"elia, do not advany further after you kill the swordsmen," Fiona instructed. "There is no value in pig a fight here."

  “I’m afraid I disagree,” elia asserted. “This peasant had the gall to assault me in the previous round, so I must repay him in kind.”

  “He is merely taunting you. Do not fall for it.”

  “Hmph.” elia scoffed. “He is free to taunt me all he wants. I will make sure he regrets every st bit of it!”

  “I would like to remind you that your previous fights against him have not gone so smoothly.”

  “Hmph. I was still warming up back then,” elia argued. “Now, I’m fully ready to put this nobody in his pce!”

  “Do not do it,” Fiona implored. “It is too risky. Your oppo has proven himself adequate, so it is not wise to pick a fight against him without establishing a proper advantage first. You should retreat.”

  "What's that?” elia raised an eyebrow. “Are you telling me, a o run away!? Bsphemy! Bsphemy, I say!"

  As usual, this “noblewoman” was a tough er. Her pride always took over and made her needlessly engage her ne oppos in bat.

  As proven time and again, the enemy Knight was strohan her in 1v1 exges. However, elia insisted on denying that fact with every fiber of her being. And because of the girl's stubbornness, the uation in Top went from bad to worse as the game progressed.

  It was only a matter of time before the enemy quered the area entirely. And, it happened soohan even Fiona anticipated.

  "W-What!?" elia excimed. "Their Jungler is here!"

  "He is...?" Fiona was taken aback. I was sure he had departed to Bot Jungle by now...

  By Fiona’s and, the team had been keeping the jungle warded at all times. As such, she was aware that the enemy Viking had retly finished clearing all the camps in Top Jungle.

  From there, the man should have rotated to Bot Juhat was the optimal tinuation for this line of py.

  Instead, it seemed the Viking lingered in Top Jungle for a while. There should not have been anything of note for him to do there while he waited, yet he chose to wait it ardless.

  That was how the Viking mao appear on the of the blue and gang up on elia along with the Knight. Fiona pletely failed to anticipate this development. What a blunder.

  An ally has been killed!

  This message sighe end for Top Lane. Shortly, the tower followed in elia's footsteps.

  An allied Turret has beeroyed!

  This whole disaster took pce while Fiona was in the middle of rotating from Top Juo Bot Jungle. Less than a minute ago she was in Top, helping out elia. Then, shortly after she left, the enemy struck.

  Did they wait for me to leave? Fiona wondered. Just how long was their Jungler preparing for this py?

  Lying in wait for so long was far from effit. Fiona did not even sider this possibility due to how suboptimal the idea sounded. A, ultimately, the py proved quite effective.

  Then again, this only happened because elia did not tighten her defense as she should have. If she started retreating as soon as I asked her to, the gank would have lost most of its value.

  In that sario, the Viking would have had to pay the price for all the time he wasted idling. It was a high-risk high-reward line of py. The Viking pced all his eggs in one basket by banking so heavily on sg a kill.

  Sometimes, taking a risk was necessary in order to get a det payoff. However, this Viki all-in with this one py, which was not to Fiona’s taste.

  heless, the tactic worked for him this time, so he will certainly attempt it again iure, possibly in this very game. As such, Fiona had to be on the lookout for any simir ideas throughout the rest of the game.

  However, the enemy had no iion of givihe luxury to worry about such small things. After demolishing the Top Turret, the duo unched a coorditaid.

  From that point onward, the game was thrown into disarray and skirmishes happened across the map. The eeam had the initial momentum and it carried them the entire way through.

  The Valkyries were forced on the defehere was no choice but to retreat from nearly every fight, exging ne trol for survival.

  On her end, Fiona did everything in her power to salvage the situation. She assaulted key targets and instructed her teammates on how to best respond to the difficult sarios at hand. As...

  DEFEAT

  The team failed to recover from the ive momentum. They ma out the game for a while by tactically defending against the enemy's pushes, but only defending was never enough to win a game.

  As always, regardless of victory or defeat, the sg s showed up at the end of the game. Here, each pyer received or lost rank points based on their performance.

  The amount of points varied widely based on pyer rank. For example, elia was only at Gold II, therefore a loss like this did not affect her rank too much. Oher hand, Karen lost plenty of points as a Diamond II.

  Fiona tinum I, so her punishment should have been rather harsh as well. However, she mao earn some extra points to mitigate the losses. The game rewarded her handsomely for the amount of kills and assists she scored, in jun with how she had the highest GPM in the game despite being on the losing team.

  These bonuses were never enough to pletely erase the penalty of losing, but at least they mitigated the damage to Fiona's rank. It was thanks to such repeated mitigations that Fiona was still climbing up the ranks even as her team was stuck at a 50% win rate.

  This was both reassuring and ing at the same time. On one hand, it proved to Fiona that her performance was solid. Oher hand, it implied her team was struggling in this Diamond league.

  Was this outy fault in any way? Fiona re-raails of the mat her head. Were my shot-calls not good enough? Did I make any gring mistakes? Or, was it our teamwork? Of course, it could also be a differen our teams’ skill levels, though I do not want to believe that.

  These were difficult questions that alopped up. Most likely, the truth was somewhere iween all these possibilities.

  It was undeniable that Fiona's teammates needed a lot of polish, but she had plenty of room to improve as well. Not to mention, their teamwork was not nearly as solid as it could have been.

  Ierms, there were two main issues with the current team. Firstly, the pieces at Fiona's disposal were mostly pawns and knights’ they were in desperate need of an upgrade. Sedly, Fiona's tactics for these pieces were far from optimal.

  Worst of all, these two issues feed into each other. Fiona had realized that a while ago. It was difficult for her to e up with good tactics wheeammates were only at this level. The more they improved, the better Fiona could utilize them with her shot-calls.

  However, her teammates could shoot a simir argument back at her. It was harder for them to improve and build fidence when their shot-caller roviding a subpar strategy. However, nobody ever leveled supints against Fiona.

  "FIN!" Andria annouhe end of the tragic py. "This was a rough one. I was sure we were the heroes, the underdogs who’d e back from behind in the sed half. As, we failed. Such a twist ending!"

  "It's all because of elia," Karen accused. "I mean, it all started when she died ahe enemy push."

  "Excuse me!?" elia retaliated. "Do you io bme everything on me!? I don't recall YOU achieving anything in Bot!"

  "Yeaaaaah, it wasn’t my best performahat’s for sure," Karen admitted. "But, the situation retty even, right, Lua?"

  "E-Eh!?" Lua jumped. "Um, well, yes. We did okay, I think..."

  "You see?" Karen turo elia. "We were doing just fine in Bot, so this is clearly all your fault, haha!"

  "Y-Y-You darn plebeian! You dare to accuse me!?" As usual, elia and Karen started passing the bme around. It became a predictable routi this point.

  Fiona used to step in but she stopped b after a while. The girls used these fights to blow steam, so they were entirely without merit.

  Besides, Karen's analysis is correct. Fiona thought. The enemy's momentum iarted with the kill they scored in Top. However, as to whether this should be bmed on elia, that is a separate issue.

  As a newer to the world of video games, elia was naturally the weakest link ieam. Even Fiona had more months of experiender her belt, and she further boosted her skills through professional coag.

  I believe she has the knack for it, just as she does for other sports. However, as always, her skill tends to be unrefined...

  elia was always a difficult pyer, no matter the sport. In volleyball, her serves and spikes were intense enough to instill terror, but their aim was all over the pce.

  In addition, she was qui responding to developments and verting tosses into attacks. As, her selfishness often got in the way of teamwork, and she also cked for her fatigue, often burning herself out to the point of colpse.

  Simirly, in tennis, elia was the type to mindlessly dash from er to er to return the ball. She was qui her feet and her returns were solid, but she exerted all her energy without thinking twice.

  To win against her, all Fiona had to do was make the girl run around. No matter how strong elia's strokes were, it was all moot once she ran out of steam.

  sidering all that, I thought a video game would be the perfect sport for her as it does not pce as much burden on the body. But...

  Even in Cssmancers, elia's issues found a way to surface. Like always, she poured her absolute everything into the fights and exhausted herself, both mentally and physically. Apparently, she did not know the term "self-restraint".

  Fortunately, her stamina usually sted until practice was over. And, as far as petitive games were ed, elia could py three games in a row without much issue.

  However, five petitive games was a stretch for her. In the scrimmage against the Leopards, elia's performance dropped sharply from the 4th game onward. It was hard to even call it a "fair match" at that point. elia was actively dragging the eeam down by insisting she was “fine” and pushing herself to try pys that she clearly could not execute in that state.

  However, that was still a retively trifle issue when it came to elia’s skill in Cssmancers. The biggest problem was her neverending eagero "prove herself".

  Unlike in ball games, where a pyer could only make a big py when the ball was headed their way, in Cssmancers everybody had the freedom to act as they pleased at all times. For example, a pyer was always free to aggress on their ne oppo and push for kills to assert dominance.

  Unfortunately, elia was drunk on this very cept. The game allowed her to be assertive and aggressive at all times, so that was exactly what she did.

  Frankly, it was a headache to keep this “wild animal” at bay. Fiona frequently had to warn elia about not overextending, but it was never enough.

  In this game, the enemy must have figured out what kind of pyer she is. Fiona analyzed. That was why they targeted her specifically with the gank. They lured her in to turables on her. She is that easy to read.

  elia was the obvious weak link ieam. Even random oppos in Ranked could figure her out and strike accly. It was quite disheartening…

  This will only get that much worse in the petitive se. Fiona thought. Analysts like Yuel Fermond will e up with a hundred different ways to exploit a gring weakness like this.

  In general, any oppo with access to the Valkyries’ repys would figure out this obvious ot. It was a critical issue for the team to resolve, but Fiona was at a loss here.

  The most I do is keep pointing her in the right dire during matches aure her about any mistakes. But, that is easier said than done.

  Team sports were always a headache because of situations like these. It was impossible to form a proper team strategy when one of the pieces was malfuning.

  This is not chess, I khat much when I started out. Fiona thought. Even now, I ot think of a proper solution for this. I only keep honing my shot-calling skills in the hope of mitigating such issues.

  While she was busy analyzing all these important topics, Karen and elia kept bickering like children. Sigh. Was nobody going to stop them?

  I suppose I have to do it myself, after all… Fiona sighed and approached the raging battleground. But, just as she got closer, she heard a blunt WHAM. It was the familiar sound of a hollow object hitting the floor.

  "You two, cut it out." A woman scolded them as she ehe room. She was armed with a shinai, a type of bamboo sword used in kendo.

  This should have made it a very bizarre picture, especially out there in the West. However, the sword somehow plemehe woman's Asian looks.

  … or, perhaps the club members simply got used to it by now. After all, this woman was the club's coach: Ms. Kei Nakajima.

  DarkestCymore