The Veteran Swordmaster’s Stream (Novel) - Chapter 92

Chapter 92

Day 13, 7:00.

The results of Day 12’s Battleground were released.

“One region captured by the Demonic Sect, and one region they captured. The Unorthodox Faction also exchanged one each.”

The Demonic Sect and the Unorthodox Faction had also succeeded in capturing one region from each other.

“Quite a standard result.”

All three factions showed a general focus on defense.

Are you taking this region? Then I’ll take one too. Give me this.

In this manner, only minor exchanges took place.

However, looking closely at the detailed results, the value of the territories exchanged between the Demonic Sect and the Orthodox Faction was not equal.

The territory captured by the Demonic Sect was at the northern edge, allowing a straight approach to the Orthodox Faction’s headquarters, but its value was not high.

Conversely, the land taken from the Demonic Sect was in the middle, bordering both the Unorthodox Faction and the Demonic Sect simultaneously.

Such territory held great value.

Also, territories where all three factions bordered each other had the disadvantage of being easily lost if two factions launched a coordinated attack.

However, even if a coordinated attack succeeded in capture, the territory would be claimed by the faction with the higher contribution score, so coordinated attacks rarely occurred. This characteristic prevented the disadvantage from becoming too prominent.

In other words, it was a territory that was generally easy to defend.

Since they had taken one of those regions, it was a favorable exchange for the Orthodox Faction.

[Anyway Orthodox Wins]

-Look at him queuing for a game right away

-No business ethics

-This is why I can’t stand those Demonic Sect bastards, tsk tsk!

JustOnePenny checked the chat and examined the red lights on the map.

Unlike yesterday, several red markers had popped up, but there was only one place to verify.

‘So he wasn’t satisfied with what he captured yesterday.’

He is really attacking this.

Is he aiming for the headquarters?

I don’t know.

It doesn’t seem like he discussed it with his fellow Demonic Sect members.

“We have to block him.”

As he muttered, a colleague next to him heard it and slapped his shoulder.

“Right. Let’s block him first. If the Heavenly Demon captures this region as well, there’ll only be one territory left before our headquarters.”

Although that buffer could be considered leeway, yielding one by one is how you eventually get swallowed.

What happened to Britain, which kept making concessions to Germany right before World War II?

The famous ‘Peace for our time’ could be repeated.

-So, who wants to go?

Since a day had passed and they were sufficiently prepared, many people volunteered to go.

The debate that occurred most frequently on Nohyeop the previous day was exactly how to defeat the Heavenly Demon in a three-on-one conquest match.

Watching that, JustOnePenny became even more convinced that the hotfix had been applied favorably to the Heavenly Demon, but since it might not be the case yet,

he would see for himself.

he would see for himself.

-I’ll go and draw up a plan

It wasn’t a chat he sent.

JustOnePenny simply hated the act of fighting and battling the Heavenly Demon.

-Let’s go

-Let’s queue with four people and if it’s a three-on-one match, we can go according to the situation

-Ok

O brave heroes.

Fighting.

JustOnePenny shifted his gaze solemnly from the chat window to the map.

A list of regions with red markers was added.

The Demonic Sect had four players.

As if responding in the meantime, their nicknames had appeared.

‘It seems they thought similarly. Seeing that three people came as reinforcements.’

Of course, Seo-jun wouldn’t just count as a single ranker.

[Heavenly Demon 14]

[Bandit King]

[Dang So]

[ILikeSingleColor]

The Orthodox Faction also had four.

[TheDevilWearsBrother]

[OldExpert]

[Heavenly Killing Star]

[Backseat Game Me]

Is that Heavenly Killing Star guy doing infinite tries?

It was impressive how he kept going after losing so much.

Thinking of the 12-win streak made his blood boil, but JustOnePenny shook his head rapidly to cool down.

‘It’ll depend on how the matchmaking turns out.’

He contemplated their future response.

The goal of this Battleground could be summarized in a single sentence.

Block the Heavenly Demon.

Although it was only his personal intuition, his intuition worked exceptionally well at times.

[We got matched. Let’s go crush the Orthodox Faction.]

A grating voice echoed.

***

[We won thanks to me.]

[Stop talking nonsense, Dang So.]

[Ha. What do you think would have happened without my support?]

JustOnePenny let out a dry laugh at their conversation.

That Dang So guy is still the same.

To state the result first, the matchmaking became a three-on-two instead of a three-on-one.

Only Movie Soft knew the detailed reason why it wasn’t a four-on-three, but he could make a rough guess.

The balance was quite appropriate.

Ultimately, an appropriate balance that would make the game easy to win if they could just kill Seo-jun even once.

‘Not that I know if that’s actually possible.’

[Of course we won.]

[Why are you speaking so calmly? It’s because of this body that the Demonic Sect now has a chance to win.]

[Dang So.]

[Why do you call me?]

[Shut up and let’s leave the game now.]

Truly consistent.

Anyway.

If all matchmaking was set as three-on-two from now on, it led to the conclusion that blocking the Heavenly Demon in-game would be extremely difficult.

Should he just leave it to his colleagues?

-In a three-on-two, if we take the points…

-No, don’t do that, rather…

JustOnePenny believed in the other rankers who were debating passionately.

Yet, even so, he was not the type of person to sit back and wait for others to do the work.

He racked his brain to somehow find a way…

“Ah.”

JustOnePenny’s eyes repeatedly narrowed and widened in an instant.

***

Seo-jun stretched his neck. True to a virtual reality that tried to implement conditions as close to reality as possible, a cracking sound rang out, and a slight coolness spread from his neck to his entire body.

After loosening up his hands one by one, Seo-jun exited the game.

“Why does the Orthodox Faction only test the waters once and stop?”

Day 13 had ended.

It wasn’t because the mode closed at 10 o’clock. It simply meant there was nothing more he could do today.

-Are you going to yield it!

-If it goes on like this, it’ll reach the headquarters lol

-They must have a plan

Seo-jun nodded, looked around, sat on a nearby chair, and leaned his back against the wall.

Since it was a private channel, it was quiet.

Scanning the game messages, group chatrooms, and communities, he assessed the situation and spoke in a low voice.

“I should end the stream now.”

He collected baiting reactions.

-?

-Why?

-??

-Don’t go

-Has the sudden stream-ending sickness broken out again…!

Just as they said, it was true that he was ending it early.

Ordinarily, he would have laughed and communicated while watching videos brought by the viewers, and even bickered with them, but

“I have plans to meet a friend.”

today there was a reason.

-lol

-You pretended to have no friends, and now what?

-Suspicious. I smell something fishy, could it be a girlfriend?

-This is plausible

-Is it your girlfriend or me, choose

Indeed, as expected of masters of slander, they went way too far right from the start.

“It’s nothing like that.”

Seo-jun cut them off firmly and clicked to end the stream.

Although it would be good to stream longer to retain the 12,000 viewers, there was something more important.

-Goodbye T_T

-T-bye

Afterward, Seo-jun emerged from the capsule, took a quick shower, and sat in front of his computer.

Going to meet a friend was a lie.

Where would he even have a friend to meet?

‘That is a bit sad.’

Seo-jun searched the For Chivalry official homepage, looking back on his past life.

Then, entering the site, he opened the Battleground map on the left and the chatroom on the right.

[Anyway Demonic Wins]

He wanted to accurately grasp how the players moved within the Battleground.

Checking it during the stream not only required quite a tedious task but also prevented him from fully concentrating.

There was also the method of checking it after everything was over.

However, it was undeniable that directly experiencing it on the spot while watching in real-time to see what psychology was at play behind those decisions was the most effective method.

The primary goal of the Demonic Sect was to blow away the Orthodox Faction’s headquarters.

Thus, all current movements and their intentions were focused on not revealing their goal.

-The Unorthodox Faction is attacking, we should counterattack appropriately too

-The Orthodox Faction seems to be probing multiple spots today

-But aren’t they defending Shaanxi?

Shaanxi referred to the region where Seo-jun attempted a capture today.

It wasn’t that the region was officially named as such by the system, or that it was located exactly in the geographical Shaanxi.

Since the region was roughly divided near Shaanxi, they called it Shaanxi for convenience.

Gansu, which he captured yesterday, was to the west of Shaanxi. Moving east,

today he attacked Shaanxi.

To its east lay Shanxi.

Finally, one could consider the regions called Hebei, where the Orthodox Faction’s headquarters was located.

-It looks like they aren’t going to defend?

-They might deploy forces near the end

-This is a bit weird. Are they baiting us to confirm for sure if we are aiming for Shaanxi?

-We shouldn’t deploy more first to attack

As the Orthodox Faction seemed to watch quietly, numerous interpretations were exchanged.

Since their objective was to slowly approach while creating minor confusion that Seo-jun was playing solo to some extent, they couldn’t openly attack Shaanxi.

“Interesting.”

-OldExpert spotted on the Unorthodox side

-Unnamed has also appeared in southern Hunan

A collective game of land grab. Mind games. Or something.

He could understand why they had become so tryhard.

“They said there’s a sufficient influx of new players to For Chivalry, right?”

Despite that, the reason it was called tryhard was clearly because, after playing through the Battleground once, it was virtually impossible even for new players not to know each other.

‘It really is fun.’

The corners of Seo-jun’s mouth curled up in satisfaction.

Tring.

A private message arrived from Third Elder.

[Third Elder: Good work today as well, Heavenly Demon!]

[Heavenly Demon 14: Thank you. But isn’t it not over yet?]

[Third Elder: True. But the Orthodox Faction is acting rather half-hearted.]

Does that mean we have plenty of room?

[Heavenly Demon 14: Will the capture of Shaanxi fail today?]

[Third Elder: The Orthodox Faction is conserving their personnel right now, but so are we. If the enemy deploys all their forces to defend Shaanxi, we will show our true colors today as well.]

Were they planning to take Shaanxi today even at the risk of exposing their strategy?

[Heavenly Demon 14: I see.]

[Third Elder: By the way, Heavenly Demon. I think the number of users moving according to your lead is considerable.]

[Heavenly Demon 14: What do you mean by that?]

[Third Elder: Apart from the people in the chatroom, there are active players among the general player base, you know.]

[Third Elder: It seems a significant number of those players are moving along with you, Seo-jun.]

For users who enjoyed the game somewhat deeply, watching streams or communities was the basic of basics.

And a significant portion of the Demonic Sect users showed this reaction.

[If you’re a Demonic bro who will follow only the Heavenly Demon in this Battleground lol you know what to do, right? Give me recommendations]

[The Heavenly Demon said he would eliminate the Orthodox Faction. I simply follow that.]

[I do not doubt.]

[If I can be of small help to the journey of the greatest under heaven, I am content with just that…]

Seo-jun read these posts and laughed them off, but it seemed Third Elder thought differently.

Third Elder mentioned that, according to calculations from the previous day, they had lost a region that they definitely shouldn’t have lost to the Unorthodox Faction.

The reason was obviously inexplicable unless it was due to the absence of the general player base, and although such occurrences were common,

this case had been quite spacious, so it was a highly suspicious situation.

The absence of the general player base was because players had gravitated toward Seo-jun.

Since they didn’t require detailed distribution and coordination, it could be good news.

‘By the way, is it going smoothly today as well?’

There was no way the Orthodox Faction would yield Shaanxi—a region close to their headquarters—without any countermeasure.

-What are those guys thinking?

-They only respond defensively to the poked areas and aren’t attacking anywhere?

-A power-hiding expert.

Eventually, when it reached 8:40, the Demonic Sect rankers who learned of the Orthodox Faction’s objective reacted with unison panic.

-The Orthodox Faction has appeared!

-So many. It looks like they intend to deploy all their reserved forces.

-Is this what they were waiting for!

-The connection is getting severed.

This was because the place where the Orthodox Faction rankers matched was, contrary to expectations, not Shaanxi.

Not Shaanxi, but its west.

Gansu, which the Demonic Sect had captured the previous day.

Instead of defending Shaanxi, the Orthodox Faction’s aim was to inversely capture Gansu, isolating Shaanxi, which would become Demonic Sect territory the next day.