Chapter 24
Rexar’s movements from then on were entirely predictable.
The allied jungler immediately invaded the enemy camp after seeing how much time Rexar had wasted top, while Rexar couldn’t enter our jungle for the same reason.
Not only had I chipped away at his health by kiting and poking him from behind, but our mid laner also had priority from pushing first, meaning Rexar risked being squeezed between top and mid.
At most, he could take two camps and one Scuttle Crab before recalling.
Of course, he could also unexpectedly cross through bot and wait for a countergank in the straight brush, timing it with the pushing wave. After all, he knew Sia didn’t have a ward.
That was something Sia could handle by being careful, so I decided not to worry about it too much.
Mirocell needed to take W at level two, but ended up taking E instead, and lane priority fell completely into my hands.
Since Mirocell had to ask my permission before taking even a single RS, they eventually recalled and had no choice but to use Teleport.
As we entered the eighth minute, the RS score had already reached 72 to 29—a gap of more than double, and soon nearly triple.
Mirocell calculated the level-six timing and fired their ultimate as a last-ditch strike, but I easily dodged it by moving forward. Then, with a rear Q and continuous kiting, I made Mirocell miss another two waves or so, turning them into a dutiful player who kept going home.
[An ally has been slain]
[Double Kill]
While our team was taking the Herald, the enemy must have decided that things couldn’t continue like this and executed a four-man dive on bot. At long last, a victory cry rang out for them.
“Sorry. I died without getting even one.”
“It’s fine. I’ll get more of an advantage top.”
I placed one assistance ping on the top lane’s second tower and another at the dragon pit.
It would be better to drop the Herald quickly, recall, and have the jungler run straight to the dragon pit.
Then the dragon would unquestionably belong to our team, while top would lose whether they defended or not—and lose even more if they didn’t.
But that alone wasn’t enough to make up for the bot dive that had just happened.
I had to collect a shutdown bounty even while being chased.
The ADC and support, whose bounties had risen to 700 and 450 gold respectively, headed top.
The jungler, who had already completely lost faith in top, was an added bonus, dutifully trailing behind bot.
[An ally has destroyed the second turret!]
Lunam i and Rexar were good at chasing, so there was no way they could resist coming after me.
But I had just reached level 11. I could handle a level-nine jungler and ADC, along with a level-seven support.
“If you greed for one more wave, you deserve to die!”
All I had to do was dodge Rexar’s Q to win.
Rexar seemed to know that too and saved the skill until the very end, but when I adopted a stance that made it look as though I wasn’t planning to run away, Rexar wasted it to limit my movement.
Rexar couldn’t close in on me because of my superior range and the variable of my possession rate, so Rexar waited for Lucian to circle around and get behind me.
‘At last.’
Lucian had three mobility skills, so I couldn’t catch him anyway. Nami was my only target.
Trusting in Nami’s healing, Lucian deliberately tried to trade damage with me, but I used my passive properly to halve the damage.
I had been waiting for the moment Rexar and Nami moved away from Lucian, but they were being so blatant about creating that opening that I hesitated one more time.
‘If I go in to use my ultimate, I’ll be killed instantly by their burst damage.’
The important thing was for Lucian alone to become separated. Instead, I needed to look for a moment when Rexar and Nami were together.
I retreated to a narrow stretch of terrain with a corner. Rexar, who had relatively more health, cleared the path for them.
After tagging Rexar with a few well-timed basic attacks and ranged W attacks, I moved back to create some distance. Rexar joined Nami again, and the moment Lucian realized my skills were on cooldown, he dashed forward to punish me.
‘This is my chance.’
There was a three-way intersection with a thin wall, and the enemy had no vision beyond it.
“Why don’t you stop chasing me already?”
My ultimate unfurled beyond Lucian.
Rexar and Nami sensed the danger and threw out every skill they had, but hitting Asteria within that area was practically impossible.
[You have slain an enemy!]
[Shutdown!]
[Double Kill!]
Lucian tried to flee helplessly into our formation, but our allies had already joined us, allowing us to collect Lucian’s bounty as well.
* * *
“Good work, everyone. Asteria is surprisingly good against Mirocell, huh? Maybe I should practice her too?”
“Why don’t you practice Kalista first? I thought I was going to get cancer during that laning phase.”
“What else could I do against an opponent like that? I did my best.”
“Then what am I supposed to do if you don’t even learn your ultimate at level six!”
“That’s the problem with top-lane habits, haha.”
In the end, the battle between the top carry and the bot carry ended with victory for the top carry.
Lunam i was indeed an overpowered combination, but it wasn’t a composition with only strengths, so our team properly exploited its weakness.
Sia told the viewers how unfortunate it was that they hadn’t laned against Pathos, but our goal had been victory—and Master—from the beginning.
“Good work, everyone!”
Sia gave them a cheerful farewell.
I said goodbye to the teammates I had briefly shared life and death with, then checked the result.
[Promoted to Master rank.]
[‘Bambaming’ donated 10,000 won!]
-Congratulations on reaching Master, NoName!
[‘SSPZLDJE’ donated 15,000 won!]
-I’m the winner who watched all 50 wins.
[‘DaerongHerong’ donated 500,000 won!]
-I’ll be looking forward to Challenger too!
Donations exceeding the original 500,000-won mission came pouring in.
The chat flew by endlessly fast, and I think I briefly lost my grip on reality amid the waves of text.
“Congratulations, Name. We really pulled off something incredible, didn’t we?”
Perhaps Riot would see this incident and abolish duo queue again.
Sia said that would still be a good thing.
That way, she said, this record could remain immortal history forever.
“Thank you. I barely talked during the game, so it probably wasn’t very entertaining, but you still stuck around and watched so much.”
[‘EomSanghwanuiMajimakIp sae’ donated 10,000 won!]
-At your skill level, it’d be fun even if you just played with a montage song in the background.
-Seriouslyㅋㅋ
-Every single game was a montage.
-Just thinking about getting Bronze-Silver-Gold Asteria one-tricks on my team is already making me dizzy... Right?
-Even with TK pros on the enemy team, the fact that they won proves they really have skill.
-???: They definitely have skill (Bronze-Silver-Gold KDA 0.8)
“Asteria is a good champion.”
[‘ClipMaster’ donated 3,000 won!]
-(A clip of Pathos lavishly praising Asteria, more or less)
[Wait, this is Diamond these days? The laning phase is no joke from the start.]
[Our Mirocell!!! Please stop dying!!! How much more of a monster are you trying to make the enemy top laner?!]
[We absolutely have to collect Asteria’s 1,000-gold bounty. Chase her, Rexar! No, if you hard-engage there...]
[This game is over. Uuuuuugh, it’s weird from the very first game? Who is this person? NoName? I’ve heard that name a lot. This guy is really good.]
-Wow, I got the ‘Pathos praised me’ achievement.
-If Pathos praises you, that proves you’re a winnerㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-They were running TK’s official broadcast?
-The Stove League is mostly over, so I guess they’re finally starting to follow their broadcast schedule.
-If he called him hyung, he must really respect him.
[‘Miroking’ donated 20,000 won!]
-What was that top Asteria? I’ve never felt such an overwhelming gap before.
“Ah, thank you for the 20,000 won, Miroking! We actually swapped because Name said we’d lose if I played top-lane Kalista.”
-That laning phase was seriously fucking disorienting;;
-After the level-two gank failed and he took the wrong skill, there was no window to force a fight unless the jungler came.
-It’s been a long time since I got cursed out by a Diamond scrub after reaching Challenger.
-Our Rexar hyung seriously has no brakes.
Miroking explained how Rexar, who had been on the same team, had cursed him out despite risking punishment for violating the chat rules.
Sia laughed for quite a while at that, and only after finally calming down could she sort through the donations that continued pouring in.
“All right, I’m closing donations now. It’s a shame to drag the stream out, but if you want to donate more, please send lots tomorrow.”
-Look at him planning to keep it all for himself tomorrow since donations sent today get split half-and-halfㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-How much did he make in one week? Even the chairman from Delete’s stream showed up earlier.
-Even after taking out all the little expenses, I’d say it’s at least 400,000 won.
-Make sure you settle up properly with NoName.
“When have you ever seen me pocket your money? You’re really slandering me.”
“I trust Sia. You really won’t, right?”
“Name, you too...!”
“I’m joking. But if you really skim it, I won’t forgive you.”
Sia began her closing remarks and announced to the viewers that they would end the shared broadcast here for now.
I couldn’t imitate Hye-Bam’s shameless way of talking, but I showed my sincerity in my own way and was able to end the broadcast without any problems.
[Switching to NoName’s personal stream: 0:00:01]
[Viewers: 581]
At first, I had started streaming to earn money for potions, and this time to raise the Mana Tax payment, but more and more people wanted me to provide something extra.
“Why did you come here instead of going to Hye-Bam?”
-???
-If you ask it like that, we don’t know what to answer either...
-Are you going to do any additional content?
-Seriously, you have to row while the tide’s in.
-Agreed, agreed. Your Asteria VTuber montage already has 300,000 views.
-I came here after watching that too.
‘Additional content?’
“I don’t have anything like that.”
[‘ManbeonkkakneunNosae’ donated 10,000 won!]
-Could you tell us some Asteria tips or combos? She’s so hard ㅜㅜ
-A guide video would be great.
-Tips from a 50-win-streak Asteria master? Even a diabetic couldn’t resist.
-You should resist, thoughㅋㅋ
-You take different runes every game. Is there a rule for when you take Press the Attack, Lethal Tempo, or Conqueror?
“Hmm...”
It was fifteen minutes before six in the evening. It was true that this was an awkward time to end things.
Starting on the hour and ending on the hour always left me with a satisfyingly neat feeling.
But opening a private training room and logging in again just to give a lecture sounded bothersome, and I didn’t particularly feel like doing it.
Fifteen minutes was the perfect amount of time to read the babies a story and get them to sleep.
I immediately searched for ‘Asteria’ on TreeWiki.
-Oh, does TreeWiki have a guide?
-Thump-thump.
-Waku waku.
-? Did this person click the wrong category?
[Asteria/Quotes]
“Then I’ll just read Asteria’s quotes until six and wrap up the stream.”
Asteria, the last surviving member of the Selena race. Her life story was so bleak and horrific that listening to it was almost unpleasant.
Reciting her quotes should also be a way to understand Asteria better.
“Selena’s plains are no more.”
“The stars are beautiful in their aloofness. Humans are always the ones who assign meaning.”
“I’ll make you regret being alive.”
“They always stab you in the back like cowards.”
...
“Melt away.”
“Burn.”
“This is Selena’s revenge.”
“Asel”
“Riva”
“Sai”
“La Asteria Salva Erum”
“La Asteria Shalein Xsetan”
“La Asteria Shuhata Failum.”
“I... want to be a being who shines even in death.”