Chapter 3
Since life itself became virtual reality, the range of leisure activities I could choose from had become absurdly narrow.
Games were out because I was sick of them, and movies and other video entertainment were out because they cost money, leaving only VTube or online communities, neither of which suited my tastes.
The first reason was that I couldn't easily find common ground with their culture, and the second was that whenever I happened across something nasty about me, it ruined my mood for the entire day.
But there had never been a day when I was more reluctant to work than today.
Is this the power of money?
The free time capital afforded made my body—or rather, my mind—sluggish, and I buried myself in bed and began surfing the sea of information to see whether I could find anything to enjoy.
Although I normally didn't watch the gaming category on VTube, the third video of Docu 4 Days, which had aired yesterday, appeared in my recommendations.
It looked poised to surpass four million views in less than twelve hours.
I'd already watched most of it yesterday anyway, and if I went in for no reason, it was obvious there'd be nothing but a pile of hate comments about me...
In the end, I chose Brahms's Ballades for Piano, which I'd previously added to my interests. I liked that it resembled music my old teacher had once enjoyed.
I played the song and closed my eyes, but sleep wouldn't come.
Was it because I was afraid I might fall asleep like this and die the next day?
Or was it because of the habits that had hardened over six years? Napping was difficult.
I wanted to forget yesterday's unpleasant memories in the beautiful melodies, but that damn Docu 4 Days kept coming to mind. It wasn't because I was worried about getting permanently banned.
Since I was using it illegally without even registering my identity, getting suspended would only mean finding another way around it and logging back in.
It was just that the process was pretty bothersome, so I tried not to get suspended if I could...
Four million...
That was more people than the population of most cities.
Was there no prince among them who could rescue me from this wretched prison?
Just as it is human nature to seek a thread of hope in despair, I had already tasted despair countless times, yet I was foolishly sending out another SOS request.
All I did was realize once again that humans were more indifferent to others than I had thought.
What a cruel fate.
I had never managed to escape the lot of a bird in a cage.
In my previous life, I had been bound by the enormous chain called the imperial court and had been unable to withstand the infighting among the empire's nobles.
If I were granted life one more time, would it have been such a great sin to pray that I could live freely somewhere no one knew me?
Since I disliked being touched by human hands, they had now physically locked me away somewhere.
No wonder I resented God.
Even so, I didn't have the courage to kill myself like this.
Someone might object that I'd already died twice, but I had a powerful intuition that this life was truly my last.
I had evidence, too. When I was first born, I had one Mongolian spot on the back of each hand, but one had disappeared in my previous life, and this time I couldn't find either of them no matter how hard I looked.
If those spots represented my lifespan, this must be my last chance.
My body was beginning to send me signs that it was reaching its limit.
I hadn't examined my body for nearly a year because waking up from the capsule consumed too much energy. It was enough that physical reactions from outside were transmitted inside without filtration.
My hands and feet had begun tingling a few weeks ago, and sometimes I got chills or broke out in a cold sweat.
Whenever I fell asleep after a grueling schedule, I sometimes felt the creepy sensation of something like a centipede crawling all over my body.
In particular, when that centipede bit me, I was so startled that I even screamed.
Of course, there was no centipede or anything like one beneath the blanket.
There was no way my body could remain healthy when I wasn't taking in nutrients normally. Just staying alive this long had to be called a miracle.
The piece was almost over.
Rest was sweet, but I couldn't stand the silence and emptiness that came afterward.
Above all, there were too many centipedes in my room.
In the end, I had no choice but to leave once again today for a battlefield without centipedes.
However, it seemed today was truly an unlucky day.
[Normal - Collect 10 Mysterious Murals (0/10)]
[Legendary – Achieve 15 kills within 30 minutes (0/15)]
[Mythic – Achieve Double Ace twice (0/2)]
“This is too demanding...”
Whenever the occasional unfair mission appeared, my desire to quit the game surged.
But according to my experience over the past six years, it was more efficient to give every match my best and clear the missions than to give up and queue for another game, choosing only missions I could handle.
There was no guarantee that the next game wouldn't put me in another unfair situation, either.
I had to collect murals, yet there was also a kill mission attached. On top of that, the notoriously difficult Double Ace was an achievement that required every player on both teams to die in a single team fight. And it had to happen twice.
The most textbook approach was to hog all the resources myself, keeping my allies from growing as much as possible while ensuring that no one on the enemy team became exceptionally strong. Of course, deliberately arranging such a game was absurd.
I thought carefully about the position I'd been assigned at random.
If I played as a mid laner, my influence would be considerable, but clearing the mural mission would become relatively difficult. The other lanes were out of the question, so changing my spells without a moment's hesitation seemed the wiser choice.
* * *
“Smite and Ghost?”
Surely not...?
The moment the allied mid laner changed his spell to Smite, Semin instinctively tensed up.
He had planned to play his usual jungle Rammus today as well, but if things stayed like this, there would be two junglers on one team.
‘Does he want to jungle or what.’
Even after Semin changed his spell to Ignite, the other player remained silent, so he seemed to want the jungle role.
Judging by his teammate's Soul Hunter Vargo pick, his spell choice was hardly reassuring, but he didn't seem to be an intentional feeder.
As the game grew older and more entrenched, rude people who had thrown manners out the window were bound to show up often. As a gentleman, I should yield.
In the end, because every match mattered to Semin, he changed his champion.
[Welcome to the battlefield.]
The weather is partly cloudy, the wind blows from the northwest, and morning sunlight shines down.
The nicknames of the allied and enemy players, which had been hidden, were engraved on the monument of honor, signaling the start of the game.
[Dont cry mumu]
[Working Hard Without Getting Angry]
[NoName]
[Hit Once, Hit Twice]
[The Cheetah Is Crying]
And Semin wanted to stop crying.
[Working Hard Without Getting Angry: I got matched with this troll again]
[Working Hard Without Getting Angry: I lost my promotion series because of him yesterday, and now I get matched with him in this bracket again? Is this for real?]
[The Cheetah Is Crying: The king of low elo has arrived!]
[Dont cry mumu: It hasn't even been a month since Season 10 started, and he already has 600 games on his record.]
“Why on earth am I in the same tier as NoName?”
Semin knew he wasn't good at LoL.
But he prided himself on doing his absolute best from his position. Yet for all that effort to be disparaged as being on the same level as a troll like that...
A strange glint appeared in Semin's eyes.
In any case, situations worse than this came up often in the depths. This was a taste and scent Semin knew all too well.
No matter how much a game looked doomed from the start, there were countless times when doing one's best led to a sudden victory.
He put his strength into it and slammed his staff down onto the floor.
[Dont cry mumu: Looks like the enemy mid-jungle are a duo smurfing on alt accounts?]
The staff toppled over helplessly.
* * *
Hit Once, Hit Twice hated the top half. Just when he thought he'd finally gotten a satisfying support, now the top and mid were running wild.
It was ridiculous for the ADC, whose job was to carry the late game, to roam in support of the mid, but now he was at the point of resenting the ally who spat that assistance right back out!
[The Cheetah Is Crying: Don't go to a losing lane, ADC.]
[Working Hard Without Getting Angry: Jungle is my main role, so sorry sorry... I'll hold out as best I can.]
[Dont cry mumu: 4:0]
[Dont cry mumu: If the enemy ganks first one more time, I'm throwing.]
Even after a 3v2 skirmish, the catastrophe of three allies dying in return drained all his motivation. The mid laner seemed to realize that and tried to placate him with a deep bow.
Hit Once, Hit Twice was at least relieved that they recognized who was playing best on this team. The late game was an ADC fight, anyway. Repeating that to himself, he deliberately ignored the kill score.
[PerfectNature(Jered): 4/1/7]
[PerfectNumber(Kaina): 3/0/4]
However, the monsters inhabiting the top half wouldn't even allow the struggling minnow to thrash as it grew.
They killed him in lane, killed him with dives when he teleported back, and now they persistently pounced even on the road to the fortress as he trudged along.
[The Cheetah Is Crying: We can't win anyway. Shall we call an instant surrender?]
[The Cheetah Is Crying has started a surrender vote.]
The third slot filled quickly.
Semin already knew, with team coordination in tatters, who besides him would refuse to surrender. NoName, bearing a nickname that was repulsive just to look at.
For some reason, NoName seemed to be taking the game fairly seriously this match, with a respectable kill score of 2/0/0. Both kills had come in the bottom lane.
But perhaps the troll's nature hadn't gone anywhere: sometimes he would be inexplicably on the exact opposite side of the map from his allies with bizarre pathing, and he only mindlessly increased his resource score. He was contributing nothing whatsoever to the team's victory.
Even in Bronze or Silver, he knew how hopeless the situation was. It was already fifteen minutes in, so the gold gap was probably around five to seven thousand.
Even though Semin didn't usually surrender, he voted in favor.
But by the time voting ended, they still hadn't reached unanimity.
[The Cheetah Is Crying: We have to wait until twenty minutes for this.]
Five minutes from now, the game could end with only four votes in favor.
Nothing would change by spending five minutes doing anything, so everyone began moving halfheartedly.
Perhaps sensing that atmosphere, the allied jungler NoName sent his first ping.
[Group here]
The second Guardian's Nest.
Normally, the top laner, jungler, and occasionally mid laner would join up for a small 3v3 skirmish, but for some reason today, every member of both teams gathered.
It was a situation rarely seen outside of high-elo solo queue.
‘Is someone on their side calling the shots, too?’
At this rate, an all-out 5v5 team fight was inevitable.
Semin steeled himself by even buying a Stopwatch, an item he usually didn't purchase because he lacked the mechanical skill to use it well.
The ADC's items were at two completed cores versus one and a half.
But the enemy mid-jungle already had their eyes on a third core, as if mocking that.
‘The jungler is two levels ahead, too. We'd lose for sure even if it came down to a Smite fight.’
His thoughts gradually grew tangled.
But they had already reached the Guardian's Nest.
The enemies had already taken cover one by one and were facing off. If anyone took even one step farther, countless abilities would pour down and battle would break out.
NoName was holding his breath in the brush right beside Semin.
Even in the suffocating standoff, his eyes remained calm.
The enemies, realizing the allied side had no intention of moving first, began taking the Guardian. If the second Guardian fell to the enemy too, the game would be beyond saving.
But if they went to interfere, the enemy was fully prepared to devour them at any moment.
In this hair-trigger situation, NoName's Vargo leaped out first.
It was as though they had been waiting for exactly that; all five opponents emerged from the Guardian's Nest and unleashed an offensive on Vargo.
“Watch out!”
While Semin hesitated, mumu, the top laner, and Hit Once, Hit Twice, the ADC, joined the fight. It was so chaotic that it was difficult even to tell which abilities were which amid the skills raining across the battlefield.
Semin thought coolly.
His role was to assassinate the enemy ADC. But where on earth was he?
There had definitely been five of them when they came out of the nest, but only four were visible. Then...?
“Hahahahahahahahaha”
Hundreds of lead bullets rained down with the alluring voice of a woman coming from the flank.
[You have been slain]
[You have been slain]
[You have been slain]
“Ah... damn...”
The enemy ADC's ultimate had landed beautifully.
They needed to start by killing the enemy ADC, but instead they began with half their health gone. With Jered and Kaina so fed, finishing them off was easy.
The one bit of good news was that The Cheetah Is Crying, who had picked Blitz, a grab-type champion, managed to pull in the enemy ADC during the ultimate. NoName and Hit Once, Hit Twice finished them off, letting their side score a kill as well.
[You have slain an enemy]
“Oh, right—the Stopwatch!”
In the end, Semin failed to buy an extra turn with the Stopwatch in this team fight too. Why did his vision narrow every time a team fight started...?
There was no hope. Even with Jered and Kaina's ultimates on cooldown, they had grown so far beyond everyone else that their sustained damage from basic attacks alone was considerable.
In the end, thanks to the enemy support sacrificing himself as bait, Hit Once, Hit Twice couldn't escape death either.
“You all just ate Miss Fortune's ult head-on like that?!”
The moment he was summoned to the respawn waiting room, he flew into a rage. It must have been even more frustrating to die without ever having a proper team fight.
Vargo would be joining them here soon, too. mumu surely had plenty to say to him. But contrary to expectations, no news of defeat came.
No one could keep their mouth shut as they watched the battle unfolding on the battlefield broadcast screen.
“What the hell was that?”
It began with something mumu said.
The moment Hit Once, Hit Twice died, Vargo vaulted over a wall and instantly killed the enemy top laner, who had been poking from a distance alongside Miss Fortune with Powder Kegs. The moment he stole Miss Fortune's soul, he forced his skills in at once, then emerged from her body and took Vargo's skills one after another.
[Triple Kill]
Kaina hurriedly tried to stop him with a stun, but after stealing the soul again, Gangplank's unique skill cleansed the hard CC.
He detonated two Powder Kegs at max range, hitting Jered and Kaina simultaneously.
But even after absorbing a soul and recovering health, he was still at half health.
One or two of Jered's shurikens would have been enough to make him crumple.
Using his shadow clone, Jered threw three shurikens from an angle where Vargo could never escape.
With every direction covered, Vargo escaped Gangplank's body again with his ultimate. Ignoring Jered, he charged at Kaina, who had separated from him.
As a bonus, he dodged another incoming stun with vertical movement.
[Quadra Kill]
Jered had just used his shadow clone, so he had no mobility skill left. But there was a reason he could still smile to the end.
“What do you know? My ult is up again.”
Jered's ultimate could deal damage with certainty.
He was low enough to die from basic attacks alone; there was no need even to land a shuriken.
After calculating it out, Jered marked Vargo for death without a moment's hesitation.
But Kaina immediately followed with Brush Stealth. At the instant his basic attack was negated, Jered tried throwing a shuriken, but Kaina dodged it this way and that with her short dash. The turn had changed.
“No—at least Ignite!”
At the last moment, the spell came off cooldown dramatically, and he set Vargo alight with Ignite.
[Penta Kill!]
But he leveled up.
And even received the victory message.
With his health increased, Vargo survived dramatically and became the final victor.
‘What am I looking at right now?’
Semin couldn't close his mouth at the scene, which looked like something from a highlight reel.
“NoName is fucking insane, huh? But this only happened because I landed my grab too, obviously.”
“The jungler was the only human player.”
The others felt the same.
“Wait, what is he doing?”
After the battle that had lasted an eternity of an instant ended, Vargo began staggering and twisting his body this way and that.
The neutral monster Baron Duke, which spawned sometime around the twenty-minute mark, suddenly entered his field of vision.
Blink blink
A strange staring contest between Baron Duke and Vargo.
In a curt voice that no one could hear, NoName answered.
“What are you looking at? Look down.”
A giant dragon's breath engulfed Vargo.
[You have been suppressed.]
[Double Ace]