Subaru Natsuki, who had once again been beaten to death by Malenia, took off his glasses and saw the dazed ACE beside him. He asked curiously, "Uncle, what's wrong?"
While asking, he took a look at ACE's screen.
Oh, stuck at Margit-sensei.
But something wasn't right. ACE seemed to be well-equipped and had rich combat experience. If he learned parrying and blocking a little, he should be able to defeat Margit. How could he be stuck here?
This wasn't Malenia.
Let him tell a joke: he played the realism mode and burned the tree down, even became the Elden Lord. Yet, when he went to fight Malenia, he was thoroughly taught a lesson.
At this moment, he finally understood why the Blade of Miquella was called the Blade of Miquella.
But the problem was that if you want to continue modifying your equipment in the realism difficulty, you need to defeat all the demigods and activate the Divine Towers. Now, with only the Malenia left, he could only suffer here.
Fujimaru Kaede was in a similar situation, she was also stuck at Malenia on the highest difficulty.
ACE ignored Subaru and continued to fight. Once, twice, three times— as the number of attempts increased, he began to understand the attack patterns of Margit the Fell Omen.
"We can win!"
Seeing the Fell Omen that he managed to bring down to half health, ACE felt that victory was within reach. But then he saw the Omen jump high into the air, preparing to use a hammer attack, and he gave up resistance.
"Damn it!"
He had already used all his strength, but so far he could only bring Margit down to half health. This made ACE doubt whether the enemy could be defeated.
"Uncle, do you like to use a shield?"
Hearing Natsuki Subaru's question, he nodded. Then Natsuki Subaru continued to ask, "Did you study in the Cave of Knowledge?"
"Doesn't it teach the most basic combat skills? I didn't go."
"I knew it..."
As a veteran character in the Internet cafe, Natsuki Subaru had seen many newbies take detours early on. It would be fine if the masters who completely replaced their own data in the realism mode didn't went there, but for people like them who could only play the game mode at the beginning and didn't have many special powers, not learning the basics could be fatal.
Let's not talk about anything else—just consider execution and parry. He now used these skills extremely proficiently, but without learning them, even someone like Minato Namikaze, who had experienced countless battles, might fail. Minato was a ninjutsu user, but even he learned to parry honestly.
According to his words, more skills are better than fewer, and this parry might not always be used.
But ACE in front of him hadn't even learned the most basic parry and execution skills, which are essential for every Tarmished or Souls player. Although one can pass the game without them, look at Minato Namikaze, who hardly used them to practice ninjutsu.
The result? He was stuck on Malenia like him and for a much longer time.
"Parry? Execution?"
ACE soon realized that the Cave of Knowledge at the beginning did not teach the so-called basic combat skills but a different one from what he knew. Or perhaps these fighting skills were just the basic skills of this world, not what he understood.
So, with Natsuki Subaru's help, he returned to the Cave of Knowledge and started learning the basic skills from scratch.
According to the tutorial description and personal participation, the skills were very simple, but it was precisely because of this simplicity that he found his previous thoughts were wrong.
"Block... Stance Break, and? Magic?"
ACE witnessed a power far beyond the Terra continent. At this moment, he completely understood Jibril's introduction at the beginning.
He already had extremely rich combat experience. After mastering these skills, he repeated the fight twice and killed Margit after figuring out his techniques and Margit's skills.
However, before he knew it, it was already seven o'clock in the evening. Just as he was about to continue, Natsuki Subaru patted him.
"What's wrong?"
He had a good impression of Natsuki Subaru. If Natsuki Subaru hadn't reminded him, he might still be fighting that big guy.
"Would you like to play a game of Red Alert?"
"Red Alert?"
Subaru Natsuki introduced the game Red Alert to him and explained the situation at this Internet cafe. In the last hour of every day, people interested in real-time strategy would gather to play one or two games of Red Alert.
Everyone usually chose a small piece of land. If there was more time left, they would even consider a game of ice and snow or a big melee in the Arctic Circle.
When Subaru Natsuki introduced it, Fujimaru Kaoru behind them couldn't help but complain, "Subaru, promise me, don't bully the newcomers! Aren't newcomers just being abused by us in this game?"
As everyone's skills improved, they transitioned from the basic game mode to the real mode. The real mode wasn't just about numerical tanks; the soldiers had their own ideas.
Want to win? It required all-around ability.
Although it was very difficult to get started, people in Riku's world liked this a lot.
Currently, the one with the highest winning rate in this mode was Schwi. Except For losing a few games in the early 1v1 with Riku, she had never lost.
In terms of Red Alert, Schwi was a living legend.
"Can you also command a war?" ACE was a little surprised. He thought it was already great to improve his strength by fighting in person, but he didn't expect that he could do other things.
"If I can learn these..." ACE had his own plan. Amiya was going to take the Rhodes Island operators to save the doctor. If he could also learn some useful knowledge, he could play an unexpected role.
Thinking of this, ACE started to act.
However, after playing, he realized he was naive. To take care of the novices, Natsuki Subaru opened the human computer room, but he was still overwhelmed by a player named 08 who stole his oil field and base. The opponent's mining truck even collected diamonds from the nearby family mine right in front of him.
When the Internet cafe closed, ACE had not recovered from the loss in Red Alert. He thought that as a senior and experienced operator, he shouldn't be too embarrassed even if he was a newcomer. But it wasn't until he saw the tanks and soldiers holding heavy machine guns that he realized how naive his thoughts were.
When commanding, he calculated that the soldiers' machine guns alone would be enough to give him a hard time, and the tanks' thick muzzles made him nervous.
According to his calculations, a slightly experienced warlock could dismantle the broken iron sheet. But the problem came when he saw the tanks' attack methods were coordinated by infantry and tanks, and even infantry, tanks, flying soldiers, and stealing vehicles acted simultaneously.
It felt like various operators were cooperating with each other, but they used machines while he used flesh.
Then the question arose: Could Terra's world be like Red Alert, with infantry, tanks, and air forces cooperating in combat?
However, no one could answer this question today, because the Internet cafe was closed and he returned to Rhodes Island.
ACE, who returned to Rhodes Island, was shocked by the things in the Internet cafe and hadn't recovered.
"ACE? What are you thinking about?"
Closure, who had just finished training in the corridor, saw ACE in a daze and came over to wave. "Are you thinking about how to save the doctor now? It doesn't matter! Let's cooperate as a team! Just kill all the enemies."
"Kill them all?"
ACE was still recalling everything he had experienced today, especially the guns used by the soldiers in Red Alert. He was very interested, but it was strange that when he asked about the extra game auxiliary system in his body, the system said that his world could not make gunpowder, but this thing could be bought in other worlds.
So he posted a request for help in the player mall. He estimated the price of the gun in the Terra world and offered 500,000 Lungmen coins as a reward for a heavy machine gun in the player mall. As soon as he posted the reward, Schwi completed it and sent him a private message.
"Firearms can be obtained in the Resident Evil series of games. Can I make some exclusive firearms for you with this money?"
Schwi and Riku not only scavenged across different worlds, but Schwi was also multitasking, keeping an eye on the player mall for any commissions. She was most willing to accept commissions for weapons like this one.
She could exchange some scrap metal equipment that Liu Yuan wouldn't accept for money from people in other worlds, making a lot of profit.