The och began and there were multiple elements of uainty about it. How well will Yuel and Kai be able to cooperate in Bot? How well will Ben py in Top? How well will Luke py his meme Jungle Druid? And, how will Lars handle a mage with more delicate execution like Eleancer?

  In short, literally everything was uain about this match. But, Yuel couldn’t focus ohing at once.

  Based on the experiences of the st few days, Luke probably knew how to py Jungle Druid. He has already started the game on the right foot by buying Smite, a utility skill that’ll greatly help him clear jungle camps.

  One of the big reasons Druid was a meme as a Jungler was due to its poor camp clearing speed. So, Luke practically had to buy Smite to be able to do anything at all. As always, the guy lived up to his memeing quality, for the better and the worse.

  As for Lars, it was always easy to trust that meical moo handle anything that required execution. Even if he fails to do the optimal Eleancer setup on his first try, he'll optimize it in no time. He was that kind of natural beast. At most, Yuel will have to throw a few reminders in Lars's way in case that goof fot some of the finer details of the execution.

  With all that sidered, Yuel didn’t have to worry too much about Lars and Luke’s performahe more iing topic was Ben. As a Top pyer, Ben will pete with Vi for that spot once Yuel regains his rightful pce as the Support. So, whie of the two was the better Top Laner for the team?

  Right off the bat, Ben's absence from every club meeting thus far was a bad first impression. However, Ben wasn’t a deli and it seemed he genuinely felt bad for missing club activities. Therefore, it was better to ighe bad first impression and analyze Ben objectively. Was he a better Top than Vi? That's all that mattered right now.

  Unfortunately, Yuel pyed on the opposite side of the map from Ben, so it might be hard to analyze Ben’s skill properly. Worst case, he’ll have to watch the repy ter.

  For now, he'll trate on cooperating with Kai in the his was a fresh experiend a good opportunity to better uand her as a pyer.

  Speaking of Kai, she started off on her own while Yuel was still busy thinking about the situation. He didn’t eve a ce to see what she bought.

  “Why two wards?” Yuel asked while going over Kai’s starting items.

  “Why not?” Kai shrugged. “We gotta ward, you know.”

  “Yeah, but it’s better to let the Support spend money on wards. lit the burden of warding if you want but I have no problem warding everything myself.”

  “I prefer to do some of the warding myself. There are some areas on the map I wanted warded at all times, so I want to make sure they’ll be warded.”

  “You just ask me to ward there.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll ha. You just ward where you think is best.”

  “Fine,” Yuel gave up. He didn’t know how to tihis argument. For some reason, Kai was deadset on doing some of the warding herself. This was rather rare.

  Normally, Carries didn’t like warding and wao focus on ning, kills and pushing. Lars never ever suggested to ward anything himself. He always left everything to Yuel. And, Taison was the exact same way. As far as they were ed, warding wasn’t their job. Somebody else will always ward Bot for them and that somebody was the Support.

  So, it was o see a Carry who valued warding for a ge. With that said, a Carry shouldn’t ward too much, especially not during the early stages of the game. After all, there was a reason the Support started off on the same ne as the Carry ia.

  Most Carry csses were retively weak during the early game and their top priority was to get their build online and bee a force to be reed with. The faster a Carry start pushing objectives, the better. Spending gold on wards deyed the Carry’s build so it wasn’t something a Carry should do often early on.

  Hopefully, Kai only was this persistent about warding herself during game start. If she keeps buying two wards every time she returns to base, they’ll o have a talk about it.

  After Yuel and Kai cleared the Ogre Camp together with Lars, they went to Bot Lahe enemy arrived there earlier, which wasn't surprising. Pirate’s clearing speed was a little faster than Impaler’s during the early game and there was nothing anybody could do about that fact. It was math.

  With that in mind, Yuel and Kai had to py smart and crack the enemy dowep at a time.

  During the ning phase, Kai didn't take any risks. She cleared the minions safely but effitly. She stayed in the rear and fired basi the enemy frontline. Impaler’s passive, Deep Wounds, lowered the target’s defense by a ft amount for a brief time. So, first of all, Kai hit every enemy swordsman in order to lower all their defenses.

  Then, she followed up with Impale and shot her spear through the line of swordsmen. It was a good farming tactic but, unfortunately, Impale didn’t deal that much damage. Especially, not during the early game. Pirate’s Backfire on was much stronger, so that’s how the Pirate domihe e Kai’s effit setup.

  Every time, a couple of minions from the eeam outlived all allied minions. That’s when the enemy’s pressuring began. The Pirate and Lumimancer advanced along with their minions and tried to get as much damage as possible on Yuel and Kai.

  So, Kai always retreated to the Turret in a timely fashion. From there, she did her best to kill the minions before they ehe Turret’s area.

  Is the pn to keep pying defense during the early game? Yuel wondered. He didn't get to see much of Kai’s performan Bot because he was alying Top, so he had no idea how she normally handled disadvantageous early game sarios. He should've watched some repys, but he deemed it irrelevant at the time. However, now that he was her Support, these things were very much relevant.

  She got a poker face 24/7, so I 't tell what's on her mind. Yuel squinted his eyes. No matter whether things were going well or poorly, Kai's expression remaiatic like a statue’s.

  “What?” Kai g Yuel.

  “Nothing,” Yuel averted his eyes. He was trying to read her expression but it probably looked like staring to her.

  “Something on my face?”

  “No, it’s nothing.”

  “Huh.” Kai dropped the topid returo her tablet.

  In truth, there was ohing about Kai which always bothered Yuel: the bck sporty cap. Why was she wearing a cap all the way down here in the basement? Surely it wasn't going to help her against the sun. No sunlight reached this godforsaken clubroom.

  Thinking of it, Yuel has never seen Kai without the cap. Did she wear it to css as well? There was no school rule against it so nobody would stop her.

  “What?” Kai turo him again.

  “Ah,” Yuel jumped. The girl had some sort of radar for sure. “I was just w about your cap.”

  “Wanna buy ooo? They sell ‘em at the mall around here. It’s pretty .”

  Is it just me or she's very good at missing the point? Yuel wondered. “No, I don't need one. I was just w why you’re always wearing that cap, even when you’re at the club.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we're in a basement.”

  “And?”

  “Well, as you probably tell, there's no sunlight down here.”

  “I'd be surprised if there was.”

  This girl... Yuel didn't know what else to say here. “Do you ever take it off?”

  “When I shower o to bed.”

  I feel like the first mention was unnecessary. Yuel's cheek burned a little as a rude image fshed through his mind. Though, even in that brief steamy snapshot, he still imagined Kai sp that bck cap. He never saw her without that cap so, even in his mind, he couldn't imagine how she looked without it.

  With that, the small talk died down. Yuel didn't get to the bottom of the cap mystery and didn't get to see aions from Kai. She was oough er to deal with.

  By the time both sides reached Lv.4, Kai's clearing speed became on par with that of the enemy Pirate. In fact, hers was a bit faster because she has been doing a great job utilizing the Impaler's passive to weaken the swordsmen’s defense. So, this time, she was the oo clear the minions first.

  This was a great opportunity to strike. Yuel should bring this up and-

  “I'll attack,” Kai announced before Yuel could make his move.

  “Okay,” Yuel followed along. “The me create an ice-” He was too te. Kai already advao the frontline and activated Iron Maiden, which summohe metallic torture device right behind the enemy Pirate.

  Before the Pirate realized he was trapped, Kai fired her rge spear in his dire. The impact pushed the Pirate bad shoved him right into the iron maiden. The Pirate's back rammed into the torture devid the metallic doors burst open. The iron maiden swallowed the Pirate whole as if he was a snack.

  CH. It sounded like a smashed waffle. After delivering the damage, the iron maiden broke apart and revealed the stunned Pirate. This was the cue to go all out!

  Like before, Kai didn't waste any time and threw spears at the stunned prey. So far, her attack was well-executed. But...

  I'm the Support. I should be initiating these kinds of pys. Yuel made a face. It wasn't a rule set in stone, but it was usually the Support’s role to initiate fights.

  Yuel could've spared Kai the trouble of spend MP on Iron Maiden if she gave him time to cast Ice Wall instead. It didn’t matter what kind of wall Impale shoved its target into, the impact would stun all the same. Sure, the Iron Maide some additional damage but it wasn’t even enough to help to secure the kill so it ractically useless.

  So, the Ice y would have been superior overall. Yuel had more MP to burn and his resources were less important than the Carry’s. On top of that, while Yuel was creating the Ice Wall, Kai could've already fired her Impale to lower the oppo’s ces of dodging.

  There was a brief recovery animation after casting Iron Maiden, so it took a moment before Kai followed up with Impale. The only reason this py worked out was that the oppo was too slow to react. Most pyers would have been able to dodge that telegraphed Impale.

  Well, I'll go over it ter. Yuel shifted his focus to the situation at hand. The enemy Pirate was stunned and Kai was driving him with spears but that alone wasn't going to do the job. The Pirate will have a ce to escape once he gets out of stun.

  Therefore, to properly secure the kill, Yuel got close to the Pirate. He waited right until the Pirate’s stun was about to run out and activated Ice Coffin, spreading chilling air in front of him. The cold hit the Pirate and froze the guy in pce. From oun into another. Nasty but beautiful.

  This gave Kai enough time to seal the deal.

  An enemy has been killed!

  “Yes.” Kai nodded in satisfa. It was a quiet and brief celebration but Yuel noticed it. After all, the girl has been sitting there like a statue this eime, so this was the first time she expressed any humaion.

  At least she celebrates when she wins. I guess she's a human, after all. Yuel chuckled.

  “Here it is!” A loud voied. “The first blood goes to Stratus! Despite pying as a duo for the first time, Beat and Chessmaster showcased perfect synergy as they took down CrazyDriver!”

  Perfect synergy? More like, barely any synergy at all. Yuel mentally retorted. The one spreading fake news was Vi, the only one in the room who wasn't ich. He was following the match closely by stig his face to Luke’s Pitor.

  “With this py, Stratus seized the momentum!” Vi went on with his nonsense. “What other surprises will this team deliver today!?”

  Are you supposed to be a entator? Yuel made a face. Who was Vi even entating for? It felt like he was being loud for the sake of drawing attention to himself.

  However, Vi’s grin made it look like he genuinely enjoyed following the matd enting on it. So, Yuel didn't say anything. But, that didn't ge the fact that “perfect synergy” couldn’t be farther away from describing the ret py Yuel and Kai pulled off.

  “ime,” Yuel said. “If you want to get a kill with a stun bo, let me make an ice wall first.”

  “Hm? You mean, instead of the iron maiden?”

  “Yes. There's no need for you burn MP on Iron Maiden if I make a wall for you. I got plenty of MP to spare and, even if I run out, it’s not a big deal if I leave the o recover. Oher hand, if you recall to base, we’ll be surrendering ne trol to the enemy. So, it’s better to exhaust my MP instead.”

  “Huh, that's a noble sacrifice you're willing to make.”

  “That's my job as the Support,” Yuel chuckled. “You know, to babysit the Carry.”

  “I don't need no babysitting.”

  “It's just a term. If you prefer, you think of me as somebody who works under you and that it’s better to work me to the bone when it saves you trouble.”

  “That's a pretty masochistidset you got there.”

  “That's just how it works,” Yuel said. It's not like he wao sve away for the Carry, it's just that this was the optimal arra for ensuring that the Carry will grow strong ahy. So, sihis strategy was so effective, it was attractive enough to make Yuel ighe fact he essentially had to work uhe Carry. Though, in his experience, he was usually more of a babysitter than a worker. Especially, when pying with goofs like Lars and Taison.

  This Bot dueme the Support had to work hard for the sake of the Carry, but that's part of what made the role plex and fun to master. He had to ward, protect the Carry, initiate fights, and much more. It was a lot of work and he had to do all of it at the same time during the early-game. It was a lot of responsibility and rather difficult, but that's what made it rewarding.

  As such, Yuel didn't appreciate it when the Carry stole some of his work. Even Ellen, who was mostly an indepe Carry, still spared the time tize with Yuel about their uping pys. Ellen barely needed any babysitting pared to the other Carry goofs but she still made Yuel sve away for her as needed.

  That was a world apart from what Kai just did. She just charged in all by herself without taking Yuel into at at all.

  Sure, Kai did give him a heads up about her pn of attack. But, then she just went through with it without even giving Yuel a ce to react. Kai just made a st-moment annou and had zero iion of discussing it or asking for help. That wasn’t how things should work.

  “The ime you want to attack,” Yuel said. “Make sure to inform me ahead of time. It's better if I initiate things because that'll put me in the most danger.”

  “You're really raring to die, huh,” Kai smirked.

  “As I said, it's always better to burn the Support’s resources rather than the Carry's, no matter whether’s it's MP or HP.”

  “I don't need you to sacrifice yourself for my sake.”

  “It's not like I'm doing it for you. It's just more optimal. As the Support, my job is to get all the hits for the Carry during the early game. I make sure you get enough farm during the early-game and you carry the team during mid-game. That's how we optimize the team’s ces of winning.”

  “Okay, I'll keep that in mind.”

  “Please do,” Yuel cluded the versation on that note. But, did the message really get across? Kai's tone was as aloof as ever, so it was hard to tell. Yuel will have to be more assertive the ime they get a good opportunity to initiate.