Chapter 117

South Korea’s first advancement to the UA World Championship Tournament.

But their opponent was Saturn V.

The champions of North America, no less.

-Look at this bracket.

-Should we be happy about this? Or not?

-It’s bad.

-Bad?

-We’re going to get eliminated anyway, so it’s better to lose to the winning team. It’d be more honorable to lose to Kamui rather than Saturn V…

-The game’s not over yet!

-Seo Dami will pull through!

-I’m really grateful to Super Sylph for getting us this far, but…

-No matter what, Saturn V is too much.

-It’s just one mountain after another.

-Making it to the Quarterfinals is a huge achievement! Remember the state of the Korean League before Super Sylph came along!!!

-fr, that’s true;;

-Still, you never know, so I’ll hold on to a little bit of hope!

-Go Super Sylph!

-Go DamiDami!

I had secretly hoped we would face Kamui, but it ended up like this.

Still, maybe I should consider it a relief that if we won this match, we could face Kamui in the Semifinals.

If Kamui had been on the opposite side of the bracket, we wouldn’t have been able to meet them until the Finals.

The skills of the teams that made it to the Main Round Tournament were, without a doubt, all excellent.

So for me, who absolutely had to defeat Kamui, it was more advantageous to meet them even one match sooner.

“It’s okay! It’s not the worst-case scenario!”

Director Lee Gangseon comforted the players, saying that since they had avoided Kamui, it wasn’t the worst outcome.

Of course, Dami and Yunseuli, who had wanted to face Kamui, still had stiff expressions.

“Alright, let’s practice. Practice!”

Coach Park Chaerin shouted, clearing up the unsettled atmosphere.

There were five days left until the match.

The bracket was already decided, so it was time to put aside any regrets and dive back into practice.

Dawn on the weekend.

Even after practice was over, Dami was busy laughing on the phone, looking ever so happy.

“Yes, Mother~. I’m finding German food quite to my taste. Hehe.”

Surprisingly, the person on the other end of the call was my mom.

Dami used to visit her in the hospital often on weekends, but now that she was abroad, she was checking in by phone instead.

The reason she was on the phone at this hour, past 4 a.m.?

Because it was just heading into lunchtime in Korea.

Wasn’t she sleepy?

Today’s practice had been quite grueling.

I, who was sharing a room with Dami, could feel that fatigue myself, yet Dami showed no sign of it as she continued her call with my mom.

“Yes, yes. That’s great to hear. Me too. I’ll stop by the hospital as soon as I get back.”

According to the story from the other side of the phone, my condition had improved so much lately that even the doctors were surprised.

It seemed that infusing a large amount of the Energy of the Ley Line into me before coming to Germany had been quite effective.

The Energy of the Ley Line had the effect of healing a weakened body, and thanks to it, I had completely overcome the brink of death and was maintaining a healthy? patient status.

Anyway, Seo Dami considered maintaining a good relationship with my mom a very high priority, no matter where she went.

It wasn’t just phone calls; when she couldn’t visit the hospital like this, she would even use delivery services to send fruit to the hospital room.

Sometimes, she would order a large amount of fruit and rice cakes to share with the doctors and other hospital staff.

Thanks to her, I even heard a completely unexpected rumor had started at the hospital that the daughter of that house was so good to her mother.

<But Dami isn’t our family’s daughter…>

I once told Dami that she didn’t need to do all that.

I said that if she kept it up, wouldn’t it be a burden for my mom?

To that, Dami said I didn’t know what I was talking about, exclaiming, “Mother says she likes everything I give her!” and boasting to her heart’s content.

<I mean, I’m really grateful you’re taking care of my mom. But shouldn’t you be showing filial piety to your own parents first?>

“……”

At this, even Dami was silent for a moment.

Anyone would think my mom was your parent.

In fact, Dami called my mom more often than she contacted her own family.

At this point, I expected Dami to say something like, “Alright. I’ll just have to be better to my parents, too.”

But what do you know.

The answer she gave was something I had never anticipated.

“For my family, Oppa can be the one to be good to them, right?”

<…?>

“I’ll be good to Oppa’s parents, and Oppa can be good to my family. Problem solved!”

<Is it really solved?>

Though I had no idea how she expected a ghost to be good to them.

“Anyway, I’m planning on cutting back on the calls a bit.”

<Right…>

The human heart is so fickle. Even though I was the one who told her she didn’t have to, when Dami actually said she would cut back on the calls, I felt a little disappointed.

As I was shaking my head at my own lack of conviction, Dami spoke.

“It’s a bit much if I’m the only one getting ahead of myself.”

<What do you mean, getting ahead of yourself?>

“It’s just something.”

I found out only later.

That the one who filled the void left by Dami’s reduced calls was Yunseul.

Though I never found out what kind of promise the two of them made to have passed the baton like that.

“Yes. Hello.”

-Who picked up? The ghost? Or Seo Dami?

“What the. Was that you, Kato-ssi?”

-Judging by your reaction, it’s the ghost. Congratulations on advancing in second place.

During a break after training.

A call came from Kato.

She suddenly congratulated me on our second-place finish, so I thought she was calling to tease me, but it seemed she had other business.

-I heard you advanced in second place, so I thought you’d face us right away. Why’d you have to go and end up somewhere else?

“I was also hoping to face you in the Quarterfinals, but things turned out this way. But what’s the reason for your call today…?”

-Hmph. Your next opponent is Saturn V, right?

“Yes.”

-Be careful.

“Is that why you called?”

-You do remember, don’t you? If you get knocked out of the tournament before you face me, you’ll automatically be breaking our promise.

“Of course, I remember.”

-Then go into the match fully prepared. That team is really something different.

That we might get eliminated from the tournament before we could face them.

Kato warned of the difficulty of the Quarterfinals, saying that Saturn V was definitely a different kind of team from the ones we had faced so far.

“For you to call me directly like this, they must be a really tough team… You could at least tell me why before you go.”

-Nina Cruz. Be careful of that one. The problem is that there’s no proper solution even if I tell you.

After that, Kato ended the call, saying that if we had any hidden cards, we’d better play them all that day, and wished us to survive.

It wasn’t particularly nutritious advice, but one thing was clear.

The fact that Kato Mikane would personally give a Warning like this meant that Saturn V must be a truly difficult opponent.

The champions of North America, Saturn V.

This team, which took its name from the Saturn V rocket developed by the United States for manned lunar exploration, was a team that boasted formidable teamwork, led by their Ace, Nina Cruz.

This Nina Cruz, in particular, was a truly amazing player.

The strongest Attacker in North America, who roamed the Battlefield with sea-blue twin-tail hair.

If you were to ask who the closest player to Kato Mikane was right now, everyone would think of her, as she possessed such astonishing skill.

Until last year, a few other players were named alongside her in that group of candidates, but this year, it was no exaggeration to say that Nina Cruz was chasing Kato’s tail all by herself.

Rachel Dust, now completely crushed by a disgraceful incident, and Katarina Verona of the Crusaders were also excellent players, but while other players’ skills hadn’t changed much from last year, Nina Cruz had grown even more this year and was receiving a lot of attention.

The reason Nina Cruz’s skills had improved so much this Season was thanks to her equipping a Skill that was a perfect fit for her in the New Meta, and that Skill was ‘Time Bullet.’

It was something called a time-delayed shot.

Literally, it was a Skill where you fired a shot in advance and its effect would activate after a set amount of time, making it possible to effectively disrupt Users who relied on sound play.

Sound play was a term for playing more tactically using information obtained through sound.

For example, predicting an opponent’s location by the sound of their footsteps, or ducking as soon as you hear a gunshot even if you didn’t see it, were all part of sound play.

The better one was at sound play, the easier it was to protect oneself, so people who were good at UA often had excellent sound play skills.

However, the Time Bullet Skill was structured to completely sabotage such a User’s Judgment, so in the early Season, Users who relied heavily on sound play often had their heads smashed in by Time Bullet.

Bang-! A gunshot would ring out, and they would start an evasive maneuver, but no bullet would come flying.

So when does that attack arrive?

That was up to the player.

With Time Bullet, the more Mana you invested, the longer you could increase the attack’s execution Delay.

Of course, making an attack execute a minute later was impossible due to a player’s Mana limits, but adding a 5 or 10-second Delay was possible.

Thanks to its ability to disrupt opponents at completely unexpected Timing, Time Bullet was one of the more notable Skills in the early New Meta.

Countless Users researched and clung to this Skill to incorporate it into the mainstream.

But as time went on, the number of such Users rapidly decreased.

It was for the same reason that the Flying Skill, which allowed one to soar into the air, had a brief moment of popularity early in the Season before disappearing.

The cause was that as Users got used to the Skill, it was no longer as efficient as before.

The efficiency of the Flying Skill plummeted as Users began to thoroughly guard their surroundings and prepare for attacks from above. In the case of Time Bullet, its efficiency began to drop as the mastery of Dispel Skills and the prevalence of plays that involved clearly seeing and dodging increased.

Among the lethal weapons wielded by humans, why are guns particularly strong?

It’s their speed.

Because of that speed, which is impossible to see and dodge, guns emerged as the Main Force weapon in the history of warfare.

And they have a long reach, don’t they?

Whether it’s a pistol or a Rifle.

Just like how a robber with a knife isn’t particularly scary if you’re holding a gun.

But Time Bullet was a Skill that completely threw away this advantage of the gun.

Because of the Delay, it was possible to see the bullet stopped in mid-air and dodge it.

What’s more, the direction of its kinetic Energy didn’t change either.

This meant that using Time Bullet didn’t make the delayed bullet turn corners or fly in strange directions.

Of course, combining it with a Drive Skill made such tricks possible to some extent, but the problem that it was easier to see and dodge than a normal shot remained the same.

In that case, wasn’t Time Bullet actually a Skill with few advantages?

Indeed, for these various reasons, Time Bullet was no longer used in the current Meta, and was close to being a non-mainstream Skill.

Except for one person.

Nina Cruz, who had polished Time Bullet to its extreme, elevating it to the level of art.

Nina Cruz’s Time Bullet was definitely different.

It felt more like she knew where her opponent would move in 5 or 10 seconds and placed her bullets there.

The players certainly knew it in their heads.

That when hit by Time Bullet, they could easily dodge it as long as they didn’t move into the bullet’s predicted trajectory.

But when actually exchanging blows with Nina Cruz, they often found themselves being dragged around, making such thoughts meaningless.

I clung to my analysis, wondering what her secret could be, but I couldn’t easily find an answer.

Even Dami, who had the best Skill-copying ability among all the players I had seen, couldn’t replicate Nina Cruz’s Time Bullet.

‘What’s the reason?’

As I watched her matches, I found myself reviewing her debut match from last year, the year before, and so on.

Perhaps tired from the long hours of analysis, Dami sometimes couldn’t fight off her drowsiness and fell asleep in my mind first.

After analyzing her matches for two full days, I reached a conclusion.

I was a little unsure if it was right to call this a conclusion, but for now, I couldn’t come up with a better interpretation.

<So what’s the conclusion…?>

Hearing that the analysis was over, Dami asked for the answer, and I slowly opened my mouth.

“It seems Nina Cruz can see the future.”

<What? She sees the future?>

I knew the result of my analysis was a bit strange.

But nothing else made sense.

In all the matches I had reviewed, hadn’t there been several impactful situations centered around Nina Cruz that made me suspect as much?

“It might not be something as grand as ‘precognition,’ but it’s clear she has something similar.”

Even if the true nature of Nina Cruz’s ability was something else.

The fact that her eye for reading the flow of the game was exceptionally sharp remained unchanged.

<So… you’re saying Nina Cruz knew how we would move a few seconds later and used Time Bullet accordingly. Is that it?>

“That’s what the analysis points to so far. I can’t find a better hypothesis.”

<Then should we think of it that way for now? Hmm, a player who sees the future… How are we supposed to win against a player like that?>

Last year’s World Championship Final.

Kamui had achieved a 2-0 victory against Saturn V.

Looking at the Score alone, it seemed like Kamui had crushed Saturn V, but surprisingly, the match had many scenes that offered a glimpse of both teams’ brilliant Attack Power.

At that time, the New Meta hadn’t been applied yet, so the Time Bullet Skill didn’t exist, but Nina Cruz still put on a magnificent performance against Kato Mikane.

In that match, instead of Time Bullet, she moved her teammates to apply 2-on-1 pressure, and that play had an incredibly surprising aspect even now.

It was as if she knew how Kato Mikane would move, positioning her teammates to try and bring Kato down with a Chain Attack.

In fact, Kato was not at ease during that attack.

Having spent several months with her, I could now see into her thoughts to some extent.

Her face was smiling, but it was the face of a Kato who was actually quite flustered.

In that game, she parried sharp attacks time and again to overcome the crisis.

It was because a series of tremendous Chain Attacks, difficult to handle even with the Power of the Ley Line at full throttle, had continued.

If Kato had been defeated there.

The Score would have been the exact opposite, and the championship would have gone to Saturn V.

But in the end, they couldn’t stop Kato, and the result remained unchanged.

‘What a ridiculously strong team…!’

Saturn V.

Excluding Kamui, no, they were undoubtedly an opponent as difficult as Kamui.

This team, which executed organized plays led by Nina Cruz, was truly strong.

All the players were high Level with no openings, and if we couldn’t stop Nina Cruz, who had become even more powerful with Time Bullet, the Quarterfinals would be our last match.

A fierce Simulation began to run in my head.

Could we beat Saturn V if we used the same Strategy we had used against Nebula GC or the Crusaders?

The Simulation result.

The answer was “No.”

No matter how many times I ran the scenario, I could only picture us getting beaten up by Saturn V if we went in with the same Strategy.

-You’d better play all your hidden cards.

I suddenly recalled what Kato had said and sensed that the time had finally come.

“Dami.”

<Yes?>

“I think we have to use that card.”

<In the Quarterfinals?!>

Dami understood my words perfectly and reacted.

“Yeah. Otherwise, I think we’re going to get completely destroyed that day.”

<Hoo… Then if we have to use it, we have to use it.>

We can’t lose here without doing anything.

Agreeing with that sentiment, Dami steeled her resolve and approved my opinion.

One of our final prepared cards.

It was none other than the King-God Coach.

Putting Park Chaerin on stage.