Season 5: Chapter 146. Preemptive Annihilation (2)

Donuts, aged 43, couldn't force things in gaming anymore. The Donuts in his thirties, who had laughed reading a webtoon called Around Forty, was no longer of this world. He'd become the very age he used to laugh at.

When something major occurred, everyone’s first reaction was denial. The moment he turned forty, Donuts was no exception.

'No. I... I'm not dead yet!'

Forcing himself to dress like a younger person, he chased trends to excess. Denying his age, he thought he could game like he was still in his twenties. Even if not quite, at least similarly to people in their thirties. He wasn't even primarily a gaming streamer, but he'd been unusually fixated on winning games.

Nothing went well. His body didn't follow his mind. His VNS stat was average for his age. Nothing special and nothing notable, he was just a plain forty-year-old. He simply couldn’t win using the same methods as before.

'Damn! Damn!'

Before Donuts knew it, the Platform War came around. He could no longer deny reality and keep pushing the problem away. He wanted to show something here.

'Right, I'm old!'

Donuts accepted his own aging. What he had left was a serpentine old-hand savviness and whatever scheming brain still worked. He'd maximize that and leave the rest to the young blood.

With that mindset, their results gradually improved. On the day of the group scrimmage, his best result yet came through.

Donuts was excited.

"This is it! I'm not dead yet!!"

Like those young days, his heart pounded.

'If we finish this last one in first place, it'd be overwhelming.'

Finishing first would be the definitive stamp in the last of five sets, but the world punished him as if it had been waiting.

Tap!

"Wh... a rope?"

A rope grapple caught on his head.

CRASH!

[DumbYoungMan Quadra Kill!]

[DumbYoungMan → Donuts]

"Hm?"

Before his old eyes could even follow, he died at a speed embarrassing enough to regret having said, “I'm not dead yet!” The series of events had actually been a fairly long 15 seconds, but it felt like dying in one second from Donuts' perspective.

"Wh-what, I'm a rune spirit?"

He still thought he was a Valkyrie and kept doing the movement signal for the Flight skill. Instead of the cool triangle-arms-raised-overhead gesture, a rune spirit just bobbled.

Boing! Boing!

"N-no! I flew! I pressed it!!"

— lmaooooo

— Old man...

— 2nd again...

— lmaooooo

— LOL

— I pressed it lmaooo << genuinely an old man lmaooo

— Where are you pressing?

Donuts used the language of the old keyboard-and-mouse era.

"Haah... I don't want to get old."

In the end, he was still a 43-year-old streamer.

***

"Oh oh oh!?"

"WHAT!?"

The coaches let out equally shocked sounds.

"Al-Almond is flying around!?"

"No, more than that..."

Nobody could quite say it.

'The Nonghyup middle-aged men's combat power was miserable.'

Having Almond as the opponent made it stand out even more. The old men collapsed helplessly the moment the two Partners disappeared.

"Ahem..."

Green Bean, Nonghyup's coach, looked uncomfortable.

"This is why we kept not getting first... but this one was particularly miserable."

He was at a loss for how to give feedback.

Takoyaki offered some comfort. "They ran into a physical bully team. Luck wasn't on their side, Green Bean."

"Blah. Damn. It's over."

The game hadn't actually ended yet, but the coaches were sharp-eyed. The end had already been decided in their eyes. Of the five, the Knight Order had two dead while the Nonghyup had four dead because of one person.

"Wow, Almond's Sori is terrifying." Sardine shuddered.

"That ultimate wind skill is insane. Sori genuinely becomes a silent hunter."

The wind arrows Almond used were extremely difficult to respond to. Not only were the projectiles invisible, but they were much faster and stronger. Its only weakness was that it wasn't an AoE skill and had no CC, which meant it was a pure damage skill. This, combined with Almond's pure combat ability, meant most people couldn't even visually track the fight.

[DumbYoungMan Penta Kill!]

Finally, he achieved a pentakill.

"Kyaaah~!"

Tap!

Takoyaki smacked his forehead. "That was complete dominance."

— What the

— Pentakill

— lmaooooo

— Unbelievable

— The cheetah is smiling

— Knight Order ceiling is insane lmaooo

Now that the Knight Order was showing its true strength, the Nonghyup's combat power looked too pitiful even with their overall first ranking.

At this point, Sardine asked, "But why were they so bad before?"

Almond playing Sori in a scrimmage wasn't new. He hadn't been this terrifying before.

Takoyaki answered, "I said it, didn't I? Because Almond was in the three-person group."

Sardine had already heard that, but still couldn't fully accept it. "The difference is that big?"

Understanding the team's movement and improving through swapping split members made sense. How was Almond's own performance completely different? Did he just feel better?

"What is combat power? It's the sum of instantaneous judgment and execution ability, isn't it?"

"True."

"Almond is at the peak in both those areas. Do you know where instantaneous judgment comes from?"

"Why is your tone like that?"

— His role-play LOL

— lmaooooo

— lmaooo coach mode

— Takoyaki's trying-to-be-cool tone

— Let it go Sardine!

Takoyaki completely ignored her jab and continued.

Tap.

He hit his own head.

"It's autonomy. Improvisation and wit can't come from a plan. It's instantaneous judgment, but what if it had to be confirmed with someone every time?"

He was talking about Sweet Radish. If Almond were with Sweet Radish and Sweet Potato, he couldn't execute the absurd judgment of hitting Raina's arrow. There would be no support.

No support was the best case. The worst case was rational-sounding objections coming back. Almond was human too, so his judgment wavered and slowed when objections were raised. Sweet Radish wouldn't raise empty objections. They would be reasonable. Either path could have been the right answer.

"Almond has Almond's right answer. Sweet Radish doesn't know that yet."

"Oh."

"Of course, it'd be fine if someone could make the same calls faster than Almond's own judgment, but does such a person exist?"

"Uh... no."

Micro-managing with faster judgment than the player themselves? Such a caller barely existed.

"Then is Sweet Radish actually a detriment to the Knight Order?"

"No, he’s essential. He handles the team's basic tactical base. Without him, it'd be all-or-nothing."

"What?"

"Which is why the Knight Order chose to make both Almond and Sweet Radish work. A difficult path, but they decided to break through on that path. And... it seems they actually did it."

Sardine finally understood every concept behind the Knight Order's split.

"They were making two heads."

"Right."

This was a distribution of leadership. On the surface, it looked as simple as just swapping members.

"Just with that..."

Da-da-DUN.

[1st Place]

The Knight Order claimed first place just as their coach had declared.

"Wo-wow, actually first place..."

"That person is insane."

"Goodness?"

Every other coach clicked their tongue.

***

"YEAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Knight Order! Woooooooo!!"

The Knight Order members ran toward each other and roared.

— Yes!!

— Finally...

— Incredible

— Last pentakill was perfect lmaooo

— Wow everyone did great!!

— The Lord provides~

"Incredible! Did you see my Iron Ball!? SO REFRESHING~! I controlled the teamfight and the game!!"

"Yeah yeah~ refreshing enough. I thought I'd burst." Black Tea got a jab in at Sweet Potato's frenzy, but she was in a good mood.

"Tsk tsk. People who didn't do anything always talk the most. No one would know if they stayed quiet like you, Sweet Potato!" Sweet Radish kicked Sweet Potato's backside.

Then, Sweet Radish went to Almond and smiled with a thumbs-up.

"Bro, you completely carried that last game."

"Oh, the two-person group just leveled up well."

"That's what carrying is."

They ignored Sweet Potato shouting, “What about me!?”

Clap!

The two fist-bumped. There had been plenty of friction between them in-game, but it felt like they'd finally found a way.

"Next game too, let's go like this."

"Yeah."

It was a warm atmosphere.

'My pro days felt like this too.'

Sweet Radish thought back to his pro career. Results completely dictated the atmosphere in esports. The winner's locker room and the loser's locker room were completely different worlds.

'If it could always be like this...'

Sweet Radish hoped that even if they lost, this winner's locker room atmosphere would last as long as possible. To make that happen, the closeness built when winning and the affection accumulated meant less blame when losing. With that feeling, he headed toward Lemon.

"Hm..."

Lemon seemed to be operating something for a moment, probably turning her chat back on.

'What is this?'

She didn’t look happy, but wasn't angry either.

'I've seen this before.'

Occasionally, one person would make such a face in the winning locker room.

'She's relieved.'

Lemon felt relieved at getting first place. How was that different from happiness? Even Sweet Radish hadn't understood early on what that eventually led to.

Sweet Radish made up his mind and approached. "Gyuri."

"Oh, yeah?"

"You did well. The two-person group completely carried."

"Mhm~ it was all the ~ Lo ~ rd!" Lemon pointed her thumb up and winked.

She looked bright.

Sweet Radish couldn't ignore the faint unease emanating from her.

***

Whoosh!

After the game ended, they all gathered in the lobby. All the other teams were there too.

Everyone was murmuring about the last game. It was a lively atmosphere.

Black Tea said wistfully, "Hey, but can we not see our coach?"

"We need to tell her we won!"

"We need to tell her about the legend of the Iron Servant!" Sweet Potato added.

— Sigh lmaooo

— I genuinely want to punch Sweet Potato

— Iron Servant nonsense

— Was it fun stealing Bubblegum's pick!?

— lmaooooooo a hundred losses and one good game is this scary...

"Yeah." Almond had no comment on Sweet Potato's legend of the Iron Servant, but he was disappointed at not seeing the coach. "I want feedback on this split."

— lmaooooooooooooooooo

— The split again LOL

— Split Young Man

— The split was actually incredible lmaooo

— lmaooooooooooo

— Split Young Man...

"Oh."

A good idea suddenly occurred to him.

"Should I split it so just Lemon and I get feedback and come back? You all get the explanation here."

"You're joking, right?" Sweet Radish's eyes trembled imperceptibly.

— LOL

— Trying to solve everything with splits now haha

— You madman

— lmaooooooooooooooooo

— Genuinely a Split Young Man

— Life achievements: world championship, the split

Pop!

Camebert appeared. "You'll be able to meet the coach after this announcement concludes, Knight Order members."

He flew up to make an announcement.

"Ber-ber-ber~! Hello everyone! Cheese streamers, we've just finished all five games. How was it? I found the last game quite impressive."

His eyes briefly drifted toward the Knight Order.

A stir arose from the other teams. It seemed like everyone was talking about various aspects of the last game.

"I had proposed running a total of five games per scrimmage session. Please think of this as an interim announcement."

Apparently, he was about to announce the overall rankings.

"Oh, before that..." Camebert changed course as if he had an important announcement. "You should know why we track these rankings. That way you'll push yourselves harder."

A separate reason existed for tracking the overall scrimmage rankings?

— ?

— ??

— Hm?

— What?

— Hm?

— Just messing with them right? lmaooo

— What is it??