The Time a Ramen Manufacturer Toppled the Appliance Overlord
The time when a mere ramen manufacturer had once defeated the appliance king in the arena of battle robots.
“Watching Se-yeong makes me crave Buldak stir-fried noodles. Anyone want to eat with me~?”
Se-yeong Volcanoes → parent company Se-yeong Foods → flagship product Buldak stir-fried noodles. Na Sau had probably connected the dots in that exact order.
“Me!! I want the buldak that Sau unnie cooks! Sounds delicious!! Naru, you’re not having any?”
“Cheongbi, it’s too spicy for my taste.”
Na Sau had the Buldak noodles ready in no time.
“Whoa, just smelling it is already spicy!!! This is their main product?”
“It’s tasty to us, Naru~! You just can’t handle heat, huh~?”
Among the ramens that target only enthusiasts, there are far spicier ones. Yet Buldak is almost the only flagship product that succeeds while being this hot.
“How on earth did they pull it off in the latter half of ’19? Not just winning the title, but the overall championship…”
They were thriving now, but back then Se-yeong Foods had been nothing more than a ramen company. There had been a season when that very company defeated LJ Electronics—the undisputed ruler of the appliance world—in battle robots. It was the RCLK 2019 second-half season, before COVID-19 had even broken out.
“Winning the integrated championship purely through piloting skill. It really was incredible.”
Se-yeong Volcanoes had never been known for strong robot performance. The team name evoked a destructive volcano, yet their machines had always been underwhelming. Their piloting, however, had historically been excellent. They specialized in tactics that targeted only the opponent’s critical components—a high-difficulty approach. Every pilot on Se-yeong’s roster had been able to execute it to some degree since the league’s inaugural 2018 season.
The pitiful state of the 2018 Se-yeong Volcanoes was still vivid in Kang Cheong-hyeon’s memory.
“The original Volcanwing still haunts me.”
“How bad was it?”
“Naru, it was so bad that even with a favorable matchup, it got KO’d in forty seconds.”
“Even if unnie’s Neptune is strong, that still sounds extreme?”
Se-yeong Volcanoes’ trademark machine was the horizontal spinning blade robot Volcanwing. It resembled a double-bladed windmill fashioned from metal pipes, fitted with wheels and laid flat. The blades were wide and long, while the body looked like nothing but a skeleton. It gave the impression that every resource had been poured into blade power alone.
This Volcanwing had faced Neptune, the iconic drum-type robot of the RCLK. On paper the matchup favored Volcanwing. The result? Let’s just watch the highlights.
Only ten seconds in, the blade had been torn away. At that point the odds of victory had dropped close to zero.
In just forty seconds, a wheel had detached and the machine was KO’d. Against a vertical drum spinner that held a clear advantage in that particular matchup.
“What about the standings?”
“They finished seventh out of eight because Wizard came in last. Even Wizard’s machine had better specs.”
It had been a season where their critical weakness—low performance—was laid completely bare. With their signature robot in that state, the inaugural year’s results were disastrous. Seventh place in both the first and second halves of 2018. Back then the RCLK had eight teams. They had barely avoided the very bottom.
Who had taken last? Wizard Air’s White Witch. Their robot had slightly better specs, but the machine was made of glass. The rumor was that the parent company was so broke they had assembled the team with nothing but bamboo spears.
There was a two-word nickname that perfectly described the Se-yeong Volcanoes of that era.
Hawaiian Volcano
It referred to a volcano that merely trickled lava from its crater—nothing dangerous, the kind used as a tourist attraction. At the time, Se-yeong Foods had not yet become the top ramen brand on the strength of Buldak.
“Still, focusing on their one real strength—piloting—was the right call.”
“Instead of fixing your weaknesses, amplify your strengths!”
They did not have the budget to suddenly boost performance. So they chose this path.
1. Performance could only be improved slowly because they had no money.
2. Train the piloting skills that had already been decent to the limit.
Once Se-yeong committed to that road, everything began to change.
“They had been basically dead last, yet they climbed all the way to near the playoff zone.”
“And the next season?”
“Integrated champions! It still feels unreal.”
In the first half of 2019 they had finished fifth, right outside the playoff cutoff. In the second half they battled defending champions LJ Ravens for the title. LJ Electronics was a team that could import cutting-edge technology from their parent company. Se-yeong had gone toe-to-toe with them for the championship.
“If you charge head-on you’ll lose, so we targeted only the weapon axis. It worked beautifully.”
“Once the weapon is ripped off, there’s no way to win, right?”
“Exactly. You showed that yourself, Naru.”
A 2019 match that showcased the transformed Se-yeong. ORS’s Titanmach possessed a drum that rivaled Neptune’s power. The battle between Titanmach and Volcanwing looked nothing like the previous year. Once again, let’s watch only the highlights.
Volcanwing relentlessly targeted Titanmach’s drum axis. There was no point in a head-on collision they would clearly lose, so they aimed for the vital spot. It was like striking pressure points on an opponent who outpowered you.
The blade still lacked decisive KO power, so the match went to a judges’ decision.
Having torn off the drum, the unanimous victory was only natural. Slightly improved specs combined with vastly superior piloting. That alone had been enough to contend for the title, and they ultimately claimed first place in the regular season.
“There are no what-ifs in sports, but I still wonder—what if LJ had faced IDS with piloting skill instead?”
“Right, unnie. The overall championship might have been in real danger then.”
LJ’s technological prowess far surpassed Se-yeong’s, and their robot performance held a massive advantage. To exaggerate slightly, if Se-yeong had 1GB of memory, LJ possessed 1TB in the same physical space. In the playoffs, Se-yeong advanced directly to the finals as regular-season first place.
“They had both performance and piloting skill—why did they only fight with performance?”
“Exactly. They must have trusted their own power too much.”
In the third round, the opponent for LJ—who had earned a direct finals berth—was third-place IDUSOL Dreams, also known as IDS. The team had been founded the previous season and this was their first playoff appearance. They had trailed LJ by five wins and a thirty-point set differential. Expert predictions gave LJ a 68.8 to 31.2 percent win probability—an overwhelming 37.6 percent gap that far exceeded the margin of error of ±3.1 percent.
“It looked like two countries carpet-bombing each other and one side still getting wiped out.”
Against all expectations, IDS won 4–1. LJ had tried to overwhelm them with raw robot power, but IDS refused to yield an inch. LJ’s strengths included both machine performance and excellent piloting. Had they fought with piloting as the focus, they would have won comfortably.
Let’s compare a battle robot match to war. Removing the enemy king guarantees victory = stopping the opponent’s machine guarantees victory.
1. Remove the palace together with a carpet bombing = win through superior performance.
2. Snipe only the single king = attack only the opponent’s critical components to win.
The first method is simple but carries high risk. The second is complex but carries low risk. LJ could freely choose either. IDS, however, could only use the first. Both sides chose the carpet-bombing approach, and their bombers were of similar capability. In the end, IDS won because their luck had been slightly better. If LJ—whose assassins were also superb—had chosen the second method? The enemy king would have vanished before the bombers could even take off.
Since IDS had displayed robot performance comparable to LJ, Se-yeong could not afford to be complacent. Therefore they decided to exploit IDS’s weakness: inferior piloting skill.
First set: SYV Volcanwing versus IDS Chilgakdo. The match felt like a microcosm of the entire finals. Let’s look at the highlights.
Volcanwing had invested everything in its blade and therefore looked like nothing but bones. Chilgakdo used the same open-wheel design but possessed at least a thin outer shell. In a direct blade-versus-blade confrontation, Chilgakdo held the advantage? It was like someone who had only trained their legs losing to someone who had trained their entire body. It looked like a completely hopeless fight.
The story changed completely once they could strike the opponent’s vital areas.
The pattern repeated across all six sets. Se-yeong toyed with IDS, who had tried to push with brute force, using nothing but superior piloting. In sets one, two, five, and six, they destroyed critical components before IDS could even demonstrate their performance. Bringing back the war analogy:
1. Remove the palace together with carpet bombing = win through superior performance.
2. Snipe only the single king = attack only the opponent’s critical components to win.
Se-yeong did not possess a proper bomber, but their assassin was simply too outstanding. The moment IDS tried to order a bombing run, the king was already gone. Still, the performance gap could not be ignored, so they lost sets three and four after close battles.