41. National Team Selection Match (3)
“Hey.”
Rank 9, O Ji-myeong, said as he flicked a pebble on the ground with his foot.
“What are you doing right now? Did you come out here to camp or something?”
He didn’t like Baek Jinwoo’s attitude.
Was the national team selection match some kind of joke?
Even if a higher-ranked high ranker acted like that, it would be an eyesore—but this guy wasn’t even a ranker… Just some player who’d been sparkling in the spotlight lately, acting like that, made his stomach twist.
‘Oh? “Hey”, huh?’
Baek Jinwoo smiled deeply.
Look at these cheeky little bastards. He’s coming at me pretty hard, huh?
Well, for now…
Since they were both older than him, he could let the casual speech slide.
“Yeees, is there a problem?”
Baek Jinwoo said with a grin, then sprang up from his seat.
‘Should I play along for a bit?’
For the past few months, after grinding through intense workouts with HunGyo, Baek Jinwoo’s physique had already surpassed what counted as ‘normal’.
Compared to that, the rankers’ bodies were so shabby it made you want to sigh.
Well, he understood.
If a player’s summons were strong, it wasn’t like they had to manage their own body.
Still, the pressure that leaked from a trained body was stronger than what came from an untrained one.
“...This bastard.”
Pushed back a little by that pressure, O Ji-myeong clenched his lips.
“Seems like the media’s been pushing you lately, so you’ve gotten cocky. But if you keep standing that straight-backed, there are cases where you’ll never get selected your whole life.”
“...Huh? Really?”
Baek Jinwoo tilted his head.
“That’s weird. Isn’t the national team selection match something you get into as long as you’re skilled? Ah, so it’s not? If you two got selected last year… then I guess it’s possible even without skill…”
“You crazy bastard.”
In the end, with his lid completely blown off, curses spilled out of O Ji-myeong’s mouth.
“No need to talk so much, senior. Let’s slice up that bastard’s summons first, then lecture him.”
Rank 10 Park Ho-seop lined up his summons.
Baek Jinwoo looked at the scene as if it amused him.
“This is ridiculous.”
“……”
“Rankers teaming up like this is embarrassing enough, so why keep running your mouths? Just settle what you came to see and go your separate ways. Right, HunGyo?”
HunGyo silently nodded.
But HunGyo’s eyes had turned razor-sharp.
It looked like he wanted to cut down those two players right on the spot for daring to sour his lord’s mood.
“You’re hopeless.”
Whooong!
When O Ji-myeong flicked his arm, his summons all slammed their feet into the ground at once.
As expected of a ranker, he had a fairly diverse set of B-grade summons.
“After the group battle ends, come see me separately. I need to educate you.”
“Oh, that line.”
Baek Jinwoo nodded as if he welcomed it.
“You’d better keep that promise.”
At that moment—
Paat!
HunGyo moved, snapping his sword’s flat upward to lift the jaw of one of O Ji-myeong’s humanoid summons.
KWA-AAANG!
With a thunderous roar, the summon’s consciousness vanished as it shot up into the air.
Not just the speed—its power was insane. A B-grade summon, down in one blow.
“Okay. One.”
Without changing the motion of that rising strike, HunGyo sprang forward.
Seogeogeogok!
His movement speed was on a completely different level.
While the enemy summons were still in the middle of taking their motions, HunGyo had already swung, retrieved his blade, and dashed onward.
Hwiririk!
Three slashes—each one precisely cutting the summons’ vital points.
Honestly, this kind of group battle was overwhelmingly favorable to Baek Jinwoo right now.
As long as he bought time for Lamba to stack up, it was practically the same as being invincible.
“Two, three… huh, was it four? Wow, you’re so fast I can’t even see you.”
Baek Jinwoo was enjoying it, but O Ji-myeong was in pure disbelief.
Five seconds?
No—something happened in less than four.
There was a BANG! then a SEOGEOGOK! and four summons’ HP hit 0.
And then the last one—
-Gwooooooaaaaargh!
A Rampaging Stone Golem (B-grade) jumped, spinning its fist as it came down—
—and seogeogeogeogok!
HunGyo was already on top of it, running around, putting on a golem dismantling show with his sword.
He was delicately slicing through the joints of the golem, which was covered in magical power.
‘C-crazy…!’
O Ji-myeong was horrified.
Thudududuk!
He hadn’t even struck the core—the heart—yet the stone golem fell apart, separated into arms, legs, and torso.
Pinggeureureu!
After doing a single somersault, HunGyo drove his sword straight into the heart of the golem’s torso—PWOOK!
Puseoseok!
The golem was unsummoned instantly.
“……!”
Silence fell.
Especially Park Ho-seop—his eyes were practically bulging out.
Was there even a player in Korea who could toy with Senior O Ji-myeong like that?
[All summons of Player ‘O Ji-myeong’ have been unsummoned.]
[Eliminated from the group battle.]
Uuwoooong!
Light surged up from the floor and began to wrap around O Ji-myeong’s body.
And at this moment, the protective barrier that had been shielding O Ji-myeong disappeared.
With his sharp eyesight, Baek Jinwoo caught it instantly and kicked off the ground.
‘He deserves to get hit a little.’
He could tell HunGyo to do it, but that might accidentally kill him.
A human should beat another human.
“After the group battle ends, make sure you come find me. I’ll pay you a ‘consolation fee’.”
Baek Jinwoo rushed in, twisted his waist, and drove a fist into O Ji-myeong’s left abdomen—right into the liver.
“K-Keuhk?!”
For a moment, O Ji-myeong’s breath caught in his throat.
‘T-that son of a bitch—no manners!’
He hit a person in player-versus-player? He was wronged, but he couldn’t even shout—because he was already being ejected out of the group battle.
“Next is you, then?”
Rank 10 Park Ho-seop could only stare blankly at Baek Jinwoo’s grin.
* * *
The broadcast feed of the group battle rotated quickly.
Because in a group battle, there were simply too many combat situations to capture at once.
Rank 1 dominating alone, players banding together to hunt Rank 2 like a raid, and so on.
-Yes, Rank 3 is currently moving to the outskirts and waiting!
-He’s showing his intention not to engage in unnecessary fights! What is Rank 4 doing? Let’s switch over!
Chwarureureuk!
As the viewpoint shifted—
“Huh? It’s Oppa!”
Baek Ajin shouted. She had spotted a familiar face on the screen.
-Yes, Rank 9 and Rank 10 are allied, right? They said at the press conference they’d keep their alliance this year as well.
-That’s right. Huh? But what happened? One of them isn’t on screen.
-Oh! We just got news that he was eliminated a moment ago. What on earth happened?
-Shall we roll the footage back?
Because of that, scenes that seem relatively less important—like the one just now—sometimes get missed.
But it doesn’t matter. You can always rewind.
“Ah, seriously!”
Listening to the hosts, Baek Ajin clicked her tongue in irritation.
“What is it, sweetie?”
When Hwang Myeonghui asked in confusion—
“My brother. He’s got the worst luck. Of all people, he ran into Rank 9 and 10.”
“Oh my, then what do we do?”
“Exactly! Ugh, those two are from headquarters, and they’re famous for always sticking together in the pettiest way. In a group battle, the usual rule is to hide quietly and pass with a bit of luck… and he runs into rankers right from the start?! Agh!”
“Then… our Jinwoo is going to get eliminated?”
“Hold on. First of all, they said one ranker is missing, so… huh?”
At that moment—
The screen was showing a separately captured highlight.
It was the scene of HunGyo slicing through O Ji-myeong’s five summons in ten seconds.
The three players muttered something, and O Ji-myeong’s side charged in first.
And then—
HunGyo moved in an instant and cut them down.
It was so fast and so flashy that even in slow motion, it looked like it was playing at normal speed.
-W-What was that just now?!
-That’s incredible! What on earth am I looking at? One of Baek Jinwoo’s summons—just one single summon—is butchering the summons of the country’s Rank 9! Does that make sense?!
-We replayed it twice and I still can’t believe it!
Waaaaa!
Oooooooh!
Cheers erupted from outside.
It seemed everyone was watching the same scene.
“Wow, that—!”
Baek Ajin jumped up and pointed at the screen.
HunGyo!
How could she not recognize that scam-level summon?
The ridiculous summon that instantly subdued her lovingly raised Shadow Elf, then even snagged her ankle!
‘Whoa—was it really that strong? It… it’s beating a ranker…’
“Did your brother win?”
“Mom, this isn’t just ‘winning’! This is insane! He completely wiped the floor with him—our country’s Rank 9! Wow, holy—goosebumps.”
Rubbing her arms, Baek Ajin looked toward her father.
“D-Dad?”
“……!”
Baek Jincheol was frozen solid, mouth hanging open.
Well, of course.
Dad watches the world league and player-versus-player matches pretty often.
He’d understand better than Mom just how absurd this situation was.
-What kind of summon is that, exactly? Have you ever seen it before, caster?
-No. There is an E-grade summon called the Training Director that’s somewhat similar, but this is completely different. The director holds a camera—this one is holding a sword.
-Then what is it?
-It might be an unrevealed B-grade… or possibly even an A-grade summon.
-Ooooh, so Baek Jinwoo was hiding a secret weapon!
-Huh? No, apparently not!
-What?
-We just received information—it’s said to be an E-grade summon called a Training Instructor.
-A Training Instructor?
-Yes. Apparently some veteran gamers know it… but the strange part is, they say it was never this strong. They claim it was just an ordinary E-grade! And they say it even disappeared after a patch about three years later!
There were quite a few players who knew of the Training Instructor.
However, there wasn’t a single player who knew God Ji-nu had used it.
Even One Heaven, Five Emperors didn’t know.
Because the Training Instructor was a summon God Ji-nu used before he began seriously communicating with One Heaven, Five Emperors, and it was isolated afterward.
The same went for Lamba and the Explosive Dragon as well.
The only summons of “One Heaven, God Ji-nu” that One Heaven, Five Emperors knew were things like Rune Dwarf, Aso, Magic Cat, Ruination… and that was about it.
-Did you get any information from Baek Jinwoo’s side?
-No, none! If anything, they put a privacy fairy on that summon!
-Then is this… good news?
-It could be!
In truth, headquarters didn’t want the detailed abilities of rankers’ summons revealed to the public.
Because it was a competitive system.
If it became known domestically, overseas analysts would start dissecting it too—which would mean their fighting power got exposed as-is.
So the commentators only dug in “just enough” and avoided giving a detailed explanation about that summon.
-Either way, this is an astounding result! And now—Baek Jinwoo and Park Ho-seop have clashed!
-A-ahhh! The result isn’t very different!
-Was Park Ho-seop always this powerless? He’s getting sliced up like nothing by Baek Jinwoo!
-WAAAAAA! BAEK JINWOOOO! Who on earth are you?!
-No one saw this coming! Baek Jinwoo has butchered two rankers!
There was no player who could stop a stack-built HunGyo.
Seogeogeogok!
It didn’t matter what summons Park Ho-seop had.
The problem was simply that Lamba with an endgame rune equipped was broken.
With a few swings of HunGyo’s blade, Park Ho-seop’s summons were unsummoned on the spot.
“H-hold on.”
Right before he vanished, Park Ho-seop stretched out both arms with a terrified expression—but Baek Jinwoo was more persistent and petty than expected.
“The lecture you said you’d give later—make sure you keep that promise.”
Ppeo-eok!
With a grin, Baek Jinwoo drove his fist into Park Ho-seop’s abdomen.
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