Even Emperors Can Be Tamed in Spring

Looking over the four teammates gathered before her, Jin Gyeo-wool was certain that anyone would seriously consider joining the team.

"We failed..."

But Han Yeo-reum and Cha Ga-eul, who had set out so boldly, had failed to recruit the support player they'd kept as a backup option.

Patting Yeo-reum's slumped shoulders as she crouched dejectedly on the floor, Gyeo-wool turned to Ga-eul.

"Why'd he turn you down?"

"He said he doesn't have the confidence."

"...Doesn't have the confidence? What is that supposed to mean."

It was a rejection Gyeo-wool simply couldn't understand.

From his profile and the VODs she'd watched, he had more than enough skill to join the team without any issues.

Skill aside, his champion pool was enormous.

He'd listed a string of preferred champions, but in practice he could play every meta pick.

Anyone who maintained a decent tier usually didn't have major mechanical problems.

So when Gyeo-wool was building the roster, she'd weighed two things above all else.

First: teamwork.

Skill swings and habitual mistakes could always be fixed through practice. A personality suited to group activity was much harder to manufacture.

Second: champion breadth.

Unlike players who rotated through at least five meta champions while holding a high tier, one-trick gods of the celestial ranks had a hard ceiling.

The moment the enemy banned out every one of their comfort picks, problems were guaranteed.

A laning matchup of equal skill where one side was stuck on an unfamiliar champion? From that point on, you weren't playing on skill — you were praying for a miracle.

Ha Jeong-uk checked both boxes, and he barely reacted to the fact that Gyeo-wool was a girl. He was exactly the kind of talent the team needed.

"We're all Grandmaster. Maybe it's because he's the only Master?"

"Hmm… he didn't say that, but it's possible?"

Ga-eul tapped her pen against the table, thinking aloud.

"There's only so much Yeo-reum and I can do to convince him. I think you or the other teammates need to go yourselves."

That made perfect sense.

A renowned coach showing up with a recruitment offer might make someone's ears perk up — but a couple of young girls who barely knew the game coming to persuade him?

The odds of that landing were never going to be high.

"I'll go, then."

Sending the teammates to talk him around wouldn't be a bad idea either, but the core of this team was Jin Gyeo-wool.

Every single member had joined because of her. Reeling in the final piece — Ha Jeong-uk — was going to need her touch as well.

"Set up a meeting. He goes to the school you two used to attend before transferring, right?"

"Yeah. Jinyang High School."

The way she referred to him — not "oppa," but "that guy."

Yeo-reum tilted her head.

"'That guy'? He's a year older than us, Gyeo-wool. He's an oppa."

It didn't land on Gyeo-wool at all.

Before becoming Jin Gyeo-wool, Bae Do-hyun had been twenty-four.

"Nah. The one who plays better is the hyung."

That was how it worked.

Among guys, if you were good at the game you were hyung. If you had money you were hyung.

That was just how it was.

The bigger the fandom grew, the more haters multiplied.

The longer the career stretched on, the more people applied harsher standards.

He'd been hearing calls to retire for years already.

So the sound of people telling him to hang it up didn't particularly stress him out anymore.

But even Lee Do-jin, who lived by smothering his anger, had a limit.

Jang Jae-hong.

The guy who'd debuted this winter and, from the moment he appeared, started screaming for Lee Do-jin's retirement whenever he got bored.

After beating Hyeonseong Universe, the intensity of those provocations had only climbed.

What had started as a simple "You should start thinking about retirement" now came with detailed personal opinions — I'm worried about you, your form has fallen off a cliff.

At first, he'd denied it. Lee Do-jin had no intention of retiring.

Then he'd gotten angry. He had no such plans, and yet the provocations kept coming.

After that, he'd compromised. Fine. Maybe I really should be thinking about retirement. That was how he'd started to feel.

And now, he felt nothing at all.

If more time passed like this, he would come to accept where he stood.

The top ranks he'd always held. The titles he'd collected whenever he felt like it.

He would dismiss all of it as nothing more than a dream.

And start over from the very bottom, as if from scratch.

Climb the stairs one step at a time.

When Lee Do-jin closed his eyes and emptied his thoughts, one person drifted hazily into view.

In the past, there had been a girl who worried about him.

And at the end of those memories, a funeral portrait.

That precious smile — the one that had always been turned toward him — came into view.

"Kh—!"

She had been Jin Gyeo-wool's longtime friend, and Lee Do-jin's only little sister.

"…Bom-ah…"

The reason Lee Do-jin's form had collapsed.

It was because of his sister's ghost, the one that appeared in his dreams every night.

Every single night she came to him with a body crushed by a massive truck, lurching toward him in grotesque, broken steps.

2017 Council World Championship.

A 0–3 perfect sweep in the finals.

It hadn't been solely the fault of a sleep-deprived Lee Do-jin whose condition had fallen apart —

but he had taken every last bit of it onto his own shoulders.

Failing to manage his form was one thing. Failing, as captain, in his duty to hold the team together was another.

Lee Do-jin slowly got up from bed and headed for the dorm kitchen.

Filling a cup from the water purifier, he rubbed his forehead.

The one silver lining was that lately, he no longer ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dreamed of Bom coming at him in that ruined state.

Maybe because of that, the form that had crumbled was slowly coming back.

Teamwork was still a problem —

but once Lee Do-jin fully recovered his form and took hold of the team again, clawing back toward the glory days of Hyeonseong Universe wouldn't be an empty dream.

The spring season had handed them the worst report card imaginable, but summer was still ahead.

…Probably.

Back in his room, he picked up the phone lying on his desk and opened the League gallery.

Ever since Jang Jae-hong's comments yesterday, the gallery servers had been unstable for hours.

The refresh rate was insane, and posts were hitting the recommended board at a speed beyond imagination.

But most of the recommended posts had nearly equal numbers of upvotes and downvotes.

The firepower of the Hyeonseong Universe fandom and the opposing fandoms were colliding head-on.

Lee Do-jin set his phone down with a look of pure exhaustion and collapsed back onto the bed.

"I have to answer with my play…"

Pros spoke through results.

The only way to calm this raging atmosphere was for Hyeonseong Universe to climb the standings in the summer season.

The slumping Lee Do-jin had to get his form back, and the 2018 Hyeonseong Universe roster — mocked as a ragtag mess — had to sharpen their collective strength.

But it was also true that the teammates he had now simply weren't good enough, and it was also true that their teamwork was so off that they threw game after game.

The coaching staff kept wandering without answers through the endless slump, repeating the same lost look over and over.

So the complaints poured in from inside and outside the team, every single time.

Even when the coaches drew the aggro, the players took the hits.

That was why the entire spring season had been hell for everyone.

Nothing about this is easy…

His head was a mess. His thoughts wouldn't settle.

And then, unbidden, a bothersome girl who used to pester him whenever she got bored floated into his mind.

Lee Do-jin showed up at Jin Gyeo-wool's house that afternoon.

It was the weekend, and for once Gyeo-wool was home instead of out with her friends.

"Oh. You're here?"

By now, seeing him didn't particularly startle her.

Like a buddy from military service waving hello, Gyeo-wool flicked a hand at Lee Do-jin without even taking her eyes off the monitor.

Hon Gyeo-wool had almost certainly told her to be nice to him — but she'd already thrown that thought out the window the moment the game demanded her focus.

Not wanting to interrupt, Lee Do-jin slipped inside and watched her play.

…She's genuinely good.

It was hard to believe this was the same Jin Gyeo-wool who'd been grinding away in Platinum just last year.

He'd caught a glimpse of her real ability at the Hwasong High tournament, but watching her go toe-to-toe with players of equal caliber in Grandmaster made it unmistakable.

What on earth had happened to her in a single year? Lee Do-jin still couldn't begin to guess.

But one thing was certain.

Whether it was because she'd lost her memories of Lee Bom or not, Gyeo-wool was recovering and growing at a pace far faster than his own.

If she kept climbing at this rate, she'd be knocking on the door of the pro scene before long.

Even Lee Do-jin, who had always been skeptical of her debut, was now actively rooting for it.

At first he'd encouraged her simply because she'd grown more mature and he'd decided to trust that. Now there was another reason.

He wanted to play on the same stage as her.

After tasting bitter defeat in the 2017 censer meta, Myert had rolled out an ambitious new direction.

It was the "upper-body-centric meta" that had begun to assert itself from the start of the 2018 season.

A seismic shift that was shaking the War Council to its foundations.

In the 2018 CCK Spring, the teams that had signed elite top laners during the offseason were the ones that survived the upheaval.

That much was obvious from the fact that the two teams fighting for first and second place heading into the 2018 CCK Spring playoffs were KC — with Jang Jae-hong of Odin — and DRB — with Kim Jongha of Khal.

Whether Myert would keep pushing the upper-body meta for years to come was anyone's guess, but the experts agreed there wouldn't be any major shift this year or next.

If Gyeo-wool kept rising and became the premier rookie top laner, there was no recruitment prospect Lee Do-jin looked forward to more.

Of course, the more she stood out, the more other teams would take a stab at signing her.

But a proper acquisition was unlikely.

Because Jin Gyeo-wool would be the only female player.

She might disrupt the players' practice environment. Fans might push back, worried that an unproven card would drag down the team's results. And if they signed her and the performance didn't follow, the mockery would be merciless.

Anyone would be cautious.

Gyeo-wool finished her game, stood up, and faced Lee Do-jin.

"Right. Thanks for doing that interview for me at the tournament last time."

"It was nothing."

How much further would she grow?

How high could she climb?

Could she really surpass Lee Do-jin's own reputation?

This girl, still nothing more than a fledgling —

could she withstand the fans' merciless standards and stand at the peak Lee Do-jin himself had never quite reached?

Carrying that vague hope, he started to leave so he wouldn't get in the way of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her practice.

"I just came to check if you were working hard. I'll get going."

But a hand caught his wrist as he turned away.

"Whoa — hang on."

Lee Do-jin spun around, startled.

A flicker of unease hit him — the fear that Gyeo-wool still hadn't let go of her obsession with him.

"Let's go grab food. You haven't had lunch, right? No weird meaning. Just payback for looking out for me at the tournament."

But Gyeo-wool released his wrist right away, shrugged, and suggested lunch.

Hon Gyeo-wool had told her to be good to him. She was grateful that the interview he'd done at the tournament had boosted her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠name recognition. And more than anything—

—interacting with old friends wasn't optional if she wanted to raise the Soul Assimilation Memory Erosion Rate. It was mandatory.

"Wanna grab food and then run some Recon together? Your season's over, right?"

Unlike Hon Gyeo-wool, though, Bae Do-hyun had no particular feelings or memories attached to Lee Do-jin.

Starting from a blank slate and scrambling for an excuse to interact, the best he could come up with was a meal and a few games.

And though he didn't know it yet, playing with Lee Do-jin might unlock another hidden Memory Log bonus.

After all, Lee Do-jin and Hon Gyeo-wool were bound by a deep connection from the past.

"Uh… yeah. Let's eat. What do you want?"

But that behavior shook the fixed image Lee Do-jin had of Jin Gyeo-wool.

Not obsessive. Not completely dismissive either. Something in between.

Words and actions that considered him, that seemed to want to look after him.

It felt as if the immature seventeen-year-old girl had somehow become a considerate young woman of twenty-four.

"It's the middle of the day — want to just smash some burgers? Eat fast and let's queue."

And even through all of that, the top priority of Jin Gyeo-wool — who had become a practice monster — remained League of Council.

The girl acted without a second thought, so she had no idea that she was quietly setting Lee Do-jin's heart on edge.