Chapter 110

“It’s a fierce Close Battle!”

“Valkyrias takes the Control Point first! It seems Artemis’s Attack has failed.”

The intense battle unfolded at the Attica Temple.

Artemis, led by Kim Seunga, launched a fierce assault against the South American League champions, Valkyrias.

But in the end, it was Valkyrias that captured the Control Point.

It wasn’t even by a large margin.

But Artemis couldn’t overcome the wall that was Valkyrias.

After losing the Set in a Close Battle, Kim Seunga silently stared up at the ceiling of the Waiting Room.

Her teammates tearfully apologized to her, and Seunga, in turn, comforted them, saying it was okay.

Even though she was the one having the hardest time.

<Haaa…>

Understanding that feeling better than anyone, I couldn’t help but let out a sigh.

In the first Set, Kim Seunga had played her best game.

A perfect game, without a single minor mistake.

The reason they still lost was purely due to the difference in player skill between the two teams.

There was a gap between Artemis and Valkyrias that couldn’t be filled even with Kim Seunga performing at 100 percent.

“If the World Championship ends, do you think Unni will retire just like that?”

Dami, who was watching Kim Seunga’s match with me on TV, asked.

<Well. Her own will is what’s important, but…>

Seunga was twenty-six this year.

It was clear her skills had plateaued.

According to Seo Dami, who had played with her on the national team and lived with her, Kim Seunga was the one who practiced harder and put in more effort than anyone else.

If her skills were stagnating despite that, there was only one answer.

She was desperately filling the decline of her Physical, which had peaked and was now on its way down, with Experience Points.

For Kim Seunga, who would be turning twenty-seven next year, the perceived passage of time would surely feel different.

If this year was hard, next year would be even harder.

The fact that her position was an Attacker was also a burden on her.

When all positions were calculated separately, the Attacker was the position with the earliest retirement age.

The reason was simple.

It required split-second Judgment and top-tier Dynamic Visual Acuity because you had to engage in Ultra-High-Speed Skirmishes while using Boost Skills like Acceleration.

But all of those stats are on a continuous decline starting from one’s early twenties.

The decline in Physical and skill is not something you can stop just because you want to.

Through painstaking effort.

Through relentless practice, Kim Seunga had maintained her peak performance by filling in the gaps in her declining skills with other elements.

Like increasing the perfection of her techniques to make up for the lack of Physical.

But even that passion was not enough to produce the results she wanted.

A player on a team ranked 2nd-3rd in the Korean UA Regular Season.

A player on a team that advanced to the World Championship Preliminary Round.

There was a high probability that this would be the entirety of Kim Seunga’s lifelong career.

If she had just closed her eyes and accepted a Transfer to a team that offered more money, she would have had plenty of opportunities to win a championship, but Kim Seunga had insisted on staying with Artemis.

I understood that feeling better than anyone.

I, too, had felt the same desire to win a championship with the team I first started with.

Perhaps we were cut from the same cloth.

That’s why I had been sincerely cheering for Kim Seunga’s, for Artemis’s, performance in this tournament.

Although it seemed like this time, too, they were heading toward a picture where they wouldn’t achieve the results they wanted.

<Seunga did her best. You can’t help the team gap…>

“That’s right.”

Artemis’s second Set was also coming to an end.

This game, too, was heavily tilted in Valkyrias’s favor.

In the Preliminary Round, where only three teams compete in a league, a single loss was bound to be a Fatal Wound.

Watching Artemis’s World Championship run come to an end, I cheered for Kim Seunga’s pro career and her future.

It would be sad, but I also hoped she wouldn’t break here and would continue her career as a player a little longer.

Because if Seunga continued her life as a Pro Gamer, I felt like I would gain a little strength too.

Damn it.

To be twenty-seven without having done anything.

This Season is already over, so I’ll be twenty-eight next year.

At least Seunga got a taste of the World Championship.

I’ve never even set foot on the World Championship stage.

If I had one small wish, it was to recover my body and finish the player career I left incomplete.

Twenty-eight…

For a Pro Gamer, it’s a suffocating age.

My contract with Magnus was effectively over, and I didn’t know if there would be a team willing to take in a player who’d been bedridden for years, but if one did exist, I wanted to stand on the Battlefield once more.

Just like Seunga.

<Hang in there, Kim Seunga…!”>

I silently cheered for Seunga’s future.

Preliminary Round, second match.

The game against Nazmat Al-Sahra went smoothly, and as expected, Super Sylph secured their spot in the Group Stage early with 2 wins.

-Congrats. Do well in the remaining matches!

-Yes, Unni.

-Super Sylph, fighting!

Around the time Dami received Seunga’s cheering text, Yunseuli and I were hard at work with skill training.

The key was to raise the proficiency of Purifying Lightning Strike.

There was a clear difference when using the Skill as a Supporter compared to using it as an Attacker.

The Skill Purifying Lightning Strike itself had aspects more suited to a Supporter, so there was room to increase its Mana Efficiency even further.

“How was that just now? Did you feel it for sure?”

<Yes! Oppa.>

“Then let’s switch places and try.”

I would first find the optimization using Yunseul’s body.

Once I felt I had raised the efficiency considerably, we would switch places again and repeat the practice.

Dami seemed to find this interesting, and whenever she had free time, she would sit in a corner, hug her knees to her chest, and watch us practice.

“Oppa. Can’t you help me with skill optimization practice too?”

She would occasionally ask if she could practice too, but I shook my head, saying it wasn’t necessary.

The truth was, Dami’s skill optimization level wasn’t something that could be improved even if I did it for her.

Especially in the case of Acceleration, I had taught it to her myself for over two years, so her and my level of mastery were exactly the same.

And for other techniques, Dami’s learning ability was better than mine.

“You only ever dote on Yunseuli…”

“Unni, stop acting like a child. Oppa is helping me with my practice~.”

“Don’t make excuses. As if anyone doesn’t know you’re enjoying it…”

“No way~. Yunseuli would never do that.”

“Then why are the corners of your mouth turned up?”

“Oopsie!”

There was some minor commotion, but it was clear that our skills were steadily improving.

Super Sylph was different from Artemis.

Not just Seo Dami and Jung Yunseul, but the potential of the other players was much better as well.

After all, Super Sylph was the team that won the domestic league.

Now, all the Korean fans were cheering for us with one heart.

It was time to show the results of our practice.

“Ah, I think it’s about to start.”

Dami announced the start of the group draw.

Now that the Preliminary Round was over, the Group Stage groups were being formed.

We finished our practice and headed to the lounge.

In the lounge, the Coach and Coach were already there.

The players were all munching on snacks, their eyes fixed on the TV.

“Tough, so tough. You were still practicing?”

“The groups will be formed on their own anyway.”

Hwang Jua had a Pepero-like snack in her mouth.

Aren’t you managing your condition?

How is it that a pro player seems to be eating more now that she’s at the World Championship?

If I were this Team Leader, I would have immediately snatched that snack from Hwang Jua’s hand…

Just as I was thinking that, Yunseuli swiftly confiscated the snack from her hand.

“Hey! Why!”

“You’re not practicing and just eating snacks? Is that allowed? No, it’s not.”

“No… I ate it because I was getting dizzy from not having enough sugar. This is the first snack I’ve had this week!”

“Lies. If you keep this up, I’m going to tell the Coach you ate cake last night.”

At Yunseul’s words, Hwang Jua’s eyes widened, her face saying, how did she know?

It wasn’t like we were on some infiltration mission.

Yunseul and I had just happened to see her in the hallway carrying a slice of cake.

In the end, with nothing left to say, Hwang Jua quietly gave up the snack.

In the meantime, the bracket was being completed, one by one.

“Please. Just avoid Kamui. Please…”

Coach Lee Gangseon kept muttering, “please.”

It was probably the same for the other team coaches.

There were teams that absolutely had to be avoided in the group draw.

The number one team to avoid was, of course, Kamui.

Last year’s champion, Kamui, had passed the Preliminary Round and gone straight to the Group Stage, and they were proudly placed in Group A.

The Group Stage, composed of four teams per group, would be formed from A to D, and from there, the top two teams from each group would advance to complete the Quarterfinals Tournament bracket.

One might think, isn’t it more doable than the Preliminary Round since two out of four teams can advance? But the Group Stage was a game that could never be taken lightly because the difference in team skill was so vast.

The Semifinals teams from last year’s World Championship, including the champion, were all seeded as the number 1 Seed in their respective groups.

With each announcement, sighs and cheers erupted.

-Icarus Gaming is down!

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-They’re screwed from the start. That team.

The second spot in Group A, where Kamui was waiting, was first filled by Icarus Gaming, who had advanced as the 3rd Seed from the North American League.

At this moment, I was actually hoping for Super Sylph to be placed in Group A.

Putting Kamui aside, Icarus Gaming was on the weaker side among the Group Stage teams, so aiming for a Tournament spot from Group A was more advantageous for the team’s performance.

And there was one more reason.

‘I have to avoid the real group of death.’

For me, who was on a mission to defeat Kamui no matter what in this tournament, Group A was not the group of death.

A group where strong teams other than Kamui were gathered.

That was the true group of death for me.

The reason was that we could be eliminated before even meeting Kamui.

The position-switching strategy with Jung Yunseul, prepared to take down Kamui.

But if we were to be eliminated by a strong team before we could even use it, I would automatically lose my bet with Kato.

Of course, there was the option of revealing the strategy we had prepared to defeat a strong team, but then Kato would read our entire hand, and we would have to play an incredibly difficult game.

So, it was actually better for me to be in the same group as Kamui.

Only then could I pour everything I had into it without holding back.

The group draw continued.

Before long, the third row was complete.

The UA fans watching the draw reacted with surprise, saying that Group A was actually doable.

-Isn’t Group A actually a sweet deal?

-Right.

-They’ll probably all be thinking they have a fighting chance, except against Kamui.

-Please let Super Sylph be in Group A too…!

Group A currently consisted of Kamui, with Icarus Gaming and Parvati Gaming below them.

Both were teams that had advanced as the 3rd place from North America and India, so they were relatively less competitive than other teams.

Teams that earned their World Championship Qualification Spot in 3rd place were naturally less intimidating than 1st and 2nd place teams.

On the other hand, Group D was already reeking of death.

It was a group with Nebula GC, this year’s Western European League champion, and Crusaders, the runner-up.

What’s more, Nebula GC and Crusaders were both strong teams that were hard to tell apart, with only a one-game difference between them during the Regular Season.

With the addition of India’s runner-up, Goa GC, Group D had become a group no one wanted to be in.

With only the last row remaining, Shanghai Cheonryong was the first to join Group A.

-Yes!

-Thank you, Dage!

-Dage!

The Chinese fans repeatedly called the UA official conducting the draw “Dage” to express their gratitude.

In Group A, it seemed most likely that Cheonryong would advance along with Kamui.

-Gah. Damn it.

-At this rate, let’s aim for Group B or C!

Korean fans were eagerly hoping for Super Sylph’s name to be called.

Three balls remained.

But the next name called was not the one they were hoping for either.

“Group B! Fourth! It’s Bastet Guardian!”

The North African League champion.

Egypt’s Bastet Guardian joined Group B.

-Still one coin left!

-There are two balls now! The odds are 50-50.

-Ffs, how many balls are there and our name still hasn’t been called.

-Ah, please! Just pick us!

Only two teams remained.

Shanghai Cheonhwa and Super Sylph.

Fans from both countries watching the group draw were praying with their hands clasped for their home team’s name to be called first.

“Group C! The fourth team! Shanghai Cheonhwa!”

-Waaaaah!

The Chinese fans watching the group draw in the Arena burst into cheers.

And…

It goes without saying, but the atmosphere in Korea, whose team was confirmed to be last, turned into a funeral.

-DamiDami…

-Pack your bags.

-Is this for real…?

-There were twelve chances to draw a ball, and we’re the very last?

-Thank you to everyone who has supported Super Sylph’s journey so far.

-Good work, everyone.

-FCK! It’s not over yet! Don’t give up!

-Yeah. It’s over.

-There’s no breaking through that group.

-Let’s look forward to next year ㅇㅇ;;

“Kuaaack!”

Coach Lee Gangseon, who had been watching the group draw, let out a scream and slumped into his chair.

“What do we do?”

Yunseul muttered.

<What do you mean, what do we do? We have to try as hard as we can.>

If we get eliminated like this, this year is going to be my last Christmas.

No matter what, I had to hold on and survive until I could meet Kamui.

“Come on, come on! We haven’t lost yet! Let’s all cheer up!”

Dami also chimed in, trying to lift everyone’s spirits, but the atmosphere in the Waiting Room remained gloomy.

In the meantime, the completed bracket appeared on the screen.

Group A.

Kamui (Japan 1st Seed)

Icarus Gaming (North American League 3rd)

Parvati Gaming (Indian League 3rd)

Shanghai Cheonryong (Chinese League 2nd)

Group B.

Saturn V (North American 1st Seed)

Star Sapphire (Japanese League 2nd)

Orchid Fairy (Southeast Asian League 1st)

Bastet Guardian (North African League 1st)

Group C.

Varuna GC (Indian 1st Seed)

Speedstar (North American League 2nd)

Highlander (Western European League 3rd)

Shanghai Cheonhwa (Chinese 1st)

Group D.

Nebula GC (Western European 1st Seed)

Crusaders (Western European League 2nd)

Goa GC (Indian League 2nd)

Super Sylph (Korean League 1st)

The bracket of the 16 completed teams.

And so, the battle between the world’s top teams, the festival of stars, began.