Chapter 62: Putting Feelings Into a Moment, Part 9.5
Sunraku: "Man... I just logged in recently, but somehow it feels like I'm coming back after years away."
Right now I'm not the half-naked bird-masked Sunraku. I'm Sunraku the Berserker — an Iai-Fist style master fighter, unlocked via a hidden route in the story mode. In other words, I was standing at the login point for Berserk Online Passion... "Constipation."
Naturally, Modor Katzo's avatar wasn't here. That guy was still fishing today to finish up the rest of his leveling. Well, Pencilgon was doing it with him, so it shouldn't take too long, and either way, I couldn't imagine him going out of his way to log into Constipation.
Sunraku: "Anyone around to fight... hmm."
The reason I'd logged into Constipation was to find sparring partners to prep for Wethermon the Tombguard. According to the intel Pencilgon had gathered, Wethermon the Tombguard came with an arsenal of hyper-speed frame attacks, instant kills, and AoEs — all built into its design. That made this game's story mode the perfect practice, since thanks to its bugs, every attack's startup frames were cranked to insane speeds.
Fortunately, this game also let you fight NPCs — including the final boss — in multiplayer mode. So here I was, wandering around the desolate wasteland that is Constipation on yet another day.
The final boss of Berserk Online Passion's story mode: "Crisis"... wait, what was his deal again? He'd gained ultimate power and wanted to rule over humanity from the top, or something equally over-the-top — I think the backstory involved heavy body modification and doping with some ridiculously cliché motive.
Even if I was going to fight him, I wanted to warm up first. That's why I was searching for an opponent, but I couldn't find anyone. Well, it was summer break season, sure, but it was also a Wednesday morning. Without any working-adult players around, this was about what I'd expect... oh, someone's got their match request icon up!
Sunraku: "Uh, hello?"
???: "Y-Yes!"
When I spoke up from behind, the player whipped around, voice pitched high. The voice was younger than I'd expected — was this a Katzo situation, an unusually youthful natural voice, or was the player really young? I checked the player name: "Dragonfly"... a name I'd never seen before. At the very least, I hadn't seen it back when I was deep into this game.
Sunraku: "So... up for a match?"
Dragonfly: "Yes! I'm still just a novice who hasn't even beaten the final boss, but I'd be grateful if you'd spar with me!"
Incredible. This was an even more over-the-top, ham-and-cheese "new player" than this game's actual final boss. A newcomer like this had to be rarer than some endangered species.
From the look of things... yeah, a basic all-rounder type. The first fighting style you can pick, and also the one with the most bug variants. Though, without player skills on Katzo's level, making full use of those bug variants would be tough.
Sunraku: "So, uh... bugs on? Off?"
Dragonfly: "Bugs...? Oh! You mean the ‘bug tundra’ the veterans were talking about! Yes, that, please!"
Bug tundra... oh, Bergtude. For a second I thought some new combo had been discovered. Still, being on this server meant the player had bought the packaged version, and the word "veterans" suggested Dragonfly had already gotten some bug coaching from other players.
The match was set, and a field formed around Dragonfly and me.
Sunraku: "Well, uh... good luck."
Dragonfly: "Thank you very much!"
And then the gong signaling the start of Round 1 began to ring—
Dragonfly: "All riiiiiiight!!"
Sunraku: "Whoa!"
A blitz?! Normally that's not the all-rounder — it's the high-agility Speedster type that— ah, right. There's no such thing as standard theory when it comes to beginners.
Dragonfly: "Twist the fist... and snap it back!"
Dragonfly wound up the punch, then pulled it even further back — and the right arm stretched. The fist texture stayed locked at the coordinate where Dragonfly had wound up, so it looked like someone had yanked on a rubber band until it distorted — a textbook example of Constipation's trademark inhuman bugs, a total texture breakdown.
Sunraku: "Hmm... the Pile Bunker, huh."
The "Pile Bunker": a bug technique where, after performing the first-stage punch-prep motion, you pull your fist back even further to perform a second-stage prep motion, which for some reason makes the punch hit twice with double damage. A beginner-friendly bug... no, the fact that I'm even saying that makes no sense. Anyway, among inhuman bug games, it's one of the easier bugs to pull off.
Dragonfly: "Tyaah!"
Like a stretched rubber band snapping back, Dragonfly's elongated fist texture contracted and the punch flew toward me.
My fighting style in this game is the counter-based "Iai-Fist style" — parrying by deflecting an opponent's attack just before it lands. I could've done that here. But instead, I decided to demonstrate one of the bugs that Constipation's players had discovered through relentless obsession and research.
Sunraku: "Jump in any direction from a standstill with my right foot, keep my left foot planted...!"
Dragonfly: "What?!"
Dragonfly's eyes went wide as the straightforward punch whiffed. It had to be more shocking than a simple dodge — after all, right now I'd slid about five meters backward while leaving everything from my left ankle down frozen in place.
Sunraku: "This is a bug technique called the 'Yo-Yo.' Lets you shift your avatar's texture — hitbox and all — for three seconds."
Dragonfly: "Y-Your leg's stretching..."
Apparently, the left foot's plant detection and the jump detection bug out against each other. Even beyond the Yo-Yo, any time you do that kind of backwards, sideways, or upside-down movement, it bugs out about eighty percent of the time.
There were others too: the "Shield Bash," where moving forward while guarding somehow causes you to charge at the opponent with a live guard hitbox and shove them into a wall; the "Shotgun," which Katzo recently developed — I don't know the exact conditions, but it scatters the hitboxes of a split fist like buckshot. It was crap so pure it couldn't be compared to anything but a trash game, but once you got used to it, that was what made it fun.
Sunraku: "And this game's bugs go way deeper than that."
Dragonfly: "At least one round...!"
Fwahaha! Let me show you a new-sensation bug game that fuses bugs with the Iai-Fist style!
Dragonfly: "I... I can't win..."
Sunraku: "The Iai-Fist style is invincible!"
Excepting inhuman pro gamers like Modor Katzo, that is. Set a first-time trap and he'd have it meta-gamed by the next round — that guy is just impossible to fight.
Dragonfly: "O-One more match! Last one, please!"
Sunraku: "Hmm..."
Honestly, I was about ready to call it. My original goal was to fight the final boss, not other players. But this wasn't Shangri-La Frontier — a god-tier game where hundreds of new players silently flood in every day. This was a deserted trash game — kasō (deserted) with kuso (crap) mixed in. A new player here was worth more than diamonds. It's not that I was hoping this game would blow up and become popular. But I wasn't hoping it would die out from sheer emptiness, either. A new player was a rare thing — why not act like a good senpai and give them a little time?
Sunraku: "Sure."
Dragonfly: "Thank you!"
Besides, fighting Dragonfly — who kept trying to adapt and counter me through trial and error — was honestly pretty fun. If I'm being honest, I would've liked a bit more of a challenge... no, no, that's not something to ask from a beginner.
The round gong sounded. Dragonfly closed in with a super-blitz charge — the other players must've decided not to forcibly correct it but rather to cultivate it. I'd already shown them I could intercept a straight-line rush without taking damage multiple times. So, what would Dragonfly do in this last match?
Dragonfly: "Here!"
Huh, using the Yo-Yo at the very edge of my intercept range. Dragonfly had put distance between us with what was, to put it mildly, an unsettling slide. But if Dragonfly snapped back to the original position, Dragonfly would eat my waiting counter head-on.
Except Dragonfly didn't resist the pullback motion. Instead, Dragonfly jumped forward with the right foot. In that instant, Dragonfly's body — which should've been pulled back to the planted left foot's coordinates — shot forward at near-teleportation speed, right into my face.
Dragonfly: "Eii!"
Sunraku: "Whoa."
A quick jab, no Pile Bunker. The timing threw me off and I took it to the face. I'd already started my intercept motion, so I wouldn't have dodged either way — going for the Pile Bunker would've been the right call. Still, coming up with that answer after less than an hour of matches... not bad at all.
Dragonfly: "I-I did it!"
Sunraku: "Landing one hit doesn't mean it's over, though. This is a fighting game."
Dragonfly: "Ack."
Nobody said a counter-focused style couldn't go on the offensive. I pressed in with minimal movement, chipping away with Pile Bunker quick jabs while constantly advancing to deny any counterattack window. Even if Dragonfly tried to escape with the Yo-Yo again, this time I'd intercept them perfectly.
Dragonfly: "Th-then how about this!"
Sunraku: "Whoa."
I see — they planned to counter-shove me with a Shield Bash, keeping the guard hitbox active while rushing forward. Hmm, right answer but wrong execution. Sixty points!
Sunraku: "Hup!"
Dragonfly: "Huh... guh?!"
Sunraku: "Guard breaks are essential in fighting games."
At least when it comes to the Shield Bash, it's an offensive bug technique, not a defensive one. Getting staggered into a Shield Bash wall-corner into an instant-death combo is a real-life-fight situation. Dragonfly got launched by a heavy punch while staggered, but scrambled up immediately — though Dragonfly kept a cautious distance, wary.
Sunraku: "So, what now? For the record, the Iai-Fist's got an effective range of about one meter radius from the user."
Dragonfly: "Tch... then here goes!"
Straight-line rush again, unchanged. I wouldn't call it a bad move, but without some kind of plan, it's just serving yourself up... hmm?
Okay, straight-line rush toward me? Sudden stop right before? Transition into a gauge move? Cancel out of guard and reactivate... wait, WHAT?!
Sunraku: "Wait, what's that?!"
Dragonfly: "Toryaaaaaaa!!"
Did I just lose this one? Well, it's just one round — not a big deal. What mattered more was that bug technique I just saw.
The all-rounder's gauge move is the "Flying Fist Shock" — it launches a fist-shaped shockwave. But that multi-hitting attack had come at me doubled up, like a Pile Bunker applied to the gauge move itself. I gave up on dodging and deliberately took it... and it shaved off fifty percent of my HP.
Beginner or not, Dragonfly seemed to have the bare minimum fighting game sense. Dragonfly didn't miss the opening as I got up and immediately pressed the offensive. In the blink of an eye, my HP was shredded, and Dragonfly took their very first round.
Dragonfly: "I-I did it! My first round!"
Sunraku: "Ah, hold on — time out."
Dragonfly: "Oh, okay!"
Though it was this time of day, Dragonfly and I weren't the only ones around. I started consulting with the handful of spectators.
Sunraku: "So, what do you guys think? Just from watching."
???: "In principle it's like the Pile Bunker, but the standard Pile Bunker method shouldn't let you duplicate a gauge move, right?"
???: "Gauge moves... that's gotta be Doppelganger-related, no?"
???: "Nah, you couldn't put a clone on the same coordinates. Someone tested that. Plus you can't use Chimera with Doppelganger. So..."
???: "Ah, if the analysis crew can reproduce it later, then it's confirmed."
Consultation complete. With our conclusion reached, I headed back to Dragonfly.
Sunraku: "Uh... Dragonfly-san."
Dragonfly: "Y-Yes?!"
Sunraku: "Congratulations. That bug technique you just did — provisionally, you're its first discoverer."
Dragonfly: "...Ehhhh?!"
So that's how it works... you can double it up by going through a guard cancel... wait, why does the gauge move's hitbox even remain after a guard cancel... goddammit, Constipation really is constipated...
Sunraku: "So, when a new bug technique is discovered, the discoverer gets to name it."
Dragonfly: "Wh-what, I mean, you can't just spring that on me..."
It was an unspoken rule, but it had led to certain players getting carried away and naming things like the "Nyan Nyan Silvple Buster." Since that one was an essential bug technique for a specific style, throw-style players had to use the "Nyan Nyan Silvple Buster" day and night with incredibly complicated expressions.
Sunraku: "Well, you can figure that out later. First, I'm taking this round back and ending this match as my win...!"
Dragonfly: "I-I'm not losing!"
Still, I had to show my strength here — remain a wall they still couldn't surpass.
Round 2 began, and right at the opening: a gauge move. Then, just before activation: an evasive action. It looked simple, but the success window was only a few frames, and it required a style with a slow-activating gauge move — making it extremely difficult to replicate. But it was a bug technique packed with both style and practical use.
Dragonfly: "Whaaat?!"
Sunraku: "Pretty cool, right? It's a game, so of course I can multiply, and because it's a game, that's me — Sunraku — too."
In this game, gauge moves become uncancelable a certain number of seconds after activation. Unlike Shangri-La Frontier, where you plant the mental image of "doing this motion" in the player's head, here the system literally executes the motion. So if you slip through right before it becomes uncancelable — between the one frame where you can still move by your own will and the one frame where you can't — you can leave behind the gauge move's hitbox and the avatar data performing it while the player themselves performs an evasive action... to summarize: I multiply.
Sunraku: "When I was deciding what to name this one, I went back and forth forever between 'Shadow Clone,' 'Swampman,' and 'Doppelganger.'"
Since the Iai-Fist style's gauge move — "Iai-Fist Shock" — had the slowest startup of all styles, I could even stand here chatting while the real me pinned Dragonfly from behind.
Sunraku: "Oh, and naturally, I don't take any damage."
Dragonfly: "Wha—?!"
The shockwave, long in charge but high in power, slammed into both Dragonfly and me. Once you seized control of the match, cooking a beginner player was easy.
Dragonfly: "Um, thank you very much! I'll think of a cool name!"
Sunraku: "Ah, yeah. Good luck."
I bid farewell to the bowing, giant, bearded old-man avatar, satisfied by the fulfilling sensation of facing a newbie player as a veteran for the first time in ages, and logged out... ... ...Wait. What happened to my original objective?
In the end, I ended up logging right back in, hurrying to get things done.