Chapter One: Hat Gone, Man Nearly Gone

Beside it, the qualifier countdown read seven hours. He opened the recruitment lobby. Invitations from famous players should have filled the screen. Tonight there was only one, looking as if it had crawled from the bottom of a trash can. 【“Something Came Up” seeks fifth player. Requirements: alive. Preferably knows directions. Win rate irrelevant—we don’t have one.】 He opened the team profile. Captain “Dessert Assassin,” historical win rate: 9.8 percent. “Retired Warlord,” mechanics rating: D. “Sister 404,” disconnected from six public matches. “Mic Is Broken,” reported for “sounding like a construction site.” Their comments section held 170,000 messages, all expressing the same basic idea: these four should stop polluting competitive gaming.