Saber flung her sword toward the earthen ground, sinking its blade a third of the way in. I heard her grit her teeth.
"Those blasted…" she growled, her words bitter like venom.
I had never seen her furious before. Indignant, perhaps, and frustrated too. But I couldn't remember her showing this sort of unbridled hostility. And, after deducing for myself, I could see why she was angry.
In all likelihood, we had been "counter-jungled."
I had heard about it while at the Combat Institute, and Saber must've explained the concept to me in the past as well. At a surface level, the idea was simple: Counter-jungling meant killing the jungle monsters – the cave zombies – on the enemy's side of the map.
Normally "Junglers" like Saber would farm the monsters on their own side of the map, to stay close to their base, their allies, and the protection of their towers. But they could also attempt to sneak over to the enemy's side of the map and farm the monsters there instead, to deprive the opposing Jungler of precious gold and XP. It was a risky maneuver – unless you knew the other team wouldn't be there to intercept you.
If our guess held true, someone from the other team, someone with fire-based powers, had just taken our monster camp for themselves. For them, this would be a silent accrual of resources, of combat potential. And almost certainly, it'd be a breach of our truce.
Was it the only explanation? No. But unfortunately, it was the most likely explanation.
I looked over to Saber, who had now closed her eyes, brows furrowed. I approached her cautiously.
"You think the…the other team did it?" I ventured.
"There's no doubt this was malicious." She extended and furled her individual fingers, as though doing mental calculations. “Tanin, Sophia, go siege top lane. I will siege bottom lane alone. If more than one of them comes for you, back off.”
“Saber, are you sure you want to do this?” Tanin asked.
Saber headed for the cave exit. “We’re already behind. We can’t afford to hesitate.” A shiver lined her voice, perhaps from the cold.
Were we really about to openly start the war? Only minutes ago, Saber had been the one attempting to preserve our tenuous peace, yet now she had made a 180 on her stance. I needed to know she was in her right mind before I followed along with her plans.
Though for her, who had vouched for Sylvia’s team more than anyone else, who had put her faith in them more than anyone else, the possibility of betrayal must’ve stung utterly.
“We can check to see if any of them has flame-based magic,” I pointed out. “It looks like the zombies were killed by fire.”
Saber stared back at me with dead-set eyes.
“Sophia. The next time we meet them, they’ll be there for our lives.”
Saber began to run off, and ordered us to assume our positions in the top lane. I hurried off into the night, with Tanin's arm slung across my shoulder as he hobbled along. Miraculously, he kept up with my running pace. But I could tell, he paid for his mobility with mana.
This all felt like a surreal dream. Everything we had hoped for, everything we had banked on, all came tumbling down in a matter of minutes. Faster than I could process. Everyone knew our peace was a fragile one. But still, I thought we'd…
"Focus," Tanin reprimanded. "Our enemies are gonna be a level up, likely more. We need eight golem kills to hit level 2. Then I'll get my ranged attack. What are the abilities on the other team?"
I told him Brandon could launch webs, and likely had adhesive limbs. But that was all I knew.
We soon arrived in the top lane. There, we found no one else, except the golems fighting in lane. Tanin took the lead and headed into the fray. He clumsily punched and kicked at the enemy golems, but his attacks did sufficient damage, and soon he racked up several kills. I hadn't expected him to be a no-weapons, purely physical fighter, if that was indeed what he was.
I joined in as well, launching crossbow bolts and Frost Missiles at the enemy golems. These golems had red orbs in their chests, just like the enemy golems I had fought in my previous matches against the robots. I wondered if it was simply a 50-50 chance that we had been assigned to be the green team, as we were used to being.
Soon, we killed all the enemy golems, and even the ones that came after them, and we hit level 2. As we battled alone, in the dim illumination of my phone's light, no one came to stop us. The forest around us stretched out, dead silent. I checked my team notebook to see if Saber had written anything down. She hadn't, which surprised me. Out of all my teammates, Saber had always been the most consistent when it came to communication.
Snow began to fall from the sky.
We eventually hit level 3. We ushered our own golems to the enemy's top tower and began to chip away at it, over and over. The stone tower cracked, crumbled, and finally collapsed into a ruinous heap.
And then we heard a voice. A male voice, announcing aloud from everywhere at once, as though the arena itself had spoken:
「Sophia and Tanin has destroyed a top tower.」
Saber flung her sword toward the earthen ground, sinking its blade a third of the way in. I heard her grit her teeth.
"Those blasted…" she growled, her words bitter like venom.
I had never seen her furious before. Indignant, perhaps, and frustrated too. But I couldn't remember her showing this sort of unbridled hostility. And, after deducing for myself, I could see why she was angry.
In all likelihood, we had been "counter-jungled."
I had heard about it while at the Combat Institute, and Saber must've explained the concept to me in the past as well. At a surface level, the idea was simple: Counter-jungling meant killing the jungle monsters – the cave zombies – on the enemy's side of the map.
Normally "Junglers" like Saber would farm the monsters on their own side of the map, to stay close to their base, their allies, and the protection of their towers. But they could also attempt to sneak over to the enemy's side of the map and farm the monsters there instead, to deprive the opposing Jungler of precious gold and XP. It was a risky maneuver – unless you knew the other team wouldn't be there to intercept you.
If our guess held true, someone from the other team, someone with fire-based powers, had just taken our monster camp for themselves. For them, this would be a silent accrual of resources, of combat potential. And almost certainly, it'd be a breach of our truce.
Was it the only explanation? No. But unfortunately, it was the most likely explanation.
I looked over to Saber, who had now closed her eyes, brows furrowed. I approached her cautiously.
"You think the…the other team did it?" I ventured.
"There's no doubt this was malicious." She extended and furled her individual fingers, as though doing mental calculations. “Tanin, Sophia, go siege top lane. I will siege bottom lane alone. If more than one of them comes for you, back off.”
“Saber, are you sure you want to do this?” Tanin asked.
Saber headed for the cave exit. “We’re already behind. We can’t afford to hesitate.” A shiver lined her voice, perhaps from the cold.
Were we really about to openly start the war? Only minutes ago, Saber had been the one attempting to preserve our tenuous peace, yet now she had made a 180 on her stance. I needed to know she was in her right mind before I followed along with her plans.
Though for her, who had vouched for Sylvia’s team more than anyone else, who had put her faith in them more than anyone else, the possibility of betrayal must’ve stung utterly.
“We can check to see if any of them has flame-based magic,” I pointed out. “It looks like the zombies were killed by fire.”
Saber stared back at me with dead-set eyes.
“Sophia. The next time we meet them, they’ll be there for our lives.”
Saber began to run off, and ordered us to assume our positions in the top lane. I hurried off into the night, with Tanin's arm slung across my shoulder as he hobbled along. Miraculously, he kept up with my running pace. But I could tell, he paid for his mobility with mana.
This all felt like a surreal dream. Everything we had hoped for, everything we had banked on, all came tumbling down in a matter of minutes. Faster than I could process. Everyone knew our peace was a fragile one. But still, I thought we'd…
"Focus," Tanin reprimanded. "Our enemies are gonna be a level up, likely more. We need eight golem kills to hit level 2. Then I'll get my ranged attack. What are the abilities on the other team?"
I told him Brandon could launch webs, and likely had adhesive limbs. But that was all I knew.
We soon arrived in the top lane. There, we found no one else, except the golems fighting in lane. Tanin took the lead and headed into the fray. He clumsily punched and kicked at the enemy golems, but his attacks did sufficient damage, and soon he racked up several kills. I hadn't expected him to be a no-weapons, purely physical fighter, if that was indeed what he was.
I joined in as well, launching crossbow bolts and Frost Missiles at the enemy golems. These golems had red orbs in their chests, just like the enemy golems I had fought in my previous matches against the robots. I wondered if it was simply a 50-50 chance that we had been assigned to be the green team, as we were used to being.
Soon, we killed all the enemy golems, and even the ones that came after them, and we hit level 2. As we battled alone, in the dim illumination of my phone's light, no one came to stop us. The forest around us stretched out, dead silent. I checked my team notebook to see if Saber had written anything down. She hadn't, which surprised me. Out of all my teammates, Saber had always been the most consistent when it came to communication.
Snow began to fall from the sky.
We eventually hit level 3. We ushered our own golems to the enemy's top tower and began to chip away at it, over and over. The stone tower cracked, crumbled, and finally collapsed into a ruinous heap.
And then we heard a voice. A male voice, announcing aloud from everywhere at once, as though the arena itself had spoken:
「Sophia and Tanin has destroyed a top tower.」
