"Bravo! gratutions!" Vi greeted the returning champions. "It appears that, with the Eternal Peacekeeper on your side, you were successful at vanquishing the regional champions! The Threat Overthrower was successfully ralized in Top!"

  "Yes," Yuel agreed. "Ben froze Top just like wanted him to. Good job."

  "T-Thanks!" Ben smiled shyly. A shiver of excitement ran through him. For the first time ever, he actually tributed to the team in a big way!

  Despite his shaky start, Ben mao calm down and execute his usual defensive game pn. Truth be told, he had many s about the efficy of his pystyle when it came to the petitive stage, but it worked out just fine.

  "But," Ben said. "I think a lot of it was thanks to Nia. She made Challenger retreat often."

  "Indeed, indeed!" Vi excimed. "The Vanishing Phantom struck terror into the Leopards' hearts! She made them look less like dominating predators and more like harmless kittens!"

  "Agreed," Kai said. "Nia was the real star of the show.”

  "Heck yeah!" Lars tuned in. "She did real great, yo! Not that I uand what exactly she did, but she scored more kills than me, so that’s hel impressive!

  "Kills aren't the main point," Yuel expined. "The Leopards were incredibly scious of Nia the entire game, they did everything in their power to keep her in check. They eve as far as their most aggressive pyer to retreat more often. All of this threw them out of bance."

  In fact, it wasn't an exaggeration to cim that Stratus only won thanks to Nia's presehe girl herself pyed well enough, but it was her presehat pletely domihe flow of the game. It forced the Leopards to be even more defehan usual, and not in a way that beed them at all.

  The Leopards essentially treated Nia as a device that could trigger their turtling mode on demand. And, their gravest mistake was giving Yuel trol over such a device.

  Once Yuel realized all of this, he asked Nia to do some questioations at times. The goal of these rotations wasn't to actually score kills but to give the Leopards a jumpscare that’ll force them into a less favorable position. And, it worked.

  Every time the Leopards saw Nia walking in some ne's general dire, they immediately issued a retreat to that his must have been the "solution" the Leopards came up with for Nia's elusiveness.

  It definitely sounds like something Cato would think of. Yuel reasoned. He’s the type to "solve" problems by fortifying his defenses. And, when that doesn't work, he fortifies them some more. To me, this approach is equivalent to tightening a rope over your own neck.

  A better defense could solve some problems, but not all of them. Yuel experiehat firsthand in the previous scrim, where he was severely punished for not taking the initiative when he had the opportunity. Back then, the enemy's Triangle ran all over Stratus until Yuel finally started mounting terattacks.

  But, Cato failed to adapt. He stacked more and more yers of defeil his team crashed under all that weight.

  To be precise, we won not so much because of Nia, but more because of the Leopards' inability to adjust their game pn. But, I'll keep this thought to myself.

  There was o ruin the party. Everybody was celebrating Nia's "amazing performance", so Yuel decided to let them enjoy the moment.

  With that said, one member of the team was noticeably absent. "Where's Luke?" Yuel asked in a small voice, to not draw too much attention to the topic.

  "He departed shortly after this game ended," Vi expined, also in a low voice. "He was watg the game on and off, but then simply vanished."

  The waiting room had a monitor that streamed the game, so Vi and Luke watched the unfolding game with great i indeed! Or, at least, Vi did. As for Luke, he seemed rather apathetic about the whole matter. His expression was quite sullen throughout the experience.

  "It's not too surprising, I think," Vi said. "After all, the one who subbed in for him turned out to be the star of the show. I imagihat wasn’t easy to digest."

  "Yeah, I see that.” The higher you climb, the harder you fall. That sounded like an apt description of what happeo Luke. His surprisingly strong performan the 2nd game must've gotten to his head.

  Even though Yuel warhat the Leopards would surely adapt to the Dark Knight meme in Game 3, it seemed this warni in one ear and out the other. Luke tinued holding onto the false illusion of his “grand success”, so Game 3 hit him hard.

  It’s a bit ironic, holy. Yuel thought. He told me he pys memes because he doesn’t want to take things “too seriously”. Yet, there he is, taking that o way too seriously.

  Luke provided a full expnatiarding his decision to stick with memes. The guy only ever gave half-answers, dodging the questions.

  heless, there was oent that even his dodgy answers clearly veyed: his desire to avoid responsibility. Luke didn’t want to feel too “obligated” to the game, probably to avoid the ay and frustration that petitive sports naturally caused.

  A, despite all that, the crushi in Game 3 shook him this much. If that’s the case, didn’t that invalidate the entire point of his memeing? He retending to mess around, yet deep down, he was just as petitive and serious as the rest.

  Well, maybe I’m being too ical here, but I do hope this taught him a lesson. Yuel thought. Maybe he’ll finally resider his life choices after seeing how salty he gets even with memes.

  It seemed the memer first had to get a taste of success in order to uand the true impact of failure. Yuel had been w for a long time how to persuade Luke, but maybe Game 3 did all the work for him.

  This is a little ing, though. Yuel looked at the rest of the club, who were still praising Nia amidst the chatter.

  “The way ya pulled that Double Kill in Mid was so sick, yo!” Lars shouted. “Like, I haven’t scored a single Double Kill the entire game, you believe!? That’s how hard these dudes were to crack!”

  “Yeah, it was well pyed,” Kai agreed. “Though, let’s not fet I prepared the ground for that oill, very execution from Nia.”

  Everybody worshipped Nia like the messiah. And, from the smug on the girl’s face, it was clear she was enjoying the attention a little too much. Ironically, for somebody whose pystyle revolved around erasing her presenia was quite the attention seeker.

  I’m not sure if this is fine. Yuel frowned. If she falls off the high horse in the middle of the game, she might start sulking just like Luke.

  Of course, there was no guarahat any of this would happen. heless, it was best to lower the ces as much as possible.

  Except, it seems I have a natural talent for being bad at this. Yuel grumbled. I already see them grilling me for what I want to say...

  Something like that had already happened in the ret game, back when Yuel warned Nia about not letting her success get to her head. And, unsurprisingly, Yuel’s first idea for the current situation was to say that exact line again.

  They're celebrating her achievements right now, so it'll make me look like a wet b if I e in and drop my piece.

  In the first pce, it seemed Yuel's unication skills weren't good enough to properly vey this subject. He failed to make his points clear back with Luke, and he was likely going to fail with Nia, too.

  However, there was one person here who could potentially achieve success with this. He was loud, ish, a somehow charismatiough to seople's hearts. Not to mention, he was the one who sparked the fmes of celebration here, hyping up everybody’s success.

  "Vi, we o talk," Yuel called the guy to the side. "There's something I'd like you to help me with..."

  DarkestCymore