Chapter 132: Playing Weak is a Skill
"Silver Wolf, Silver Wolf, is Blade here?"
"...Eh? He really is."
Blade stood up from the simple cot in his cell, his gaze falling upon the two figures clad in black, their faces obscured by makeshift masks. He stared for a long moment, processing the bizarre sight before him.
"You two," he finally managed, his voice flat. "What on earth are you doing?"
"Uh, bandit masks," Rekka chirped, adjusting the crude covering on his face. "We're here to rescue you."
"You're here to rescue me?" Blade repeated, a sliver of disbelief cracking his stoic facade.
"Right," Silver Wolf's tone made it sound like the most obvious thing in the universe. "Otherwise, why would we wear masks to go sightseeing in the middle of the night? Here, take yours."
She tossed a piece of black fabric at him. Blade caught it, letting the material drape over his hand. He fell into thought once again, his expression unreadable.
"You want me to wear women's hosiery on my head?"
"Yeah, the script said so," Silver Wolf replied without missing a beat. "Cover your face when you go out."
"...If you can't stand it, I can swap with you," Rekka offered, reaching out toward Blade with an expression of utmost sincerity.
Blade considered it for a second, then wordlessly swapped the flimsy stocking for Rekka's more conventional mask.
With the black silk stretched taut over his head, Rekka's silhouette actually took on a surprisingly fierce quality.
"Let's go," Blade's voice came out, muffled by the fabric. "Don't dawdle."
Silver Wolf withdrew her gaze from their fashion experiment and swiped her fingers across her wrist-mounted terminal. With a few silent taps, the heavy door at the end of the corridor slid open without a sound.
"This way," she whispered, already moving. "The patrol just passed; the next shift is in three minutes. That's enough time for us to reach the elevator entrance."
The three of them moved quickly, hugging the wall. Rekka's boots made almost no noise as they tapped against the alloy floor. He tilted his head, glancing at a nearby cell as they passed. The observation window was pitch-black, revealing nothing of what lay inside.
"Who else is locked up on this floor?" he asked quietly.
"Dangerous people," Silver Wolf replied without looking back. "By the IPC's own standards, we're talking sentences starting at twenty amber eras. For wanted criminals of our caliber, the treatment is naturally the best—private rooms... By the way, what Path are you today?"
"Today is Harmony."
Just as Rekka finished speaking, a series of hurried footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor.
"Looks like we're going to have to break through," Silver Wolf noted calmly. "Can you release something?"
"...Does the 'Great Wrath' form manifested from overwhelming anger count?"
"Great Wrath form... Pfft, what a bizarre name," she snorted.
"They're here," Rekka said in a low voice. In the next instant, the aura around him shifted violently.
The normally peaceful and supportive power of Harmony was doused in a volatile catalyst. Like fire meeting gasoline, it instantly became a frenzied, chaotic storm of pure feeling.
Anger. Fear. Sorrow. Joy.
An emotional tsunami washed over the hallway.
"Let's go."
Behind them, several IPC guards, their minds and bodies temporarily knocked unconscious by the sheer shock of the emotional overload, collapsed to the ground in a heap.
Rekka had originally intended to place a Space Anchor here for a quick return trip, but he paused, a strange look on his face. A Trailblazer had already been here before... and had even left an anchor behind.
'How bizarre,' he thought with a mental shrug.
"Rekka, we've already won the first phase!"
Upon returning to the Astral Express, Rekka, who had just finished learning the basics of Aether Editing from Silver Wolf, was immediately ambushed by an ecstatic March 7th and Stelle.
"So fast?" he asked, surprised.
"Of course!" Stelle declared, planting her hands on her hips with a proud grin.
"Let me see how your Aether Coins are doing."
"You want to play too?" March asked.
"Not exactly..."
Rekka put the entry-level Aether Editing techniques Silver Wolf had taught him to use. This stuff really did require a specific kind of talent; an ordinary person could spend a lifetime practicing and never come close to Silver Wolf's level of mastery.
However, even this rudimentary level of Aether Editing was more than enough to completely crush the IPC's half-baked security protocols.
"Alright, I've unlocked all the Aether Spirits for you," Rekka announced, leaning back. "How's that? Now you can use the data of any Aether Spirit you please."
March and Stelle stared at the screen, their eyes wide.
"All Aether Spirits? Every single one?" March squeaked.
"Every single one."
"Then aren't we invincible?" Stelle gasped. "A full collection! While other people are still working hard to collect them, we've already maxed out?"
"In theory, yes," Rekka nodded. "But you have to familiarize yourselves with their skills and synergies first. Having a full collection doesn't mean you've achieved full mastery. If you build a bad team, you'll still lose. This just saves you the trouble of finding rare Aether Spirits; the actual gameplay is still up to you."
"That's freaking awesome!" Stelle cheered. "I'm gonna use my super rare Aether Spirit team to wreck everyone, yeah!"
Just as she and March 7th were about to excitedly rush off to stomp unsuspecting players, Rekka reached out and stopped them.
"You two," he said, a sly grin spreading across his face. "Don't you know how to play dumb? You have to play a few normal matches first, make the data look like you're unlocking them slowly."
"Play dumb...?" March tilted her head. "You mean, we should pretend to struggle and slowly unlock new Aether Spirits?"
"That seems right," Stelle mused, "but how do we do it?"
"I took a look," Rekka began, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "And did you know that the worse a player is, the more likely they are to encounter rare Aether Spirits in the wild?"
"I really didn't know that..." March admitted.
"To put it simply, the higher your win rate, the more likely you are to become a 'prison player'—once a prisoner of the grind, always a prisoner of the grind." Rekka shook his head and clicked his tongue. "As the saying goes, 'the capable are destined to suffer.' Since you're so strong, the devs will naturally nerf you elsewhere. Otherwise, how would they maintain balance? Remember, act natural. Don't pull out a super rare Aether Spirit right at the start; that's way too suspicious. Play a few rounds with basic ones, mix in some wins and losses, and slowly bring out the strong ones. Make people think you just got lucky finding them, not that you're cheating."
"Uh, what does 'prison player' mean?" Stelle asked. "Like, being in an actual prison?"
"It means the stronger you perform, the more the system thinks you don't need help, so the rewards it gives you get stingier," Rekka explained. "Conversely, for those who look like total noobs, the system takes pity on them and secretly slips them good stuff. It's called the newbie protection period."
"Got it, got it." Stelle rubbed her chin, her golden eyes sparkling with the light of dawning wisdom. "So now we have to pretend to be noobs who don't know how to play and lose miserably!"
"And another thing," Rekka added. "When you're matching with players in the wild, you shouldn't defeat your opponents instantly. It's best to act like newbies. That way, you might get matched with even weaker opponents during the preliminaries, giving you a huge advantage in the early stages, right?"
Rekka spread his hands with a flourish.
March looked hesitant. "Is this... in the official announcement?"
"No," Rekka said with a perfectly straight face. "It's inside info Silver Wolf hacked."
Stelle and March 7th looked at each other, their initial excitement morphing into a subtle, slightly guilty sort of thrill.
"Does this count as cheating?" March whispered.
"It counts as reasonable use of the rules," Rekka declared righteously. "The matching mechanism the officials made has loopholes; we're just following those loopholes. Besides, this is one of our tactics. Making reasonable use of the matching mechanism is a skill in itself, right?"
"Then... how should we play?" Stelle asked, now fully on board.
"You have to play with a vibe of 'I'm trying my best, but I just can't win,'" Rekka instructed, his eyes gleaming with mischief. "Have your ranged units charge into melee and get swatted away. You have to lose with technical finesse, lose in a soul-stirring way, lose so hard the opponent can't even bear to watch... Exactly. Make everyone think you gave it your all but just couldn't cut it."
He leaned in, imparting his final, most important piece of wisdom to the two girls.
"You must realize that playing weak is a skill."
[Inorin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me!
Want to read ahead on our official home, or unlock 50 advanced chapters (plus an Ad-Free experience) to feed your addiction? Help keep this shameless translator alive here:
(P.S. Replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
🌐 Official Website: elysianreads[.]com
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters & Ad-Free): patreon[.]com/InorinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/InorinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]