All-Acceleration
"Is this right?"
"I thought it was supposed to be a close game. How is the score gap this lopsided?"
A low murmur rippled through the crowd, everyone staring at the scoreboard as if they couldn't believe their eyes. But for some, the reaction was one of pure inevitability.
"That's just how vast the gap between high schoolers and college players is."
"College players are practically semi-pros. D1 athletes? They might as well be playing in a top-tier professional league. A gap like this is only natural."
And while all those opinions clashed and scattered, Nick Saban and Kalen DeBoer, who had been watching the game from the sidelines, each sank deep into thought.
What on earth happened?
The biggest story of the day was, without question, Isaiah Horton. And Horton was an Alabama player DeBoer had personally brought along to the camp. Because of that, DeBoer believed he knew the kid better than anyone—and yet the player on the field right now looked nothing like the Horton he knew.
Was it a fluke?
Maybe he'd simply woken up on the right side of the bed today. Or perhaps he was one of those players who rose to the occasion against weak opponents and crumbled against strong ones, and he'd simply crushed a high school squad that was beneath him.
Either way, DeBoer was thinking it was a performance worth keeping an eye on, and he was just about to turn to Nick Saban when—
"You fixed him properly. Fixing him in a single day? He clearly wasn't lacking in talent after all."
"I'm sorry—what do you mean?"
At DeBoer's question, Nick jerked his chin toward the field.
"Yesterday, when you stepped out for a bit, you did some training with Horton. Coaching, I suppose you'd call it."
"With Horton?"
"Yes."
Don't tell me that transformation is thanks to coaching. DeBoer struggled to keep his expression in check as he offered his thanks.
"Thank you for taking care of Horton, senior."
"Hm? What are you talking about? I didn't coach him."
"I beg your pardon?"
Now what's this supposed to mean? So one of the coordinators had stepped in to coach him?
"You may find it a little hard to believe, but the one who coached Horton wasn't me. It was Jaehyuk."
"Jaehyuk? You don't mean the player Kim Jaehyuk?"
As DeBoer's face twisted in disbelief, Nick Saban nodded, then fixed his gaze on Jaehyuk and drove the point home like a final nail.
"That kid... I think he can actually see something."
Unlike the reactions of everyone around them, the high school team waiting for their turn had created a thoroughly gloomy atmosphere.
It was an overwhelming gap, plain and simple. They'd felt it during yesterday's training too, but seeing an actual game up close made the divide look even wider still.
The starkest difference of all was tactical understanding.
Pro really is a different beast.
To be precise, they weren't pros—not yet. But they were running careers that might as well have been professional ones.
On top of that, the gap in teamwork was staggering. Group A had only just been thrown together, so their coordination was a complete mess. Despite having a super-elite receiver like Dakorien Moore on the roster, the number of times he'd actually been put to use during a game could be counted on one hand.
By contrast, the college team showcased flawless teamwork, as if they'd been playing together for years. At first Jaehyuk wondered whether they were old teammates—but no, that wasn't it either.
"It's all the experience they've banked in college."
Hopkins muttered, and Jaehyuk silently agreed as they turned to watch the next matchup against Group B.
After the college team's twenty-minute rest came the next game—and Group B had Mateo Rodriguez in it.
"Even so, Mateo's a different story, isn't he?"
Along with Hopkins's words, hopeful gazes from all around settled on Mateo.
"He can't do anything on defense, though."
"That's what overwhelming offense is for."
Since this format demanded players take on both offense and defense, Mateo—whose raw physical attributes lagged behind—looked unlikely to contribute much on the defensive side.
But those worries evaporated the moment the game began.
Fweee!
The ball launched into the air. And traced a perfect arc.
Every single one of Mateo's passes drilled into the college team's softest points like an awl seeking a pressure point, carving them apart.
"Wow!"
"Truly impressive. That's Rodriguez for you."
"A touchdown already! The momentum's completely different from Group A!"
"And this is exactly why the importance of the quarterback comes to the forefront. In football, the quarterback is more than half the game."
Do these people actually live here? There were fewer of them than the first day, but the stands were still raucous.
Hmm, did my article run yet? I'll have to check when I get home.
Thwack!!
"Isaiah Horton! He's completely burned his defender!"
"The level gap is just too big."
Buoyed by Mateo's heroics, Group B fought valiantly—but one man's strength alone was never going to be enough. And for some reason, Mateo's passing had grown noticeably weaker.
"That kid's hurt, isn't he?"
"Ah... now that you mention it."
The shoulder pain that only Jaehyuk and Hopkins knew about. At this point it deserved to be called an outright injury—shouldn't he have gone to a doctor already?
Tsk. And now Jaehyuk couldn't stop worrying about him all over again.
Meanwhile, the game—played over a short thirty minutes—soon drew to a close.
Final score: 42:21.
A far narrower gap than Group A's.
"Group B's final score margin: 21 points."
With that, Group B's survival was all but guaranteed. All that remained was Group C—Jaehyuk's turn.
Ssss—
"Huh?"
Letters began to draw themselves before his eyes. Lines of text slowly taking shape.
Defeat a College Team of 7
🎁 Reward: Increased Durability and Stamina
Well, what a windfall. No new quests had appeared since the last one, so this was a bolt from the blue. But the reward looked far too sweet to pass up.
The first Stamina reward, isn't it? A golden opportunity to both check his Stamina grade and claim the reward in one go.
And Jaehyuk—he was confident he could beat a college team.
"Alright, let's go!"
"Someone's suddenly bursting with energy, Jaehyuk."
There was only one ball on the field. And only one of him. If he could just maximize his own share of possession, the odds of winning were very good indeed. Of course, that was easier said than done—but there was only one way to find out.
"Group C, on the field."
"Oof, damn."
At the coordinator's call, Jaehyuk and the other eleven members of Group C filed out. Nervous tension was written plainly across every face.
Still, they were in far better shape than the other groups—having watched the two previous games, each of them seemed to have quietly prepared himself in his own way.
"We'll cede first possession to the college team."
"Understood."
The college team chose to defer, and Group C's offense kicked off first.
"We need to sort out positions."
"I'll take tight end."
"You were cornerback, right? Then receiver?"
Since the eleven of them were a mix of offensive and defensive specialists, they roughly divvied up positions among themselves. And so Jaehyuk was slotted in at running back and safety—naturally, since their team had no safety to speak of.
The safety was the defensive position that started deepest in the field. The last line of defense, the final wall—call it what you will. It demanded a wide field of vision to read every movement of the enemy, which, as it happened, suited his Gift perfectly.
Running back first, though.
They had the ball first. Right now was the time to run it.
"Red 18 Buffalo, Red 18 Buffalo!"
Their quarterback—whose name Jaehyuk didn't even know—called out the snap count. It was a makeshift sign they'd thrown together on the spot, but the opposition was in the same boat, so it hardly mattered.
"Set!"
A fast-tempo snap. The players exploded into motion.
And as the college defenders bore down on them with savage pressure, the quarterback began scrambling this way and that.
Me? Oh, I just faked pass protection for a bit, then slipped out sideways and got ready to catch.
Hold on. A sudden chill ran down his spine, and he gestured frantically at the quarterback.
Throw it forward, not to me!
But the quarterback had no room to spare for his gyrations, and—tragically—cocked his arm to throw the ball straight at Jaehyuk.
"Goddammit."
Jaehyuk charged straight toward the quarterback. The kid's running lane collapsed, his passing window became a gray zone, and he looked utterly flustered.
On the surface it looked like Jaehyuk was trolling his own teammate. But it was anything but.
That bastard—how dare he repay a favor with a knife in the back?
The reason Jaehyuk had moved like this: at some point, he'd sensed Horton, eyes blazing a ferocious blue, hunting him.
If that pass went up as-is, the ball could be picked off. One way or another, that passing lane had to be cut off.
Whoosh.
Unable to withstand the pressure any longer, the quarterback finally hurled the ball, wobbly as a dying duck.
"Ugh!"
Thankfully, he snagged it just before it hit the turf, one hand braced all the way to the ground—a razor-thin save.
At the same moment, an intense presence closed in from behind.
You're dead, son.
You walked right into it, you bastard. It was only in the receiver game that I struggled against you—did you think it'd be the same when I'm the running back?
Thump!
A blood-red line roared to life. The Gift pulsed, contracting and expanding in time with his pounding heartbeat.
The instant he secured the ball, Jaehyuk went straight into a spin move. But Horton wasn't fooled—and a heartbeat later, they were face to face, Horton having closed the distance before Jaehyuk knew it.
Horton had sprinted all the way here and was at full speed. Jaehyuk, by contrast, had just caught the ball and was standing still.
First, three steps. Then a juke.
Anyone would have been thrown off by direction changes snapping left and right in an instant—but the college experience didn't go to waste. Horton read it cleanly and kept coming.
Fine. If that's how it is—
Break through with raw power.
FWAAANG!!
He shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow. Only then did Horton stretch out his hands for the tackle.
To any observer, there was no way through. The speed gap between Jaehyuk, just building up from a standstill, and Horton, already at terminal velocity, was stark.
But in that instant—
Everything in Jaehyuk's field of vision began to slow. Every object in his sight dragged like footage played in slow motion. Even Horton's hand, now inches from his body, crawled.
Scrrrape!
He twisted his body—just far enough to brush past Horton's outstretched fingers.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
But his speed didn't drop. Adrenaline surged as if about to detonate, and vitality came erupting out of his legs along with it.
PAANG!
"Kgh!"
"What—!?"
In the blink of an eye, he slipped Horton's hands and left him behind.
This entire sequence was the power of his Speed B-grade ability.
All-acceleration.
It could only be used the moment a red line activated from a dead stop, and its duration was extremely short. The conditions were demanding—but in exchange, every acceleration parameter spiked. Even his thought processes accelerated.
In the world of football, where games were decided in increments of 0.1 seconds, it was nothing short of a monstrous ability.
"Wow—shit!"
"Run, Redline! RUN!"
After slipping past Horton, the opposition—already down to only seven players—had no answer for him at all.
"TOUCHDOWN!"
A touchdown in a flash. Of all the groups, his was the only one to open its game with the first score.
Horton was brimming with confidence. If this was who he was now, didn't he deserve a starting spot even at Alabama?
The head coach is watching.
DeBoer had his eyes on him right this moment. That was exactly why he wanted to show everything he had out here.
It had been a single day of correction—just yesterday—but his skills had transformed in the blink of an eye. Of course, he couldn't be sure it would hold up against fellow college players, but at least among the high school prospects, no one looked capable of keeping pace with his routes.
And at last, after he'd sunk both Group A and Group B with overwhelming numbers, it was Group C's turn.
Jaehyuk, I'm sorry about this, but—
He had no intention whatsoever of going easy on him. Sure, he was willing to keep the score gap respectable—but that was a matter for later. In the early going, he intended to give it everything he had.
"Bring it."
Horton assigned himself to man-mark Jaehyuk outright. He'd gotten a full taste of the kid's freakish athleticism just last night, after all.
And as it happened, the very first offensive drive ended in a pass aimed Jaehyuk's way.
I've been waiting for this!
But Jaehyuk's instincts were just as sharp. He'd caught on that Horton was shadowing him, and he flailed a desperate signal before bending his route sharply.
Horton, who'd been angling for an interception, felt a flicker of disappointment—but he still planned to tackle hard enough to kill the play dead before Jaehyuk could gain a single inch.
Huh?!
His instincts suddenly blared a warning. He aborted his desperate tackle just as Jaehyuk spun a full rotation—another moment, and he'd have been completely baited by the spin move.
Then Jaehyuk layered a juke on top, and Horton felt his senses scrambled. The movement was so much faster and more fluid than yesterday.
He was sandbagging his real level all along?!
But—
Jaehyuk wasn't the only one moving differently from yesterday. Horton too came charging at him with motion unlike anything he'd shown before.
He could not lose. He'd sprinted all the way here and was already at full acceleration. Jaehyuk, meanwhile, had already whiffed on both the spin and the juke. Even if he was building speed now, there was no way he could shake him.
"Hngh!"
He flung out his hands to stop Jaehyuk cold.
But in that instant—
Swooosh.
Huh?!
Jaehyuk tilted his body—barely, fractionally—and Horton's outstretched hand slid past him by a hair. Even so, Horton lunged desperately to grab him, and then—
Fwoom.
"What?!"
An acceleration beyond anything he'd imagined. That's the speed of a guy who was standing still a second ago?
Jaehyuk erupted forward at a velocity that shattered every expectation, and Horton's tackle sliced through empty air.
Thud.
Horton sent his own body sprawling into the dirt, and from flat on the ground he stared blankly at Jaehyuk's receding back as he tore downfield.
"Whoa...."
What the hell is that monster?
Horton couldn't even get the words out properly.