Salvaging Mid

The Werewolf cut across Julia's back, delivering her to her death. There was not a shred of mercy or hesitation to be found in Rosemary's calculated movements. She was like a killing machine trained for murder from birth.

"This can't be happening..." Julia gritted her teeth. It's all because she was Lv. 5! It's all Dan's fault for feeding her!

Yeah, that's right. Perhaps Julia didn't make the best decisions in that situation, but clearly, this outcome wasn't only her fault. It's the circumstances that preceded this play that affected this outcome the most.

Of course, it won't be easy to convince the police officer with that...

"Can you please explain what you were thinking there?" Howard demanded. "I believe I told you to retreat."

"I-I tried..." Julia lowered her eyes.

"Oh, you tried? Well, how nice of you! Thank you for listening to my shot call a whole minute too late."

"W-Well, I thought I'd be able to handle her..."

"Oh, really? And how did that go?"

"N-Not very well, I guess..." Julia felt herself shrinking in the presence of the judge. She didn't have a single good argument to fire back except for shifting the blame on Dan. "I-It wasn't really all my fault, though!"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, I should've been able to get away from her no problem," Julia explained. "That is, if she wasn't a freakin' Lv. 5! That wasn't supposed to be a thing so early into the game! It's all because Dan is feeding!"

"Dang, right in the feels..." Dan smiled wryly.

"I agree, Dan also messed up big time," Howard said. "But, his 'mistakes' were that much harder to avoid. The truth is, Rosemary deserves a lot of credit for pulling off all these surprise attacks."

"Y-Yeah!" Dan almost teared up at that evaluation. Just as he was falling into the absolute pits of despair, where it felt like everything bad that happened in this game was his, the captain actually stood up to him!

"Don't worry, Dan," Howard added. "We'll analyze your plays in detail later. It's not like you're exempt from criticism."

"True, haha..."

"But anyway," Howard continued. "You're right, Julia. That situation was a little unusual for such an early stage in the game."

"Totally!" Julia nodded strongly, thinking she finally made a dent in Howard's unbreakable defense. Alas, she was wrong...

"First of all, you should've done the minimal amount of research and checked Rosemary's stats before even thinking about engaging her in combat," Howard criticized. "If you just looked at her exp, it should've been easy to do 1 + 1 and figured she'll hit Lv. 5 after killing Dan."

"That's... fair, I guess." With that, Julia lost the one and only counter-argument she had. She tried to pass most of the blame onto Dan's feeding, but Howard wasn't having any of it.

"But seriously," Julia insisted. "I couldn't even imagine her being Lv .5 this early into the game. Like, what the heck? That makes no sense! Just how much did that girl farm??? It's crazy stuff."

"As I said, I agree it was an unusual situation," Howard repeated. "But, I clearly told you to retreat, didn't I? I believe I did it right away."

"Right, you did..." Julia didn't have a single counterargument to this. Indeed, Howard very clearly ordered her to retreat before things went south for real. The guy recognized it was a terrible situation at a glance.

"If you retreated as soon as I told you, you would've made it out alive without any problem. The Werewolf probably wouldn't even have bothered to chase you."

"Maybe..."

"You understand that this mistake is going to cost us a lot, right?" Howard asked. "You might've sealed the fate of the entire game with your own two hands."

"Nah, you're exaggerating..." Julia tried to reassure herself but her voice came out surprisingly weak. At the back of her mind, she understood that Howard might be right. Her death might, indeed, cost the team dearly.

Dan also died twice so far, but he was the Jungler. Sure, losing him for a while was also a huge blow to the team, but it wasn't remotely as bad as losing a laner.

Julia's death meant nobody was there to defend Mid right now. And, the Jungler couldn't rotate over there to replace her either because he was freakin' dead.

Thus, in the next wave, the enemy had full freedom to push Mid without any resistance. And, Rosemary opted to do exactly that. She stayed in the lane and helped the Sage to swiftly kill all the incoming minions. After that, the duo pushed forth with nobody there to contest them.

"AWOOOOO!" the Werewolf howled loudly, boosting the power and speed of her attacks.

As a class that heavily relied on basics, Werewolf was great at demolishing towers despite not being a marksman. So, if left uncontested, Mid tower was going to suffer immense damage from this push.

But, not under my watch. Howard entered Mid right as the enemy was invading the tower area. There was no way in hell he'd let this push go uncontested, so he rotated over here to intervene.

As usual, Rosemary was expressing her efficiency with the push. She charged into the tower area as soon as the first swordsman crossed the line. This girl refused to let even a single millisecond go to waste.

To punish her for her rashness, Howard summoned an ice wall. He placed it perfectly to isolate Rosemary from the rest of her army.

The girl now found herself practically alone in the tower area. There was only one swordsman by her side who was in charge of tanking the tower's shots, but otherwise, she was isolated.

Perhaps for the first time in this game, this was a move that actually gave that wolfwoman a pause.

A strong move. Fiona applauded her opponent. She was confident she would have an easy time demolishing the tower, yet Aegis showed up just in time to throw a wrench in her plans. As expected, his defense is airtight but in a very different way from Cato's.

Cato would have done everything in his power to prevent such a situation from occurring in the first place. He would have ordered all his chess pieces to bolster their defenses from the get-go and focus wholly on deflecting any incoming attacks.

On the other hand, Aegis was more about adaptive defense. He gave his pieces relatively more freedom, but he made sure to constantly monitor their status and cover up all the holes in their defenses.

Most of the time, his dynamic defense prevented disasters like these. He would either tell his allies to retreat in a timely fashion, or he would have somebody rotate to the area to provide aid.

In the worst-case scenario, when something fell apart, Aegis would generally take matters into his own hands. He was not only a strong defense tactician, but also a strong defender on the battlefield itself.

He must have started rotating over here a while ago, back when I was still chasing Venus. Fiona deduced. It means he foresaw that conclusion from a mile away. Impressive.

But, if this were a regular rotation, then Fiona should have noticed it in advance. Karen and Lua would have informed the team about the enemy missing from the lane.

Aegis was aware of that as well, therefore he covered up his rotation with a trip to the Wolf Camp near Bot. He and Athena headed over there together under the pretense of farming the camp, which they may or may not have done.

Regardless, at some point, they must have gone their separate ways. Athena went to Bot, while Aegis rotated to Mid.

To efficiently mask their intentions, Athena took her sweet time returning to the lane. This kept the Valkyries in the dark just long enough for Aegis' rotation to be unexpected.

Truly, Aegis stood head and shoulder above the rest of the players in StormBlitz. He was not the type of shot-caller to craft complex plans, but he was extremely capable of ruining other short-callers' plans.

Such as mine, at this very moment. Fiona frowned. This was the first time since the start of the game that she failed to anticipate a development related to her schedule.

In Fiona's head, the next few moves had already played out clearly. She was planning to assault the Mid Turret with Andria's help. Then, after reducing the tower to about 30%, the minions would perish and Fiona would move on to counter-jungling. It was a flawless plan.

Alas, Aegis's arrival ruined everything. Now, Fiona could no longer push, not without running the risk of getting shot down by the turret.

At the moment, only one minion separated between her and the tower. The others were currently busy circling the ice wall Aegis created, so it'd take them a few more moments to arrive in the area.

So, once the leading swordsman bites the dust, the tower's full attention will fall on Fiona. And, of course, Aegis wanted that to happen. So, he unleashed Icicle Rain on the sole swordsman to take him down even faster.

BAM! A huge bolt smashed into the swordsman! In the next moment, the man was on the ground without any signs of life. Now, Fiona was left all alone inside enemy territory.

But, of course, she did not spend all this time idling about. While the Turret and Aegis were busy eliminating the swordsman, Fiona made her way to the edge of the tower area. She had to retreat as soon as possible.

Once she circled the ice wall, she leapt forward with Grievous Assault. There was no actual target ahead of her, but the skill still allowed her to jump forward quickly.

After that, she also used Dodge Roll to cover even more distance. Chaining two movement skills might have seemed like overkill, but she had to get out of the area without receiving a single instance of damage from the Turret.

I have to keep all the HP I have. Fiona glanced at the risky 50% she was running on. Getting hit by the tower even once would reduce her below 40%, which was definitely undesirable.

I have to adjust my schedule posthaste. Fiona closed her eyes for a moment, erasing all the planned lines of play from her head. She had to rethink everything from square one.

It was clear to her that this push had run its course, so there was nothing more to achieve here. As such, Fiona set her eyes on the next objective.

"Andria, you will have to continue this push by yourself," Fiona informed. "I plan to take their Ogre Camp in the meantime."

"Oh, are you leaving me all by my lonesome self, o fair lady?" Andria pretended to be hurt. "And here I thought we were going to conquer this tower together."

"With Aegis here, that is no longer possible."

"Is it so? 'Tis still a fine 2v1 situation."

"Yes," Fiona agreed. "Against any other opponent, it might have been worth pushing regardless. However, defense is Aegis' trade. He will surely make all the right moves to block us out."

"Yes, that does sound in line with our analysis of his previous scrims. He is the paragon of defense, its very manifestation."

"So, there is nothing more to be done in this position," Fiona said matter-of-factly. "I must move forward to the next play."

"Understood." Andria bowed. "Have a safe trip, your majesty." 

"Thank you."

While the conversation was taking place, Fiona already entered the enemy side of the jungle. Soon, she will reach the enemy Ogre Camp. In this position, that was the most optimal play she found.

With that said, considering her current HP and the fact she had to spend Grievous Assault to get out of the tower area, this play was definitely on the riskier side. However, there was a way to guarantee the enemy would not have any counterplay for it.

"Karen, Lua," Fiona called out. "Please stick close to the enemy tower area even after you are done pushing."

"Wait," Karen started. "Are you finally giving the green light to fight this annoying turtle!?"

"Not quite. I simply need you to keep her occupied. In particular, I want you to block her access to the jungle, so she cannot interfere with my plans."

"Oh, I see what you're cooking!" Karen grinned. "Alrighty, no problem! It'll be done."

"Thank you." 

With that, the stage was set. Andria kept Aegis occupied in Mid, whereas Karen and Lua locked down Athena in Bot. With this setup, none of the enemies will be able to interfere with Fiona's otherwise risky counter-jungling.

The enemies soon figured out exactly what was going down, but they were helpless to do anything about it.

So, she's going after the ogres. Howard frowned. A risky play, considering her remaining HP and the fact she spent both of her skills.

Without the burst damage of Grievous Assault and the power buff of Chilling Howl, Rosemary was in for a tough fight against the ogres.

Werewolf was largely a basic-attack-focused Jungler, but that mainly applied for the mid/late-game. During the early-game, Werewolf had to rely on its skills to dish out good damage. Therefore, at this early point in the game, Rosemary was bound to struggle against the camp.

Normally, a slow counter-jungling like that would be very punishable, but... Howard couldn't actually do anything about Rosemary's bold invasion. Nobody was available to punish this hooligan.

In Mid, Howard had his hands full dealing with PrinceCharming, who was uncharacteristically aggressive despite being alone in the lane. This girl was usually on the cautious side, yet here she was pulling out all the stops.

Is she letting herself run loose because we have no Jungler? Howard wondered. Or, is this all part of a bigger distraction tactic?

In a very similar way, the enemy duo in Bot decided to push harder than usual. That one wasn't as surprising considering their Carry was clearly itching for a fight ever since the game started, but the timing was still suspicious.

Was this aggression even going to achieve anything big right now? No, probably not. If anything, it would only give Ellen some opportunities to deal damage to the aggressors in case they overextend.

As such, this also felt like a part of a larger distraction tactic. The goal wasn't so much to push as it was to keep StormBlitz busy.

And, in the meantime, Rosemary gets to steal our ogres. Howard grumped. She's got everything figured out, huh.

From the very start of this game, this so-called " Princess" has been dictating the pace. All her plans neatly linked each other and delivered a heavy blow to StormBlitz.

It all started with the unexpected early kill on Dan, and things have been snowballing out of control since then. So, at this point, even when Rosemary was clearly taking a risk, it was nigh impossible to punish her.

But, that doesn't mean I won't try. Howard left Mid immediately after dealing with the minions. He dashed to the Ogre Camp as fast as possible, he even spent his Dodge Roll to get there a little faster.

Maybe I can catch her on the way out...! Howard had to deliver some sort of punishment on that cocky Werewolf. That girl had been farming StormBlitz's jungle all day long as if she owned the place. She had to be taught a lesson!

Alas, Howard didn't make it. By the time he got to the Ogre Camp, its contents were already emptied and there was no sign of Rosemary.

Hrm. She didn't head in this direction and none of the wards spotted her on the way out. Howard pieced together all the available information. So, she recalled. Yeah, that makes the most sense.

The Werewolf departed for now, but she was soon going to return stronger than ever. How was StormBlitz going to deal with this menace...?