87. The New National Team Representative (4)
Boom!
“Here are more application documents!”
“Huh, there are still this many left?”
“Don’t start whining like you’re dying. We’re not even 10% done yet.”
“Ghuuuh!”
Yoobaek headquarters was, quite literally, so busy they barely had time to blink.
The first screening process was simple.
In cooperation with headquarters, anyone passed as long as they had a player license and no criminal record!
The problem was that there were simply too many applicants, so even checking that was a job in itself.
“Wow, did every player in the country apply or something?”
“They probably did. It’s an obvious chance to climb the social ladder, so people are just throwing their names in first and seeing what happens.”
It was kind of like buying a lottery ticket.
The chances of making it were practically nonexistent, but if you did make it, it was a jackpot!
That was the mindset of the vast majority of applicants.
Thunk, slam!
Once the employees stamped the papers, the second screening was handled by Yoo Jia.
She looked over things like the environment they had grown up in and their reason for applying, filtering out anyone who looked insincere.
After spending about three days on it, Yoo Jia selected 5,000 players.
Among them were unranked players, as well as plenty of famous rankers whose names anyone would recognize.
“Haa, it’s finally over.”
Yoo Jia stretched with a look on her face that said she was about to die.
Her part was done now.
The next one up was HunGyo.
* * *
Buzz, buzz.
The 5,000 players who had gathered inside Yoobaek City kept letting out exclamations as they looked around.
“Wow...”
“Is this a company or a palace?”
“Rather than a palace, it looks more like a garden. A garden filled with an artist’s soul.”
They had occasionally seen it through communities or the media, but seeing it in person was a first.
It had even been reinforced to look more beautiful than before.
Now that 「Yoobaek」 had grown into a full-fledged major corporation, it did not spare any money on company landscaping.
The company’s appearance was the same as Baek Jinwoo’s face!
Yoo Jia was fully confident she could pour in as much money as needed if it was for maintaining Baek Jinwoo’s dignity.
Her own profits might drop immediately, but she had to look further ahead.
Baek Jinwoo was still only operating domestically, and the moment he expanded onto the world stage, astronomical money would come pouring in.
“...Impressive.”
Kang Geonho was among the players who had passed the first round.
After Park Ho had been sent to prison, he simply dissolved Baekho.
Rather than letting the honor of a guild he had raised with passion for three years be tarnished, he decided it was better to erase it.
The rankers who had belonged to Baekho would survive just fine on their own.
They would either be absorbed into other large guilds or create new guilds of their own... probably.
Step, step.
As he was moving toward the center of Yoobaek City while looking around the garden, Kang Geonho spotted a guide shouting into a microphone.
-All right, this way please! Slowly! Just line up and pass through!
It was an extremely long line.
The players showed their licenses, received an envelope, and then left.
-If you’ve shown your license and been verified, take your travel money and head home! The travel money is exactly 100,000 won!
‘What?’
Kang Geonho was dumbfounded.
What kind of screening was this?
Was it really over just by showing your face?
Headquarters had run an official selection program from the very start... was this really okay?
‘They even handed out travel expenses.’
If 5,000 people got 100,000 won each, that made exactly 500 million won.
To throw around 500 million won on such a simple screening, their financial power really must have been as strong as rumored.
What on earth were they thinking?
He was suspicious, but there was nothing Kang Geonho could do.
All he could do was follow their control.
* * *
‘Hmm.’
The 5th floor of the headquarters.
HunGyo’s eyes moved rapidly as he stood with his arms folded, looking out the window.
Though the screening looked simple to the applicants, HunGyo was actually scanning each player’s entire body as they passed the screening station.
‘They’re all lacking.’
He was examining their martial bones.
People with exceptionally outstanding innate physical traits.
Those kinds of people grow faster even when trained for the same period of time in the exact same way.
Aso was what it looked like when martial bones reached the extreme.
‘Of course, players and Murim people are different.’
Even so, that sense could never be ignored.
The reason his lord was so good at control as a player was also because his martial bones were outstanding.
“Are you watching carefully?”
—My lord, you have arrived.
“Looks like almost 1,000 have already been filtered out... Have you found anyone?”
—Not yet...
“This is bad.”
Baek Jinwoo let out a sigh.
They had gone through the trouble of selecting 5,000 people and even spent money to hold these screenings, but what if not even one person came out of it?
They would be wasting both time and money.
“Aren’t your standards just too high?”
—...Among the players my lord planned to squeeze in, the one in the worst condition was Hwang Juwon.
“Right, you did say that.”
The two executives of Ilwol. An Gijeong and Hwang Juwon.
They had ultimately decided to accept them as disciples too, but HunGyo had not evaluated them favorably.
But...
So far, not a single person has appeared with conditions better than that Hwang Juwon.
HunGyo’s words were shocking.
Among all those people, after checking nearly 20% of them, not one had better martial bones than Hwang Juwon?
“Huh, to that extent?”
—No matter what, Hwang Juwon was still someone who ranked among the top ten figures in my lord’s nation. He is above the basic standard.
Well.
That made sense.
He had made it all the way to the national team by throwing himself at it with his body, without any proper information.
“Then what about me?”
—Pardon?
“How good am I? Including all of our national team members.”
He suddenly became curious.
Even if he was not first, maybe he was at least in the upper ranks?
With that expectation, he looked at HunGyo.
—My lord is naturally the finest of them all.
“Oh, come on, don’t lie. I won’t get hurt, so just tell me honestly.”
—I am serious.
HunGyo answered without the slightest wavering.
“Really?”
—Of all the people I have seen and judged, the only one above my lord is Aso.
Oh.
Really?
Looking at HunGyo’s face, he seemed completely sincere.
Baek Jinwoo felt strangely pleased.
‘No wonder control felt so easy.’
There had been times when he could not understand it.
Controlling summons was not all that difficult, so why couldn’t other players do it?
—My lord is one of those naturally gifted monsters.
“Damn it, where did you even pick up a phrase like that...”
Ha.
Who else could it be?
Probably Lamba.
“Anyway, thanks. Just don’t lower the standard. Anyone worse than Mr. Hwang Juwon, cut them without mercy.”
Talent was important.
Effort could somehow be forced out of someone if you pushed them hard enough, but talent did not work that way.
Even if they could not find anyone here, it was better not to pick them at all.
As for the missing national team members, well.
They could always fill those spots again according to ranking order.
—Understood, my lord.
HunGyo’s eyes became busy once more.
* * *
Even so, they had been lucky.
As the latter half went on, more and more talented people started to appear.
After evaluating everyone, they were able to select a total of 30 people.
“Mr. Jinwoo, here’s the list.”
Yoo Jia brought over thirty neatly organized documents.
“HunGyo said you could pick anyone among these.”
“Really?”
Baek Jinwoo, who had just finished a brutal workout, replied while wiping off his sweat with a towel.
“If it’s 30 people, that’s still more than I expected.”
Since he had heard HunGyo’s screening standards, Baek Jinwoo was fairly surprised.
That meant all thirty of them were at least more talented than Hwang Juwon.
‘Should I just take them all?’
That thought crossed his mind, but no.
No matter how talented they were, they might still have something dark lurking inside them.
They had to be verified thoroughly and with absolute certainty.
From now on, once a day.
For exactly one month, Yoo Jia would conduct in-depth interviews.
Through the Mind-Reading Eagle, she would thoroughly dig through the insides of each player.
“I said before that the number of people selected would be three, right? Forget that. If there are a lot of decent people, then select as many as deserve it.”
“Are you sure that’s okay?”
“Yes. Even if we take them all, it’s still only a small number.”
Compared to a normal large guild, that was true.
“Then what are you going to do about the national team...?”
“Later on, we’ll make them compete internally too.”
Competition was the best whip when it came to making someone grow.
“Anyway, I’ll leave the final screening entirely to you, Ms. Yoo Jia.”
“Understood!”
* * *
A month passed.
During that time, Baek Jinwoo cleared the Top-grade weekday dungeon, trained his disciples, and also took good care of Explosive Dragon and Hwang Jiwoo.
In the middle of all that, a fairly major issue broke out.
Rachel of England had cleared the 50th floor of the Tower of Trials!
[Rachel of England becomes a hot topic after clearing from the 29th floor to the 50th floor in one nonstop month!]
[Rachel, now even stronger! Aspiration for the World League: “Barring an upset, England will win again this year!!”]
[The clear route up to the 50th floor is identical to the Battle of Summoners! Gamers rejoice!]
‘That’s impressive.’
Baek Jinwoo nodded.
It had only been almost four years since the world changed, and she had already reached the 50th floor.
That showed just how intensely Rachel had pushed herself.
‘It means she’s strong in a balanced way.’
In Baek Jinwoo’s case, only HunGyo and Lamba were fully set up right now.
As for Explosive Dragon and Gale Slayer, they were definitely overpowered summons, but they still had not been equipped with endgame runes.
It was still too much to challenge the Tower of Trials, which required a total of fifteen summons.
Even if he managed to clear it somehow, that did not mean his win rate would be 100%.
‘How would it go?’
If he met Rachel in the World League?
Would he be able to beat her?
Originally, he believed he would be able to beat her 100%.
But if she had cleared the 50th floor?
Then it was a different story.
At the very least, she would have endgame rune setups on three or more summons.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter.’
Baek Jinwoo was planning to conquer up to the 50th floor soon too.
Just after the World League ended.
He intended to really start sprinting only after he had perfectly carved his presence into this Earth.
If that happened?
Maybe not this year, but next year he would definitely establish himself as world rank number one.
‘No, actually.’
If Explosive Dragon just properly learned Devour, Rachel would be finished.
“Mr. Jinwoo.”
Yoo Jia came to find Baek Jinwoo.
“There’s no one to select. There are really only two people who fit perfectly.”
“...Two? It’s that bad?”
“Yes.”
Yoo Jia’s expression was grim.
For the past month, she had used the Mind-Reading Eagle to understand the players’ personalities, and she had fallen into deep disappointment.
-I’ll follow along thoroughly for now, but if SKY falls apart, I’ll leave at any time.
-I want to go global. I should use SKY as a stepping stone until I can advance into England.
-They’ll pay a lot, right? Once I get accepted, I’ll just make some money and retire.
The words spoken for ten seconds by the Mind-Reading Eagle after reading the players’ inner thoughts.
Most of them were like this.
Humans could not help but move for the sake of their own greed, but the ones who should regret this were them, not us.
No matter how talented they were, was there any reason for Baek Jinwoo to spend his time teaching people like that?
The answer was absolutely not.
They were immediately notified of their rejection.
There had even been someone like this.
-Wow, this bitch Yoo Jia is insanely pretty. If I join here, it’ll be nice just to look at her. Heh. Hong Ari is pretty damn hot too...
When those words came out of the Mind-Reading Eagle’s mouth, she doubted her ears.
She felt an enormous sense of humiliation, but she endured it.
After all, it was only the filth in his thoughts, not something he had actually spat out to her face.
That was why she had become mentally worn down.
Anyway, after all that suffering, they managed to pick out two warriors who would sincerely fight for SKY and the nation.
Rank 1, Kang Geonho.
Rank 60, Song Yeonhee.
These players were the final successful applicants to SKY Guild who had survived out of the 5,000.
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