Yuel started the long-awaited match review, the dreadful ritual that’ll expose everybody’s weaknesses in public. His first victim was Kai.

  “Let’s start from the first game.” Yuel pyed the video. The first se showed Kai recklessly pig a fight against TheLegend and almost getting herself killed.

  “We’re really going there, huh?” Kai averted her eyes. They had just started the meeting and she was already shuddering. It looks like Luke was right for ohis thing is going to be one serious public shaming rollercoaster.

  “Please make sure to watch it,” Yuel insisted. “I know it’s hard to e face-to-face with your mistakes, especially the embarrassing ones, but you have to get used to it.”

  “Yep,” Lars followed up. “Take it from me, yo. When we just started pying together, Yuel reminded me 24/7 that I’m a total scrub, haha.”

  “I don’t think I ever called you a ‘scrub’.”

  “You didn’t use the word, but that’s what you were basically saying. Anyway, the point is, dude made me sit through tons of scoldiures like this. Was it fun? Nope, not at all. But, I’m still alive, right? And, I think I’ve gottey good thanks to that.”

  “No pain, no gain,” Vi added. “There is no doubt we all will enter tless hardships along the way. However! Overing these hardships shall steel our hearts and make us better pyers than we ever before!”

  “Alright, alright.” Kai sighed and turned back to the s. Everybody and their mom were on her case, so she couldn’t wiggle her way out of this. Just you wait until your turns. I wanna see you talking big then.

  “Okay, so about this py,” Yuel tinued. “Let’s watch it first from start to end.”

  In the video, Kai assaulted TheLegend, got into an awkward 10 IQ duel, and the ehing ended with her running for her life. It was a beautiful Bronze-quality performance.

  Just kill me. Like, right now. Kai facepalmed with both hands and hung her head. This might just be the most embarrassing moment of her life.

  “Let’s keep watg,” Yuel insisted. “There’s more.”

  , it showed aupid fight she picked against TheLegend. After that, there were two examples of reckless fights she picked against Renegade.

  In all these cases, Kai recklessly took the initiative a on the offensive. And, every time, it ended in a disaster. She either barely made it out alive, or she didn’t survive at all.

  “In Games 3 and 4 in particur,” Yuel said. “These deaths gave the eremendous momentum. It won’t be an exaggeration to say they sealed the team’s fate.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Kai didn’t have the willpower to resist. She felt naked in front of the crowd. This video id bare her most embarrassing mistakes. She was hoping to sweep all these embarrassing moments uhe rug, but there was no escape from her scrubby past.

  “Now, let me ask you this,” Yuel leveled a question to the audience. “What was the recurring mistake in all these examples?”

  “Kai got her ass whooped real hard!” Luke ughed.

  “Yes, that was the e,” Yuel agreed. “But, even if she won some of these fights, I’d still t them as mispys.”

  “Wut?” Luke cocked his head. “How will it be a mispy if she wins? That shit makes no sense.”

  “Victory or defeat, that’s just the e. It’s the deaking process that matters. Do you agree, Kai?”

  “I think I know what you wanna say.” Kai sighed. “You’re saying I picked bad fights.”

  “Yes, that’s right. you expin what was so bad about them?”

  “Well, I didn’t really have anything going for me in these fights,” Kai expined. “No life lead, no power advantage, er positioning. Nothing, basically. There wasn’t any good reason to believe I’d win, except for thinking I’m better than these scrubs.”

  “I’m gd you figured it all out by yourself.”

  “Well, thanks. I’m not an idiot, you know? You saw how many times I tried that shit and it blew up in my face. I had to learn a lesson at some point.”

  “If you uand this much, then that makes things easier,” Yuel said. “Since you know what you did wrong, do you mind sharing what led to these mispys and how you pn to improve for the future?”

  “What led to them, huh.” Kai smiled wryly. My own damn arrogahat’s what.

  Kai was Challenger rank in Duel, so she thought she was some hot stuff when it came to fights. In fact, just as her rank implied, she crushed most oppos in 1v1s even in the MOBA mode. So, whenever she had to 1v1 somebody, it usually made seo assume she gonna win.

  As, that kind of thinking was too naive for the petitive se. The pyers who gathered there were all strong.

  It’s like these rare cases when Kai happeo enter an exceptionally powerful oppo in Ranked. Except, in this case, the entire eeam was stacked with oppos of that caliber.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t realize that in time. She allowed her ao get the best of her, which made her attack every bastard who insulted her. And, the e was usually far from positive. As Luke put it, Kai got her ass whooped.

  “I uimated our oppos,” Kai summarized. “I thought I’ll beat them easy in a 1v1, but that clearly didn’t happen.”

  “That’s correct.” Yuel nodded. “You may be a Challenger in Duel, but the pyers you’ll fa petitive matches will be just as good. So, even when you think you’re strohan your oppo, you should always assume it’s going to be a hard fight in whiothing is guaranteed. Which means, unless you have a clear advantage, you should avoid challenging them alone.”

  “Yeah, I already figured as much.”

  “The same applies to everybody here.” Yuel looked at each of them in order. “Don’t start fights unless you have a leg up on your oppos. This is a on bad habit from Ranked, especially for those who py Duel. No matter how good you think you are, you should assume your oppos are going to be just as good.”

  “Yeah, that sure applies to everybody,” Kai said. “That is, except for Lars.”

  “Me?” Lars poi himself.

  “Yeah, you.” Kai shot Yuel a look. “I agree with what you’re saying, but you don’t follow your own suggestion. You let Lars fight 1v1 multiple times even when he had nothing going for him. Care to expin why Lars is an exception to that rule?”

  “Lars by himself isn’t an exception,” Yuel said. “If he starts a fight without a clear advantage, I’ll stop him too.”

  “You say so, but you let him fight alone many times during the scrimmage and he didn’t have any big advantages in any of these cases. For example, that oime he fought the Berserker while pushing Bot. The odds were stacked against him, but you approved it.”

  “It’s was a difficult decision to make,” Yuel admitted. “I mulled over it for quite some time. In fact, it took me so long to reach a decision that it was almost too te.”

  “But, in the end, you still approved it.”

  “Yeah, I did,. Lars is strong in 1v1s, but not to the point he sistently win against petitive oppos. Normally I’d stop him, but it’s a different story when he’s pying Trickshooter unslinger. With these csses, I believe his skill level transds on sense.”

  “Huh, sounds like you’re pying favorites.” Kai rolled her eyes.

  “I admit, it sounds like bias,” Yuel said. “But, you should know what I’m talking about. You have been dueling Lars every now and then, right?”

  “Sure have.”

  “So, how often do you win against his Trickshooter and Gunslinger?”

  “Eh...” Kai opened and closed her mouth. She had nothing. Did she ever win against these two csses?

  She did score a clutch victory once by outsmarting Lars, but other than that...

  DEFEATDEFEATDEFEATDEFEATDEFEATDEFEAT

  She could only recall the red letters inf her of her downfall. There was no question that, with Trickshooter and Gunslinger, Lars was in a league of his own.

  “Well? I assume you haven’t won much.”

  “I-I won a couple of times...” Kai averted her eyes.

  “Did ya?” Lars cocked his head. “Pretty sure ya beat me only ohat was a sick game, tho! Totally fooled me with that backdoor, haha.”

  “I see.” Yuel nodded. “So, you beat his best csses in Duel ohat’s very impressive in its ht, but it sounds like you used the rules of Duel mode to your advantage. You didn’t actually defeat him in a proper 1v1, did you?

  “Yeah, I guess I didn’t.” Kai gave up.

  “So, there you have it,” Yuel said. “I’d normally stop Lars from pig reckless fights, just as I’d stop anybody else. But, when he’s pying Trickshooter unslinger, I just ’t imagine him losing a fight, even against petitive pyers. I hope this answer satisfies you.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Kai didly like it, but it was a reasonable promise.

  “Of course, I’ll be keeping a close eye on things,” Yuel said. “The further we go, the stronger our oppos will be. So, we might eventually run into oppos even Lars won’t be able to handle, not even with his best csses. If that happens, some adjustments will be in order.”

  “, that ain’t gonna happen!” Lars fshed his teeth. “Bring ‘em on, yo! My Shooter and Slinger gonna make quick work of them!”

  “Well said!” Vi hyped things up. “That’s the uable Insa of the Apocalypse that I know!”

  “So, let’s summarize.” Yuel cut off the excitement before it derailed the meeting. “Kai, make sure to work on your bad habit of challenging pyers to duels. I reend practig this in Ranked. From now on, pretend that all your oppos in Ranked are strong petitive pyers and py accly.”

  “Sounds like an annoying handicap.” Kai made a face.

  “Yes, sidering how often you win duels in Rahat’s definitely going to be a handicap for you. But, in the long run, it’ll help you develop better habits for real matches. Of course, if you think of better methods to practice it, then go for it.”

  “Got it. I’ll work on it,” Kai promised, both to Yuel and to herself. However, that wasn’t all she promised. With all that said, I still think this is a waste. I mean, I don’t grind Duel just to get that pretty rank. I wano the level where I sistently win 1v1s against anybody, even petitive pyers.

  Kai was Challenger rank in Duel, so she was supposed to be a major threat to the eeam. Aaurus didn’t care about her bat skills in the slightest. They never showed any signs of being scared of her and they didn’t think twice before pig a fight.

  Worst of all, many of the fights didn’t go her way. That only further made her look like a weakling who couldn’t fight back. It athetic.

  Each time I messed up, they probably ughed their damn asses off. I bet they were all like “Look at this girl, thinking she py video games.” There’s no way I gonna sit there a our oppos ugh at me. I’ll make everybody fear me as a 1v1 specialist!

  But, that was easier said than done. Everybody was strong on the petitive se and Kai only experiehe tip of the iceberg so far.

  The Taurus they fought had plenty of strong pyers, yet the team wasn’t even sidered that “good” pared to previous years. And, it definitely couldn’t begin to pare to powerhouses like StormBlitz and the Leopards.

  I’ll have to fight even stronger oppos from here on out. Kai ched her fists. If I want them to respect my dueling skills, I have to improve more, a lot more. Holy, it almost sounds like an unachievable dream right now.

  But, it was very much possible. In fact, there was one clubmate who had already reached that higher pne of existence: Lars. The guy legit instilled fear in his oppo as an uable powerhouse.

  I have to get to the point I put up a fight against his Shooter and Slinger. Ohat happens, I’ll bee somebody my oppos have to respect. That was Kai’s main resolution for the near future.

  Of course, as promised to Yuel, she’ll work on developier habits. She’ll get used to avoiding 1v1s in which she didn’t have a decisive advantage.

  However, at the same time, she’ll also work on boosting her dueling skills. And, the first milestone would be to fight Lars’s stro csses on equal ground.

  It’s a long-term project, but I’ll get it done before the regionals.

  If all goes well, even powerhouses would snize her as a threat. And, with that strength, she’ll carry the team to victory as the captain!

  DarkestCymore