Season 5: Chapter 93. The Calls? (5)

Almond had stopped reading before the last part.

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...can increase up to a maximum of 100, after which mana arrows transform into Mana Rays. The Mana Ray form lasts for 9 seconds. Hitting a target extends the duration by 1 second.

Mana Ray: Instantly fire a long-range laser. Damage is 0.25 (×0.3 attack power) per 0.01 seconds.

==== ====

This skill unleashed an enormous number of hits in an extremely short window. He didn’t even need to draw a bow, just pull the crossbow trigger.

Crackle crackle crackle crackle!

A blue beam swept across the enemy. Wherever Almond moved his aim, it followed.

Pop, pop!

Targets were hit almost effortlessly.

[Duration +1 second]

[Duration +1 second]

The duration kept extending.

[LazySoldier Double Kill!]

The destructive output was beyond anything imaginable.

— What

— Whoa?!

— Insane lmaooo

— This is broken???

— This is... Raina?

‘Insane...!’

Every other Knight Order member, Sweet Radish included, went wide-eyed. They'd heard the thing about Mana Ray.

‘It was THIS good?!’

If it was this good, why hadn’t he explained it properly?!

[LazySoldier Triple Kill!]

Boom!

Another enemy died.

— lmaooo survival mode is wild

— The dopamine from this is insane

— Insane

— What even is going on

— If you immediately understand why people rob vaults, upvote

Three out of five enemies had died. That enemy team started pulling back. However, there were ten enemies in total.

The other team, coming from the opposite direction, showed no intention of retreating. They kept charging and had already gotten quite close to Almond. The one downside of firing the Mana Ray was having to stand still. The enemies realized this and rapidly closed in, unleashing their ultimate skills.

Crash!Pop!

[Roll]

With Roll available, most things could be dodged and deflected.

[HP: 43%]

Still, a couple of skills landed.

‘This way... the damage output loss is significant.’

Mana Ray wasn't a flawless skill, after all. Standing still and holding the beam for the damage and duration to scale didn't suit Raina. It trapped a mobile champion like Raina into stationary play.

Sweet Radish called out, "Sweet Potato!"

"Yes?"

"Get out there and scatter nails!"

"Yessir~!" Sweet Potato charged out and scattered nails.

[Nail Scatter!]

"Almond! Just stand and fire!" Sweet Radish also ran out to escort Almond from the front.

‘Stand and fire...!’

A carry just planting themselves and pumping out damage was widely considered the worst way to deal damage. Usually, carries had low health and needed to keep moving to disrupt enemy targeting.

Click.

‘Nails first.’

Almond's stationary fire was a different matter. Moving while shooting was honestly equivalent to him performing at maybe a third of his actual ability.

He was a former archery athlete. When did an archer ever shoot while moving? No matter how user-friendly the game made it, shooting while moving was cumbersome. Above all, people performed several times better at what they were accustomed to.

Almond's pupils contracted.

He pulled the trigger with a breath. “Hooo.”

This time, it wasn’t the brute-force approach of just holding the laser beam down.

Crackle!

[HP Recovery]

Pop!

He picked off Sweet Potato's nails one by one with pinpoint precision.

‘There.’

Crackle!

[HP Recovery]

The laser instantly shot out and hit the nails one by one.

[Duration remaining: 3 seconds]

As the duration dwindled, he swung back to Raina's targets.

Crackle!

[Duration +1 second]

[Duration +1 second]

The duration extended again. Because Mana Ray didn't need to fixate on combos, he could freely switch between hitting nails and hitting targets however he liked.

— Insane

— Whoa

— He extended the timer again

— The detail...

— The focus on stationary fire is unreal

— The Lord in his element lmaooo

Flash!

A dark figure lunged in.

"DIE!"

The enemy Rope Assassin had broken through Sweet Potato and Sweet Radish's guard. He swung his rope and launched his ultimate skill.

Whirrrr...!

The rope coiled around Almond’s neck like a noose.

‘Just hit the nails.’

Crackle! Crackle! Crackle!

The intervals between trigger pulls kept getting shorter.

Crack!

The Rope Assassin's ultimate skill landed.

[HP: 57%]

Almond’s health dropped to nearly half.

[HP Recovery]

[HP Recovery]

[HP Recovery]

. . .

Hummm...!

[HP: 89%]

His health returned almost immediately.

"What the HELL?!"

"Hammer is going in!"

Smack!

Sweet Potato's Hammer Paladin knocked the Rope Assassin flat. Then, Lemon froze him with ice magic. Almond spun around and jammed the trigger right in his face.

Crackle crackle crackle crackle crackle crackle!

"No, NOOOOO!"

The Rope Assassin died horrifically.

[LazySoldier is on a Rampage!]

Teams witnessing this couldn't help but lose their morale. The assassin had landed his ultimate skill successfully, and the carry's health had just refilled.

"What...?!"

"Is that Raina? Or is it someone else?!"

"What kind of railgun IS that!"

Raina was wielding an unidentifiable weapon. The confusion only multiplied.

"Damn... look at their level! They robbed the Vault! So their level is low... AHHH!!"

It was too late by the time they realized the Vault had been robbed.

Boom!

[LazySoldier Double Kill!]

[LazySoldier is dominating!]

This team had already taken two casualties.

"Fall back! Fall back! Protect the rune spirits!"

A team with level six ultimate skills started retreating. Almond kept firing the laser after them.

Crackle crackle!

The Mana Ray’s range was nearly impossible to escape from.

Crash!

One more enemy went down.

[LazySoldier Triple Kill!]

[LazySoldier CANNOT BE STOPPED!]

They scrambled away, clutching the rune spirits as they fled.

"Y-you'll pay for this!"

They even left behind words like a second-rate villain as they vanished.

— LOL

— Whoa

— Those are Paprika streamers LMAO

— "You'll pay for this!"

‘Should I chase them?’

Almond considered it briefly, but the skill’s duration had ended.

[Mana Ray Mode: Ended]

Crackle...!

The bow returned to its original form.

— Oh no...

— Goodbye

— It's over

— The magic autumn has ended...

The rampage finally ended.

[Level Up!]

A level-up notification blinked in the corner of the screen.

[Lv. 5 → Lv. 6]

Almond had gained his ultimate skill.

"Oh."

He checked the enemies' health.

‘Wait.’

[Sharpshooter's Pride × 100]

He'd been hitting targets constantly. Of course, the passive had reached full stacks. His ultimate skill was also ready to activate.

***

"Hah... Oh god... Wait... Was that Almond just now?"

"What? The vault...? Almond? LazySoldier?"

"Yeah, that’s Almond from Cheese."

"Damn. Should've known."

They were part of the Paprika streamer team.

"Of all people, he had to be the one to get a legendary rune?"

"This broken luck-based garbage game... The balance is completely shot."

— lmaooo fr

— Dopamine game

— Pure stimulation one-trick

— That laser just now really wasn’t a bug?

— What even was that lmao

They weren’t a bad lineup of high-rankers, yet they'd been completely demolished.

"Hey. Damn... where's Minseok?"

Someone set down the rune spirits.

"Couldn't save him."

Minseok was presumably the Rope Assassin.

"Look at our health... We literally almost died."

"Haah. Yeah, let's go visit the Resurrection Shrine."

They laughed emptily. They'd been too confident as a level five team and thought the shadow favored them while sandwiching other teams. The result was a crushing defeat.

Someone sat down and muttered, "Ah... when this war is over, I can finally go home."

"When I get home... I'm going to dip strawberries in fresh cream. My family will welcome me back."

"When I return, I'm definitely going to confess to her."

— These lunatics lmaooo

— LOL

— It is war-level lmao

— Survival teamfights really are brutal

— lmaooo

— The roleplay LOL

Congratulating themselves for surviving a war-like battle, they were busy reviving the rune spirits.

"Listen up. Your elders saved you, so you'd better behave your..."

Suddenly, a blue light shone.

BOOOOOM!

This was several orders of magnitude more than the laser from before. It felt like being hit by a train made of pure sunlight.

‘What?’

They didn't even know what had killed them.

[Defeated]

The defeat screen simply appeared in their field of vision after the entire team died.

‘That makes no sense.’

Reality was merciless.

[PENTA KILL!]

LazySoldier achieved a penta kill.

— LOOOL

— They literally flagged their own deaths

— A death worthy of streamers...

— I'm dying lmaooooooo

— The confession really is dangerous...

— This too is the Lord’s grace...

— The Lord at least keeps them alive as content~

***

[Team 3 Eliminated!]

Another team had died. What in the world?

Sweet Radish doubled over. "LORD, THAT WAS AMAZIIIIING!!!"

— LOL

— lmaooooo

— The energy hahaha

— Since when did Sweet Radish have this kind of energy?? lmaooo

— The dopamine is real lmao

Sweet Radish had honestly been quite surprised earlier.

‘I thought he'd be around the same level as Black Tea.’

The Almond he'd encountered in tournament hadn't been superior to Black Tea as a carry. He'd actually be outclassed by Black Tea after a few moments, but Sweet Radish couldn't account for something when Almond came to mid.

‘He’s grown. How...?’

That something was real-time decision-making and combat instincts. These intangibles couldn’t be taught. Knowing everything didn't mean one could keep up. Almond’s execution had risen at an astonishing rate. Maybe it was because he'd immersed himself in the massive current of the world championship?

"WHAAAAAAAT?!"

Hop!

Sweet Potato reacted like something out of a low-budget variety show, except he was being completely genuine.

— WHAT?!

— lmaooooo

— The face lol

— Whoa lmao it really is insane

— The Lord is absolutely nuts

The startled Knight Order looked at each other.

"Wow. Insane. What was that?"

"Heee... incredible~!"

Black Tea and Lemon looked shocked.

"I honestly didn't even get to fire that many shots."

Black Tea, the other carry, had barely gotten to shoot.

Almond had killed everything. His ultimate skill at the very end could only be called a near-divine ability.

Meanwhile, Almond asked them, "The calls?"

— LOOOL

— lmaooooo we're done

— lmao

— Cooked

— The audacity lmaooo

After all of this, he looked at everyone as if to say, ‘You're still not giving me this?’

‘Insane... this is an advance withdrawal.’

Sweet Radish couldn't help it either.

First, Almond had wiped Team 7 alone on an alternate route. Then, he picked Mana Explosion. Mana Ray also broke them out of the double sandwich. Almond had hard-carried them.

"S... SMART YOUNG MAN!!" Sweet Radish answered like he was coughing up blood.

Sweet Potato raised both hands like a brainwashed zealot and cried out, "SMART YOUNG MAN!"

— All hail the Smart Young Man!

— LOL

— This team is cooked

"Smart Young Man! Smart Young Man~!"

"The Smart Young Man indeed! Oh yes!"

Lemon and Black Tea gave in too. Internally, all of them thought something else entirely.

‘We're done. The Smart Young Man will call the shots.Choi Sa-Rang will stop the Smart Young Man, though...This is scripted! It has to be scripted!’

Despite their private conviction that they were done for, they overwhelmingly ended up in first place for this match.

[1st Place]

The game ended, and they returned to the This World lobby. Everyone returned in a reasonably cheerful mood.

‘Hm?Hmm...Oh.’

Their coach looked very unhappy.

"I'm going to step out for a smoke."

She even pushed the feedback back.

— ?

— ???

— Smoke break lmaooo

— Out of nowhere?

— She smokes?

— What the

— A coach who provides smoke breaks lmao

— What a girl!