The pain cut off like someone had pulled a plug.
Karl opened his eyes to grass.
Real grass, or close enough that his brain refused to argue. He was on one knee at the center of a wide stone platform, and when he lifted his head, the world just kept going.
Three lanes stretched out ahead of him, carved between walls taller than buildings, with patches of tall grass swaying in a wind he could actually feel on his skin.
Small drones drifted lazily overhead like metal birds, and beyond the edges of the platform, water surrounded everything, glittering all the way to the horizon.
The map. He was standing inside the map.
’I’ve stared at this thing from above for six years. I never once thought about how big it actually is.’
[System online.]
Karl flinched.
The voice did not come from around him. It came from inside his own head, flat and clean.
[Synchronization complete. Bond established with designated assassin.]
[Welcome, Administrator.]
’...What?’
He looked around.
His four teammates were appearing on the platform one by one in flashes of blue light, wobbling on their feet, touching their own arms, and laughing in disbelief.
None of them were reacting to any voice.
’Administrator? Hey. Whatever you are. I think that surge fried something in my head.’
[Incorrect. This unit is functioning as intended.]
[Directive: My duty is to ensure to achieve victory by all means necessary.]
Karl stood very still.
He wanted to ask a hundred questions.
What it was, why him, what a bond with an assassin was even supposed to mean.
But the announcer’s voice rolled across the sky like thunder before he could form a single one.
{Hero selection will now begin.}
A ring of glowing panels rose out of the platform floor, each one displaying a hero. His teammates scattered toward them, and Karl exhaled slowly.
’Fine, I’ll ask the questions later...’
The picks came in fast.
The tall one locked a bruiser for the EXP lane, rolling his shoulders like he was already celebrating. The quiet guy took a marksman for gold lane.
The ponytail girl grabbed a support with a shield kit, and Elsa hovered her hand over a burst mage, then looked over at Karl.
"What’s the jungler feeding us tonight, masked man?"
Karl didn’t answer. He was already walking toward a panel near the edge.
Charlotte.
A slim figure holding two short blades, one held forward and one reversed. Low health, low defense, and in exchange, dashes stacked on top of dashes.
The kind of hero that died to a strong breeze if the player hesitated, and deleted people if the player didn’t.
He had over a thousand games on her. Not that anyone here needed to know that.
He pressed his palm to the panel.
[Hero confirmed: Charlotte.]
[All emblems have been maxed for this assassin.]
[Stat redistribution applied. ]
[Movement speed increased.]
[Attack power increased.]
[Armor penetration increased.]
[These modifications are visible to the Administrator only.]
Light swallowed him, and when it faded, the weight of his own body was gone. His limbs felt lighter, faster, sharper, and two blades rested in his grip like they had grown out of his hands.
He gave one of them a slow spin.
’Okay. That is strange. What the hell? Feels so real. No wait hold, don’t lose focus.’
Even if he was excited about the new experience, he was still in a tournament, against enemies he knew little to nothing about.
However, he wasn’t the only one who was shocked by the feeling of being a hero.
Even his own team had the system reaction as they were all checking out their heroes by themselves, leaving Karl out, of course.
Before they could continue on with what they were doing, the system alerted them to yet another piece of information.
{Match will now begin; head to your lanes and farm.}
...
The early game went better than anyone had a right to expect.
Elsa pushed her midwave early and swung down to his red side, throwing a spark of magic at the first camp to help him clear his buffs.
"Look at me, supporting the new guy. Ren never got this treatment."
"Uhm... thank you..." Karl responded half-heartedly.
"You’re welcome, lol."
She jogged back to lane, and Karl carved through the camp in seconds. The speed was ridiculous. Every dash carried him further than it should have, and the creeps’ health melted like his blades were going through paper.
He had expected it to take some time to get used to, but he was wrong.
It felt instantaneous how quickly he could understand the hero’s movement, as though he had been in that body for the entirety of his life.
Then-
[Two enemy signatures approaching from the river, north side.]
Karl’s eyes flicked to the grass by the river before he even processed the words.
’You can see them?’
[This unit reads all data within the match. The Administrator’s eyes are limited. This unit’s are not.]
Their jungler and their roamer, coming to invade his buff. The classic level two gank on the clueless new player.
He stood right where they expected him to be, let them commit, and then simply wasn’t there anymore. One dash behind the jungler, three strikes, one dash out of the roamer’s stun, back in again.
[Enemy eliminated.]
[EXP acquired: 40. This unit thanks you for your contribution.]
’My contribution?’
The roamer scrambled back through the river, screaming something in proximity chat about the jungler being cracked, and Karl calmly took both buffs.
For about eight minutes, he genuinely believed they were going to win.
Then the enemy front line came online.
...
The problem revealed itself in the first real team fight at the drone pit.
Their opponents had drafted three tanks. Three walking fortresses that soaked everything Elsa threw at them and kept walking, while the blonde from the stage steps played roamer behind them, appearing in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.
And their own EXP laner would not stop dying to him.
"I had him!" the tall one shouted for the third time, respawning at base. "If someone rotated when I pinged--"
"You pinged after you were already dead," the ponytail girl shot back. "What do you want me to do, shield your gravestone?"
"Guys," Elsa said.
"He’s one bar of HP! I’m supposed to just let him walk away?"
"He was one bar of HP standing under his own tower with a roamer in the grass," the marksman said quietly, sliding through the jungle toward the next objective. "He was bait. You’ve taken it four times."
Silence settled on the team chanelled, as they too were now understanding the situation a bit clearer.
They were going to lose.
The blonde’s voice floated over from across the pit, loud on purpose.
"Hey, masked man! Nice stats. Shame about the team, though. Haha!"
Karl gritted his teeth as he touched the ground near his own camp, checking the scoreboard hovering at the edge of his vision.
Seven kills, zero deaths, three assists. Best numbers in the lobby, and it didn’t matter, because everywhere he wasn’t, they were losing.
Towers falling on two lanes. Gold gap widening. Every fight, the three tanks walked forward and his team melted one by one behind him.
’I can’t be in three lanes at once. I kill their squishies and it still isn’t enough, their front line just doesn’t die.’
The next fight broke exactly the way he feared. He dove their mage, deleted her, and turned around to find all three tanks and the blonde collapsing onto him at once, his own team already retreating.
He burned every dash he had. A hook clipped his shoulder, a stun grazed past his ear, and he slipped out through the wall crack with a sliver of health, breathing hard in a body that wasn’t his and somehow still felt every bit of the panic.
He recalled.
The base was quiet. The fountain’s light washed over him, filling his health bar, and Karl stood there looking out at the map.
Two outer towers left.
The crowd noise from the real world leaking faintly through the sky like a storm on the other side of a wall.
’Dammit. We are going to lose at this rate..’
[Correct.]
[Analysis complete. Probability of defeat on current trajectory: eighty-three percent.]
Karl’s jaw tightened.
Even if he kept at it, it would only be a matter of time before the enemy would be too high a level for him to kill all by himself.
Was he really going to lose 1000 dollars to such newbies?
[Administrator.]
The voice was flat as ever, and yet somehow, it sounded almost pleased.
[Shall this unit show you how to win?]