Fuck! It’s all my fault! If only I didn’t activate Grand Finale…

No, no! I’m wrong! It’s all Ricard’s fault! If he had saved me by pulling Barbarian away from me on time, things wouldn’t have ended the way they did! Yeah, it’s his fault, not mine!

I glare at Ricard, who’s sitting right in front of me. He flinches. I’m sure he too knows it’s his fault.

He won’t admit it, but he knows I know he knows. It’s as clear as it gets.

“Andreu, didn’t we talk about it already? He did a mistake, you did another one… If I had foreseen it, I could have changed our plans so it didn’t happen, but it was inevitable. It was bad luck, stop thinking about it.”

“I know, I know. It’s just, if he saved me then, we would have won the match…”

My anger subsides at Laura’s words. It’s true, we already talked about this and agreed to stop blaming each other, but it’s hard to swallow… because it’s clearly his fault!

Clara adds more fuel to the situation, aggressively pointing at Ricard from my side.

“Yeah! It’s his fault! He only had to keep Barbarian busy and didn’t manage to do even this!”

See? Even Clara agrees with me. Unlike usual, where she always agrees with me too… Wait a moment! If she always supports me, then what’s different from usual?

“Ahaha…” He awkwardly scratches his head. “I already said I’m sorry. Also… It wasn’t so bad! We reached the semifinals, and were eliminated because of the judge’s decision! We also were the only ones who broke the Wizardess’ mith… you know, about her plans always working and stuff like that…”

I sigh. He’s right, we only lost because of a technicality.

Let me try to explain it properly. I’m not sure if I can because kind of convoluted…

The first and most important you must understand is that I killed myself with the Grand Finale skill. If it weren’t for this, we would have won for sure… But I was too low on HP when I used it, and with the stat reduction plus the rebound damage from the Maniac skill, as soon as the explosion ended, I died.

I committed suicide… Yet again. But it isn’t relevant!

The relevant part is that, if I didn’t die, I would be the only one standing and in a good enough state, giving us the victory. But I died, and the situation turned a lot more complex.

At that time, I didn’t understand why Laura cast Hellfire right before the light explosion. She looked at me and then cast it. And if she didn’t we would have lost for sure.

I didn’t remember, but the Barbarian had a skill that prevented her from dying from one single strike, leaving her at 1 HP. This is a skill that resets after each kill, which didn’t matter in that situation, but since she survived the explosion with 1 HP, she didn’t die due to my Grand Finale. This should make them the winners, because everybody else, including myself, died with this skill.

But thanks to Laura’s Hellfire, the Barbarian died at the same time as me instead of surviving.

Some skills last a few frames after being canceled or stopped, and Hellfire is one of those. Even if Laura was dead, Hellfire triggered once after Barbarian’s skill did, effectively killing her.

And this led to a situation where everyone was dead at the same time, with no clear winners: every player died at the same time except for me and Barbarian who died a split second later.

In the end, because the victory wasn’t clear, the judges had to decide who won.

It was kind of difficult for them to decide too. After all, the one who decided the outcome of the match was me, and since I killed myself and was not an enemy who did it, they were advocating for our win at first. But at the same time, the one who killed Barbarian was Laura, who was already dead then, so it should make them the winners instead.

It was the first time in all of DMA’s history that they couldn’t say the winner of the match until about five minutes after the match ended.

We even broke a record, hahaha!

As you can see, it wasn’t easy for them to decide. In the end, they stopped talking about who killed who and if the Barbarian’s death should count or not, and decided the outcome by the second victory condition: who reached further into the enemy’s dungeon.

We didn’t even step into their dungeon while they did, even if they didn’t come very far…

So we lost the match.

“We lost because of a fucking technicality! If only I didn’t kill myself…” I mutter, grabbing my head.

Aaaah, what a shame… I managed to blast everyone as I wanted! And I do mean everyone, even my allies, but we lost anyway.

My epic win! When will my epic scene where I achieve victory by blowing myself up come!?

“Stop blaming yourself, Andreu. If I had known, I could have cast Revitalize on you and prevented you from dying…”

I raise my head and glare at her.

Aha! So it’s your fault, Laura! You admitted to it!

“But I think the real problem is they could save their trump cards until our match. I don’t know if they were extremely lucky, or if we’re just that unlucky, but…”

Looking defeated, Ricard scans everyone’s faces.

“...remember our matches? Our second match against that crazy group of fanatics who knew everything about you, your traps, and your monsters, Andreu. Or that gigantic machine that could obliterate everything caught by the light beam. Or the favorites to win the tournament with the professional player, your big sister’s team. We fought against way stronger opponents, so we had to reveal our trump cards somewhere during the tournament while they didn’t! It’s a matter of course they countered us and even managed to win! They knew everything about us while we didn’t!”

He punches the table. His nostrils are flaring and his eyes have an unusual brightness… A brightness kind of similar to when he’s about to start one of his ‘knowledge drilling’ sessions, but more intimidating.

I flinch, and I see Laura flinching too. She’s currently sitting right next to him, so I see her actions clearly.

I turn my head to the side to look at Clara. She looks kind of scared too.

It’s been so long since I’ve last seen him angry. He rarely gets angry unless you contradict him when game stuff comes out, but I generally don’t care about that stuff, so he doesn’t reach this point.

“While we fought against all the strong teams, they were fighting against the weaker ones! Even those that got eliminated before fighting against us, like the Knights of the Round Table, who lost against your sister, were a lot stronger than any team the Sword&Sorcery had to defeat! Just look at their last match! They didn’t even need to plan anything! They won by a slide because their opponents were a bunch of noobs that got lucky in reaching the finals! Hah, hah…!”

He pauses to take a breath. I thought he was going to die there…

Oh, yeah, by the way. Their team won the final match too. The new newbie champion team, aka player level 5, is the Sword&Sorcery team and not us.

But we were so close!

Oh, here it comes again!

“The only match they had to put any real effort into was against us. The difference with the others is so big… they had to use everything, adapt their plans during the match, and even with this all of them died and their plans went to shit! If they didn’t know about the Grand Finale skill, or if we had known about the Druid’s shared HP one, we would have won so easily! And even with this, they only won because of a technicality!”

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He ends up shouting. Some people, sitting at other tables in the restaurant, are looking at us right now because he’s too loud.

“Ricard…” I call him, pointing around us.

“Hah, hah…” He lowers his head in shame. “I’m sorry guys, I got too excited there… But you must understand, it was so unfair… We did all the hard work, and they only needed to come and reap the benefits… If we only had a little bit of luck, we would be the champions by now!”

Note to my future self: do not anger Ricard. Ever.

As always, I’ll keep teasing him as much as I want, but if it looks like he actually gets angry, I must stop before it’s too late.

No, no. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not scared! It’s just… I don’t want to listen to his angry ramblings, I have enough with his usual ‘normal’ ramblings. There’s no need to listen to him unless it’s an absolutely unavoidable situation.

“Come on, Ricard. It isn’t that bad.” Laura pats him on the back. “I know what you say makes sense, but we couldn’t do anything against it. Also, we still reached the semifinals, got a bunch of followers, and are now kind of famous! I’m sure most viewers recognize our team as stronger or at least at the same level as the Sword&Sorcery one!”

“I know, it’s just… so, unfair…” *Snif*

A few tears fall from his cheek.

Oh, boy. It’s like watching an emotional rollercoaster. From shame to wrath, to sorrow, to sadness… And that’s only in less than five minutes!

I see Laura’s lips tremble and her eyes are slightly red.

“So unfair…” Clara grabs my sleeve and starts to cry too. “I wanted, to, w-win with you… so much… Andreu…”

“Yeah, it would have been nice.”

I say as I gently pat her head. Water droplets fall on top of my hand as I do so. Oh, shit. It got to me too…

I raise my head, my sight slightly blurry. Ricard continues to murmur in frustration, slamming his hand on top of the table from time to time.

Laura’s hiding her face from me. I’m sure she doesn’t want me to see her right now.

I think we really needed to talk about this in more depth. After the match, we talked about it a little, but we were too distracted by the results and couldn’t focus on our feelings. We really needed to talk about this again.

----------------------------------------

Everyone has finally calmed down, though our eyes are still red. They’re looking at me with expecting faces.

“So… what should we do now?” I ask.

“Hmm… we’ve been together so much this past week because of the tournament… I believe it would be best to give each other some time alone.”

Laura suggests we stop playing together for a while.

It makes sense, so I agree. “I think so too… Also, I’m sure each of us wants to return to our dungeons and spend the cp we gained.”

We won 1.000 cp for reaching the main phase, plus 10.000 cp for reaching the semifinals. It’s quite a lot for new players like us. And we have to add to this sum all the cp won by the players who entered our dungeons during the week the tournament lasted.

By the way, the rewards scaled with the tournament level. For example, players who entered the main phase in the maximum level’s tournament, the level 20 one, received 20.000 cp.

“Noo! I want you to keep playing with me!”

Clara looks at me with a pout and puppy eyes at the same time. Aaagh, it hurts! My conscience hurts! But I’ll have to overcome it. I’m a responsible older brother after all!

“Come on, don’t look at me like this. We’ve been playing enough this past week. I need some free time too, you know?”

As cute as you are in real life, you’re a monster in the game, you know? I need to recover after spending so much time with your monstrous side the past few days.

“B-but, but… I don’t wanna!”

“Hey, Clara! Remember what we talked about…?”

Laura steps up, and Clara relents. Now I’m curious about what’s going on between them.

“*Sigh!* Ok, let’s spend some time on our own…” Then, in a barely audible voice, she adds. “Tsk! I’ll have to…”

Hey, hey! What was that ‘tsk’!? What’ll you do, what’s your intention, Clara!? I’m scared now…

Just in case, I must change the topic to something else… But, what can I talk about…?

Oh, yeah, I know! I’m going to regret it, but it’s better than what might happen if I don’t change the topic and Clara gets enough time to perfect whatever plan she’s devising right now.

“By the way, Ricard, did you know there’s a bunch of crazy guys who’re imitating your roleplay now? I’ve seen videos of them competing for who gets more souls in a single Dungeon Invasion.”

“Hahaha… is that so?”

At first, he reacts as if ashamed, but then his expression changes, and his eyes start to glow.

“Oh, I know! They must’ve understood the greatness of the undead faction! There’s nothing better than slaying hundreds, thousands, of humans and feeding on their souls! Hahaha! I can imagine their exalted expressions after a fight, sitting on a pile of dead humans! Ooooh, I want to dive into one right now!”

He hugs himself as he shudders in excitement.

I knew I was going to regret it… See this? Even the other customers are looking here in disgust!

Laura and I look at each other. We must say something to stop him from running amok. I mean, continue to run amok.

“And you?” I ask.

“I too got somewhat like a fan club, but I don’t really want to talk about them…”

“Now I’m even more curious!”

“You just need to know it’s related to my champion’s appearance…”

She blushes, lowering her head in shame so that I can’t see her current expression.

Laura’s champion? Does she mean the succubus? What’s wrong with it? The horns, maybe? No, no, that can’t be.

It must be because of her big boobs and ass. Oh, yeah, I can imagine what her fans are like, and why she doesn’t want to have anything to do with them…

“It’s disgusting there’s this kind of player in DMA too… Another reason why the Eternals are superior to most other factions! Most of them don’t have flesh or they’re rotting, so we can use any champion we want without having to worry about people like that! Can you imagine somebody falling for a zombie? No, right? Hahaha!”

Stop already, Ricard! We’re trying to stop you from talking about the undead, why can’t you understand it!?

“And you, Clara?”

This time it’s Laura who changes the topic yet again, with the hope to stop Ricard.

“Me? I don’t know, and I don’t care.” Clara looks at me from below, once again with puppy eyes. “I only want you to play with me, I don’t care about the others!”

“Is that so…?”

I don’t know what else to say. You understand I’m not going to change my decision, right? Whatever you say, I’m steadfast in my decision. As steadfast as the biggest and most resilient rock in the universe!

…Unless you bribe me, but that’s another topic.

“And you, Andreu? Aren’t you the one who should know the most about your followers? After all, you’re the only one who already had quite a lot of them even before the tournament started.”

Ugh, Ricard. You really know how to poke where it hurts!

“I… I don’t know. I’ve been purposely keeping myself away from the forums and other stuff since the beginning of the tournament…”

I lower my gaze and stare at the floor. Can we skip this topic, please!?

“But aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know what those fanatics are doing?” Laura asks me with a smirk on her face.

You’re doing this on purpose, you little demon! Did you think I wouldn’t notice!?

“W-who? I-I don’t k-know, who’re you t-talking, about…? I d-don’t know, anything, a-ab-about a group called M-mad Cultists!”

I start to heavily sweat. My eyes spin around as I try to come up with some valid lie. Come on, don’t talk about them! I want to forget they exist!

“Heeeh…? But I’m sure you remember them, right? We fought against them, after all… Also, I didn’t say anything about the Mad Rat’s Cult or anything, you know?”

Oh, wow. She looks so evil right now!

Her evil smile widens until her mouth almost touches her ears. The same with her eyes, that now look like crescent moons. At least, this is what I imagine.

Ricard and Clara stare at me intensely. It doesn’t look like they want to actively bully me, but they do want to partake in enjoying my suffering.

“Agh! Ok, ok! I have no idea, ok!? I don’t want to have anything to do with them, so I avoid them as best as I can! I have no idea what are they doing, nor do I want to know!”

“Is that so? What a shame…” Laura continues to look at me with the same evil expression as before.

She wants me to come clean, doesn’t she?

“I don’t mind them doing whatever they want, but I hate them using my name for everything! The only good thing that comes from all of this is the huge amount of cp that I receive due to their constant invasions into my dungeon!”

“Hoooh.” She looks interested in what I said. “And how much is it? I mean, how much cp is it?”

“Hmm… I don’t know... Last time I checked I had around 12.000 cp, but this was during the tournament, and if I add the rewards we received… Maybe 30.000 cp? I’m not sure. Oh, I also leveled up once.”

“30.000 cp!?”

Laura almost shouts. Yes, I know it’s a lot for somebody at my level.

Right now, all of them have vacant expressions, their eyes wide open and their mouths slightly ajar.

“Hello, guys?” I wave my hand in front of my little sister. “… Clara?”

It seems they’re still processing the amount of cp I might have right now. I too am kind of surprised, but think it’s weirder to react like them!

Well, there’s nothing I can do. Until they recover, I’ll sip on my tea…

“...It’s cold.”

[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]

Most viewers accepted the judges’ decision for the Sword&Sorcery team to win the match because they based their decision on an indisputable fact. But the actual consensus was that the actual winners of the tournament were the League of Evil.

Even their most devout followers had to agree that Sword&Sorcery might have been eliminated long ago if they had to fight the same matches as The League of Evil did. Especially in those matches against All Shall Despair and the Dragon Knights.