Camilla Is Strong
It was over.
The moment that thought settled in, a wave of exhaustion crashed over me all at once. It felt like every last drop of strength had drained out of my body in a single rush. I must have been wound tighter than I realized without even noticing.
Not that I was truly physically tired, of course.
"Mmmngh…."
Mental fatigue was nothing to sneeze at either, so I pushed the mic away from my mouth and stretched hard, arms reaching high overhead. At first I'd stretched whether the mic was on or not, and every single time my teammates had nearly had heart attacks—so during practice it had become half habit to move the mic first.
Every time I stretched, the chat would suddenly speed up. There was clearly something I wasn't getting, but I still had no idea what it actually was.
Sprawled out in my chair, staring blankly at the monitor, my teammates' chattering voices drifted in as background noise.
"Wooo! We won! We actually won! Kyaaaaah!"
"I honestly never thought we'd take it… but we did…."
"Thank you, thank you, everyone. Thank you so much. You all worked hard. Because of me…."
"I'm seriously going to rewatch every single official broadcast and every other POV before I sleep tonight. For real."
"Chat reactions are the best, right? Right?"
From the moment they'd smashed the enemy core at the end of the game, the excitement had been impossible to hide—and they still hadn't come down from that high.
Fair enough. The tournament had been massive, and whether it was because of my teammates or not, I'd thrown myself into the matches more seriously than I had in a long time. That was why I'd even said things I never normally would.
I cut off the enemy general's head…? God, that line was mortifying.
How deep into the game must I have been to spit that out? Just remembering the other things I'd said made my face heat up little by little.
Trying to drag my attention elsewhere, I looked at the screen. The delayed tournament broadcast still filled the monitor. The observer camera was whipping around the map, lighting up every corner. Like every tournament observer ever, they couldn't decide what to show—but even through that chaotic feed it was easy to tell which team was winning.
Kayack's team. In other words, us. We were locking down the easiest, cleanest victory of any match we'd played so far.
I'd felt how easy it was while playing, but watching from a third-person view made the gap even more glaring. Unlike sets one and two, the opponents were moving in half-hearted, glitchy patterns—like robots with bad programming.
Soldiers who'd lost their commander always moved like that. They probably weren't getting any real orders.
I'd half expected it myself. From the moment I took the enemy general—no, the enemy team captain—in a one-on-one duel in set two, I'd thought, Yeah, that had to have hit their mental pretty hard.
I'd known from the start he was the prideful type.
Lenox players always are. You can tell a lot about someone from the character they main. Lenox is a high-skill, flashy, style-over-substance bruiser, so the people who play him tend to have bigger egos about their own skill than most. That had been community gospel since before Abyss even officially launched, so I'd been at least somewhat suspicious.
The opposing captain was definitely going to be a prideful guy.
My prediction had landed perfectly. The old sayings really never miss.
I was nodding to myself when a voice called for me.
"Our MVP of the victory is awfully quiet, huh?"
"Right? Where'd she go? Honestly she worked the hardest."
"Teacher, you're not doing something weird at the cam again, are you? Holding up your middle finger is flipping people off."
"I'm not. Not right now."
…
"GG! The finals end right here! Final score 3–0! Kayack's team defeats Yu-hye's team in the grand finals and takes the championship!"
"We can't possibly skip hearing from our champions, can we? Before we jump into the winner interview with Kayack's team, we have the final MVP selection."
"Everyone already knows the result. No more stalling—here it is! Across all three matches of the finals, the combined final MVP is…"
"Congratulations, Kayack! Before the winner interview, we'll hear from our final MVP, Kayack!"
"Welcome! Kayack, you've just claimed both the overall championship and final MVP of the 2nd Taker Cup Abyss Streamer Tournament. First, could we get a few words from you?"
"Ah, yes. First I want to thank my teammates. It was a long, grueling practice period, but they stuck with me the whole way, and as captain it feels amazing to win it all together like this."
"Wow, that was an incredibly smooth answer. Now a few questions about the matches themselves. In the finals, unlike the semis, you played other heroes for two sets in a row instead of Camilla."
"Ahaha, yes. That's right."
"In set one Camilla was banned from you, but in set two Camilla was still available and you still locked Lenox. Was there… a particular reason for that?"
I'd been waiting for this question. I let out a little laugh everyone could hear and answered.
"Well, isn't it pretty much the reason everyone already guessed? I just can't stand taking a hit without hitting back."
"Ahh. So what you're saying is, Yu-hye's team stole Camilla first, so Kayack stole Lenox. Is that it?"
"Yes, exactly."
"Whatever the reason, we got some absolute eye candy out of it. Set one's berserker Alec, set two's Lenox versus Alec… you showed a huge audience that Kayack isn't just a Camilla one-trick."
"Ahem. Yes."
I'm still human, so I couldn't completely stop the smile that slipped out when I got praised. It felt like my brain was just dumping dopamine nonstop. I cleared my throat lightly and focused on the caster's next words.
"Next question. Your opponent in the finals, Yu-hye, was still active as a pro until very recently. You looked great against someone like that—any chance you might head into the pro league yourself? Even just a little hint would be amazing."
"Hmm…."
"This is less a caster question and more a fan question, so please don't feel any pressure answering."
Saying it like that just makes it impossible not to feel pressure, you know.
Pro. Going pro…
It wasn't like I'd never dreamed of it. Back when I was hitting Challenger like it was nothing and camping the top of the ladder, I'd definitely thought about becoming an Abyss pro.
But the league hadn't even been properly established yet, so it all felt shaky. The game was on life support day to day—what pro career? Instead of becoming the pro of a dead game, I'd focused on keeping the game alive and doing other things with whatever free time I had left.
Life is all about timing. If the league had been healthy back then, I really might have gone pro.
I could still do it now, but the word "pro" just didn't pull me the same way anymore. Plus there was the whole issue of my body having turned into Camilla's, and a bunch of other complicated messes.
"Well… right now I'm pretty happy just streaming. Getting to play in tournaments like this, talking with people…."
That was the most noncommittal answer I could give. Even so, the caster seemed satisfied and laughed as he continued the interview.
"That's more than enough, thank you. Finally, is there anything you'd like to say to the fans and viewers who supported you? Self-promo for your stream is totally fine—say whatever you want."
Ah. I'd prepared something for this.
"Thank you to everyone who supported me up to now. Your cheers really gave me strength, and that's how we were able to win. Yes. And… well, this is actually the main point."
"Haha, okay. What are you building up to? Now I'm curious too."
This was my own personal major announcement. I wet my dry lips with my tongue and opened my mouth.
Camilla is not some abandoned Ionix reject.
She is not a garbage character the heavens spat out.
She is not some half-baked weak pick.
A brief silence.
Through the screen I could see the caster's completely blank face.
"…Uh, is that everything you wanted to say?"
"Yes. That's all."
"Ah—um. Uh. Yes! That was streamer CamillaIsWeak, Kayack!"