that," Xing said. "But his sword was very well placed for it, so Hegemaniac didn't have the time to try and fight back."

The spearman dropped his spear, and made himself a brawler.

"Good choice," said Xing. "Bringing fists to a swordfight would generally be foolish, but he has higher Agility and this drunken oaf will never reach him. He's redeemable after all."

Remaining silent for the rest of the fight, they watched as the brawler picked his spear up and impaled the swordsman. "That's the match."

"So, what do you think of him?" asked the woman.

"He's inexperienced, but his potential shines through it all."

Finishing his cigarette, a fire started burning in his hands, incinerating the thing, and the flame extinguished as quickly as it was lit.

Seeing the Japanese players start insulting the man fighting for his life, Xing's face contorted in disgust. "Look at them! Such animals. They are jeering people for winning! It is poisoning the well... I hope this Hegemaniac poisons their water source soon!"

"Why do you hate the Japanese so much?" asked the woman.

"Tsk tsk, if you can't see how revolting these scum are then you never will."

"..."

"I have entertained you long enough, go back to that patch of ice you call your region," he said. "I hope you get some players soon enough, watching them in that place should be fun."

Deciding not to waste more time countering his insults, she disappeared.

Getting up from his chair, the man started walking towards a window in the room.

Seeing a great city, themed with red and yellow, same as his clothes, the man smiled.

"All of China is in my sights," he announced to no one in particular. "No other admin- no, no one, whoever they are, should stand in front of me, especially the other administrators. They don't understand the simple fact of letting players have free rein over their actions being the best way for them to grow powerful. Why would I ever let such imbeciles believe themselves to be supreme?"

Looking out at the city, Xing decided that it was time for a fireworks show.

The citizens loved those, after all, so his hand started glowing red, and eventually started spurting sparks. It then shot out extremely large balls of multicolored fire that exploded in the sky.

"Perfect. Flames and explosions are always soothing to watch, especially when they burn things down."