Chapter 86 : Who’s the bubble now ?
by AfuhfuihgsI stared at Opera and Drill’s nicknames on the enemy team for a long time.
While my heart acknowledged that they were simultaneously targeting me, my rational mind couldn’t comprehend the reality before me.
It was already ridiculous that those who were caught talking trash were playing games shamelessly without even issuing a statement.
But for them to target me from the morning after I surpassed their scores, the target of their trash talk?
Just like Curry said in the clip I saw earlier, they were unprofessional gamers.
“Seriously…”
They say when you’re too dumbfounded, you laugh.
That was exactly my situation, and as a result, my no-mic concept was broken.
After letting out a sigh mixed with a hollow laugh, I went to a match history website and checked their records.
Surprisingly, their match times were similar.
No, they were almost identical.
The matchmaking system is designed to prevent you from encountering the same people frequently.
Of course, in the higher ranks, there are fewer players, so you end up playing with the same people.
But this wasn’t the case for them; they deliberately matched their queue times.
Otherwise, there was no explanation for the gaps between their match histories.
After checking their records and returning to the game window, I bought items and went to my lane.
I knew that even without me doing anything, viewers would notice Opera’s suspicious match history.
Looking at the chat, as expected, there were chats questioning Opera’s record.
Turning my attention back to the screen, I cleared all distracting thoughts from my mind and focused on the game.
The enemy mid laner was Zoe, not an extremely difficult champion, but not a pleasant opponent either.
Sylas’s ultimate steals the enemy’s ultimate, and Zoe’s ultimate wasn’t an impactful utility skill.
In addition, Kai’Sa, Pantheon, Udyr, and Fiora’s ultimates weren’t suitable for Sylas either.
In a way, the enemy team’s composition was like that because I picked Sylas first.
If they had picked Sylas first, there would have been no reason to choose champions that synergized with Sylas.
Still, Sylas has the fun of stealing and using enemy ultimates, and it was a bit disappointing.
The laning phase started without any action during the invade stage.
Sylas had to play passively against Zoe in the early game.
This applied not only to Zoe but to all ranged champions.
I took Q and farmed moderately, and the timing came when the second wave was pushed and the third minion wave was approaching.
With the help of the tower, I quickly cleared two melee minions and reached level 3 faster than Zoe.
I closed the distance with E on Zoe, who had moved forward to reach level 3.
Zoe threw a Sleepy Trouble Bubble to stop my approach, but I dodged it with movement and used W to close the distance again.
Since she failed to land her Sleepy Trouble Bubble, the only skill that could stop Sylas’s approach, the trade was one-sided.
Sylas’s unique skill combo landed perfectly, reducing Zoe’s health to below half in an instant.
I thought I could get a kill with a returning Q and a Flash passive auto-attack, but.
Zoe seemed to see that angle too, and immediately used Flash to retreat inside the tower.
Zoe had to make a choice here.
Whether to give up a significantly stacked minion wave and go back to base.
Or to stay under the tower and die to me.
Usually, the former is a rational choice, and the latter is an emotional one.
She knew that forcing it here would lead to her demise.
But she couldn’t bear to lose all those stacked minion waves.
As my minions started to enter the enemy tower,
Zoe stayed behind the tower, keeping her distance and just soaking up experience.
It was the lesser of two evils, but the result was still bad.
Zoe didn’t give me the distance for a Flash EW,
but I boldly used Flash E forward and then used E again.
If Zoe dodged the chains here, it would be a huge loss for me.
But I was confident in landing the chains, and indeed, my chains hit Zoe squarely.
[First Blood!]
I got the first blood, but I was left with low health due to tower attacks in the process.
However, since the enemy Udyr was already visible top, I could safely escape their territory.
I had never lost a LoL game.
When I got first blood against someone.
Reliving the feeling of my undefeated streak with Yone, I continued the game.
Most viewers knew Barcode as a streamer who had good chemistry with Curry and was good at LoL.
This was natural, as more viewers had joined after the collaborations with Curry than when Barcode streamed as the “mysterious Yone master.”
Therefore, most viewers were shocked by Barcode’s gameplay shown on the stream.
Even for a Challenger, it was not easy to destroy the game’s balance with such an overwhelming gap.
Moreover, since everyone in this game had finished the previous season as Challenger, the level of surprise was even greater.
Naturally, the chat room was incredibly heated, unbelievable for the morning hours.
Barcode’s display of “cider-like” retribution against those who were caught talking trash was cathartic.
The endlessly heated atmosphere peaked when Barcode’s Sylas single-handedly won a 3v1 fight and got a triple kill.
[What? Barely? Bubble? LOLOLOLOL]
[Your bubble is more legendary, you Ranis top laners who barely made top 4]
[Is Barcode really the LoL goddess? Is Barcode really the LoL goddess?]
[She’s a bubble alright… Unbelie’bubble’]
[Ah… just insane! Odd duo!]
[If your skill is a bubble and your personality is trash, why even be a pro?]
[Our Ranis fandom supports the eternal love of pro-gamers Opera and Drill!]
[You turned them into pro-gays, not just gamers lol]
Every time Barcode’s Sylas made a brilliant play, the criticism and ridicule towards Opera and Drill reached a fever pitch.
Viewers knew that the duo had been caught talking trash about Barcode, that Opera and Drill had forced a deliberate match in solo queue, and even that Opera had targeted-banned Barcode’s Yone. The final Baron team fight was about to begin.
Due to Sylas, a considerable gap had already been created.
It seemed like the enemy team had a chance to turn things around when Barcode’s team’s ADC was killed.
But Sylas, who had already acquired enough items, was an undying monster.
An immortal monster, devouring enemies one by one.
[Quadra Kill!]
Undeterred by the absence of the ADC, Sylas, who had secured a quadra kill, chased the enemy team’s sole survivor, Kai’Sa, with Pantheon’s ultimate, which he had stolen earlier.
A comet spear pierced Kai’Sa from behind, and the red aura that followed the spear swept over Kai’Sa like a typhoon.
[Penta Kill!]
[Finish!]
As Kai’Sa, the last hope, was swept away by the massive storm, system messages appeared one after another in the in-game chat.
Messages saying four enemy players agreed to surrender, and then five players agreed, and shortly after those messages, the enemy team’s Nexus was completely destroyed.
The viewers erupted in heated cheers.
Barcode slightly raised the corners of her lips and said quietly, as if it was nothing.
“The bubble has popped.”
Barcode’s statement, breaking the silence that had persisted throughout the game, was enough to ignite all communities related to LoL.
For the two players, that fire would soon become hell, and for Barcode, it would be a warm light.
“Sorry, but I’ll end the stream here today.”
Barcode, looking satisfied, announced the end of the stream.
The viewers seemed to share Barcode’s feelings, as they didn’t express any particular disappointment.
And so, Barcode’s short but impactful stream ended, and the viewers, now without a place to be, spread out to various communities.
Curry was forced to watch Barcode’s stream by a call from his manager in the morning.
He hadn’t seen it from the beginning, but he could roughly understand the situation and became engrossed in the stream.
He had made a statement close to a fact-based assault yesterday, but even that hadn’t completely relieved his anger, and he almost slipped up several times.
Barcode was definitely not someone he could like.
But he couldn’t mix personal feelings with public matters.
This was Curry’s belief, and since the duo had clearly crossed the line publicly, it was natural for him to be angry.
It was absolutely not because of Barcode, or because he wanted to impress Barcode.
He absolutely did not make that statement for those reasons.
Anyway, watching Barcode’s stream with his anger still lingering was entertaining.
At first, he was worried about what would happen if Barcode lost.
But as time passed and Barcode began to overwhelm the enemies, those worries completely disappeared.
Come to think of it, Barcode was the one who defeated the “Ohap-Jijon” team, composed of elite members, and won the platform war.
Before that, as the “mysterious Yone master,” she had achieved an unbelievable record of 50 wins and 0 losses in the Grandmaster and Challenger ranks.
Realizing how foolish it was for him to worry about Barcode, Curry simply enjoyed the stream without any worries.
As expected, Barcode led the game with overwhelming solo carry.
In the end, she caught Kai’Sa, who was running away pathetically in the final Baron fight, and forced their surrender.
“The bubble has popped.”
As if all the silence up to that point was to say this, Barcode spoke with a small smile on her lips.
Barcode, looking satisfied, then announced the end of the stream, and shortly after, the stream went offline.
Even though it wasn’t something he was directly involved in,
just like he had been angry at the duo yesterday, Barcode’s words were satisfying enough.
Should he just upload a video targeting the duo since things had turned out this way?
Curry made a decision and sent a message to his editor.
Just as he was about to record a video specifically for targeting them, instead of a live stream.
Knock knock knock-
A knock sounded, and Curry got up from his seat and left his room.
When he opened the door, Barcode, with a pleasant expression, came into view.
“I’ll make breakfast. Come out quickly.”
“Uh, yes…”
Curry, who was about to say something but held it back, obediently followed Barcode to the living room.
While sitting at the dining table and organizing his complicated thoughts, Barcode, who had finished cooking, brought the side dishes to the table.
Feeling awkward just sitting there, Curry helped prepare the meal and sat back down, with Barcode sitting across from him.
“It’ll be even tastier than yesterday’s. Please try it.”
At Barcode’s invitation to eat, Curry said quietly in an awkward voice before picking up his chopsticks.
“You were cool on stream earlier.”
“Huh?”
Perhaps because his voice was too quiet, Barcode asked him to repeat.
Curry clenched his fist and forced out the words that had escaped to his throat.
“I said you were cool. On stream earlier.”
“Hmph…?”
Unable to meet Barcode’s gaze, Curry began to eat.
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