You Guys Chomp Too — Chocolate Incoming
Ruru, Elia, and Aris’s Endless Return match had begun.
Under the condition that Ruru had to toss out one piece of chocolate every three deaths, Elia and Aris piled on extra conditions of their own, doing everything they could to keep Ruru alive.
“Whether we save you is up to us, right?”
That much was true. From a dead person’s point of view, if your teammates refused to save you, that was simply the end.
And if you flipped the statement around…
It also meant those two could keep reviving Ruru over and over if they ever felt like messing with her.
Of course neither Aris nor Elia had any intention of doing that. Well—not right now, at least.
“Aris, Elia! Protect me! You have to protect me!”
“Ruru, I’ve got a good idea.”
“What is it?”
Ruru reacted the instant Aris spoke, her voice soft and adorable.
And to that Ruru, Aris dropped an absolute bombshell of a suggestion.
“Play Jinjo-nim or Enppungi.”
Jinjo-nim was the nickname for the vampire character—essentially Ruru’s main. The other one, Enppungi, was the nickname for one of the few pure support characters in the entire game.
It had come from a meme some user made that exploded in popularity, but that wasn’t the important part.
What Aris was saying was this: if you want to live, stick to something you’re good at or something that can ride the bus.
In reality, as long as Elia or Aris set up even the bare minimum of a fight, both of them could explode a game on their own.
Having those two on your team in a normal match basically meant you could pubstomp the lobby if you played it right.
That was why Aris had given Ruru that order.
Pick a character that can easily set up plays, or one that can straight-up bus ride. We’ll handle the rest.
To that, Ruru…
“I don’t wanna~”
…immediately showed her rebellious streak.
“Hyemin this time! She got a new skin, right? I’m playing her!”
She declared she was going for the character that had just received a new skin this season.
For reference, the character Ruru mentioned was a shrine-maiden-ish type, a poking character that flung talismans.
The important part… well, yeah. She was a poking character. A poking character who had to keep landing skills on distant enemies.
Could Ruru even play a poking character well?
I personally didn’t think so.
And it seemed I wasn’t the only one who thought that.
“Ruru, if you’re not careful, you might keep dying until the game ends today.”
“She’s right, Ruru-senpai. How about playing a bruiser or tank with high stability instead? Or a backline support who can escape if things go south…”
“But Hyemin is a third-line dealer~”
True to Ruru’s words, Hyemin was a third-line poking dealer who fought from the furthest back of any character. On top of that, her escape skill was S-rank.
Only then did I realize Ruru’s insight.
If things got dicey, she was just going to run away—with that S-rank mobility skill.
Perhaps because they could see Ruru’s philosophy in that, Aris and Elia stopped arguing with her.
However…
“If it looks like you’re about to die, you pull out no matter what. Got it?”
“Yeees~”
“If things go wrong, just run back first and think later. That’s fine.”
“Okay, okay~”
This was Ruru we were talking about. She was the type who proved with her own body that theory and practice were two different things.
Which was exactly why both Aris and Elia were so nervous.
At the same time, I was certain of one thing.
Current viewer count was around three thousand. Among those three thousand, was there even a single member of the Ruru-dan who wouldn’t snipe Ruru?
Elia and Aris’s ranks were extremely high, sure, but they weren’t absolute top-tier. They didn’t grind Endless Return that hard, after all.
Thanks to that, there were definitely users out there who could snipe this lobby with Elia and Aris in it.
And sure enough.
“Daniel, Shuichi, Cashier… that’s a lot of assassins.”
Quite a few assassin characters had shown up.
The assassin characters in this game demanded extremely high mastery and mechanical skill. Yet their ceiling wasn’t even that much higher compared to poke comps or bruiser comps.
Of course, if you could assemble the right comps and pilot them at a pro-player level, they became attractive options—but the pick rate itself just wasn’t that high.
Considering that, this match had a lot of assassins.
I could say it with certainty. Some of the players using those assassin characters were definitely snipers.
Snipers who would even smurf to do it.
Honestly, I figured sniping itself was unavoidable. Endless Return didn’t have that massive a player base, so as long as the conditions lined up, infinite sniping was possible.
But if you’re going to snipe, at least don’t smurf. Killing someone with a smurf account is just not fun. Not for the viewers, not for the players.
It’s a complete game where only the one person doing the smurf-snipe to harass has fun. Is that even entertaining?
Hoping there wouldn’t be any clueless bastards like that, and that if they did snipe they’d stick to just sniping, we started the game…
…only for an incident to break out a mere two minutes in.
Right after the match started, Ruru finished her items and headed straight toward Aris and Elia.
Normally the standard was to farm separately on your own, but…
“I’m coming right over…! I feel like the kids are gonna come harass me!”
She was literally trying to run around dodging the snipers.
Perhaps Aris and Elia understood that feeling, because they welcomed Ruru right away.
“Ruru, hurry~”
“Let’s just stick together and play. The second we see someone, we force a fight.”
“Got it!”
Aris and Elia, true to their high ranks, immediately knew how to operate in a situation like this.
Taking Ruru with them and hunting first to reverse-snipe the sniping viewers—wasn’t that a pretty solid strategy?
Yeah, it would’ve been a pretty solid strategy.
If it hadn’t been for the ambush on Ruru while she was en route to join them.
-Shuuuu…! Puhwak!
“Kyaaaaah!? Guys, over here! They’re all over here! They’re all over heeere!”
Ruru screamed as she tried to run, but it was already too late.
-Puhwaak!!
Cut down by Daniel’s dagger, Ruru immediately turned into a sobbing mess.
“Uuuuuu… guys… I died…”
“It’s okay, it’s okay.”
“It’s only one death. You don’t have to give chocolate yet.”
“Yeah yeah, chocolate starts at three deaths.”
“Right…! That’s right! Ruru’s only died once so far!”
Yeah, only once.
But Ruru probably had no idea that was just the beginning.
Then, after she regrouped with her teammates.
-Chwaak!
Someone ambushed Aris, Elia, and Ruru.
“Holy crap!?”
Ruru immediately tried to flee backward while Aris and Elia went to kill the ambusher.
But…
-Tududududuk!
-Chwachwachwachwachwak!
Shuichi scattered daggers and rode them to leap instantly onto Ruru, cleaning up Ruru’s Hyemin in a flash.
“Aaaaah! Seriouslyyyy!”
Immediately two deaths. Thankfully Elia and Aris cleaned up that Shuichi, but I was certain.
Ruru was probably going to die even more.
And sure enough, right after Ruru respawned, at the first teamfight timing.
-Shurek! Pak!!
-Chwaaaaak! Chwak! Puhwak! Chwaak!
“Aaaaah you guys are the woorst! Why are you doing this to me! Whyyy!!”
Ruru got instantly deleted under Cashier’s flashy combo.
Of course Aris and Elia cleaned up that Cashier too, but…
“Three deaths… Ruru, there it is.”
“Yep, one chocolate.”
“Uuuuu…!”
Ruru trembled with rage, seething.
And even after that…
-Puhwak!
-Chwachwachwachwachwak!
-Chwaaak!
That assassin trio took turns continuing to ambush Ruru, and Ruru kept getting deleted without any real resistance.
As a result, they did win, but…
“How many deaths did Ruru have?”
“Seven deaths.”
She had managed the feat of seven deaths in a single game.
“Haaaaaah…”
Ruru let out a deep sigh, and as they looked at her, Aris and Elia fell into thought.
They were probably wondering how on earth to solve this.
Then Aris came up with a pretty decent idea.
“Ruru, can you play Marka?”
“Marka?”
“Yeah, a tank character…”
Ruru read through the description of that Marka character and immediately nodded.
“I think I can do it!”
“Alright, then let’s practice real quick and give it a shot.”
Marka was a tank character with lots of mobility skills and lots of shields.
In other words, they were going to put Ruru on tank so she’d die less instead.
And did this strategy actually work?
-Chwachwachwak!
“I don’t die that easy! I’m not a chocolate dispenser that spits out chocolate when you hit meee!”
-Kwaang!
This time, even when ambushed, Ruru was holding out on her own.
In the end, Ruru racked up a total of twelve deaths across that day’s stream and ended up tossing out four chocolates, but…
She still managed to deal with the snipers in a somewhat fresh way.
Technically it was a strategy where if the tank’s bulk held for even a moment, Elia and Aris would clean up the rest…
But teammates are skill too. That’s what I was taught. Luck is skill as well.