Chapter 48
Shi Luo had actually anticipated that NSN wouldn't stand a chance against Saint's holy sword.
It was true that NSN had brought in a stronger sniper this year, but Saint's sniper was no slouch either. A side-by-side comparison revealed no particularly outstanding advantage for NSN over Saint. Last season's champion team from the domestic division, Saint, had been swept 2-0, so it made sense that NSN had fallen to the holy sword.
Besides, Wawa's skill simply couldn't match Angel Sword's.
Shi Luo typed his reply to Wawa.
【Evil】: [How many times did they steamroll you?]
【Awa】: [I'm shaking all over... Game two, died 21 times!]
【Evil】: [Not bad, didn't break my record.]
【Awa】: [AAAAAAAAARGH I hate this! Why wasn't I born a burst healer?!]
【Awa】: [If I'd been like God Yu, at least I could've killed one or two of them, instead of just getting beaten up!]
Shi Luo typed:
【Evil】: [No need to imitate Whisper. It doesn't suit you. Your support play is great—you're not weaker than anyone else.]
【Awa】: [Supports can't hurt people!!]
【Awa】: [Big Bro Shi, do you know how dirty they played?!]
【Awa】: [At one point we were face-to-face, it was 3v3. We couldn't beat them in a straight fight, fine, but!!]
【Awa】: [Saint killed two of our flankers, and when it was just me left, they stopped! They deliberately shot left, then right, missing me on purpose so I'd run away on my own!!]
【Awa】: [Were they treating me like a dog?!]
Shi Luo frowned. Two years apart, and the restructured Saint team had gotten more and more disgusting in their play.
What the hell was that?
【Evil】: [What's the score?]
【Awa】: [...]
【Awa】: [Same, 2-0.]
【Awa】: [Even though I'm about to explode from anger, I... can't tell you the details anymore.]
【Evil】: [Got it, wasn't planning to ask anyway.]
【Awa】: [There's only two paths laid out before me now.]
【Awa】: [One path is to switch to flanker, endure hardship, bide my time.]
【Awa】: [The second path... increase my daily training time by another hour T0T.]
【Evil】: [Just make sure you rest properly. Balance work and rest.]
【Awa】: [55555... You're not nice. I'm going to find Angel Sword Brother and cry.]
In the training room, Puppy, who had just finished a game, stretched and glanced at Shi Luo. He raised his hand and said, "Old Qiao, it's training time and Evil's on his phone again."
Old Qiao was also on his phone, not even looking up. "He's waiting in queue. What's wrong with playing on his phone?"
"Clearly he's not." Puppy drawled slowly, "Look at his computer screen—he's not even in queue."
Shi Luo looked up with a blank expression. "NSN's scrimmage ended."
Old Qiao immediately put his phone aside and asked eagerly, "How'd it go? How'd it go?"
Everyone except Yu Sui, who was still in a game, turned to look. Yu Sui took off his headset and set it on the desk, his gaze still on his computer screen.
Shi Luo put down his phone. "Same result, 2-0. Wawa's considering switching classes to flanker."
"What's with NSN's风水?" Chen Huo lamented. "Another support about to quit and switch classes? Why is NSN always short on supports?"
Puppy slowly shook his head, sighing. "NSN can't have a second support switching to flanker. Convince Wawa, don't let him walk into a death trap. His class switch back then was a complete miracle—he can't pull it off."
Old Qiao rapped Puppy on the head. "Don't be so callous. Wawa's just ranting. How could he suddenly switch classes? If he switched, where would Gu Qian find another tier-one support?"
The others more or less had expected this outcome, not particularly shaken. But after Shi Luo described how dirty Saint played, they couldn't help but curse.
"What are they showing off for in our division?!" Chen Huo got more agitated the more he thought about it, slapping the table hard. "I just don't get it—did the previous boss's ancestors get crapped on by a hundred supports or what? Why do they have such a hard-on against supports? Dammit, pure support mains are literally guardian angels, okay? I'm out here begging other teams' supports to duo with me every single day, and when they do agree to play with me, if they have an off game or play badly, I can't even say a harsh word. These people really..."
Puppy said coolly, "Humiliating supports gives them a power trip. Besides our team's own battlefield medic here, every other support is easy prey. And they absolutely don't have to worry about getting killed by the support, so they can show off freely. Saint's current substitute sniper used to be my substitute. One time during a match, his plays had me completely baffled—there was only one support left on the enemy team, and you know what he did?"
Puppy made a shooting gesture. "Used that support for target practice. As he shot, he'd call out: left hand, right hand, left leg, right leg... Every shot was precise."
Old Qiao was completely disgusted. "What the actual f—"
"Our game doesn't allow self-elimination, and players can't surrender in official matches. The enemy support could only get shot at one bullet at a time for fun." Puppy shrugged. "Speaking of which, let me give a shoutout to our Evil player. After gaming together recently, I've noticed... when Shi Luo is winning, if the last enemy alive is a support, he stops and doesn't shoot, waiting for that support to withdraw from the map themselves."
Chen Huo looked at Shi Luo in surprise. "For real? I always thought only Yu Sui did that. He doesn't kill his own kind. What's your reason?"
Shi Luo glanced at the someone still gaming, then lowered his head to fiddle with his phone, offering no explanation.
Not killing supports when ahead—it was something Yu Sui had "infected" Shi Luo with back when he first joined FS two years ago.
Shi Luo had asked Yu Sui the same question back then. Yu Sui had given some vague answer about同类相残—not killing his own kind. Later, when Shi Luo kept pestering him for answers, Yu Sui finally said he just didn't want to kill supports who couldn't even use a dagger.
Yu Sui played games brutally, but he had no interest in one-sided slaughter.
In high-rank games, there were plenty of people to kill anyway. Why bother chasing after that one or two support kills?
Yu Sui did follow his own advice—until he broke his own rule on Shi Luo when he went to Saint, which then triggered a chain of incidents. Since then, neither of them liked to bring it up.
"Have you all heard?" Zhou Huo pushed open the training room door, walked in, pulled up a chair and sat down, sighing. "Saint swept NSN 2-0 again."
Old Qiao nodded. "Wawa came to tell Shi Luo about it. He's cussing out Saint."
Zhou Huo looked at everyone carefully. "I'll just ask casually—what are our odds if we face Saint?"
Old Qiao was silent for a moment. "Fifty-fifty."
"Only fifty percent?" Zhou Huo gaped. "That's... that conservative?"
"Not being conservative. Saint's current starters are a mashup of the best from three teams. And after watching them play against those two teams, you can see—they crushed them. You can imagine how strong they are. Saying we're 55 against them is already me flattering myself." Old Qiao wasn't optimistic. "And that's not even counting our current synergy issues."
"I'm under a lot of pressure right now." Zhou Huo said miserably, staring at his phone. "Right now I'm just worried—worried that any second Saint's management will contact me."
Old Qiao's expression turned slightly awkward. "They're... really going through our division one by one?"
"Looks like it." Zhou Huo spread his hands. "First was last season's champion Saint, second was last season's runner-up NSN. Third one—who do you think it'll be?"
According to last season's domestic division rankings, the next target would be IAC. Of course, no one knew if Saint was following that order, and they weren't sure if the next target would be Free.
Zhou Huo was exhausted mentally and physically. "Seriously, Free doesn't need this kind of star treatment. We're just a newly formed team."
Puppy looked at Zhou Huo, then said slowly, "Um... I know it's not great to say this, but I just have this tiny question—if they do come for us, and we refuse the scrimmage, what happens?"
"Nothing terrible." Zhou Huo said nervously, still staring at his phone. "Saint would just roast us on Twitter for a month at most. Should we be grateful they don't use Weibo?"
"Why are you all scared of them?" Chen Huo looked confusedly at Zhou Huo and Puppy. "Fight! Fight the hell if we don't! Why not fight? Win or lose, whatever. Our supports can take a beating. Yu Sui's been through every storm and hurricane—what makes you think he'd break from this little setback?"
Puppy looked at Chen Huo like he was an idiot. "Lose and you lose? Have you thought about—if we also lose, it means the entire division got humiliated by them? Please tell me, which other team in our division can give Saint a run for their money?"
Chen Huo blanked for two seconds, then thought about it. "Uh... seems like none."
Chen Huo changed his tune quickly, cleared his throat and said to Zhou Huo, "Tell them we're all sentimental about our old ties, can't bear to fight our former family, so we're declining."
Zhou Huo sighed. "Saint and NSN's managers already contacted me. Their suggestion was also to try to decline if possible. That's what I'm thinking too. I know it's cowardly, but at least I've got thick skin."
Zhou Huo looked at Old Qiao. "What's your take?"
Old Qiao was silent for a moment, then shook his head. "Whether we decline or not, I don't agree with either. I won't say."
Zhou Huo looked at Shi Luo. "Evil?"
Shi Luo had one foot up on his gaming chair, fingers holding a lighter, spinning it rapidly. He pressed his lips together and shook his head. "Same—I won't say."
Zhou Huo looked at Yu Sui. "Whisper? Done with your game? What's your take?"
Yu Sui's game still wasn't finished. He stared at the screen. "My take?"
Yu Sui quickly ended that game, pushed his keyboard forward slightly. "My take is we fight."
Chen Huo dry-laughed. "Don't have to be so hard-line about it. If you lose, your reputation takes the biggest hit. They literally told you before—you won't win a championship after returning to the domestic division. If you lose to them now, doesn't that prove them right?"
"I don't really care about winning or losing. That's not the issue." Yu Sui tapped lightly on the keyboard. "I just want to test myself against their four new starters."
Zhou Huo was speechless. "What's there to test yourself against?! You know they're good. They've already taken out two teams. You can imagine how strong they are."
Yu Sui shook his head lightly. "Without playing against them myself, I won't know the details."
"Just watch their regular season match videos if you want to know." Zhou Huo lifted his chin. "You can find anything online with a quick search."
"It's not the same." Old Qiao interjected gravely. "Many details, players have to experience firsthand to figure out. Watching an overhead view of match footage means nothing."
Zhou Huo blurted out, "Then go ask Saint and NSN!"
The other five people in the room all looked at Zhou Huo like he was some alien. Zhou Huo paused, then said helplessly, "I just don't get it—couldn't we just do it quietly? No one would find out. What's wrong with watching their scrimmage footage? Saint destroyed those two teams so badly, they wouldn't mind letting us watch the videos as payback, right?"
"It's a matter of principle. Even a disgusting team like Saint wouldn't steal another team's scrimmage footage, let alone Saint and NSN. No way." Chen Huo snorted. "That would be leaking other teams' strategies. Professional players still have some底线."
Zhou Huo said awkwardly, "Fine, then... there's no need to actually schedule a scrimmage just to figure them out, right?"
Yu Sui said calmly, "If we don't schedule practice games in advance, when we actually face them, it might be directly at Worlds. Assuming we make it to Worlds, of course. Then what? Wait until Worlds to face a strong enemy?"
Zhou Huo hesitated. Everyone was at an impasse when his phone lit up.
Zhou Huo fumbled to unlock his phone, glanced at it, then slapped his forehead, groaning: "Saint's here..."
"Make a decision." Zhou Huo said helplessly. "Fight or not? I need to reply to them now."
Yu Sui had already stated his position. Old Qiao remained unopinionated. Puppy and Zhou Huo recommended not fighting. Chen Huo said the supports themselves don't care, so neither do I—let's fight. Zhou Huo placed his last hope on Shi Luo, giving him pitiful eyes. "Evil, the vote's 2-2 right now. We're just waiting on your vote! You probably don't want to fight either, right?"
Shi Luo hesitated slightly. Before he could speak, Yu Sui beside him coughed softly.
Zhou Huo practically jumped up, yelling, "Are you still in school?! Are you passing notes?!"
Shi Luo glanced at Yu Sui, pressed his lips together. "Fight."
Zhou Huo deflated. Resignedly, he went to reply to Saint's manager.
Yu Sui put his headset back on and continued solo queuing. A moment later his phone buzzed. He picked it up—
【Evil】: [Voted for you. Do you... do you have a stream tonight? Want to play a few games with me.]
【Evil】: [Not burst healer. Want... the healing kind.]
【Evil】: [...Okay?]
Yu Sui turned his head to look in Shi Luo's direction. Shi Luo was staring out the window, clearly uncomfortable.
Yu Sui breathed lightly. This feeling was a little familiar.
Little Luo—were they...撒娇ing with him?