" up is another oddball," Sonya said. "VanishingFlower. She appears to be the team's main Jungler, with Memer being the sub."

  "Vanishing who?" Ronald scratched his head. "Oh, yeah. That Juhey had at the beginning, right? Totally fot about her, haha."

  "She didn't leave much of an impression oher," William said.

  "It's a peculiar thing, isn't it?" iled meaningfully. "This girl pyed mames than Memer did and she was in the games in which Stratus actually won. A, somehow, it's easy tet about her, isn't it?"

  "Is it, really?" Sonya blinked. "I remember her. If anything, there a few pys she made that I ’t fet even if I tried to."

  "I also remember her, of course," Cato said. "But, I admit I caught myself fetting about her multiple times when analyzing the repys. She's a sneaky one. If you don't keep her in mind all the time, she'll slip away."

  "Is that how it works?" Sonya pushed her gsses. Holy, she didn't rete to any of this. The two of them discussed this topic before today's meeting, but it sounded as bogus as it did back then.

  "If you fet about a whole enemy pyer, then your map awareness isn't up to par."

  "I agree," Cato said. "It's a crucial point against Vanishing. As her name implies, she's going to vanish on you if you don't keep your eyes on her."

  "Dang," Ronald said. "Sounds like a ghost, haha."

  "She might as well be," itted. "My map awareness is airtight, if I say so myself. But, even I caught myself losing track of her. As a chess pyer, that's quite embarrassing. It's like fetting that a certain enemy piece is on the board. That usually leads to the biggest blunder."

  "Haha, maybe you just suck at chess then." Ronald stuck out his tongue.

  "Do you want a first-to-ten against me? I'll let you wiire set if you beat me just once."

  "Haha, no thanks. I don't py that b stuff. It's a game for old men."

  "My, my, my. A victim of the isceptions, as usual." Cato shook his head in disappoi. "Anyway, from what Sonya and I gathered, it's crucial to be vigint when Vanishing is in the game. If this girl slips out of your mind even once, you might fet all about her until she appears behind you and stabs your back."

  "Hmm. Odd," Ronald said. "If she's that fettable, doesn’t it mean she’s not doing much the entire game?"

  "That's the peculiar part," Cato said. "It's not like she doesn't have any achievements under her belt. In fact, she seems rather capable if we go over her pys." He navigated to the slide in the presentation.

  "May I?" Sonya stood up from her chair.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I'd like to cover this part of the presentation." Sonya's eyes veyed unyieldiermination. It almost felt as if lecturing about VanishingFlower was the very purpose she was born for.

  "Sure, you do you." Cato handed over the troller without any objes. Okay, break time. He sat down a Sonya take the stage.

  "A-Alright then." Sonya cleared her throat. She was a little fidgety now that she was standing in front of the audience.

  "S-So, VanishingFlower..." Sonya stumbled over her words a little but gradually got the hang of it. She started by bringing up Vanishing’s stats to buy herself some time to pose herself.

  Roles: JunglerCss Variety: Low(?)

  Meical Skill: 8/10Deaking: 3/10Game Knowledge: 5/10

  Pystyle: Pys assassins and sneaks up to her oppos. Follows farming flowcharts.

  After everybody got a couple of seds to process the information, Sonya spoke up again.

  "Vanishing seems to stick with assassin csses. She might be able to py bruisers too, but she hasn't picked any ihree games she pyed."

  "Also," Cato added. “It looks like she likes stealth in general.”

  "ht." Sonya almost fot that part in her nervousness. She quickly sed the paper in her hand to make sure she wasn't fetting anything else. "Ninja and Drow, that's the two csses she pyed."

  "She picked Drht after Ninja was banned," Cato added. "It'd be great to have a third example to go by, but I think there’s already strong evideo suggest she's into stealth csses. Her pystyle further reinforces that impression."

  "Right." Sonya nodded. "Her game pn is like a textbook example of an assassin, though it struck me as an amateurish o that. For the most part, she stays in the jungle for long periods of time and follows farming flowcharts to a T.”

  “Wait,” Ronald said. “How is that amateurish? Sounds like she’s following the good ol’ meta.”

  “I argue she follows it too much, almost blindly at times."

  First, Sonya presented clips in which Vanishing followed standard farming routines. So far, so good. Based on this footage, Vanishing came across as a knowledgeable Jungler who studied the meta.

  However, came the incriminating evide exposed Vanishing for the flowcharter she really was.

  There were sarios in which Vanishing had the opportunity to ter-juer killing an enemy, yet she chose not to. Simirly, she had opportuo alter her rotations ever so slightly to apply pressure on one of the nes for free, without losing on any farm in the process. As, she skipped on all these optimizations like a clueless fool.

  With that said, some of these were advanced sarios. Out of the entire audience, probably only Cato and William fully uood all the examples.

  Of course, Sonya knew all about them as well. Going by game knowledge alone, Sonya could py any role. Top Laner and Mid Laner were simply the roles she chose to focus on for the team.

  “For the better or the worse,” Sonya tinued. “Flowcharting is the least of her problems. Vanishing’s deaking as a whole is... bad. So bad.”

  Sonya moved on to another detailed example. It featured a drawing of the mini-map with various rotation paths on it.

  "My, you sure put a lot of effort into this segment~" iled meaningfully.

  "Effort? Not really." Sonya gnced aside. "There's just too much to say about this pyer, that's all."

  She's really passionate about this one~ Cato giggled to himself.

  Sonya always enjoyed analyzing and discussing everything ih. But, usually, she knew how to stop herself in time before the topic became bloated.

  But, not with VanishingFlower. For this one, Sonya was hellbent on expl every angle. She even personally took the stage, which was even rarer.

  "A-Anyway" Sonya tinued in a hurry. "Here you see the route Vanishing took wheated to gank the DK in Top. As you see, this rotation route is... atrocious, to say the least."

  The diagram showed Vanishing taking a long and roundabout route to get to Top Lahere were plenty of paths she could've taken to sneak into the ne, yet she chose one of the most voluted options possible.

  "Yeah, I see what you mean," Ronald said. "She sure took her sweet time getting there. Did that gank work in the end?"

  "Yes, it happeo work this once," Sonya admitted against her will. She pyed the clip for this segment, showing how Vanishing successfully infiltrated the ne and scored a kill.

  It was a successful py overall, but it could’ve beeed much faster and with far better efficy. If Vanishing took a shorter path, they could've killed the Dark Knight sooner and it would’ve given them more time for ter-jungling before the wave.

  "All's well that ends well, I guess?" Ronald shrugged. "I mean, she took the long path but she got the kill in the end, so that’s what matters, right? It means she’s a little slow but she gets the job done."

  "You don't seem to uand," Sonya scolded with a stern expression. "She wasted a lot of precious time. And, this wasn’t a oime occurreher.”

  Sonya presented more pys in which Vanishing chose voluted routes. With every nele, Somya's scowl grew bigger and bigger.

  All these deliberate mispys are killing me. Sonya ranted internally. There was a limit to how muonsense she could stomach at once. Why did nobody scold her about it? Their shot-caller should've made her stop this foolishness. I thought he’s smarter than that.

  As, nobody stopped Vanishing, not her allies and not her foes. The criminal kept running in circles in the juaking the most ineffit routes ience.

  And, the worst thing? Somehow, amidst all this absolute ineffid redundancy, Vanihsing’s ganks just… worked. Yes, they did. Most of the time, her ganks were on point, much to everybody’s surprise.

  Everything Vanishing did was an insult to game theory. It made no sense!

  "Okay," Cato interrupted. “I uand you're passionate about this, but-”

  "I-I'm not! Not really." Sonya de as if her life depended on it. "I just wao make sure you all uand her weaknesses."

  "And, you're doing a great job at that, no question." Cato nodded. "But, aren't you fetting something here? Or, are you deliberately ign it?"

  "Did I miss something?"

  "Yes, a small but vital piece of information. I remember mentioning it when I went over the presentation."

  "Hmm." Sonya pressed her thick-framed gsses up her nose and knotted her brows. She scrolled bad forth in the presentation, but she couldn't spot that importaail she supposedly missed. Did I get nervous and fet something again? I don't see it.

  "The wards," Cato dropped a hint. "I told you this st time. You're right that Vanishing's routes are needlessly long and voluted, but you also have to factor the wards in that equation. I'm surprised you fot."

  "Oh, I didn't fet," Sonya said. "I examined all the cases yht up."

  "As expected for TheTheorist." Cato nodded. "So, how e you haven't said a single word about it"

  "I cluded it's all jecture."

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s not real. You only have minimal circumstantial evideo support that dodgy theory.”

  "Okay, just so we're all on the same page," Cato addressee the others. "We’re talking about how Vanishing's rotations, as odd as they are, often pyed around enemy wards. Taurus weren’t cheapskates about warding but Vanishing often slipped through their surveilnce."

  "I noticed that too," William said. "I agree her rotations are silly and ineffit. But, as a fellow Jungler, I have to hand it to her when it es to slipping past enemy wards. I wish I could be as unnoticeable as this girl."

  "Except," Sonya argued. “She didn’t even rotate that often in the first pce. So, we don’t have that many samples to begin with.”

  "That’s actually what makes it even more iing," Cato said. "She doesn't rotate ‘enough’ and she always takes the ‘voluted routes’. bihat makes her sound like a total amateur, doesn’t it? Ahe few voluted ganks she went for mao catch the enemy off guard ahe deal. Her success rate is actually very high."

  "You’re trying to make it sound more clusive than it actually is," Sonya objected. "In practice, she didn't provide us with enough samples of her pystyle. Yes, the few rotations we saeo work, but otherwise, she didn’t rotate nearly enough. Especially, ihird game, she was lying low the entire game.”

  "Well, you know how it is," Cato said. "We have to work with whatever data we got in hand.”

  “Finally, somethih agree on. With that said, I rather stay away from jecture.”

  “You’re right that the sample size is small, I’ll cede that much. But, the same applies to many things we’ve discussed today. We've barely got any reliable data about any of these pyers."

  "That's... true, I suppose," Sonya admitted relutly.

  Admitting such a thing stung a little because it put all her efforts into question. She spent days preparing for today's presentation together with Cato, but they derived most of their clusions from small sample sizes. Therefore, there was no guarahat anything from Sonya preseoday was actually true. It ressiy for an analyst like her.

  “I say, let’s just keep this little trivia in mind and move on.” Cato offered a promise. “her of us prove anything about Vanishing at the moment, so let’s just agree to disagree.”

  “Fair enough.” Sonya nodded and turo the others. “With that said, I analyzed the matches the most and prepared most of today’s presentatiohat in mind when deg with whom to side on this matter.”

  “My, is that a coup d'état I’m smelling here? Could it be? Is my secretary secretly pnning to overthrow me!?”

  “Who are you calling ‘secretary’?” Sonya gave him a look. “Yes, I did most of the preparations for today, but it’s not like I’m w for you.”

  “The denial is strong with this one. I’m the captain, so you’re all w under me~”

  “The word ‘delusional’ doesn’t even begin to describe you.” Sonya sighed. “I took on this responsibility because I believe it suits me the best. That’s my way to tribute to the team.”

  “And, I’m very grateful for it,” Cato said. “You make my life at least ten times easier. Thank you for being such a helpful secretary~”

  “Hah…” Sonya couldn’t even find it in herself to retort anymore. Instead, somebody else spoke up.

  "Man, this dude be dodging responsibility like crazy," Ronald said. "Isn't it the captain's job to prepare these meetings and all that?"

  "I don't remember such a thing being specified anywhere in my employment tract," Cato said. "The way I see it, the captain's job is to assign the right person for the right job. And, there's nobody better at analyzing matches than our dear Theorist."

  “Oh.” Sonya blinked in surprise for a moment, then cleared her throat. You won’t get anything from sug up to me now.”

  “I would never. I’m just stating facts.”

  “Is that so.” As much as she didn’t want it, a smile crept up on Sonya’s face.

  "By the way," Cato tinued. "You're free to take a seat. I tinue from here."

  "Oh, thanks." Sonya returo her previous position, one from which it was much easier to deliver the rest of the presentation.

  Thinking ba it now, she put herself in an aosition for no reason by standing up. It was quite unusual for her to challehe demons of the stage of her own volition. Having so many eyes on her was rather stressful.

  I'm not even sure how well I delivered the message. Sonya wondered. I nearly missed some key details at first. Good thing inded me.

  Truly, lecturing on stage was not for her. Sonya was fih colleg data, expining it to others, and even reading it out loud in the meetings. However, standing in front of an audience was too nerve-wrag for her. It’s like the spotlight was trated wholly on her.

  I wonder if Vanishing also hates the spotlight? Maybe that’s why she pys the way she does.

  But, that was also jecture. For now, it was far more reasoo write Vanishing off as an inexperienced pyer with weak deaking. Hopefully, after pying against her in a real game, Sonya will be able to reveal more about this oddball.

  "So," Cato cpped once. "O thing about Vanishing and wards. Normally, you’d advise exerg caution even against rather uheories. So, is there any reason why you’re denying this particur theory so much?"

  "Yes, there is," Sonya replied without hesitation. Now that she was seated, a big load lifted off her shoulder and she could employ 100% of her usual braihat's how she remembered she actually prepared a ter-argument for this exact versation.

  "After you pointed out that her routes pyed around wards, I looked into the matter in more detail.”

  “As expected from my secretary~!”

  “... anyway, my clusion is that it’s impossible.”

  "Impossible?"

  "Yes, impossible. Vanishing couldn't possibly know the positions of most of these wards. Some of them were meta wards, but others were more niche choices that nobody would py around.”

  “How niche are we talking about here?”

  “Hmm.” Sonya knotted her brows. “I suppose most of them were still rather popur warding spots, just not the first choices you’d usually go for. Either way, it doesn’t sound sensible to me that somebody would go out of their y around all these warding options without any hints.”

  "I see," Cato said. "Thanks for cheg it out."

  "No problem."

  "Will, what do you think about this?" Cato asked.

  "I 't really tell," William admitted. "As you said, we don’t have enough footage of her games. But, if I had to go by my gut, I'd say this girl got something.”

  “Oh? Do eborate.”

  “She es across as a very sneaky pyer in general. So, sneaking past wards sounds up her alley.”

  "My thoughts exactly." Cato nodded. "The way she ‘sneaks’ past wards just fits too well into her profile. Her strong point is to sneak up to people, and pying around wards is what enables her to do it. But, that's just my intuition speaking."

  "Intuition..." Sonya mumbled. It was a word that never made any seo her.

  What exactly was "intuition"? Diaries defi as “an ability to uand or know something immediately based on your feelings rather than facts or reasoning”. That that sounded vague at best.

  It's not stifi the slightest. Sonya criticized.

  Why would intelligent creatures like humans even e up with a term like this? They should always operate based on facts and logic. That was the ideal way to solve problems.

  Adding vague feelings into the equation only clouded one’s perception of things and made them it terrible mistakes.

  Still, that 'intuition' thing of theirs hits the mark every now and then. Sonya debated against herself. Even though the cept was rather alien to her, she had to admit it had merit at times. On rare occasions, there were things that this "intuition" deduced correctly despite the ck of hard evidence.

  But, I argue it’s not so much “intuition” as it’s an “educated guess”.

  Cato and William were the logical types, so they'd never rely on a vague gut feeling without anything to support it. Their "intuition" roduct of their robust experiend game knowledge. Over the years, they developed the ability to "intuitively" grasp certain things that were difficult to expin with logic.

  "Alright." Sonya brought her notebook closer. "Since you both insist that Vanishing py around wards, I'll add it to the list of things we have to look out for."

  "It's just a little bit of extra caution," Cato reassured. "Vanishing strikes me as Stratus' wild card, so we have to be extra careful about how we handle her. If we don’t watch out, she might pull the rug from under our feet."

  "I agree,” Sonya said.

  "To minimize her ces of surprising us," Cato tinued. "We have to make sure somebody always keeps tabs ohat person will be responsible for warning others about the possibility of ining danger."

  The most dangerous element about Vanishing was the way she made her oppos fet about her existehat, bined with the fact she rarely allowed wards to expose her position, made it very easy to lose track of her during the game.

  As such, it was necessary to assign a watchdog whose job would be to keep tabs on Vanishing throughout the entire game.

  "I hahis job when I'm the Jungler," Cato said. "But, I'm not sure I'll be able to do it as a Support. Especially, not against this team's Bot duo."

  "I be in charge of Vanishing in both lineups," Sonya volunteered.

  "My, are you sure? Fog on Vanishing means you have to sacrifice the rest of your map awareo some degree."

  "I keep tabs on her while maintaining my usual map awareness. It shouldn't be that hard."

  I feel like she's uimating this problem. iled wryly. Well, I kinda get where she's ing from. Even I think I sound a little paranoid about this whole topic. But, better safe than sorry.

  It was questionable how well Sonya uood the gravity of the matter. For her, Vanishing wasn't anything special. As far as she was ed, the only reason Vanishing successfully snuck up to so many people was because they “cked map awareness”.

  It wasn't wrong per se but it wasn't the eruth either. These pyers found themselves ganked by Vanishing time and again. Perhaps they weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, but they were heless pyers with adequate experience. So, they should have adapted to the situation and started paying more attention to Vanishing.

  But, they didn’t. At least, their as didn’t show any indication of any such adaptation. It meant Vanishing had some true expertise at disappearing and delivering ued ganks. Therefore, caution was required.

  Just because the Leopards had strong pyers with a solid map awareness, it didn't mean Vanishing wouldn’t be able to surprise them at all. After all, nobody here ro level, save maybe for the Emperor.

  Holy, it’ll be a riot if Vanishing sneaks up to that arrogant brat~ Cato snickered. But, that's not going to happen. They won't eveo py each other in the scrimmage.

  After Cato, the best person for keeping track of Vanishing was undoubtedly Sonya. She possessed the necessary analytical skills for reading the map's data at any given time, so she won't lose track of anybody no matter how low profile they were. The same way Cato trahe map to a chessboard, Sonya read it up like a book.

  However, that strong point of Sonya was also one of her weaknesses. She was so serious about maintaining map awarehat she won't five herself for missing aails, no matter how small. Therefore, no matter what she says, she won’t permit herself to give Vanishing any special treatment.

  Sonya might be able to force herself to give that phantom a little more attention than others, but she’d surely insist to keep examining and analyzing the rest of the map as well. As a result, her attention will be split across the entire board and she might let Vanishing slip past her.

  Isn't there anybody else who hahis? Cato g the rest of the room.

  Matthew couldn't do that in Lineup A because he was the Carry. The duo of Chess & Gunz won't give him a moment’s rest, the same problem Cato had in that lineup as the Support.

  Then, Ronald? No way. That kid had the attention span of a goldfish. If anything, he had the greatest ce of being one of Vanishing’s victims.

  The st option was William, but the older brother was almost as dubious as the younger on this matter, albeit in the opposite manner. His map awareness was airtight, but it wasn't a "global" one.

  While Cato and Sonya analyzed the entire board for the sake of the team, William focused only on matters that were important for his personal needs. Therefore, he might ft-out ignore anything that wasn't directly reted to him.

  He hasn't offered to take on this job either. Cato thought. It meaher doesn't want to do it or that he knows he might not be up to the task.

  In the end, there were no other viable alternatives. Sonya will have to hahe trag role in Lineup A, whereas Cato will be in charge of it for Lineup B.

  With that decided, the discussion moved on to Beat, the female captain of Taurus.

  DarkestCymore