Chapter 116: Manhunt
The battlefield dissolved.
Neville found himself back in the waiting room with a VICTORY notification in front of him.
He blinked once. Then twice.
His breathing slowed, the faint tremor on his shoulders fading.
[Clean kill, minimal damage taken!] he heard Shelly’s bright voice practically vibrating with excitement. [Host, your opponent is probably having an identity crisis right now. He didn’t even land a proper hit!]
Neville didn’t answer. He sat back in the waiting room’s digital lounge, eyes on the countdown clock at the top of the screen.
"Next match," he said.
[Oho~ someone’s on a roll.] Shelly hummed.
[Searching for opponents...]
The next battlefield appeared. Then another. And another.
Different maps, different players, different ways to win.
But Neville’s stayed indifferent and consistently won.
He didn’t even linger for post-battle chats, didn’t even read the messages that piled into his inbox. He didn’t even look at the damage statistics that Shelly tried so hard to brag about.
He just kept saying, "Next match."
Once there were no more queues in the PvP match, Neville resorted to playing in the 3v3 Team Battle.
The battlefield loaded in: a rocky canyon map split by a narrow ravine. Neville’s teammates materialized beside him—two mechas with flashy armor and way too many add-ons.
The moment the countdown ended, they sprinted off without a word.
Neville frowned. "No coordination?"
[Seems like they’re... ignoring you? Wait, are they—?]
From across the ravine, one of the enemy mechas waved in a suspiciously friendly manner. The two teammates waved back.
[Oh no, Host. They’re totally in the same squad.]
"Figures," Neville muttered something under his breath, his mecha gripping his light saber sword tighter.
The first explosion landed near his feet. The two "allies" ran in the opposite direction, yelling exaggerated callouts over the in-game voice chat.
"Target B’s down! We’re pushing left!"
"Cover me, bro!—hahaha!"
The laughter made Neville’s jaw tighten. He ducked behind a rock, sensors flaring as the enemy team surrounded his position.
"Idiots," he hissed.
[Host, maybe retreat?]
"No."
[But it’s a 1v3—5!]
"I said no."
His mecha launched upward, boosters flaring blue. In the air, he twisted, drew his plasma blade, and dove.
The first enemy didn’t even have time to react before Neville’s blade cut through his shield and armor. The second tried to snipe him from behind, but Neville rolled, fired off a projectile laser missile, and followed through with a headshot.
The last one panicked, activating his launchers randomly. Neville dashed in with a perfectly timed parry and ended the match with one clean strike.
Victory.
Shelly’s voice was quiet this time in awe. [...Host, you really soloed all three.]
Neville landed his mecha, breathing hard. "They were slow."
[Host, you just carried two literal trolls and still won.]
Neville didn’t respond. He simply backed out of the team queue.
"No more team battles," he said.
[Oh, come on—]
"Battle royale," he added, ignoring the protest.
Shelly sighed dramatically. [Fine, but don’t blame me if you end up with fifty enemies and no friends.]
"That’s life," he muttered.
The hours blurred together. One battlefield after another. One victory after another.
His win streak reached ten. Then fourteen. Then sixteen.
With each victory, his shoulders loosened a little, his hands steadied. The tightness in his chest began to ease.
...
Neville’s player name spread like wildfire.
At first, it was just whispers in the military academy’s training halls.
"Did you see that replay? Player [Gravy] wiped a six-man squad in two minutes."
"Impossible. It’s probably edited footage."
"No, no, it’s real. He parried a sniper shot barehanded. Who even reacts that fast?"
Within hours, the whispers turned into debates. Debates turned into an obsession.
The internal academy forums were flooded with threads:
[Gravy: Hacker or Genius?]
[Suspected Professional Smurf Queue!]
[Recruit This Player Before Anyone Else Does!]
Each post gathered hundreds of comments within minutes.
Some argued he was a prodigy in hiding, others claimed he was an AI experiment gone rogue.
But one thing everyone agreed on—nobody could play like that as a student.
In the Tactical Simulation Mecha Department, Professor Krenn slammed his hand on the desk, startling the young assistant beside him.
"This is ridiculous," he said, eyes fixed on the holographic replay looping before him. "No student has these kinds of movements. Look at the pivot angle—he adjusts before the projectile even fires!"
His assistant winced. "But the server logs—uh, they say no illegal scripts were detected."
"Then the logs are lying," Krenn snapped. "No trainee, no student, no person reacts at 0.5 seconds. That’s neural enhancement level!"
He rewound the footage again. The mecha labeled [Gravy] dashed between explosions, cut down two targets, and landed with inhuman precision.
A low whistle escaped another onlooker. "Sir, that’s... almost textbook-perfect form."
Krenn’s eyes gleamed. "Almost? That’s better than a textbook. That’s instinctual execution. Whoever this player is—he’s either been trained by the best or is the best."
Across the campus, in the Combat Systems Research Department, Professor Iona had the same video up—but her tone was entirely different.
"Fascinating," she murmured, tapping the air to pause the hologram mid-motion. "The footwork. The control. No latency compensation at all."
Her assistant leaned over. "So you think it’s real?"
"Oh, of course. But not that real." She smiled faintly. "See this adjustment? He predicts movement patterns without relying on AI support. It’s adaptive combat cognition. A human can’t normally process this fast unless—"
"Unless?"
"Unless they’ve had combat exposure beyond simulation level four."
The assistant blinked. "But... that’s only authorized for military personnel."
"Exactly." Iona leaned back in her chair, thoughtful. "So tell me—why does a supposed student play like a war veteran?"
The rumors reached the students first.
In the cafeteria, laughter mixed with a heated argument.
"He’s a bot, I’m telling you! I saw him dodge three ultimates in a row!"
"No bot can taunt players mid-fight! He typed ’Too slow’ in the chat bubble right before executing that final strike!"
"Maybe he’s one of the professors. I bet Krenn made a smurf account again."
"Ha! If Krenn could play like that, we wouldn’t have lost the inter-academy tournament last year!"
Their voices carried down the hallways, through classrooms, and into the dorms. Every student wanted to know who [Gravy] was. Everyone of them logged in that day to try and meet him in a match.
And every one of them lost.
By midnight, the situation had spiraled completely out of control. The academy’s forum server nearly crashed under the number of posts.
Streams suddenly popped up everywhere—"Tracking [Gravy] Live!", "Unmasking the Unknown Player!", "Top 100 Attempts to Hunt [Gravy] Down!"
One particularly persistent group claimed to have traced his IP.
"He’s definitely in our time zone."
"No, no—he must be on our planet!"
Someone else claimed to have matched his voice to someone.
"He said one word during a match—’Done.’ I’m running voice-matching algorithms now."
By then, the chaos reached the developers themselves.
Inside the headquarters of Mecha Warfare Online, everyone was frantically scrambling to find answers to the reports.
"Public relations is going nuts," one intern muttered. "The report queue is exploding—literally thousands of them all saying the same thing."
The head moderator pinched the bridge of his nose. "How many are we talking?"
"Uh... thirty-seven thousand in the last two hours."
"Thirty-seven—? What are they even reporting [Gravy] for?"
The intern flipped through the logs. "Cheating, hacking, neural-assist abuse, unauthorized AI integration, being ’too good to be real,’ uh, impersonating a professional, psychological damage due to humiliation..."
The moderator groaned. "These people are unbelievable."
Another developer spoke up. "Should we just release a statement? If we keep quiet, they’ll think we’re covering something up."
The moderator nodded. "Fine. Write something official. Keep it vague, but enough to calm them down."
Ten minutes later, the official forum received a system-wide announcement:
[Official Statement – Mecha Warfare Online Admin]
Player [Gravy] has been verified as a legitimate user.
He is not in violation of any game rules or system regulations.
He is within the game’s allowed age range, not a military veteran or affiliated personnel.
Due to privacy protection policies, we cannot disclose further personal information.
Please refrain from harassment or doxxing behavior.
They thought that would end the matter.
But, it didn’t.
If anything, it made everything worse.
In the academy, the announcement hit like a spark in a powder room.
"Civilian? That’s a lie!"
"Age range? That’s vague! He could still be one of us!"
"Why won’t they just say which planet he’s from?!"
"Obviously protecting him! He’s an AI prototype, calling it now!"
The professors were no calmer.
Krenn slammed his hand against the table during a faculty meeting. "They must be hiding something! No ordinary player performs like that. There’s no way."
"Calm yourself, Professor," Iona said smoothly, though her eyes gleamed with the same intrigue. "Whether he’s real or not, I intend to find him."
Krenn scowled. "And what will you do if you do find him?"
"Offer him a position."
The room went silent.
Iona smiled faintly. "A mind like that shouldn’t be wasting time in these simulation games."
Krenn’s jaw tightened. "You think he will accept?"
She tilted her head. "That depends. On whether he cares."
