"Hey what's going on there?" Reo said pointing to a side of the arcade that seemed full of people yelling and screaming out encouragement.
"I don't know bro, let's go watch, might be something interesting?" Natsu said with a shrug.
They went closer and found out that two boys were playing against each other in a game called Alpha Ops. A first-person shooter VR game in the arcade which had a reputation of being almost impossible to play because of how realistic it was.
It used a virtual reality goggle that supported sight and sound with a gamepad for controls. Two teams of three would go against each other in a given battleground with the player as the team leader and would battle until there is only one team left standing.
The game was feared because of the effect of damage intake. A shot to your arm would render that arm useless throughout the entire game which means two-handed weapons can't be used and a shot to your leg would instantly immobilize you.
It was hard to play with those kinds of handicaps so only a few gamers ventured to play the game.
As they reached closer, Reo saw someone he recognized.
"Hey! Sai! What's happening here?" he called out.
"Reo! Natsu! How are you guys? Something crazy is going on!"
Sai was a friend who lived near their neighborhood so they got into contact frequently with him. He was light-skinned if not slightly pale and had dark hair with light brown eyes. He was a really addicted gamer and was almost always at the arcade.
"Tell me, I want to know" Reo was now really interested.
"So you see this crazy dude just came up and dropped a challenge to everyone in the arcade on Alpha Ops, said he'll give 10,000 credits to anybody who can beat him. At first, everyone was feeling confident about it but that soon changed when he beat eleven people in a row!! Now, this guy is on and he has already lost both his support characters and one arm!" Sai exclaimed.
Natsu and Reo looked at the viewing screen for the game. They saw a soldier hiding behind a table in an uncompleted building. Suddenly a grenade dropped in through the window and he dived out of cover only to find a gun barrel pointed at him.
He was good enough to dodge the multitude of shots that were sent his way and fired back as he ran outside the building... He made a terrible mistake!
His opponent had placed a mine in front of every exit of the building and he ended up dead without realizing it.
"Fuck!!" the boy screamed as he dropped his VR goggle. His opponent, a guy with blonde hair and blue eyes had a seemingly indifferent look about the whole thing.
"I'm raising the amount to 15,000, who's up next?"
All the guys in the arcade looked at each other uncertainly. Seeing the guy basically K.O 12 people without taking a single injury killed any sort of confidence in them. Natsu casually looked at Reo
"The universe must be in love with you bro, 15k has just landed on your feet!"
Reo nodded excitedly.
"He's really good, how long do you think it'll last?"
"Five minutes, maybe six if you act stupid. But damn this is just bat-shit lucky. Like Mc in a manga level lucky, Is this even legal?"
Sai being a witness to this conversation was confused. Where did this extreme confidence come from? He knew Reo and Natsu were really good gamers and were respected in the arcade but this guy was on a totally different level.
He hasn't seen any of them playing alpha ops before but with what he had seen of the mysterious blonde guy, he was sure there was no one capable of defeating him. Not in this town anyway.
Reo walked up to the controls opposite the blonde.
"I'll take up your challenge!"
Everyone in the arcade looked at him, shocked! How was he not intimidated by this guy? He was like a freaking god!
The blonde took a look at him. Reo had an excited look on his face and was cracking his fingers one at a time.
'He doesn't look serious'. The blonde thought.
But Reo's outlook still disturbed him, it had an overwhelming confidence that didn't feel right to him. It made him feel like Reo knew something he didn't and it depressed him.
He had the passive ability since he was a child that allowed him to judge a person's character just by looking at their eyes. This man interested him.
"Alright" he said calmly.
"Okay... Which stage would you prefer?" Reo said excitedly. "Village, City, Warzone, warehouse, or mountains?"
"I'll leave that to you to decide" the blonde replied.
"Oh really? Thanks, blondie. I thought you would be a pompous prick but you're nice after all, I like you already."
The blonde frowned a bit.
"Okay, I'm going to pick Warzone. Get ready!"
The blonde picked up his gamepad and wore the headset as Reo finished setting up the game. His sight blacked out for a few seconds before brightening up and showed his avatar handling an M-16 with his two support characters beside him. His armory consisted of the M-16, a desert eagle, 3 grenades, 4 mines, and a knife, same as his opponent.
The warzone was a really hard stage to play on. There were two trenches protected by barricades and a metal made covering opposite each other with each of them being a complex maze.
In between the two trenches was a mess of blown-up buildings, scattered barricades, rubble, and even hidden mines which was a problem to both parties. The result was a really dangerous stage with a lot of enemy cover and hidden dangers.
He started moving and casually dropped a mine at the first bend he reached. He continued afterward and didn't stop until he reached the beginning of the fourth corridor in his trench and placed a mine there before moving on.
There was a possibility that his opponent might come into his ditch to look for him. He had to make sure he took advantage of that.
There was a total of six corridors that made up his trench, he placed a mine at the beginning of the fourth and fifth corridor leaving the second and third free to make his opponent lower his guard after the first mine.
If his opponent survived, which he most probably would if he was skilled enough, experiencing the two consecutive blasts would then shake them again and make them cautious.
He set up one of his support characters at the end of the sixth corridor and set its algorithm to shoot on sight to confuse his opponent that he was still there. He took the other support character with him through the back and out of the ditch, and then he waited...and watched.
There were only two entrances to the ditch which was through the front and back. He looked intently and saw the silhouettes of two people entering his ditch.
'Only two?' he thought, there were only two possibilities then.
The third person would most likely be his opponent hiding by the entrance of his ditch to test out the waters first with his support. It's a risky move since you might lose your support but it's feasible. The second would be that he went in himself and left a support to guard his own ditch in case there was an offense.
Suddenly he heard the first explosion.
BOOM!!!
Time to move out. he took his support and moved across to the front of his ditch. He looked around and didn't see another person around the entrance.
'Good, that means he is in there and left a support in his ditch'.
He took out his last mine and dropped it at the entrance of his ditch. He guessed that his opponent would most likely go back through the front entrance as there was no map beyond the back ditch entrance. His enemy would probably conclude that a trap was set at the back and the entrance would be safer!
As soon as he dropped it, he heard the second explosion.
BOOM!!!!
'He's moving faster than I expected'.
He felt reassured though, his opponent would have lost the support he took in with him since the support's AI's were not flexible enough to dodge mines effectively.
He left his second support a few meters away from the entrance and set its settings to shoot on sight. He then looked around to find a nearby building.
There was a burnt down two-story building by the left about 25 meters away from the barricaded entrance. The walls were burnt black, half of the building was rubble and the roof was nowhere to be seen. But there was a window on the second floor that was good as a sniping position, the view looked good.
He will able to see both entrances to his ditch and the surrounding areas well. He would snipe the two inside his ditch and go kill the remaining support in his opponent's ditch after. The plan was flawless. This match was as good as his!
He went into the two-story building and started walking up the stairs by the left side of the building. He was about halfway through when he heard a familiar beeping sound.
'Wait... Is that?'
He was too late as he was already on top of it before he had realized.
'A mine!!!???'
BOOM!!!!
He dived quickly to the right and ended up landing roughly.
The blonde was extremely surprised! How did his opponent know he was going to snipe up here?
The mine was obviously dropped by his opponent as system mines would be hidden outside on the field. He had fractured an ankle in the explosion so he couldn't move a leg well.
He suddenly heard a mine explosion followed not long after by multiple gunshots from outside and quickly stood up and started moving up the stairs again, his fractured ankle proving a big hindrance.
Although he was injured, he couldn't afford to miss the time when his opponent would leave the ditch!