Hey!! Second Place Did Great Too!! Hey!! Second Place Did Great Too!!
Where we were standing was the heart of the fight.
In plainer terms, it was the perfect place to get surrounded and die, so the first order of business was slipping out the back and forcing a standoff. The enemy had predicted exactly that. They spotted us at once, it turned into a brawl, and though we won, Senpai's HP had fallen so far that we had no choice but to burn our last recovery kit.
They didn't have a recovery kit either. My own HP was under half, and I had no way to heal.
"S-still, my Night Arc gauge is full... I-I can handle it."
"I see. Then I shall trust you, Miss Izumi! What would you have us do?"
"Mmm. If we w-wait, the two teams left should fight each other, and we can m-make it a one-on-one."
The enemies we'd just taken down were the ones who had come up from the southeast. The footsteps still out there had been to the north, around bearing 300 — a line that, if they wanted to reach us, left them no choice but to run into each other.
"I think they've got one recovery kit at most, if th-that. But we don't have to w-wait for them to use it. The moment it s-sounds like they're fighting, we kill our footsteps, move, and take them from behind."
"Understood! We shall crown the finish with victory!"
BOOM!
Just as expected, the last two teams started fighting. Bearing 285. No need to force a direct push — better to swing wide.
"Senpai. I'll take the l-long way around, so please head toward 255."
"Understood. I need not go in on my Q skill, yes?"
"R-right. If they s-spot you, just falling all the way back is fine."
What mattered was whether I could get behind them the moment that fight ended.
"Mmm."
Circling wide, I checked the fight through the scope. The team on the left was Loki and Michael, a pair that shone in long-range sniping. The team on the right was Bella, balanced across the board, and Dalos, built for close combat. On composition alone Bella and Dalos had the edge, but the skill gap must have been wide — Loki and Michael were the ones pushing them back.
"Senpai. I think the side with L-Loki is going to w-win. The second the fight ends, activate your shield, then stick to them with your Q skill."
"Very well. But what if the other side wins?"
"Th-then just stick to that side. I'll pop Night Arc and stick too, r-right away."
And, as ever, my read did not miss. Bella went down first, and right after her, Dalos's HP hit zero.
Loki and Michael must have assumed we were somewhere nearby. They didn't so much as glance at the items Bella and Dalos had dropped. Even so, they would need a moment to reset, and that meant now was the chance.
"S-Senpai. Let's go in."
"Good!"
Senpai Kurokami's character, Arsene, let out a ringing battle cry and charged. They reacted fast. Loki stepped in front of Arsene, while Michael kept sweeping his view, hunting for where I was. Judgment worthy of people who had survived this long.
But I was already behind Michael, tucked against a wall he had no way of seeing, and in the end he must have decided I'd died in the earlier fight. His muzzle swung toward Arsene.
"...Now."
"Then shall I charge in at full burst!"
Flame kindled along Rina's legs. Even with the movement speed up, closing a gap like this in a single breath was impossible — and this was the last fight anyway. No point saving the teleport.
"I-I'm going in, Senpai...!"
"One moment, Miss Izumi! Something about their damage is strange...."
"Eh?"
By the time I heard her, it was already too late. I had pre-input all three teleports in a chain, and I was already right on Michael's back. The instant the teleport sound played, he snapped around toward me.
"Ugh...."
I understood at once what Senpai had been trying to say. The weapon in Michael's hands was an Ultimate Dragunov — not an ordinary gun, but one of the highest-grade weapons in the game, dropping at a set chance from the supply crates that fell at random on a timer.
"Miss Izumi!"
"...I'm fine."
I was fine. My own weapon was only an ordinary gun farmed off the field and upgraded as far as it would go. Put the numbers side by side and it sat about twenty-five percent below that rifle. But in a fight between damage dealers, skill matters more than the gun — and no matter how top-tier a weapon is, a sniper rifle has a hard time beating an assault rifle up close.
I spent my last E skill, Sprint, and closed as tight as I could on Michael. Then I landed my Q skill, Weaken, slowing him, and set my weapon on his head.
In BN, a damage dealer's fight comes down to hitting without getting hit. I was thinking exactly that when a click sounded under my feet.
"...Hweh?"
KABOOOOOOOOOM!
A tremendous blast flung my character into the air, and the HP that had only been at half dropped to zero in an instant.
"AAAAAAAH?!"
What I had just stepped on was an M93, a mine built for superhumans — another highest-grade deployable, out of the supply crates. So these two had looted not only the Ultimate Dragunov, but an M93 on top of it. Once I was dead, Senpai in the tank role couldn't do a thing alone, and we finished the game in second.
Getting even one of those supply drops in a single match takes luck.
These fucking scam-loot bastards....
BN's developers need to delete the items that break the balance....
"W-winning was too much to ask...."
"A shame, but it cannot be helped. Even so, second place is a more than adequate showing!"
"D-don't laugh!!"
"Uuuu...."
I hadn't been aiming for first from the start. Honestly, just cracking the top ten would have been something to be grateful for. But Senpai Kurokami had followed my calls better than I'd expected, and as we picked the snipers off one by one, hope had started to show. And the ending was some absurd explosion finish.
"It's so u-unfair...."
I was bitter and wronged enough that tears nearly came.
"It is all right, Miss Izumi. They may be laughing, but our strength will have been plain enough for them to see!"
"Haah?! As I said before, knowing how to command those beneath you is a perfectly proper ability! Which is to say, Miss Izumi holding her own is also proof of my ability! Enough impudence, my butlers!"
"Fufufu.... I have already displayed the gap in full! Feign weakness, and force them to step to the front. What a terrifying design, would you not say?! The second-rate stride out in front, but a true first-rate works from the shadows. And so Miss Izumi, too, will have come to know my terror well enough. Is that not so?"
"...L-let's say that's what it was."
There's no worth in me if I didn't win anyway....
Heh. If the seal on my power had loosened just a little more, it would have been different. What a shame....
"Now then, how was today's collab, Miss Izumi? Did you confirm your senpai's majesty with perfect clarity?"
"Hehe.... N-not winning at the end is a shame, but it was still f-fun."
"I asked whether you had confirmed your senpai's majesty!"
"...."
H-how am I supposed to answer that?
Looking at the chat, it didn't seem like there was a problem.
"Uh, i-it was incredibly fun!"
"Krrrgh.... I shall not forget this humiliation, Miss Izumi!"
"Haa. In any case, you worked hard today, Miss Izumi. Should the chance arise, let us meet again!"
"Yes, S-Senpai, you worked hard too...."