Update! Time! Action!


The custom game started, and it immediately opened another menu.

A menu from which they could choose a character to play as. Of course, by characters, the game meant units from the base game that were given custom statistics and abilities to make them different from one another.

It was still only a custom game mode made by two young students for their assignment, after all.

To expect more from them would have been quite silly.

Still, all the different units from the base game's factions did make for a rather diverse character selection, and Weiss was already having difficulties deciding on one of them.

The fact that most of those characters were only given brief descriptions of how they were supposed to work in a game mode she had never played before didn't make her attempts at choosing one any easier, either.

"What does it mean that a character is 'a middle-range warrior with the ability to become a closed-range brawler'?" Weiss asked, quoting the description of a character that used the Last Kingdom's light mecha model. "Does it have a dedicated skill that changes its statistics, or is it simply good enough at both of those roles to work as either?"

"I'm not sure." Knight asked more than stated in his answer.

Weiss groaned.

"My sisters aren't really gamers—they only take programming lessons—so it's not like they have a lot of experience in making readable games." Knight said, trying to defend his sisters. "Some mistakes are to be expected."

"Yeah, they are, but we are still the ones who play through their game and experience those mistakes." Chammy cut in.

Weiss nodded her head.

Trying to choose a character in this game was really making her realize just how much thought was usually put into making a game that could be enjoyable and readable for any type of gamer.

"It's not that bad." Knight chuckled. "Besides, as technically beta testers of this game, we are supposed to notice all those different issues and report them to my sisters later down the line."

Chammy grumbled in dissatisfaction.

"In that case, make sure to report all those descriptions as issues to your sisters, then." Weiss said as she clicked on a random unit to choose a character. "All of them need to be rewritten."

"Don't worry, Snow. I will." Knight reassured.

"You better!" Chammy said.

Knight laughed a little.

After all three of them had chosen their characters, they all found themselves on a single, clearly hand-made map, able to control only the single unit they chose at the beginning.

The map had two simple bases at its south and north ends, which were connected by two wide lanes that had a forest-like environment in the middle of them.

They—together with one more random character controlled by the computer—spawned on the south end.

If everything worked as it should, then their enemies, who were also controlled by the computer, were most likely at the northern base, doing whatever they were programmed to do at the start of the match.

"Okay, we are in. Now what?" Chammy asked.

Weiss hummed quietly, also curious about their goals and options.

If it were a normal game and she knew what to expect from their opponents, she would have probably started by sending her unit down the lane to scout ahead. However, since custom game modes could change practically everything about the game itself, she decided to hold off a moment from doing so and awaited her friend's explanation.

"Now, we buy items." Knight said, trying to recount everything his sisters told him about this game mode. "You can do that by walking up to the idle worker unit to the right of the core of our base."

"Got it; any recommendations?" Chammy asked in a cheerful tone.

"Nope." Knight said. "Aside from the basic rules and the goal of this game I learned from my sisters, I'm as new to it as you two are."

Weiss stayed silent as she moved her character towards the store and looked over the items available to her.

Most of the items she could buy at the beginning of the game appeared to be extremely minor upgrades to basic statistics, health, and mana potions. At the same time, however, the more advanced upgrades they would be able to get later during the match were already visible as well.

"Is the main goal of the game still the destruction of the enemy base?" She asked, not taking her eyes away from the store.

Her friends paused a little bit, caught off guard at her question.

Apparently, in their hurry to pick the items to start the match with, they didn't bother to make sure they knew what they were aiming to do on this map in the first place.

"Yeah, it is." Knight said.

"Understood." She nodded her head before buying a pair of health potions.

Although she might not have known exactly how much importance mana regeneration was going to have, she was certain that the ability to regain her health was going to be extremely useful.

The more times she could get hit before needing to retreat, the more enemies she would be able to kill in the end.

"The map clearly wants us to divide ourselves between the two lanes, depending on how they're set up." Chammy pointed this out as she moved her character towards one of the exits of their base. "How do you guys want to spread out?"

It was quite a difficult question.

No matter how they decided to spread out, they wouldn't be able to ensure a situation where they had the number advantage over enemies, as their foes were also numbered in four, and the map was symmetrical.

The best they could hope for was that they would match their enemies evenly.

"Where did the computer-controlled character go?" Weiss asked before coming to any decision.

"They went to the right lane." Knight said, after glancing at the mini-map. "From what I can see, they are locked in a fight right now. They aren't moving from the middle of that lane at all."

Weiss hummed in thought.

"In that case, I propose that you go help the computer, Knight; I will go to the left lane, and Chammy will go to the forest in the middle." She decided, with a satisfied nod, at her nicely designed strategy.

"What's the point of going to the middle?" Chammy asked.

"It's to help either of us in case of an emergency or if we want to go back to restock our items." Knight answered, comprehending her strategy remarkably easily and going along with it. "It's a nice plan, Snow."

"Thank you." Weiss said with a smile before sending her character towards the left line.

On the mini-map, she saw her friends moving in accordance with her plan, with Knight hurrying a little bit more than Chammy due to needing to help the computer-controlled character on their team.

As she traveled through her lane, she noticed a couple of defensive towers placed in such a way that they protected the entire width of the lane every so often.

On top of that, just before her character reached the middle of the lane, an automated message appeared on the chat, telling them that the minions had begun spawning.

"What are those minions?" She couldn't help but ask.

"They are the basic grimm units." Knight explained. "They move down the lanes, towards the opposing base, and they are your main source of money in this game mode. If I'm remembering things correctly, later in the game, they are buffed. I'm not sure at what point, though."

Weiss watched the first wave of her minions make their way through the lane.

"Can we kill our own minions?" She asked.

"W-What?" Knight asked back.

"In order to deny the resources to our opponents." She explained, remembering one of her old lessons about business and the economy. "It's one of the basic strategies used for business growth. All the big companies use it."

It didn't surprise her that her friends didn't think of that; not everyone was forced to take business lessons at such a young age as she was, after all.

"I don't know." Knight answered, uncertainty clear in his voice.

Weiss nodded.

"I will try it." She said this, clicking on her minions and attempting to kill them.

Sadly, but not too surprisingly, her attempts at killing the minions were met with failure. The only thing it accomplished was pushing them around a little. She doubted that it was going to be useful for anything.

"Did it work?" Chammy asked.

Weiss sighed.

"It did not."

It truly was a pity. She could already think of a couple interesting strategies that would use the ability to kill their own minions as their bases; some of them could surely turn into unforgettable games with her friends, too.

Unfortunately, none of them would come to pass.

"Don't worry about it, Snow." Knight chuckled. "It's a good idea, and I'm sure my sisters are going to implement it in no time. After I give them the feedback from this game, of course."

"Alright," Weiss said with a smile.

By the time their conversation had happened, she had already managed to reach the middle of her lane and witness the first clash between hers and the opponent's minions. Had neither she nor the two computer players been here, those minion waves would have undoubtedly ended up defeating one another at the same time.

As it was, though, she would have to fight against two opponents to get the minion killed and, with it, money.

She launched one of her character's basic abilities—a single charged shot fired from the Last Kingdom's ground mecha's cannon—killing a small group of minions.

Thankfully, it looked like facing off against computers wasn't too difficult in this game mode.

"Your sisters desperately need to upgrade the computer players' AI, too." She said this, launching another ability at an opposing character. "I am easily defeating two of the opponents at once, by myself."

"Yeah, I noticed," Knight said with a wince.

"Is it really that bad?" Chammy asked. "I haven't fought any enemies yet. The only things I can find in the forest are random critters and some units I can kill for money or experience."

"It's not too terrible." Knight tried to defend the work of his older sisters. "The game mode is designed for playing purely in multiplayer, anyway."

Not too long after her friend had said that, the first real kill of the game happened, as Weiss effortlessly dealt with one of the AIs she was playing against. She did it by separating it from the other AI with a small wave of her minions.

The kill granted her a decent amount of experience and money as a reward.

It was a boost big enough to warrant a return to the base and an upgrade to her character.

"You can test yourself against those computers in my lane if you want, Chammy." Weiss said, retreating a bit to the back. "I will be returning to the base for a moment, so a proper defense to our unprotected lane would be nice."

Chammy chuckled.

"Thanks, Snow."

"You are welcome." Weiss answered happily.

Having placed herself in a safe position, she started looking over the controls to figure out if there was an easy way to quickly teleport back to base. It would have been a neat feature to include in a game mode that worked like that.

Although she wasn't sure whether Knight's sisters would have been able to come up with an idea to include it,.

Those two weren't gamers who understood how other gamers thought, after all.

"You can go back to the base by double-clicking it on the mini-map, Snow." Knight said, noticing her lack of movement and no doubt realizing what she was trying to do. "I had the same question when my sisters were explaining the game to me."

She did as Knight told her to do, and a couple seconds later—after her character had finished a rather standard taunt animation—she found herself back in the middle of their base.

"Huh, it worked perfectly." She remarked, genuinely surprised that game mechanics existed at all.

"Of course, it did." Knight said. "My sisters might not be gamers, but they did have an idea for this game mode. They can also code like no other."

"It's only a pity that we are currently playing an extremely early version of this game." Chammy added, agreeing with them after finally experiencing the gameplay of playing against the computer opponents properly.

Weiss absent-mindedly nodded her head as she started browsing through the shop.

Now that she had more resources to spend, choosing what to buy became quite a problem.

There was no way for her to know what would be good or bad, since nearly everything about the store was completely custom. On top of that, there was no easy way to filter through all the options before her, and she had to manually read through every single item she could buy to decide what was worth getting.

It was highly inefficient and stressful, especially in a game without an option to pause.

"Should I make a character focused more on the defense or on the AoE attacks?" She asked her teammates as she eyed two different sets of items.

Technically, there was nothing stopping her from buying any item from the store she could afford, but her character would benefit the most from focusing on either of those aspects.

"What do you think would be more fun?" Chammy asked back. "We aren't playing against any living players, and you've already seen how bad the AIs are at playing against us. You should experiment a little here."

Weiss could only blink a couple of times in response to her friend's answer.

"Do you think it's a good idea, as well, Knight?" She chose to ask her other friend before settling on a single decision.

"Yup, I think so, too." Knight answered, sounding as if he had been stretching a moment ago. "You've bought healing potions at the beginning of the game, right? Tell me, how many of them have you used?"

She glanced at her inventory in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

All of her healing potions were left unused.

There wasn't a need for her to waste a single one of them throughout the entire battle she had against two opponents.

"I will choose to focus on AoE, in that case." She finally decided.

"Go for it," Chammy said.

Instantly, she bought two items that she believed would help her desired build the most, and upon getting them, she ordered her character to move towards her lane.

As her character went there, she wondered whether she would actually notice the difference herself.

"Are you still on your way back?" Knight asked as she traveled through her lane.

"Yes, I am." she said.

There wasn't enough time for her to make her way to the battlefield yet. Even if she only bought movement speed-enhancing items, she would have still been only halfway there, at most.

"Good, I've got an idea." Knight said. "Try to put your character in the way of the minions."

"Why?" she asked.

"To slow them down." Knight explained. "You can move the battle closer to your tower that way, making it easier for yourself."

That sounded like a decent idea.

To be perfectly honest, she was quite surprised she didn't think of it herself earlier. It should have been the very first thing she thought of the moment she realized her inability to kill their minions on her own.

It wouldn't exactly accomplish the same things as simply killing her minions would, but it certainly seemed good enough to try.

With a single click of her mouse, she moved her character into the minions' path and started to slow them down.

The lack of support from the minions was probably going to be felt by Chammy, who was still fighting against the opponent in her lane, but she doubted her friend would mind it at all.

As far as she could tell, Chammy was doing fine as it was; a couple minions being taken away from her wasn't going to change her battle much.

A message appeared on the chat as her friend managed to kill the enemy player.

"The bot is down." Chammy said. "I'm leaving this lane to you, Snow."

"Thanks for the help." Weiss nodded.

Without any enemies in her lane at the moment, she ceased her attempts at blocking the minions and allowed them to reach the battlefield.

Just as Knight had predicted, interrupting her minions' path did result in the whole battle moving closer to her tower. Which, in turn, made it effortlessly easy to deal with the approaching waves of enemies and earn money.

An excited smile spread to her face.

By the time she returned to the base this time around, she was bound to have far more money than the last time, given how many of the enemy minions were being killed by her right now.

She barely even had to do anything!

The defensive tower on her side of the lane was doing practically all the work for her.

"Your idea worked perfectly, Knight." She said it excitedly.

"I thought it would." Knight said, a little bashful at the praise. "It's a pity I cannot really do it in my lane."

"Why?" Chammy asked. "Is your lane any different from Snow's?"

A small frown appeared on Weiss's face as she looked at the mini-map. Both of the lanes were practically the same when it came to their design, with the only difference being their placement, so there shouldn't be an issue with using the same strategies for both of them.

What could have possibly made her friend unable to replicate the strategy?

"I've got a computer on my side to foil all my plans." Knight said.

Ah, that would explain it.

In her focus on the game, she had practically forgotten they were playing with an AI on their team.

The fact that Knight was the only one among them who interacted with it in any meaningful way throughout the game might have something to do with that. She did tend to not pay as much attention to the things that didn't actually involve her.

From what she could see, she would soon have to deal with the computer players, too, as she could already see one of the enemies approaching her.

The excited smile on her face widened.

Well, it was time to find out how good her new items were.

(...)

The halls and corridors of the Schnee Mansion were surprisingly empty as Winter Schnee slowly moved through them in search of her siblings.

It was getting dark, and all the servants were already done with their day. The only ones that remained were the most loyal butlers and maids of the family, who usually didn't bother with the basic cleaning of the mansion's hallways.

Winter didn't particularly mind the emptier corridors.

The lack of servants walking around the mansion helped her remember that she was no longer the main heir to the family.

It allowed her to finally realize that she was free.

Her even steps faltered a little as the realization of the current situation went through her head yet again.

She was free.

Her father's oversight wasn't going to loom over her the entire time any more.

The moment she entered the Atlas Academy, she was going to finally be allowed to strive for something that she wanted to strive for. There weren't going to be any mandatory business issues she would need to attend to any more.

It was a dream come true for her.

Now, the only thing that remained for her to do was share the good news with her siblings and hope they weren't going to feel too jealous about her leaving them.

Who knew? Maybe one day they would be able to follow in her footsteps as well.

She could certainly see Weiss going against their father's wishes in the future, but she wasn't sure about Whitley. The boy seemed a bit too scared of Jacques and the punishments that man could give to go directly against him.

Although, now that she thought about it, she wasn't really sure how her younger sister would go against her father, either.

It wasn't like Weiss had anything she desperately wanted that needed her to be free of their father.

Winter sighed.

It wasn't like she wanted her siblings to endanger themselves by going against their father, anyway.

If they were content with being the heirs of the biggest company on Remnant, then she wasn't going to be the one to tell them to stop. The life of the reach did have its appeal regardless of its limitations.

The only thing she was going to tell them was the news of her newfound freedom.

Now, if only she knew where to find both of them and whether they would have the time to actually listen to her.

Although it was true that most of the time she could find her siblings in their rooms—as long as neither of them were on their lessons, that was—and she could probably find both Weiss and Whitley right now, that didn't mean they would be able to accommodate her.

While they never did have a strict curfew and could technically stay awake for however long they pleased, in reality, all of them did tend to go to sleep sooner rather than later.

It was simply the only sane option they had when they were always expected to study from the very morning to the very evening. They were always left completely exhausted by the time they had any time for themselves. That was all without mentioning the fact that they also knew that the very same day was awaiting them after they rested.

Frankly, in her opinion, it was a miracle they knew each other as well as they did with how difficult it was to meet one another.

Another sigh escaped her.

They were lucky that they could usually eat their breakfast together.

She gritted her teeth.

No, it was supposed to be a joyous occasion—her finally getting her freedom.

There was no reason for her to feel down!

"Let's just share the news with Weiss first." She said to herself,.

Unlike Whitley, thanks to her efforts, her sister had an entire day free today. It would make far more sense for her to be more relaxed and willing to accommodate her than their younger brother.

With determination clear on her face, she headed towards her sister's room.

The path towards Weiss's room was as familiar to her as any other hallway or corridor in the mansion—maybe a little bit more. Yet, as she walked down through it, she couldn't help but reminisce a little in her mind.

Although her younger sister might not have known it, that single path toward her room had become quite a reassuring sight for her.

Throughout the last year, or so, she did end up going through this exact path every so often to check up on her sister. The reason for it had always been the exact same, with no exception.

It was to see how Weiss was getting along with her online friends.

The sight of her younger sister interacting with her friends always brought a smile to her face.

There was something so incredibly pleasing about seeing her own younger sibling spread their wings and befriend other people. The fact that her younger sister usually didn't get along with all the people—all three of them had been forced to meet by their father's connections—only made it so much more gratifying.

The last time she secretly checked on her sister's relationship, she saw her smiling widely while writing to her friends on the computer.

The sheer happiness that donned Weiss's face back then became stuck in her memory to this day.

A small part of her brain felt a little bit jealous because of that.

How come her younger sibling had managed to find someone and something that could make her so happy, but she, despite all the years she had over her, couldn't?

Of course, whenever such thoughts entered her mind, she tended to discard them a moment later. Who was she to feel jealousy over her younger sister's only source of happiness in their crushing lives?

The fact that she could see her sister happy should be good enough for her.

As she neared Weiss's room, she couldn't help but note the noise that was coming from it.

She stopped in place.

It was weird.

Despite spending the days playing video games and having conversations with her friends quite often, Weiss rarely ever did it loud enough to be heard by anyone. She certainly never played loud enough to be heard by anyone outside her room.

A frown appeared on Winter's face.

Was her sister actually talking with her friends out loud?

She approached the door as carefully and quietly as she could.

If her sister was really talking with her friends right now, then she didn't want to intrude on that, especially when this could very well be the first time they talked with one another like that.

Suddenly, a realization struck her.

Was the reason Weiss was so tired for the last two days because it had been the very first time she had talked with her friends without using written messages?

That would explain a lot.

Changes in relationships like these didn't happen for no reason, certainly not when each side was comfortable writing to each other. It meant that something significant must have happened to one of Weiss's friends.

She couldn't know whether it was positive or negative, for sure, but the fact that her sister didn't look her best for the last couple of days gave her enough to speculate on.

With an extremely careful movement, she lightly pushed the door open to see what her sister was doing.

"Good job, Knight!" Weiss's voice reached her ears as she cheered happily. "We are winning this match easily. Those stupid bots don't stand a chance against us. Your sisters really didn't focus on programming this AI, did they?"

Winter looked at her sister with passing interest in her eyes.

There was no way for her to hear what this so-called Knight was saying—although she wasn't as silent as before, Weiss still wore headphones to prevent any sound of the game from escaping her room—but from the way her sister was talking to them so casually, she could surely say that they were very good friends.

It made her wonder how exactly they managed to form such a friendship, though.

One would think that it was more difficult to form deep friendships with people you couldn't see, but from the way her sister was treating her friends, she could assume that it wasn't true.

The only times she had seen friendships like those were in classic books their father made her read to make her more cultured back in the day.

A soft sigh escaped her.

There was no way she was going to interrupt that sight before her.

She could always tell Weiss and Whitley about her decision during their next breakfast.

It would allow her to inform both of them at the same time, anyway.

(...)

Weiss jumped a little in her seat, in surprise. She thought she heard something move behind her. To make sure she didn't mishear anything, she took her eyes away from the screen for a moment and glanced at the door to her room.

The only thing she saw upon doing that was a closed door.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting.

"Is everything alright, Snow?" Knight asked.

Weiss turned her attention back towards the game.

"Yeah, everything's alright." She answered.

There was no point in getting distracted, currently. They were on the final push to victory, with all the towers of their opponents destroyed completely, and the only thing that remained for them to do was conquer the enemy's base.

With how easily they could defeat their opponents at this point in the match, it was going to be a child's play.

Although each of them did end up with a couple of deaths, especially closer to the early game, due to their arrogance, in the end, this game could only be considered a resounding victory of theirs.

It went so well for them, in fact, that she wasn't sure whether they could be said to have tested it properly.

How could they give honest and constructive criticism about the game mode if they didn't have to understand all of its mechanics to succeed?

Any feedback they could give at the moment would be extremely shallow and superficial.

"It looks like this is it." She said.

"Yup, it was a fun game." Chammy said.

A sigh escaped her as she watched her character destroy the main base of the enemy, together with her friends.

She could see so much potential in this game mode. It would take only a couple of changes to its readability and a few general improvements for it to become worthy of being shared with other people.

It wouldn't surprise her if, at some point, it became a separate game on its own.

A smile spread to her face.

She couldn't wait to see how it was going to improve in the future.

Beyond that, she certainly couldn't wait to experience it all with her friends.


And cut!

This chapter was supposed to be simple game of the early version of the moba game, and I think it's passable as that.

By the way, it's the first chapter for which I used an online spell checker. Before I usually went back to read everything I did every thousand words or so and checked everything manually. I usually missed a lot because I was doing it fresh after writing and I tended to be rather tired by then. Now, I still did that but put the chapter through the checker at the end. Please, tell me if you noticed a difference, and if you did, whether it was for the better or worse.

I'm pretty sure, there's going to be some time skip between this and the next chapter.

Anyway, that's it for now.

See ya!