A New Era Seems to Have Dawned (1)

October 1st. The 2018 CWC began.

It was the first time in a full four years since 2014 that the CWC was being held in Korea again, and the crowds poured in — but the mood among Korean fans was anything but good.

After Hyunseong Universe failed to qualify for the CWC on the back of their dismal Spring and Summer results, the other team fandoms that had spent years crushed under Hyunseong's heel tore into the org and its players with vicious mockery. The enraged Hyunseong fans turned the Recon Gallery into a war zone. Fans could stomach getting flamed themselves — but nobody could stand watching their beloved players get dragged. That was just how fandoms worked.

Naturally, the gallery atmosphere went to absolute hell in a matter of minutes.

The fighting only paused, briefly, whenever news about Jin Gyeo-wool dropped. But even when people tried to use her as a buffer, the comment sections kept erupting into rage-fueled fighting pits. Posts like "The place Jin Gyeo-wool belongs is your precious Hyunseong" and "Nobody needs to listen to you Hyunseong gallery trash" were prime examples.

The ordinary LoC fans who just wanted to root for their teams and had zero interest in fandom wars could only pray that the three Korean squads at the CWC would finish the tournament with respectable results. That was the only way to put out a gallery fire this big — the kind even Jin Gyeo-wool news couldn't smother.

October 17th. Group stage complete.

POT.G, entering as Korea's third seed, were eliminated in the groups. And not just eliminated — they scraped out a single win against CCN's B9, the team everyone mocked as "NA trash," finishing 1–5.

Hyunseong and POT.G — the two orgs that had built a rivalry and dominated every international tournament from 2013 through 2017 — had collapsed at the same time. The Recon Gallery detonated.

Some people tried to keep a cool head, pointing out that the other two Korean teams had still made it to quarters, so the league wasn't completely dead. But the fans, already furious from the endless gallery wars, needed somewhere — anywhere — to dump their rage.

And since POT.G's fandom had spent the lead-up savaging Hyunseong fans, the venom-soaked Hyunseong crowd flipped the entire gallery upside down.

Caught in the crossfire as a weapon of choice, Jin Gyeo-wool shot to fame overnight. There's a Challenger rank 114 girl who plays better than POT.G's top laner — curiosity did the rest. Everyone started looking her up. She'd conveniently just resumed her weekend streams, so there was finally a way to watch her play. POT.G fans desperate to redirect the hate aimed at their players spammed her madmovie montages across the board. Hyunseong fans fired back by flooding the gallery with comparison clips claiming POT.G's top laner Cube was worse than her.

Jin Gyeo-wool, completely unaware that the gallery was drowning in her own footage, kept running scrims against other amateur teams and quietly preparing for the tournament.

October 21st marked the end of an era — five straight years, starting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in 2013, of the CCK treating the CWC like their personal living room.

Summer champions Ruler Coaster faced Eye Gaming, the 2018 CCC winners and one of the CWC title favorites, and fell 2–3 in a heartbreaker.

Second seed America Freaks got perfect-swept 0–3 by Brotherhood 9 — the same NA team people had been mocking as undeserving of a major-region seed.

Overall, CCE and the European league — long crushed under CCK and CCC dominance — adapted to the new meta and sent two teams to semis, finally shaking off years of humiliation. Perpetually ridiculed CCN pulled off a genuine upset, proving to the world that there were no eternal kings and no eternal losers. But for Korean fans, it was nothing short of a massacre.

The anti-Hyunseong crowd that had been running wild with lines like "Lee Do-jin is washed" and "Hyunseong Universe is garbage" got hit with a full counteroffensive overnight. Sensing blood in the water, the Hyunseong ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fandom stoked the gallery even hotter, and hell itself descended.

It was a full-blown gallery war. This gallery, that gallery, every gallery — affiliation didn't matter. Fuel got thrown on every burning board. The chain of hatred didn't stop until the fandoms had burned themselves out completely and everyone collapsed into a collective post-nut clarity.

By October 27th, a week later, the mood had finally started to settle — a little.

The occasional post mocking Korea as a fourth-tier region still climbed to recommended, and clips of the new powerhouses dismantling CCK teams kept getting recycled. Fans exhausted by the gallery wars turned their merciless beatdown on the 2018 CCK as a whole. Roasting any single team just restarted the war, so the rage naturally shifted into blanket-slandering the entire league.

And right in the middle of all that, stories about the Korean national team's scrims for the IeSF Amateur World Championship started trickling in, one or two at a time.

Most of the sources were players from other amateur teams who hung around the Recon Gallery, so the credibility was unusually high.

And that wasn't all. With the Korean CWC teams crashing and burning and every other scrap of drama used up, the gallery regulars got desperate and latched onto Jin Gyeo-wool content with both hands.

Doxxing was normally avoided since it could cross into actual crime — but the Recon Gallery users, mentally broken by the CCK collapse, had nothing left to lose.

That day, Jin Gyeo-wool finally managed to fill an entire page of the Recon Gallery's recommended posts with threads that had her name in them.

Filling a whole recommended page with one player's name was something even Lee Do-jin had only pulled off a handful of times. The news that an undebuted player had just done it started spreading through every community on the internet.

Being a female player was a unique hook, sure — but the timing of Jin Gyeo-wool's rise lined up perfectly too. If the Korean teams hadn't tanked this hard at the CWC, would the fans have even bothered spinning content around her?

Probably not.

And beyond that — Jin Gyeo-wool school stories. Jin Gyeo-wool gank-success stories. Jin Gyeo-wool threshing stories. On and on.

Countless threads rocketed to recommended without pause, and before she'd even debuted, Jin Gyeo-wool had become the single most likely candidate for the gallery's next reigning star.

November 3rd — the day of the 2018 CWC Finals.

"We got a scrim."

"For real?"

At last, the scrim Jin Gyeo-wool had been wanting so badly — a match against a pro team — had been locked in.

"Who are we playing?"

"Hyunseong's trainees."

At those words, Jin Gyeo-wool shot to her feet.

"Uh… Lee Do-jin isn't playing, right?"

"Lee Do-jin's not coming. I said trainees."

He wasn't coming. A little disappointing. She'd wanted to go head-to-head with him at least once.

The reason that thought even crossed her mind was because she'd already gotten a rough picture of the team's internal situation through Lee Do-jin.

Hyunseong was in a hectic stretch right now, scrambling to prepare for next year. That was also why a scrim with the Winter Army had miraculously come together. Chae Hojin had been throwing scrim requests every which way, getting rejected left and right, and finally asked Lee Do-jin out of sheer desperation — he never would have guessed it would actually work out like this.

"Well, good news either way. One more thing to add to your coaching résumé, Coach."

"…Thanks."

There was no way he was imagining the edge in Jin Gyeo-wool's compliment. Chae Hojin told her she was done and to go grab a snack, then shooed her out of the soundproof room.

He followed her out and found the practice room lounge filled with a warm atmosphere and the savory smell of fresh bread.

Snack time. Han Yeo-reum had just come back with bread, and plates were landing on the table one by one. Beside her, Cha Ga-eul poured milk into everyone's cups.

The ground hardens after rain. After that whole wave of misunderstandings had crashed through and passed, the bond between the teammates had only grown stronger.

Jin Gyeo-wool had already been a good lubricant filling the gaps between the others — but once the misunderstandings got sorted out, the cohesion tightened another notch.

Maybe because she'd spent ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the entire month teasing Choi Do-yun and Yu Min-jae, both of their mental games had toughened up considerably. These days, the moment anyone so much as mentioned terminal illness, Yu Min-jae would bolt to wherever Jin Gyeo-wool wasn't and scream. Just a raw "AAAGH!"

In the grinding, potentially mind-numbing repetition of practice, Jin Gyeo-wool was healing her teammates in a clean, refreshing way. Sometimes she was pretty mischievous about it — but guys were fundamentally weak to pretty girls' teasing, and getting messed with by a beautiful girl was always going to be fun.

People had always said a girl walking into the practice room wrecked the atmosphere. That rule simply did not apply to Jin Gyeo-wool.

"Alright then — today's coffee-bread rock-paper-scissors begins now."

The students, now drawing actual paychecks, had a little more breathing room. Ever since October, snack time had come with a coffee-betting game of rock-paper-scissors. Outside of Jin Gyeo-wool, Gong Je-hyeon held ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the highest solo queue rank on the team — and yet in this particular bet, he held by far the worst win rate.

"Ha… finally. The time has come for the great Gong Je-hyeon to claim victory."

Gong Je-hyeon stepped forward with total confidence, swearing today's losing streak ended here. The rest of the team, vividly recalling his string of defeats, launched into CCK caster impressions and started roasting him.

"Ahh~ entering the stage, season ranking dead last — Gong Je-hyeon! Can he finally break the streak today?"

"Gong Je-hyeon is in CRITICAL condition right now!! AAAAAAGH!"

"If he loses again, it's over. It's really, truly over!!"

No amount of trembling under the barrage of mockery was going to change the result.

Rock, paper, scissors. Gong Je-hyeon was the only one who threw rock — and five open palms swallowed him whole.

"No way! How is this even possible? You guys colluded, didn't you?"

"It's alright, Gong Je-hyeon. Dust yourself off and try again!"

"That's right. The season isn't over yet. It's a threadbare hope, but you've got to take the shot. Am I right?!"

"He's denying reality and spinning match-fixing conspiracy theories. The shock of the losing streak must be enormous!"

"Aah, shut UP already!"

Gong Je-hyeon wore the bitter taste of defeat all over his face and started prepping to go buy coffee — when Coach Chae casually tossed out one more proposal.

"Gong Je-hyeon. Want to make another bet?"

"What. What kind of bet."

"Watching the CWC Finals — pick the winning team and the exact score."

Jin Gyeo-wool, who'd been listening, smoothly cut in.

"Oh. That's a good one. I was already thinking I should watch the games to study the ban-pick."

Sensing his own defeat waiting at the end of yet another bet, Gong Je-hyeon shot Chae Hojin a thoroughly displeased look.

"Isn't this the kind of thing the coach is supposed to handle?"

"Come on, let's do it together. We're going to work on ban-pick as a group anyway."

The playful expression. The glistening, pleading eyes. The entire team let out a long sigh at Coach Chae's pitiful display. Built like a mountain, soft as a marshmallow.

Jin Gyeo-wool grinned and needled Gong Je-hyeon.

"You go buy the coffee already. I'm thirsty."

"Ah, yes ma'am. Yes yes! Going, big sis! Of course I'm going!"

"Your tone's getting a little snippy?"

"I'm sorry."

Watching Gong Je-hyeon vanish with a forced laugh, Chae Hojin shot Jin Gyeo-wool a grateful thumbs-up for the assist.

Five minutes later, when Gong Je-hyeon came back, Chae Hojin sipped the coffee he'd bought and rallied everyone's spirits.

"Alright. Team Korea Amateur. Only a few days left until we fly out. Let's hear a fighting cheer."

Being called the Korean national team was a little embarrassing — but every one of them still felt genuine pride at representing their country in an international competition.

The chance to represent an entire nation didn't come around often in a lifetime. Just like at the Presidential Cup, they had to burn the best version of themselves into people's memories. Wasn't that the biggest immediate dream a hungry rookie could hold — before scattering out to pro teams as the next generation of talent?

"Korea! Fighting!"

"Fighting!!"