Samurai Hearts – Chapter 1: For Vengeance (6)
E□ Ten-Thousand Swords Style"Within it lie ten thousand sword arts. In this world, only the Ten-Thousand Swords stands pure."Innate Sword-Style Effect: You may use the innate effects of other sword styles. However, you must precisely perform the sword formula of that style.
□ Heavenly Sword Style "What is the sword that reaches the heavens? If one can touch the sky with a blade, that must be the strongest sword."Innate Sword-Style Effect: You may use the correction effects of other sword styles. However, you must precisely perform the sword formula of that style.
□ Sword Deity Style "He raised his sword by his own hand and ascended to the seat of the gods. In all the world, only the Sword Deity stands alone."Innate Sword-Style Effect: Sword-Soul becomes active. However, you cannot activate Martial-Soul.
"Show me too! Me too! Me too!"
The moment she realized that a new set of choices had appeared again, Seung-yeon dashed toward Dohyeon as if flying and hung onto him.
Dohyeon shrugged his shoulders and showed her the three newly revealed choices.
Ten-Thousand Swords Style, Heavenly Sword Style, Sword Deity Style.
Faced with the impressive descriptions and innate effects attached to each sword style, Seung-yeon let out a sigh—very conspicuously.
"Tch, when it said 'establish your own school,' I thought we'd be able to make anything we wanted from scratch, but guess not. Well, nothing special, huh? Right, everyone?"
But the smile on her face was the very definition of "beaming with glee."
Anyone could tell she was being transparently insincere.
The viewers' reactions were concise.
?
?
?
A flood of question marks swept across the chat!
Not because they were confused—but because they were thinking, "Has she gone insane?"
Even donations flew in immediately.
'Well-Fed Boar' donated 10,000 won!ㅈㄹㄴㅈㄹㄴㅈㄹㄴ
Three consonants, not even a proper word.
Its meaning was obvious:
"Stop bullshitting."
"Thank you so much for the 10,000-won donation, Well-Fed Boar! I'm sorry! I'll stop acting up! Honestly it's super special!"
– Fast apology acknowledged– ㅇㅈ– National rule, accepted~– But seriously this is insane lol, never seen effects like these lol
After joking around with the viewers for a bit, Seung-yeon stopped and looked back at the choices.
Before these options appeared, she recalled the sentence written on the scroll:
"A sword style has been founded to suit the player's disposition."
Meaning that these sword styles were tailor-made for Dohyeon.
Even just looking at the first two, Ten-Thousand Swords and Heavenly Sword, that was obvious.
Both styles focused on encompassing other sword arts—just like Dohyeon, who used to absorb every sword art he faced and make it his own.
But despite having similar core concepts, the details were dramatically different.
"Innate effects versus correction effects…"
The innate effects Ten-Thousand Swords could use were things like the Icheon-One-Style's "Unless it's a perfect deflection, you cannot parry the blade," or the Jakye-Seomho-Style's "Attacks grow stronger while attacking."
The correction effects referenced by Heavenly Sword were the attack power, accuracy, and especially the parry modifiers that applied depending on the chosen sword style.
"The requirement to precisely perform the sword formula doesn't really mean anything…"
Even when he had no sword style at all, Dohyeon perfectly stole and reproduced other people's sword techniques.
What use would such a restriction be now?
Ultimately, no matter what he picked, Dohyeon was only going to get stronger.
The problem was the third style.
"Sword Deity Style…"
Seung-yeon's eyes sparkled.
She sensed a jackpot.
The name alone said it all.
Ten-Thousand Swords and Heavenly Sword remained within the realm of "swordsmanship,"but this one had outright attached godhood to its name.
Sword Deity— the God of the Sword.
Even if it was only in name, it was outrageous.
"He's my brother, but he's seriously insane."
Sword Saint Kato had defeated countless swordmasters and was considered one of the greatest bosses in history.
His skill was worthy of the title "Sword Saint" both in VR and in reality.
But even he, in the end, was merely a star.
Meanwhile Dohyeon… was a god.
What did that imply?
That Sword Deity Style being suited for Dohyeon meant that, system-wise, Dohyeon was no different from a Sword Deity.
It was practically saying, "After analyzing his play logs, we've concluded: 'He is a god.'"
"But picking this is risky because I have no idea what its effect actually is."
The issue was that she had absolutely no clue what the innate effect meant.
Sword-Soul becomes active, but Martial-Soul cannot be used?
Martial-Soul was one of the fundamental pillars of player strength in Samurai Hearts, alongside swordsmanship.
If he couldn't use it, they should at least explain what Sword-Soul was supposed to be!
"Let's avoid Sword Deity Style if possible."
When Seung-yeon turned to look at the chat—
—chaos had already erupted.
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bruh these sword noobs talking trash; it's obviously 3;
10,000 > 1,000 so pick Ten-Thousand Swords, you clowns
boring as hell;
2 LET'S GOOOOOO!
HE IS A GOD!
nope he's a dumbass~ go Ten-Thousand Swords
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It had only taken Seung-yeon an instant to come to her conclusion—
—but the chat was already a boiling cauldron of madness.
Everyone was screaming for the style they wanted.
And honestly, it made sense.
In Samurai Hearts, you could choose only one sword style.
Meaning: out of these three, only one would be chosen and the rest abandoned.
If this were a normal choice, viewers could simply watch another streamer pick the other options—but that wasn't the case.
This route required defeating the Sword Saint during the tutorial as a minimum condition.
Of course the viewers would desperately spam the chat, trying to push the stream toward their preferred path.
"…Ah."
The violently clashing opinions…
If she suggested a poll now?
It would explode.
It might even reach the highest vote counts in stream history.
But there was a problem:
She did not have the right to choose.
She glanced at Dohyeon.
Her younger brother, quietly studying the choices.
In reality, she was basically riding on his back; she had no authority to tell him what to pick.
Normally, he should simply choose what he wanted.Her desire for a "more entertaining stream" was just selfishness.
Even so, she couldn't suppress it completely.
So she spoke—very cautiously.
"Hey, little brother? Is there… something you want to pick?"
She thought she was being subtle, but Dohyeon saw right through her.
They had spent so many years together that he instantly recognized the expression that meant:"Ah, she wants something from me."
And what she wanted in this situation was obvious.
Because of that, he answered:
"None. I don't know what any of them mean."
"Ah, really?"
"Yeah. I don't know games well, so I'm getting choice paralysis. Just pick whatever you want, noona."
"So that means… it's okay if I talk with the viewers and choose based on everyone's opinions…?"
"I told you to pick whatever you want."
Seeing Seung-yeon's face brighten instantly at those words, Dohyeon snickered inwardly.
And honestly, he wasn't wrong.
Whichever choice it was, it wasn't going to matter to him anyway.
With her little brother's permission secured, Seung-yeon lifted her chin and spoke triumphantly.
"Alright, everyone! Since my brother has given his permission, we're going to decide the choice in a way everyone can accept! What will Kratos's sword style be?!"
– oh this is HUGE poll moment– You can't not do a poll LOL– Poll ready, locked and loaded
"Looks like many of you already guessed it. That's right. A poll. I'll set the poll duration to three minutes. Vote for the option you want! Starting now!"
As soon as she finished speaking, Seung-yeon operated the VR system and initiated the poll.
And just as the viewers had been waiting—because they really had been waiting—the vote count shot upward.
Her stream, which had climbed past the "major streamer" threshold from the very start, drew even more viewers as word spread that new choices and events had appeared.
The number of viewers gathered exceeded 100,000.
With so many people voting at the same time, the counter skyrocketed like mad.
"Right now Ten-Thousand Swords is slightly ahead? Oh? As I'm saying this, Sword Deity pulls ahead! Heavenly Sword fans, you need to push harder! Wow, you're pushing back immediately!"
Seung-yeon ran her mouth non-stop, like a live commentator.
Anything to make the poll feel more exciting.
Anything to make more people join in and cast their votes.
Just announcing a poll and sitting silently for three minutes would be the behavior of an amateur—and with her long streaming experience, she knew that well.
The viewer chat boiled over again.
– 22222222222222222222222– ABSO! LUTE! SWORD! DEITY!– 111111111111111111111111– heavenly heavenly heavenly heavenly heavenly– 3333333333333333333333333– FACT) 1000 < 10000– sword deity cute– nope it's ten-thousand swords~
Before long, the three minutes were up.
There was no extension—the poll closed the instant time ran out.
When the results popped up, Seung-yeon's eyes trembled faintly.
"Of all things…"
The one sword style she least wanted to pick had taken first place.
But she couldn't overturn a poll result just because she didn't like it.
Whatever style it was, she simply had to trust that Dohyeon would make it work.
Everything ultimately depended on Dohyeon—and Seung-yeon disliked that.
"I'm already riding his back as it is. This is just dumping even more on him."
Even if Dohyeon was the one generating all the hype, this was still her stream.
She was the broadcaster, so she couldn't allow herself to grow dependent on Dohyeon's hard-carrying—especially for the times when Dohyeon wouldn't be around.
The problem was that Samurai Hearts had very few opportunities for her to shine.
From the start, it was called a "physical-skill clown fiesta," a game lacking strategic elements.
The only reason she could do anything at all right now was because Dohyeon had never played games before—and even that advantage would soon disappear.
If only it were a new game…
As she reached that point in her thoughts, her eyes sparkled.
"No, think about that later. First, I need to announce the poll results."
"The poll has ended. A total of 107,839 people voted. As you can all see, the winner is Sword Deity Style! Wooo!"
More than a hundred thousand votes!
It meant nearly everyone in the stream had participated—and it shattered the platform's previous maximum vote record.
The winner was Sword Deity Style!
1st — Sword Deity Style: 38,517 votes2nd — Ten-Thousand Swords Style: 35,412 votes3rd — Heavenly Sword Style: 33,910 votes
A fairly narrow win.
To Seung-yeon, who had hoped Ten-Thousand Swords would win, it was a disappointing result.
– also sword deity cute– he is a god! he is a god! he is a god! he is a god!– god god god god god– ugh why couldn't ten-thousand swords win– GUAAAAAAHHH
Viewer reactions were divided.
Those who had voted for Sword Deity cheered; the supporters of the other two styles lamented.
But very few viewers left just because their preferred style lost.
No matter the result, everyone wanted to see what would happen next—and even more viewers joined to see what this new "Sword Deity Style" was, causing the viewer count to increase.
"So, we go with Sword Deity Style?"
To Dohyeon's question, Seung-yeon nodded.
Once he received her confirmation, Dohyeon selected the option immediately.
The scrolls floating in front of him vanished, and the game resumed.
The Black Wolf spoke again.
"…Sword Deity Style (劍神流)."
"Sword Deity Style, eh. Tsk tsk. Were I still a warrior, I might have fallen to my knees and begged you to teach me your swordsmanship."
The Tengu turned his head toward Seung-yeon.
"Come to think of it, I heard you also played a part in defeating the Sword Saint. Just like this heir of the Sword Deity Style here, did you also inherit a unique school?"
□ Accept— Begin "Trial of the Three Sword Tigers" event(New sword style creation possible)
□ Refuse— No event(Acquire existing style)
And once again, a new set of choices appeared.
Since this was a two-player setup, both of them were being given the opportunity to found a sword style.