Your Bruiser is Insane
In the beginning, things had definitely been going smoothly.
Before the auction even started, each team captain must have had their own strategy.
Whether it was recruiting an ace who would synergize well with them, or snagging a player on the cheap to cover their weaknesses.
Whatever it was, they surely had some sort of plan.
For instance, the former pro Havoc was a hot commodity expected to trigger a fierce bidding war from the very start.
After all, a highly skilled player would perform well in any team.
The buyers looking to bid and the trolls simply looking to drive up the price moved exactly as predicted.
But everyone's plans went up in smoke the moment the player shortage became real.
Unlike previous generation MOBAs, Infinity Realm didn't have clear-cut lane roles.
Depending on the team comp, you could easily run two or even three marksmen.
And in this tournament, there was no room for error with the roster size.
In other words, an imbalance and shortage of specific roles was practically inevitable.
By the time the auction reached its midway point...
Even the slightest hiccup threw the team captains into a panic.
"Wait, what? At this rate, we're going to run out of tanks!"
"Hyung, we don't have a marksman."
"We need to draft a frontline. If we don't, we're going to get wiped by assassins. Who's even left on the board?"
"Support! Support! We don't have a support!"
"Wait, you're an assassin player yourself, so why did you draft another assassin?"
Every single team was in emergency mode for one reason or another.
It was a spectacle—not a single team was functioning properly!
As the auction dragged on, the chaos only amplified.
The captains realized something.
Fixing their own broken team comp was going to be difficult.
But wouldn't it be relatively easy to ruin another team's comp instead?
Besides, the streamers acting as captains all knew each other.
Quite a few of them were practically arch-rivals.
That was why they threw themselves into sabotage, even when their own houses were on fire.
"Hanul's team doesn't have a single support."
"Should we bid a little to mess with them?"
"Wait, if we win this bid, we'll have two supports."
"Why aren't they bidding back? What are they thinking?!"
"EMERGENCY!"
Of course, not all sabotage attempts succeeded.
Some won, some failed.
And amidst this absolute chaos, one role shone brighter than the rest.
The Bruisers, like Yu Nabi.
A position that could act as a melee DPS or a tank depending on the situation.
With the auction spiraling out of control, a Bruiser was like a reliable comfort food.
There was absolutely no downside to just grabbing one and figuring out the rest later.
"Next up is player 'DoNotTalkToMe'. Please step forward to the stage."
Yu Nabi's turn came in the latter half of the auction.
It was at a point where things had already devolved past the point of no return.
"Please introduce yourself."
"H-Hello. My main class is Berserker. And, um... I can also play Grim Reaper or Swordmaster."
"So you prefer aggressive Bruisers?"
"Yes. I can't... play tanks yet. But... I'll make sure to lock down the enemy frontline."
It was a somewhat lackluster response.
Yet, the captains lacking a frontline couldn't help but lean in, their eyes flashing.
Not to mention, the tone of her voice was quite striking.
In truth, the identity of 'DoNotTalkToMe' had been a quiet topic of discussion throughout the auction.
A Berserker player with a suspiciously beautiful avatar.
On the surface, she looked like a pure roleplayer, but her gameplay reeked of a rough, hyper-masculine beast.
To the viewers, the mystery of whether this Berserker was a 'he' or a 'she' was highly intriguing.
"Bidding starts at 100 points from Team Hanul."
"Team Na Jia matches! They're desperate right now too. They don't have a single tank left."
"The bids are piling up. Next up is..."
The moment her turn started, almost every team jumped into the bidding war.
Some bid out of sheer necessity, while others threw points in with personal motives.
There was always at least one streamer trying to build an all-female team for content.
In particular, Shredder's team, which was bloated with DPS...
...and Na Jia's team, which was bloated with supports, had no choice but to go all out.
It also helped that Na Jia and Hanul were constantly bickering rivals.
"250 points from Team Shredder! Things are heating up!"
"Defying everyone's expectations, player DoNotTalkToMe has become the hot potato of the night!"
"Team Hanul bids 280 points! That's practically all their remaining points. If they win this, they'll have to fill the rest of their roster with unsold players."
"And Team Na Jia counters with a whopping 320 points! It looks like they want to end this fight right here!"
Thus, Yu Nabi's auction turned into a fierce, unexpected battle.
For a late-stage auction where points were scarce, a massive sum was being thrown around.
Hanul, who tried to keep his promise even though his team already had plenty of frontliners.
Na Jia, who desperately needed a skilled Bruiser while simultaneously wanting to screw Hanul over.
In the clash between the two, Na Jia ultimately emerged victorious.
"Player DoNotTalkToMe has been sold to Team Na Jia for 320 points!"
Having won the bid, Na Jia burst into a bright, giggling laugh.
With this, her team was the first to fill all six roster slots, concluding their auction.
All that was left for her was to sit back and watch the remaining captains tear each other apart.
Na Jia didn't forget to mock Hanul to her heart's content.
Though her words carried a slightly strange nuance.
"Hey, Hanul. Your Bruiser is pretty sick."
Nabi felt a bit strange.
After the eventful auction broadcast came to an end...
...each team gathered to hold their first strategy meeting.
Our team captain was the streamer Na Jia.
She was a high-tier support player who had originally started her streaming career with a nun concept.
Although she had dropped the concept as her streaming career lengthened, she was generally known for having a good personality.
People said she was incredibly generous, as long as you didn't deliberately trigger her like Hanul did.
Sure enough, my first impression of her was that she was a very gentle person.
When I looked her up on the wiki, her avatar had been wearing a nun's habit.
Perhaps that was an old image, because when we actually met, she was wearing a beige sweater.
Her chest—which was just as large as mine, if not larger—briefly caught my eye.
Na Jia offered a warm, friendly smile.
"Nice to meet you all. I'm Na Jia, your team captain."
"I'm Siz. I main Artilleryman, and I'll be helping the captain as the secondary shotcaller."
"H-Hello. Nice to meet you."
Just like the other teams, our composition was far from normal.
Saint. Artilleryman. Berserker. Chain Master. Warlock. Enchanter.
Just hearing the lineup made you wonder what kind of bizarre monstrosity this team was.
And the one responsible for assembling this bizarre team was, ultimately, Na Jia.
She scratched her light blonde hair, offering an excuse before anyone even asked.
"Well, you see, our original strategy was to build around the Artilleryman as our main DPS..."
"But things got a bit tangled up along the way. All the tanks were swept up. Well, I'm sure the other teams are in a similar mess."
"We can make it work somehow, right?"
Our firepower was certainly sufficient.
The Artilleryman was a class that boasted outstanding area-of-effect and damage output, even among ranged classes.
Its drawbacks were a catastrophically slow projectile speed and low accuracy, but the team had ways to compensate for both.
However, we lacked a 'shield' to protect the Artilleryman so they could rain down fire in peace.
In other words, we didn't have a proper tank to hold down the enemy's frontline.
The only one who could perform a role even remotely close to that was me.
For someone like me who had played purely offensively until now, it was a rather harsh demand.
Na Jia seemed to realize this, as she hung her head in front of me.
"I'm so sorry. We've ended up putting such a heavy burden on you, DoNotTalkToMe-nim."
"It's okay. I-I'll give it a try."
"Hearing you say that puts my mind at ease a bit."
Well, the milk was already spilled.
Getting angry here would only be shooting myself in the foot.
Besides, just keeping up with the conversation took so much out of me that I couldn't think of anything else.
That was the truth. For me, the issue of not having a tank on the team was a secondary concern.
Being in a room with five complete strangers right now was the real extreme situation.
There were five people around me.
And I couldn't even turn off voice chat.
If this wasn't hell, I didn't know what was.
"Let's queue up for a game first to test our synergy."
"Sounds good. Oh, by the way, how should we shorten your name, DoNotTalkToMe-nim?"
"..."
"If you don't have a preference, can I just call you whatever I want?"
I couldn't answer.
Because that question wasn't on my list of prepared answers.