Chapter 152: Final Match
Chapter 152: Final Match
If they followed the textbook approach, they would have trained the flexibility to respond no matter what strategy the opponent used. However, it was difficult to develop such an ability in only five days, so they chose a strategy that used their own strengths to shut down the opponent’s strengths instead.
“The attacks from the two boys of the Nuchin Kingdom team are truly fierce!!”
The commentator and the audience went wild over the match. That was only natural. They moved without even giving their opponents room to breathe, setting off bombs one after another like fireworks, making the match incredibly entertaining to watch.
However, Vints and Squinack, who had to defend against it, were suffering. Naturally, they had no time to pull out any kind of strategy.
As players participating in the world tournament, they had plenty of ability themselves, but they were still not enough to handle Xiao and Uzkaran, who were evaluated by the Spirit Space community and others as the strongest players in terms of fundamentals.
In the end, the two could not withstand the relentless assault and fell.
“Got them!!”
After taking down their opponents, Xiao let out a short cheer and then slumped back into his chair. This tactic had taken a toll on the two of them as well.
Since a tournament forced players to fight matches in succession, it could be called a kind of stamina battle, so pacing was necessary. In that sense, it could not exactly be called a wise strategy. However, they had no regrets. If they wanted to see what came next, they first had to win what was right in front of them.
And they were not just young, but still children. After the match ended and they returned to the waiting room, the two lay sprawled out in a daze for a while, but they somehow recovered and managed to enter the next match.
Furthermore, the two had a suitable strategy they could use even while exhausted like this.
“The map happens to be Castle too. Let’s go with the gear strategy.”
“Okay.”
The Castle map had a layout that resembled a castle, and perhaps because it was meant to represent secret passages within a castle, it had especially many walls that could be broken through. That also meant players could create many movement routes.
As soon as the match started, the two split left and right, busily destroyed walls with bombs, and began moving in opposite directions as though drawing circles.
The gear strategy worked by splitting apart like this to create 1-on-1 situations, then reversing the rotation direction to push the enemies into the center and instantly create a 2-on-1 situation. In one way, it looked similar to the hammer-and-anvil strategy, but this was much more stable.
However, it only applied pressure if the opponent came into the center. If the opponent noticed and responded well, it was essentially no different from a 1-on-1 fight, so its effectiveness was somewhat lower. Still, there was also a separate way to cover that weakness.
“Let’s raise it a little more first.”
“Okay.”
After opening a reasonable number of holes, Xiao changed his route and decided to adjust the rotation timing. The gear strategy also had another meaning beyond what was mentioned above. Like a shifting gear, it meant constantly changing rhythm and speed.
Since the opposing players had also reached the semifinals, they responded fairly well at first. However, as Xiao and Uzkaran kept changing their rhythm and pressing them, they gradually began getting dragged along.
The truly good thing about this strategy was that they only had to rotate in one direction along routes they had practiced dozens or hundreds of times and already knew well, so it caused very little fatigue, yet it could apply strong pressure with only simple changes.
Of course, the opponent could also respond by breaking out of that rotation and focusing their attacks on one player. However, resolving such responses on the fly, chasing them from behind again, and forcing them back into the strategy was where the player’s ability came in.
“Player Xiao changed routes again! He’s continuing to pressure them!”
“Player Diem is trying to respond somehow, but the difference in map understanding is on another level!”
Because Xiao kept taking their backs through the holes opened here and there, the opposing players could only dodge and flee, and they kept getting pushed back as they did.
In the end, after completely losing their pace, one member of the opposing team turned into charcoal through an absurd self-destruction, and the remaining player also died in an explosion.
“The finals! They’ve advanced to the finals!!”
“The dark horses from the Nuchin Kingdom have come right before the throne!”
Economically and, honestly, even politically, the Nuchin Kingdom had the image of a backward premodern nation. Because of that, the sight of boys from such a place defeating famous championship contenders and making it this far looked quite dramatic, so the audience showed great interest.
Of course, some people felt resistance toward foreign players defeating players from the Republic of Smite and advancing, but in the end, it was only a gaming tournament, so it was not enough to make a fuss over. Furthermore, the fact that they were still young boys softened that resistance somewhat.
Now we only have to win one more time.
As Xiao received the cheers and soaked in the thrill, he realized that his goal was only one step away.
The money that had felt unreal even while he trained endlessly in the Nuchin Kingdom might truly end up in his hands. Once he thought that, the difference between the Nuchin Kingdom and the Republic of Smite came into view all over again.
At the same time, he began to think that the life he had always considered natural might be able to change.
Fifty thousand del was an enormous amount of money for an economically backward country like the Nuchin Kingdom. No, even in the Republic of Smite, while it would be impossible in Ranchelt, it was still enough to buy an apartment in most provincial cities, so it was certainly not a small sum.
However, the final opponents were by no means easy.
“Players Riven and Tyson are entering!!”
A Gnome with a small body that contrasted sharply with his huge glasses, and an Orc whose muscles were especially burly even among Orcs, slowly walked up onto the stage.
“These two players are truly special.”
“Yes, that’s right! In Spirit Space, they are known as the unofficial strongest players in the world!”
The “King in Production,” who posted the most strategy guides on the Spirit Space strategy board, was actually not very skilled and was nicknamed an “armchair commando.” However, the players who posted many guides after him and were active in “Bomb Maniac,” the largest Bomb Special Forces community, had shown results by winning several small offline tournaments, even if most of them were friendly competitions.
Furthermore, among the opponents they defeated were players considered championship contenders in this tournament, so some people even evaluated them as the strongest players in the world.
“Waaah!!!”
The audience’s response was tremendous. That was only natural. They were not only well known on Spirit Space, but had also won repeatedly in this tournament and defeated all of the formidable champions from the Brunyard Federation and the Pluta Constitutional State.
Bomb Special Forces was a Meta Soft game, but it was created in Brunyard. Thanks to that, it was incredibly popular in Brunyard. If one looked only at PC software sales, it had even sold more in Brunyard.
That was how high the level of the Brunyard players was. In particular, Sijex and Oron, whom Riven and Tyson had defeated in the semifinals just before this, had such great popularity and skill that they were called Brunyard’s champions.
It had been a difficult fight. Still, victory ultimately belonged to Riven and Tyson, and because they reached the finals by defeating foreign masters, they had even gained an image similar to national representatives.
With those expectations on their backs, Riven and Tyson entered the player box with grave expressions.
Xiao did not understand this country’s language. However, he could at least tell that the word “Riven,” which the audience was shouting, was the name of an opposing player.
He felt slightly intimidated. But that was all. Xiao’s determination to win did not waver.
The championship prize is mine.
It would have been nice if he had a more solemn reason, but money was enough. Especially if it was money that could change his unimpressive life.
The match was fierce. Xiao’s team judged their opponents to be strategists and poured out a fierce assault from the very beginning. This was the final match anyway. There was no need to conserve strength.
However, the opponents were also evaluated as top-class masters, so they followed Xiao and Uzkaran’s fast rhythm without difficulty.
“Let’s go with reverse rotation first!”
“Okay!”
Since they thought they needed to use strategy if a battle of fundamentals would not work, Xiao immediately used the standard strategy he was most confident in. Because he moved straight into it without hesitation, the opposing team was dragged in before they could even think, Huh?
However, their judgment was definitely fast. Before they even completed one full rotation, the opponents broke open a hole, escaped, and came around to take their backs.
“Damn it! They got out!”
A standard strategy was called standard precisely because it was hard to stop even if one knew about it, but these opponents were no ordinary players. Xiao immediately revised the strategy.
“Let’s turn this straight into the gear strategy.”
“Yeah. That’ll work!”
Xiao ran off in the direction the escaped opponent chased him, and Uzkaran responded by launching a fierce assault against the weasel that had not yet escaped the rotation, then began rotating left. Naturally, it shifted into the gear strategy.
“Amazing! The transition happened in an instant!”
The players themselves could not see it well because they were focused on their own characters, but the commentators and the audience, who could easily observe the overall flow on the giant screen, noticed it immediately and cheered.
It was truly a skillful flow worthy of a battle between masters.
At first, the pace seemed to belong to Xiao like this. However, the opposing side had no intention of simply taking it.
The weasel being chased by Xiao pulled something off. At first, it looked as though the weasel had dropped a bomb in some strange place.
What is that?
Because of that, Xiao thought it was either a mistake or a simple attempt to keep him in check as he chased from behind. However, that bomb ended up opening one space in the wall on the left, and the weasel, who had somehow rotated back to that spot, kicked a bomb through the opening.
Naturally, it was not an attack aimed at Xiao.
And just before that bomb flew through, the boar, the weasel’s teammate, had somehow placed a bomb on the opposite wall. The timing was perfect. A hole opened there, the bomb continued flying through, and it blocked Uzkaran from behind.
Then the boar running in front of him casually dropped another bomb, causing Uzkaran to be trapped between the two bombs.
“Ahh!!”
Unable to do anything, Uzkaran panicked and let out a short scream without realizing it.
“Hey, I’ll save you right away, so don’t panic!”
The opponent’s technique was incredible. However, perhaps because the difficulty seemed quite high, they only managed to barely succeed and did not have any follow-up movement. Because of that, Xiao boldly dug in and successfully rescued the burning Uzkaran.
“I’ll hold out 2-on-1 for a moment, so get behind the weasel!”
“R-Right!”
Then, through a route he came up with on the spot, he even managed to tie down both opponents at once and buy time.
“Amazing! Player Xiao! It looked like it would end right there, but he succeeded in resetting the situation with a super play!”
“Yes, truly. I thought he only had excellent fundamentals, but the strategy he comes up with in an instant is incredible. That isn’t something he simply practiced until it became muscle memory!”
Xiao kept a firm expression, but inside, he felt as though ten years had been shaved off his life. In truth, when one player was hit by a bomb and caught fire, the game was normally almost as good as over.
In theory, it seemed like a teammate could save them and turn it into a seesaw game, but in a team match, losing one player became a disadvantage far worse than simply having twice as many enemies. This was even more severe the better the players were at using team synergy.
“Keep pressing them!”
Since Xiao had already been hit psychologically and his spirit had been slightly dampened, he decided to hide that and instead go on the offensive to raise their chances of winning however he could.
After all, in this game, one bomb was enough to kill a character. Playing cautiously did not really make one safe, so for the sake of victory, they actually needed to act even more recklessly.
As Xiao’s team went on the offensive like this, the opposing team also responded desperately. However, as the match continued, the difference between their abilities, which had seemed similar at first, began to show.
Footnotes:
Translator’s Notes:
Puyo Puyo (뿌요뿌요) — Japanese puzzle game series first released by Compile in 1991, known for chain-combo mechanics and competitive attack patterns.
“Armchair commando” (입공대) — A Korean pun-like slang expression here used for someone who talks or theorizes about strategy more than their actual skill supports.