A weak inquiry sounded from the team voice channel. The voice was feeble, but the words spoken somehow triggered a dispute.
“Fake! Why wouldn’t Kang Ming be playing McCree?”
“How can Kang Ming be in Diamond? Wasn’t he clearly in Masters last week?”
“It seems to be true.”
At that moment, the number of comments in Kang Ming’s livestream barrage skyrocketed. The chat section was chaotic since 300,000 spectators witnessed his death from typing.
Meanwhile, his teammates in the voice channel continually discussed the enemy team’s Hanzo and Ana. Before long, his unruly teammates started pointing fingers.
For the benefit of the team, this toxic situation needed to be put to an end as soon as possible. However, his teammates were at a loss when deciding how to deal with the problem. Either someone would have to take care of Hanzo or someone would have to take care of Ana.
A teammate even demanded, “Switch off Genji, let me play him.” This distrustful teammate would never consider that the problem lied with the enemy Hanzo being superior, but rather with the team’s noobish Genji.
Kang Ming, who became the victim for everyone’s blame, situated his character in a corner and willfully typed to his defense, “hanzo, i won’t lose.” Unfortunately, he had accidentally cut the sentence off and sent it out before he had finished.
It became—
[Match] Coming: hanzo
In reaction to his slip up, the subtitle barrage displayed teasing messages over his screen. Kang Ming hastily retyped “hanzo, i won’t lose,” but he was a second off when pressing down on the Enter key. The familiar arrow striked his character’s head.
Subsequently, the enemy Hanzo answered with a question mark, practically mocking him.
Kang Ming wordlessly watched the death replay of Hanzo stealthily reaching the opposing team’s side of the map. Hanzo shot an arrow at the still Genji in the corner, which was even easier than shooting a moving target in the practice range.
“Oh.” His bitter laughter traveled through from his microphone to his livestream’s audience. “This Hanzo is finished.”
[Match] Coming: just wait.
Kang Ming’s account “Coming” was currently at Diamond, but that didn’t mean his skill was genuinely at the Diamond tier. If he didn’t persist in the belief that “lazy teammates didn’t deserve to be carried,” he would’ve picked up McCree and returned to Masters long ago.
At this time, the enemy Hanzo irritated him. Kang Ming didn’t care whether or not he and his teammates won, he only wished for this Hanzo to suffer!
Yun Yun listened to the enthusiastic voices of his teammates. Some of them even claimed to have opened up Kang Ming’s livestream and discovered that he had switched to his famous McCree.
“Asia’s #1 McCree,” “Overwatch Top 500 Commentary,” and “The Prince Charming of Streamers.” These types of titles were scattered among his barrage. Yun Yun was able to distinguish at least three of his audience members as devoted Kang Ming fans.
Instead of his fans, Yun Yun was fixated on Diamond McCree, Ana, and himself.
Since he was subjugated to listen to his viewers and teammatees idolize some other famous streamer, Yun Yun was slightly annoyed. He didn’t enjoy playing in the Asian server; there were too many celebrities and the circle was too small.
Yum Yun didn’t care who his teammates or opponents were. He concentrated solely on his side of the screen and Hanzo’s arrows.
His team would most likely lose, but there was a small chance they could still win.
In the first round, Yun Yun’s team were the ones to score the point, but the second round would not be as easy as before.
After Kang Ming’s swap to McCree, it seemed like they were facing a completely different team.
McCree’s popularity had long ago subsided, but Yun Yun still sensed the tremendous pressure brought on by the western gunman.
Yun Yun couldn’t even leave cover for too long. Although McCree couldn’t finish him off, the damage was still enough to kill him in various casual group attacks.
“Ah, I was killed by Kang Ming!” A teammate exclaimed with a tone as if they had won five million prizes. It appeared that being killed by Kang Ming was more boast worthy than winning the competitive game.
Yun Yun was eliminated by Kang Ming’s flash bang. When he heard this sentence, he predicted this game had an unfortunate ending.
At least three of his teammates found joy in being beat by Kang Ming.
Then there was Diamond McCree, who insisted he could get a team kill and flanked the enemy team, only to get sent back to the spawn room.
Lastly, Ana. Her skills were exceptional and she frequently slept people. As a support, her damage and healing output was perfect. Whenever he greatly injured his targets, Ana would follow up in finishing them off.
Unfortunately…
Overwatch, after all, was a six-player team game. Even if the two of them were supporting the world on their backs, the other teammates had looked down on their opponents too much.
In the second round, due to their lack of organization, their team had rapidly fallen apart. They failed to execute four team fights and in the end, the score had evened 1:1.
Yun Yun tried his best, so much that he didn’t even have the energy to glance at his barrage at all during the fight. His and Ana’s attempts to cooperate with their useless teammates were in vain.
The only thing they could do now was to not lose too badly.
“Hanzo and Ana switch off, what use do you guys have?” Diamond McCree chided noisily, not having discarded his previous scorn.
It was almost as if Yun Yun’s actions of eliminating multiple opponents had never happened.
Yun Yun pulled up the team channel list and muted Diamond McCree’s voice.
The three gold medals for eliminations, damage done, and objective time had belonged exclusively to Yun Yun since the start of the game. There was hardly any change at all. Furthermore, in the upper right corner where the recent kills were shown, he had only noticed the death of McCree.
As he waited for the next round to begin, he opened the barrage chat box to see what the audience were saying before.
“His teammates have given up, gg. QwQ.” This was referring to when Yun Yun’s teammates were elatedly conversing about Kang Ming.
”He isn’t talking. He’s serious ah O.O.” This comment was from when Yun Yun stopped replying to the barrage.
“He still hasn’t switched off Hanzo?” In response, Yun Yun directly banned that viewer from commenting.
“Gg.” He observed this remark and gradually found it very interesting.
Yun Yun acknowledged, “Yes, gg.”
This conclusion was better than blaming each other.
Yun Yun was in a good mood. He even found the previously annoying Kang Ming fan trio cute when they praised their idol.
This was a game. As long as it wasn’t a profession, wins and losses weren’t significant whatsoever.
Yun Yun thought it over, then returned to responding to all kinds of questions from the barrage.
Apart from Diamond McCree, his teammates weren’t dedicated to winning, so he too became more relaxed.
“Ana, can you do something for me?” Yun Yun had a provocative idea that would surely entertain his audience.
Simultaneously, Kang Ming chuckled at the message that read, “You said you weren’t going to carry your teammates as McCree.” Truthfully, he hated being matched up with random people and would generally play with his own team.
After he dropped from Grandmaster to Diamond, his McCree was a formidable opponent to Diamond players. On the other hand, his Genji was ordinary.
For the time being, his Genji was at a Diamond level, but soon enough he would advance the ranks.
Since Genji was a projectile hero, it was difficult for Kang Ming to alter his usual play style.
This hero’s shurikens brought along its weight, having a parabolic drop when released. Even if Kang Ming aimed at his target, he couldn’t 100% guarantee their death.
Moreover, he was even worse at mastering Genji’s close range fighting and ability to climb walls.
The majority of his time was spent playing McCree, a non-mobile hero. When using Genji, a highly mobile character, it was difficult to grasp the feeling of jumping up and down even with an hour or two of adjusting.
Mostly, he depended on Genji’s ultimate, hehe.
Genji’s ultimate, Dragonblade, was a weapon his hero used to slash any opponents in range. Aiming wasn’t exactly necessary, all Kang Ming had to do was look in their general direction and he would get constant eliminations. This powerful ultimate was one of the reasons why he hadn’t abandoned Genji.
The second reason was due to his principle of never giving up.
Competitive games could be lost, but those who pressure him must die. Kang Ming’s objective was to develop a favorable Genji so that he could be skilled at two strong DPS heroes.
But this time, he truly didn’t expect to encounter a Hanzo in a competitive match. This defense hero, similar to Torbjorn due to how infrequently they are played, was able to outplay a Master player.
Based on his win rate percentage, this Hanzo was presumably a Grandmaster.
Kang Ming was peeved from being headshotted often in the past, so he paid a little bit more attention to killing Hanzo.
In his perspective, Hanzo arrived on the bridge with glowing gold and red lights outlining his body.
Ah? These colors don’t seem to be right.
“Ryu ga waga teki wo kurau!” Hanzo’s ultimate voice line echoed throughout the map. His teammates who had been fighting in the frontline turned around and suddenly fled.
Kang Ming slowly started to move out of the Dragonstrike’s range since his combat roll was on cool down.
He escaped to the side as he reassured the audience, “This doesn’t matter, his ultimate isn’t an instant kill. It’s unlikely for it to annihilate even one person—”
Kang Ming died.
“Ha?!” His death was simply too hard for Kang Ming to believe. In regular circumstances, Dragonstrike could never kill him as long as he didn’t take on its full damage.
Yet unexpectedly, he was killed.
When rewatching the kill cam, before Dragonstrike was unleashed, Kang Ming could distinctly hear Ana’s ultimate voice line.
The speck of gold that he had glimpsed before was not an illusion. It was Ana’s ultimate to strengthen Hanzo.
“Deadly, those two!” This was the first time Kang Ming ever witnessed an Ana providing nano boost to Hanzo. This scheme was ludicrous. He actually dared to release his ultimate without Zarya’s Gravity Surge?
Even if Hanzo used his ultimate, why would anyone nano boost him?
Could he get eliminations? Could he get a team kill? Apart from Kang Ming, no one else would’ve died. This Hanzo was too self confident.
As Kang Ming waited for his resurrection, he peeked at the upper right corner of the screen that displayed the list of Hanzo’s recent kills.
Three eliminations.
“What?!” Kang Ming shouted in frustration with a profound northeastern accent into the mic. “What kind of situation is this for Hanzo to get three eliminations?”
Kang Ming’s teammates had also shared the same arrogance as him, only to come across massive red dragons rushing towards them. They desperately fled for cover but were killed by Hanzo’s Dragonstrike.
Ana’s ulimate ability, nano boost, could intensify a chosen teammate’s attack power and reduce their damage taken from opponents. As a matter of fact, it turned Hanzo into an indestructible killing machine.
It was humiliating to admit it.
Being utterly defeated by a publicly recognized weak hero would of course evoke his team’s fury. Everyone focused on the enemy archer as their primary target during team fights.
They eventually achieved victory, but not without suffering a few casualties.
Aside from the remarkably skilled Hanzo, the defenseless enemy team were unable to withstand McCree’s combat power and were effortlessly overpowered.
The final score was 3:1.
Kang Ming contentedly gazed at the game system’s victory prompt.
“Therefore, the reason why I don’t play McCree is because I win way too easily and I don’t get to experience the fun of competitive games.” Kang Ming would unconsciously switch between a strong northeastern accent to a standard Mandarin accent from time to time. “Let’s see how Hanzo feels.”
He read aloud to his viewers as he typed, “Hanzo, are you satisfied?”
Right before the last word could be typed and sent out, a system prompt in the game channel caught his attention.
[ShadowBlade] left the game.
Although Kang Ming’s innermost thoughts chanted “FUCK FUCK FUCK,” his appearance remained tranquil. He calmly deleted the words he had typed and announced in an unperturbed manner, “I hate Hanzo.”
Translator Notes:
Hanzo’s ultimate voice line “Ryū ga waga teki wo kurau!” means “The dragon consumes my enemies!” in Japanese.
Vocabulary
gg=good game, meant to be polite, but when it is used before the game ends it can mean they’re giving up.
carry=when a person plays so well that they are the main reason why the team won.