CH 216

216 – After the match

April 26, 2022

After the second-round end.

“I was too rash. I almost got eaten by those guys.”

Such words were heard from the waiting room of the invited team [Cheese Shock], which was in the same match as HEROES.

Parmesan, the leader. The ace, Melory. Cheddar who mainly good with long-range weapons. And Mascar, the heart of the party.

[Cheese Shock] is a well-known team in the Zero Wars VR community.

“No, Leader, that wasn’t almost. You totally got rolled just now! So, that was the real Suupaa… anyway. How did they recruit her?” Mascar ask.

“Dunno, probably due to Rinne’s network.” Said Parmesan.

“I’ve never been in a fight with Suupaa before, so even though I got beat up, I have to admit it was a lot of fun.”

As the air became a bit gloomy, Cheddar laughed out loud.

“Say Cheddar, are you seriously never played with Suupaa before?”

“I’m not raising my rank in a normal match, so yeah. So, Mascar, have you fought her before?”

“Fufufu, Of course! I haven’t!”

“Don’t say it as if you already did it then!”

“I’ve seen a lot of videos about her tho.”

“Are we doing stand-up now?”

Thanks to the banter between Mascar and Cheddar, the atmosphere in the waiting room is completely lively again.

This is the power of an experienced team. There is no need to bootlick each other, but a friendly atmosphere is necessary to keep the team as a whole.

“So, leader, what do you think? What are you going to do now?”

Cheddar asks Parmesan to get back on their subject.

“Yeah, this is difficult. It’s painful to have that girl in the main competition.”

“Suupaa alone is enough to decimate us, and what’s with her trick shot, I don’t think I can win a mind game against her.”

“The match results show 26 solo kills. Considering there were 48 of us and 4 of them, they could only get a maximum of 44 kills. So it’s 26 out of 44? Which means more than half of us have been dropped by one person? This is just doesn’t make any sense.”

Cheddar shudders at Suupaa’s crazy record.

Cheddar’s highest kill is 14. This was the record she set in a 96-player match when she was playing solo, and at the time, she was in such great shape that she didn’t feel like he could lose no matter what she did.

“The sight of Supaa’s [Ritu] running past me with AA activated was unforgettably vivid, and I didn’t feel that I could hit her.”

“I knew the rumors about Suupaa, but I didn’t know there was this much of a difference between us.”

“What the heck, Cheddar. You’re so optimistic.”

“There’s no use of being a pessimist about it. Anyway, I was looking at the results of HEROES. Suupaa’s total damage received was over 5100, but in contrast, Rinne’s total was zero.”

“Hee. Well, since Suupaa was so violent, maybe Rinne didn’t have any work to do?”

“No, it’s just that she didn’t even get hit at all. Even though Suupaa was clearly outshone her comrades, they were working as a team, right? Isn’t it strange that she ran into the enemy so much and they didn’t deal any damage to Rinne?”

“I’m not saying that’s impossible, but sure, it’s a little strange.”

Parmesan also confirmed Suupaa’s record.

Suupaa’s teammates seem to be properly following her leads. But their record is worlds apart.

It is true that everyone was amazed by Suupaa’s [Ritu], but that does not mean that his teammates were free.

If anything, they were under a fair amount of fire, enough to make them a beehive.

“Oh well, sometimes you just don’t get hit by accident, and maybe they were using a frying pan.” {PUBG reference?}

“I guess so. Sorry, I said something useless.”

“Worry not worry not. So, what were we talking about?”

“I’m talking about how to counter Suupaa. Even if we don’t win the main tournament, if we could proceed to the finals, we will surely face her again.”

For the second round and the main competition, the top three teams will be entitled to advance to the next stage.

Because of this, the main tournament will be divided into four blocks, so the teams will not necessarily be in the same block as HEROES, which has Suupaa.

However, if they could go to the finals, they would almost certainly be competing against HEROES. And looking at their performance up to this point, they could not imagine HEROES being eliminated from the main tournament.

Only the top two teams will make it through the finals and qualify for the WGCS.

HEROES is almost guaranteed, and the other teams will do everything they can to get there.

That’s how valuable it is to participate in the WGCS.

“It’s still possible to run from her, right?”

“But that would make us an easy target for other teams. Besides, survival alone is not enough in the main tournament.”

“What about asking other teams to join forces? An alliance to crush HEROES! Something like that, you know?”

“That’s not very realistic either.”

While Cheddar, Mascar, and Parmesan were seriously worrying, a girl suddenly stood up.

It was Melory, the team’s ace, who had not spoken a single word up to this point.

“Melory. What’s wrong?”

“I can’t stop you all from worrying. But… we just have to do what we always do.”

It’s not that it doesn’t matter.

Melody, what she felt was not confusion, the feeling of frustration at not being able to scratch Suupaa was intense. It was so intense, that it had silenced her until now.

But that doesn’t mean there is nothing she can do.

After all, the only way to beat a good player is to surround and destroy them, but to put it another way; you could say that [Cheese Shock] is not a strong team in this tournament.

They are at the pro level but not as good as the top pros. They are a team that could be described as a mid-tier team.

They cannot afford to be so preoccupied with HEROES alone. All the players they will face are all formidable enemies and rivals.

“……Well, you’re right. In the first place, there are many teams that are better than us. The impact of Suupaa was so big that we were blinded by it.”

“It’s the last local tournament, after all. Everyone is so motivated! Ah, but if there had been a [Tenchi Shinmei], they could have cannibalized us!”

“Ahaha, that’s for sure.”

Cheddar laughed and nodded at Mascar resentment to the team [Tenchi Shinmei], which was called the strongest in the Zero Wars VR pro scene and had already won another tournament and was set to participate in the WGCS.

It is still too early to give up. Their fighting spirit remains undiminished.

From here on out, it is not about making memories but a clash of wills and pride.

They are more fired up than ever before to face the fierce competition from players aiming for the world.

☆☆☆☆

In the car on the way home.

“zzzz….zzzzzzz…”

With cotton candy in one hand, a candy apple in the other, and a Ritu character mask on her head, Suu-chan is now sleeping.

“She’s fast…”

“I wonder if she’s really asleep.”

“There’s no sign of her waking up, so I’m sure she’s sleeping…”

“I guess she’s tired because she got too excited, and she finally enjoyed herself at the food stalls.”

“Indeed, Suu-chan seemed to be having fun in those stalls.”

“Yeah.”

After the match, Suu-chan and I went around the stalls of the event.

Originally, Suu-chan was supposed to visit those booths with Touka-chan, but it turns out that Touka-chan became too busy after that event, so she couldn’t accompany her.

Touka-chan and Rin-chan’s appearance stood out, so they quickly went to the car and became decoy for our sake.

After they got to the car, Suu-chan and I wandered around the festival food stalls. We were able to do it because our disguises managed to make us stand out less.

Our strategy seemed to work, and even though it only lasted about an hour, we were able to enjoy looking around the stalls.

Cotton candy, apple candy, and masks were the spoils of war. We were going to eat them in the car, but Suu-chan fell asleep before we could do that, so here we are.

“Ufufu… I can…. enuff…. still… kill you! “

Suu-chan did some sleep talk while waving her candy apple a little.

“That’s a disturbing sleep talk, isn’t it?

“I wonder if she’s playing games even in her dreams… and, Suu-chan, didn’t you just say ‘I’?” {polite form, aka. ‘Watashi’, she usually use ‘Boku’}

“Oh… right. let’s pretend we didn’t hear that.”

“…un, okay.”

Suu-chan usually referred to herself as ‘Boku’, and I guessed I shouldn’t dig deeper from Rin-chan’s hint.

Well, so she’s that kind too. Suu-chan must be ‘playing her role’ when she speaks.

But A-chan, Himiko, and Haruru also roleplayed their character, so it’s not that big deal.

Roleplaying in front of strangers is not that unusual.

When I’m streaming, I become 20% more serious than my usual self. So I guess I was too.

Long story short, Suu-chan didn’t use ‘Boku’ in her original speech, nothing to worry about.

“By the way, what are we going to do after this? Do we go home and rest?”

“I’d love to do some team practice, but I’m not sure we are ready for that. Also, Nana has some things she has to do first.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Turn off your phone airplane mode, you had it on the whole time for this event right, right? try to turn it off now.”

“okay? …WH–!!”

As soon as I turned off the airplane mode as Rin-chan told me, my phone’s notification started to ring fiercely.

The vibrations were quite intense, and I felt like a swarm of bees had landed on my hand.

The notifications were being sent by apps that I had never used before. I had only added it at Rin-chan’s request. I still don’t really know what kind of apps they are since I only use my phone for phone calls and browsing the Internet.

But clearly, this is strange…, and the number displayed above the apps is becoming blanks. I could only guess that there seemed to be more notifications than the display could handle.

“What the hell.”

“I told you before the game that Nana’s fame over social media is exploding, hence why you got that stupid number of notifications.”

“Wow… Woahh, I have over 50,000 followers…”

“How much were you originally?”

“I don’t think there were around 10,000 people. I don’t really remember.”

During that chatting session after my battle with Moon Wolf, Rin-chan was streaming my sleeping face without my permission, and as a result, my channel’s followers grew overnight.

Among Rin-chan’s stream, her [just chat] session is relatively crowded if you compare it to her WLO session, but that’s simply because the number of WLO players is still minimal.

That being said, after that [just chat] session, the increase in my followers number is so significant that it dwarfed the number of followers I gained after my collab.

And if we talk about this time increase, it’s even more extraordinary.

And it’s still increasing. The notification didn’t give any sign that it will stop anytime soon.

I remember that I had learned the terms for this phenomenon, it’s called…

“So this is BUZZER!”

“Nana, that’s a very old-fashioned way to call it.”

“eh?”

I was stunned at the shocking fact. Touka-chan patted me on the shoulder silently as if to comfort me.

No, no, don’t look at me like I’m miserable.

“So, why has it’s become like this?”

“I had my staff put out the fires, but it spread faster than I excepted. Things got a little more exciting than I had imagined. Well, since we’ve come to this point, we might as well take a leap of faith here.”

“What do you mean?”

“We will do an explanation press conference, or perhaps it is more appropriate to call it [Unpacking Stream].”

“Nn?”

Honestly, I was lost about this, but Rin-chan had a broad smile on her face, and it seemed that she was enjoying this situation a lot.

===*

A note:

Melory-kun used to play under the name “Gorugon Zoora” until two years ago.

By the way, Nana only got two kills in this match. She forced a lot of [down state], but the enemy constantly gets revived, so she didn’t get as many kills as she hoped.