Why Can't You Do This?
“Why can’t you do this…?” Clang! “…I admit it. You’re pretty good.” Clang! “Wow, I’m just glad we won at the end.” “It doesn’t really feel like a win when I die like that to pull it off…” “Honestly, the opponent just threw the game at the end.” Clang! “Anything to say?” “…No, ma’am.”
Three wins, one loss. Sirius’s AOS starting roster had been utterly crushed by the second team. Of course, Gaeun had subbed in as mid for the opposing side, but that was no excuse. Their opponents had only one starter—Gaeun—while this side had fielded five. Even if Hyun-sung was technically a reserve, he was still a first-team caliber player with a clear gap over the second string. It was a flawless defeat with zero room for excuses.
“Just so you know in advance, Lene-nim handled the bans, picks, and main calls for all four games.”
“…Really?”
“Yeah. I jumped in a couple times to adjust the calls for tournament conditions, but that’s it.”
With that, they lost even the right to claim they’d lost because Gaeun was on the other side.
“You all know it too, right? Except for the first set, the drafts were solid enough that you could’ve made excuses if you wanted.”
“…Yes.”
“Do you understand now why I said there were things worth learning?”
“Yes.”
Jungle priority had literally dictated the flow of the game. The streamer named Lene was no amateur. All five starters realized it over the course of those four matches.
“I told you. Lene-nim is only not going pro because of her personality. If she’d tried out and joined another team… it would’ve been rough for us.”
“I thought that was just a PvP thing… No. I was being shortsighted. I’m sorry, Gaeun-hyung. My apologies, Director. I’ll apologize to Lene-nim properly later too.”
When Owen lowered his head in acknowledgment, Jaehun and Gaeun smiled and patted his shoulders.
“Now, back to the main point. We invited Lene-nim as a play coach today, but those four scrims we just played mean nothing.”
“…Pardon?”
“That strategy only worked because everything was built around Lene-nim. Our core is still Gaeun in mid. I’m not saying Eun-ho couldn’t do it, but it’s a strategy we don’t need to use.”
Just as Owen was about to ask what the point of today’s scrims had been, Jaehun continued with a smile.
“But there is something to learn. Not just for Eun-ho—for everyone.”
★
“…Is this really okay?”
[Yes. We’re counting on you.]
The first emotion I felt after hearing the story from Sirius’s director was pure confusion. Why…? Why on earth would they ask me to do something like that…? But I lacked the courage to voice any protest.
“Understood…”
In the end, I could only nod.
[Alright, from now on you’ll be doing 1v1 lane matches against Lene-nim. Eun-ho, you’ll go at level 3 and again at level 6. We’ll assume you meet at the river and fight. Let’s start with Se-han.]
[Yes.]
Thus began the 1v1s. My first opponent was Prophy, the top laner who was apparently debuting soon. As usual, I picked Traveler while he chose Martial Artist.
[I look forward to it.]
“Yes…”
Once we reached the first wave, Prophy and I began trading in lane. He farmed slowly and deliberately, looking for an angle to fight. The win condition was clear: 100 CS or one kill. He seemed to be aiming for the kill.
Prophy hit level 2 first and immediately used Earthshrink on me. Whether from impatience or poor judgment, the timing was too early. I leaned back just enough to dodge the kick, killed the minion to reach level 2 myself, then immediately used Acceleration and Leap to close the gap. He tried to shove me away with Advancing Steps, but it was too late. I dodged it by stepping back again, then used Agility and Acceleration to pressure him one-sidedly.
My HP sat at 94% thanks to minion damage. His was at 61%. Seeing the numbers, I paused the game. They’d said it was fine to stop if I had something to say.
“P-Prophy-nim…?”
[…Yes.]
“Why did you do that just now…?”
[Ah, since I hit level 2 first, I wanted to capitalize on the advantage…]
“No, not that. I used Leap. Why didn’t you use Advancing Steps right away?”
[…You want me to react to Leap with Advancing Steps?]
“Yes.”
[Lene-nim? Do you perhaps not know the range of Advancing Steps?]
“I do.”
[Then how are you supposed to react to Leap with it? If you’re even slightly late, you’ll get pulled back and punished. If you’re even slightly early, you’ll whiff completely. Wouldn’t it be better to play the mind game afterward?]
“You can react…”
Why did he assume from the start that it was impossible?
“If you use it at the exact moment of the ‘shhk!’ sound when I cast Leap, it’ll hit perfectly…”
[Excuse me?]
“At the ‘shhk!’ timing. It’ll be accurate.”
[No, what does that even mean…?]
No choice, then.
“…I’ll switch to Martial Artist. You take Traveler.”
[Understood.]
We swapped characters and restarted the lane.
“Now—”
BOOM!
[Huh?]
“You saw that, right?”
[…How did you do it?]
“I told you, at the ‘shhk!’ moment.”
[No, but how am I supposed to—]
For some reason, we were talking about the same game yet the conversation wasn’t connecting at all. What was the problem?
While I was pondering, the director’s earlier words came to mind.
[If you ever reach a point where you can’t understand each other, there’s no need to explain it yourself. We’ll review the footage later and discuss it. So… how should I put this… Just beat them up. A lot. Our kids, that is.]
I’d been invited here as a play coach. Was it really okay to do it this way? I wasn’t sure, but since an expert in the field had said so, it should be fine.
“Let’s try again.”
[…Yes?]
★
“No, you can react right here like this…”
[So how the hell am I supposed to do that?!]
I’d thought as much, but if they didn’t understand, they simply didn’t understand.
“Why can’t you do this…?”
It was just a matter of counter-attacking the exact moment the dash came in. It was such a simple movement that calling it a technique felt embarrassing. I wasn’t even asking for anything difficult. Unlike PvP where movement was free, in AOS both basic actions and available skills were fixed. All they had to do was react at the right timing.
Yet both Owen and Prophy were asking how to do it. If it were Gaeun, he would’ve understood immediately.
[Isn’t doing this much already good enough?!]
“For a pro gamer… Well. Never mind.”
…Maybe my standards really were too strict. Thinking about it, even pro gamers couldn’t all move like that person. Gaeun had been a kickboxing athlete before, and he was currently considered the pinnacle of New Dimension. I felt oddly guilty.
[Tch, haah, whew…]
★
Inviting Lene as a play coach had fundamentally stemmed from Jaehun’s curiosity. When the entire team moved solely for her sake, would Lene still be able to play the way she did on stream? What if they built a composition around her from the very beginning? What if they executed a strategy that invested everything in Lene alone?
Jaehun had once believed that if such a thing were possible, she would become a game-changer who could shift the flow of a match just by existing. After watching her play today, that belief had hardened into certainty.
But—
‘It won’t work. Going pro is impossible for her.’
The problem was that almost no one could keep up with Lene’s speed. Unless they were on Gaeun’s level, it was simply unattainable. In fact, when Gaeun had deliberately held back during the scrim under Jaehun’s orders, Lene had self-destructed and lost. In other words, Lene’s playstyle was far too extreme to fit into the professional scene, where securing wins was paramount.
Still, today hadn’t been a complete waste. They had been able to study laning and jungle pathing that went beyond polished—into the realm of perfection.
…Of course, Jaehun had no intention of asking Lene directly why she moved that way. He wouldn’t get a proper explanation anyway. That was why he planned to record her gameplay from the start and analyze it frame by frame.
Even that alone was reason enough to have invited her today.
But there was something else they had gained beyond that.
“…Honestly, at first I felt like I’d hit a wall and got really frustrated. But the more we kept going, the more fun it became. I don’t even remember the last time New Dimension felt this interesting.”
“Me too.”
“It felt like being a newbie again after so long, you know?”
After winning NAK, they had gone straight to winning Worlds. Achieving the Royal Road and then completing the Grand Slam—most pros could spend their entire careers chasing those accomplishments without ever reaching them. Having accomplished so much in such a short time at such a young age, the Sirius AOS team—aside from Gaeun and the newly called-up Se-han—had been suffering from burnout. Their scrim win rate had dropped below 50%.
Even with Gaeun, carrying three burned-out players and a newly promoted rookie was never going to be easy. Yet in just a single day, their burnout had begun to fade.
‘I was planning to start with laning details first, but… the goddess of luck is smiling on us.’
Jaehun quietly offered his thanks to Lene.