Chapter 92

Kato Mikane.

What was the way to elevate her status, already a world-class player, even further?

It was interviews.

In truth, Kato’s Performance was already flawless.

It was incredibly difficult for a player who could dive into the middle of the enemy team, spin through a gun-kata, and come out alive to get any better at the game.

So, I decided to try and fill in the other parts.

Because this Olympics was a tournament the whole world would be watching.

If Kato received even more attention here, her value would continue to rise.

What would happen if her value as a player rose even more from here?

Perhaps Japan wouldn’t even think of casting her out.

And of course, the fans wouldn’t want her to leave the industry for the ridiculous reason of family problems.

To do that, it was necessary to once again affirm what kind of value Kato Mikane held as a player.

Especially since in this tournament, Kato was not participating as the Leader of Team Kamui, but as a representative of Japan.

I was planning to use various methods to make all the people of Japan fall in love with her during this Olympics.

So that no matter what articles came out about government pressure or what have you, the fans would never let go of her hand.

‘I’m trying all sorts of things. Me, of all people.’

I hadn’t even finished making a Korean Superstar, and now I was in a situation where I was helping to make a Japanese Superstar.

I wondered if this was the right thing for me to be doing, but for now, helping Kato was also the way to help myself.

First of all, I had to survive, didn’t I?

As long as I was alive, I would be able to do many more things in the future.

The match began.

The opponent was Egypt, and the Starting Lineup consisted of five members from Team Kamui, including myself.

Nakano Ui (Attacker, 21), who was drafted from Team Fairies, was on the Bench.

It seemed she hadn’t had high expectations of being in the Starting Lineup in the first place.

Seeing how she showed little interest in the starting position while adjusting to the time difference and focused on getting along with the other players, that much was clear.

But contrary to her expectations, she wasn’t scheduled to have no opportunities to shine in the Olympics at all.

In fact, it was quite the opposite.

Unlike the UA Pro League, which was a long-term race spanning several months, the Olympics had slightly different rules.

It was about Substitution.

Until now, UA League teams preferred to run their teams with a five-person system.

This was because trying to run a Sixth Man would just make the team members mentally exhausted from competing with each other, and the Annual Salary for the team composition would also increase.

Not a few teams thought it was a waste to spend a lot of money to have one more player just in case a Starting Player fell into a Slump.

This was because of the league regulation that required the Entry to be finalized before the match.

UA’s Entry Registration is done on a daily basis.

So, it was impossible to substitute a player with another just because they were underperforming after a Set.

This regulation was the main reason why teams were reluctant to have a Sixth Man, but this Olympics was different.

A new rule was introduced that allowed players to be substituted during a Set.

UA is a game that consumes a considerable amount of Stamina.

Of course, it wasn’t that one’s real body actually got tired, but at least while playing the game, one would be out of breath as if running across a real Battlefield.

There were countless times when my body didn’t feel like my own after fighting a fierce 3-Set battle.

In fact, players who dry-heaved in the middle of a game because it was too hard occasionally appeared even in the Pro Scene.

Not that anything from their stomachs actually came out of their mouths, though.

Anyway, in the Olympics, it was possible to use a Substitution card to replace a player when they were so exhausted that their range of activity was noticeably reduced.

If it became a Full Set Close Battle, there was a high probability that Director Ikeda would substitute one of us with Nakano Ui.

No matter how strong the Japanese national team was, it was likely that there would be a few games that went to 3 Sets when facing a strong team, so I took her with me every time we trained and helped her adapt to the team’s tactics.

Nakano seemed to quite welcome this help from me.

No, rather than welcoming it… it might be more accurate to say she was a little awestruck.

“Ka-Kato Unni is… teaching me the game!”

Judging by her reaction, it seemed she thought being taught by Kato was the Glory of her family.

Leaving Nakano, who remained on the Bench on standby, behind, I gathered the players.

Waiting Room.

As the players who had to go out to the Battlefield soon gathered, a question came my way.

“Unni, are you really going to go with that?”

The one who asked the question was the vice-Leader, Sasaki Sena.

She, who was responsible for the team’s Shield, seemed to have doubts about the Provocation I had made to the Egyptian team before the match.

“If we use last year’s World Championship Build as is, we’ll be vulnerable when the Debuffs come in.”

It wasn’t just that we were going to the same positions.

I had declared that I would crush them without changing a single Skill against the Egyptian team.

However, last year’s World Championship was before the New Meta from the update had begun, so now, half a year later, there were a few loopholes to exploit.

Sasaki Sena was concerned about that part.

But I said I would go with it as is.

Why? Because it’s cool.

Because I had to show that even as time changes and the Meta shifts, the player named Kato Mikane is irreplaceable.

At this, Sena looked like she couldn’t understand at all, but she eventually nodded and said she understood.

The owner of Kamui, and the owner of the national team, was still Kato Mikane.

The team members also decided to follow their Leader’s opinion, and so we charged into the Battlefield.

The 1st Set Battlefield was a Domination Battle.

It was the Atika Temple Battlefield, a desert temple filled with scorching heat.

‘Lucky.’

I don’t mean that we were lucky.

The luck of the first Set was with Egypt.

Because the Battlefield was Atika Temple.

Perhaps due to the hot and dry climate, there were many teams in Africa that particularly liked Atika Temple.

In particular, teams from the northern hemisphere, who rarely experience this kind of heat, tended to dislike the temple Battlefield.

‘Well, when it comes to heat, Japan is no slouch either.’

The Japanese summer I had only heard about was brutal.

It was to the point where I didn’t want to take a single step into a space without an air conditioner.

Perhaps because of the humidity, it was a particularly sticky summer, but Atika Temple had no humidity, so I even thought it was much better.

“Starting the Attack on the left.”

“Yes.”

At my command, the team members raised their Momentum to the fullest.

They had realized that I was really going to rehash last year’s strategy.

There were a total of three Routes to the Central Point in Atika Temple.

Going straight through the main central Route.

And two Routes approaching through the left or right temple ruins, which were two-story stone buildings.

Naturally, the time to reach the Control Point was faster by running straight through the center.

But in the case of this central Attack, there was a point that absolutely had to be addressed.

The passage running through the center was a straight line except for a few pillars, so there were many situations where one was exposed to enemy snipers.

Because of that, in battles between skilled teams, games would often be blown by a sniper shot from recklessly advancing through the center.

There were many cases where they suffered losses even if they tried to push through with a Defender.

Last year, when Atika Temple came up in the Finals, Japan mainly used the strategy of attacking the side passages.

Then there are two possible outcomes.

Either we run into each other in the passage, or we fight a fierce Engagement with each other across the narrow entrance…!

With Sena at the front, our team ran through the dark passage.

The first and second floors of the temple weren’t completely dark, as there were torches burning inside.

As the sound of footsteps echoed through the passage from all directions, I began to explain the strategy.

Talking while running made me more out of breath, but this much was bearable.

“You might not understand right now.”

“……”

“You’re probably wondering why I’m putting a restriction on myself by insisting on using an old, outdated tactic.”

There was no answer from the team members, but I could feel that they were all thinking that.

“But you know. Is that necessarily a weakness?”

“…The opponent knows how we’re going to play, so isn’t that a weakness?”

Haruna, the team’s Supporter, said.

But I shook my head.

“Haruna, you. If you know for sure that the opponent will run through the temple’s side passage, and to the left, how would you deal with it?”

“Well…”

If you know the direction the opponent will move, the main method used in UA is to aim at the direction the opponent will come out from and concentrate Firepower.

Because the opponent won’t be able to handle the Firepower pouring out from a fixed angle and will fall.

Usually, that’s how one would deal with it.

And Haruna answered that way too.

“You’re saying the enemy will be aiming for the path we take out of the temple’s middle passage to the Control Point?”

“Probably.”

“Is that really so?”

“Pardon?”

The time we were given after arriving in LA until the game started, one week.

We focused on resting our bodies and adjusting to the time difference during that time, but in the remaining time, we mainly put effort into analyzing the opponent’s strength.

Ahead of this tournament, Japan had separately formed and dispatched a Scouting Report team of as many as fifteen people to the site.

At this scale, it was no exaggeration to say that they had scraped together all the manpower, including the Ace-level Analysts that exist in each team of the Japanese First Division League.

So what do these fifteen people do?

They played the role of analyzing various data and Builds of the teams Japan would face and providing a summary to the players.

Well, whether to study it or not was up to the players.

When the first batch of data came out, the Analysts didn’t seem very motivated.

Because the team called Kamui was a team that didn’t know how to use it properly.

This wasn’t the first time Japan had formed a large-scale Scouting Report team.

In the last Asian Games, too, Japan had always invested generously in analyzing the opponent team’s strength.

However, this person named Kato Mikane was the type who didn’t particularly trust the Scouting Report provided by others.

No, rather than not trusting it, it should be said that she was the type who felt more satisfaction in creating the Builds herself.

The stance Kato Mikane had taken so far was, what’s the need to look at the vast amount of data presented by an Analyst with a headache when she wins all the games by entering with the Build she conceived in her head?

What’s the point if the player doesn’t look at it diligently, even if they pull all-nighters to carefully select the data?

So, the Analysts had no choice but to accept the association’s request, but there were surprisingly many people who thought they should just gloss over it and go back after seeing the sights in America.

But this time was different.

When the first analysis was finished, I requested it and absorbed the data from beginning to end, very cleanly.

“So, it’s certain that Samira Nabi is in charge of the Egyptian team’s Order this time, right?”

“…Yes.”

“Then could you please organize the Battlefield-specific tactics that player used in the team she was active in?”

At my request, the Analysts subtly showed their displeasure.

Just because she’s the Japanese representative, why is she bothering us by asking for data she won’t even look at?

But just one day after receiving the additional data, when I delivered my evaluation of the data, the atmosphere began to change.

“Did you really look at all of it?”

“I asked for it because I looked at it all. You can leave out the intentional Tanking Dispel strategy that Samira used in El Gouna GC. That’s a tactic that can’t be pulled off without player Amar from that team, and he was left out of the national team this time.”

“…What? Ah, yes.”

“Then please contact me when you’re ready.”

“…Yes!”

In truth, it was something that couldn’t be done without the help of the Analysts.

How on earth could I analyze all the league matches of another country by myself and extract all the Builds?

It was most efficient to leave this kind of thing to people and just snatch the core of it.

Of course, even if it was the core, it was a huge amount because it came from the hands of fifteen people.

Anyway, through this process, at this very moment, a summary of the New Meta tactics from the last First Half that Samira Nabi, who was in charge of the Egyptian team’s Order, had used was neatly stored in my head.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, it wasn’t that difficult to predict how the flow of the Battlefield would go.

As a result of predicting based on the data in my head, Haruna’s answer was close to wrong.

Expecting us to come out of the passage and preparing a shot was a tactic that would have been used last year at the latest.

Then what was the correct answer?

The answer was to crush us before we could get out of the temple.

‘There’s a high probability that Egypt will come out intending to bury us along with the temple.’

Of course, they might not.

But I was betting on Samira Nabi’s high Game IQ.

Her Order shown in the First Half League this year, the technique of collapsing a building in Atika Temple to deal damage to the opposing team, was very impressive.

Collapsing a building certainly consumes a lot of Mana, but the benefits that can be obtained if successful far surpassed it.

So, it could be said that the probability of the opponent using this tactic was very high.

Especially if they believed in the name value of Kato Mikane!

The image that a world-class player like Kato would keep her word.

Around the time the passage exit leading out of the temple got closer, I deliberately used the Blink Skill.

A super short-range Teleport, an Activation that invested the minimum Mana, where even if successful, my body would only slide forward a step or two.

If my body had succeeded in the Blink as it was, I would have been a little disappointed.

Because it would mean I was the only one who had been deluding myself in my head.

But!

My body didn’t move.

Only the Mana was drained, and my position remained the same.

What this meant was simple.

A TP Barrier that interferes with Blink was spread around.

At that moment, a small firework went off in my head.

My prediction was correct.

Egypt had come to greet us.

Putting up a TP Barrier, creating a state where we couldn’t get out, and with the resolve to bury us!

Surely on that second floor, Egyptian players who had gathered a great deal of Mana to collapse the building would be waiting.

I started counting numbers in my head and measuring the precarious Line, and just before we crossed that limit, I shouted loudly, “Stop!!!”

At the loud shout, the team members’ bodies lurched as they came to a sudden stop.

Everyone’s balance wavered as they tried to stop after running fast with Acceleration.

A look of bewilderment was all over the team members’ faces.

But there was no time to ask what was wrong.

Before that could happen, with a bang!, the building vibrated and the ceiling collapsed.

Clairvoyance, and Ambush.

Egypt, which had been tracking our movement path from above, began their Attack, descending from the ceiling at the same time as the building’s destruction.

The screams of the Spectators, who had been holding their breath, fiercely struck the Battlefield.

The Spectators, the Egyptian players, at this moment, they must have expected our team’s crushing defeat.

It was a picture where Japan, which had been running hard, would be crushed by the building, and all they had to do was clean up the groaning opponents.

But reality was different.

A Counter situation that I had created, by reading the opponent’s move.

Towards the Egyptian players who were aiming their Muzzles and descending through the falling rocks from the ceiling, I ordered an attack.

“Open fire!”

<Ooh…?>

The Kamui team members, who pour out attacks like a conditioned reflex just by hearing Kato’s command.

The team members, who had already gotten into position, poured bullets at the wide-eyed Egyptian team’s attack squad.

A fierce wave of fire.

The Egyptian attack squad’s Health Gauge was wiped away without a trace.