Faced with Kamiyā Yuu's suggestion, Kamiyā Sora didn't immediately reject the game invitation.
Opening the game's social interface, she checked her friends list. Seeing that no one was online, she hesitated.
"Chinatsu isn't here."
—So Chinatsu plays this game too? Well, she did say she was staying at Hongō-sensei's house today, so it's normal that she's offline.
Kamiyā Yuu wasn't particularly surprised.
While controlling his character, he asked, "Sora, is Chinatsu really that good at this game?"
After taking down another enemy with a single shot, Kamiyā Sora nodded.
"Mhm. If Chinatsu were here too, we'd probably win."
She looked at him.
"Yuu, do you still want to continue?"
Kamiyā Yuu's competitive spirit had been stirred.
Smiling confidently, he replied, "That's up to you. But if you want to win, I'm actually pretty confident in myself. I should be able to contribute at least as much as Chinatsu."
"Yuu is a beginner."
Kamiyā Sora looked at him in confusion.
Kamiyā Yuu shook the controller in his hand.
"I'm not anymore."
After thinking for a moment, Kamiyā Sora accepted the invitation.
Since Kamiyā Yuu was that confident, she didn't want to dampen his enthusiasm.
The game screen changed, and the two entered another game lobby.
Every opponent on the enemy team had an English animal name.
On Kamiyā Yuu's side were nothing but randomly matched players.
Judging by the matchmaking system, their overall skill level shouldn't be much lower than the opposing team, though they naturally lacked the coordination of a professional squad.
Since console games had no text chat, the room didn't linger for long before the new map began loading.
What Kamiyā Yuu didn't know was that the livestream on Fakebook had already exploded.
Especially because nobody understood why Sora had brought along a complete rookie.
Was he a hidden expert?
Impossible.
He had spent the previous match wandering around the map and barely firing his weapon.
Or had Sora become so confident that she believed she could defeat Team TBC even while carrying a complete novice?
Spectators watching the stream flooded the comment section.
Unlike Asian livestreams, Western platforms didn't use danmaku comments floating across the screen.
Alphabet-based languages weren't suited to that format, as long strings of letters would completely obscure the video.
Instead, comments appeared in a panel beside the stream.
"Probably a friend or something, but that seriously lowers their overall strength! Sora's teammates were already just high-rated random players."
"Guess we should just treat this as an exhibition match. I was really hoping Sora would create another miracle!"
"Sora's username is literally 'sora.' Why does everyone call them 'Sky'?"
"If that newbie picks a support role, maybe he'll be a little more useful."
"'Sora' is the Romanized Japanese word for 'sky,' which is why everyone calls them Sky. They should be a player from the Japanese server."
······
Each match consisted of twenty-four players, divided into two teams of twelve.
Kamiyā Sora's opponents had already been determined—the twelve players with English animal names.
Aside from Kamiyā Yuu, everyone on her side had been matched automatically by the system and was a highly skilled player.
Their individual ratings were roughly equal to those of the opposing team.
However, anyone who had played team-based games knew that even if two groups possessed identical individual skill levels, a coordinated premade team would overwhelmingly defeat a group of random players simply because of superior teamwork.
The higher the level of play, the more decisive that coordination became.
The reason Sora's previous victory had been called a miracle was that she had single-handedly destroyed a professional team's coordination and rhythm before crushing them.
During the preparation phase, Kamiyā Yuu carefully examined the map layout and the game's various systems.
Although it was an FPS, each class fulfilled a different battlefield role, such as Logistics, Medic, or Support.
The game's depth and variety easily surpassed FPS titles from the same era in his previous world.
The upcoming mode was called **Ten Lives**.
Two teams fought on a fixed map.
Each player had ten respawns.
After thirty minutes, whichever team had more remaining lives—or eliminated the opposing team—would be declared the winner.
"I'll choose Medic."
Reading the loading screen's description with interest, Kamiyā Yuu selected the medic class.
Different classes granted different passive abilities.
As a medic, he could heal teammates and also possessed four additional respawns.
If necessary, he could even sacrifice two of his own remaining respawns to grant another teammate one extra life, as long as he himself still had more than two lives remaining.
The tradeoff was that medics received almost no offensive bonuses.
Snipers gained enhanced long-range vision and aiming assistance when using sniper rifles.
Special Forces could wield exclusive weapons, and when using assault rifles, their weapon stability and recoil control were significantly improved.
"Match starting."
"Map: 'Fall of Washington.'"
"Game Mode: Ten Lives."
The screen faded to black.
When it lit up again, they had spawned on a completely new battlefield.
Kamiyā Yuu and his teammates found themselves inside the ruins of a crumbling building.
The graphics were remarkably detailed.
Walking to the edge of the ruined structure, Kamiyā Yuu looked out over a beautifully rendered 3D landscape depicting a heavily bombed American city.
Soon, the player characters left the ruined building one after another with weapons in hand.
"Yuu, I'm heading out."
Keeping her eyes fixed on the screen, Kamiyā Sora calmly spoke.
Her class was Special Forces.
Holding the iconic M4A1 assault rifle, her character sprinted out of the safe zone.
The spawn point itself functioned as the team's safe area.
For the first twenty minutes, not even missile bombardments could destroy a single brick within it.
Kamiyā Yuu could comfortably remain there without any danger.
He chose not to leave.
As a battlefield medic, however, this also minimized his usefulness.
Injured teammates would have to retreat all the way back to the safe zone to receive treatment, wasting valuable time.
"Mhm. Be careful."
Kamiyā Yuu smiled.
Most of his attention remained focused on Kamiyā Sora's screen as he watched her play.
Meanwhile, he experimented with the weapons available inside the safe zone.
He fired a few shots from each gun before switching to another, testing every attachment and familiarizing himself with the characteristics of every firearm.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
*Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack!*
Boom!
Chaotic gunfire erupted across the battlefield.
Kamiyā Sora's screen shook violently, and a deep crimson overlay spread across it.
Her character had been seriously wounded.
The game's automatic health regeneration was no longer enough to recover from injuries of that severity.
Her beautiful brows knitted together.
Her slender fingers danced skillfully across the controller as she maneuvered through cover, narrowly escaping before retreating into the safe zone.
It was the first time Kamiyā Yuu had ever seen Kamiyā Sora struggle so much while playing an FPS.
"Heal."
She quietly instructed him.
At the same time, her character switched to a sniper rifle.
"This game's pretty challenging."
Kamiyā Yuu followed the game's prompts and quickly restored her character to full health.
"Sora, can you adjust the controller sensitivity?"
"Mhm."
She answered softly.
"It's under Controls in the menu. Hold L and R together with the X button to open it."
As she spoke, her character rushed back into combat.
Looking through the sniper scope, she fired a single shot and instantly killed an enemy hiding in the distance.
Only a few minutes into the match, the upper-left corner of the screen continuously displayed notifications of Sora's teammates being eliminated by various means.
The score had already become **106:119**.
The lone point on their side had come from Sora's surprise sniper kill.
However, after seeing her switch weapons, the opposing team reacted immediately.
Within moments, they had reorganized their formation and adjusted their class composition to counter her.