In the Palm of the Buddha's Hand
Of all the matches caster Lee Hyeok-jin was looking forward to, the Kayack team's games were, of course, at the top of the list.
As the man in charge of the commentary, some might call that improper—but so long as he didn't slant the broadcast itself, what was the harm?
It couldn't be helped. On the very first day of the tournament, Hyeok-jin had watched Kayack's highlights and become her fan on the spot.
That night, after the schedule wrapped, he queued ranked until dawn for the first time in ages. Seeing those old clips again had dragged him under a wave of nostalgia.
The results had been disastrous, but he hadn't felt bad about it. It only reaffirmed what he already knew: nostalgia and reality had to be kept strictly separate.
That was just how it worked. Nostalgia wasn't nostalgia for nothing.
Even if you let yourself sink into the past and fire up the game again, you could never go back to those days. A few years had already passed since the era when Lee Hyeok-jin had been a hardcore player.
But right here, there was someone who could drag that nostalgia into the present.
A gamer who had lived through the same era as Hyeok-jin. One who had returned after a long hiatus and, unlike him, still had skills that hadn't rusted at all—a true hardcore veteran.
"Both teams have finished their bans and picks. At a glance, neither side's draft looks like it strays too far from what we expected, right?"
"That's right. But while the Decal team is running the standard traits most players use, the Kayack team's traits look… unusual."
"Whoa, this is…"
She never disappoints.
Hyeok-jin let out a sound of pure admiration.
"Taken individually, none of them are that strange. Dawn's Shield, Resurrection, Persistent Sniper, Forest's Blessing…"
"It's just that they look a little unbalanced on each hero—like something's twisted, you know?"
"Exactly. But if you look at Hak-chu's cam—she's one of the Kayack team members—she looks tense, sure, but there's a resolute edge to her expression. That means nothing's wrong. In other words, picking these traits was part of a plan they prepared in advance."
"Chat's saying the Camilla god is just built different. From what I've heard, Kayack didn't just call the shots for the whole team—she personally tuned every trait and build they're running right now."
"I still don't know what Camilla has to do with this colorful trait setup, but it's clear Kayack worked hard as team captain."
"It's an unusual build, so I'm excited and curious. We'll have to watch the match to understand what the traits are really for."
And not long after the game began—
"What… is this? What is the Kayack team even trying to do right now?"
"It's brutal to deal with. No one could have imagined they'd bring a strategy like this. If you don't know it, you're just going to get wrecked!"
"Ah—it blew up! It completely blew up! Kayack just detonated the game!"
Exclamations erupted from the commentary booth.
"Cassia, Bigdin, and Nixon are in the front!"
"Calliope's visible in the backline too. Wait, what's that? A mace…? She's holding something weird!"
"That's Mace Calliope. Anyone else not showing?"
"Umm, hang on…"
Listening to his teammates' tense voices over comms, Decal—Choi Jong-bin—forced his mind to go cold and clear.
Think. Just think.
The enemy was no pushover. But they weren't unbeatable either.
Who held the key to victory? That was him—Decal, the team captain.
From practice all the way to this moment, his teammates had followed his orders without fail. Especially for the lower-tier players, the drills must have been brutal and exhausting, yet they had stuck with him without a word of complaint. He was grateful for that.
Those hours would have been impossible without faith and trust in their captain. Now it was time to repay that faith.
"Yeah, no one else is showing."
"Two of them missing, huh…"
Following the report from their archer, who had used Clairvoyance to scan the mid area, Decal's mind began to race.
Early game, the standard was for everyone to converge mid and fight for tempo. Already they were breaking that mold.
An unpredictable team. That was the verdict viewers had reached after scouting the Kayack squad. The common takeaway: you simply could not guess what they were going to do.
He had known it wouldn't be easy.
People said their overall power level was weaker than Yu-hye's team, but Decal found them far more troublesome. At least, that was how he saw it.
Would've been better if we'd drawn Yu-hye's team instead.
See? From the very start of the game they were already forcing a mind game.
That was why Decal's brow furrowed without him noticing.
He had always preferred clean, explosive teamfights over this kind of strategy and tactics.
The heroes still unaccounted for were Camilla and Shan.
Both being missing was deeply unsettling, but of the two, Camilla was obviously the one that demanded more caution.
What to do? Ignore them and just push mid? Or at least confirm where they were?
The hesitation didn't last long.
"Lin, can you run a Search on the sides for me?"
There was no reason to leave an anxiety factor hanging. This was a tournament—they had to be careful. Especially against a Kayack team that loved cheese and wild strategies.
"They split top and bottom… uh… one's in the creek?"
"The creek?"
"Yeah. Moving around a little over there."
Moving. That meant they were clearing the neutral monsters in the creek—the creeps.
Planning to farm the creeps and grow fast?
They would take the creek creeps, and if no one contested, they'd probably go for the ones on this side too.
The other one would push the empty fort with the minions.
From the Search, he had a rough idea of what the two missing enemies were trying to do.
The frustrating part was that he still didn't know who had gone where.
Unlike Clairvoyance, which revealed the enemy's full silhouette, a mage's Search only marked positions on the map like a radar.
Leaving both of them alone felt wrong.
They could ignore them and just shove mid with six people, but if the enemy dug in and turtled their fort, that would get ugly fast.
"I'll take the creek. Dandan, head to the bottom fort. If Camilla went bottom, don't fight—just defend. If it's Shan instead of Camilla, you can take the fight."
The moment Decal finished giving orders, his teammates moved in perfect sync.
Even this situation hadn't been 100 percent predicted, but following his calls had already become second nature.
Decal himself felt uneasy leaving his teammates in mid while he peeled off alone, but he still launched himself toward the creek.
He was the only one who could react in real time to this kind of unorthodox play.
And so he arrived at the creek—the strip of water between their territory and the enemy's.
In a place filled with nothing but the soft trickle of the stream, Decal held his breath.
If I get cut down here, the game is over on the spot.
Getting forced out without even dying would be just as bad. So the thing to watch for most was an ambush.
He had to be careful in the dark spots with no vision.
Worse, the enemy had almost certainly arrived first and already set up vision.
But he couldn't just sit there farming creeps either.
At the very least he needed to know which hero was here and what they were doing right now.
That was when the emergency call came from Dandan, who had gone to the bottom fort.
"Bottom is Shan! Our tiers are pretty close, so I'm going to look for a solo kill angle."
Decal swallowed hard.
That meant the one here was the enemy Camilla—their captain and ace.
Even a straight fight is fifty-fifty. An ambush is just suicide.
That was why Decal's steps grew even more careful.
It was a hassle, but he had to light up every blind spot one by one as he advanced.
Even while his teammates kept briefing, Decal alone explored the dark creek, until at last he reached the first place the enemy creeps should have been—safely.
The first creep spawn: the kobold camp.
Every last kobold was still sitting there, completely untouched.
They weren't trying to rush the creek and vacuum every creep?
It was a little unexpected. Camilla wasn't a slow farmer. If she had committed to creeps alone, she could have cleared everything from the wild dogs to the kobolds and still had time left over.
Moving a little faster than before—still watching for ambushes—Decal headed for the second creep camp.
"Huh?"
This time he couldn't help the genuinely confused sound that left his mouth.
Because leaving this one untouched was truly strange.
Kayack hadn't even cleared the second camp—the specter camp.
Then what has she been doing this whole time?
Camilla had reached the creek long before Decal got here.
From the way she headed straight for the creek at the start, he had assumed she would either sweep every creep and invade his side, or use that farm to rejoin her team.
It was neither. Somehow, this late, the creeps were still sitting there pristine.
There was no trace that she had looped back into Decal's side of the creek either, and no reason she would have.
Puzzled, Decal left the specters alone and kept walking. Even if it cost him a little, confirming Camilla's position felt like the right call.
The enemy had left the creeps too, so he wouldn't fall that far behind in farm.
But when Decal reached the third camp, those creeps were also completely untouched—not a single hair out of place. He stood there blankly for a second, then something finally clicked and he screamed.
"Mid! Watch mid! Camilla is there—"
Decal's words cut off halfway.
"Agh! What the hell is this?!"
"Behind—check behind us!"
"Enemy frontline Calliope ulting in…! We have to stop—!"
Too late.
His teammates' death cries poured through the comms. Decal stared at his screen with a hollow face.
He clicked the minimap and checked mid.
There, in full view, were his teammates being slaughtered—and the Camilla he had been hunting so desperately.
From the very beginning… this is what they were after?
Predict that Decal would come to the creek—or lure anyone at all into the creek—then immediately strike mid?
It was a reckless, almost childish feint. And the one who had fallen for that simple trick was the team captain himself.
Completely in the palm of the Buddha's hand…
Decal wiped his dry face with one hand and started clearing the creeps.
In the empty creek, a wolf's lonely howl echoed through the trees.