Critical——!!

Right after the video spread across Nutube, the edit I'd put together drew a pretty big response. In more senses than one.

There were reactions like that. And then there were reactions like this.

There were reactions like that, too.

So if you wanted the conclusion, it came down to this. Some of them looked negative on the surface, but what they were really after was the fun of rolling the whole thing around as forum bait. Others said it was refreshing, seeing this side of Choe Seohyeon after so long. Either way, most of the gallery was happily chewing on the bait of his old footage.

And it wasn't only the gallery that took to it.

"Number thirteen on Nutube Life..."

Given that the subject was Choe Seohyeon, it was a result I could understand. There was one thing, though, that I found harder to swallow.

Among the Nutube comments, someone had pointed out that the editing seemed to be lacking. Fortunately, they weren't grabbing at my edit over nothing. It was more like—well, it's fun, so we'll let it slide. That kind of feeling.

"Hmm..."

It nagged at me. Just a little. I didn't resent the people who'd written those comments, of course. My editing really was rough. That part was true. Someone who'd never properly learned how to edit video had produced the thing, so a reaction like that made sense.

But.

...I kind of want to get greedy.

Once I'd made myself a goal to live toward, I started wanting more out of things like this. I wanted to make something tied to Choe Seohyeon... better. Truly better. I wanted to take a video that held him in it, polish it just a little more carefully, and set it out into the world.

Maybe that was why I found myself searching, as if spellbound, for anything to do with video editing. Things like that.

"...Ah."

By the time I came back to myself and checked the clock, it was already his broadcast slot.

"I-I'm not late, am I?"

So long as I wasn't on the clock, I had never once missed his stream. That was why I rushed onto the streaming site in a panic—and then—

"Oh."

For the first time in a long while, a sound of pure admiration slipped out of me. Because he was finally doing a gaming stream.

"His wrist must really be all right now..."

I'd worried so much about that wrist. Thankfully, it seemed to be fine. Anyway, I settled back against the chair to enjoy his broadcast in comfort, and then—

"...Hm."

Just watching left me a little unsatisfied. Or maybe that was only my own greed talking. Choe Seohyeon's viewer count sat at a little over nine thousand. Morning hours, and with most of the big agency streamers nowhere to be seen, a number like that had to count as a genuinely huge audience.

But.

Not enough.

Maybe because, when it came down to it, I was a dopamine hunter first and his viewer second. I shook my head and logged into the game he was playing. Knight of Fury.

It was a game I hadn't turned on in a long time.

"Wow. I only took a few weeks off, and already I missed this."

"Thank you for worrying about me... Oh, the queue just popped."

And that was the moment the queue popped.

I felt her presence from the opening second. From the champion select screen she was already throwing off a presence that wasn't ordinary, so I knew at once.

"...In Grandmaster and Challenger, the only person who would play this trash champion is her. It has to be."

Just as the viewers said. Above Grandmaster, there wasn't another soul in Korea who played Light Knight. Only her.

Which meant—

"Come on. Sniping me the second the game starts? That's a bit much, isn't it?"

People said her snipes were as good as tradition by now, but this still felt like too much. He'd barely recovered from the wrist injury and come back for a gaming stream, and it opened with a snipe.

"Not a shred of sportsmanship."

I said it without bothering to hide how I felt. I'd expected the viewers to land somewhere near the same reaction. They didn't.

...Unlike me, the viewers looked as if they'd already given up. Seven years of watching this would do that, I supposed. Their reactions aside, my own heart burned black.

"Hoo..."

With that bitter ache sitting in my chest, I ran the simulation through my head. TSGoDie was going to slam every last thing she had into the top lane. Whether the enemy was rotating to shut her down. Whether a fight that actually mattered was breaking out somewhere else. She was that far gone for top. So in most situations until now, all that rose in me was rage at the mindless split push, and there was nothing I could do.

That didn't mean there was no method at all.

Seven years you've sniped me. I know how to handle you now.

There's an old saying: even the dog at the village school can recite poetry after three years. Then what about me? Seven years of snipes. Seven years of watching someone do nothing but mindless top-lane splits. There was exactly one way to get the most out of a person who took that garbage champion called Light Knight and did nothing but split push.

And that was...

Knight of Fury. Just as the name suggested, it was a game famous all over the world, one where every sort of knight who looked like they'd walked out of a fantasy novel crashed into each other and fought. And here, I played a garbage champion.

Why?

Because a trash champion is the symbol of a real veteran. Obviously. When I first started, I played the ones people called disgustingly broken, too—Fury Knight, Elven Knight, champions like that. But after a while they only left me bored, so I poured everything I had into the weakest of them all, the one even beginners refused to pick: Light Knight.

Digging into Light Knight, I learned one thing.

"Use it right, and it's a broken champion."

Literally. Count base defense, health, magic resist, all of it, and Light Knight sat at the very bottom, so its early laning was absolute trash. Even so, it had one trait better than any other champion. Top-class base attack damage. That base attack was Light Knight's greatest advantage.

Of course, set beside the new champions coming out lately, even that had turned into ancient history. Recent releases showed up with base attack that didn't lose to Light Knight. And if that had been its only upside, I wouldn't have played the champion for seven years. Its other advantage was—

"Crits."

Yes. Critical hits. The reason I played this champion even though its base defense, its base magic resist, and its base health were all garbage. By design, Light Knight had no mana. Instead it used a resource called Critical Hit Energy. Minions, towers, jungle monsters—hit anything at all, and every bit of it was calculated and stored as Critical Hit Energy.

Put simply, you could fill that energy and spend it like mana, and you could also use it to raise your critical strike chance. Fill it to the maximum, and... in theory, your crit chance hit one hundred percent.

Of course, as I said, Critical Hit Energy was a resource. Which meant Light Knight was always staring down a choice, one or the other. Hold the energy and take the fight as a melee auto-attack brawl? Or spend it to cast your skills?

But as the words trash champion implied, every skill on this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠character was garbage. Q, W, E, R—all of them were miserable to use. The only halfway decent one was Q... and the reason it was decent was that it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gave you a one-second blink of stealth and raised Critical Hit Energy by thirty. It was the only skill Light Knight had that could generate Critical Hit Energy at all.

In other words—

"It's fucking nuts."

Use it right, and the high on this character gets downright obscene.

"All right. Let's go."

The game began. I played the champion by the book. From the opening, I tucked into the bush and looked for an angle, then cast Q, slipped into stealth, and stepped out of it right in front of my opponent.

And then—

"Hm."

As if their mood had soured on the spot, they ran straight at me. I understood. This was also the most hated champion in Knight of Fury, so the moment you locked it in, top and jungle came charging like they'd been waiting for the excuse. On top of that, its reputation as the weak one was rock solid, which was why people threw themselves at me with no thoughts in their heads. Most players who picked the champion avoided the early fight for exactly that reason.

But.

"No. No, that won't do."

A real man doesn't run from a fight. I'd already become a woman, and yes, I was at an age when my very identity was a blur—but I still hadn't degenerated into some docile little female far enough to start fleeing a fight like this.

Thwack—!

The first hit: no crit. My opponent tried to run me down with the E they'd taken early—an area skill, so it couldn't miss—layered over auto attacks.

But...

"Believe, and you get something back."

I believed with the same heart Peter had when he followed Jesus out onto the water. In other words, a brand-new fighting life, starting over from 35 Critical Hit Energy.

And then—

"Heh."

It popped. At 40 Critical Hit Energy, more than two chunks tore clean off the enemy's health bar. Of course, they probably still didn't feel all that threatened. So here—

"Believe. Believe, and you shall be rewarded."

I ran in with nothing in my head but faith.

And so—

The second crit landed. Around then the opponent seemed to go huh? and started backpedaling.

But.

"Ah-ah."

And where do you think you're running? Before I knew it, Critical Hit Energy sat at 45. At ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that point it was close to 50. Meaning this was as good as over.

"Here we go. Up it climbs."

I hit them again.

Critical Hit Energy was 50 now. By then the enemy's health bar was in shreds. Of course, so was mine. They were on a disgustingly broken champion that had come out only a few months ago, so that much was inevitable.

But.

"The one faith rewarded was me."

So what came next?

And just like that, the enemy champion died.

At level one.

And immediately, they—

"..."

I saw it every time, and even seeing it, I couldn't believe it. I doubted I was the only one who felt that way.

Everyone thought the same. Well—who could even play like that? That unhinged?

"They're not even a gambling addict..."

No matter how much you filled Critical Hit Energy with Q, the energy only climbed by thirty. And that wasn't all. Just to push the energy as far as a coin flip, you had to land four autos—and the odds that three of those four all came up crit? And then, on top of that, the odds the last one crit too, off a fifty-fifty?

"...I'll give you that."

The play TSGoDie always showed. It didn't come out every single time, but strangely, that kind of play came out especially clean from her and from her alone.

Just as the people in chat said. That was a play only a monster insane for crits could pull off.

"Everyone, when the veterans in chat tell you not to copy something, there is always a reason. If you'd rather not shit blood, do not, under any circumstances, try this yourselves."

I prayed the new players wouldn't imitate it. Prayed there would be no newbie out there starting Knight of Fury like that... Anyway, wishing was wishing, and the game went on.

"Hoo."

Early laning was entirely over. Top had won. Bot had won. The problem was that mid had gone completely to shit, and the jungle had been picked fairly clean...

The game was breaking exactly the way I'd expected. The moment everyone was supposed to gather for the epic monster, their top was there, and ours was the only one missing.

Which meant—

"...From here on, I think I have to use the plan I prepared."

Having already predicted that TSGoDie, that asshole, would do nothing but mindlessly crash the top lane, I decided to commit with a very simple strategy.

Namely—

"From this point on, epic monsters, whatever else—I'm not taking a single objective."

"That's right."

We weren't going to get them anyway. I was the only one who'd gotten big, down in bot, and even granting that I was good... our matchups into their champions were awful. A teamfight might do nothing but pile the losses higher.

Which meant—

"Then we're splitting, too."

"We can't take the epic monster anyway, and any fight turns into a four-versus-five. If that's the game we're in, then I'm running a mindless split of my own. That's what I'm saying."

Not a single viewer understood. But my plan was set. The epic monster up for contention sat close to the bottom lane. I'd already pushed the tier-one, so if I just mindlessly shoved into the tier-two like this, the enemy would take the monster and come sprinting straight over to stop my bot tier-two.

Which let me ask one question. Would they really all come this way? In a game where the top tier-two was already half dead?