“Oi, Hideki. Long time no see eh? Bullying low leveled players again are we? Ah! I forgot. A bully only bullies, nothing more.”

A look at both players’ level and one would notice that they were both level 4. A confrontation between two level 4 players would be quiet shocking and at the same time interesting to the current mainstream players.

“I see you haven’t wiped that ugly smug off our face yet. Are you looking to get beaten or what?” Hideki grinned. “Oh yeah. I remember now. You owe me a match and I owe you a beating right?”

Sato shrugged “What ever makes you happy. But it seems like you’re quite busy eh?”

Chuckling creepily, Hideki said “You don’t need to worry about this one. Once I’m done with him, it would be your turn.”

“I don’t think so. As you said, Infinite Realm pursues reality. What do you think will happen if someone screams for the city guards. You can probably kill that dude over there before he screams but can you do the same to me? If you can’t, they I hope you are prepared for the consequences.”

Hideki narrowed his eyes slowly. “What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“And you think I’d believe that.” While speaking, Hideki signaled for the two men together with the ranger from earlier to circle Sato.

Ignoring their movements, Sato spread his arms out nonchalantly “I don’t really care what you think. I just happened to have noticed you from across the street and recalling our previous bet, I came over.” He then smiled tauntingly “Don’t tell me that the great Grey Night Hideki is scared of me?”

Hideki frowned. Lifting up an arm, Hideki addressed his teammates “Stop! This idiot actually takes me as a joke. It wouldn’t do my name any good if I don’t murder this bastard.” Facing Sato, he continued “You want a fight? Fine, let’s head out to the fields. I’d like to see how long you afford can keep smiling.”

Saying so, Hideki left the alley with the two men propping up the cursemancer to follow them while the ranger followed behind. Sato, being cautious, stayed behind the team.

Since the Public market wasn’t so far from the West gate, it took them only a few minutes to reach it. Stepping out of the gate, the group walked off for about 300 metres away from the gate so as to avoid the guards noticing the commotion caused from their fight.

Finding a clearing, Sato and Hideki took their stances with the others acting as spectators.

Unsheathing his pair of twin blades and pointing one of them, Hideki grinned widely “Hehe, remember to record this moment as the day you lost to Grey Night Hideki.”

“It’s a good thing this game has a record function just in case you plan to give silly excuses for your loss.” Sato smiled.

“Hmph. [Fade]” Saying so, Hideki used the assassin class’ signature stealth skill and disappeared from view.

“Going into stealth in the presence of your enemy. You still haven’t learnt enough, Hideki.” Sato shook his head.

‘Right.’

Sato skillfully unsheathed his sword and it sword towards his right and felt his blade clashing with an object with less resistance than he had expected.

*clang*

‘Shit!’ Noticing that what he had clashed with wasn’t Hideki’s dagger but a round object, Sato cursed his luck and tried to retreat backwards.

*boom*

A loud explosion followed the sound of metal striking upon metal like the accompaniment of the vocals in Mozart’s Lacrimosa.

-27 (83/110 Sato’s HP)

Upon clashing with the object, a somewhat huge explosion sounded, blasting Sato a few metres away from his original position. The ground where he originally stood was scorched black with his outfit having burnt patches in a few places.

“One move and you’re already beat. Just die!” Appearing behind Sato, Hideki stabbed his right dagger towards his back. However, Sato reacted quickly, abruptly shifting to his side. After which he hacked his sword towards his back unleashing a deadly assault right at Hideki.

*clang*

Hideki, reading Sato’s moves, lifted the dagger in his left hand and managed to block the attack due to his superior [Dexterity]. Borrowing from the remnant force of the slash, he retreated a few steps backwards attaining enough distance to orient himself.

Sato, despite just making a move, rushed towards Hideki slashing his sword out for another strike in an attempt to prevent Hideki from entering stealth once more and pulling such a trick again.

“If you think that every assassin is only good for stealth combats then think again.”

Rather than bracing himself for the attack, Hideki ran towards it intending to go head to head with Sato. He launched a jab-like strike with his right dagger that looked quite ordinary to the common eye but gave off a feeling of being dangerous.

‘Hmm?’ Seeing this attack, Sato was surprised as the attack performed by Hideki, despite alerting his senses, was not a skill but a martial technique.

VR games aimed to pursue reality in all aspects.This sentence might seem simple to most people but it has an underlying effect to players. In the same way Hideki planned to murder the cursemancer in town since it is possible to do the same in reality, players can make use of the above sentence to find loopholes in VR games.

When two players of the same class possess the same level, same in-game skills, same amount of attribute points in the same attribute, an inevitable draw should be expected. However this is not so. Why? Because their gaming skills, reasoning and pattern of behaviour varies. Now supposing all the above mentioned features are the exact same for both players, what can one of them use to triumph the other? Martial techniques.

VR games aim to pursue reality. This implies that whatever that can be performed in real life can be performed in the right VR game. If one of aforementioned combatants is aware of a martial art skill or technique that the other isn’t, he stands a chance of attaining victory. Because of this, most professional gamers tend to take martial arts classes in renowned dojos, hire a personal trainer or, especially in the cases of big guilds and clubs, start a dojo of their own with reputable martial artists as teachers. The aim; to be able to master as much martial techniques and arts that will help them triumph over their opponents easily especially in a case here there’s a no or a negligible difference in attribute points or in scenarios where in-game skills can’t be used.

The very attack performed by Hideki was a martial technique that was aimed at coping with many different scenarios and responses from its target despite seeming like a simple jab strike.

Normally, this attack is good and suitable to use against any other player but it happened to be that the target was Sato, not any other player.

“[Horizontal slash]”

Realising that Sato had grasped the weakness of his martial technique, Hideki decisively struck against his sword as it was too late to retreat.

*clang*

Once more, he borrowed from the force of the attack to retreat but this time, he received a damage value of -2.

‘His [Strength] is higher than mine though not by much.’

As an assassin class player, Hideki focused most of his attribute points on [Dexterity], [Agility] and [Strength] but when compared to that of a strength based player like a berserker or guardian, Hideki’s [Strength] would be on the losing edge.

Rather than rushing forward like before, Sato stood up straight and smiled at Hideki.

Hideki frowned “You just got lucky with your skill.”

Sato chuckled and then said in the same tone as Hideki did before “If you think that every swordsman is only good with in-game skills then think again.”

Immediately, he rushed towards Hideki but this time, he held his sword in a reverse grip.

Hideki frowned and prepared to face the attack when Sato abruptly slashed downwards. Dodging it by a hair’s width, Hideki was about to counter when Sato changed his sword grip with the momentum of his previous attack, and hacked forward this time but in a horizontal form.

Hideki was surprised but still managed to react barely in time due to his superior [Agility] but even so, Sato borrowed the momentum and once again changed to a reverse grip and slashed forward.

‘A martial skill?’ thought Hideki but he didn’t have the luxury of time to confirm his thoughts as he tried to dodge.

Succeeding at that again, Hideki was prepared this time for Sato’s changing of grip style but what he didn’t expect was that Sato held his sword in a reverse grip an executed a sword art finally landing a blow on him.

-9 (99/110 Hideki’s HP)

Hideki tried to retreat safely but Sato didn’t let him off easily. In the end, Hideki had separated himself from Sato but that wasn’t until he lost 23 more HP.

“In the end, you still are weak Hideki.”