Chapter 10
1.
『Defeat』
“……….”
-Is this a festival?
-No, it's a funeral…
-All five of us, let's play tug-of-war with the ceiling. Maybe we can at least win that, right???
-Should we open the windows first???
-Windows open, yaaaay~~~~~~~~~~~
All five of us were in the voice call, but no one said a word. We probably just weren't in the right state of mind for it.
“W-we lost that? We couldn't even win a single set!? D-does that make any sense? It was Red Outpost! Red Outpost…!”
I brought up Nova Syndicate's stats site on the screen and fumed.
『Red Outpost Key Stats』
[Set win rate for the team that captures Point 1 first: 75%]
[Set win rate for the team that captures Point 2 first: 77%]
“Look! We took the first point first in both sets! That means our odds of winning were over 75%! And we even won the opening team fight in both games! But, but… AAAAAAAH—!!!”
I pounded the desk. I couldn't hold back the anger surging up inside me.
-Whoa, damn
-Are we already at stage 4???
-I'm scared ㅠㅠㅠ
-How pissed is this bitch that she's suddenly speaking so clearly lol?
-Was that just an act…?
-Anger has overcome fear and trembling…
[P-please calm down…!]
[H-huh, I heard the viewers are breaking Carrier-nim's windows and pouring soy sauce everywhere!? Th-then maybe now isn't the time for us to be practicing like this…!]
The girly duo was flustered.
[It's obviously a joke. Don't worry about it.]
Heukrangi, on the other hand, sounded unconcerned.
[Haa….]
Aura could only let out one heavy sigh after another.
It had been a match where we'd seen a glimmer of hope, but in the end, we'd lost both games. It was only natural for everyone to feel troubled.
[We still have scrims left against Pizza Beer's team, so let's just do our best in those first! We did see some potential, at least!]
[That's right! Honestly, until now, we couldn't even picture ourselves winning, but this time we caught a glimpse of it, even if only a little!]
-As expected of the giggling duo lol
-They're bad at the game, but damn, they're really positive;;
-They're total mood-makers, yeah
-Kinda likeable, huh?
The girly duo shouted, “Let's go, let's go, fighting!” and lifted the mood. The atmosphere, which had been so gloomy, picked up a little.
‘Thank goodness those two are here.’
So what if they weren't great at the game? If they were that nice, you could forgive them almost anything.
[It's still too early to get discouraged. I also think we lost at Red Outpost because of the difference in team compositions.]
[Pizza Beer's team brought a standard composition, while we just picked whatever we wanted. Expecting to win like that was downright shameless.]
[And they're better than us, too. So all the more reason we need to get our composition right.]
Heukrangi backed Aura up. It was hard to argue with any of it.
[We saw some potential, so let's all keep trying! If we put together a proper team composition, we have a chance.]
[Let's go, let's go, fighting—!]
“F-fighting…!”
The southeastern wind is blowing…!
***
Like hell any southeastern wind was blowing.
The enemy flag was planted at the top of the castle. A moment later, the entire screen turned bright red.
『Defeat』
I bit my lip hard at the words that appeared before me.
[………]
Silence fell over the voice chat. Not even a single breath could be heard.
[Pizza Beer: Thanks for the scrim today.]
The opposing team left the room as soon as the scrim ended. They didn't say much in chat, but somehow I could almost hear them laughing at us.
-They're roasting Aura's team like crazy in Pizza Beer's room right now lol
-They said we were a good dose of medicine???
-Apparently this place is their confidence-boosting machine, yeah;;
-This team is basically a charity case, damn
-The Giving Tree ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
Sure enough, when I looked at the chat, a flock of stream-hoppers had come over to relay the other team's reaction. They could have been stirring things up or making it up, but that didn't seem very likely.
‘It's not like I'm popular enough for someone to go to that much trouble….’
『201 viewers……』
At one point, more than 10,000 people had been watching my stream. But as soon as the clarification stream ended, 70% of them left. And as we kept losing, the rest gradually lost interest and left, too.
As a result, there were only about 200 viewers left in my room. Even they probably hadn't settled in as regulars yet.
‘I've barely shown them anything, and we haven't spent much time together.’
For now, this wasn't the time to worry about my viewer count. I didn't have the luxury of doing that in the first place. Our team was about to fall apart!
‘I haven't even had a chance to show what I can do yet. If the team falls apart now, I'm seriously screwed…!’
If my teammates lost their motivation and gave up here, I'd just become ‘the girl who took a break to run an errand for tofu.’
That was the one future I couldn't allow. I had to stop that from happening. I had to twist the course of the world.
“F-for now, I don't think there's any point in doing more scrims. O-our skill level is so low that they're not very productive for us or our opponents….”
[…I agree.]
Aura said in a dejected voice.
“S-so we can't bring in a coach, right?”
[Right. People might be getting coached behind the scenes without anyone knowing, but it's prohibited during the Swiss stage. It would make things unfair….]
“Then we have to find and fix our problems ourselves….”
It wasn't going to be easy.
You couldn't improve as a team without knowing what was wrong, but for teams like ours, stuck in the middle of the pack, that was the hardest part.
‘We can't see ourselves objectively.’
Everyone was doing something. But since they didn't really know enough, they didn't understand why they were doing it. Or they had only a vague idea, so they were doing it wrong.
“Let's all watch the replay and analyze it. If something seems strange or you think you did something poorly, please speak up.”
[Got it.]
I kept sharing my screen and played the replay. First, we watched the opening fight at Red Outpost.
The moment we ran into the enemy, all our teammates charged toward them. At the same time, my Odin transformed into an armored vehicle and smashed through the enemy's shield.
The enemy tank was left with just a sliver of health, but Aura's Phantom finished them off in style. After that, we chased down the remaining enemies and took the point first.
“U-up to here, things went well. We caught them off guard, and I think everyone did their part.”
It had been a clean victory.
The problem started with the second fight.
As I'd been saying, Red Outpost was a map that heavily favored the defending team. That was because there were only two entrances to the central point.
One was so far out of the way that it took too much time to reach, while the other was so narrow that it was easy to get caught in concentrated fire.
“I-I'll say this with my limited knowledge, but… I think we should draw a line right here at the entrance and pick off anyone who crosses it….”
I played the video again.
Our team in the replay was a complete mess.
Heukrangi's Roadgrim and Phantom pushed forward, while the support heroes lagged behind and just stood there watching.
Me?
I was right in the middle, pouring firepower into the enemy. That was Odin's role, after all.
The frontline was doing its own thing.
The damage dealers were doing their own thing.
And the support heroes were doing their own thing.
“E-everyone's completely out of sync! There's no way we can win like this…! N-no, expecting to win like this is downright shameless! S-so what happens next?”
The enemies picked off the overextended Heukrangi and Aura first, then slaughtered the rest of us.
“A-and then what happens?”
After they took the point, we couldn't even get near the entrance before they euthanized us.
“W-well, GG~~~~~~~~!!!”
-Seeing it like this, it's fucking brutal lol
-Looks like they just threw together a bunch of idiots???
-The way she's talking is so fucking funnyㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-I've been thinking this since last time, this bitch is way too good at roasting peopleㅋㅋㅋㅋ
“Should we watch the second round, too?”
We won the opening fight again. Everyone charged at the enemy together, and we wiped them out.
-Damn, Bullet's actually really good even in this situation;;
-How the hell did they predict Shinya's deflect and hold their fire???
-That's fucking crazy;;
We'd even won despite the enemy tank and damage dealer picking heroes that countered me!
“Now, we won here, right? What should we do next? Obviously, we draw a line here and say, ‘You come to us first.’ Then we punish them when they cross it.”
I drew a line near the entrance as I spoke.
“But what do we do instead!?”
Once again, Heukrangi and Aura rushed forward, got isolated, and died. Then the enemy broke through, and we got euthanized again.
“We've been repeating this exact scene for an hour and a half. Over and over.”
I slammed my desk.
“This, this isn't Nova Syndicate! We're all just running headfirst into each other! The two healers are just giggling in the back—!”
[………]
I let out a deep sigh, then spoke again.
“So… do you know what our team's problem is?”
[…That we're all doing our own thing?]
[That we're playing without thinking?]
“No.”
I shook my head firmly.
[Then what's our team's biggest problem…?]
I answered Heukrangi's question.
“That there are five women on the team.”
5 Girls Can't Win. That's my conclusion...!