Classmancers - A MOBA Esport Story

Vol.5 Ch.15: Slipping Defense

Thanks to Julia's double kill, the score was evened to 2-2. Although Classmancers wasn't a ball game and the kill count never told the entire story, in this case, the score was a fairly accurate representation of the game's state. Each side scored two kills and their positions were even. Neither side held a notable advantage as they were approaching the mid-game.

That's why I don't like the early game. Howard sighed. The team gained an early game advantage by scoring kills on Yuel and Roi, but that achievement was quickly overwritten by Julia's double kill. All that effort was essentially wasted. In fact, killing Roi only led to losing two team members in exchange. The payoff was terrible.

"I gotta admit, Julia was pretty impressive," Howard turned to Ellen. "So, that's the 'full strength' you've been talking about?"

"Y-Yeah," Ellen shifted her eyes away with a dumb smile. Her expression was something between happiness and awkwardness. On one hand, Ellen was happy that Julia finally came out of her shell and displayed her full strength in a real game. But, on the other hand...

"You said you were worried about Julia because you told her something over the break?"

"Haha..."

"I have a distinct impression there's nothing worry about," Howard frowned. "Rather, it's WE who should start worrying."

"N-Nah, we're fine," Ellen forced a smile.

They both knew that Julia's sudden change of gears couldn't have happened haphazardly. The girl has been struggling to draw out her aggressive side throughout the entire year, so something must have triggered this change. And, that "something" was...

"I really wonder what it was," Ellen smiled like a dummy. "Maybe Yuel actually had a pep talk with her?"

"Yeah, and next you'll suggest the zombie apocalypse is tomorrow. A very believable theory."

"W-Well, it's not my fault," Ellen pouted. "I didn't mean to trigger her like that."

"Yeah, I'm sure you didn't mean to. You're just a natural-born terrible person, so you did it subconsciously."

"Rude," Ellen twisted her lips. "So, what we gonna do?"

"This sure complicates things," Howard frowned. Lars's aggressive strength was already causing more than enough trouble to Howard, to the point Howard had come up with the whole "Lars Killer" tactic as a counter. If Julia also starts playing like a berserker with high-level aggressiveness, things will get rough.

According to Ellen, Julia had "two forms". The first form was the one everybody was familiar with: the overly defensive Julia. The other form was the exact opposite: an overly aggressive playstyle. The sudden switch between them was like ice transforming into magma; it was mind-boggling.

The "defensive Julia" was cautious and had great map awareness, so it was nigh impossible to gank her. However, she was too cautious, to the point she missed many great opportunities to kill her opponents.

The "aggressive Julia" was the exact opposite. She struck at every opportunity she got while throwing caution out of the window. As a result, her defense suffered and it was easy to trap her. At least, it should've been easy...

Back when Julia arrived in Top Lane, Howard has already realized something was amiss. He didn't want to believe it, but there was no other explanation: a wild Aggressive Julia appeared! He had a feeling things will go south from there, so he ordered Taison to gank Top.

Alas, Howard wasn't fast enough. While he was busy analyzing that irregular situation and figuring out what calls to make, Julia destroyed Gilbert in that 1v1. Gilbert must have been as shocked as Howard by this development, probably even more. So, Julia totally ripped him apart in that 1v1.