Chapter 4: KING OF RIDER

I had actually been prepared long ago.

Getting beaten up by a giant machine — this kind of thing was not new to me.

Pain had taken root in my body for so many years.

It was no longer a question of “can I endure it.”

It was more like a default background noise.

As long as it did not drag me completely into the depths of collapse, I could continue pretending to be indifferent and keep moving forward.

Besides, this account had been designed from the start like a “device for others to extract points.”

As long as the points were not beaten down below zero, I could accept it.

Really.

At least that was what I had always told myself.

In the end, it was just those familiar, annoying thoughts replaying in my head over and over —

Ugh, this is too troublesome.

Resistance won’t work anyway, so I might as well honestly take the hit.

These nearly self-conditioned thoughts had gradually worn down my edges.

They had even ground my body into a dull shape.

This account had probably made me numb.

However —

Snap.

That was a strange sound.

I could not even describe it with simple words.

It was like the crisp crack of a whip striking metal, yet it lacked the texture of a “whip.”

What my hearing captured was the sharp sound of metal being forcibly bent.

But the image reflected in my retinas was completely unlike any attack I had imagined.

It was a light pillar of uniform thickness.

It could bend.

It could twist.

It possessed astonishing toughness like a living thing.

It even carried a cold “precision” in its movements.

The reason I could reach this conclusion was that the light pillar was now firmly binding the giant exoskeleton mech’s arms.

It prevented the giant fists that had stopped right in front of my nose from advancing even one more inch.

The golden-yellow liquid in the gray steel tube was slowly retracting, almost reaching the bottom.

Corresponding to it were the mech’s surface steel plates burning red and the increasingly sharp alarm sounds.

Those sounds seemed impatiently urging the word “explosion” to arrive.

“Control-type skill… and it even comes with continuous life reduction?”

I heard my own voice roll in my throat, low like self-muttering.

“It really is… an ability like torture.”

Of course I knew who had intervened in this duel.

Not only I knew.

In the entire academy, or even within the nearby streets, the only person who could forcibly intervene in this way was her.

“May… Mayne!”

“Why are you here!”

“I, I was just teaching this kid a lesson —!”

The guy wearing sunglasses — no, Rampage Hound — even stuttered in that instant.

My childhood friend.

The student council president of Blue Sea Academy.

The KING OF RIDER who ruled Blue Sea Academy and the surrounding area.

The only Tier 15 in this region.

Xieyi Mayne.

“Student council president?”

“Wow!”

“Moonlight Knight is here!”

“She’s my idol!”

“How did this duel draw in the great lord?”

The spectator seats outside the field erupted in exclamations like they had been ignited.

A third party intervening in a duel was indeed shocking enough.

But in the world of BHAO it was not absolutely rare.

Because BHAO’s rules stated that ordinary players could almost never intervene in others’ duels — that was the rule.

But rules were called rules because they always had exceptions.

And lords were the exceptions themselves.

She possessed special authority.

She could participate in any duel within her jurisdiction.

She could even demand to terminate a duel at any moment.

“When inside BHAO, you should address the other party by their character name, Rampage Hound.”

Mayne’s voice came from beneath the helmet, cold like silver striking stone.

“This is basic knowledge that every BHAO player should know.”

—Rampage Hound.

So that was his character name.

“May… Moonlight Knight!”

“I, I and the Nameless Warrior were just having a simple academy duel.”

“This shouldn’t fall under the KING’s jurisdiction, right?”

Rampage Hound’s mech had clearly reached its limit.

He simply disengaged the exoskeleton and tried to defend himself with a more “human” posture.

He spread his hands in a harmless gesture, as if showing a little grievance would loosen the other party’s rules.

But that light pillar seemed to have no intention of letting him go.

Its movements did not pause at all and once again wound around his body at astonishing speed.

At the same time, the green liquid in the steel tube above shrank back sharply by a large section.

“Indeed.”

Mayne’s tone was frighteningly calm.

“As long as it is not a threat to the territory, the lord has no right to intervene.”

My vision was somewhat blurred by the interference of that light pillar.

But it did not prevent me from seeing her figure clearly.

That design was definitely not something ordinary reinforcement could produce.

Silver heavy armor almost completely wrapped her entire body.

Strange runes were carved on the armor surface, as if ancient oaths had been pressed into the metal.

Her right hand gripped a heavy long spear.

Her left hand held the “light pillar rope” binding Rampage Hound.

Silver long hair neatly passed over the shoulder armor and spread along her back like a waterfall woven from cold light.

I could not see the face beneath the helmet.

But BHAO’s technology that almost replicated real appearances into the game had long made imagination unnecessary.

Even if I could not see it, I could vividly piece together that overly beautiful face in my mind.

“But — Rampage Hound.”

Mayne’s spear tip lifted slightly, as if declaring.

“While possessing the KING OF RIDER identity, I am also the student council president of Blue Sea Academy.”

“Don’t you know Blue Sea Academy’s rules?”

She paused, her tone deliberate word by word.

“No duels are allowed to be initiated against students holding fewer than one thousand points.”

Ah, right.

There was indeed such a rule.

I silently agreed in my heart.

It was just that this rule had almost become decoration in reality.

Cruel upperclassmen and the academy’s elites never took it seriously.

“Ah~ but this guy is trash!”

Rampage Hound’s tone carried malicious frivolity.

“When did academy rules become effective against this kind of trash, student council president?”

…His mouth was really terrible.

I dared to guarantee he was not the most disgusting kind.

But he had indeed succeeded in angering me.

Endurance was originally to protect my most important secret — that went without saying.

But throwing me into a corner to rot was one thing.

Casually slapping the label “trash” on me was enough to make my stomach burn with rage.

“I’m not trash at all!”

I still resisted.

The moment those words rushed out of my mouth, it felt like a cannon sealed for years and long overdue for scrapping had suddenly been ignited.

Long-suppressed emotions exploded together with the sound.

I had only wanted to cause less trouble.

But in the end I still could not hold back.

Of course, from the momentum it was not particularly strong.

After all, I was only borrowing the lord’s prestige to act fierce.

“Oh?”

“Then if you’re not trash, you’re a maggot?”

Rampage Hound shouted loudly.

Even though his body was bound, he still relied on the natural superiority of Tier 5 over Tier 0.

He put on an air of “I can step on you.”

“A guy with no combat power who only consumes food?”

“No, I’m not trash, and I’m not a maggot.”

“I’m the famous wi—”

No.

I could not say it here.

Reason was like an ice-cold hand that suddenly grabbed me from behind the head.

It forcibly pressed back the words about to slip out.

I shook my head and forced myself to stuff the anger back deep into my body.

I let it settle again.

Sweat soaked the coarse linen clothes and stuck to my skin, rubbing uncomfortably.

BHAO could even simulate the details of body temperature rising during anger.

This technology was truly “praiseworthy.”

“What?”

“What is it?”

Rampage Hound laughed even louder.

His expression was twisted like a rag wrung together.

“Magic affinity zero?”

“Mr. Zero?”

“Or calling you Mr. Zero works too!”

“Shut up!”

Mayne’s voice suddenly lowered, like an ice blade sliding across skin.

“Yoruichi is not trash.”

“Since you violated the academy rules, you should receive corresponding punishment.”

The binding light pillar tightened more and more.

Rampage Hound’s HP above his head began to decrease at a visible speed.

“Then —”

Mayne’s long spear tilted slightly, like the final motion before judgment fell.

“The ten thousand points you staked will be treated as this time’s punishment.”

“All of it — given to Yoruichi.”

Extreme speed.

That was the speed she displayed after her words fell.

In ordinary people’s eyes, she seemed to disappear from her original spot in an instant.

But I saw it clearly — she was stepping on air to advance.

Her toes stepped on invisible fulcrums and borrowed reaction force that completely defied physics as she charged toward Rampage Hound.

In the next second.

The long spear pierced through Rampage Hound’s body.

Behind him, data-stream cubes overflowed madly like torn fabric.

As a substitute for “blood,” the flowing data instead formed another kind of strange, deathly beauty.

Immediately afterward, Rampage Hound’s body exploded.

Data cubes scattered across the ground like shattered glass.

Then they disappeared piece by piece into the air as if they had never existed.

And the familiar earth-and-stone font once again emerged in my vision.

“WINNER —— UNKNOWN NAME WARRIOR”

Crude, heavy, like a declaration carved into the mud.

Only this time, it announced not victory itself, but the end of this duel.