Style

"You want me to change my playstyle?"

"Yeah. How long am I supposed to keep being your second brain? I can't do it for you anymore."

"Right. You are an IGL now..."

"Exactly, dumbass. If I have to play my own game, call the round, and mop up every round you throw away on top of that, my brain's going ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to explode."

"...All right. I already knew I couldn't keep going like this."

Because like this—right now—I was never going to beat them.

If I wanted the championship, I had to change.

"Wait, hold on. They're pushing in like this?"

The casters and the viewers had every reason to doubt the Jett who had suddenly walked onto site. Harbor was already dead, and Snake's E—the toxic screen—had been spent on B, which meant taking A was, for all practical purposes, an entry with no smoke at all.

They had already confirmed that Pilluelo was holding a Sheriff. Eunha was on a Frenzy, a gun built only for knife-range fights, so a long-range duel was bound to be ugly for her. And her Jett had already burned Updraft, her smoke, and Tailwind just to climb onto the container over A.

A Sova recon bolt slammed into site in time with the entry, and it was broken almost at once. For Eunha, that was enough.

"Oh! Eunha catches Pilluelo!"

That Jett had killed Nebula and dashed out with Tailwind to reset the fight, then shown himself again to clear the recon. He clearly had not expected anyone to force an entry this reckless. Pilluelo's Jett died more emptily than anyone had guessed.

"No way—Eunha, one more!"

She did not stop there. The Harbor still on site went down with him, and just like that the site was hers.

"She just shoved the site in with her own body!"

"Is this even real? There was no smoke, and Sova's recon bolt got broken instantly, so she had no help at all. If this execute actually breaks through, Sprout Patrol's mental is going to take a beating!"

The attack just now might as well have been built out of Eunha's raw mechanics and nothing else.

"Am I imagining it, or did those two swap styles? Pilluelo, who's usually the one charging in, is folding a move and trying to back off, and Eunha—who should have been the one to disengage—is forcing her way in."

Pilluelo was the one who trusted nothing but his mechanics and lived for high-risk, high-return plays. Eunha was the one who preferred the best available choice—stable, and still aggressive. And right now, everyone watching felt as if the two entries had traded natures.

"Bomb down. Sprout Patrol are outnumbered, three to four, but they've still got to try it, right?"

"Wait a second. How far is Eunha going?"

Ice Room is a miserable map for holding a flood from inside the site itself. The sharp play is to plant, fall off, and chip at the defuse from range. But Eunha was doing the opposite. She was walking toward the direction the enemy had to come from.

"She's dropping into CT?"

She dumped the Frenzy, built for close range, and picked up the Sheriff Pilluelo had bought. A Sova pushing over from B caught her coming out of the second floor and took the duel—but at range, the gap between a Ghost and a Sheriff is not something you can shrug off.

The gap in their dueling was just as wide, and the Sova—the player a retake could least afford to lose—was gone.

"Eunha! If that Sova dies—!"

The only good news for Sprout Patrol was that the Snake coming up behind him managed to trade her.

"At least they got the trade! Thank god for that!"

"Still, a dead Sova means no recon bolt, and that bolt is half of an A retake. Sprout Patrol, I don't see an answer here."

Sova being dead did not change, and their chance of a successful retake had gone threadbare.

"I wouldn't even dare walk in there!"

"Youngest and Oldest already have their utility set! The second someone taps the defuse, Nanoswarm goes off, Snake Bite comes flying, and the whole site turns into a mess!"

"Ahh! Sprout Patrol have way too many angles to clear!"

"Oh, Zzangdol closes it!"

"And Youngest and Oldest take the pistol round!"

Whether I was the pro gamer Galaxy, or the streamer Eunha I am now, there is something people have always gotten wrong about me.

They say my style is restrained and still aggressive. A well-forged blade. A smart player who runs the most orthodox, most ideal Project A you can play, and who also knows when to throw a gamble. That is the style they have decided belongs to "streamer Eunha."

It isn't exactly wrong. It isn't exactly right, either. My real style was never that lukewarm.

"Ah, sorry. I didn't see that coming at all. What do you want to do? Commit to A like this, or fall off and look at B?" Nebula asked.

"We don't even have a smoke. I think it's way too much to ask Eunha to entry here..." Oldboy said.

"I do think B is the better call," Zzangdol added.

"No. I'll take it."

"Huh?"

Before I ever felt the wall at an international event—back in the early days of Project A, and all the years I had played this way since—the root of the style I loved was something else entirely.

"Watch this."

It was brainless play. Aim, and nothing else.

"Go in with her and watch the contact. Killjoy, just check the back line. Recon's already down on B main, so don't worry about a counter-bolt," Nebula called.

The recon bolt fired with my entry was shot out of the air, but the gunshot was enough to give me a rough position.

There you are.

Gunfire from behind me. The sound of my own character getting hit. I thought about the angle I hadn't been able to see on the way in, and about where that shot had come from.

Around here.

I had taken the first bullet and started the duel from behind. So long as it wasn't the head, I didn't care. I could spot them that much of a handicap and still be sure I'd win.

On the world stage—no, in the pro scene—garbage like this wouldn't work. Here, I was pretty sure it would.

People are wrong about me in a few ways. I am not someone who boldly throws a gamble when the moment calls for it. I am someone who spends all her time swallowing what she actually wants ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to do, holding it down, until once in a while the restraint just snaps.

"N-nice!" Oldboy shouted.

"Whoa..." Zzangdol breathed.

There were special spectators watching today. I figured I ought to show them at least this much.

The game kept tilting into a strange shape.

Pilluelo, the AFS broadcast jockey they called the rascal, was a player who used a willful personality and outrageous mechanics to live inside flashy, razor-thin, high-risk, high-return fights.

"Ah! Pilluelo doesn't miss!"

"You can feel it. Compared to last set, Pilluelo's aim is alive again. His reaction right now is incredibly fast!"

The usual Pilluelo would have forced it further. This one was moving with a cold, thorough kind of reason. A moment ago, the old Pilluelo would not have stopped at killing Pola. He would have peeked one more time. He didn't.

"All right, Harbor's waterfall walls off Pilluelo's side and they walk in. Like this, even Pilluelo can't do anything, can he?"

"Oh, Eunha with the knife!"

"Eunha's rampage isn't stopping! The Operator is down!"

Eunha, who had been the rational, orthodox one, was the player swallowing the game now, forcing reckless fight after reckless fight. Even with Harbor's waterfall already covering the angle where an Operator was likely to be sitting—even though she was in the air off Updraft—she still chose to swing out, accept the risk of eating the Operator, and pick Pilluelo off the peek.

She did not stop there.

"How far is Eunha going?"

"That's their side of the map!"

Tailwind carried her all the way into A Heaven, the very spot Pilluelo had been holding. Harbor, tucked into an off-angle on A, tried to kill her.

She didn't even need to counter-strafe. Jett's Blade Storm, that absurd ultimate that simply planted itself dead center in the crosshair, took his head off.

"Ah, Eunha! She's putting on a full knife dance!"

"Sprout Patrol are going to deflate completely, aren't they? Nebula in set one, Eunha in set two. Once you start losing the pure aim you brag about, there is no answer!"

It was an ultimate round, so Eunha had never bought a primary. She picked the Operator up off the ground where Pilluelo had died and peeked toward CT.

The result was this.

"Ah, Eunha!"

"Ah! That Operator belongs to the defense, and the defense is the one getting shot!"

It was a one-sided massacre.