Stampede and Answer
[Reward: Strength increases]
[Strength: C4 → C5]
A single touchdown, and the mission cleared. Maybe because his tier had climbed higher, the system was now setting the bar lower than it had back in the high school league.
Then, fresh letters carved themselves into the ground once more.
[Defeat the Texas Longhorns in an away game]
[Reward: Speed increases]
So we have to win. No way around it.
Then again, mission or no mission, he had zero intention of losing to anyone.
"Jeffrey!! Hold the line! That's it!"
"Let's gooo!!"
Alabama's defense was holding up better than anyone expected. But that only lasted so long. The moment the Longhorns' running back took the field, the whole atmosphere shifted.
THUD!!
A punishing, powerful drive. Like a bison, he barreled forward and shoved everything out of his path, whether a defender stood directly in front of him or not. He's the real deal, Jaehyuk thought.
The Longhorn offense, led by Baxter, gave not a single inch. And then, at last—
BOOM!
"TOUCHDOOOWN!!"
Behind Baxter's brutal rushing, the Longhorns finally put points on the board.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The instant Baxter scored, the stomping of feet shook the entire stadium, and a roaring fight song swept across the field.
"Here he comes now!"
Thud! Thud!
"His footsteps shake the ground!"
Thud! Thud!
"CJ Baxter! Run 'em down like a buffalo!"
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
"Baxter! Baxter! Drive in those horns of steel!"
"CJ! CJ! Baxter! GO!"
A thunderous, majestic anthem. It wasn't the first time he'd heard a chant this elaborate for a single player—Alabama had its own for Ryan and Danny—but hearing it from the opponent's side of the field, it landed like a crushing weight.
The extra point followed, and then the Longhorns lined up for a two-point conversion.
"Those bastards..."
Our guys, feeling flat-out disrespected, had fire blazing in their eyes. But their fury was simply buried beneath the roar of the Longhorn faithful.
"Not gonna be easy."
Away games really were brutal. They'd played at home this whole time, and he hadn't realized just how big the difference was.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The Longhorns' two-point attempt. The ball went to their running back, Baxter, and seconds later there he was again, smashing straight through the line on pure physicality.
Score: 8–7. A razor-thin contest, the likes of which he hadn't felt in a while—and the mood in the Alabama huddle was turning sour.
"Good work out there."
"You did your job."
"Leave the rest to us."
The defense trickled back to the sideline, trading encouragement. Jaehyuk finished his prep and pulled on his helmet. When he looked up, Baxter was still standing on the field, staring straight at him like a man spoiling for a fight.
"That son of a—"
"Get in the end zone and come back!"
"Crush 'em!"
Thankfully, team morale was still hanging on. They were down by a single point, but the opposition had clawed and scraped for every score while Alabama had made it look easy.
And from that moment on, DeBoer and Ty, the quarterback, began feeding Jaehyuk the ball without pause.
Thud!
Crack!
Whoosh!
They mixed runs and passes, but the weight of the offense tilted more and more toward Jaehyuk. Soon they were hitting him with quick short passes, and he waltzed into the end zone untouched.
"Touchdown!"
Scores came in rapid succession. Alabama, refusing to be cowed by Texas's momentum, prepared their own two-point conversion.
"Ready-! Seeeet-! Hut!!"
Scramble!
Ty exploited the defense's blind spot with a keeper. He faked the handoff to Jaehyuk, then sprinted himself in the opposite direction with the ball tucked under his arm. Alabama struck back in an instant.
"Yes!!"
"Hahaha! How's that? Come on then, try and keep up!"
The air between Texas and Alabama churned, boiling hotter by the minute. A ferocious back-and-forth was underway.
The second quarter followed. Texas drilled a field goal to claw back to 15–11, while Alabama answered with yet another touchdown.
"TOUCHDOOOWN!! A gorgeous passing and receiving combo from Ty Simpson to Ryan Williams!!"
"That makes it 22–11! The Alabama Crimson Tide pulling away once again!"
But the Longhorns weren't about to sit still. Baxter, who'd been rotating in and out to conserve his strength, threw himself into the run game with everything he had, and just before the half expired he punched in a touchdown, closing the gap to 22–18.
Halftime. The third quarter opened with the Longhorns on offense.
Kaboom!
Another Texas field goal. Before anyone knew it, the margin was back down to a single point.
22–21. The defensive slugfest carried on to the end of the third quarter, and now the final frame—the fourth—was beginning.
"Both defenses are playing with incredible power tonight."
"The third quarter belonged entirely to the defensive units."
"Especially Luke Metz, who just rotated in—what a performance. As a linebacker he's been an absolute iron wall, completely impenetrable."
Luke's breakout. The skills he'd honed training alongside Jaehyuk were shining through in this game.
"Three solo tackles in a single series!! You could honestly call it a defensive god descending onto the field."
"And two of those three tackles were on none other than the Longhorns' ace, CJ Baxter! At this rate, Luke might be starting from next week on!"
And so the fourth quarter arrived. Alabama's offense, opening with a one-point deficit.
"Whew."
Ty Simpson exhaled deeply, steeling himself. He wasn't alone—nearly every player on the roster was fighting to hide the exhaustion written across their bodies.
Just have to hold on a little longer!
Having come this far, losing was simply not an option. The whole world needed to see, with their own eyes, that this year would be different from the last.
Thankfully, their newly emerged ace looked as fresh as ever. While everyone else wore a forced poker face over heaving chests, Jaehyuk alone was so full of energy he was doing jumping jacks in place.
"That guy's a monster."
Where on earth had they found him—and how? Right up until then, nobody on the team except Isaiah Horton knew a thing about Jaehyuk. They'd heard he was the nation's number two ranked running back prospect, but he'd appeared out of nowhere, so there'd hardly been time for word to spread. When he first showed up, everyone had quietly assumed Alabama was grasping at straws.
Truthfully, anyone would have thought the same. Not a single player gathered here had come without being called one of the best prospects in the country. And besides—wasn't he East Asian? It wasn't prejudice; it was a judgment based on cold, hard statistics. Especially at the running back position.
The position is over eighty percent Black, with most of the rest white. Among them all, an East Asian—Jaehyuk might genuinely be the only one.
Mixed-race players showed up now and then, of course—Black and Asian hybrid running backs. But as a pure East Asian, Jaehyuk was, without exaggeration, one of a kind. And that was just at the NCAA D1 level. In the NFL, the demographic imbalance would be far more overwhelming.
Just imagining Kim Jaehyuk—the only pure East Asian running back even in college football—making the leap to the pros, the entire nation would lose its mind.
Not that it isn't already in one.
He took the field. The drive would start from their own twenty-yard line. The opponent had refused to kick it anywhere near him—clearly wary of his returns by now, they'd been booting the ball out the back of the end zone every single time. Jaehyuk only got more dangerous in chaos, and they'd already figured that out.
"Alright. Let's go."
Strangely enough, the defense looked more fired up than the offense today. Even now, the opposing players were glaring at him like they wanted him dead. The second the ball touched his hands, those bastards would come flying at him with murder in their hearts.
In that case...
Come on then. Bring it.
Tactics, strategy—all meaningless now. Let them feel a full-scale carpet bombing.
"Red! 88! Alert! Alert, Y-stick!"
It's a mindless blitz, you fools.
At Ty's call, the teammates scrambled to reset their positions, and the opposing defense hurried to match them.
Move all you want!Either way, we click into place like clockwork!
"Ready-! Set! Hut!"
Smack!
The ball settled perfectly into his hands. Sometimes the snap fumbled, but today everything felt right. Jaehyuk glanced back, and Ty tossed it—a pitch, not a handoff, delivering the ball so the running back's momentum never broke.
And then Ty caught it: Jaehyuk flashing a wide, easy grin the moment the ball left his hands. Somehow, it made him feel steady. With the ball in Jaehyuk's hands, everything felt safe. He'll make something happen. He always does!
CRUNCH!
Like an assault tank, Jaehyuk violently shoved the first defender aside and kept going. Through the gap his linemen had opened up the middle, he never dropped his speed for even an instant.
He's fast!
Fast. Insanely, mind-blowingly fast! They said he'd run track back in high school, and his speed more than lived up to that reputation. After battering through one defender, his pace hadn't diminished at all—if anything, he accelerated. Soon the view was blocked by a forest of bodies, but with no whistle blowing, everyone could feel it: he was still running.
"GO! REEEDLIIIINE!!!"
Had Ty's shout reached him? Jaehyuk answered, all right—in a voice called touchdown.
"TOUCHDOWN!!"
All that nail-biting back-and-forth forgotten, Jaehyuk blew through the defense in a single burst and stomped into the end zone. A highlight-reel touchdown you'd be lucky to see once a game—and he was producing one on every single drive.
"THAT'S IT!!!"
"AHAHAHA!!"
"Roll Tide! Roll Redline!!"
The sideline erupted. For this one moment, they forgot their exhaustion and simply drank in the joy.
"Nobody defies the Redline!"
"ROLL TIIIIIDE!!!"
Score: 28–21, with the extra point still to come. And then Jaehyuk, walking calmly back to the sideline, opened his mouth.
"Let's go for two."
He said it with total confidence. And with everyone else running on fumes, watching Jaehyuk stand there with stamina like forged steel—people just nodded.
"Let's do it!"
"Yeah!"
"Alright, let's go!"
They lined up for the two-point conversion, even summoning the kicker and setting him in place as if a kick were coming. Jaehyuk took up a tight end stance among the linemen, positioning himself like a bodyguard for the kicker. The holder signaled to the snapper, ready to catch for the kick.
Whoosh!
The ball spiraled in and landed in the holder's hands. He reached down to plant it—then sprang up from his spot in a flash.
"IT'S A FAKE!!"
"STOP HIM!"
A pass, no doubt about it. The Longhorn defenders scrambled desperately to smother the holder. But without a moment's hesitation, the holder delivered the ball exactly as planned—into the hands of Jaehyuk, who had slipped in beside him.
VROOOM—!!
Jaehyuk cut across the field in a heartbeat—then wheeled sideways, away from the end zone.
Thud! Thud! CRASH!
Defenders chasing him, and Alabama's own players throwing themselves in the defenders' paths to seal them off. And as their effort locked together with Jaehyuk's boundless stamina—
SLAM!
Tweeeeet—!
The two-point conversion was complete.
"YES!!"
"You the man! Jaehyuk!"
"Did it again! HAHAHA!"
30–21. Nine points, in a single stroke.
Plenty of people had predicted a Longhorn victory in this matchup. Even with Alabama's stock climbing again, their previous two games had both been non-conference, so the consensus was that last year's playoff contender was simply a cut above them.
But Jaehyuk's insane display had flipped public opinion on its head in an instant. Even the broadcast crew couldn't stop chanting his name.
"Kim Jaehyuk! Just how good is this man?!"
"He is the apostle of football, sent down from Korea by the god of football himself!!"
And the game was nearly over. Roughly four minutes remained on the clock.
"Stop them this one drive, and we beat the Texas Longhorns!"
Amid the coaches' impassioned encouragement, Alabama's defense took the field. Luke's face in particular was carved with iron resolve.
"Jaehyuk!!"
"Hm?"
Luke called out of nowhere, thumped his own chest, and pointed at him.
"I swear I'll bring you this victory!!"
Jaehyuk snorted, bursting into laughter at the sheer absurdity of it. Then he answered with magnificent arrogance.
"Wrong. I'm the one bringing this team its victory. Your job is to make sure nobody takes it away from us."
"GRAAAH!! Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!! Just watch—I'll protect it with my liiife!!!"
"OOOOOHHH!!"
Morale fully charged, the Alabama Crimson Tide surged toward the finish line of their third regular-season game of the NCAA D1 season—running full tilt toward the end of it.