Rabbit Hole
The moment Jeong Taeyeon’s kill-death count sank to 0 kills and 4 deaths, an awkward laugh slipped from his mouth.
Watching Jeong Taeyeon’s stream and the chat beside it, Momozi muted her microphone and whispered carefully to her viewers.
“Whoa, guys, is this for real? Can I make fun of him yet?”
The opponent, Woniwoni>.<, kept poking at the entrance of the narrow passage known as the rabbit hole and continued his slaughter.
Whenever he tossed a bomb, he vanished before anyone knew it. Whenever he waited with a sniper rifle, he would show just enough of his side to make you think he was about to peek, then pull the shot away.
It looked like he was just messing around.
Bang—!!
[Woniwoni>.< ▄︻┻┳━一 Momozi♡]
“Damn, that was way too fast.”
He popped out for a split second, snatched a kill with a single shot, and disappeared again.
Curious after watching from Taeyeon’s screen, Momozi even tried to pick a fight herself, only to die without the slightest chance.
“I’m just gonna—Taeyeon, no, not Taeyeon anymore if he can’t even get first place. It’s just Taeyeon now. Anyway, I’m just gonna watch his screen.”
She switched fully into broadcast mode.
Momozi went straight back to the waiting room and blew up Taeyeon’s screen so everyone could see it clearly. Since Woniwoni had already monopolized the rabbit hole—the side passage along the edge of the map—wandering over there carelessly would only feed him more kills. Honestly, watching the two of them fight was turning out to be more entertaining anyway.
Though right now, one side was getting beaten down unilaterally.
If the viewers are right, won’t it be winnable once Taeyeon gets warmed up?
No matter how good the opponent was, he still wasn’t a Challenger.
That was because the loading screen hadn’t shown any of the emblems typical of the highest tiers.
If anything stood out, it was that he had the Weapon Master title—something Momozi had never seen before while playing Dead Zone.
The blood-red lettering had plenty of presence, sure, but it couldn’t possibly be as hard to earn as Challenger.
Momozi had complete faith in Taeyeon’s comeback.
Jeong Taeyeon, who had also noticeably cut down on idle chatter, began explaining in a calmer voice.
“Right now, I can’t tell whether that guy’s confident or just being careless. He’s sticking to the exact same play pattern. It works, so he keeps doing it. If you want to win, you’ve got to break his momentum. Here I go again.”
Even if he’d lost the sniper duel once, giving up here would be the real second-rate move.
Jeong Taeyeon had only played Dead Zone for two years, but he’d spent nearly a decade in FPS games.
The pride of a gamer would not forgive retreat.
This time, he took a different entrance and aimed for the rabbit hole Woniwoni was occupying.
“Sometimes people move back and forth irregularly like they’re playing whack-a-mole. Unless that person’s hacking, they’re probably just trying to read the enemy’s position.”
Creak—
He turned on his scope and waited for the moment.
One second, two seconds, three, four, five….
“…?”
Huh, wait, that’s weird. Why isn’t he coming out?
Once the zoom had been up for more than fifteen seconds, the pressure started to build. In Taeyeon’s experience, staying in one spot for too long as a sniper never ended well. The damage was high, but because the rifle fired single shots and reloaded slowly, snipers were always vulnerable to ambushes.
Yeah, he has been holding that position for way too long. Honestly, it doesn’t even make sense. Who would keep tossing a bomb into the rabbit hole every time they pass by?
Thanks to that, the team’s precious grenades had all been buried in the rabbit hole, but still—if it could shut down Woniwoni’s infuriating positioning, maybe that wasn’t so bad. That was what he thought to himself.
The moment he finished sorting out his mind, Taeyeon withdrew his muzzle and abandoned the position.
Then where would that bastard be now?
From the rabbit hole back to base took about seven seconds. From base, it would take a generous ten more to tighten each angle and settle into position. Factoring in the time Taeyeon had wasted, it was about time for Woniwoni’s rabbit-eared character to spring out from the enemy side.
“All right, where’s he gonna pop out? Time to play whack-a-mole.”
He moved his hands quickly, climbed onto a box, then crouched and stood again between the crates in a repeated rhythm.
Taeyeon was showing off flashy movement while scanning the enemy camp, and the moment he raised his scope to shoot at the enemy team flickering into view—
Bang-!! From the side again.
[Woniwoni>.< ▄︻┻┳━一 MyNameIsTaeyeon]
“What the hell—!”
He was now at 0 kills and 5 deaths.
“Whoa. What do we do? It’s the rabbit hole again.”
And once again, Momozi muted her mic and chatted with her viewers.
It was a friendly streamer collab, and since she’d brought him in as a sort of teacher, she was worried about him too.
“Aaaaah! You damn bastard. Where the hell did this effect come from? How many times do I have to see this thing?”
On Taeyeon’s death screen, the kill effect Woniwoni had set up was displayed.
The rabbit-eared character—Woniwoni’s avatar—was giving a thumbs-up while shouting, “You were a great warrior!”
He had combined that with an icon of a target with a hole in it, then pasted the target over the “great warrior” part.
So instead of “You were a great warrior!” the effect became “You were a great target!”
While Taeyeon was screaming at the obnoxious taunt,
“You could even set it up like that? A great target… snrk!”
As his composure crumbled under the repeated provocations, Jeong Taeyeon flung himself into a rage and swapped to a rifle.
What he chose was the MF5, a weapon of mobility—an M4A1—and he charged into the enemy line.
Rat-a-tat-tat—!
[MyNameIsTaeyeon ╓╦═─ Haaaappy]
[MyNameIsTaeyeon ╓╦═─ Icarus River]
[Double Kill!]
“Ohhh, looks like he’s going in for the kill himself.”
Taeyeon’s clean takedown of two enemies made it look like his confidence was finally coming back.
Each team had a narrow passage known as the rabbit hole.
It started near each base and could spit you out beside the enemy stronghold.
The direction Taeyeon was heading now was the entrance to Woniwoni’s rabbit hole.
He was going to force his way through with a rifle and strike from behind.
[MyNameIsTaeyeon ╓╦═─ (HEAD) Shark Teeth]
Forget that embarrassing performance until now!
[3 Kills 5 Deaths]
Taeyeon quickly racked up three kills and showed the pride of a former Challenger.
His target, the long-awaited rabbit hole, was right in front of him now.
Gulp—
Momozi, watching on the broadcast screen, tensed up too.
If he could take out the demon of the rabbit hole here, the momentum would clearly swing his way.
Just when it seemed like finally, he’s warmed up—
“Huh?”
The instant Taeyeon entered the rabbit hole and turned his head along the narrow corridor, he locked eyes with Woniwoni, who was aiming a scope at him from far, far away.
Bang—!!
And just like that, with one shot—
[Woniwoni>.< ▄︻┻┳━一 MyNameIsTaeyeon]
[3 Kills 6 Deaths]
[You were a great target!]
—he died, unable to avoid the mocking kill effect.
Six deaths in a row, and all of them from a single person.
“……”
Unlike Momozi, Taeyeon had a camera, so he leaned back in his chair and let out a short groan before opening his equipment window and changing something.
“Huh? What did he switch to?”
Momozi studied the guns carefully, trying to figure out what weapon he’d changed, but she couldn’t tell from her angle.
After the ten-second respawn timer ran out, Taeyeon proudly aimed his crosshairs toward Woniwoni’s rabbit-hole home.
Is he going to go all in?
Momozi’s question was answered immediately.
Ping—!
He pulled the pin on a grenade and sent it straight into the rabbit hole.
At first she thought it was just a normal grenade.
But with a hissssss—!! smoke spread across the entrance to the rabbit hole.
“Kuhuhuhu. Come down here, you bastard! I’m only going to spam smoke now!!! Go ahead and call me pathetic, I don’t care. Come downnnnn!!!”
The viewers started pointing fingers at Taeyeon for being cheap after he blocked off the rabbit hole with smoke grenades, but he didn’t care in the slightest.
“If he’s just going to sit in the rabbit hole and do that, then leaving him alone would make me the idiot. It’s a strategic decision.”
That made sense.
Momozi nodded.
“It’s not exactly stylish, but… if you can’t win in the rabbit hole, then what can you do?”
Even if it was a little lame to see a Challenger, supposedly the peak of physical skill, suddenly tuck his tail between his legs, it was also funny—and it was a plausible strategy.
“But if he pulls all this off and still gets wrecked, that would be hilarious. Right? Heh. Can I tease him after this? Wouldn’t that hurt his pride?”
As if to prove that words could become reality—
[Woniwoni>.< ▄︻┻┳━一 MyNameIsTaeyeon]
Blinded by the smoke, Woniwoni had been forced to descend from the rabbit hole. Unlike his usual style, he now charged forward with a sniper rifle in hand and relentlessly pressured Taeyeon’s team.
With the whole team’s momentum surging, it turned into more or less a one-sided beating.
(100 : 49)
After getting pounded senseless, the match finally ended.
[MyNameIsTaeyeon 10 kills 10 deaths]
He’d avoided going over death by killing enemies as they charged all the way to base, but only barely.
“Heh-heh… O-okay, I’m all warmed up now… uh….”
Between those broken little words, he sounded both hollow and embarrassed.
Momozi, watching from the stream, didn’t even start a voice call right away. Instead, she laughed and chatted with her viewers.
“Aww—pffft. Look at his face. Maybe we should postpone today’s lesson? He needs a different teacher, huh? Hahahaha, hey, that’s too harsh.”
Momozi’s eyes fixed on the chat message that mentioned another streamer.
“Huh? Really? So he was famous? No wonder. He was good.”
“He’s unranked? What is he then? A Challenger smurf? Taeyeon is Grandmaster, after all. Maybe that’s possible?”
Because the match had been so entertaining, the viewers suddenly started arguing among themselves, and Momozi hurried to stop them.
“Hey, hey, why are you fighting? Don’t fight.”
And then they were at it again, bickering back and forth.
Now that I look at it, this guy’s been tossing fuel on the fire the whole time.
Click—!
“Please keep mentions of other streamers to a reasonable level. You’re getting a 10-minute chat ban~”
Troll, eliminated.