Chapter 5

Lying in bed, I talked a little more with Dami.

Besides the transfer, she had another goal: winning the championship.

At first, I thought she was talking about winning the Third Division League, but she wasn’t.

Seo Dami’s goal was, surprisingly, the same as mine: to win the First Division League championship.

She said it was her dream to one day become a First Division League player and lift the championship trophy.

‘That might not be so easy.’

I debuted at seventeen and was now in my ninth year at twenty-five.

I had spent a considerable amount of time on the Battlefield, but I’d never had a connection with a trophy.

It wasn’t that I never had the chance.

I was evaluated as a highly skilled player and had received offers a few times from teams considered championship contenders.

But each time, I chose the path of staying with my teammates.

My chances of winning would have been higher if I had transferred, but winning like that wasn’t the picture I wanted for myself.

Though, the team did take care of me with a decent Annual Salary.

Anyway, I didn’t know how long I’d be able to help Seo Dami.

Even if I stayed until she made it to the First Division League, winning the championship would be no easy feat.

The difference in performance between male and female players comes down to physical factors like Stamina and Muscular Strength.

In terms of Strategy, there wasn’t much of a difference.

So, in the First Division League, where all the talented players gather, it would surely be difficult to Carry.

After all, the Physical was not mine, but originally Seo Dami’s.

“Still, let’s give it a shot. I don’t know about winning the championship, but if you’re going to be a Pro Gamer, you have to at least make it to the First Division League.”

<Okay.>

“Well then, sleep well.”

<Good night.>

Was it because my body’s Stamina was lacking compared to before?

Feeling a little tired, I went to sleep.

“Dami! Dami!”

“Who is it…”

It felt like I had only just closed my eyes, but there was a knock on the door.

I was grumbling as I went to open the door when Dami shrieked.

<Put on some clothes! Clothes!>

Oops, my habit came out unconsciously.

I threw on a Samdidas tracksuit and opened the door to find a flustered-looking Coach Kim Hakseong.

“Coach? What’s going on this late at night…”

“The Coach wants to see you now.”

“……?”

I followed the Coach to the coaches’ office, and the Director was there.

Director Hong Jaewoo.

He had been holding the reins of Universe Cat for three years now and was a figure who was cursed at for being an incompetent director, having consistently remained in the Lower Bracket.

It was currently mid-May.

The First Half League had already passed its halfway point, and Universe Cat’s rank was 10th.

They weren’t in last place, but they were far from winning the championship this year as well.

‘Is he drunk?’

Even if it was the weekend, for a director to be walking around reeking of alcohol.

I clicked my tongue inwardly.

It seemed he had already given up, assuming he wouldn’t be re-signed, and was just acting recklessly.

“Sit there.”

I sat in the chair and faced Director Hong, whose face was slightly flushed.

“Dami, I heard you hit the kids today.”

“What are you talking about, Coach.”

I said with wide eyes, as if genuinely surprised.

“I’ve never done such a thing.”

“You haven’t?”

“It was training. Training. Just like we’ve always done until now.”

As I smiled and looked at the Director, Director Hong couldn’t say anything and just moved his lips.

Of course.

Because the one who had stood by and watched while Seo Dami was bullied by those trash under the pretext of training was none other than the Director.

‘Well, you have nothing to say, do you?’

I was just thinking about what I should do if the Director acted shamelessly, not even realizing his own fault, when it happened.

Director Hong suddenly bowed his head to me and apologized first.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes?”

“I know you’ve had a hard time, Dami. It must have been very difficult.”

‘Suddenly?’

When I asked Dami why on earth this person was acting this way, she also reacted as if she had no idea.

Did he feel guilty all of a sudden?

Or… because of the side of me I showed?

Considering the possibilities, the latter seemed more likely.

Because if the fact that there was discord and violence within the team became known to the public, one of the people who would face the biggest trouble was the Director.

‘Exchanging fists in-game under the pretext of training isn’t something I can really be blamed for. So was he worried I would actually resort to physical violence?’

<…Are you really going to hit them?>

‘Am I crazy?’

I only went after them because it was a game.

Beating up the kids outside was a completely different matter.

Doing something like that would also affect Seo Dami’s career as a player.

I kept my mouth shut, waiting to see how the Director would react.

Then, Director Hong let out a small sigh and made an unexpected proposal.

“Dami, I think you’re going to be traded.”

“…A Trade?”

“Yeah. You know them, right? Knights Gaming. Lee Naeun.”

I wanted to say, of course I know her.

But I still had almost no information about the Third Division League teams.

When I asked Dami where they were, the reply came back that they were a team currently running in 7th place this year.

I didn’t know the inside details, but according to the fans, they were a team with a good atmosphere?

‘Isn’t that strange?’

<What is?>

‘You said they’re a team with a higher rank than us. If they’re going to do a Trade, it would probably be to swap players in the same position. Unless there’s a problem with their player…’

<Knights Gaming’s Lee Naeun is a veteran Defender. Of course she’s better than me.>

The probability of suddenly trading a player who is both skilled and on a team with a good atmosphere is not very high.

If there was a reason to swap despite that, it would be for something like Rebuilding.

Sure enough, Director Hong said that Knights Gaming was starting to rebuild and that since Lee Naeun was considering retirement soon, they were thinking of bringing in a young player like Seo Dami to try and develop her.

“You’ll probably be going within this week. So… if you were having any bad thoughts, I called you to tell you to just hold on a little longer.”

“Coach. I’ve never had such thoughts.”

“I know. But I’m just saying, just in case.”

Director Hong said some nonsense about how I was so nice that I had put up with all the team members’ awful behavior until now.

He said that if I went to Knights Gaming, I wouldn’t have to go through that kind of thing anymore.

Put up with it because I was nice, my ass.

That the situation had deteriorated this far because the Director and Coach had been bystanders.

There was no one in this room who didn’t know that.

‘How shameless.’

I judged Director Hong to be a bad person and opened my mouth.

“Is that confirmed?”

“It’s almost confirmed. We just need to talk to the Front Office and sign the Contract, and it’s done.”

“Then it’ll be difficult.”

“Huh?”

At my answer, the Vital Energy drained slightly from Director Hong’s face.

“Don’t tell me you’re thinking of causing trouble…”

“That’s not it. You said you haven’t signed it yet. It’s obvious you won’t be thinking about signing it after you see tomorrow’s match.”

Director Hong and the Coach looked at me with faces that said, what on earth do you mean by that, Dami?

And leaving the two of them, I said only what I had to say.

“I won’t cause any trouble and will stay quiet, so you two can rest assured. Oh, and I want to sleep a little early because of tomorrow’s match, so may I leave first?”

“Da-Dami! Are you really saying you won’t do the Trade?”

“Yes. I have no thoughts of it for now. Well then, good night.”

Bowing my head in greeting, I left the room, leaving the dumbfounded Director and Coach behind.

On the way to the room, Seo Dami asked with a somewhat excited tone.

<What do you mean the Trade won’t happen?>

‘Why. Did you want to switch teams?’

Come to think of it, it occurred to me that Seo Dami might have wanted to accept the Trade.

She wouldn’t have had a single good memory in this crappy team.

<I’m not sure…>

‘Then that’s fine.’

I didn’t bother asking whether Seo Dami wanted the Trade, or if she didn’t, what the reason was.

Because I had no intention of moving anyway.

‘Director Hong said he didn’t sign it yet, anyway. Then this Trade can’t succeed in the first place.’

<Exactly. What’s the reason for that?>

At her urging to tell her plainly, I replied as if it were no big deal.

‘Because I’m incapable of losing on purpose.’

<What?>

‘Don’t you know the saying that a tiger does its best even when catching a rabbit?’

Monday.

In the League match that was starting again, I intended to show off my skills to my heart’s content.

If Director Hong had already signed the trade proposal, I would have had to move teams, but if it was just talk, this deal couldn’t have gone through in the first place.

Unless they were blind, there wouldn’t be a crazy director or Front Office that would send a player like me to another team.

‘And isn’t it a shame to end it with just this?’

<……?>

‘Wouldn’t it be okay to pay them back a little more for what you’ve been through?’

The next morning.

Normally, this would be the time Seo Dami came down a little earlier to do the meal Setup.

But today was different.

The faces of the team members, led by Kim Yujeong, who came down to the cafeteria for breakfast, hardened.

The Setup was nowhere to be seen, and Seo Dami was eating her meal deliciously all by herself.

“You…”

“What.”

Looking at the trembling, glaring Leader, Seo Dami spoke.

“You don’t have hands? You don’t have feet? Serve yourselves.”

“‘Serve’ is informal speech…”

“If you wanted to be treated like a Sunbae, you should have acted like a human being. Thinking about what you guys have done until now, you don’t seem like people, do you?”

When she said that today’s breakfast was delicious and they should eat a lot, the faces of the Leader and the other team members turned red.

“We have a match today, so don’t waste your energy from the morning and just eat~.”

Seo Dami, who finished her meal first, got up from her seat and left the cafeteria.

As soon as she disappeared, several curses flew out in the cafeteria.

“Look at what that bitch is doing.”

“Just bear with it, Unni. Do you avoid shit because you’re scared of it? You avoid it because it’s dirty.”

“So annoying, seriously.”

“Hey. Harim, you serve the rice today.”

“Huh? Yes.”

Kim Harim, who suddenly had to take Seo Dami’s place, picked up the rice paddle and diligently served and carried the rice.

And a moment later, another curse erupted from among the team members.

“Fuck. It’s braised boneless pollock!”

“Even the menu is bullshit.”

“Hey. Go to the convenience store and buy some bread.”

To call this crap a delicious breakfast.

Kim Yujeong once again felt a deep anger towards Seo Dami.

Of course, she didn’t know.

That Seo Dami had truly enjoyed her breakfast.

The man currently moving her body was a person who wasn’t picky about any food.

The Monday match of the third week of May had arrived.

The Universe Arena holds five League games a week, from Monday to Friday.

It opens in April and runs until October, with a Break Period of about a month in the middle of the Season.

April, May, June, and August, September, October.

It is divided into the First Half and Second Half Leagues like this, and the total number of games a team plays amounts to 132.

In each League, there are twelve teams competing fiercely for the championship.

But unfortunately, Universe Cat was a team that had lost that fierceness a while ago.

Because the Universe Arena’s promotion and relegation structure is stricter than other sports, even the Lower Bracket teams tend to be on high alert.

This is because just by winning or placing second, they can go straight to the upper League.

In other words, the moment you place last, you are relegated without being able to do anything.

But the Third Division League was a bit different.

Since there was no Fourth Division League to go down to, there was no fear of being kicked out of the League even if they came in last.

For this reason, it was true that a hard-to-escape lethargy could be seen in the Lower Bracket teams of the Third Division League.

But this year was a little different.

An official announcement from the UA Association that came out a while ago.

There are teams that want to newly enter the League.

It was an announcement that they planned to inject new vitality by removing teams that showed poor results every year from the League.

-Fuck. What the hell does this mean.

-Are they telling our team to disband now?

-Wasn’t the Third Division supposed to have no Relegation?

-They’re saying they’re going to strengthen competitiveness~.

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Thumbs up for Eternal Fire, whose feet are on fire.

-How many teams are they planning to kick out?

-Honestly, it was not good to see those mosquito bastards who just suck up the association’s support funds without any will to rebuild. Acknowledge?

It was only natural that the Third Division League fans were greatly excited by the association’s announcement.

And in this topic, Universe Cat’s name also came up quite often.

Currently, Universe Cat’s League Standings is 10th.

The ranking could drop at any time depending on the results of the remaining matches, and even if they maintained 10th place, it was hard to say it was a safe zone.

Universe Cat had already achieved poor results, finishing 11th last year and 8th the year before.

Perhaps it was because of the anxiety that the team might be kicked out at the end of this year’s Season.

The Universe Cat message board was bustling with activity even before the match.

-If the ranking drops further this year, isn’t expulsion pretty much confirmed?

-Fuck. I should have switched teams sooner.

-Who told you to support a shitty team like this?

-If you had supported a god-tier team like Floris from the start, this wouldn’t have happened ^^

-The Floris spies are here again.

-Get lost!

-Read the room before you post.

-We miss you, Eunbi-jwa…

-A bastard who was as slick at the game as he was at school violence…

Amidst all sorts of posts, the game was getting ready to start.

The players from both teams entered the Arena.

The circular Arena of the Universe Arena.

Spectators filled the seats along the outer stands, and in the center, the stage where the players would compete was being set up.

The average number of live spectators for a Third Division League match at the Universe Arena is about a thousand.

Since it’s about a thousand for both teams combined, that means each team has about 500 cheering spectators.

But today, the live spectators filling Universe Cat’s cheering section were not even half of that.

At most, about 200 people.

It would be strange if there were many fans who paid for tickets to come and watch the games every day for a team that floundered in the Lower Bracket every year with poor Game Performance.

In contrast, today’s opposing team, Nymph Gaming, had a much larger number.

A crowd of nearly a thousand had gathered.

Nymph Gaming was a strong team in the Third Division League, running in 3rd place in the First Half.

If they could just solidify their ranking, they could compete in the Second Division League Promotion-Relegation Match, and if they raised their rank by just one more step, they could even go straight for Promotion.

So, the enthusiasm with which the players and fans approached the match was bound to be distinctly different.

With the Arena filled with cheers shouting for Nymph, the Commentary Team picked up their microphones.

“You’ve waited a long time. We will now begin the 4th match between Nymph Gaming and Universe Cat in the 2074 UKL!”

Simultaneously with the Caster’s shout, the center of the Arena transforms rapidly.

The randomly determined Battlefield has begun to generate its structure.

The Objective changes, and a desolate desert unfolds.

Golden sand dunes, stone pillars, and a temple spread out, creating an otherworldly atmosphere not of Earth.

The Attica Temple.

The Battlefield for capturing a Control Point on an alien planet revealed itself.

‘It’s a Domination Battle.’

There are a total of three modes of Battlefields in the Universe Arena.

The first is Deathmatch.

A Battlefield with the rule that the team with more kills during a set time wins.

The second is One-for-One.

A Battlefield where each player has only one life and must defeat the opposing team.

And finally, Domination Battle.

A Battlefield with the rule that you must occupy a specific Control Point, like the temple that just appeared before my eyes, to win.

In a Domination Battle, the game doesn’t end just because you fall once; you can respawn after a set time and rejoin the fight.

There’s no particular limit to the number of times, but since you have to occupy the Control Point for longer to fill the gauge and win, dying recklessly was a problem.

In other words, to win, you had to die less than the opponent.

And stand on the Control Point and endure for longer.

As a Defender, it’ll be easy to hold out.

I was thinking that.

I felt that Dami’s energy was a little strange.

‘Seo Dami. Are you nervous?’

<What? No?>

‘What do you mean, no. You’re definitely nervous.’

<Hmph hmph!>

I’m the one playing the game, so why are you the one who’s nervous, I told her not to be.

What was important for her now was to watch and learn from the game I was playing.

If she was nervous, her ability to learn would surely drop, wouldn’t it?

A moderate amount of tension was fine, but excessive tension was of no help to a player.

‘Watch carefully. If you want to become a First Division League player, I’ll show you how you have to play.’

<Okay.>

Rumble-!

As the Waiting Room door opened, sand and hot wind poured in.

What might have happened to my body, whether team Magnus had even found a replacement player.

I had many worries, but at this moment when the game began, my steps were surprisingly light.

It was as if fate was telling me it was okay to focus solely on this game.

‘Then let’s go.’

And so, I threw myself into the sandy desert.

It was the start of the first League game I would play in Seo Dami’s body.

“I’m so anxious I could die…”

Director Hong Jaewoo, who remained on the Waiting Room Bench, trembled his leg.

And the face of Coach Kim Hakseong, who was watching him, was not good.

Seo Dami, who last night declared she would stay with the team after refusing a trade.

No matter how one thought about it, it was a completely incomprehensible choice.

“Hakseong. What if Dami causes some trouble today?”

“The game has already started. What could she possibly do?”

“What if she starts shooting at our own team, yelling, ‘You bitches!’?”

“N-No way.”

Coach Kim Hakseong shivered as if just the thought of it made him dizzy.

There had never been such a crazy incident in history, but after hearing the Director, it didn’t seem entirely impossible.

If that happened, not only the players but also Director Hong Jaewoo and he himself would never be able to set foot in this industry again.

“Still, let’s trust her… Didn’t she say she wouldn’t cause any trouble?”

“I certainly hope so.”

As it was, there were already rumors about whether they would be kicked out of the League after this Season.

With a desperate hope that no other problems would arise besides their performance, the Director and the Coach watched the match.

‘Please, Dami! Just this once, give us a break!’

And so, one minute after the match began.

Director Hong Jaewoo and Coach Kim Hakseong’s eyes flew open as they shot up from their seats.

They weren’t the only ones who had jumped to their feet.

Even the fans in the Spectator Seats had risen, starting to let out a Cheer.

“What in the world is happening! Universe Cat! Universe Cat is pushing back Nymph Gaming!”

The Capture Point located in the center of the Desert Temple.

A single Defender who had taken the very middle of it was putting on a god-like performance, withstanding the opponent’s fierce onslaught.

“My god! Seo Dami. A Triple Kill!”

“Her defense is so solid! Player Seo Dami! She’s like an iron wall!”

Letting out a sharp cry, Seo Dami bashed a struggling Nymph Gaming Attacker with her Shield and landed a Headshot.

A storm had begun to rage on the Battlefield.