Blackened Pororo (3)
The early laning phase went smoothly enough. My synergy with the support wasn’t bad, and I was farming minions at a decent clip. At this rate, we’d grow into the teamfight stage without any real trouble.
Then, out of nowhere, bad news came rolling in from the top lane.
An ally has been slain!
Blackened Pororo has slain TPIsATopLaner'sShame!
“Huh?”
Blackened Pororo—that guy who used to be a support—just solo-killed someone in the top lane?
It was the kind of situation that raised questions all on its own. How long had it even been since he’d switched to top? How much mechanical polish could he possibly have stacked in that time? The idea that a Hyeji support who’d done nothing but take abuse from me had somehow become a proper top laner was a hard pill to swallow.
“He just got lucky. It’s only one kill. Our top probably thought he was a total scrub and overextended.”
It wasn’t anything worth fretting over. A guy who’d only ever played support had no business knowing a top laner’s fine details. He’d probably just snapped up a free overreach and that was that.
“You die? A Pororo like you, to me?”
Looks like someone needed a sharp little taste of the switch today. A mere Hyeji, high off his own ego, daring to pick a fight with me while I was riding a hot streak…
“It’s still just top lane. He can’t affect the game at all.”
I dismissed Heok-roro as a joke and kept massacring minions. But that was my mistake. The longer the game went on, the more the chain of alerts started looking seriously wrong.
An ally has been slain!
DOUBLE KILL!
It wasn’t just the top laner.
Once top started crumbling, jungle tried to step in—only for the jungler to end up as a matching corpse rolling across the floor. The double-kill callout made even my relaxed self feel a little knot of unease.
“W-wait a second!?”
Top lane just detonated into a full-on dumpster fire…
Still, it wasn’t a completely hopeless situation. Valgus was a champion that only really flexed in lane; teamfights were a different story.
“It’s fine. Valgus is a pure melee champ with no dash. Even if he snowballs, what can he do against my kiting? I dance him around a little and he can’t touch me.”
Kiting was the flower of every ADC. Some barbarian charging in with nothing but axes wasn’t scary in the slightest. All I had to do was cook him slowly with flashy movement and enjoy the teamfight.
“Actually, this is great. Just thinking about cashing that shutdown gold already has my heart racing.”
Slurp.
“I raise them, then I eat them.”
Laning ended, and mid turned into a standoff.
In the deep ranks, there was no such thing as macro. Pure force was the only language spoken. Nobody said a word about grouping for a fight, but when the time came, everyone drifted to mid on autopilot.
“Group mid.”
In the middle of the standoff, all chat lit up again.
From the far jungle, a man wrapped in a red aura came walking with slow, deliberate steps. Viking helm, an axe in each hand—the unyielding warrior, Valgus.
Blackened Pororo was the one who broke the standoff.
Without so much as a telegraph, he ran.
UOOOOOOOH!!!!!!
“U-uhh…”
The charge was terrifying, but I forced myself to stay calm. If he just mindlessly dove in like that, our front line would cut him down past half health. Then I’d finish him off, and that would be that.
Both teams slammed together with a crash and the fight dissolved into chaos—blades flashing, magic flying. Per the plan, I held back and waited for my delayed entry.
Five seconds after the teamfight started, I finally stepped up and started dumping arrows.
“How’s that, you trash!?”
This had been my guaranteed winning formula lately. Wait for the fight to start, then enter late.
And sure enough, it was shaping up into the same clean cleanup pattern as always…
KUOOOOOOOOH!!!!!!!
A thunderous roar tore through the air as Valgus launched out of the enemy line. The way he blew past the frontline and kept coming was so vicious that a panicked shout ripped out of me before I could stop it.
“B-block him!”
Insane! He must have taken every move-speed rune available—the velocity was genuinely terrifying. Valgus never let off the gas. Our support scrambled to land CC, but he popped his ultimate, Unyielding Warrior, and kept barreling straight at me in a perfect line.
“Not a chance!”
I kited backward and loosed an arrow.
FWOOSH!
The damage definitely landed. But true to the name Unyielding Warrior, he didn’t stop. Arrows buried in his body, blood spraying—none of it mattered. Eyes rolled back, he just kept coming.
And that speed was completely absurd.
“As if a melee scrub like you could—!”
The gap closed in a blink, so I slammed Flash and opened the distance again.
From here, pure kiting would make it easy…
KUOOOOOOOH!!!!!
He caught my Flash on pure move speed alone.
Then Valgus closed right into my face and leapt high into the air.
Those razor-edged twin axes filled my vision completely.
“Ah.”
Fuck.
CRACK!
A third of my health vanished in an instant.
After the aerial smash, Valgus didn’t hesitate for a second.
Nike scrambled to kite, but like a spoon murderer—no, an axe murderer—he clung on with obsessive tenacity and kept bringing those axes down again and again.
Nike’s health bottomed out in seconds, and she finally collapsed.
Blackened Pororo(Valgus) has slain HungADC(Nike)!
Valgus’s twin axes came down, and the screen went gray. With their ADC gone, the rest of the team folded helplessly into a total wipe. Something that absolutely should never have happened had just happened.
“…No.”
BANG!
“Does that make any sense!? Does any of that make sense right now!? I was full HP with Flash still up!”
This was pure injustice. I hadn’t died because I played badly. That lunatic axe murderer’s damage was just unhinged.
“How much gold did you feed him, top and jungle!? You take a bribe? You abusing?”
“You bastards!!!!”
From deep in my chest I hauled up a full Hallasan Tiger roar and bellowed it straight into the camera.
“Whose side are you even on right now!? I died and you’re happy about it!? You’re my fans! You’re my viewers!”
Traitors. Filthy little demons. The fact that people like this were my viewers was enough to make me want to weep. Then again, most of them were like this—ban them all and there’d be nobody left.
“Shiii…”
“Fine. You want to do this?”
Okay. Challenge accepted.
Honestly? All those recent wins had left me feeling a little stagnant.
I’d been bullying nothing but weaklings until it got boring—and right on cue, a decent little toy had shown up. A warm-up before climbing into Bronze wouldn’t hurt.
“Alright then. Time to go serious mode.”
…
After that, I went on a clean five-game losing streak.
Three of those losses were from running into Pororo as the enemy…
And the other two were from getting stuck on the same team as Pororo and trolling each other into a combined five losses.