44. National Team Selection Match(6)
The selection tournament’s finale!
At the end of this year, the players who would compete on the world stage were decided.
The list, organized by points, was as follows.
[National Team Player Roster]
[1. Unranked, Baek Jinwoo]
[2. Rank 1, Kang Geonho]
[3. Rank 2, Park Hoe]
[4. Rank 3, Hong Ari]
[5. Rank 15, Gi Jaehyuk]
[6. Rank 8, Hwang Juwon]
[7. Rank 4, An Gijeong]
[8. Rank 25, Kang Jihoe]
[9. Rank 6, Bok Jeonghee]
[10. Rank 7, Seo Sangwon]
They said the selection tournament always had upsets, but this time it was on another level.
First off, Oh Sunyoung—who had been rank 5 , along with O Ji-myeong and Park Ho-seop from HQ (ranked 9 and 10)—were eliminated in the team battle.
As a result, three new players entered from outside the top 10.
Those were Baek Jinwoo, Gi Jaehyuk, and Kang Jihoe.
Unranked, 15th, and 25th.
-Gi Jaehyuk and Kang Jiho are legit.
-Both of them fought insanely well lol.
Gi Jaehyuk and Kang Jiho were in the same guild.
It was called Carpe Diem.
Gi Jaehyuk was the guild master, and Kang Jihoe was the deputy guild master.
- Guess young blood really is different.
- Gotta admit it. Games are always where kids are fast and cracked.
-Didn’t get pushed back in team battles, and they were monsters in solos too. They deserve national team. They were also really young.
High school students, no less.
Gi Jaehyuk was 19, and Kang Jihoe was 18.
Apparently Carpe Diem itself was a guild formed by talented players from an alliance of nearby high schools.
Minors aren’t normally allowed to establish a guild at all, but HQ permitted it as a special exception.
Honestly, if a future top-tier ranker says they’re going to build a guild themselves, it’s not like the country can stop them.
Especially not when South Korea was considered the weakest player nation.
- Damn, our country’s future is bright!
- Especially Gi Jaehyuk—he beat ranks 4, 6, 7, and 8 in points lol.
- It was huge that he didn’t run into Baek Jinwoo thanks to bracket luck.
- For real. Kang Jihoe ran into Baek Jinwoo and dropped to 8th, didn’t he.
- No matter how hard you try, against Baek Jinwoo it’s a one-minute cut.
And then—
This year’s biggest upset was none other than Baek Jinwoo.
An unranked player who utterly dominated the tournament and took first place—South Korea’s biggest superstar!
Building billboards, all three major broadcasters, every community, every YouTube feed—every screen in South Korea was packed with Baek Jinwoo’s matches.
Undefeated, and with such explosive fights, he became a national hero overnight.
Damn.
- This is insane~!
- I could watch Baek Jinwoo highlights every day and never get tired of them.
- But Baek Jinwoo… doesn’t that name feel kind of… like we’ve heard it before?
- Baek Jinwoo = “God Ji-nu” theory, you don’t know? Jinwoo and Ji-nu sound similar. And he’s young, plus the cringe middle-school nickname vibe fits perfectly.
- Wow, you’re right lol.
Naturally, more people started suspecting he might be God Ji-nu.
The name was similar, and what he showed was so overwhelmingly dominant—of course that was where the rumor went.
- That God Ji-nu who even world rankers fear.
- At this point shouldn’t One Heaven, Five Emperors release a statement? Still no reaction yet, though?
The public was dying to know.
Was Baek Jinwoo really God Ji-nu?
* * *
And at that same time, in the United Kingdom.
Ding!
Swish.
A text notification sounded from the pocket of a young blonde woman who had just exited a dungeon.
She slowly took it out to check—and a video someone sent had arrived.
[Xenos: Everyone check the video. Korea’s going crazy right now.]」
“A video?”
Rachel tilted her head and pressed play.
Baek Jinwoo’s highlight reel appeared on screen!
“Hm?”
A strange light flickered in her eyes.
[Sugoi: Whoa, what the heck! Isn’t that the Training Instructor? Man, it’s been forever since I’ve seen that.]
[Baekcheon: Hyung, there’s a Wind Fairy too, and an Explosive Dragon Sorcerer. Those are summons that used to be popular ages ago but got deleted by an evil patch. Damn… the Explosive Dragon Sorcerer is peak cute, seriously.]
[Sugoi: I knew the Wind Fairy got deleted after it got used to death—attack speed goes up like crazy. But why are those summons there? In the last three years, I haven’t seen anyone pull those even once. I thought they were completely blocked.]
[Baekcheon: Exactly.]
After the world turned upside down, Rachel immediately began tracking down One Heaven, Five Emperors.
After that, she used social media to create a group chat—but unfortunately, there was still no news of One Heaven.
The Five Emperors were all gathered!
[Xenos: Korea is hyping this up as the appearance of God Ji-nu like we talked about. What do you think?]
“…….”
Rachel silently kept staring at the screen.
Then—
“That.”
She caught one specific scene.
A black scythe suddenly appeared and swept through everything nearby.
Her memory was hazy, but it felt similar to what she had once suffered in the past.
“Is that… really God Ji-nu?”
It could be. Or it might not be.
At the very least, the fighting style looked exactly like his. The overwhelming dominance, the relaxed control over summons.
“But why now?”
He’d stayed quiet all this time—why show up only now?
And if he really was God Ji-nu… why wouldn’t he contact them?
But then she thought—
“Well… I guess he might not.”
Because this wasn’t a game anymore—it was reality. Trusting people blindly would be strange.
[Rachel: Honestly, I don’t know. Feels like fifty-fifty.]
[Xenos: Want me to approach him and ask?]
If he really was God Ji-nu, there was no way he wouldn’t remember their time as One Heaven, Five Emperors.
Even if it was just chat, they’d built a pretty deep bond over five years. A few conversations would make it obvious right away.
In fact, plenty of players had claimed to be God Ji-nu and shown up over the years.
They all got exposed within a few lines.
[Rachel: The problem is that. Even if you ask, would he answer? No—before that, would he even welcome our approach?]
[Xenos: True. He didn’t come looking for us first. Still, if he’s really God Ji-nu… wouldn’t it be good for us too to keep contact?]
God Ji-nu was great. And he was practically humanity’s asset.
Only he had conquered the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials, and for humanity to conquer the tower in the future, they would absolutely need his help.
However, not all of the Five Emperors agreed.
[Moscowman: I’m kind of scared, honestly.]
Russia’s Moscowman had a different stance.
He always had. He was afraid of God Ji-nu.
[Moscowman: We’ve been doing great among ourselves so far, but if God Ji-nu shows up? Won’t we each get pushed down a spot?]
[Rachel: Don’t go that deep, Moscowman.]
Rachel warned him.
It had always been like this.
As the center of One Heaven, Five Emperors, she had always balanced and led these prickly old-timers well.
If Moscowman did something stupid and it turned out to really be God Ji-nu—the whole Five Emperors could end up earning his hatred.
To Rachel, God Ji-nu was the sky.
A single sky.
One Heaven.
[Rachel: It’s not even confirmed that he’s God Ji-nu yet. Having patched-out summons could just be a simple Tower of Trials reward.]
Since Tower of Trials rewards were random, it wouldn’t be strange no matter what dropped.
It could simply be that a summon deleted by an evil patch came out again with a “unique” label, purely by luck.
Having three—Training Instructor, Wind Fairy, Explosive Dragon Sorcerer—was a bit weird, though.
[Rachel: But did God Ji-nu originally use those summons?]
[Xenos: No idea. But I do remember this—when they deleted the Training Instructor, they said a certain player’s growth speed was too steep.]
[Moscowman: Was that so? I don’t know if God Ji-nu used them either.]
[Sugoi: Of course we wouldn’t know. We only got to know God Ji-nu in the game’s fifth year… and those guys were deleted before that.]
Hmm.
That made sense too.
But why was that?
Rachel couldn’t shake the feeling that God Ji-nu must have used those summons.
[Rachel: For now, let’s watch.]
Click!
Rachel played the video again. And she began analyzing Baek Jinwoo’s gameplay in meticulous detail.
He was a player she would meet in half a year anyway.
Just because rumors were spreading didn’t mean she had to act rashly.
* * *
Player Headquarters.
Assembly conference room.
With the selection tournament results on the table, the director and ten assembly members gathered.
Of course, Park Changseok was there, and so was Im Heesoo.
“First.”
Park Changseok stood up with a relaxed smile.
“A man should keep the promises he makes, shouldn’t he? There’s a contract, and the director was present as a witness too.”
He fluttered a sheet of paper.
It was a contract stating that in the bet, the losing assembly member would publicly acknowledge the other was better and resign voluntarily.
“If you break it, the penalty is one billion won. Then again, you’ve got plenty of money, so… maybe you’ll just pay the billion?”
To think the day would come when he could say something like that straight to Im Heesoo!
Park Changseok felt so satisfied it was almost refreshing.
“This is all thanks to Mr. Jinwoo.”
Honestly, Park Changseok was so happy right now that if Baek Jinwoo told him to bark, he felt like he might actually bark.
‘Woof, woof!’
“But…”
One of the assembly members looked at Im Heesoo with a strange expression.
“Assemblyman Im, what’s with your face?”
“………”
Grit.
Im Heesoo’s teeth ground together as he sat with his head lowered in gloom.
Right now, he was too humiliated to even lift his head. And as if he’d been beaten by someone, his left eye was darkly bruised and swollen.
Ugly enough to be hard to look at.
“Fuck.”
Im Heesoo remembered what happened last night.
Long after the match had ended, O Ji-myeong and Park Ho-seop—men who had once been his subordinates—came to see him.
In the middle of the night.
“W-what is it?!”
Naturally, Im Heesoo was startled and on guard.
“Why are you so shocked?”
“Yeah. It’s not like we’re Joseon-era tigers or something.”
They came at him more blatantly than he expected. Boiled down, what they said was this: Your eyes were wrong, and you told us to target Baek Jinwoo—so you take responsibility!
Compensate us for becoming hated by him, and for every benefit and connection we won’t be able to enjoy from now on!
Otherwise?
We’ll leave it to your imagination!
And then they beat him.
An assemblyman—beaten like that!
“If you want to report it, go ahead. When that happens, I’ll even join a real gang if I have to—and I’ll wreck you and your whole family.”
“Let’s be reasonable, Assemblyman. You benefited plenty from us all this time too, didn’t you?”
Even as they laughed and beat him in that horrifying way, Im Heesoo could do nothing.
“H-hiiik!”
All he could do was cling to their pant legs and beg them to spare him.
All the pride he’d built up over the years—it collapsed completely last night.
Report it?
The current police and military had no way to capture rankers.
If anything, provoking their anger would only make things more dangerous.
Like they said—what if they really went over to a gang and kidnapped him?
“Ugh…”
Im Heesoo’s body trembled as he imagined it.
Park Changseok stared at him quietly.
“How did someone end up that broken?”
He could roughly guess what kind of humiliation Im Heesoo had suffered.
But he didn’t feel sorry for him. He only thought it was deserved.
“I… I admit it.”
At last, Im Heesoo spoke.
“I’ll admit everything and… resign my assembly seat.”
Honestly, he wanted out.
He wanted to leave South Korea, go far away, and live hidden where no one knew him.
Anyway.
Im Heesoo’s shocking declaration made every assembly member gasp.
Even if they could guess what had happened, it was still shocking.
Especially the assembly members from Im Heesoo’s faction—the ones who’d joined in mocking Park Changseok—looked like they were about to die.
“Then we’ll settle that matter like that.”
Park Changseok smiled leisurely.
“Director?”
“H-huh? Go ahead.”
“Don’t you think HQ should start moving in a Baek Jinwoo-friendly direction, even now?”
Park Changseok pointedly stabbed at their previous mistake.
“O-of course.”
“You don’t have any complaints, right?”
“Huh? Complaints? What complaints! Why would you say something so hurtful? Don’t you know me? I tried like crazy afterward to make contact with Baek Jinwoo, and I regretted it so much!”
Now even the director had no choice but to watch Park Changseok’s mood.
An assembly term was four years.
In just one more year, Baek Jinwoo would be soaring even higher—and at that point, the odds were high that Park Changseok might end up sitting in the director’s chair himself.
“Hahaha, Assemblyman Park. You haven’t been feeling wronged all this time, right?”
“Wronged? Honestly, a lot.”
Park Changseok said it flat-out, and the director panicked.
“What! What on earth made you feel wronged?!”
“Do I really have to spell it out?”
“Hahahaha—no, no! Right, right. Sometimes a person should understand without needing it said out loud. Yes, yes. Then what should we do to ease that resentment?”
“I already told you, Director.”
“Huh?”
“For the rest of your term, run HQ in a way that’s friendly to Baek Jinwoo.”
That really was enough.
It was the only way the current director could survive.
“First.”
Before they knew it, the meeting had started flowing under Park Changseok’s lead.
“Shall we begin by discussing the training plan for the national team going forward?”
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