‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 498

Colors by Audrey. Everything else is by me.

He knows her too well.

45 Comments

As many commenters have suggested, and to which I agree, take one for the team Kat!
If you die so someone else lives, doesn’t that count as a win?

But Kat has enough HP to survive one of those hits. Plus, there’s a possibility that she can gather one of those attack blocking plants along the way.

Also, I think Jake doesn’t realize how big of a jerk and idiot he’s being.

Even more importantly, Jake’s higher ups might not be able to just vanish Kat due to her potential ensuing popularity in the game, as the fans of such a game LOVE bad*ssery, and Kat can explain her skill away as “Yeah, I’ve played the game before. A lot.”

yes but they could equally burst in and expose her as a hacker. They could say she was a hacker thus explaining why she won and became so popular thus undermining it all and they can freely kill her after the outrage by the fans.

Particularly with the whole “Catastrophe” thing she kinda mighta caused.

Yeah, I did hold back a bit, because all I could have said about the past couple of comics would have been what a colossal (insert swear word here) the bandit is, has been forever and probably will be in the future, and since that would get old pretty fast, I remained silent.

There was no real reason to even attack like this. Is that some kind of inferiority complex, does he feel inadequate next to kat and needs to show off?

At this point, I really hope Kat pulls of something clever, some rescue without killing herself or her esone in the process.

In his own warped way, its almost a mercy. Kat is Public Enemy Number 1, so to Jake/Bandit, he has to hide her identity. To him, the game is less important than proving his old friend isn’t nuts. Plus, he has no way of knowing about Danni’s… situation in reality. Playing a game vs saving a life in his mind.

I agree with Justin. Also.. because he loves her. He WANTS to believe in her. He WANTS to see her succeed. His main employ also means he should turn her in at all costs. He’s putting a lot on the line. I was sad to see that he caused the hits, because he’s a jerk then and has his own crap he needs to get over…. but he’s only a jerk because we know about Dani. Otherwise it’s a game. And being a gamer my entire life… folks kinda just expect you to chill out over a small fail. Dani will restart and may have to go back to “working in the fields” or what not in his head. Not so terrible if he figures out if it’s his long lost love, and proves she’s not evil? She needs enough time in the game to have better public opinion. For her to be less demonized to everyone else. As crazy as that is… it’s why jocks get lower sentences and basically get away with murder, right? I can’t wait for them to join up and remake the world!

Looks like she is going to blow up her cover.

Lol, that was a great pun! Looks like Bandit already did the same for his cover.

Thank you. It fits so well, especially, because she prefers demoli^^

I think jake may be in for a surprise, winning without cheating isn’t possible? I think it is. 😉

Have to agree with you there. You don’t manage to destroy the world through just being a brilliant hacker. Even one that technologically advanced. You need to be a strategist or have a pretty impressive one backing your plays. Depending on how realistic the game is I can see a few possibilities for it. Biggest one is having the Chimera fling some of the ground up and into the way of one of those. Granted that’s not a perfect solution but it’s the first to come to mind.

She really needs to learn to see the bigger picture.

If you always try to win every small battle you will just waste your resources and lose the bigger ones.

Learn to lose the battle to win the War.

-_- in this case loosing the “small battle” means her only friend dieing an agonising death as her life support is turning off -_- which Bandit would KNOW if he’d bothered to do a proper background check on his OTHER teammates…

Blocking the shot aimed at Danni but not the one aimed at the enemies would be perfectly fair, but she would consider it a loss.

I’m really hoping she sends the chimera into the far one and takes the nearest attack herself. That’ll, technically, be winning.

She might die but the moral high ground will be hers.

I forget how the whole death and losing life works, can you die and come back like in a video game or what?

iirc death causes you to lose your Esone think that’s what it’s called. and they basically amount to extra lives. but not positive on that.

Bandit, you sir, are an a**.

And now, everything explodes.

Bandit, you dummy.

We’re approaching comic 500, the end is nigh. Maybe there will be another fake ending comic, i.e. before she exploded with joy, now she will explode with rage. 🙂

Oh, Bandit. I like him better for this – it shows that he’s just as much of a competitive jerk as she is, and it shows he is not a superspy – he’s not sure how he’s playing this, he’s just ad libbing and hoping it looks cool and doesn’t blow up the planet.

Or she’ll block one shot with the chimera, and the other with herself.

I think everyone’s missing an essential here. Bandit knows who she is. He’s trying to protect her from anyone else finding out– especially the someone else’s who are very intent on watching this game. They are currently convinced Kat isn’t who they thought she is… but if she overcomes every single obstacle they may realize only one person could have the knowledge and skill to do that. And they’ll get her.

In this attack– which Bandit believes to be unavoidable without cheating– he’s trying to get her to fumble, to make a mistake, to not cheat. If she loses, she wins. That’s his train of thought. He may have overdone it, certainly. Or he may be trying to take her out of the game so that she is no longer under scrutiny.

In short, he’s trying to get her to not tip her hand, whatever the current cost. Because if they find out who she is, the consequences would be far worse than a game loss.

I do believe your right he is doing that he’s trying to make her look more like a normal player by messing up on something. Perhaps if she knew what bandit was thinking and that it wouldn’t hurt Danni she’d not be so against loosing a small battle.

But Bandit has basically put Kat into a Kobayashi Maru situation, because he was trying to hard to make Kat flub at something he over did it, and now it’s not just Kat’s “score” at steak but it’s also her good Friend who for reasons that she, but not bandit knows about can’t loose at this game.

One other potential (but unlikely) issue: what happens if Bandit’s attacks somehow miss and wreak some trees? Will he get turned into El BanTREEto?

why doesnt kat send her chimera get hit in one fireball.. and she takes the hit for the other?

To me, people can rationalize Bandit all they want… But no one likes a Team Killer. Hence why Bloody Mary… errrmm… Jane… is so infamous. Anyone think this could cause Bandit to get voted out of the group? It has happened at the start, and Jane has shown she will attempt (and succeed) to kicking players. Additionally, it has already been revealed (to the readers) that Jane is working against Bandit / Dude.

If Jane initiated a kick for team killing, obviously Bandit would be excused from voting. Dude would vote no. Jane would vote yes. Danni would probably vote yes (for being the target). That would leave it up to Kat to cast the vote to tie it. And she is a sore loser, so she could vote either way.

I love the possibility of Bandit being voted off of the team!!! ALOT!!! I… am not sure that Kleya would vote to kick him off… I’m positive that she won’t do it for the sole purposing of having lost to him. She probably would vote against him in order to keep him (someone who knows her) farther away from her.

Alternatively, Bandit can be not branded as a team killer. After all, that pesky Mani made him do it, right? He wasn’t in control of his character, he was under some sort of mind control after all.

I don’t know what power Manis actually have in the Game, but they have made it very clear previously that Manis to have influential powers over other players. In fact, they even talked previously about how the didn’t want to leave Bandit behind for the Mani to turn against the group. Whose to say (other than Bandit and Kat) that the Mani hadn’t already done so?

True, but then why would the Mani (who is on the opposing team) manipulate him into attack the Mani’s own team as well?

EEEK! She’s going to blow it, isn’t she?

I really wish this web comic updated every day. I know Aneeka would have to do this as her full-time job to manage that, and I really don’t understand why this isn’t popular enough to do that for her. This really is the best comic I have read.

If all her readers shared a link to this site on Facebook, would that be helpful enough to add a third weekly update?

Sharing NAV on Facebook will be helpful :), but the measure of success in helping is the amount of pledges in Aneeka’s patreon account: https://www.patreon.com/aneeka

She even says there in the Goals:
– 500/month “This will cover all of NAV’s expenses, including my colorist. To celebrate, I’ll update all five days of one week.”;
– 1000/month “I’ll post an extra NAV page every first Thursday of each month for 6 months. And if I can handle it, I’ll keep it going beyond that.”

Which is sadly a bit short from 3 weekly updates always. Creation takes time 🙁

This comes down to picking your battles: is it more important to maintain the 100% Erbana or to keep your secret? If 100% Erbana, then she’s likely to get exposed by insisting on winning here. She’d win by keeping her 100% but lose by exposing her identity. If keeping the secret, then the obvious choice is to save Danni, sacrificing the opposing team players if she really can’t save both, and let her rating drop to something less than perfect (she can strive to get it back, I’m sure, giving her game persona some motivation). She’d win by keeping her secret, but lose her 100%.
I’d vote for sacrificing her 100%: her survival and helping Danni trump perfection.

She have anything in her arsenal that allows for special reflection? Seems like something a 100% Erbana would have access to….

I’m still choosing to believe that she has one more trick up her sleeve without hacking. Bandit is not only being a d*ck here, but he is only exacerbating her obsessive winning. Putting someone who hates failing in a situation that necessitates failing in order to accomplish a goal is hard enough. Without any explanation is only going to be counterproductive. I get what he is trying to do, but would it be that hard to just give her a public demand to answer her d*** mail? Like, code it, come up with a reason, claim you had some ideas that you wanted to surprise the viewers with. Surely there was a way for you to talk to her about this without trying to provoke her without explanation or the understanding that you are an ally. I wan to punch you in your beautiful, terrible face.

“I shouldn’t have done this.” YEAH. YEAH, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE. WHY DID YOU THINK THIS WAS A GOOD PLAN.

By the way… Kat herself still has full HP, right?

Gee. It’s almost like this was an incredibly stupid idea. Thanks for realizing that after you already did it. Bandit is an idiot.

And then Bloo—Jane saves the day!

All these people angry at Bandit and he’s the only one actually doing anything constructive and trying to be helpful. All Kat has to do is let the other team’s guys bite it. If he’s even capable of killing them in one hit, that is. Maybe they’d tank it. She HAS to learn to set aside her pride if she wants to continue with the path she chose as ‘Not the villain’.

She is in mortal peril, and Bandit is trying to keep her alive. Bottom line, nothing else that anyone’s been complaining about matters. Guy is trying to keep his old friend from being murdered or enslaved into fixing computers and such for the rest of her life with a gun to her head.

I can’t quite tell if, in the last panel, she is royally pissed, or disappointed.
The level of destruction in the next panel may well be determined by which it is.

why not both? :p

She’s pissed because of AND disappointed by bandit’s actions.

I wonder “I can’t lose” lead to the widespread destruction two years ago. If that’s the case, then maybe she hasn’t changed at all and is still as dangerous, and thus still a villian.

Perhaps but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if she was just a useful scapegoat so a certain group could gain more power for itself either because they were really responsible or they saw it as a way to gain power.

Not A Villain Webcomic

Webcomic of a semi- reformed hacker trying to redeem herself in a post- apocalyptic world she may have created.

‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 498