Chapter 220. Almond Steam Bun (2)
Sang-Hyeon had the very next day off. There would be no matches for about three days.
‘I can rest today,’ Sang-Hyeon thought when he woke up in the morning.
Sadly, his wishful expectation was quite off the mark. The selfie he posted yesterday caused a much bigger stir than he anticipated.
[WHAT IS THIS, ALMOND]
[lol, it's the Almond bun!]
[Your good looking face saved you, Almond.]
[Aww, he's so adorable!]
People started to share his photos in the community as well. Luckily, most communities were gaming-related, so the posts didn't become trending topics. Even if his selfies placed in the top 10 trending spots, an administrator would've deleted them for being unrelated to the game.
Instead, his Runestagram followers had dramatically increased.
Sang-Hyeon didn't have that many followers, but his account was starting to become a new means of communication for his fans.
— Is this place the origin of Almond bun selfies?
— OMG, he's so cute in the selfie
— Almond! Can you break my heart!?
— Oh dear, he's so hot.
— Please don't use your face like that.
— It's like watching the guy who got all the experience and gold for our team suddenly become arrogant and trolling.
└ What are you saying?
└ God gave everything to Almond. We call that 'unfair.'
└ Such a fool. I can't believe you guys still believe in God, even after looking at Almond's beauty.
└ Damn, hahaha. You're right.
Countless comments appeared under the selfie.
Other comments caught his eye while thinking of his first selfie’s success.
[Hello. I am Kim Soo-Hyun, the head of the marketing team at April Cosmetics.]
[Hello! This is from the marketing team at Three Lips...]
“HAHHAHAHAHAHAHA,” Ju-Hyeok burst out into laughter.
“What?” Sang-Hyeon asked, feeling disgusted by his laugh.
"Don't you know what's weird about this?" Ju-Hyoek barely managed to hold in his laughter and asked back.
He was looking at the selfie that Sang-Hyeon posted on Runestagram last night.
He seemed to be intentionally laughing even more to make Sang-Hyeon feel worse and was almost out of breath.
"They even offered a makeup ad for you."
Sang-Hyeon had a lot to say, but didn't argue with him any further because of all the comments.
— If you’re going to use your face like that, just give it to me.
— Haha, he still looks good even at that angle.
— He’s a good looking bun.
— The Almond bun, lol.
— It's just his head showing in the pic. We call that a walnut cookie.
Even after reading the comments, Sang-Hyeon still couldn't tell Ju-Hyeok what was wrong with the selfie. He couldn't say that there weren't any problems with it since so many people who saw it kept laughing.
"So, are you going to take all those ad offers?"
"... Why would I do makeup ads?"
The day simply passed like that after the selfie incident.
However, stacks of delivery boxes arrived at their front door the next day.
"Ha ha…” Ju-Hyeok looked at the boxes and let out a forced laugh.
"Some people just take selfies and receive cosmetics as gifts. What an amazing life."
"... What are those?"
Sang-Hyeon stretched out his head from the bathroom window while still brushing his teeth.
"Well, these are bribes sent to you from advertisers."
"Yeah. They asked you for cosmetic ads yesterday, remember?"
Sang-Hyeon rinsed his mouth and peeked out again.
"They just gave them to me?"
Yeah, it appears they're just giving it away first and asking you to try it out."
Inside the box were neatly designed cosmetics for men. The kit contained some foundations, lipsticks, and a set for trimming and drawing eyebrows.
Sang-Hyeon didn't think much about it. All this had happened because he started posting on Runestagram.
"But I don't need to advertise for them, right?"
"Yeah. You don't put on makeup anyway."
Sang-Hyeon didn’t plan on accepting any cosmetic offers.
He even considered sending the packages back. A paper explaining how to return them was conveniently included in the box. A handwritten letter was also included.
Sang-Hyeon suddenly felt bad.
'I'll just leave it. Maybe I'll use it someday.'
He decided to stack the boxes in the corner of the room. Maybe he could do an unboxing video sometime or find some other use for it.
Sang-Hyeon spent the entire day playing practice games. They played a scrimmage against High Protein, who also had a day off. The result was, as expected, a resounding defeat.
Sang-Hyeon felt like he was on a roll after defeating a challenger in the mid-lane. Still, SweetRadish belonged to an entirely different dimension. Their team players were much stronger than Solo Is Back.
After the scrim ended, Balloon Stars discussed for a long time how to counterattack SweetRadish. Most viewers watching believed that Balloon Stars couldn't beat High Protein.
— How can you think of winning over SweetRadish?
— Ambition Tier 1: Balloon Stars!
— They've done really well up to this point.
— After watching their scrim, it seems difficult for Balloon Stars to win...
— SweetRadish seems determined to protect Almond's privacy.
Most people thought this regarding Balloon Stars versus SweetRadish. SweetRadish couldn't be compared with Solo Is Back.
However, Balloon Stars had a different mindset. They gathered again after a few hours.
"It's important to understand each movement when we counter Flashy Blade."
Because of these reasons, Balloon Stars was now focusing on training against Flashy Blade.
"Even if a player excels at Flashy Blade, the other team members might not know how well the game is going. This causes the game to deviate from their planned strategies most of the time."
They set the AI match to the highest difficulty level and conducted simulations where Almond played against a mid-lane Flashy Blade.
Of course, practicing with only an AI had its limitations, but that was the best they could do. With no sparring partners, beating on a punching bag was the next best option.
Bubblegum even died once to the AI, which made the practice game pretty reliable.
"Hahaha! I purposely died to raise the quality of our team training... I did this on purpose! ON PURPOSE!"
Bubblegum seemed embarrassed and started making jokes with awkward gestures.
"But… why Flashy Blade?" Bubblegum asked as he wanted to change the topic.
"It's important to take that champion away from SweetRadish since he excels with Flashy Blade. They won't ban Flashy. It’ll be their first pick instead."
If Balloon Stars could pick Flashy Blade, they didn’t need to waste a ban and could counter the opponent simultaneously.
"Also, Flashy Blade can counter most of SweetRadish's other picks."
Tako found that out while doing additional research.
"SweetRadish mainly uses Flashy Blade to steal that champion away from the opponents and prevent them from countering his picks. He started doing exceptionally well using this tactic."
"This isn't something everyone knows. I contacted a former player on his team to ask."
Tako was truly invested in this in-house tournament. He pulled out all the stops, even leveraging his professional connections.
"Alright, that's it for today's practice. Thanks for playing hard even when it's not a streaming day!"
"No worries! Have a good night!"
"We got this tomorrow!"
That night, Sang-Hyeon quickly ran back and forth as Flashy Blade in his dreams… at Ahsung.
It was a strange nightmare.
The next day was the match between Balloon Stars and Green Tea Bagging.
Green Tea Bagging's rank surprised Almond once again.
'What’s up with them...?'
Green Tea Bagging was currently in 8th place.
Out of 16 teams, 8th place was in the middle and only five teams would make it to the playoffs.
Sang-Hyeon wasn't sure they would even meet Green Tea Bagging in the playoffs due to their rankings. Green Tea Bagging was lower ranked than Fearless Deer.
"Well, it's almost certain that something is going on in their team."
Even Tako commented on their low rank.
"But don't be so sure."
The briefing was short.
Tako already predicted that this game would be easy.
[Players, please enter through the portal.]
Almond was confident of victory after the champion selection phase started.
"Huh?! They're attempting an unusual ban pick right now!"
The opponents had made a mistake with their ban pick.
"Green Tea Bagging? Are you sure about this? Almond's Raina is open!"
They didn’t ban Raina.
"They banned Frost Archer instead of Raina? What's going on?"
"They should be confused right now about why we didn't ban Raina. We’re going to dominate them mentally. Their ban picks will only get messier from here."
Green Tea Bagging thought this was a great idea.
"Dominating them mentally? I don't think so. More like LazySoldier will be legendary in this game,” Pickle simply crossed his arms and replied.
"No, you don't get it!"
"Our game will get messed up instead of their picks."
However, Pickle's words didn't have any effect.
"No! That's why you got kicked out of the Hamburger Crew!"
GreenTea brought up Pickle's past to counterattack, but that didn't affect Pickle much.
Pickle didn't say anything and simply shrugged.
"Hey, it's been weeks since Almond picked Raina. According to my data, Frost Archer is scarier. Don't you know that this happens all the time in pro games? We call it a must-ban when you keep banning one character all the time. Then, when you finally let that character through, the opponents will get thrown off because they haven't been practicing that champion."
"But what if they've practiced diligently?"
"Even then, I've got plans."
GreenTea's fist struck Pickle and Pickle's head jolted back and forth.
"Ha! I've learned how to deal with Raina using Biker Gang," GreenTea explained while massaging his swollen fist.
"As you all know, he can counter her now because of the recent patch."
The Biker Gang’s passive called Macho was buffed in the recent patch.
Whenever enemies damaged him or he dealt damage against opponents, it granted him more bonus armor. In other words, he had become more resilient.
"Because of these small differences, he’ll slightly edge out Raina in the early damage exchanges. So many ADCs haven’t adapted to this, and a lot more ADCs have gotten first blood because of this."
Biker Gang was an inherently good pick against Raina.
The only weakness that Biker Gang had was his shotgun range. Raina also didn't have an exceptionally long range. Her instant damage was weaker than Biker Gang, making it a perfect matchup for Biker Gang.
Moreover, Biker Gang was one of GreenTea's top picks that he had already mastered. In fact, the pick had saved Green Tea Bagging and brought them to 8th place from the bottom tier.
"But Almond wouldn't pick Raina. He would pick Sana instead. That means we..."
Only half of GreenTea's plan was correct.
Almond thought as GreenTea expected.
'What? Why didn't they ban Raina?'
Indeed, that question popped up in his head.
However, Almond didn't delve as deeply into it as GreenTea anticipated.
"Tako, I'll go with Raina."
"Oh yeah? But you haven't played her for a while..."
"I'll just go with it."
Mana flared, and a form with vibrant golden hair settled behind Almond.
[It's been a while since there were brave souls like them.]
Raina's red lips murmured under an azure velvet hood.
At that moment, thunderous cheer engulfed the arena.
— Raina! Raina! Raina!