FBPP C7

Chapter 7

[Team] ChocoPiePlease (Bark): Our team’s lacking damage; the sub-tank just needs to focus forward.
[Team] JiniHaniJihani (Velatan): Looking forward is your job, lololol. What do you mean we’re lacking damage? Your standards are bizarre.

But since he couldn’t change the build he’d already committed to, Ji-han just brushed it off, dismissing the idiot as someone who’d picked up some nonsense and left it at that.

And the result?

An ally has been slain.
An ally has been slain.
The enemy’s momentum shakes the battlefield.

Unable to withstand the enemy melee DPS’s damage, their main tank shriveled and kept leaving the side paths unwarded. Naturally, the enemy melee happily used those very routes as his personal entryways. He might as well have rolled out the red carpet.

Because of that, the enemy melee, fattened up on early kills and coins, had grown to the point he could now cut down their ranged DPS and support even if they stood side by side.

And what had Ji-han been doing during all that?

JiniHaniJihani has slain an enemy.
JiniHaniJihani has slain an enemy.

Double Kill!

JiniHaniJihani has destroyed an enemy tower.

If their ranged and support got slaughtered, then at least he had to balance the trade. Rather than running all the way back to the frontline, it was quicker to dive the enemy’s rear and kill their ranged and support in exchange.

Having bought another offensive item, Ji-han chugged a critical-rate potion and a movement-speed potion, then dashed to the spot where their ranged DPS had just died. The enemy melee wasn’t showing on the minimap after his assassination—there was only one escape route.

Sure, their main tank was useless trash. And yes, even if the frontline was broken, their ranged DPS and support still had terrible mechanics to keep dying 2v1 against the same short-ranged diver. But what could he do? Even those deadweights were still teammates, and Ji-han needed to win.

[Team] ChocoPiePlease (Bark): Where the fuck’s our melee DPS—
[Team] TOEFLTOEICIelts (Nis): Bark, stop spamming chat, lmaooo.
[Team] OrchardGrandson (Dominique): For real, man’s doing nothing, but reading chat you’d think he was the bus driver.
[Team] ChocoPiePlease (Bark): You clowns are the ones feeding melee DPS and losing the game!!

The enemy melee had feasted long enough on their ranged and support. It was about time Ji-han delivered punishment.

That overgrown bastard’s death would mean a long respawn thanks to his high level. And without their main damage dealer, the enemy team wouldn’t dare force a fight when the new buff monster spawned. It would punish him for tilting Ji-han and secure the buff—two birds with one stone, hell, three.

Up ahead, Ji-han spotted the enemy melee retreating toward base, just as he’d predicted.

Level 49.

His offensive build would be complete, with some defensive gear on top. Ji-han was only level 41, maybe two defensive items behind, but his offensive kit was just as finished. As long as he wasn’t the first to get hit, he could win.

Ping!

And then—the very bastard responsible for this mess hit the retreat ping. The main tank.

[Team] ChocoPiePlease (Bark): Don’t go, seriously—what are you gonna do with Velatan? Don’t play hero.

The curse rising in Ji-han’s throat almost burst out, but he ignored it.

Sneaking close enough to stay off vision, he lunged into range, instantly blinking behind the enemy melee. From the shadows, his blade lashed forward in a sweeping knockdown slash.

He’d deliberately offset his aim, so the blade curved back like a boomerang, landing a second strike. With full damage gear and double potions, the skill shredded nearly a third of the enemy’s HP.

From there, it was over in a blink.

Unlike other games where you could counter while taking damage, Zenox had rigid stagger mechanics. Once hit by a skill or even a basic attack, characters reeled back in hit-stun. Every hero had a knockdown move, too—if it landed, the victim instantly collapsed and stayed helpless for a full second. Chained correctly, that meant a guaranteed kill unless they were tanky enough to survive or got backup.

That was why vision was everything. Once you got caught, there was no escape.

JiniHaniJihani has slain an enemy.

Triple Kill!

As he returned toward base, Ji-han typed into chat, delivering some delayed retribution for that useless retreat ping.

[Team] JiniHaniJihani (Velatan): Why the fuck did you even ping retreat? If you’re so good at map-reading, then guard the side paths properly.
[Team] ChocoPiePlease (Bark): Dude, even ClJ plays like this. Why blame me when our ranged and support died side by side?
[Team] JiniHaniJihani (Velatan): Who the fuck is ClJ, dumbass? Stop copying shitty streamers. And who said our ranged and support did well? You’re the one who opened the gate for them.
[Team] ChocoPiePlease (Bark): Ugh, I’m just throwing now. GG.

Ji-han blinked in disbelief. This clown screwed up, then tilted like tofu just because someone pointed it out—and now he was griefing?

Was this game a joke to him?

[Team] JiniHaniJihani (Velatan): What, you’ve got no grit, no skill—why even live? I tell you what to do, you ignore it and ruin the game. Might as well not exist, lol.

The main tank started literally dancing in front of the enemy base. As if to prove his threat, he spammed Dance 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in sequence—radiating sheer madness.

[All] MondayToSunday (Juno): What the hell are you doing? Inting?
[All] ChocoPiePlease (Bark): Yeah lol, our melee DPS kept blaming me.
[All] MondayToSunday (Juno): But he’s the one carrying? Sounds like you got called out for playing bad.

An ally has been slain.

The tank, dancing in the open, died yet again, handing over free gold. Ji-han felt his stress peak.

Platinum taken seriously was hell incarnate. People said if you wanted to see the abyss, don’t go Bronze—go Platinum. And they were right. At season’s end, the casuals had quit, leaving only the grizzled veterans, all with the same traits.

They weren’t like Bronze or Silver, flailing cluelessly. These were players just below Diamond, convinced they were competent. Arrogant with pride, they refused to accept any correction.

It wasn’t that they couldn’t understand—it was that they refused.

Their faith came from pro matches or streamers. The difference was, pros had the mechanics and the analysis to back it up, living and breathing the game. These wannabes copied them, but no matter how hard you explained, they wouldn’t listen.

Because JiniHaniJihani was a Platinum native.

If it had been HanJiHanJang mouthing off, they might’ve accepted it. But anything JiniHaniJihani said? Ignored. Even when he carried, even when they apologized afterward, they never bent their “principles.” And the more self-righteous ones would politick against him—or tilt and throw, like this.

When Ji-han was in a casual mood, he couldn’t even be bothered to type. He’d just ping, step in when things went bad, and didn’t care if his points dropped. Grind out games, collect the event avatar, then dip.

He never minded if teammates roulette’d trolls or griefers ruined matches.

But now? He had a concrete goal: climb a tier, get into a good guild. The simplest way was to reveal that he was actually HanJiHanJang—but that meant admitting to his thirty-day ban for toxic chat.

As an adult, he knew damn well it was shameful to be banned for flaming. That was why he’d invested everything in this account, trying to head off disasters before they happened.

If JiniHaniJihani also got suspended, he’d have to start fresh. Since confirming the avatar reward for the event, he’d even curbed his swearing.

Humans were human because they could think. He’d hoped he could steer games toward cooperation with reason, even under stress.

But what a delusion that was.

If words could bring true teamwork, then why was “gaming is a disease” a meme?

[All] ChocoPiePlease (Bark): Just from how our melee DPS runs his mouth, you’d think he was Legend, lol. But nah, he’s just another Plat native. Big talk, no difference.
[Team] JiniHaniJihani (Velatan): You fucking moron, why live like this? 0 / 1 / 0 is a phone number, not a fucking KDA.
[All] ChocoPiePlease (Bark): Hahaha, guess our melee just expects the tank to hand him kills.

Ji-han was speechless. When had he ever said he wanted his tank to hand him kills? The bastard didn’t understand logic, flaming, or even sarcasm. He was the real deal.

He genuinely believed that a tank’s role was to charge in brainlessly, scrape by with 1 HP, and barely crawl out alive—that this was how a frontline should work.

[Team] JiniHaniJihani (Velatan): A tank is a consumable, idiot! It’s a thousand times better for you to die so our ranged DPS can secure the kill than for you to limp away half-dead!