The eighth time.
I Will Carry You stared at the world that had once again turned gray and white.
Her soul felt like it had floated out of her body, viewing from a god's-eye perspective the crater-riddled barricade where she'd just fallen.
The 15-second respawn timer ticked down coldly, each second mocking her incompetence.
"ARGH! Why is this game so hard?!"
She raged helplessly in her gaming pod, feeling like her blood pressure had shot through the roof.
She even started missing those old "war games" she used to play. At least there, she could charge in and out like a hero, instead of getting swatted down like a headless fly.
Ten minutes in, she'd at least figured out some basic rules: hide behind cover, watch the minimap, green dots are allies, red dots are enemies, revive quickly but check if it's safe first... She understood the theory.
But once she stepped onto the battlefield, the deafening artillery, the crisscrossing lasers, the horrific sight of teammates suddenly dropping beside her, it all made her brain freeze and her execution fall apart.
The situation in the southern district was already critical.
The Imperial assault came in waves like an endless tide. Of the defenders' original five defensive lines, the outermost two had already been breached.
Now they clung desperately to the third line, relying on ruined buildings and hastily erected fortifications. If this position fell, the entire southern district would be wide open.
And battlefields this intense existed in two other locations across the massive Tival map: the eastern and northern sectors.
The fates of 64 players and tens of thousands of AI soldiers were scattered across these three meat grinders, being ground down bit by bit.
Frustrated and stubborn, I Will Carry You instinctively opened the scoreboard while waiting to respawn. She wanted to see who the hell was thriving in this hellish difficulty.
At the top of the list was an extremely familiar name:
[User114514] – Assault
Kills: 45
Deaths: 2
Assists: 12
Revives: 0
Vehicles Destroyed: 2
Objectives Captured/Defended: 5
...
Total Score: 2648
"WHAT THE?!" I Will Carry You's eyes went wide. "That guy?! He's... he's that good?!"
45 kills!
She'd died eight times, and he'd only died twice? And destroyed two vehicles?
Was this really the same User114514 who'd been just as clueless as her at the start, barely able to hold his rifle?
The massive contrast made her almost forget her earlier frustration.
When the respawn light flashed again and she appeared at a supply point behind the third defensive line in the southern district, her first instinct wasn't to charge toward the battlefield but to frantically search the chaotic crowd for that green ID tag.
Found him!
Right there, in the window of a half-collapsed building ahead, that familiar ID stood out clearly.
User114514 was crouched behind the window ledge, his laser rifle steady as a rock. He wasn't spraying wildly but firing precise, controlled bursts.
"Pew!" A red flash from the window, and in the distance, a charging Imperial recruit dropped instantly.
[User114514 defeated Imperial Guard Recruit]
"Pew!" Another shot. An engineer trying to set up a heavy weapon jerked his head back and dissolved into data streams.
[User114514 defeated samsara (Engineer)]
His firing rhythm wasn't fast, but it was absolutely lethal. Nearly every shot was accompanied by an enemy unit dropping.
The gap in the defensive line that had been wavering under an Imperial push miraculously stabilized under his and several veteran rebel AI's precise fire support, temporarily pushing back the tan-colored wave.
"Pro! Pro!" I Will Carry You rushed over like she'd found her savior, scrambling on all fours, not even caring about the stray fire.
She crouched directly under the window, looking up at him, her voice full of disbelief. "Didn't you say you've never played before? How are you so good?!"
User114514 heard her voice and temporarily stopped shooting, glancing down at her. His character's face was smeared with soot, but his eyes were remarkably calm.
"Yeah, I haven't played before."
His voice came through his helmet, slightly muffled but with a flat tone. "But this game's actually pretty easy to pick up. Not that complicated."
"Easy to pick up?!" I Will Carry You's voice jumped an octave as she pointed at the hellfire battlefield outside. "You call this easy?!"
"Yeah." User114514 nodded, raising his rifle again while explaining, "Basically, if you can aim and use cover, you're good.
Look at those regular AI. Their movement patterns are really predictable, their aim is terrible.
They're easy to kill. You just have to watch out for the elite AI and those players with different-looking gear.
Their aim is scary accurate. I just died my second death because a veteran one-shot me in the head from 300 meters away."
300 meters away... headshot...
I Will Carry You's mouth twitched. Was he even speaking human language?
While she couldn't hit a moving target within 50 meters, he was already thinking about how to avoid precision sniper fire from 300 meters out?
"So... what should I do now?" I Will Carry You asked, practically in tears. She was treating him like a lifeline at this point.
User114514 seemed to think for a moment, then gave concise advice.
"Since you're a Medic, stop trying to get kills. Follow me or another Assault player.
Whenever someone goes down, rush over and revive them. Stay hidden, don't expose yourself too much. Remember, you can only earn points if you're alive."
With that, he stopped paying attention to I Will Carry You and focused entirely on the Imperial soldiers across the way.
His gunfire resumed, steady and efficient, like a merciless harvesting machine.
I Will Carry You watched his back, then looked down at her pitiful little medic pistol. For the first time, she had a somewhat clear understanding of this game.
Turns out, it wasn't that the game was too hard. It was that she... sucked too much?