Chapter 111

“Wow, you’re really bad at this.”

“Shut up.”

Leaving behind a record of deaths several times higher than kills, the first match ended with only wounds.

I was already frustrated at being so hopeless, and with Seonhyuk scratching at my side, it turned into a double annoyance event.

As expected, games where you shoot with a mouse while adjusting the viewpoint don’t suit me.

Games that require simultaneous control of both the keyboard and mouse.

Especially games in RTS or AOS genres might be fine, but the RPG instincts deeply etched into my fingers since my previous life don’t allow for simultaneous control.

In the end, I couldn’t handle the controls and turned off the shooting game.

“I’m playing something else.”

“Is there anything else you want to play?”

“Meorel.”

Double-clicking the large icon that read ‘ML,’ I covered my ears with the headphones that were hanging around my neck.

Mecha of Legends, an AOS genre game where you pit robots against each other.

Even though the viewpoint is from above, the sharply designed robots evoke the heart of a man.

It had been a game I had been addicted to and played continuously for several years.

Logging in comfortably, I went straight to the mech selection screen.

Through the blocked-off space and the partition, I heard Seonhyuk’s voice.

“What? You’re playing that too?”

“Why, do you want to play together?”

“I don’t play with noobs.”

Seonhyuk just said one of the sentences you should never say to a Korean.

How dare he call a gamer a noob?

I might let it slide since it’s his first time playing this game, but that might scratch me a bit.

Holding back my irritation, I looked sharply at the adjacent seat and said.

“Get in here now.”

“This brother is going to teach you a lesson.”

“You’re slow even on your birthday.”

Seonhyuk, who still didn’t grasp the situation, was confidently trying to make a bet without even showing his ID or rank.

“Whoever loses in a 1v1 has to buy the food they want from the PC room, deal?”

“Deal.”

Naively agreeing to the bet, Seonhyuk didn’t suspect a thing.

It’s obvious, a girl who can’t even play a popular shooting game, how well could she do?

…He’s probably thinking the same thing.

After giving him my ID and adding him as a friend.

Only after the 1v1 challenge was established did he see the rank, and his shock was clear as he shouted.

“What the hell, what’s her rank?!”

“You said you’d buy whatever.”

The ranks in Mecha of Legends are broadly divided into six categories.

Though they’re detailed down from one to five stars, the colors are gray, bronze, silver, gold, white, and red.

Among those, my rank had one red star.

In comparison, Seonhyuk’s rank had four silver stars.

While it wasn’t low, it also wasn’t particularly high.

Unless you’re exceptionally good at the game, just comparing him to ordinary players fluctuating between bronze and gold, this was still a significantly high rank.

It made sense since I spent all my leftover time here after doing household chores.

Regardless of Seonhyuk’s shock, the characters each chose appeared on the screen.

A shotgun-style fan-shaped attack was the main concept of the area damage dealer character Shot Gun Shooter.

It’s a mech that always shows up at every tournament and is a regular face.

In contrast to Seonhyuk’s safe character choice, mine was…

“What the hell is that character?”

“You don’t know the ultra god character Defender? I’ll make you a fool.”

In the lower district, Defender is treated as a character for entertainment.

Although it lacks the shield that regenerates naturally during combat, it has a self-repair skill that recovers in the field during non-combat.

While it has a flying speed reduced by 20%, it is equipped with a basic 15% damage reduction.

It lacks shared emergency warps that all characters have; in a way, this mech highlights its flaws more than its strengths.

Joining large-scale battles is slow, and there’s no impressive burst damage that one could actively produce.

But that much, it favors a straightforward operational fight.

“Yeah, that won’t work, will it?”

“Ah, damn it, everything’s blocked!”

The basic skill that’s initially unlocked, shield concentrated deployment.

It reduces damage from incoming attacks by 80% and reflects 75% of the original damage in a circular close-range.

The posture can be maintained for up to 1 second, with a cooldown of 7 seconds.

You might think a simple reflection ability has a long cooldown, but the reason lies in the skill’s additional function.

[Upon successful reflection of attacks, it reduces the overall cooldown of ‘shield concentrated deployment’ by 50%.]

From the opponent’s perspective, even if it’s an aggressive ranged dealer character, if they attack from afar, they are effectively using a skill that will kill minions instead.

Yet if you want to fight up close where it’s tough to properly time the reflection, the Defender has the upper hand.

Of course, this is only true when utilizing the reflection concept well.

Silver-rank users, being easy to predict, also find it easy to predict attack timing and can dispose of me quickly.

“Ah, come on!”

“Wow, Mary Defender is doing well; that’s really hard.”

Taehyun and Dongha, who had taken a break after finishing a vigilante match, showed up.

The two came to the back of our spot, resting their heads on the chair backs, watching how the game unfolded.

“Ah! I died!”

As Seonhyuk’s character went down, the two people’s heads that had been resting on the chair backs sank with a sigh.

Confident of my victory, I stretched my clasped hands forward and said.

Black noodles with a tempting aroma, that’s what you think of at a PC room.

“Serve it with Jajangmyeon.”

“I haven’t lost yet!”

In a typical match setup or among top-tier games, a slow Defender would have been easily handled, but now it was 1v1.

At the point of having given away money along with kills, Seonhyuk had no way to win.

“Tsk tsk, you really don’t know when to quit.”

Mocking him while clicking through the game.

Eventually, caught in the swamp of straightforward operations and self-repair, Seonhyuk was pushed back to the second intercept unit before finally admitting defeat.

Maybe he never thought he would lose so pathetically; in the middle of the game, he exited and ordered food without a word.

Having accepted that he was at a loss, he began dutifully eating fried rice, suggesting a second match that made no sense no matter how much I thought about it.

“Hey, let’s switch characters and play one more.”

“You suck, I’m not playing with a noob.”

“Ah, come on! It was such a bad match-up!”

I returned the humiliation I received in the shooting game, and Seonhyuk, unable to acknowledge the difference in skill, argued it was a matchup issue.

Did that silver star dare to retort?

Slurping Jajangmyeon, I asked, trying to keep it casual.

“Really? This time what, in the living room?”

“I’ll give you time at the PC room.”

“Deal.”

There’s no reason to refuse free money.

Thus began the second game.

We truly just switched mechs and picked up from there, but as one who used Defender as a main character, I…

Focused on hitting the most irritating players when using Defender, and I wiped them out cleanly.

Taking advantage of the weakness that the initial defensive skill only guards in front, I deliberately pressed in together and hit from the back.

Lightly dodging with basic attacks, I unleashed skills later.

Even if I hit the intercept unit directly, I chased after the self-repair heal timing and made sure to cancel it.

Eventually, it was time once again for me to push the second intercept unit again, at which point Seonhyuk accepted his defeat willingly.

“Ah, I’m done, this game is so annoying.”

“Thanks for the compliment, give me the PC room time.”

“Ugh…”

Taking the prepaid 3000 won for 2 hours at the PC room, I tucked it into my wallet.

As I looked outside the building window at the darkening sky, I stood up, aware that only 5 minutes were left on the desktop clock.

All in all, it was a very wholesome day in terms of friendship.

“Ugh…! Hah.”

Exiting the PC room, I interlocked my fingers and stretched upwards, releasing a groan.

Strangely, it felt a bit more tiring than when I played at home.

Stepping down the stairs from the third floor and coming out downtown, I began to casually split off with friends.

“Bye-”

Seonhyuk and Dongha seemed to live in an apartment a bit closer to the PC room, as they walked the same path together.

Meanwhile, Taehyun and I were unusually overlapping in our routes.

Wondering if we would naturally part ways sometime, I found it strange that we kept walking in the same direction and casually asked.

“Taehyun, where do you live?”

“Huh? I live in Bisan Apartment.”

‘What? We live in the same apartment?’

When I asked out of disbelief, it turned out to be true.

I was surprised once more that we had been hanging out together at school, yet had no idea we lived in the same apartment.

“What building?”

“I’m in Building 202.”

Then I was surprised again to find out we lived in the same building.

Wait, does that mean that we’ve never overlapped in arrival times even once?

It may be possible that we didn’t overlap in arrival times, but never had our dismissal times coincided like this?

Of course, there were many instances when I took a detour to go to the laundry or the mart…

But thinking back, it seemed it wouldn’t be unheard of.

Anyway, getting into the same elevator, I pressed for the 4th floor first.

As the one closest to the button, I casually asked Taehyun.

“What floor are you on?”

“17th.”

“Wow, living pretty high up.”

Taehyun replied nonchalantly that he lived on the 17th floor, and I pressed the button for the 17th floor while letting out a short sigh.

What on earth does he need to live so high up for?

If it’s on elevator maintenance day or it breaks down, it’s hopeless.