Chương 159: B3 Chapter 15 - When We Met

The next day, two hours before our match against Eon Covenant, I was halfway done with my club sandwich, enjoying the quiet corner at a window seat we'd managed to snatch at the hotel buffet, when a delighted voice said, "Hey again!" Aurinn grinned and asked, "Mind if we sit here? Or am I interrupting."

"No, go ahead," I said. I found my tone getting softer, more polite than usual around her. Aurinn truly was one of the brightest Wonderwind players I'd ever seen. She sat next to Veyra, like a good friend who genuinely wanted to talk to us. The rest of Zenith Protocol followed. Ducky2 picked a seat next to me, then Henrift and PizzaMan. Lastly, Eirael sat the furthest, focusing entirely on her plate.

"I heard VeilShot tried to steal your wheelchair," Aurinn said.

"Honestly, screw that guy." She gave Veyra a sad look. Veyra waved her arm.

"He didn't really steal it. He just pushed it aside like some petty bully."

"Either way, I've never rooted for someone so much in my life," Aurinn said.

"If you actually win, I'll be giddy until Worlds. Veil's ego needs to be knocked down."

"You don't say…" Veyra sighed.

"What's your prediction?" I asked.

"Do you think we have a chance?" Aurinn glanced at her teammates. Ducky2 said, "We watched the Black Lilium match. You did it so fast. The whole set lasted less than ten minutes. Seriously impressive."

"That was just a basic guild wipe," Veyra said.

"We're not showing off if we don't need to." Aurinn leaned forward.

"So that wasn't showing off?" Henrift and Ducky2 laughed. Veyra shrugged with a smug smile. As we had expected, the match against SpellDao's guild had been a stomp. We'd already guild wiped Mythforged in its entirety a long time ago, Fuhad included. That was our very first guild wipe before I was even a part of her guild. SpellDao and Proxy4raxgg had improved after switching guilds, but we'd grown much faster, both in gear and skill.

"You literally beat them faster than we beat Solaris." Aurinn laughed.

"I'll make everyone free pizza if you do the same to Veil," CrazyPizzaMan said. After the laughter calmed down, I asked, "Do you have any tips? You've won against him before."

"What, you want us to share our prep?" Aurinn smirked at me.

"That's usually private, you know. But maybe just for you, we could share something?"

"What tips do we even have?" PizzaMan asked.

"They already know they can use Veil's cockiness against him. The guy is a nutcase."

"He's a very fundamental player," Veyra said.

"He rarely goes for flashy plays. In a match, he's the opposite of his personality."

"Exactly," Aurinn said.

"His positioning and patience are honestly incredible. But you can goad him into mistakes. If something upsets him, he'll jump out of a building to show who's best. That's when you can remind him that he's not actually that good when doesn't follow his training." Veyra nodded.

"Good tip. Maybe we can trick him into giving us a favorable position? Maybe Aiden can tell him he stinks before the match?" That drew laughter from the guys.

"That's it!" PizzaMan said.

"He might pull out the guillotine after the match, though." Beyond him, I noticed Eirael furrowing her brows. Nobody paid attention to her as Henrift spoke.

"If Veyra can portal behind the guild with Veil risking friendly fire—""No," Eirael butted in. Her voice was quiet, yet Henrift went silent immediately.

"That's bad advice. None of you know what you're talking about." Heads turned to her. She said nothing and ate a piece of watermelon.

"How so?" I asked. She frowned at me.

"You're her guild mate. You should know how a frost mage wants to play against an archer." I should? I thought. I mean, we'd already come up with a plan. I'd promised to keep everyone else busy, preferably without dying myself, while Veyra dealt with VeilShot if he went for a flank. If he didn't go for a flank, we could probably just blast them with [Frost Storm] and [Hex Of Dawnbreak].

"You don't need to bait him into anything," Eirael said.

"VeilShot isn't stupid. Veyra just needs to outplay him."

"That's… very insightful," Ducky2 said.

"So how is she going to do that?"

"I don't know, she's a dual-casting prodigy?" Eirael said.

"She can use a barrier and fire Absolute Zero at the same time." Every one of Eirael's words induced silence as we wondered just what she was trying to say. Aurinn gave us an apologetic shrug.

"Is our frost mage jealous?" PizzaMan asked. Eirael's eyes snapped to him.

"Hey! I'm the one carrying you."

"You shouldn't be rude to Veyra, though," Aurinn said.

"What, I'm rooting for her?" Eirael argued.

"I'm just saying that she should win against VeilShot if she plays correctly."

"I don't think saying that helps her very much." Eirael glared back at her. I struggled to see why she'd be in a bad mood, short of being upset that she was sent to play a tournament with the guild's B-team.

"Well, good luck. I'll leave if nobody wants me here." She picked up her tray and moved to the other side of the room to finish up her plate of fruits. Aurinn sighed, elbows on the table.

"I'm so sorry. She doesn't mean anything bad. She's honestly a big fan behind your back. I think that's just her way of releasing nervousness."

"How old is she?" Veyra asked.

"She's sixteen." Aurinn said, and with a smile, Henrift added, "She's exactly like my daughter."

"Sixteen?" Veyra's eyebrows rose.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. She's trying really hard to learn double-casting as well, but she still has high school exams to deal with. Everything is stressing her out." Aurinn lowered her head, and smiled sheepishly.

"She was gushing about your casting against Black Lilium during the match. And she does honestly want your signature…" This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. The way she said that, like a tired mother, spread smiles to the table. Eirael kept glancing at us from the side.

"She's really good," Veyra said.

"Let her know that I'm looking forward to our match. If we make it to the finals, at least."

"Do your best," Aurinn said.

"We'll be rooting for you from our room with her."

"Are we ready to go warm up?" I asked and wiped my hands on the napkin.

"Yep," Veyra said.

"Let's go."

"I need to test one more thing I found real quick," Veyra told me outside the warmup pods.

"Can you meet me on a forest map?"

"Sure," I said.

"What are we testing?"

"Just a quick experiment. I'll need you for a minute or two."

"Oh, I'd love to be your experiment." She gave me a deadpan stare, which made me laugh.

"So a forest? I'll invite you." That's what I did, and we both loaded into a similar randomly generated forest as the map used for the tournament.

"Are you testing a new item or something?" I asked.

"No, I need you to climb into a tree. That one, and hide in it so that I can't see you."

"Alright?" Weird as her motives were, she seemed serious, so I hopped to the lowest branch, pulled myself up, and climbed a little higher, until I was in a position where unsuspecting targets would need to squint to see me.

"Is this good?"

"Yep, stay there!" Veyra called. She began casting, and hit the tree with [Hex Of Dawnbreak]. My resistances went down. I glanced down and saw her smiling at herself.

"Alright, one more test. Can you hide a bit further away? Don't tell me which tree."

"So hide and seek?"

"Something like that," she said. I could start to see what she was trying to achieve.

"Give me ten seconds," I said and dashed off into the woods. The assassin class wasn't really built for moving in the trees like the ranger class, so I just ran, [Shadow Dashed] and picked a tree to hide atop. The ritual ring of [Hex Of Dawnbreak] appeared a short distance off, missing. Another one came a few seconds later, this time hitting the tree under me.

"Found you," Veyra said as she appeared from a portal on the branch beside me. I met her grin, her red eyes staring at me, and I paused. The sight of her so close, on a tree branch, sparked something in my head.

"What?" she asked.

"Is there something on my face?" The memory finally clicked, and my face lit up.

"This is how we met! You remember? I was hiding in a tree, waiting for you to start conflict with Mythforged, and then you portaled next to me!"

"Oh yeah," she said with an amused smile. A very similar expression as she'd had back then, seeing me nearly fall from the tree.

"I remember. I didn't realize you fell for me at first sight, though." She chuckled.

"Hey, it wasn't at first sight. It took me, uh… like five minutes, at least, before I fell for you." Her laugh got softer.

"Which is weird," I said, "because you weren't my type at the time at all."

"Really? So who was your type?"

"My type is still the same. Brunettes with glasses, and maybe some cute freckles." She stared back at me before bursting into a soft laugh.

"You know, I was so afraid you'd hate me in real life. You should have just told me that."

"I think I did tell you to go get glasses," I said.

"Oh yeah, you did," she said.

"I actually got new a pair, too. Maybe glasses would fit me in Wonderwind too?"

"No, no, you look perfect here," I said.

"You could pull off any look, and it'll be so good, I swear." Her cheeks reddened a little.

"Thanks?" She had no more teases as she sat nervously on the branch. Eventually, she said, "And also, you need to stop ruining my warmup, Aiden! We need another flirting ban until the match is over." I laughed.

"Sorry, sorry." I gave her a kiss on the head and said, "Let's win." She sighed and said, "Remember, if we lose, no Movie Night Simulator for a month."

"Got it," I said.

"And if we win, the flirting ban is lifted?"

"If we win, I'll be the one making you red, Aiden," Veyra said.

"Now, start warming up already!"

We spent an hour warming up. That was ten times longer than what I usually spent preparing, but Veyra liked to spend time alone to clear her mind before matches. I also practiced dashing around, calibrating my mind to be as close to perfection as I possibly could. I wasn't quite as nervous or determined as I was before facing Annath. Losing this match wouldn't make me homeless, and Veyra would still be my girlfriend even if we fell out of the tournament.

But goddamn, a one month ban to Movie Night Simulator was on the line. If VeilShot stomped us as he claimed he would, we'd be laughed at. My sister would have driven here to watch me lose. And most importantly, excluding the first reason, I'd miss the satisfaction of embarrassing VeilShot, the manchild that was our opponent. When our time came, I felt calm and fully ready. I took Veyra to the curtains before our walk-in, with music from ads still playing.

"Our first big match in a while," I said.

"Don't remind me of that."

"Will you survive the interview?" I asked. Unlike Worlds, USA Masters had pre-match interviews before every match. That was less common in esports these days, since it made warming up more difficult, but the audience seemed to love it.

"I'm prepared for Veil to piss me off even more," Veyra said.

"I'll channel anger into my casting."

"Perfect," I said. She also seemed to be feeling healthy. We hadn't had any nights hugging the puke bucket yet, and she hadn't even mentioned a headache. The trip had gone amazingly so far. Waiting backstage had turned into kind of a ritual in my head with tournaments. Simply waiting around with the dim ambiance from the stage making it past the curtains had conditioned me to get in the mood of a serious match about to happen.

Soon enough, Rebecca's voice echoed with, " The first match in the round of eight, Solo Mage versus Eon Covenant!" That was our sign to arrive. The security guy opened the curtain, and the cheers and stage lights further separated this moment from daily life. This was my job now. To walk up to that stage and give a good show to these people by defeating Wonderwind's most annoying bully. The thoughts were interrupted when I remembered that both teams were walking in at the same time, very close to each other.

Our path between the audience grew narrow, and VeilShot walked within punching range. The audience began chanting, "Solo Mage! Solo Mage! Solo Mage!" If VeilShot had fans somewhere there, I could not hear them. One instance of "MoonTurtle!" broke through, which made me smile even more. The cheers weren't the type that a dominating heavyweight received, evident from the fact that only 16% of the audience had predicted our victory in the poll. More so, we were cheered as everyone's favorite underdog.

We both stood on our respective sides of the stage. The audience, I could tell right away, was way more packed than for the matches prior. Cameras pointed at us from too many different directions to notice.

"Welcome back, all of you legends of Wonderwind!" Tasteful said, starting the interview this time.

"First off, I'm grateful to be blessed with casting the games we are about to witness. Yesterday, we had Eon Covenant versus Dragrath, the best assassin in recent years. Today, VeilShot is facing—" He turned his eyes to me.

"—a man whose name is Assassin. I want to direct my first question to you. Did seeing Dragrath fall to your next opponent spark any fear into you?" I was handed a microphone while I thought about my answer.

"Well…" I tilted my head a little.

"Not really. Dragrath made one crucial mistake in his match." Tasteful leaned forward with a grin.

"That is, he forgot to invite Veyra to his team. It should be pretty easy with her." Veyra punched my side already. I failed to hold my grin. When the cheers calmed down, I added, "No, but I was impressed by Eon Covenant's performance. I'll make sure to focus MoonTurtle first. She played really well." The same guy in the audience shouted, "Go MoonTurtle!" followed by cheers. Tasteful brought his attention to her and said, "It looks like you have a new fanclub, MoonTurtle, and for good reason.

The final round against Dragrath shocked me out of my seat. I'll definitely pay close attention to you from now on. Do you have anything to say to your new fans?"

"Um…" Her head flinched down the moment her eyes met a camera.

"Thanks, everyone? It was just luck… But I'll try my best!" She received more cheers than I did, and way more than VeilShot had in the tournament. Rebecca must have seen something on the archer's face, as she asked, "VeilShot. You mentioned earlier that you did not believe this match would be as much of a challenge as Dragrath. Do you still believe that after seeing how Solo Mage dealt with Black Lilium?" He snorted, shaking his head.

"Now, I don't mean to sound rude, but I don't see the hype behind this match. It should be obvious to anyone here that Solo Mage isn't a competitive team. They're here to mess around and get cheered as the underdogs. They'll be put in their place." A few people cheered. The crowd's reaction was more like genuine anticipation. I said, "That's cap. We'll win with the power of friendship." The cheers erupted. VeilShot rolled his eyes while the crowd once again began chanting, "Solo Mage! Solo Mage! Solo Mage!"

I held the microphone near my mouth, but the crowd was too loud. I waited for them to calm down, then said, "VeilShot also made the same crucial mistake. He forgot to invite Veyra to his team. He obviously can't win." The casters were both holding in laughter as the chants continued, this time with, "Veyra, Veyra, Veyra!" Her face was red. I had a feeling I may have ruined her warm-up. With an amused smile, shaking her head, Rebecca said, "We continue the interview with the winners of this match.

One more time, give it up for Solo Mage versus Eon Covenant!"