The Redline Goes Live
National Signing Day was just around the corner.
The high school seniors were scrambling from morning to night.
Most had already decided which college they were heading to, but a few were still making the rounds, taking meeting after meeting.
Thud.
"Whewww."
Even Marcus Thornton, Blue Valley High School's normally bursting-with-energy 5-star receiver, had been worn down to a husk by the endless stream of meetings.
He was in the middle of one right now, in fact.
He'd just finished sitting down with a scout from Georgia, and next up was LSU — Louisiana State University.
As he sat there waiting, the adults buzzing around him in busy discussion, Marcus checked his phone with a bored expression.
"Ah! You're early! So sorry I'm late."
"Not at all, not at all. We only just arrived ourselves."
The LSU scout walked in.
Since Marcus had met him a few times before, he rose from his seat and gave a slight bow.
"We keep running into each other, Dylan."
"Haha. And I'm hoping we'll be running into each other a whole lot more, Marcus."
The LSU scout Dylan greeted him warmly and took his seat.
Honestly, Marcus couldn't have cared less.
All he wanted was to go to some D1 school and start playing games as soon as possible. He didn't have a dream school, and he didn't feel any particular attachment either way.
The adults will sort it out among themselves, whatever.
His family and the scouts knew his temperament well, and before long they'd settled into hammering out the details among themselves.
Because Marcus was such an exceptional player — and because his family knew it, too — the negotiation dragged on bit by bit.
While they talked, Marcus killed time on his phone and stumbled across something on a football forum he'd happened to visit.
"Hm?"
They were broadcasting a skills camp?
Marcus had been to so many camps in his life they made his skin crawl. But a broadcast? Not once, ever.
Well, color him curious.
Who was playing in it?
He skimmed down through the comments and confirmed it was a high school camp.
Then, half-disbelieving, he tapped the link.
Redline...
Was that guy in there?
The moment the link opened, the stream filled his screen.
The viewer count underneath read a staggering 2,500.
The chat was flying by.
After a rough scan of the chat, Marcus was certain: Jaehyuk was here.
Judging by the reactions, the guy was running wild in this camp too.
What's the score?
35:28.
Pretty tight.
He looked at the feed — an indoor field.
Top-tier facilities, the kind of place only a pro franchise would run. And a fair-sized crowd was ringed around the field watching.
Out on the field, a game was underway.
WHAM!
THUD!
CRUNCH!
High school prospects, by the look of them.
Players who now looked almost cute to Marcus were slamming into each other for all they were worth.
Hm? But why does everyone look so gassed?
He checked the clock — middle of the fourth quarter already.
Tired was one thing, but this worn out?
As he dug for the cause, Marcus discovered something startling.
Since the last turnover on downs, there had been zero substitutions.
The same eleven men were still on the field, playing every snap.
"Holy shit."
"Hm? Marcus, what's wrong?"
Even as the adults asked, Marcus just stared blankly at the game.
And then — there it was.
He found the man he was looking for.
There you are.
The jersey numbers were too hard to make out on the stream, but the moment the guy lifted his helmet, Marcus caught his face.
He couldn't remember the face perfectly.
But how many Asian running backs were there in this business?
It was Jaehyuk, no doubt about it.
"What are you looking at?"
Marcus's older brother, sitting beside him, glanced over at his phone screen.
He quickly realized Marcus was watching a game and asked.
"What game is that?"
"They gathered up high school prospects and made 'em play."
"Oh, yeah? Huh... no way — is Redline in it?!"
At his brother's words, Marcus broke into a wide grin and nodded.
Suddenly everyone in the room took an interest.
"Redline?"
"Let me see that."
"Why don't we take a short break and watch the game together?"
"Sounds good."
The conversation was dragging on anyway, so everyone took a breather and watched the game together.
Dylan, the LSU scout, had already heard about this prospect camp and had been curious himself.
Before long they'd fired up the projector and were watching the game on the big screen.
As it happened, the game had just entered the red zone.
Jaehyuk's team had to hold the line here.
"Their opponent is Mateo Rodriguez? Whoa. This might be rough."
Marcus's family, diehard football fans all, recognized the name instantly.
Dylan the scout also began sizing up the players on the screen.
"That side's receivers are mostly Texas 5-star types. The other side's got one 3-star and mostly 4-stars. Why did they even build the teams like this?"
Marcus didn't react to any of the chatter around him. He simply watched Jaehyuk in silence.
Then the play began.
Linemen colliding, Mateo taking the snap and scanning warily for an opening.
Jaehyuk was charging in from the innermost edge, gunning for Mateo like his life depended on it.
"Ooh, oooh!"
"Impressive..."
Everyone held their breath as they watched.
And then a gap opened in the line.
Mateo snagged the ball instantly and took off running.
"He's running it himself!"
"Making a call that improvised, in that situation...!"
"But wait — Redline's charging right at him! Did he not see him?!"
A heart-stopping moment.
But contrary to everyone's expectations, Jaehyuk suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.
Then, without warning, he reversed direction.
It was still a blind spot in Mateo's field of vision.
"Huh?"
"What's he doing?"
While everyone was still reeling from the sudden move, one person alone felt goosebumps race across his skin.
...!
Marcus had caught it.
No — it was only because he was watching from a third-party's vantage point that he could see it.
Marcus realized Jaehyuk had no intention of crossing the line of scrimmage.
He was going to throw.
And Jaehyuk — mid-rush, hunting for the sack — had read it too? In a split-second situation that desperate?
"Fuck."
Just what the hell is that guy?
Marcus's family flinched at the sudden curse, but in the next instant they all saw Mateo release a pass with a move that bordered on the miraculous.
"Gasp!"
"No way — a pass, from there?!"
The edge rusher had been bearing down on Mateo at that exact moment.
As if he'd known it was coming, Mateo leapt and floated a jump pass from just in front of the line.
The ball arced high over the second level of the defense.
Slow, yes — but it sailed at a height no second-level defender's outstretched hand could reach.
Everyone held their breath.
And at last, the ball came down into the hands of a man who had risen impossibly high.
A perfect catch.
The moment he secured it, the man began to run.
"Wha...?"
"That's...!"
The spectators, catching up to what had just happened, screamed.
"INTERCEPTION!!"
"Holy molly! Is that Redline? No — it IS Redline! That absolute maniac!"
Both teams had already pushed into the red zone, so the rest of the field was empty.
With the ball tucked under his arm, Jaehyuk left behind opponents who'd lost the will to chase and ran untouched into the end zone.
An end-to-end return, pulled off now as casually as eating breakfast.
A 100-yard pick-six.
The chat had gone completely off the rails.
But Marcus had a question of his own now, one that mattered more than any of the reactions.
"Dylan."
"Mm? Wha—"
Dylan, who still hadn't taken his eyes off the screen, jolted and turned his head.
"Has there been any word on where that guy's committing? You'd know, right, Dylan?"
"W-well... let me check."
Jaehyuk was on their board.
But only barely.
He wasn't a player they were tripping over themselves to sign.
By LSU's internal evaluation, he sat somewhere between a 3-star and a 4-star.
From LSU's standpoint, the posture had been: throw out an offer if the chance arose — great if he signs, no big loss if he doesn't.
That had certainly been the case...
"Hmm. As of right now, Alabama looks like the frontrunner. They've had the most contact with him, by far..."
Dylan reported what he'd dug up through his network of fellow scouts.
"But nothing's certain. Alabama's in bad shape these days — you know that better than anyone, Marcus. All their star players are heading for the exits."
"Yeah. Coach Nick Saban left, and the team's record tanked."
As a senior recruit himself, Marcus knew Alabama's situation precisely.
"Right. So all this courtship aside, there's no reason Jaehyuk picks Alabama. Why would anyone choose a dying program..."
Dylan remained skeptical, but Marcus thought quietly to himself.
Somehow, he was sure of it — Jaehyuk was going to Alabama.
If it's that lunatic, he'd probably love it.
This was the guy who had already dragged a worst-in-history team to the doorstep of a state title once before. Which meant Alabama's current sorry state was, for Jaehyuk, far more likely to ignite his competitive fire than to scare him off.
Not that Marcus fancied his own odds of reading the mind of that madman.
Whoosh.
Marcus stood up from his seat.
Telling his family to hash out the rest on their own, he stepped outside alone.
There was no need to watch the rest of the game.
Right now, choosing his school mattered more.
And with Jaehyuk's odds of landing at Alabama climbing higher and higher...
there weren't many options left.
"Hurry up and get here, you bastard. Waiting is boring as hell."
After that decisive interception, everything flipped.
"Kyaaaaah!!"
"Unbelievable! That was absolutely insane!"
"I was too busy watching the play to take any photos — did anyone here get it? I'll pay you, please, I'm begging!"
"The Star of Kansas! How does a player like that even exist?"
"Not the Star of Kansas — the Star of Asia! The ripple effect this kid is going to create, I can't wait to see it!"
Chaos reigned outside the field.
Our team was in even worse chaos.
As I jogged back after the touchdown, the guys showered me with every ceremony imaginable.
One of them actually passed out mid-celebration. Was the idiot broken?
I barely managed to wake him, and we used the chaos to steal a short breather.
With the field in no state to resume play, inside or out, we all caught our breath for a while.
"Jaehyuk."
It was Mateo, walking up to me.
His face had gone so pale it was almost painful to look at.
"Got burned, huh?"
When I asked with a grin, Mateo nodded stiffly.
"Did you see it this time too?"
"See what?"
"What I was going to do."
I shook my head.
"No."
"Then how did you know?"
At his obvious curiosity, I shrugged.
"I felt it."
"Ah..."
Maybe that sounded like nonsense, but it was the truth, so what could I do? It wasn't like I could explain the Gift.
Fortunately, Mateo seemed to accept it in his own way, nodded, and headed back to his side.
He left one last word behind him as he went.
"I'm not giving up until the very end."
"Good."
And the game resumed.
Mateo's team, forced to climb from nothing, had no juice left. Mateo himself looked completely spent — every time he tried to run, he got brought down almost instantly, and even his passes started to sail incomplete as the receivers failed to secure them.
My final play had broken them, clean through.
Beep! Beep! Beeeeeeep!
Before long, the game was over.
The final score, thanks to my last trip to the end zone, was 42:28. A nail-biter right down to the wire.
"Phewwww!"
"Great work out there, everyone!"
Clap clap clap clap.
Applause and cheers came pouring down.
Weren't you people supposed to be watching? When did the whole crowd of you become spectators?
"Victory goes to Team B. All players, over this way, please."
Honestly, by this point I just wanted to sit down.
I dragged my exhausted body toward wherever the coordinator was calling us. And I was doing relatively well — the other guys looked half-dead.
"Jaehyuk."
"Hm?"
"That last pass was coming to me. Did you know, and stop it on purpose?"
And who are you, exactly?
Hopkins, appearing out of nowhere with his question.
How the hell would I know that?
"I just caught it. When was I supposed to be checking anything?"
"O-oh. I see."
Watching him sulk on the spot, I figured he still had a little energy left in the tank after all.
Soon we arrived where Nick and the staff were waiting, joined by a man who looked like one of the camp's organizers.
"I watched your game with my heart in my throat the entire time. In particular, despite this game's rules being uniquely brutal, I was deeply moved by the way none of you gave up and fought until the very end."
Right. And who are you again?
As if reading the question right off my face, the man introduced himself.
"I am Arthur Pendleton, the host and General Director of this camp. And in gratitude to all of you who created this extraordinary game..."
Arthur broke into a beaming smile and said,
"Win or lose, we would like to extend a sponsorship contract offer to every single one of you."
"Ooooh!"
"WHOOA!!"
The Team A players — who'd been wearing the expressions of men who had lost everything — erupted in cheers.
Look at that. Told you they had something left in the tank.
Our team clapped and congratulated them on the result, too. Truthfully, it would have felt a little cheap if only we'd walked away with sponsorships.
"Phew, that was getting awkward. Glad it worked out."
"No kidding. Honestly, Jaehyuk did all the work."
"Can't blame them, though. From their side, a player like Mateo's exactly who you'd want to sign."
The guys were muttering amongst themselves, and I was staring at them absently when Arthur Pendleton suddenly called my name.
"Jaehyuk!"
"Hm?"
"You showed us so many astonishing things at this camp that I honestly couldn't contain my amazement. From the first day to this one, watching you has been an inspiration to all of us."
"Ah. Thank you."
"And so, on behalf of the organizers, we have selected you as this camp's MVP."
Clap clap clap clap.
At the completely unexpected announcement, I could only bow my head and repeat my thanks over and over.
MVP? Camps even had that?
"This confirms Jaehyuk as the most outstanding player among all underclassman high school prospects in America."
"Is that so?"
"Who on earth would deny it? Not after everything you've shown us. Hahaha!"
Arthur laughed heartily, then went on.
"For Jaehyuk, we will commission a full set of custom-designed 'MVP Edition' equipment, tailored to your measurements."
Custom-designed gear?
Not bad, not bad.
I filed it away and kept listening.
"Additionally, you are invited as a guest to a brand-hosted global event — though you are free to decline."
"A brand-hosted global event?"
"A global summit that gathers elite athletes, designers, and innovators from around the world. The name makes it sound grander than it is — it's basically a party."
"Hmm."
"Plenty of NFL players attend. It's mostly for networking. It'd probably do you a lot of good too, Jaehyuk."
That one I'll have to think about.
Did I really need to go somewhere like that?
Beyond that, perks like an opportunity to participate in developing a signature product line (a brand merchandise collaboration) and a one-on-one training session with the legendary Nick were reserved for me alone as MVP.
It felt like they were throwing everything at me.
But more than any of it, this was what helped me the most.
[Quest Complete]
[Reward: Strength increases]
[Durability: C2 → C3]
Good. Good.
Step by step, I was getting stronger.