Chapter 168: Outsmarting the Outsmarting of the Outsmarting

"Haaah, as expected of a big-shot pro gamer. This is a real headache."

In order to manually detonate Clockfire's "Dolls", the bombs need to be strictly within her line of sight—specifically, within the vision cone of her left prosthetic eye. Back in Round 1, when she had a top-tier mobility option like the helicopter, this drawback was basically negligible. But in a situation like right now, fresh off the round start, that specific weakness gets glaringly exposed.
It's simple logic. At the very start of a round when movement options are limited, being able to detonate a bomb means you have to be physically close to it. If that's the case, the counterplay against Clockfire is incredibly straightforward: ignore the bombs and hunt down the main body. That's it.

"Hahhaa! Found you, Lady!!"

"Oh my, desperate men aren't very popular, you know?"

"Wild men are way more popular!"

At this point, those NPCs held zero value as Active Bombs. Since they were effectively useless, the optimal play was to burn through them to refresh her stock of placeable traps. And there was no way a guy with a notoriously messy history with women was a soft enough player to let an opening like that slide.

"I'll have to... pass on that!"

Several panicked NPCs fleeing behind Dr. Sandalphon suddenly exploded. Taking that as the starting signal, the standoff instantly shifted into a full-blown violent clash.

(Wha— He's way too fast...!!)

"Consider this a thank-you gift for the last round! Make sure you take it along with the tip!"

"No thanks!!"

Placeable Count: 8. Placed Count: 12.
Manual detonation was off the table. In that case, she had to buy distance using her own HP as collateral.
Dr. Sandalphon was a close-quarters brawler archetype who wielded psychic powers. His signature move was "Psycho Fist"—coating his fists in telekinesis to drastically amplify his punch damage. Frame-wise, it had a slightly lower fire rate but proced a nasty two-hit combo.
Using the prosthetic eye embedded in her left socket, Clockfire spawned a dog doll and instantly hoisted it up as a meat shield between herself and his incoming fist.
The dog doll got sandwiched between Pencilgon and Lucas's fists, the sheer impact of Psycho Fist caving in the fancy toy's body until it violently detonated.

"Ugh... feels like strapping one of those intense electric massage pads straight to my stomach..."

Detonate, detonate, detonate. Catching the fleeing NPCs barely hovering at the edge of her screen, she blew up three more.

"Chain reaction! Lucky!"

Placeable Count: 13. Placed Count: 7.
Using the doll as a makeshift buckler, she ate the punch and rode the blast knockback to gain some serious distance.

(This is bad... the NPCs are scattering. Gotta recall them all while they're still in the area.)

"Hey hey, thinking about other guys in the middle of a date? Keep your eyes only on me!"

"If you're gonna propose, get your medical license first, you quack!"

Explode, blow away, get back up.
She was way too far from her intended interception point. If she let the panicking NPCs scatter entirely, her bomb count would get hard-capped.

(I mean, I fully planned on throwing this round from the start, but there's a right and wrong way to lose...)

In this game, field alterations carry over between rounds. That means any NPCs strapped with bombs stay exactly where they are going into the next round.

(Seven of them, huh... HP is sitting at just over 60%. Looking at the map layout here, I can't get back to the other side unless I slip right past this playboy...)

Catching an NPC out of the corner of her eye for a split second, she instantly detonated it. Luckily, it seemed to be the very first one in the detonation queue. But with that, there were zero NPCs left in her line of sight. Being boxed into a narrow alleyway between two buildings, she desperately needed to resolve this situation immediately.

(If it were Sunraku-kun or Katzo-kun, they might cheese this with a parry or a guard-break throw, but there's no way I have the frames or mechanical skill to pull that off against a pro... Alright.)

The ultimate tool for negotiation is a smile. A soft smirk projects an aura of absolute control. Is she hiding some sort of secret strat? That tiny speck of doubt acts as a poison that slows down a player's movements. And that right there is Pencilgon's—the Pencil Warrior's—true primary weapon. Forcing the opponent to think. Forcing them to doubt.
Unlike a certain hype-fueled idiot who buffs his own stats by peaking his adrenaline, or a certain Mr. I-Can't-Trigger-Unique-Scenarios-By-Myself who buffs his gameplay through obsessive research and experience... her strat revolves entirely around applying hard debuffs to the enemy using mind games and environmental psychology.

"I don't need to worry about my back, and you can only move in a straight line... What would you do if I told you this was exactly according to plan?"

"I'd just keep moving straight."

"Wonderful!"

She got the exact read she needed out of him. All that was left was execution. Flashing a wicked grin, Pencilgon lunged forward with absolutely zero hesitation, causing Dr. Sandalphon's body to instinctively stiffen in high alert.
Anyone can talk a big game. That's exactly why, the moment she actively initiated a charge, Lucas braced himself against a counter-strategy that didn't even exist. And that's exactly why, when Clockfire charged right up to him and effortlessly slipped past his guard without doing a damn thing, not just her opponent, but the entire stadium completely froze for a solid few seconds.

"Ahahahaha IDIOOOOOOT! You're three light-years too early to be dragging a girl into a back alley... IDIOOOOOT!!"

"That's distance, not time!!"

Amane Towa, Forever 24. Dropping a grade-schooler tier taunt before breaking into a full, desperate sprint.
If you clipped this one specific scene out of context, absolutely no one would believe it was happening on a massive world-class esports stage being broadcast globally. But it wasn't like Pencilgon was abandoning the match and running away—she was desperately clinging to a razor-thin spider's thread leading to victory, dragging herself up inch by inch.

(Only two minutes down... I need to stall for at least another five...!!)

"Get back heeeeere!!"

"I'd much rather play Hide-and-Seek than Tag!!"

"Like hell I'll let you!!"

(Yeah, figures... Oh, retrieved two.)

Five bombs left on the field. How could she perfectly juggle bomb retrieval, running for her life, and stalling the clock without dropping a single objective?
For the time being, Clockfire went back to her full-power dash, blowing up innocent civilians left and right to recall her dolls and prep the stage for the grand finale.

"Pfft, haha... Honestly, shouldn't we praise her for at least not flipping him the bird...?"

"Even subtracting that, pulling a childish stunt like that on such a massive public stage... my head hurts."

"Well, it completely blew your heel-play out of the water and erased the memory of it, so result's all good."

".........Wait, did she act like that entirely just to cover for me?"

"Nah, that's just her actual personality."

Ignoring Natsume-shi as she completely froze up while clutching her head, I frowned beneath my helmet and twisted my lips.
Adding Pencilgon's current stalled time to the roughly thirty minutes Natsume-shi effectively bought us, we were sitting at around forty-five minutes total. Assuming Pencilgon stalls for an hour across this match and the next one, and—hypothetically speaking—I manage to stall Sylvia Goldberg for thirty minutes, that hits the two-hour mark. If Katzo's end of the plan doesn't completely shit the bed, our job is done.
But if the world was the kind of place where everything went perfectly according to plan, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with. I feel bad saying it, but I never honestly believed Pencilgon could survive three consecutive matches stalling from the very start. And frankly, Pencilgon herself probably knows that better than anyone.

"Will we be lucky if she even manages forty minutes...?"

Unexpectedly—or rather, entirely within expectations—the pro gamer's sheer adaptability was just way too high.
Pencilgon's entire game plan relied on absolutely avoiding direct combat from start to finish. And yet, even with a massive thirty-second head start right out of the gate to set up her traps, he sniffed her out in a flash.
You kinda want to scream Why are you playing Hide-and-Seek in a fighting game?! but because Clockfire's trap mechanics are so fundamentally broken, her actual physical specs are balanced to be heavily subpar. Since she's guaranteed to get caught eventually, this delicate equilibrium won't last much longer.

"In the end, it all comes down to Pe... No Name's hustle. There's only one thing we can actually do here."

"Pray for her?"

"Laugh at her pathetic display."

I completely ignored Natsume-shi as she stared at me with a face resembling a cat experiencing the Flehmen response[*1].
Alright then, Pencilgon. Entertain us while we're stuck here dying of boredom. Fuhahahaha!!

Ah, Mr. Cameraman, don't point that lens over here! I get stage fright!

Author's Afterword
Natsume-chan is slowly turning into the dedicated reaction-face character...

Translator's Notes

• *[1] Flehmen response: The face an animal (like a cat or horse) makes when investigating a strange smell by curling its upper lip and baring its teeth. Sunraku uses it to describe Natsume looking at him like he's utterly repulsive.