Chapter 9

Posted by Kuze, ? Views, Released on March 2, 2025

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Once upon a time, let’s talk about something from a while ago.

[Princess Estasha Latias de Kaizen, one day I will burn you on a cross in front of the imperial subjects.]

When it comes to the royal family, it puts me in a bad mood, so let’s go back even further in time.

I lived alone with the woman who gave birth to me in a semi-basement room.

I don’t know if she was there from the moment I was born, or if we moved here when I was very young.

In my oldest memory, a child was crying desperately. But in the space covered with choking smoke, the woman never answered his desperate cries.

I could never escape from that semi-basement room. My two legs were the problem.

The exact diagnosis was hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP), but I only learned that later when I became interested in this field.

The woman’s feelings were always filled with hatred.

She hated the cramped semi-basement, she hated the drunks who loudly sang in the early morning, she hated me, who was just a burden, and ultimately, she hated herself.

While others were picking out their school bags with their parents for the first time, she suddenly vanished without a trace.

Since I had already stopped crying from exhaustion after turning three, I had never cried as long as I did in that moment.

Thanks to crying desperately until blood came from my throat, I was miraculously rescued three days later.

At a young age, I realized the harshness of the world.

I was a useless person in the eyes of society as a whole.

No matter which group I went to, I was merely a burden and an object of hatred.

Unless I had something special to offer them, they would have discarded me callously at any moment.

Fortunately, I was more mature than my peers, and I used that as my strength.

I studied, comforting myself by saying that if I had been born 10,000 years ago, I would have been destined to fall off a cliff and die right after being born.

I didn’t need to excel overwhelmingly. Just like how a first-year middle school student would find everything easy by learning first-grade elementary school math, I decided to get ahead of others.

Even knowing that I would one day be caught up, I couldn’t give up.

However, I was overlooking this society. The world we live in was not a simple place like a competition of knowledge.

Even if I could cover my tuition with scholarships, what about a place to live? What about food?

While others studied, I had no choice but to run around frantically trying to find a place where I could work.

And when I first received my salary in my bank account, I was filled with despair.

The creditor’s debt collection notices and the processing of my mother’s disappearance had begun ever since I disposed of the semi-basement, and I found myself saddled with her debts amounting to 1.24 billion won that I was unaware of.

That day, I quietly cried for the last time.

If there is a next life, I wanted to live as the richest person in the world.

* * *

“Nameya, the game has started! What should I buy first?”

Arin clung to me, looking like she was about to cry again.

Well, in contrast, the game’s requirements were clear.

“A wizard’s staff and one potion. Stick close to me.”

We destroy the enemy’s castle. The penalties given to each side in the process are equal.

The simpler it was, the clearer my mind felt. It was the secret of how I could survive in my third life.

The wind was pleasantly blowing. A few clouds had gathered, but what does it matter?

“Hello, Liri.”

“Sniff? Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not asleep! Oh? Do you know my name?”

Even though the other three team members were still in the starting village, I was able to talk to the fox merchant, Liri. I patted her head in amazement.

“Thank you. I’ll be in your care today as well.”

I handed over five coins and tried on the soul harvester’s ring. A mid-level potion was a bonus.

The air of the battlefield was cold but refreshing.

“This feels weird! But I feel like I won’t fall off of Name!”

Arin transformed into a fluffy cat and flew around my head.

“It’s a skill. If you think you want to fall, you can, but it’ll be dangerous. Just stay close and shoot arrows when you see the enemy.”

“Okay!”

“Read this in the meantime.”

Since she was in elementary school, she should be able to read something, right? I handed her the manual with the skill explanation attached.

“I’ll… do my best!”

The familiar view of the forest unfolded, one I had seen many times. I had memorized where the red-spotted mushroom was located.

The jungler, waiting at the red spawn, greeted us.

[Rukalis: Is the NoName you?]

So this is how the chat looks. When I was trapped in the capsule, all the text was scrambled, so I always blocked the chat and played the game.

After hitting the spawned red a few times, we headed to the bottom lane.

The champion I was currently embodying was Kaysa.

She had a tragic backstory: a girl isolated in the demon realm after being separated from her parents, managing to survive by embracing the power of monsters.

As a result, her lower body and some parts of her upper body were covered in tough crustacean-like shells.

On the enemy side were the pirate beauty and the mechanical monstrosity holding an anchor, leading the charge on the bottom lane.

Soon, six soldiers would clash.

“Aim for the red-haired girl with arrows. Even if you misfire, you can still guide them somewhat, so you’ll be able to control it.”

“I’ll try!”

The cat shot an arrow cutely, but it was blocked by a soldier and neutralized. Arin made a sound like she was going to cry, but I comforted her that it was okay.

At level one, we needed to focus more on eliminating the soldiers than on trading damage.

The enemy had a strong combination at level two. In other words, if they reached level two before us and tried to pressure us, we would be forced to deal with the soldiers while crying and in a difficult situation.

Fortunately, the enemy’s level of harassment was not very high.

I quickly eliminated the soldiers with Kaysa’s skills and even took out the enemy’s bone shield as a bonus.

A second wave of minions quickly rushed in. One of our soldiers from the first wave had survived.

I pretended to shift my body to the side to retreat, and when the enemy focused on finishing off the last soldier, I concentrated my attacks with basic hits and my Q skill on the pirate girl.

The mechanical monstrosity tried to stop me with an anchor too late, but I had already anticipated that and withdrew my body.

The pirate girl reflexively recoiled, seemingly not understanding that straying here could lead to even greater losses.

Taking the opportunity to attack the enemies before the second soldiers arrived, I drained their health.

Feeling that they wouldn’t let this slide, both bodies suddenly leaned forward.

From the looks of it, they seemed to be trying to recover their resources by escaping from an unavoidable meteor attack.

I pretended to comply by moving forward and then quickly deviated to the side.

The pain from the rock was negligible; I only took one hit.

“Arin, heal!”

“Got it!”

Suddenly, both my movement speed and attack speed increased.

Since Kaysa’s stats were outstanding at low levels, her range was short.

But if I increased my movement speed, adjusting the 25 range would be a piece of cake.

I landed a basic hit and pulled back.

The pirate girl tried to hit me too, but the distance had already widened, causing her attack to cancel.

Using that gap, I responded again with a basic hit and my Q.

The two soldiers I had hit earlier were taken down by two missiles each, and the remaining two were for the girl.

This time, when I entered her range and retaliated with a quick reaction, I barely managed to land one more basic hit thanks to my increased attack speed.

Six soldiers that were still relatively healthy joined the battle, focusing fire on the pirate girl. In contrast, the four hitting her seemed adorable. The mechanical monstrosity was at a loss.

I decided I had done enough and tried to retreat, but Arin landed another hit.

“I hit this time!”

The girl grumbled at the supporter, visibly irked.

Just as I was trying to finish off the remaining soldiers and potion up, her passive stack had accumulated without resetting.

[w-Flash-Hit-Ignite]

In an instant, the pirate girl’s heal and flash activated, and I was inflicted with exhaust, but by then, I had already poured all my skills into her.

[(All) MintChocoBurger: Now I die to a basic Q hit… lol.]

After that, the lane phase went smoothly.

With the top and mid lanes together racking up 10 deaths, as soon as it hit 15 minutes, a surrender vote was initiated, but since I had the mission of winning for Arin, I couldn’t comply.

I managed to turn the game back to square one by taking out both the mid and jungler who came to relieve the bottom lane.

Kaysa had builds for physical and magical paths.

But the so-called hybrid build, which encompassed both, couldn’t shine significantly because of the ambiguous coefficients that suppressed the carry potential of ranged dealers.

But if I accumulated oppressive growth and piled on items?

I would transform into an all-around champion capable of in-fighting, poking, engaging, and kiting.

“Wow!!! Let’s go! Name, wipe them all out!”

I rushed towards the enemy at a speed that felt like over 300 km/h.

I assassinated Nautilus, the only hard CC on the enemy team.

Without me saying anything, Arin’s ultimate activated in perfect sync.

One crucial point when playing Kaysa in a one-vs-many fight is to reduce the number of enemies as much as possible.

It’s a universal statement applicable to any champion, but Kaysa needs to utilize it even more delicately.

[(All) MintChocoBurger: Now I’m dying to basic Q hits… I can’t believe this lol.]

Whether they are tanks, bruisers, or assassins, they all collapsed equally before Kaysa and Yuumi.

Even if the top and mid had already bailed, there were only three of us left on our side, but Arin expressed her gratitude to the jungler who had been with us this far.

[Name is too cute: Thanks for sticking with me until the end!]

[Rukalis: Thanks for the bus, your friend really knows how to play.]

[Rukalis: Why are you here with that skill?]

Now that I had kept my promise to Arin, it was time to leave the game.

“Did you have fun?”

“Yeah! Can’t we play again in the future?”

“I need to do homework.”

“That… can wait until later.”

“You came late today and got scolded by Teacher Cheolmin, didn’t you?”

Arin’s relationships seemed to revolve too much around me. How to get along well with others wasn’t just a matter for school friends but also for teachers.

“The gym teacher doesn’t really like me…”

“If Arin comes to school early and helps clean the classroom in the morning, I’m sure she’ll like you.”

“Really?”

“Instead, when you come out of the capsule, we can play board games.”

“That sounds good! Should we play Halli Galli or Monopoly?”

“Anything is fine. Just wait a moment; I have something to do first.”

“Okay! I’ll get ready in advance.”

* * *

“Man, we lost again.”

Min-Jun slammed the innocent floor. It wasn’t just the loss; the taunting voice of the streamer was making him even angrier.

[Keep sniping, yeah~ If you win, that’s it~]

– Hahaha