A Swordsman’s Stream

Chapter 22

The moment he stepped across the boundary, Sojun could sense that something had changed.

As if anticipating this, a guard rushed at him.

Reflexively, Sojun attempted to draw his sword from the inventory with his right hand.

However, his left hand flailed in the air.

“It’s not easy to get used to it from the start.”

– LOLOLOL LOLOLOL
– What are you doing?
– No matter how skilled Nameless is, this is impossible.
– It’s tough even for a regular person.

With awkward steps, Sojun stumbled backward and clumsily drew his sword with his right hand.

Then he swung it.

Claaang!
– Oh????
– Huh? Why… a parry?
– Even with changed senses, he deflects it? LOLOLOL LOL

Sojun laughed and swung his arm once more.

Claaang!

“Yes, I’ve got the hang of it.”

Sojun quickly adapted to the new sensations.

For someone like Sojun, who could control his body down to the millimeter, it only took a bit of consciousness to get accustomed.

Although his reaction speed had slowed down, such a gap would only be significant in battles against masters, not NPCs.

“Oh, this game is easy.”

Sojun blocked a flaming sphere with his sword, as clumsy as someone writing with their non-dominant hand.

It was awkward but executed perfectly.

– ㅂㄷㅂㄷ
– What can’t this streamer do?
– Setting up a stream
– LOLOLOL LOLOLOL LOL
– Honestly, I haven’t seen a game as easy as Breath. You just go and fight.

There was always a way.

Sojun slowly approached and dealt with the mage.

Sssslice.

– Is this what they call convenience for those with good physical skills?
– LOLOLOL LOLOLOL LOL
– I’m really envious of that physique.
– Don’t you have any other games you’ve tried? Stop bluffing!

Once fully adjusted, Sojun repeated the same actions he had done on the fourth floor.

Throwing random junk into a busy mage’s test tube.

Taking an engrossed mage’s book and closing it without marking the page.

“Why are you doing this?”

– ???: Pretend you didn’t see anything and just leave!
– Absolute menace LOLOLOL

Of course, Sojun had his reasons for these antics.

He wanted to experiment and see if reactions varied.

Honestly, Sojun had a skill level that made it hard to find combat in games enjoyable.

Moreover, if his opponent were human, there might be some teaching moments, but Assassin’s Dawn was not a PvP-centric game.

In fact, this game wasn’t designed with combat as its primary focus.

The detailed environment.

The open world.

These aspects intrigued Sojun.

Finding the flow was also part of the fun.

“Well, unfortunately, it seems I’ve found the stairs to the 6th floor. Let’s go right up.”

After exploring the 5th floor, it seemed like he had encountered all the spells available on the 4th floor.

Sure, it would be good to thoroughly investigate, but since when did he stress over one or two spells?

Missing those spells wouldn’t prevent him from finding the flow.

– What’s so unfortunate?
– The remaining mages are praying in cold sweat, begging him to leave.
– Being disappointed is true madness LOLOLOL

As Sojun exited the 6th floor and ascended the stairs, his senses returned to normal.

“So, this is how it works.”

Flexing his right hand to adapt to the regained senses, Sojun climbed the stairs.

The next floor would slow him down.

A debuff making his body sluggish.

As he opened the door and entered, his body felt like it was weighed down by steel beams.

Gravity seemed to have increased to over twice its strength in an instant.

Fatigue began to set in throughout his body.

Others considered it a debuff far less difficult than the confusion on the fifth floor.

However, Sojun thought if it came to combat rather than infiltration, this slowing effect was just as challenging as confusion.

“Hmm. This is a bit frustrating.”

Sojun began to predict and anticipate the enemy’s attacks in advance.

He judged that otherwise, it would be easy to get hit while dodging.

Rumble.

Rocks jutted up from the ground.

The sharp tips of the pointed rocks aimed and rapidly attacked Sojun.

And Sojun’s sword clashed with the tip of the incoming rock at the precise timing.

Magic that split along the grain.

Sojun dismantled the magic and killed the guarding mages.

He then swiftly searched for the stairs leading to the seventh floor.

-Ah, I feel tired just watching this LOL.
-It was fun when the infiltrators slowed down, but it’s so frustrating when the guy doing Musou slows down.
-Hurry up and skip!

“Yes, reflecting your feedback, I’ll skip the sixth floor.”

If it wasn’t for the stream, Sojun might have leisurely looked around, but he didn’t particularly mind.

Instead, as he climbed the stairs, Sojun was thinking about something else.

‘The environments created in this game would have been great for training if this were the past life.’

The level of virtual reality users had risen so much over the past ten years, likely due to the diverse environments in which they could gain experience without fearing death.

People who couldn’t achieve high skills within ten years in the past life were now active as pros, which was a sudden thought that crossed his mind.

Also, the lower accessibility of ‘Martial Arts’ likely played a part too.

Unlike the past life, where ‘Martial Arts’ was the prerogative of a few, now anyone could easily access it by entering capsule rooms.

“We’ve already arrived at the seventh floor.”

The debuff here was darkness.

The vision was completely blocked.

Sojun threw the door wide open.

He could see the stairs leading to the eighth floor opposite.

“Oh, it seems there is no need to look for the seventh floor in this situation.”

This was likely a concession from the developers, judging that finding the stairs to the next floor in a situation where visibility was zero would be unreasonable.

However, it wasn’t easy either.

Two NPCs stood in the middle of the long corridor.

As on the previous floor, they were waiting for Sojun to cross the threshold.

– Will he die here?
– Honestly, darkness is over the top.
– How does he do it when he can’t see anything?
– Just climb the outer wall now.
– Even Spider-Man couldn’t do this LOL.

Sojun briefly glanced at the frantic messages in the chat window, then smiled and stepped forward.

He recalled all the senses he had gathered from the previous floors.

Instantly, the screen was replaced by a dark space where nothing was visible.

The only thing visible was Sojun’s own body.

Whooo.

Even the slightest breath sounded loud in the silent world.

Fwoosh.

A sound of a fireball being created echoed.

Sojun began to walk forward slowly, picturing the corridor’s shape.

‘Head.’

Whoosh.

Sojun tilted his head to the left, and something grazed past where his head had been.

He felt heat.

And a second later, the residual red magic trail sketched a fine line in the dark, showing the path of the already-passed magic.

‘Is that an effect? It’s beautifully orchestrated.’

Rumble.

In that state, Sojun rotated his body and split the rock protruding from the wall with his sword.

Glowing brown dust scattered in the dark space.

Rustle.

He threw himself forward, avoiding the vines coming from the ground.

Fwoosh!

This time, there were two foes.

Sojun rolled forward and naturally stood up, slightly dodging one attack with his body and destroying the other with his sword.

Sizzle.

Red sparks flew.

Crack.

The sound of ice magic forming resonated right in front of him.

Sojun immediately swung his sword upward against the incompletely formed ice arrows.

Hearing the retreating steps of the mage whose magic had been destroyed, he struck his sword next to the blue scattering dust.

“I can hear everything.”

Then he started to run quickly.

‘Above? Below? Or both?’

The mage waiting by the stairs was simultaneously casting ice arrows just like the one who had just died.

The problem was that the overlapping sounds made it difficult for Sojun to pinpoint them.

Sojun tried to run as fast as possible to deal with it before the magic was completed.

But he was late.

Whooosh.

An insignificant current of air, like being sucked into a vortex, was felt.

It signaled that the magic had been completed.

It still wasn’t bad, if one had felt the wind.

Woooosh!

‘Fortunately, it fell within range. Three shots.’

Sojun had swung his sword downward, twisting diagonally in the air.

Two arrows passed where Sojun’s head and legs had been, followed by a chilling wind.

And the arrow aimed straight at his heart was blocked by Sojun’s sword, falling to the ground.

He had ascertained the arrow’s position through the movement of the wind.

He leisurely began to stroll through the darkness again.

Step. Step.

In the quiet darkness, only the sound of his footsteps echoed.

– Assassins, after all, are stronger in the darkness.
– Excuse me, but this isn’t darkness. You’re just blind.

– LOL
– Assassin? Or Dark? Or both?
– The Holy Roman Empire meta kekeke
– Not holy, not Roman, and not an empire, just ‘that country’

Whoosh.

A spell was cast once again right next to Sojun.

Snap.

Sojun grabbed the arm of the mage who cast the spell.

“Aaaaaah!”

The casting was naturally cancelled.

– The Spider-Man is real, and he’s a streamer on Travel now!
– ???: You can’t fool me anymore
– (Info) Streamer-nim was never fooled to begin with.

Sojun dealt with the mage, then turned back and stepped on the stairs.

The darkness receded around Sojun, revealing the hallway he had traversed.

“Wow. Thankfully, I dodged well.”

What appeared to be glowing dust in the darkness were indeed remnants of magic.

“Did I watch a circus or a game?”

“This is crazy for real.”

“All of that was magic, and he actually dodged it. I can’t help but laugh.”

The chat window exploded with an enthusiastic response, and donations started piling up in an instant. Normally, he set the donations to not show up during gameplay to avoid interruptions, but it was a short break, so it was fine.

『’ㅇㅇ’ donated 10,000 won!』
『That was awesome.』
『’Damn’ donated 10,000 won!』
『Damn!』
『’Lucky to watch this live’ donated 10,000 won!』
『Winner』
『’Home Director Bong’ donated 10,000 won!』
『Why are you filming a movie alone?』

“Thanks for all the donations, everyone.”

Sojun sat down on the stairs for a moment.

“Well, this is just, what do you call it, sound play? If you can do that, anyone can, right? Don’t you all do it too?”

He started interacting with the viewers.

– Ah, here he goes again…
– Honestly, if he’s this good, he can brag, but I feel like punching him once.
– If he makes one mistake, everyone will pounce on him lol.
– This isn’t sound play; it’s psychic power lol.
– I… I guess I’ve been bad at sound play…

Sound play involves listening to understand the enemy’s position and other tactical information. However, what Sojun had shown appeared differently to the viewers.

As if…

『’Is this that?’ donated 100,000 won!』
『Is this the visual perception of sound? I scored in the 9th percentile in Korean, but I get it now.』

– LOL, that’s a killer joke.
– No matter how I see it, streamer-nim is a Korean teacher lol.
– Amazing synesthetic expression lol.
– I can’t with the laughing.
– Mom! I’m studying! Mom! I’m studying! Mom! I’m studying! Mom! I’m studying!

Sojun couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Indeed.

Streaming was fun.