It’s not that kind of malicious broadcast

It had been an exhilarating victory.

Being called for the MVP interview felt a bit burdensome, but it was worth enduring. The joy of winning a team game was different from that of solo rank victories.

It wasn’t just because I had shown the world that a logger didn’t belong on the battlefield. Admittedly, there was a bit of personal motivation mixed in, but it was all for the greater good. My teammates would understand.

Except for one, everyone was elated.

Anyway. Objectively speaking, targeting Esmaki was the surest way to win the game. Even if it hadn’t been a warrior, I might have still targeted him. In team games, shaking the main order around by the collar was a shortcut to an easy victory.

Unlike in solo rank, revealing who the main order was made this strategy possible in team games.

Whether it was the captain or the team leader—being human meant that dying repeatedly would eventually break their mental state.

No matter how much of a team game it was, issuing commands while sporting a 1 kill 6 death score and facing constant death was nearly impossible without considerable training. Whether it was because they were struggling to survive themselves or felt embarrassed in front of their team members.

Besides, KoK was not a game that made ordering easy. Even setting aside the incredibly unfriendly mini-map, the leader had to combine the briefings of the teammates and make decisions while physically clashing with the enemy right in front of them.

It was a position where one had to endure extreme stress even in the best scenarios. And to keep issuing orders while facing infinite deaths and endless threats of assassination from behind?

Just not mixing personal anger and frustration into the orders already demonstrated a top-tier mental fortitude. While it was unclear how Esmaki had handled it, one could infer from the broken movements of the opposing team from the latter half of the first match.

Since it was broadcasted, he probably didn’t explode in anger but might have clammed up. Executing a meticulously planned game was attractive, but there was a unique thrill and pleasure in crushing the opponent’s plans to achieve victory. Imagining the opponent’s reactions was part of that fun.

Ah… come to think of it. Since it was a tournament, I might be able to check the voice chat of the opposing team later. At least one out of the six people would have likely streamed it.

Where could I find that?

Should I ask Ark later… or maybe Revan. Asking Ark for the opposing team’s voice chat might lead to her asking too many questions.

Anyway.

In many ways, I felt it was a good decision to participate in the competition.

Team name… Let’s just forget about that.

Regardless of anything else, at least the instigator would face due consequences. I was already a point ahead, and there was no way my mentee would miss out on the MVP title.

With a slightly generous heart, I leaned back in my chair, savoring the spreading sense of satisfaction. If it weren’t for the ongoing competition, I would have raised a toast.

Trying to soothe the slight regret, I lightly stretched my shoulders. Was I tense? I felt a bit stiff. Indeed, a potion to relax… No, never mind.

Personally, I believed a bit of doping could be beneficial even in games, but I was well aware that this wasn’t a widely accepted view. Especially not by Ark.

For some reason, at some point, she had become astonishingly good at discerning if I had been drinking. She was always like that, but her accuracy had skyrocketed since the day we drank together.

If I drank now, she would surely catch me… right?

Fingering my slightly dry lips, I turned the voice channels back on.

《Wow, LookAtMeNow team is no joke. Are they really the top contender…》

《We need to check our tactics. Since PadaPada is holding the sword and shield and standing in the top lane, it’s completely impenetrable…》

《It can be breached if we focus the firepower of the mage and archer. The problem then would be the bot lane being undefended… Perhaps it would be better if Guntak takes the great shield to the top lane and just stands there. We’ve practiced a lot for that.》

《I can definitely be a human barricade. Should I just endure, thinking I’m already dead? I practiced a lot of that with Coach Lee.》

《If the opponent projects firepower, it wouldn’t be enough just to endure… If Underground surfaces once and pierces the side, it could be the end for the top lane.》

《Let’s not be too scared! The opposing knight might not even come out. And in the underground, our teacher wins it all. No one can get past him.》

《StarPork, you seem like you’re serving a cult leader rather than a coach. You should file a compensation claim with the organizers later.》

《It’s blasphemy.》

《Look.》

The team members seemed to be watching the second game together. Looking at the status board at the top of the broadcast screen, the Old Man and the Sea team, which had taken the first set, had already dominated the central stronghold in the second set as well.

Considering that they had heard the caster’s comment about starting the first set barely 40 minutes ago, it wasn’t incomprehensible that the team members were in shock and horror.

Maybe it was because the positions were jumbled… Well, it didn’t seem like a difference that could be explained just by that variable.

From the perspective of an audience member watching the broadcast, it was clear within less than five minutes that this was a game with a predictable outcome.

It was an unbalanced matchup from the start. The gap in skill between the two teams was greater than the severe score difference that had emerged in just ten minutes.

In fact, there’s nothing more disastrous in such tournaments than one-sided results due to a failure in balancing the teams. Therefore, the organizers must have tried their best to balance the teams…

Perhaps, having heard the high-tier players say that the skill difference between Diamond and Master is unimaginable, they thought having two mentors at the Diamond level would be enough.

They didn’t seem to understand the gap between a “broadcaster who plays games somewhat” and a “former pro.”

This was the result. On a quick glance, the official broadcast chat was flooded with familiar flame emojis. It probably signified complaints about the balance.

Dodat was doing his best to move swiftly between underground and surface level to cover the popping holes… but it was already clear who our final match opponent would be.

While folding away the dream that the final stage might be decorated with a grand showdown of rogue vs rogue, the screen zoomed in on the knight who was the root cause.

A sword-and-shield knight wielded a longsword about a meter long, equipped with a medium-sized buckler on his left arm. The full-plate armor, which looked thick at a glance, showed well what the weight secured by the relatively light weapons was used for.

The faint halo suggested that he had even taken a holy recovery trait that allowed self-healing.

It was a simple and standard sword-and-shield plate armor build often recommended to newcomers in KoK. It had a good balance of offense and defense, and the armor could withstand a few stray arrows.

Of course, the gear resonated differently with me.

A self-healing sword-and-shield plate armor build. In other words, it was a “You’re a scrub compared to me” build. It’s a stable setup adopted with the mindset that, unless there’s an unexpected variable, I would never lose to someone like you.

The fact that beginners were subtly fond of this setup made it all the more insidious. Creating smurf accounts to linger in low ranks, acting like “Oh, I’m just an innocent newbie”, and then pouncing on suitable prey to toy with them at the right moment.

On the contrary, the same setting was also frequently used in undercover patrol cars to apprehend such crooks… Around season 6, it wasn’t uncommon to see two bumbling Holy Knights missing basic attacks during a standoff, only for one to suddenly execute a dazzling combo, causing the other to flail with just evasion and parrying, resulting in a slapstick comedy act.

Anyway, to summarize: it was an unremarkable build taken to battlefields only when one was certain the opponent’s level was significantly lower. While it was stable, it was hard to gain an advantage unless there was a substantial difference in basic skills.

Rarely, there were some eccentric individuals who made it their main build… but as far as I could confirm, PadaPada wasn’t one of them. Therefore, the only thing evident from that Holy Knight’s behavior was one thing.

“They’re ignoring us.”

《Ah! Teacher! Were you watching? PadaPada is no joke.》

《Stop ignoring the viewers and start the broadcast. How many chats are there looking for someone who isn’t in the official broadcast right now?》

The chatting voice of StarPork overlapped with a disgruntled lower tone.

… Looks like Revan was pretty upset. Losing the MVP in the semifinals bothered him that much?

It shouldn’t bother him so much already. Various thoughts bounced around my head, but as a winner and an adult, I decided to show some tolerance. Not because of Ark’s cam screen suddenly zooming in—really.

I turned off Ark’s broadcast and maximized the official broadcast screen. Focus on the game. Perhaps a way to target the opponent would come to mind.

Just then, the observer was focusing on PadaPada. A Holy Knight standing alone, like a mountain, fending off several opponents. Caught on the edges of the screen framing the Holy Knight like a protagonist, another speeding moth was seen darting in.

A familiar hood and a dagger.

It was Dodat.

“It’s Dodat… Is Dodat’s broadcast also not allowing chats? I want to cheer.”

《Yes. Only the official broadcast allows chatting.》

“Hmm… The official broadcast is a bit… Seems like they would ban if I post ASCII art.”

《Wouldn’t Dodat’s broadcast be the same?》