“So, are we ready to go dowage and face our coach?” Cato asked with his usual impish smirk. “The real roasting is about to start, haha...”

  “A nice finisher for a motivation speech, bruh.” Ronald made a face.

  Reminding the team about Ruez put a damper on their mood all ain. heless, they were a strong bunch, so they overcame this within seds and dragged themselves dowage.

  Cato’s speech had already helped them to move on after the crushi, so being roasted by the coach didn’t feel like such a big deal at his point. They overcame the first challenge, so they’ll overe the sed one as well.

  Besides, an ued defeat on the petitive stage was a first for the Leopards, so naturally, it rattled them. Oher hand, getting roasted by Ruez? That was a daily routine.

  So, everybody was more than ready to face Ruez’s armor-pierg questions head-on. Though, to their surprise, Ruez didn’t hit them as hard as they expected.

  “I see it took you a while to gather the ce to e dowage,” Ruez said. “So, I take it you’re ashamed of this defeat? You shouldn’t be.”

  Everybody lifted their heads upon hearing these ued words. Instead of beating them down to oblivion, Ruez actually started off with nice words. Though, knowing the guy, this only made things scarier...

  “The enemy caught you off-guard,” Ruez tinued. “They pced many traps during the drafting phase and they drafted a very unventional lineup. Especially, that Jungle DK was something else.”

  It was an abnormally soft analysis of how things went down, especially sidering the team had just suffered its first defeat on the petitive stage sis debut. Everybody prepared themselves for an earful, but so far, Ruez hasn’t scolded them much. At least, for now.

  "With so many ued factors, it's not toe for you to drop one game,” Ruez said. “No matter how strong a team is, nobody is immuo the surprise element. So, if losing to a 'meme' team is what's b you, then it shouldn't."

  A few breaths of relief resounded in respoo these words. The team expected to get roasted to death, yet Ruez let it slide. It was unusually kind of him.

  In fact, his words resembled the little speech Cato gave earlier in order to revive the team's morale. This simirity betweewo further boosted the team’s spirits.

  But, they should have knower than to rejoice so early. After all, they had been Ruez's pupils for over two years now, they should have known that one of Ruez’s favorite tactics was to start with praises before moving on to bombard them with criticism.

  "However." That's how it always started. Everybody straighteheir backs at the mere sound of the word. "There is ohing you did do horribly wrong in this game and you have to refle. Anybody wants to wager a guess?"

  He id his eyes on each of them in order, like a hawk staring down his prey. One of them will have to speak up, that's the message he was sending. This lecture won't proceed forward until somebody provides an answer, regardless of whether that answer will be correct or not.

  As usual, Ruez's demands were met with sile first. Rarely did anybody voluo put themselves on the chopping block so early. Especially, this time, the riddle was seriously difficult, too.

  "Eh, anybody got any idea?" Ronald whispered. "I'm totally stumped on this one."

  But, nobody respoo his question. Not because they were ign him, but because they were genuinely unsure what to say.

  Normally, when Ruez posed his armor-pierg questions, the answer was somewhere oip of their tongues. Basically, his questions were more like tests that forced the pyers to look deep inside and ask themselves the important questions.

  But this time, things weren't as straightforward. Or rather, their denial of the matter was far strohan usual, to the point that most of them really believed they didn’t know the answer.

  In truth, most of them realized the aoward the end of the game, as did Cato.

  Do I e out and say it? Cato g the others. They seemed lost in thought, trying to find an ao Ruez's inquiry.

  Only William had a troubled expression on his face. He had probably already figured it out but he didn't want to put it into words.

  And holy, it erfectly uandable. Cato also danced around this topic back when he was giving his motivational speech.

  The ao Ruez's question required admitting to some rather embarrassing inadequa the Leoaprds' end. It was an issue that everybody must've realized at one point or another.

  So, nobody? Okay then. Cato took a deep breath and steeled himself. Looks like I have to do everything myself, huh. Welp, I'm responsible for how this game turned out, so I'll bite.

  "We uimated our oppos to aent."

  "Oh?" Ruez nodded. "Does everybody feel that way?"

  "Hmph." William nodded quietly in affirmation.

  "Oh, I suppose we did..." Sonya chewed her lips as she realized how simple the answer was.

  "Yeah, sounds abht," Matthew agreed.

  By looking inwards, they realized that the signs were all over the pce. The reason the enemy’s “surprise element” worked so well was that deep down the Leopards were uimating their foes.

  For example, if StormBlitz were to use a joke lineup like this, would the Leopards uimate them? Maybe a little, but not nearly as much as they did with Stratus.

  From the get-go, Stratus registered in their minds as a "weak team" that the Leopards will "definitely" crush. It was an image that wasn’t fully erased from their minds, not even after pying against Stratus in the flesh.

  No matter how strong Gunz proved himself to be, or ho Chessmaster's shot-calls were, Stratus had failed to ever register as a "real threat" for the Leopards until now. Somewhere at the back of their heads, the regional champions were uimating the team that reviously known as the “weakest in the region”.

  Though, one of them wasn't so quiit to any of it.

  "Did we really uimate them that much?" Ronald asked. "I mean, sure, we let uard a little. But, who wouldn't? These guys had a DK Jungler, of all things! It was hirious, haha!"

  "The me ask you, this" Ruez started. "Suppose you weren't pying against Stratus but against an A-League pro team that just happeo use a DK Jungler as well. Would you still let yuard down in that case?"

  "Eh, that’s quite the sario." Ronald crossed his arms and knotted his brows. "I mean, if they're a legit good team, then yeah, I guess I'd take them seriously regardless of the wild DK pick."

  "So, you're saying Stratus isn't a 'legit good team'?"

  "Welp, I mean..." Ronald scratched his head. "Hrrrrrm."

  “My, you're sure straining that little brain of yours~" iled impishly. "I 't believe that you, of all people, have the gall tue here. Do I o remind you how you overexte game start and almost got killed?"

  "Hey, it wasn't that BAD. I mean, yeah it was a little risky and all, but I knew what I was doing. Like, I survived that whole thing and evehe ward I came to pce. Ez game."

  "But also," William added. "You got yourself hospitalized for five years thanks to all the damage you took. That gave them an opportunity to steal res and double-team me in Bot."

  "Weeeelp, haha..." Ronald waue back but he didn't have a single goument at hand. At least, he didn’t have anything that could possibly sway his big bro.

  "I'm gd you’ve brought up this particur topic by yourselves," Ruez said. "We don't have time for thh game analysis, but there are a few pys I wao touch upon and this is one of them. Ronald, you seriously messed up that opening, probably more than you even realize."

  “Oh boy…” Ronald braced himself for a sermon.

  And so, Ruez unleashed tons of criticism about the py but he did so in a sharp, cise manner.

  The team was definitely going to discuss this point in more length during the official matalysis. But for now, Ruez only focused on the most important points. Namely, the value of early-game advantage for a hyper-aggressive team.

  At a gnce, Ronald’s early overextension didn’t seem like a first-degree crime. It was a terrible mispy that set the team back but it happened in the early-game, where mistakes were the most fivable.

  So, it wasn’t so bad, right? Wrong! That one mispy was a huge setback for the team. It was difficult to even prehend the entire scope of its sequences without suffit experience against teams like that.

  The entire goal of a hyper-aggressive p was to capitalize on any opportunity that preseself in the early-game. Therefore, what seemed like a small “early-game advantage” for a regur team was actually a huge deal for a hyper-aggressive team.

  It wasn’t an exaggeration to cim that Ronald’s i blunder pyed a key role in allowing Stratus to gain the momentum that ultimately led them to victory. If not for that strong opening, then Stratus wouldn’t have been able to execute the many other strong pys that followed.

  Yes, Ronald’s otle mispy had that big of an impact. It was the kind of mistake that he absolutely wasn’t allowed to it against hyper-aggressive oppos. And, Ronald wasn’t the only one guilty of this.

  “I believe I’ve chewed out Ronald enough,” Ruez moved on. “There was another early blunder itted by somebody else here. It had as much gravity as Ronald’s overextension, if not more. Anybody wants to take a guess y I’m talking about?”

  It didn’t take them long to figure this o. After all, there was oable mispy that escated the situation all by itself. It was no exaggeration to say that this py allowed Stratus to push to victory with their full strength without any regard for risks.

  However, nobody said anythi. In situations like this, it was best to let the culprit fess their own crimes. Doing so scored them some fiveness points with Ruez because he appreciated pyers who were mature enough tnize and admit their own mistakes.

  As, silence lingered for a while longer some after the question osed. The culprit turiff, surely aware that they were about to get exposed. Ahey refused to testify quite yet...

  DarkestCymore