Chapter 170: Scoundrel Theater Heats Up
It was something Pencilgon had stumbled upon by accident during last night's testing.
No Name: "Oh, so if the root cause is the villain, the gauge fills up."
The trigger was when a tank, sent flying by an explosion, caused a massive secondary blast several minutes later—and Pencilgon's Villainic Gauge rose. The evil look on her face at that moment was truly something appalling. Not "awful"—appalling. Without lifting a finger directly, the secondary disaster filled her gauge. This discovery led Pencilgon to devise the utterly unhinged strategy of "Occupied Building Jenga," but who could have guessed it would enable an even more heinous escalation beyond that?
That said, it's not actually such a broken technique. Since it's a garbage-tier gimmick reliant on terrain, situation, and adjustments—all dependent on the RNG of the area generation—it probably won't ever escape the realm of a meme. RNG really is trash... or wait, in this case, did RNG prevent this from becoming a broken mess? Is RNG the MVP here? Should we call it a profoundly karma-ridden chaos, containing both purity and filth?
No Face: "A building collapses, its enormous mass detonating into an evacuation shelter... the sheer scale of the atrocity keeps refilling the gauge at overflow levels. It's probably because Clockfire's super counts as 'fully activated' the moment the clown bomb appears..."
Those crushed directly, those swallowed by shattered rubble, and the manifold despairs spiraling outward from there—all of it fills Clockfire's gauge at a terrifying rate. Had this been any other character, the super's activation time and other factors would have made rapid-fire spam impossible. But Clockfire is one of the rare characters in the entire roster who possesses a "placed-type super move." Which means the instant she plants the bomb, she can fire off the next super.
Precisely because she's a character with the special type of a placement super, the insane spectacle of mass-producing super bombs at a deranged pace was more than enough to leave every person here—myself and Natsume-san included—utterly dumbfounded. And as for the skirt-chaser trapped within that web of madness, one can scarcely imagine his state of mind.
No Face: "I mean, that bastard put having fun first, didn’t she..."
True, this strategy isn't something you can just hold in reserve, and considering the user, Clockfire, has to be at a specific location, it may have been unavoidable... but still.
No Face: "Total combined time: twenty-one minutes, thirty-three seconds..."
The count stops as the white-coated doctor, more of a dark hero, is surrounded and annihilated by the swarm of inflating clown bombs. A finish far too swift compared to the first and second rounds. I can't help but bury my head in my hands.
No Name: "Ahh-ha-ha, ahh, that was fun!"
Lucas: "Oi, that was a bug, right?! What the hell was that?!"
A truly contrasting awakening: one whose every wicked scheme succeeded, and one upon whom every wicked scheme landed squarely.
No Name: "Oh my, with such a perfectly optimal terrain, the devil just whispered in my ear... heh heh heh. Amazing, wasn't it?"
No Face: "It was so amazing everyone was recoiling in horror, you idiot."
No Name: "No, seriously—it was like something out of a gag manga, that watermelon-smashing stunt! I want a recording of this~ Think I can get one later?"
She committed what amounts to genocide—even if in a game—and calls it a gag. Natsume-san's face is indescribable, like an octopus doing the robot dance inside her mouth... Gah! Am I the only sane one here?!
Sylvia: "Calm down, Lucas. That wasn't a bug."
Lucas: "Hah?! You saw that gauge going haywire, didn't you?!"
Sylvia: "The collapsing building destroyed the stadium full of NPCs. That's why the gauge spiked."
Lucas: "Who the hell even allows that...?"
It seems they've settled down on their side too. Lucas slumps into his chair, limp and deflated, having apparently gotten an explanation. I mean, if someone who knew nothing heard "building dominoes into stadium watermelon-splitting for infinite gauge into super spam," they'd assume it was a bug too.
No Face: "So? The master strategist who prioritized fun and wrapped up Round 3 faster than a cup of instant ramen finishes cooking—anything to say for yourself?"
No Name: "Well, it'll all work out somehow."
No Face: "That doesn’t even give me the first syllable of a reason."
You'd have better odds riding a donkey into a windmill. Still, the way she's cheerfully taking Sasa-Fishcake-san's interview suggests she's planning to stall for time here. At this very moment, Pencilgon is undoubtedly drawing the most eyes. The way she effortlessly captures attention might, in some sense, be more precious than gaming talent itself. Honestly, if she'd been born in a different era, wouldn't she have turned out seriously dangerous? Hooray for the modern age. Hooray for games. The world was saved by entertainment and the times.
No Face: "Natsume-san, who's our next opponent again?"
Nu2meg: "Alex Taylor... Before Sylvia Goldberg appeared, he was the strongest player on StarRain... no, on its predecessor, 'Atlas.'"
No Face: "...Uh."
Nu2meg: "...Codename: 'Long-Distance Relationship.'"
Ahh! That guy! Yeah, yeah, I remember now. I remember, so please stop looking at me like I just turned in a test with a zero.
No Face: "Hm, but wasn't he the one..."
The one Pencilgon had confidently declared "this guy'll be a piece of cake"?
No Name: "Aaaahh-ha-ha-ha-haaah! You're prioritizing beating me over saving them, fellow villain?! Even if it means tearing apart the bond between two lovebirds in love?!"
Alex: "Nn—guooooooooooh!?"
No Name: "Are you sure you should be showing such a pathetic sight? Hmm~? Come on, come on~"
Alex: "Nuoooooooaaaaaahhh!"
I learned something new today: when you go beyond speechlessness, you reach a deadpan face. And when you go beyond even that, a perfectly natural sense of embarrassment comes rushing back.
No Face: "How do I put it... it's like someone swinging a baseball bat in the middle of a chess match..."
Nu2meg: "I should've joined anonymously too... Hey, is it too late? Can I borrow that helmet..."
No Face: "Are you aware you just said something on par with a complete scumbag?"
Trying to sacrifice my privacy? That's a villainous act rivaling Pencilgon herself. Actually... it might be slightly less bad, but still... Argh! This, that, and everything—it's all that bastard's fault.
No Face: "I mean, who'd have thought she'd launch an attack from the real-life angle—'Can you really let your sweetheart watching this see you looking so uncool?'"
Perhaps because she's fully committed as a disposable anonymous player, she's relentlessly, mercilessly hammering away at Alex's real-life vulnerabilities. Her behavior is unmistakably that of a villain, but compared to her earlier play as a colossal evil, it's just so... so petty.
Nu2meg: "Isn't this on the same level as some punk thug who's just there to get beat up...?"
No Face: "The problem is, that punk thug has been controlling the situation from start to finish..."
Exactly—just like an actor who starred in a mafia movie playing a street thug in a different film, there's a gap in the role but no gap in skill. No matter how thuggish her hostage tactics may seem, the person behind them is still Pencilgon. Her ability to rattle nerves with her words and her skill at expertly finishing off those who lose their cool remain utterly unchanged.
According to the intel we gathered, Alex the Happily-in-a-Relationship was supposed to main a hero character. But he probably judged, after the previous match, that challenging Pencilgon with a hero was too risky. By picking a villain character himself, he ensured both sides could rampage without worrying about consequences. In itself, that was a reasonable countermeasure. It's just that there was one decisive difference: how much shame each was willing to cast aside for the sake of roleplay. That was all.
Regarding her countermeasure against Alex, Pencilgon had a very simple answer.
No Name: "You think a guy trying to look cool for his girlfriend can bring himself to bully the weak—even if they're NPCs?"
Honestly, even most single people probably wouldn't actively commit NPC genocide... at least not in a game where that isn't the main focus.
Nu2meg: "Wow, the moment he tried to go rescue them, she blew up the whole building... Ah, the gauge is filling up..."
How many times has that clown bomb appeared today? It seems you can freely move it around until it's planted on the ground—the sight of Clockfire, as if playing soccer, kicking the inflating clown into a collapsing building is being broadcast worldwide.
No Face: "Right, of course... I’m going to be lumped in the same category as that..."
Nu2meg: "I feel like this might affect my future pro gaming career..."
No Face: "Let’s just blame the whole thing on Idiot-Katzo. He’s the one who brought that alien whose values aren’t even from this planet into the team."
This won’t be settled with just top-grade sushi or A5 Wagyu sirloin, Katzo... We're talking a full Manchu Han Imperial Feast or a full-course dinner.
Nu2meg: "And after this, the one with the extraterrestrial-behavior life-form is going to rampage too, right? I know it..."
No Face: "Hey, 'extraterrestrial beha—'! Listen, compared to the scumbags who'd strap someone to a tank turret with a smile, I'm perfectly normal."
Calling a person a tentacle-armed alien... My decisive battle with the divine entity Ctarnidd is still a ways off, and I am, on average, an extremely ordinary human being. Being placed in the same category as mental-mythos creatures is profoundly regrettable. Incidentally, as for how I came to be strapped to a tank turret—that's a long story, so I'll skip it. All I can say is that I merely pumped gas in from the outside after Katzo and Pencilgon charged into the enemy stronghold.
Nu2meg: "How do I put it... I think I understand now why Kei is so weirdly resistant to criticism..."
You know, in games with banned-word filters, the real art is how to deliver a literary-grade insult. Honestly, being told "I hate you" straight up hurts less in the long run than being told, "This moment I spend dealing with you is greater agony to me than consummating a union with a sewer rat in the filth."
Natsume-san looks at me with eyes of enlightenment—and at Pencilgon, who is on screen laughing while holding a mother and child hostage.
Oh, that mother-child pair—they're the NPCs who got blown up at the start of the Lucas match. Getting caught by Pencilgon again... how tragic.