A New Era Seems to Have Opened (4)
After First Blood, Poyan's wariness spiked to the extreme.
Fortunately, the tension didn't tip into something ugly — no cascade of kills followed. Still, the lane kept getting shoved in, and Jin Gyeo-wool's relentless top-lane pressure kept forcing Hyeonseong Academy's jungler to make the long trek up top.
Naturally, the enemy jungler's growth started to unravel right along with it. With the opposing jungler constantly showing his face in the top lane, the map became Yu Min-jae and Ha Jeong-uk's playground from that point on.
Choi Do-yun dropped by bot whenever he got bored, and the surreal spectacle of both top and bot gold leads ballooning at the same time unfolded before everyone's eyes.
The enemy bot duo did everything they could to hold the fort. But the endless dive pressure reduced them to little more than spectators.
They screamed as the bot tower crumbled, but what choice did they have? Choi Do-yun was lurking in the brush, they were outnumbered, and the CS deficit had already left them behind in levels.
They called for their jungler, but he showed no intention of coming down from top, so the bot duo had no choice but to retreat toward the Tier 2 tower with tears in their eyes.
Watching from the sidelines, Coach Kim Donggyun and Coach Bae Jeong-ung let out murmurs of admiration.
"This is seriously unreal. It's like she's reading the entire map."
"I was thinking the same thing."
That kind of bot-lane pressure was impossible without rock-solid shotcalling and situational judgment.
Once you stepped into the War Council, anything beyond allied turrets, minions, allied champions, and wards was swallowed by the fog of war — pitch black.
But of course, the higher your odds of winning a fight, the more perfectly you had to grasp where the enemy was and what they intended, even in that absolute darkness.
That was why so many players poured endless effort into tracking unseen enemy positions across the map.
They carried statistical data forged through hundreds, thousands of games into every fight.
And even then, perfection was never guaranteed. Suppose there was a player named A — it wasn't as if only that player was putting in the work.
Assume Team A and Team B both possessed the same data and drafted perfectly equal compositions. The side that always seized the advantage in a fight was the one that created variables.
But was creating more variables always better? The only honest answer was no. Variable creation always came paired with enormous risk.
What if there were a way to shrink that massive risk?
What if you could pack every single thing happening on the map into your head and predict what came next with an extraordinarily high degree of probability?
But Coach Kim Donggyun's train of thought eventually slammed into a wall.
Impossible.
It was impossible. Even if some monstrous genius were playing League of Council, controlling every variable was close to fantasy.
A strong team couldn't earn that title by dominating a single lane. Only when all five players leveraged collective intelligence to weather every crisis together did a team deserve to be called strong.
And yet Jin Gyeo-wool was clearly wrapped in a strange aura that ordinary players simply didn't possess.
How to put it — a talent for seducing the enemy?
When she applied pressure she came charging in like she meant to kill you, but the moment the opponent tried to make a play, she would flick her tail just enough to look catchable — the allure of a cunning fox spirit.
The so-called swamp control. Once you fell in, there was no crawling back out. That was unmistakably her style.
In fact, top and jungle had been thrashing around in her swamp for a while now, and mid had joined them in the thrashing.
She wasn't reading every metric on the map. But she at least had the ability to toy with the entire upper half however she pleased.
Had the Hyeonseong Academy players gotten snared by her temptation because they were stupid?
No. Her Aatrox was growing like a monster, so if Hyeonseong wanted to stop the game from exploding in the late stages, they only had two options.
Either pin Aatrox down once and slow her snowball, or pour resources into the other lanes and accelerate their own growth.
But the Hyeonseong Academy players weren't fools either. The moment they saw Jin Gyeo-wool's play, they understood. No matter how much they fed the other lanes, leaving her alone meant she would shatter the game in the late stages.
The players had seen the countless clips of her play circulating on the LoC galleries. They knew.
Underestimate her as just another female player and she would rip out every last hair on your head — a merciless Harvester.
So they had climbed top trying somehow to cut her down…
"Looks like we've already lost the first game."
"Yeah."
Not a chance.
Jin Gyeo-wool sneered at the pursuit squad bearing down on her and held her ground under tower with swaggering confidence.
There had been several near-death crises.
But she didn't die.
And every second of time she bought became pure power for her team's other laners.
You could see the Hyeonseong Academy players starting to panic. Their post-laning phase positioning was uncharacteristically messy, and they kept failing to group in time, forcing them to dodge major fights again and again.
Cerberus. Dragon.
Time slipped by without them securing a single objective.
"There goes Woomin again."
The enemy ADC, now relatively destitute, started taking an aggressive forward position in mid.
And for the Winter Army, that was as good as a signal flare for war.
As if they had rehearsed it, Ha Jeong-uk opened the engagement with a Flash initiate. Gong Je-hyeon dove in right behind him. Choi Do-yun materialized out of the darkened vision. And before anyone knew it, Jin Gyeo-wool had teleported in to join.
Winter Army, assemble.
The Hyeonseong Academy players scrambled to react to the sudden mid collapse, but winning a teamfight that started with their ADC already dead was close to impossible.
They needed that ADC to stop Jin Gyeo-wool's Aatrox from ulting and charging in.
In the end, the 4v5 teamfight finished with an ace for the other side.
In high spirits, the Seoul team took the Peacock, joyfully rode the mid wave down to smash the inhibitor, then immediately rotated bot where the minion wave was closest.
Coach Kim and Coach Bae watching from the sidelines were left slack-jawed.
The game tempo was fast. Way too fast.
They had absorbed a lot of the CCC-style brawl meta.
Their own academy players had learned to abandon the old CCK-style perfect macro and instead crush opponents through skirmishes and laning-phase pressure from the very first stages of the game.
…Or so they had thought.
It had only been wishful thinking. The real deal wasn't Hyeonseong Academy — it was the Seoul team.
A perfect crane-wing formation with Jin Gyeo-wool at the tip of the spear.
They pressed Hyeonseong Academy's players the way a crane's wings fold in — and as it turned out, the crane was a mecha crane.
The way they converged on a single point as if by prior agreement was nothing short of spectacular.
"Every single one of them. Not a single useless player on that roster."
"I was thinking the same thing."
"The brain is probably that Jin Gyeo-wool kid… but it's not like it's all just thanks to her either."
"How do I put this… it feels like back when our team used to lock arms around Do-jin and just demolish everyone else."
"Yeah. That's exactly it."
Looking at the Seoul players, you couldn't help but remember the Hyeonseong of the past.
Knowing exactly what the enemy would do at any given timing.
Five bodies moving as one, extracting tactical advantages and rolling the snowball.
That kind of strongest team.
This… there might actually be a real shot here…
Plenty of teams had their eyes on Jin Gyeo-wool, yet the biggest reason none of them approached was that she was a woman.
But after facing her directly, it was clear.
Jin Gyeo-wool was someone you absolutely could not let slip away.
If another team scooped her up? Then even if Hyeonseong wrapped up this year's stove league perfectly, they would get the back of their skull caved in later.
Why had they gone somewhat overboard this time to bring in Dragon Blade's top laner, Khal?
Because the core reason Hyeonseong's heads kept getting joyfully cracked open every time they met DB throughout 2018 was precisely DB's top laner, Khal.
It would be nice if he performed well on their team, but by bringing him in and parking him on the roster, they had at least eliminated one relative weakness.
If they simply left Jin Gyeo-wool free to roam…
She would inevitably become another Khal — a dagger driven straight into Hyeonseong's side.
Hyeonseong Academy couldn't keep up with the Seoul team's tempo. They were dragged around and around until they fell in short order.
It wasn't just the first set. A clean two-set sweep. A complete 0–2 defeat.
It was a shame for the academy players, but calling them up was less urgent than scooping up the entire Seoul roster in one go.
Coach Kim Donggyun took the replay footage and went straight to Hyeonseong Universe General Manager Ju Yeongsik, launching into his pitch.
"So you want to bring this whole team over and put them straight into the first squad?"
"Yes, GM."
Ju Yeongsik fixed Kim Donggyun with a distinctly displeased look.
"I know it's a bit of a stretch. But a generational change was going to have to happen eventually. It's a blessing that our face of the franchise, Do-jin, has held the line for years, but you saw how this year went."
Kim Donggyun knew exactly what the organization valued most.
Keeping Lee Do-jin — the team's mascot and the icon of Korean League of Council — under contract and extending his career as long as possible.
"With all the kids hitting free agency this time, why don't we fill the roster with fresh blood? I'm confident we can produce visible results within a year — hell, maybe even half a year if things go well."
Ju Yeongsik's expression did not look particularly thrilled. Calling up players who still hadn't shed their amateur smell and slotting them straight into the first team, instead of name-value veterans who could sit down and do their jobs without mistakes?
It was practically a public declaration that they intended to throw next season in the trash.
"Just wait a bit, Donggyun. You know the team's situation. The fans are furious right now."
"That's exactly why we have to do it now. When are we ever going to get another chance like this?"
"…Look, I get where your heart is. But we're still in contact with other players, so let's just think this through calmly."
"Think it through calmly? So we drop close to a billion won bringing people in, put up the same results next year, and then what?"
"We're spending the money so that doesn't happen."
"…We're spending the money, sure, but everyone's still hesitant. Because of Hyeonseong's weight — and Do-jin's name value."
"……."
Sensing he was about to get tangled in Ju Yeongsik's rhetoric if this continued, Kim Donggyun played a hard card.
"Just trust me this once, GM. Fine. Next year's Spring. If I take these kids and climb to what place, will you believe me?"
As if he had been waiting for exactly those words, Ju Yeongsik half-closed his eyes and answered in a lukewarm voice.
"At minimum, the finals."
I knew it. Kim Donggyun ground his teeth and glared at Ju Yeongsik, but the man wasn't the type to fold under a stare.
"It'd have to be at least that much if we want to avoid people saying we dragged a bunch of nobodies into the first team, right?"
There was more than enough logic in Ju Yeongsik's words.
If Hyeonseong took the Seoul team players as-is and prepared for next year, the fans would come swinging with a vicious cane right out of the gate.
The first ones to eat the abuse would be the front office. And General Manager Ju Yeongsik.
What, did you pocket all the money and throw it away? Instead of signing good players you just picked up a bunch of rejects from god-knows-where — that was the narrative that would inevitably form.
And of course it would.
What mattered to the fans wasn't what Challenger rank the new signings sat at, or how well they played the game.
Anyone good enough to reach the pro league had already proven their mechanical skill.
What mattered was what results they produced in actual competition. How high they could drag the team. Fans wanted to look at a roster and feel certainty before the season even started.
But what kind of career did freshly graduated amateurs have? Amateur tournament titles? That meant nothing in the pros.
The results they started posting after joining the team became their name tags and their certificates of quality.
"I don't want to get cursed out for more than half a year. So if you want it that badly, Donggyun, go ahead and try. Do whatever you want."
Kim Donggyun bowed his head deeply at the GM's ambiguous permission.
When he lifted his head again, his face was full of resolve and hope.
"…Yes. If I fail, I'll take responsibility and resign."
Yeah. That was the reaction I wanted. Ju Yeongsik snorted a laugh and said,
"Don't talk crazy, you idiot. Resign, my ass. Look — if the Spring results are bad, I'll give you a grace period through Summer. Keep that in mind."
"GM…!"
"And if you fail to make Spring finals, I'm plastering every article saying it's your fault, so deal with it. I'll tell them you were the one who insisted on doing it this way."
"No. Seriously. That's a little much. Just let me write a resignation letter instead."
"Not a chance, you bastard. Where else am I going to find someone I trust as much as you?"
Ju Yeongsik's hand thumped Kim Donggyun's back a few times.
He had been about to wrap up the conversation with a smile when something seemed to occur to him, and he asked,
"Hey. That Do-jin kid… how's he been lately?"
"Ah. You mean the retirement talk?"
"Yeah. He was really struggling before the season started this year."
Come to think of it, he did seem a bit better this year? Kim Donggyun tilted his head and offered a positive answer.
"He'll be fine. And once we bring these players in, managing Do-jin's mental state will get a lot easier too."
"Why do you think that?"
"Ah, well. There's a top laner here named Jin Gyeo-wool. She's gotten pretty close with Do-jin."
"Jin Gyeo-wool? Don't tell me it's the one I'm thinking of."
A deep crease settled across Ju Yeongsik's face.
"Yes. That kid who's been blowing up on the LoC galleries lately. Challenger rank 114 top laner."
Kim Donggyun spoke with confidence. Ju Yeongsik, however, furrowed his brow and muttered under his breath.
"I think I need to reconsider your proposal."
"What? GM, why?!"