Sinuiju Free Market (10)

‘So my opponent is…….’

On the way out to the arena, Hyeonseong recalled the opponent shown to her on the panel.

‘A mage.’

The opponent possessed a trait not commonly seen in this type of arena. One-on-one duels in a confined space tended to be disadvantageous for mages.

‘Usually, anyway…….’

But the mage paired against Hyeonseong was far from that typical type.

‘From what I saw earlier, they used a style that rapidly cast small spells and didn’t shy away from close combat.’

It was the kind of type that was very rare for a mage. But Hyeonseong soon realized that her own standard for judgment had been set by dungeon raiding.

‘Well, of course. Dungeon raids, where you usually have to find monsters in wide-open spaces and kill them, are bound to call for a different fighting style than interpersonal combat in a place like this.’

As she reviewed her opponent’s combat style like that, Hyeonseong walked out to the center of the arena. At almost the same time, the mage also stepped out into the middle of the arena.

The moment the mage faced Hyeonseong, their gaze went to the pickaxe. The lower half of their face was covered with cloth, so her expression could not be seen, but it was easy enough to imagine what kind of face she was making.

‘Well, of course it’d look ridiculous.’

Hyeonseong also quickly examined the mage’s equipment. A short staff about the length of a forearm, robes, a wide-brimmed hat, and various accessories faintly visible between the sleeve hems and collar.

Aside from the fact that the overall appearance was rather plain, it was equipment typical of a mage.

‘A perfect opponent for testing things out.’

That was the point when she had finished analyzing even the opponent’s equipment. A brief announcement came over the speakers saying the match would begin soon. And the moment the announcement ended, a signal tone like the sound of a gong rang out.

Deeeeng—

The moment the signal sounded, the mage widened the distance and cast a spell. Several light projectiles, bearing the bluish-white hue unique to the light attribute, were created in an instant.

‘Looks like I’ll have to reveal one of my trump cards right from the start.’

Hyeonseong opened Infinite Corridor to an appropriate width. Infinite Corridor swallowed all of the incoming light projectiles and converted them into skill cards.

‘By the rules, I can’t use them right away, though.’

After swallowing the light projectiles, Hyeonseong closed Infinite Corridor. Beyond it, the mage was already casting another skill.

A barrage of light projectiles, doubled in number, flew toward Hyeonseong. She had no choice but to unfold Infinite Corridor once again.

‘The casting is fast, but the speed they fly in at is too high.’

Because of that, it seemed difficult to use the method of blocking one round and then advancing to narrow the distance. But it wasn’t as though Hyeonseong was only at a disadvantage.

‘Still, blocking them is manageable enough. If this pattern keeps repeating…….’

As she blocked the incoming light projectiles once more in the same way, Hyeonseong thought.

The same sort of exchange repeated several more times. Perhaps deciding that light projectiles alone were not enough, the mage summoned even faster-flying light spears and launched them as well. But Hyeonseong handled those just fine too.

After Hyeonseong blocked every ranged attack, the mage gripped her staff tightly. It seemed she had judged that ranged attacks alone would not work.

‘Then now she’ll try close combat on her side too.’

Hyeonseong also tightened her grip on the pickaxe. At that timing, the mage kicked off the ground and closed the distance.

Kaaang—

The blade of the pickaxe collided with a bluish-white light blade. That collision happened four or five more times in rapid succession.

Just as Hyeonseong had guessed, the mage had switched to a tactic of quickly pressing the attack at close range.

‘I knew this would happen.’

Hyeonseong knocked aside another descending light blade with her pickaxe. Immediately after that, she lowered her body. Two light projectiles collided above her head and canceled each other out.

The mage kept trying to press the attack with similar patterns. The pattern itself felt somewhat obvious, but because of the speed unique to the light attribute, Hyeonseong had to busily evade the attacks.

As she dodged attacks here and there like that, Hyeonseong focused on finding an opening in the mage.

‘If I can just make contact once.’

She dodged another attack. This time, it was a light blade aimed at her neck.

Perhaps because all of her attacks kept missing and the irritation had built up, the mage’s hands became rougher. Her attack speed increased that much more, and the density of her magic rose as well.

To an outside observer, it would have looked as if Hyeonseong had fallen into an even worse position. But Hyeonseong was not particularly flustered.

‘Whatever the case, she’s still slower than Hyeonyeong.’

Through things like acquiring skill cards and accompanying dungeon raids, Hyeonseong had often seen Hyeonyeong’s swordsmanship until now. For that reason, Hyeonseong’s sense of speed had been calibrated to Hyeonyeong’s level.

In other words, with her eyesight and instincts, she could follow the mage’s attacks perfectly well. It was just that Hyeonseong’s own physical stats were low, so the actual speed at which she dodged was a bit slower.

‘And…… when movements get that big and rushed, the chances of an opening appearing go up.’

Whooong—

Two light spears grazed past both temples. And at that moment, Hyeonseong caught the mage’s opening.

‘An attack really is out of the question…… just like I thought.’

As expected, she could not find an opening to end it all in one stroke. Instead, she was now able to try the tactic she had planned from the beginning.

Hyeonseong immediately activated the Magician’s Hand card and reached out.

Tak

The moment her hand touched the mage’s arm, something entered Hyeonseong’s hand. She checked the information on what she had grasped.

‘So it’s equipment that boosts casting speed.’

She quickly tossed the stolen item into Infinite Corridor. Seeing that, the mage’s eyes widened, and she checked her own arm.

“……!”

The soundlessly startled mage hurriedly swung her staff. Hyeonseong, who had been about to attack the mage while exploiting the opening, had to twist the direction of her pickaxe and block the light blade instead.

The mage’s close-range attacks continued rapidly. But they were not quite as threatening as before. That was because the speed at which the magic fired had become subtly slower.

At a glance, the difference did not look large, but from the perspective of directly facing it, it was a change one could feel strongly.

‘In combat, a lot gets decided by differences at the decimal-point level.’

A little earlier, she might have had to roll on the ground if things went wrong, but now at least there were no attacks so close that she had to evade that desperately.

She dodged several more attacks and looked for another opening. It seemed the mage was being quite wary because of having had her equipment stolen, but that was not much help once her rhythm had already been broken.

When she caught another opening, Hyeonseong reached out. This time too, with Magician’s Hand activated, she made contact with the mage’s body.

After quickly brushing the mage’s arm twice, two C-rank rings that slightly boosted magic firing speed entered Hyeonseong’s hand.

‘Come to think of it, do I have to return these later?’

As she tossed the equipment she had stolen this time into Infinite Corridor as well, Hyeonseong had a silly thought.

This would have been one thing if it were a safe practice match, but this was real combat. And her opponent certainly did not look like the kind of person whose circumstances deserved consideration.

‘If someone’s used to arena fights, they’re usually pretty predictable.’

Kkaang—

Once again, Hyeonseong struck aside the light blade flying at her neck with her pickaxe.

‘……Anyway, I’ve roughly confirmed the effect of the equipment-theft strategy.’

She had confirmed one of the things she wanted to test. Perhaps because the opponent was the type who relied heavily on support equipment, the effect had not been bad.

‘Then now there’s just one more thing that needs checking, right?’

Right after that, Hyeonseong activated her last remaining skill, Mad Collector’s Eye.

‘What should I target?’

Naturally, she had no intention whatsoever of aiming for the mage’s life. There was no reason to draw blood here.

‘For now…… I should target something easy to aim at.’

Hyeonseong soon set a target. The target she chose was the robe the mage was wearing.

The moment Hyeonseong cast her gaze toward the robe, golden dots appeared all over it.

‘There are more targetable points than I expected.’

After letting two or so of the mage’s attacks pass by, Hyeonseong seized her chance. She swung the pickaxe and struck the golden dot that had appeared over the chest of the robe.

The tip of the blade struck the dot exactly, and she yanked the pickaxe back with all her strength. The mage’s robe ripped cleanly in a long tear.

‘Now that I’ve damaged the robe, the only thing left is…….’

Hyeonseong’s eyes turned toward the staff being swung sharply.

Among the mage’s equipment, that staff was surely the true core piece. In terms of performance, and in terms of symbolism as well. So the next piece of equipment to target was the staff.

The effect of Mad Collector’s Eye appeared over the staff. Since it was a short, thin rod, she had wondered whether there would even be a weak point to target, but fortunately, a golden dot appeared properly.

With the target clear, there was no hesitation in Hyeonseong’s movements. The moment she dodged an attack, she exploited the opening she had found and swung the pickaxe.

Kak

The tip of the pickaxe struck the middle of the staff with force. The staff split into two pieces and broke.

The mage’s eyes widened in shock as she looked at the snapped staff.

Whooong—

Aiming for the moment the mage was flustered, Hyeonseong swung the pickaxe.

The swung pickaxe stopped just beside the mage’s temple. The mage’s gaze belatedly turned toward Hyeonseong’s pickaxe.

Her main equipment was gone, and a weapon was aimed at her vital point. There was nothing the mage could do. The mage lightly raised both hands to about shoulder height, indicating surrender.

“Match over—! And the winner is……!”

The name arbitrarily assigned to Hyeonseong boomed out from the speakers installed in the arena.

Only after confirming that the victory had been declared without any particular issue did Hyeonseong finally lower the pickaxe. Then she took out all three pieces of the mage’s equipment she had put into Infinite Corridor.

“Well…… sorry about the staff and the robe.”

Hyeonseong returned the equipment she had stolen with Magician’s Hand to the mage.

The mage reflexively snatched the equipment back. After checking the bracelet and rings here and there, the mage put the equipment back on.

“…….”

The mage glared at Hyeonseong silently for a moment, then soon dropped her hostility and gave a slight nod. After that, she turned away first.

‘Hmm, now that I gave those back, she probably won’t make too much of an issue over me wrecking some of her gear, right?’

As she left the arena and returned to the waiting room, Hyeonseong glanced back for a moment at the mage receding into the distance.

Magic-type equipment was in high demand even at middling grades. So if Hyeonseong had simply taken the equipment she had stolen from the mage and sold it, the profit would probably have been pretty decent.

But Hyeonseong had decided to just give the equipment back. Half of her purpose had been to experiment with skills anyway, and she had no intention of building useless grudges in a place like this.

‘The staff and robe might have been borrowed gear, but those accessories looked like her personal equipment no matter how I saw it. If I just snatched things like that and ran right in front of her, that’d be a perfect way to build resentment.’

At least until she got the auction-house entry ticket, she needed to avoid unnecessary friction. It would be a problem if she got into some dangerous situation or caused an incident bad enough to get herself thrown out before obtaining the entry ticket.

“Oh, oh, you’re back?”

When Hyeonseong returned to the waiting room, Haesu greeted her with wide eyes.

“B-But you really won with just those skills.”

Haesu kept talking to Hyeonseong as she flopped down into one of the chairs in the waiting room.

“Yeah, seriously. To be honest, even I wasn’t really sure it would work that well.”

“Huh? Then why…….”

“Well…… I told you earlier. Even if I threw in some half-baked attack skill, it wouldn’t be that useful. And that kind of thing isn’t really my aptitude anyway.”

Hyeonseong shrugged.

“But Unnie, will you really be okay for the next match too?”

This time, Hyeonyeong asked.

“With that fight just now, your whole skill combination and battle method have all been exposed. Then from the next opponent onward, you need to take into account the possibility that the same method won’t work.”

“That’s true, but it’s not like I’ve really got any skills worth switching in either.”

After fighting the mage, Hyeonseong had concluded that not one of the three skills she had chosen could be removed.

“Mad Collector’s Eye is absolutely necessary if I want to try destroying equipment. I need that to find the exact point I can break in one strike. Magician’s Hand is a means of definitely shaving down the enemy’s strength……. And as for Infinite Corridor, that one doesn’t even need explaining, right?”

If she absolutely had to exclude one, it would probably have been Magician’s Hand. Its usefulness dropped sharply against opponents who had almost no equipment worth stealing.

But even then, she could still confuse the enemy by stealing a main weapon or some other possession besides equipment. And Magician’s Hand was not usable only for stealing possessions.

So there was no real reason to remove Magician’s Hand from the skill list either.

“That’s true……. It really is the kind of combination where it’d be awkward to take something out and put something else in.”

Hyeonyeong quickly accepted Hyeonseong’s explanation.

“Well, don’t worry too much. No matter what, I won’t end up being the one dragging us down.”

“That’s not what I was worried about when I said that.”

At Hyeonseong’s words, Hyeonyeong replied with a straight face. Hyeonseong did not say anything more and merely shrugged lightly.

“Oh, it’s already your turn again, Hyeonyeong.”

At that timing, a notification came into the waiting room saying Hyeonyeong’s next opponent had been decided. Hyeonyeong nodded and stood up.