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“Hmm……”
Professional gamer 『KDW』, who tuned into Iseo’s stream every single day on Pazijik, absently rubbed his chin at his teammate’s pick.
It wasn’t because his teammate had locked in Magnus, a character people often called mid at best in high elo. His own tier right now was Mithril, after all. Nowhere near a rank where he had any right to complain about a Magnus pick.
It was just……
“This guy’s first Magnus game of the entire season?”
“I searched him up. Not just this season—he’s never played it at all, except a handful of normal games.”
Iseo was a game where personal mastery mattered far more than a character’s theoretical tier. Forcing a pick you couldn’t play just to match a composition almost always performed worse than locking something you actually knew. That was why KDW usually respected his teammates’ choices.
Honestly, on a normal day he would have just shrugged even if it was a first-time character.
But a Fake Nemui Nene acting like this after meeting the real 『Nemui Nene』?
The only explanation that made sense was trolling. Nothing else fit.
A smurf?
He casually flicked his mouse and pulled up the Magnus picker’s match history again. At the very bottom sat a line that read EA Season 1.
“Not a smurf. This ID’s been active since Eternal Survival Season 1.”
“Beats me.”
Still, piling on with pure suspicion felt wrong, so he carefully typed into chat.
No reply came back from Fake Nene.
Should I dodge……
For a second the troll-looking pick made him seriously consider dodging. But running into a big agency like Star Live only to dodge felt wrong, so he decided to wait and see. If Nene-nim dodged instead…… well, that would just be what it was. He’d have to accept it.
The game will begin shortly.
Contrary to his worries, the game started as normal.
“Well, it can happen.”
He started at the hospital, farmed every item at lightning speed, then used the teleport system known as the Hyperloop to jump to the fire station.
Thud-thud-thud……!
“Hmm…… Mithril kids really don’t know how to respect tempo.”
Watching his ADC still hammering away at the crafting bench even though the team already had all their items made him let out a dry chuckle. His character weaved forward at once and burst out toward the enemy ADC.
Thwack! Crack! Thud!
The E-auto-Q-auto-Q combo was pure muscle memory by now.
This is my ring!!
He popped ult on the airborne ADC, then stacked more autos and ult hits to set up the follow-up combo.
Right then—
Wheeeeng——! Wheeeeng——!
“How are they rotating this fast?!”
Two teleport beacons lit up under his feet. Before he could even process it, the enemy tank and bruiser appeared and charged straight at his ADC.
“Aargh……!”
He used one movement to reset cooldowns and made the call in an instant.
“Running only wastes time. We just take the ADC and leave.”
If he could just finish the half-health ADC—
Vrooooooom——!
“Huh?”
A bike came roaring up from behind him. His teammate Fake Nene had ulted and was racing in to help.
Driving Magnus’s bike was never easy. The whole point of the ult was to slam into the enemy carry and ruin their damage window. But right now a tank and bruiser stood in front of the enemy ADC. The terrain was awkward, and both enemies had angled their bodies perfectly to body-block Magnus. They knew exactly how to deal with him.
“It’s fine though! Once Fake Nene draws their aggro I’ll dive!”
“I’m going!”
He stepped forward, ready to dive the second the tank and bruiser blew cooldowns on Magnus. If they could just drop the ADC fast and then the bruiser with Magnus, even a 2v3 clutch was—
Swoosh——!
Exactly as expected, the enemy tank and bruiser stepped out to wall off the bike path completely.
Swoosh——!
“What the?!”
Magnus threaded the needle with absurd driving skill and slipped right past them. The bruiser had assumed the tank would cover, and the tank was a pure walker with no dash, so he simply couldn’t react to the drift.
CRASH——!
Magnus ditched the bike and instantly smashed the enemy ADC into the wall with his hammer.
“Nice!”
KDW dove in through the opening and dumped a full combo on the pinned carry.
Thanks to the wall stun, the enemy Katia hit the floor without even a chance to fight back.
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding——!
“This one! This one! This one! This one! This one!”
He frantically pinged the enemy bruiser 「Daruko」. Don’t waste skills on the tank—kill this bastard first.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh——!
Come at me!
Fake Nene dumped every remaining skill into the bruiser Daruko exactly as ordered.
“Yes! That’s it! Fake Nene!”
The enemy bruiser went down right after.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Then he pinged Magnus to back off. Taking hits from two people had left him lower than expected.
BOOM——!
Before peeling, Magnus used a knockback skill to strip the shield off the enemy tank 「Aronso」 and then bailed.
“Nice!”
That let KDW’s ADC land a full combo with zero losses. Perfect ping-pong.
Wheeeeng——!
Real Nene finally arrived and took in the scene. Once she grasped what had happened—
Bang——! Bang——! Bang——!
—she started dumping shots into the downed worms. That was about all a late arriver could do.
“What? So he wasn’t a troll?”
The supposed troll Fake Nene was way better than expected. Left alone his decision-making was a little weird…… okay, a lot weird……
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Clack!
The moment KDW pinged to back off, the leash snapped tight. Anyone watching might have mistaken Fake Nene for a KDW fan instead of a Nemui Nene fan.
They took vision around Omega, one of the key objectives. Far off, a squad was heading their way.
Even if Fake Nene never typed, he seemed ready to follow a pro’s shotcalling—
I’ll show you a true biker’s charge!
“Huh?”
Before anyone could stop him, Magnus was already on the bike and tearing toward the enemy team.
Ding-ding-ding——!
KDW frantically pinged follow and sprinted after him. Real Nene had no choice but to chase as well.
Screeeeeech——!
Magnus dodged the enemy tank and slammed straight into their backline.
CRASH——!
He didn’t even bother with a wall stun—just shoved the immobile ADC forward and started swinging his hammer in the middle of the entire enemy team.
Thud!
Yan’s knee kick drove into the flustered enemy carry’s gut.
Bang——! Bang——!
From the backline Real Nene calmly chipped away at the enemy tank first.
Beep-beep——!
Magnus, overextended with barely any items, went down.
But the enemy carries had dumped every cooldown into Magnus, so they all hit the floor. Pure KDW clutch.
“W-well, at least we got the points……”
One Magnus sacrifice had bought them the Terminate.
Ding——!
Fake Nene answered with a cute character emote of two arms forming an O.
“Still……”
While she glanced at chat for a second to talk with viewers—
Ding!
A ping lit up on the minimap. She had seen something flicker there for a moment too.
Nah, no way he’d……
The instant she let her guard down and tried to go back to chatting—
I’ll show you a true biker’s charge!!
“Ah……”
Magnus hopped on the bike and charged straight toward where the enemies had been spotted on the minimap. Not a single hesitation in the movement.
Even KDW’s shout couldn’t stop him. Magnus rocketed forward—
Ding——!
—and faceplanted straight into the enemy squad, turning into a corpse on the spot. Pure “Hehe! Fire!” energy.
Ding! Ding!
Reunion!
The only silver lining was that the timing somehow lined up perfectly and they managed to revive Magnus right away.
Ding——!
Instead of typing, a cute character question-mark emote popped up.
Ding——!
This time a cute character “NO” emote appeared.
Pop——!
A “…” emote floated up.
Then,
Ding——!
Apparently feeling guilty about the earlier charge, an “OK” emote finally appeared.
“I can’t sit that out! Absolutely not!”
She hurriedly joined the voice chat as well.
KDW’s shotcalling began—not in text, but in actual voice.
“Alright, our value is actually really solid right now. Even if Magnus looks weak late, with FakeNene-nim’s driving skill we can still play strong late-game fights.”
“So we’re just holding this area and eating every team that tries to rotate through. OK?”
Pop——!
Fake Nene’s OK emote appeared instantly.
“Then we should just plant sensor cams at the entrances and only stop people flying in with flight tools, right?”
“Ah, RealNene-nim joined too. Yeah, exactly. That’s the plan.”
Following KDW’s orders, they played calmly and cleanly.
She’d heard that KDW preferred extremely aggressive solo-queue playstyles, but there was a saying for a reason.
Fake madness calms down the moment it sees real madness.
Someone who played aggressive just to win and farm LP would suddenly become very quiet in front of a human who simply charged without thinking.
“It’s so sweet…… for real……”
In the end KDW’s party steamrolled the lobby for the win. She had gained 131 points—an amount that normally took dozens of games to scrape together. Mithril tier had such a high “entry fee” that anything less than consistent excellence made positive LP almost impossible.
“FakeNene-nim, you dove well right to the end. RealNene-nim, you stayed calm and melted the front line first instead of getting excited.”
“No no…… KDW-nim’s preemptive shotcalling is what let us hold the line cleanly.”
They were about to exchange more nice compliments and part ways when—
“Gyaaaaaah——!”
“?”
“?”
A scream tore through the voice chat. It sounded exactly like someone had just smashed their knee into a desk. And it was so cute yet so unique that once you heard it, you could never forget it.
What? Why does that sound so familiar?
The voice sat right on the edge of recognition—something she almost remembered but couldn’t quite place.
Luckily she had the collective intelligence of chat on her side.
“What is that? Why does that voice sound so familiar?”
Viewers who had pieced it together carefully floated the answer.
“……Huh?”
……Somehow that felt exactly right.