Chapter 90
“More than I expected.”
I shared my thoughts as I looked over the sea of heads.
Compared to the 10,000 or 20,000 live viewers on other famous streamers’ broadcasts, it was only a handful, but experiencing it firsthand felt different.
There were 1,600 viewers, yet nearly 1,000 people had joined in.
There was no way this many people could fit into my private room, so I set the background to one of the large sets supported by the capsule.
[Idol Stage ver.1.3.4]
As soon as I stepped onto the stage, the lights hanging from the ceiling all turned their heads in unison and shone down on me.
I could feel the heat. Couldn’t I set the lights a little dimmer?
After fiddling with the settings, I got tired of it and decided to move on to the main point.
What we were doing from here on was closer to an O/X quiz than a World Cup.
It was a simple game: those who chose the same answer as me survived.
There was a reason I was choosing my managers this way.
Even after setting standards for aggressive wording, spam, and malicious chats, there would always be people who skirted the line.
I couldn’t exactly explain the standards to the managers one by one, and in those situations, the managers’ own judgment was important.
In the end, I needed people I could trust to handle things on their own—to put it simply, “Just handle it properly.”
Someone with a disposition similar to mine would probably be more likely to make the same judgments I did. It was a matter of probability. It would be troublesome if that weren’t the case, though.
[‘nayun1231’ donated 3,000 won!]
-Is there any special criterion for choosing combat magic? Like assuming a one-on-one situation, or having to face multiple enemies.
“Just use your judgment and choose.”
-It’s just for fun, but you’re taking it way too seriouslyㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-All those tryhards went to participateㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Can’t pass up a chance to pick a manager.
Either way, it was a test to see how much their thinking matched mine. It would only be harder if they overthought it, right?
[Combat Magic World Cup Round of 32, Match 1/16]
[5th Circle Ignis Velum (Fire Curtain) vs. 4th Circle Glacĭs Hasta (Ice Spear)]
“It’s a battle between fire and ice right from the start.”
-Fire magic versus ice magic ㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷ
-This is basically A Dance of Fire and Iceㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Are you an iced-coffee-to-the-death type or a warm-shower-to-the-death type, boss?
-ㄴWhat’s a warm-shower-to-the-death type?
-ㄴSomeone who showers with warm water even if they roast to death
-I’m both, so what does that make meㅋㅋ
I didn’t know the official names of the magic in this world, either.
I merely looked at the structure of the magic circle, made a rough inference, and compared it with the magic from my previous life.
Since this was a World Cup, I would have liked an explanation of the magic to go with it, but the creator seemed to have thrown such convenience out the window.
What’s “Fire Curtain versus Ice Spear”? It sounds so cheap.
“The one on the left is called Ignis Velum. It seems to be a spell that continuously supplies flammable material around the caster and extends outward in a spherical shape. The combustion reaction also obscures the magic circle, so it seems less vulnerable to dispelling. Oh, I can play the video. Shall we take a look?”
The image quality wasn’t very good.
A muscular man ran through a reed field, with a cameraman following him. He was probably a war correspondent.
But a wide river flowed at the end of the reeds. Trapped at the dead end, they hurriedly looked behind them. Were they being pursued by enemies?
At that moment, the man grabbed the cameraman and threw him toward the opposite bank. He landed a little past the midpoint, and the camera’s viewpoint managed to rise back above the water.
[confícĭo: ignis vēlum]
Dozens of soldiers burst out of the reeds behind a barricade. But a massive fireball unleashed by the man turned the reed field into a wasteland, leaving them unable to approach and merely stamping their feet in frustration.
-That old wizard is seriously badassㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Is this 5th Circle?
-Look at that river boiling away.
-This must be Switzerland.
-ㄴHow do you know?
-ㄴThe Alps are in the background.
“Shall we watch the next one, too? For the sake of time, I’ll explain it while we watch the video. This one has much better image quality. 4th Circle spell Glacĭs Hasta. In the video, she freezes water down to minus 250 degrees and fashions it into a sharp spear.”
[constĭtŭo: glácĭes hasta]
-How do you hold a spear that’s minus 250 degrees?
-You’d shoot it instead of swinging itㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-This person just catches it?
-????
A woman with long blue hair caught a spear that had materialized in midair between her second and third strides.
Her upper body did not bend forward, while the shoulder and arm on the side holding the spear were pulled taut.
Her hips and shoulder became the axis, and her palm faced the sky.
On her fourth stride, she firmly shifted her center of gravity onto her left leg, fixing the left side of her body in place, while her chest thrust forward and exerted maximum force.
An impactful delivery. The spear left her hand, and her body briefly floated into the air. It hit the target squarely.
Apart from her quick recovery, presumably because the ice had been so cold, it was almost a perfect motion.
The video ended with her clutching her bright-red hand and throwing a tantrum.
“Cool. I don’t think there’s anything more to evaluate. Ignis Velum versus Glacĭs Hasta. What should I do here?”
-The first one, obviously.
-First one.
-But it’s a 5th Circle versus a 4th Circle spell to begin with—isn’t that totally unbalanced?ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Fire magic is strong, I guess.
-Let’s pick the old man’s cool spell this time.
“Hmmm... If I could use only one of these.”
A screen identical to the one I was looking at appeared on the floor of the set where the people were standing.
The side I chose would survive, while the other side would have the floor collapse beneath it and eliminate the viewers.
I was still deliberating, but those who had already made up their minds hurried their steps. They were mostly gravitating toward fire magic.
“The former is an area-of-effect heat spell capable of both offense and defense. If handled skillfully, it could be useful not only in one-versus-many combat but also in one-on-one fights. It would be especially good for buying time when being pursued, like in the video we just saw.”
-Wouldn’t you be invincible as long as you had just that equipped?
-That spell is totally brokenㅋㅋ
-The 5th Circle magic circle is insanely complicated;;
“The latter, on the other hand, doesn’t depend on elemental matchups, but seems to be heavily influenced by the caster’s ability. If you cast the spell but can’t actually hit anything, it’s completely useless.”
-Then you’re screwed, I guess.
-You might as well shoot an ice cannon.
-Still, there’s a certain romantic appeal to doing it manually, right...?
“Has everyone made their choice? Fire Curtain on the left if you want the wide-area spell, and Ice Spear on the right. Fire Curtain definitely looks cooler, too. I agree.”
After hearing my assessment, people began moving from Glacĭs Hasta to Ignis Velum in droves.
It was only natural that so many people agreed with me.
On the other hand, not a single person moved the other way. Ah, there’s exactly one over there.
“Then I’ll make my choice quickly, too.”
After confirming that no one was standing on the dividing line between the two choices, I lightly tapped the option I had already settled on with my finger.
[4th Circle Glacĭs Hasta (Ice Spear)]
-????
-???????
-ㅅㅂ?
[840 people have been eliminated.]
[218 people have survived.]
The screams of hundreds of people rose faintly from the pit below.
Eight hundred forty people had been eliminated right from the start.
An ideal manager was this difficult to find.
The tranquil real-time chat was swept away in a raging current.
Those who had fallen in the first round vented their fury.
-I trusted what the boss said and switched at the last second—what the hell is this?
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-This is some serious entrapmentㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Isn’t this just straight-up malicious at this point?
-(This chat has been blocked.)
The people who had switched at the last moment, in particular, seemed even more aggrieved and freely started hurling curses.
You’re banned.
“I do think Ignis Velum is a useful spell. But if I could use only one, I’m not sure I’d choose it. If you were playing a survival game and could use only one of a handgun and a smoke grenade, which would you choose?”
-Obviously the handgun.
-Now that you put it that way, it suddenly makes sense again.
-But it is a 5th Circle spell, so doesn’t it have decent lethality?
“Ignis Velum is practically a self-destruct spell. The caster’s mana isn’t infinite, and obscuring your vision affects both sides equally. If it were me, I wouldn’t want to use such a neither-here-nor-there spell.”
[‘Gijipiji’ donated 1,000 won!]
-Damn, I can’t even hit her onceㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Then why don’t you clear WoA 10/10/10 like the bossㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-If you’re salty... you know what to do...?
-Why does Ice Spear look so damn weak for a 4th Circle spell?
“As you can see, Glacĭs Hasta has the advantage of letting you freely configure the material that forms the spear. It doesn’t merely freeze water; if you can build a superconductor based on niobium and minimize power loss, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to aim for hypersonic speeds.”
That was the so-called railgun principle.
And above all, it made no sense for an ice mage to be inferior to a fire mage, did it?
I had never once lost to Remilia Acephate in a magic duel.
It was reliable knowledge born of experience, so I urged the viewers to trust what I said.