Genius Archer's Streaming

Honestly, games were eighty percent talent. Effort would eventually hit a fixed ceiling. Generally, that ceiling was diamond rank. For some people, it was platinum. For others, gold. In LIL parlance, this was commonly called BSG (bronze, silver, gold).

The implication being that all three were the same. Effectively, it was an insult. Even gold was looked down on, yet some players bled to reach gold.

Some called it unfair. Why were they bad at games? Why did the world run on talent? This was actually nothing to feel unfair about. Nobody felt cheated for being unable to dunk a basketball.

Games were the same. Would someone feel cheated for not making it as a professional gamer? Every person had things they could and couldn't do. The true cases of unfairness were actually like Orange King right now.

'What... why... who are these people?'

Orange King knew he was good at LIL. He had believed that for over ten years since the era of PC cafes. However, he began to feel the possibility of being wrong now.

[An ally has been eliminated.]

[Ground → Bubblegum]

[An ally has been eliminated.]

[Ground → BornToB]

He stared at the names on the screen with a blank expression. Were they genuinely the same species? Did they actually possess intelligence? Why were they dying to the ground?

'Is this... LIL?'

Was this the LIL he knew? These questions churned through Orange King's head.

— lmaooooo After only ever watching pros and then seeing this! Disorienting right?

— Orange King's expression lmaooo

— The face of someone who went from Military Police HQ to the Survey Corps

— lmaooo so funny

Professional gamers were so good at games that they made it their livelihood. Naturally, their talent was top-tier. Even LIL Champions Tier 2 and 3 trainees had never once been bad at games in their lives. To these people, BSG almost didn’t exist. They started at gold and moved to platinum immediately.

A gold rank cost some players their entire lives, but the talented merely started there. They were a completely different breed, yet this talent also made them weaker in some ways.

"Orange King! Revive the rune spirits! What are you doing?!" Lemon shouted right next to him.

Orange King's legs had locked up. His tolerance for mindless entities like these was low. Like a man who'd spent his life playing chess in a tailored suit and drinking whiskey, he suddenly found himself on a battlefield with live fire.

— ??? EMERGENCY!!

— lmaooo freezing up in front of real talent

— Hey, is this your first time in the Survey Corps?

— What? Lagging?

— lmaooooo

“Pfft.” Almond watched Orange King's reaction and smiled.

‘Cookie was right.’

During the Civil Empire tournament, Cookie had told him.

'If you ask why we train... I always answer like this. So that when an opponent thrusts a spear to the right, you can dodge left.'

It was too obvious a statement.

'Training is what makes it possible to execute the obvious. If you look at famous operations in military history, there's actually very little in the way of elaborate psychological warfare or back-and-forth.'

Actual wars were won by impressive strategy less often than people thought.

'When the enemy comes, the ambush force circles around and attacks from behind. Simple tactics like this delivered overwhelming victories. Why?'

In actual combat conditions, everyone would freeze and blank out. Even slightly complex operations became impossible to execute, which was why training was necessary.

'Orange King has trained. That's true...'

He had been a trained fighter. Despite being surprised by the BSG world, he could just let his muscle memory carry him.

'Not anymore.'

What his body remembered right now was only this.

"EMERGENCY!!"

— LOL

— Hahahaha

— lmaooooo

— So this is what he does in the end

— Instantly switching to commentary mode lmao

He transformed into a human emergency siren.

Boom!

Almond had already revived all the rune spirits.

"EMERGENCY!" Orange King just shouted emergency.

Almond walked over and grabbed his shoulders. "Teacher!"

"Uh... yes?"

"Please give the calls!"

Almond knew full well that Orange King was panicking.

— Did you come here to rage-bait him

— The call is EMERGENCY

— lmaooo he's just shouting emergency, but you want calls??

— lmaooooo having a great time

Viewers seemed to think Almond was just asking to annoy him.

Almond was genuinely serious.

'I need to verify it.'

He needed to verify Orange King's theory. Could the textbook approach that Orange King proposed actually function in a situation like this? He was curious.

"You had the route planned from up top, right?"

"Th-that's right." Orange King quickly closed his eyes.

Getting those two trolls out of his field of vision seemed like the only way to recover focus.

'Ugh... my brain circuits are going to burn out.'

A veteran professional's brain always imagined multiple what-ifs even while following one path. What gains were possible, what disasters could break out, and whether it was worth the upside even if disaster struck.

'Damn.'

Orange King's eyes snapped open.

"Nothing."

"Pardon?"

Orange King's eyes began trembling.

The eyes of someone who had visited hundreds of parallel universes. Every route he'd mapped out ended in defeat.

"Whatever we do... whatever we do! Those two are going to DIE!!"

Orange King pointed at BornToB and Bubblegum.

"Those, those things exist to die! They're not living people! Ghosts... they're GHOSTS!"

— lmaooooooooooo

— How many universes did he visit??

— Is he Doctor Strange??

— lmaooo genuinely looks like he just watched a horror movie

— So funny

— To be fair, they die without doing anything and it starts that way

— If they die to the ground, how fast must they die to actual players...

According to the original concept, BornToB and Bubblegum were supposed to be laughing and taunting.

'That bad, really?'

'Oh. Damn...'

They actually felt a little hurt at being considered that terrible.

***

A little while later, Orange King pulled himself together and guided the team properly again.

"This area's Abyss fish are all cleared. We catch up step by step, starting from the small stuff."

They followed the textbook route and steadily leveled.

"We'll avoid other teams as much as possible."

Orange King chose the most defensive variant of the standard approach. He essentially believed that they couldn't win in an engagement. If a fight broke out and they lost?

'Two people already died. We can't afford more time lost.'

If they ran into another team and got driven out of the area, they'd lose all the time invested and have to build a completely new route. It’d be a major loss. He focused intensely, looking for traces of other teams.

"Someone came through here."

Footprints took the shape of broken grass with drag marks through dusty rubble. Every sense was deployed.

"Alright, we'll go this way."

Orange King identified where enemy traces were absent and built out a low-risk defensive route. He cleanly gave up the Red Turtle and Shark route early on too.

"Then, what exactly are we doing? Aren't we just barely staying alive?"

— Fr lmaooo

— What even is this??

— Gandhi meta lmaooo

"Barely staying alive means winning in Survival mode, Almond."

"Ah..." Almond had a new realization. "Is that right?"

— lmaooooo you didn't know??

— Just figured that out??

— That's literally just coward gameplay lmaooo

— fr lmaooo

— He never did the Gandhi meta because he just... didn't know?? lmaooo

— LOL

Even in Battle Large, a classic battle royale, Almond had always played the Lu Bu style. This meant killing every enemy to end the game fast.

He had treated LIL the same. No, he was actually even more aggressive. With the incredible superpowers in LIL, he never once imagined just hiding and barely breathing. That actually turned out to be the core of this game!

'That's why Sweet Radish always went for the stable approach.'

Staying alive meant winning. This was Survival mode’s core premise. Sweet Radish had been much more passive because of this mode's particular nature.

"So, our goal is to farm the Abyss Squid as fast as possible instead of the Shark. Around the mid-game, we’ll initiate a fight against whoever took the Shark."

Orange King's bigger picture began taking shape, but an unexpected element wanted to test him.

[Rune Box]

By the book, the first contract usually went to a tank or bruiser-type first.

'Wait.'

The early tank role was quite important. A skilled player was needed, but Almond couldn't do it.

"Lemon? Can you tank?"

"Oh, I..." Lemon hesitated. "I specialize in utility support... Hm..."

Bubblegum raised his hand. "I'll do it!"

He certainly specialized in being a tank, but having Bubblegum as the first champion?

Even Almond chimed in. "No, I'll play Raina. That's safer. This way, we can't do anything in a fight."

Orange King made a decision.

Whoosh!

[Spearmancer Sardin]

He picked himself as the bruiser.

— lmaooooo straight to it

— At least answer before picking

— lmaooooo

— Just straight pick

He didn’t give them any particular explanation.

"Let's go." Orange King moved toward the next route.

At this, Almond said, "Second quiz. Which position should I contract first?"

— ?

— ??

— lmaooooo what the

— The second lesson~

— Quiz show of death lmaooo

— Sulking because you didn't get picked?

— I can see the ending from here...

He said it on the full channel where Orange King and everyone could hear.

Orange King had no choice but to push back. "No! Carries don't output efficiently in the early to mid game! The standard is to transition in the late game! Nothing has happened yet! Why would we suddenly need a carry now!!"

"No, teacher, I was just asking for review purposes."

"... Is that so?"

— Right

— No chance

— Obviously lying

— lmaooooo

Whoooooosh!

Suddenly, a fireball came flying.

"Oh no, oh no!"

Enemies who had gotten ahead on the path could be avoided, but enemies who had been following from behind couldn't.

Crash!

A fireball buried itself in the middle of their formation.

"AGGHHHHHH!? EMERGENCY!!" Bubblegum shouted instead of Orange King.

He could only hold up his shield because the opponent was too fast.

"Oh no!? Assassin! AN ASSASSIN CHAMPION!!!"

Slaaaaaash!

Someone took a massive slash.

— Of course...

— Oh no

— Assassin first lmao

— We're done

***

[Beginner’s Tip: There are countless ways to survive. There is no correct answer. Only those who have survived are the correct answer.]

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