[FLOTG] Chapter 30: The Last Teammate

When Shen Huai finished signing the contract, he found Song Xue-Yang waiting for him outside the room.

He was leaning against the window looking down at his handphone, only looking up when he heard movement from the door, a smile beaming from his alluring eyes.

Seeing how happy he was, Shen Huai found himself smiling as well. "How long have you been waiting?"

Song Xue-Yang did not reply but stretched out his hand. "Welcome to Maple Moon, my new teammate."

Shen Huai clasped Song Xue-Yang's hand, only to be unexpectedly reeled in by the other into a hug.

Shen Huai's body froze because of the hug. Usually, he did not come into close contact with anyone outside of the requirements of filming, but now, he had already been hugged twice in just three days after meeting Song Xue-Yang.

Song Xue-Yang's embrace was very warm, and the faint fragrance on his clothes was just the type that Shen Huai liked. Shen Huai felt like a tense coil, like a cat with a pinched tail... all of his senses were focused on the places where their bodies touched.

A gentle and pleasing voice said right by his ear, "I've been waiting for this day for three years."

His smile-laden voice was the same as it always was — Song Xue-Yang was mature and levelheaded, and did not wear his emotions openly, but Shen Huai could hear something of his feelings in his voice. He keenly picked up on Song Xue-Yang's rapid heart rate — each thump-thump-thump felt like it was rapped out directly on his eardrum.

Sensing that Song Xue-Yang was just as nervous as he was, Shen Huai's stiff body relaxed and he even managed to pat Song Xue-Yang consolingly on the back.

Song Xue-Yang leaned back, still holding Shen Huai by the shoulders, and looked at him intently, like he was looking at some hard-sought invaluable treasure. "It's proof that what they say is true... Good things require hard work."

As composed as Shen Huai was, he coudn't help but blush at this. At a loss, he pursed his lips, feeling like he should say something but unsure what to say.

"Enough. You always bully the honest ones." The manager slapped Song Xue-Yang on the back. "Didn't you say you wanted to choose someone from the training camp? Have you picked one?"

At this, Song Xue-Yang finally let go of Shen Huai. "I came here just so we could go to the training camp together."

Shen Huai was puzzled. "I'm going too?"

Song Xue-Yang smiled and said, "Of course, you're the main character."

Shen Huai didn't understand what this meant, so he just assumed Song Xue-Yang was joking with him.

They headed to the training camp together. The trainees in the camp had planned to put their full focus on their training, all of them wanting to leave a good impression on their captain, but when they caught sight of Shen Huai, they were all dumbfounded.

The furore over Shen Huai's retirement from the entertainment industry hadn't died down yet, and now the man of the hour himself was here in their club?

Why was he here? Why had he come with the captain to the training camp? Could this be a new collaboration of the club? What grand project were they working on to bring Shen Huai here?

Just as the trainees were wondering whether the club was going to film a documentary or something, their captain introduced cheerily, "Shen Huai, a newcomer the club just signed. He'll also be a regular in next year's tournament lineup."

A loud clatter heralded the end of his introduction. The boy sitting closest to the door had fallen off his chair, but no one in the room seemed to notice. Their eyes were all glued on Shen Huai, like they couldn't look anywhere else, and their brains had lost all ability to think.

What did the captain just say?

Shen Huai?

A regular for the professional leagues?

Do I need to wake up or is the captain the one still dreaming?

Under the gobsmacked gaze of the group, Shen Huai nodded calmly and said, "Hello."

As soon as he spoke, the crowd sucked in a collective breath of shock.

Oh god! He's real!

Shen Huai is actually joining Maple Moon? As a regular? Is the club really intending to go full throttle down the path of "cultivating an idol group"?

The manager was extremely dissatisfied with their skeptical looks, completely forgetting how his own attitude had been almost ten times worse when he had first picked Shen Huai up to join the team. "Shen Huai's entrance test score is 'S'. If you all had a third of his skill, you would have been able to move on from this training camp already."

The manager didn't reveal everything, keeping Shen Huai's identity as Ash Wing under wraps for now. After all, the trainees in the training camp who weren't chosen to join the team could choose to leave at any time.

The manager's words made the already quiet training room fall into dead silence.

Someone muttered, "Isn't 'A' the highest score for the entrance test?"

The speaker found everyone looking at him as soon as he finished speaking. The room was just too quiet, so even such a softly-spoken comment could be heard loud and clear.

The person sitting beside him quickly reminded him, "The highest score for the entrance test is 'S', followed by 'A'. Only 'B's and above can become regulars."

That said, it was extremely difficult to get an S-level score. Although Maple Moon had pretty low requirements of their players in terms of technical skills, the scoring system they used to rate the players was very stringent. The trainees had all heard cases where A- or B-level players had been promoted to regulars, while only one person had ever become a regular with an S-level score, and that was the captain Song Xue-Yang who had only spent three months in the training camp.

It should be known that Song Xue-Yang not only represented the epitome of excellence in Maple Moon, he was a top-class player within the entire esports circle. How was it possible that Shen Huai, an actor who couldn't cut it in the entertainment industry, could match their team captain in skill level?

The way they looked at Shen Huai changed in an instant. They acknowledged deep down that in esports, the strong rule!

Seeing them taking this seriously, Song Xue-Yang said, "The person to fill the final spot in the team going to the professional leagues next year will be selected by Shen Huai. I only have one requirement. A Support player."

"Me?"

"Shen Huai?"

Neither the team manager nor Shen Huai who had just tagged along with Song Xue-Yang expected this. Even though Shen Huai's playing skills were unassailable, he had just signed with Maple Moon after all, so to let a newcomer select another newcomer?

"I just joined the team and don't really know Maple Moon's line-up yet. You should do it," said Shen Huai.

Song Xue-Yang smiled and said, "You're better at the game."

Those were really some overly humble words. Song Xue-Yang had played three years of esports and had been captain for the same three years. He was meticulous and thoughtful, so he would certainly have a keener eye than Shen Huai in judging people.

Still, Shen Huai trusted Song Xue-Yang very much. If Song Xue-Yang wanted him to choose, then he must have his reasons for doing so, so Shen Huai did not put up any more resistance. "All right, I'll do my best."

Although the manager didn't really agree with this course of action, he was a brain-dead Ash Wing fan. He wouldn't bat an eye even if Song Xue-Yang were to say he would pass his captaincy on to Ash Wing right now, let alone just asking him to select a newcomer.

The trainees had long known that the opening on the team this year was for the Support position — the players in the training camp who were playing "City of Despair" right now were pretty much all Support players — so they weren't at all surprised by this announcement.

The group turned their fervent gazes on Shen Huai and waited for him to announce the rules of the selection. Under their serious gazes, Shen Huai felt suffused with a sense of responsibility.

He said succinctly, "Everyone get into groups and enter the training arena. Team up according to your character classes."

Though the training camp was filled with newbies, they were all well-trained after having been at Maple Moon for a while. It took only a few minutes for them to get into the groups Shen Huai asked for.

The only Support character classes in "City of Despair" were the holy priest and the spellcaster. Each of those character classes had three subclasses, but the poison medic subclass under holy priest and the dreamstealer subclass under spellcaster don't classify as Support, so in the end, there were no more than four teams.

Holy priests branched out into healers or cursebreakers. Although healers had great healing capacity, they had no damage output at all, while cursebreakers had low healing capacity but could help remove all kinds of negative statuses from themselves and their teammates and retained some level of damage output.

Spellcasters branched out into dark spellcasters and light spellcasters. Dark spellcasters specialised in crowd control, practically accounting for all of the negative crowd control skills in the game. They were very well sought-after for 2v2 arena fights. Light spellcasters specialised in buffs and debuffs. They could instantly weaken the enemies' defenses and increase their side's damage output, but because team work and coordination were key to their use, they weren't as common.

Shen Huai was leaning more towards choosing a healer or a dark spellcaster. Both subclasses had roles to play in both 2v2s or 6v6s, and they wouldn't require many changes to the line-up to be useful.

Healers don't have any damage output, so Shen Huai made them pair up with gunners who had removed all their armour and equipment, and then sent them off to challenge the "Gunner Queen" dungeon, which had the highest official difficulty rating. They were to record their survival time in the dungeon.

Gunners were the character class with the lowest defense and HP to begin with, so with their equipment off, the amount of HP they had was simply nerve-wracking to look at. Shen Huai gave each team three chances, but not a single one managed to survive beyond three minutes. He was rather disappointed.

Cursebreakers and dark spellcasters were natural counters to each other, so Shen Huai asked them to form teams of two and go up against each other in 2v2s, again with three chances each, and the results could only be described as less than satisfactory.

The final team was the light spellcasters. By this point, Shen Huai already had some idea of how he would decide. Light spellcasters relied greatly on the coordination of team members, often requiring months and years of assimilation to become the core of a pro team. Right now, Maple Moon obviously did not have the time to invest in a light spellcaster, and one of the boys in the previous group had performed passably as a dark spellcaster. With the proper training, he may be of some use.

Still, he would do his due diligence and give the light spellcasters a proper audition. There was only one trainee who played a light spellcaster. It was a petite, thin girl, expressionless and quiet. She had a very weak presence.

Shen Huai asked her to enter the custom room and set her up with an AI teammate for the Gnome Tribe dungeon. The mobs in this dungeon had particularly high damage and movement speed.

Light spellcasters did not have much damage output, and the level of an AI teammate was even worse than the average player. Under these conditions, it was necessary to constantly safeguard one's teammate and move cooperatively with them to clear the dungeon. This would be a challenging test for one's responsiveness and mental fortitude, which were key requirements for the character class of light spellcasters.

The newcomers were filled with admiration for Shen Huai when they saw this. He had clearly been surprised when the captain had asked him to run the selection, so the decision had obviously been sprung on him without prior notice. That he was able to come up with such a targeted selection test so quickly was a testament to the depth of his understanding of the game.

The manager was also a "City of Despair" player and could naturally see this as well. He couldn't help but turn to Song Xue-Yang beside him in his excitement to say, "Ash Wing is truly a diamond in the rough."

The man beside him gave no response to this, however. Song Xue-Yang's gaze was fixed on Shen Huai, the smile in his eyes almost as warm as the waters of a lake in spring.

Recalling that hug outside the door, the team manager's eye twitched. "Can you stop staring at Shen Huai? It looks to me like you're about to turn bent."

Stop looking at Shen Huai?

Sorry, he just couldn't do it.

Just looking at Shen Huai, he couldn't help but want to be nice to him, to do whatever he could to help him. Besides, it was probably way too late to stop himself from turning bent.

Song Xue-Yang sidestepped the topic by commenting, "We will see the day when his radiance shines far and bright."

"Yes," said the manager, sufficiently distracted, "I am rather excited to see it."

"Me too."

The manager stopped and looked at him. Song Xue-Yang was renowned for being unflappable — he was just as inscrutable as his tactics. Could someone like him actually be excited over this?

"You can't tell?" Song Xue-Yang noticed his skepticism, and still smiling, he added, "Did you know, Kun? From the moment I saw Shen Huai, I had decided to make him the most dazzling player in the professional arena."

The manager quipped back, "Surpassing even you?"

Song Xue-Yang turned his head away. "I did say 'most'."

The manager blinked, nonplussed, and gaped at him.

"Most" meant the only one.

Song Xue-Yang's gaze returned to Shen Huai, as if he had neither said anything nor made any promises. His assured air even left the manager wondering if he had misheard.

However, the manager also knew very well that Song Xue-Yang's greatest strength was keeping true to his word.

Sooner or later, Shen Huai would end up becoming a magnificent presence in the professional arena, but with Song Xue-Yang's help, he was certain to become the most dazzling player on the field.

The manager's heart raced just imagining the day Shen Huai would shock fans all over the world.

The subject of their conversation, Shen Huai, was currently in deep contemplation. This light spellcaster whom he had already crossed off his mental list at the start was actually presenting an unexpectedly strong showing.

Not only did she successfully protect her AI teammate to the completion of the dungeon, she was also swift to react and cooperate with it the entire time. If he hadn't known that her teammate was the system AI, Shen Huai would have believed that she was playing with a familiar old partner.

Such quick responsiveness and willingness to serve as a cooperative foil was a perfect interpretation of the very soul of being a Support player! In comparison, those dark spellcasters before this who had seemed satisfactory were not looking so satisfactory anymore.

Shen Huai began considering the compatibility of a light spellcaster with their team. Even if he had taken a liking to the skill of this girl, he wouldn't dare make a decision so hastily.

He couldn't help but look towards Song Xue-Yang, who smiled at him in response from his vantage point leaning against the far wall.

Shen Huai blinked, a lightbulb going off in his mind.

He himself played an assassin, a character class not well-received by most players, and Song Xue-Yang not only did not care, he even came personally to Shen Huai's door to invite him into the team.

Before the selection, Song Xue-Yang had said that he had only one requirement, that the selected player be a Support player. He had also said that Shen Huai knew the game better.

Reflecting on it now, all those statements seem to have been prepped in advance as a reminder ― consider only skill regardless of character class.

Shen Huai felt enlightened, his thoughts becoming clear.

His present responsibility was to choose a teammate with great operational skills. As for how the lineup would be arranged and how the team battles should be fought... That was Song Xue-Yang's problem to think about.

With that, Shen Huai said to the young girl who played the light spellcaster, "You've passed."

Unnoticed by Shen Huai, at the very moment he had made up his mind, Song Xue-Yang smiled, as if sensing something.

---

Previous: Chapter 29: Contract
Next: Chapter 31: All Members Assembled

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