The Villainess VTuber Tears People Apart

I decided to play Arcade Mode while checking the team’s skills.

Thus, I created a custom room in Arcade Mode, setting up a 3v1 match.

In other words, Aurora would be facing the other three players alone.

‘…I feel like we’re going to lose.’

However, before the game even started, Sora’s heart had already given up.

Sora was playing Labyrinthos for the first time today.

It seemed like Inagika and Chel weren’t complete beginners, but they were still on a similar level as her.

We probably won’t win, no matter what.

Thinking that, Sora proceeded to select her character.

【Battle Decided: Underground Labyrinth Map / Extermination Mode】

【Hunt all the monsters on the map.

You win by hunting more monsters than the opposing team or by eliminating all enemy team members. There is a time limit.】

“This means we can win without having to fight Laura directly, right?”

“I-It’s theoretically possible…”

Inagika nodded from the side.

“If we catch more monsters than Laura, we’ll win… Laura’s team only has one person, so her hunting speed will be slower than ours…”

“I see~.”

Though Sora understood the explanation, she still didn’t have a good grasp of it. It couldn’t be helped, as this was her first Labyrinthos match.

Still, she had watched a few Labyrinthos streams, so it wasn’t entirely unfamiliar.

Sora picked Bard.

“Huh, Bard…? Did you actually spend money?”

Inagika looked slightly surprised.

Other than character skins, Labyrinthos had no real pay-to-win elements.

However, when you first start the game, only eight characters are unlocked.

To play different characters, you have to level up your account and earn in-game currency, which you can use to buy additional characters one by one.

While it was possible to collect all characters without paying, it did take some time.

Some people who found this process too tedious would spend money, but as an experienced gacha spender, Inagika thought it was a huge waste of money.

If I had that kind of money, I would have spent it on a gacha game instead.

“Well, I am a minstrel, right? So of course, I have to play Bard, don’t I?”

“…I-I see.”

But if that’s what she wanted, there was nothing more to be said.

Besides, streamers had a lower threshold for spending money than ordinary players. Since their job was to entertain their viewers by showing them games, spending money on the game was somewhat inevitable.

And so, Sora locked in Bard.

Inagika picked Mage, which had many AoE skills.

Then Chel,

“Is that Gladiator?”

When Sora asked, Chel nodded.

“That’s surprising. I thought you’d choose a more quiet character.”

“I’m not very good. I’ve only seen Gladiator videos a few times, so I decided to try.”

“Are you talking about Rinco-senior’s stream by any chance? I’ve seen Rinco-senior play Gladiator too.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

Chel confirmed.

Kisaki Rinco’s main character was Gladiator.

Everyone knew that, especially if they were a VTuber affiliated with EYEAI.

***

I took a step forward.

With a soft, squishy sensation, liquid splashed everywhere. The amorphous creature, the slime, would immediately die once its core was destroyed.

Glancing at the scattered remains of the slime, I muttered to myself.

“They’re weaker than I thought.”

It had been quite some time since the custom match began.

The only monsters I had encountered so far were slimes. The kill count displayed in the corner of my vision was steadily increasing.

In other words, it was essentially a competition to see who could hunt more slimes.

‘This is going to be quite unfavorable.’

Given that I was up against three people, being at a disadvantage was inevitable. Still, I believed I’d win as long as the skill gap between us was significant.

However, the victory condition being ‘Extermination’ and the monsters being so weak…

These two factors combined made this a very different game from the usual Labyrinthos.

Simply put, the game had now become more like an asymmetrical survival game, such as Dead by Daylight.

Sora and her team would likely want to avoid me while hunting monsters.

Since they had three players, I had no way of keeping up with their hunting speed. So, just by increasing their kill count, Sora’s team could win.

Their most effective strategy would be to spread out and cover as much of the map as possible.

“In that case, they’re either completely separated or split into two groups.”

The monsters were too weak for them to stick together.

By spreading out, they could maximize their hunting speed and make it easier to confuse me.

Thinking about the ‘Survivors’ in Dead by Daylight makes this easy to understand. Scattering all over the map is a good way to waste time.

This also simplified my task considerably. I just had to hunt down each of my teammates scattered somewhere on the map.

As quickly as possible.

I ran.

【: You can smell blood.】

A faint scent of blood reached my nose. My passive skill had been activated.

This time, I was playing as a Berserker.

The Dark Knight wasn’t ideal for hunting speed, so I figured the Berserker would be a better choice.

Running in the direction of the scent, I soon spotted a figure wielding a greatsword in the distance.

Above their head was the username ‘Chel_Sumeragi_V.’

“Oh my, isn’t that Chel?”

“……”

Chel glanced in my direction.

The Berserker’s passive, , was a skill that tracked enemies by the smell of blood.

Chel had a minor scratch on her body. It must have been from hunting slimes.

But it wasn’t a serious wound. She was in nearly perfect condition.

Chel adjusted her grip on her greatsword and assumed a combat stance.

As expected, there was no sign of Sora or Inagika.

“Are you alone? Will you be okay?”

“……”

“You can call for Sora and Inagika if you want. That way, it’ll be a real fight, don’t you think?”

“I can handle it by myself.”

Chel charged at me. As I thought, it wouldn’t work.

It seemed my teammates also understood how Dead by Daylight worked. While Chel was buying time, Inagika and Sora were likely hunting slimes as part of their strategy.

‘A Gladiator, huh.’

I hadn’t faced many of them, but I knew Gladiator well enough.

Recently, Rion had said something like this to me.

-“Unnie Laura.”

-“After the tournament, there’s going to be a one-on-one event match between you and Rinco-senior.”

-“I don’t care about anything else, but make sure you win that match.”

Rion had been particularly insistent about it.

I didn’t know why she emphasized defeating Rinco so much, but she must have had her reasons.

Anyway, hearing that from Rion was probably why I felt this odd sense of exhilaration when facing a Gladiator.

I grinned.

-Whoosh!

Chel swung her sword.

A downward strike from above.

Since the movement was large, it wasn’t difficult to predict. I quickly stepped back.

But Chel’s attack didn’t stop there.

Continuing with the momentum, her greatsword crashed into the ground.

-Thud!

The sword buried itself into the ground, and Chel—tumbling as she moved—aimed a kick with her heel.

-Whoosh!

By a narrow margin, her foot just barely grazed me.

I slightly tilted my body. That was all it took to dodge Chel’s kick.

Boom!

As Chel landed on the ground with a loud sound, the impact left a small crater beneath her feet.

‘Her form is pretty good.’

I glanced at Chel, who was adjusting her grip on the sword again.

The greatsword was big and heavy.

Because of that, it had tremendous power, but it also came with many drawbacks. Its movements were inevitably large, and it became difficult to respond if an opponent closed the distance.

The Gladiator was a character that stylishly overcame those drawbacks.

“……”

Chel swung her sword again.

This time, it wasn’t a simple downward strike. It seemed she had watched Gladiator gameplay videos, as she made a diagonal downward slash.

Most of Gladiator’s attacks started with a downward strike.

It was just the nature of the weapon.

When I dodged the sword, as expected, it lodged itself into the ground.

And once again, Chel attempted to tumble.

-Whoosh!

With only her arm strength, she held tightly onto the sword handle, and I saw her do a handstand.

The Gladiator had many attacks that used the greatsword as a ‘pivot.’

This technique had its advantages. For one, the attack range became significantly longer.

The greatsword already had a long range, but combining a downward slash with a tumbling kick extended the attack range even further.

The attack flew from a surprisingly far distance, almost doubling the effective range.

Furthermore, it wasn’t a simple kick.

In the game’s lore, a Gladiator’s kick was powerful enough to crush skulls, and with the added rotational force from tumbling, it became a truly devastating attack. A direct hit could be fatal.

On top of that, the Gladiator performed evasive maneuvers with each attack.

Characters like the Assassin, who specialized in ultra-close combat, could easily take down a greatsword-wielding character like the Paladin.

But the Gladiator’s relentless, ever-changing attack angles made it hard to close the distance for an ultra-close fight.

Thus, the Gladiator maximized the greatsword’s ‘range’ advantage while eliminating the ‘sluggishness’ drawback.

‘Of course, it also came with a new weakness.’

Chel’s kick was coming closer.

She wasn’t particularly skilled with the Gladiator, as her attack was very straightforward.

Thanks to that, it was easy to predict where the attack would land.

Once I anticipated her move, closing the distance was simple.

As I dodged Chel’s attack, I moved forward.

Toward the greatsword embedded in the ground.

-Thwack!

I struck the greatsword with my fist.

Because of the Gladiator’s flashy movements, it was easy to forget, but fundamentally, the playstyle was more like ‘a greatsword wielding the Gladiator’ rather than the other way around.

The Gladiator constantly changed positions with tumbling maneuvers, but during that time, the greatsword, which served as the Gladiator’s ‘pivot,’ was stuck firmly in the ground.

Since it was fixed in one spot, approaching it wasn’t difficult.

And if the pivot was broken, the Gladiator’s techniques would fall apart.

-Thwack!!

When the kick finally landed, the greatsword wobbled heavily.

That alone was enough to break Chel’s balance as she tumbled.

“Ugh…!”

Chel slipped and rolled across the ground.

The disruption to the greatsword she had used as a pivot caused her to fail her landing.

Chel, now covered in dust, struggled to get back on her feet.

But I reached her before she could.

“When you attack, be more aware of your range. You need to understand that your opponent might target your greatsword.

And your movements were too predictable. If you’d used more stylish attacks, you could have stopped my approach. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Chel nodded.

“It’s too hard, so I won’t play Gladiator anymore.”

That’s fair.

Maybe that’s for the best.

“Next time, play a simpler character.”

Saying that, I grabbed Chel by the neck.

***

【Our Gladiator has been taken down by the enemy Berserker.】

“…Chel’s dead.”

Sora muttered as she read the message that appeared in her vision.

It was just as she expected.

She hadn’t even entertained the thought of winning without any losses.

From the beginning, they had agreed to stall for as long as possible, even if one of them was killed.

In the meantime, the remaining two would focus on hunting monsters.

“Now it’s just the two of us left… Should we split up at this point?”

Sora looked back and asked.

She had been moving with Inagika.

Though slimes were weak enough that a Bard could hunt them alone, it still wasn’t very efficient for a support character to roam by herself.

That’s why Sora had been hunting slimes with Inagika.

But now that Chel was dead, it was clear that Laura was searching for them.

In that case, wouldn’t it be better to separate now rather than stay together and get killed?

─Or so Sora thought.

“Inagika?”

But no answer came to her question.

Feeling something was off, Sora retraced her steps.

There, she saw the Berserker holding Inagika by the collar.

“So…ra…, run…”

-Crunch.

A clean fracture.

Inagika’s neck snapped, and her body became lifeless.

“No way… How did you find her so quickly…?”

“Chel was heavier than I expected. It took a while to carry her over here.”

At the end of Laura’s gaze was Chel’s corpse.

Chel’s body was slumped against the wall.

…Why is Chel here?

I had parted ways with her right after the game started.

Could it be…

‘…She carried Chel here without killing her?’

She must have whittled Chel’s HP down just enough that she didn’t die, then carried her here and finished her off.

To delay the kill log from appearing.

Laura had thought that by delaying the kill log, Sora and Inagika would let their guard down.

“Your strategy was to split up and stall for time, wasn’t it? In that case, it would have made sense for you to be on the opposite side of where I encountered Chel.”

“……”

“Thanks to that, I was able to find you so quickly. I’m happy to see you. But your thinking was too simple. In the future, try to catch your opponent off guard.”

Laura reached out her hand.

Watching that, Sora let out a sigh.

“…Please kill me kindly.”