The Master of the Throne, and a Declaration of War
The forty-second minute of the second half.
The clock on the scoreboard at Gyeongju Civic Stadium kept ticking without mercy.
The score stood at 1–1.
The taut balance showed no sign of breaking. Both teams had long since pushed past the limits of their stamina. Uniforms were caked in sweat and dirt, their original colors lost, and the players’ legs felt as heavy as thousand-pound slabs of iron.
“Hah… hah…”
Song Min-jae, Daedong Elementary’s ace, planted his hands on his knees and gasped for air. The cold, machine-like composure he usually wore was nowhere to be found. Fog clouded his glasses, and the hair he always kept neatly combed clung to his forehead, soaked with sweat.
This is impossible… We’re getting pushed back.
Song Min-jae couldn’t believe it. The system football they prided themselves on—the perfect spacing, the possession game—had been utterly dismantled by the chaotic variable named Ma Gang-cheol. Every time Gang-cheol touched the ball, Daedong’s defensive line recoiled in fear, and Haeseong’s satellites surged into the gaps like mad dogs.
“Push up! Raise the line! If we get overrun here, it’s over!”
Song Min-jae screamed until his throat burned, but his teammates’ reactions were sluggish. Their legs simply wouldn’t obey. Fear and exhaustion had paralyzed their muscles.
Gang-cheol, by contrast, still held his head high, surveying the entire pitch.
His breathing was rough, yet his eyes remained chillingly calm.
Mental strength limit approaching. God's Eye remaining duration: 60 seconds.
One minute.
Gang-cheol bit down on his lip. A searing pain flooded his skull, as if his brain were burning. Seeing the future—calculating the movements of twenty-two players three seconds ahead—was a load far too heavy for an eleven-year-old body. He felt as though his nose might start bleeding. But he could not stop.
He had to end everything inside this one minute. If it went to penalties, their exhausted legs would put them at a fatal disadvantage.
“Min-ho!”
Gang-cheol shouted.
Park Min-ho, the center-forward, turned to look at him. One hundred sixty-five centimeters—tall for an elementary schooler, with excellent jumping ability. But his footwork was crude, and he had failed to make any real impact throughout the tournament.
“Sprint to the front of the goal! No questions!”
“Huh? O-okay!”
Park Min-ho didn’t ask why. He simply started running toward the goalmouth. In Gang-cheol’s eyes the path was already clear. Three seconds from now, when Daedong’s defenders collapsed toward him, a tiny gap would open at the far post. That was the checkmate square.
Gang-cheol received the ball.
Three Daedong defenders charged him at once.
“Stop him! He’s going to shoot!”
Everyone expected the shot. The ace who had dragged his team this far by the scruff of the neck would surely put the finishing touch on this grinding match himself. Even Song Min-jae threw his body to block the shooting angle.
But Gang-cheol’s choice was different. He swung his leg in a full shooting motion—then slammed the underside of the ball with vicious force.
Thump!
The ball was no shot. It became a high, arcing cross that sailed toward the opposite side.
Daedong’s defenders’ eyes chased the ball into the air. It cleared their heads. And at the landing point…
“Min-ho!!!!”
Gang-cheol’s cry was almost a scream.
Park Min-ho won the physical battle with the defenders and rose. Memories flashed through him—every training session when Gang-cheol had scolded him: “Your head isn’t decoration! Head the damn ball!”
I have to put it in. Gang-cheol made this for me.
Park Min-ho’s forehead struck the exact center of the ball.
Crack!
A heavy impact. The ball rocketed into the corner beyond the goalkeeper’s reach.
Ripple.
Time seemed to freeze.
Then, one second later—
“Goal!!!!!!”
“Waaaaaaaaah!”
Gyeongju Civic Stadium erupted in a roar that threatened to tear the roof off. Haeseong players on the bench poured onto the pitch as one, while parents in the stands clutched one another and wept openly.
Haeseong Elementary 2 : 1 Seoul Daedong Elementary
The forty-third minute of the second half. The de facto winning goal.
The moment the ball hit the net, Park Min-ho sprinted to Gang-cheol and threw his arms around him.
“Gang-cheol! I scored! I actually scored!”
“Hell yeah, you bastard! I told you to use your head!”
Gang-cheol ruffled Min-ho’s hair and exhaled a ragged breath. His legs were trembling. This was truly the limit.
“It’s not over! Get back! Defend!”
He calmed the ecstatic kids and herded them toward their own half. Stoppage time still remained. Complacency was forbidden.
Three minutes left.
Daedong launched their final, desperate assault. All-out attack. Even the goalkeeper crossed the halfway line. They lofted every ball and simply piled forward.
But Haeseong’s goal never opened. Gang-cheol dropped all the way to the last line and threw his body to block shots, while his teammates formed a human wall and protected the posts with everything they had.
And at last—
Beeeeeeeeeep—!
The referee’s long final whistle cut through the air.
Every player on the pitch collapsed to the grass. Some in pure joy, others in absolute despair.
“We’re champions!!!!”
“We won! National champions!”
The Haeseong kids piled on top of Gang-cheol. He lay on the turf staring up at the blue sky. Tears threatened, but he forced them back. Memories of his previous life flickered past like a lantern show.
The years spent warming the bench. The day injury forced him into retirement. The nights in a cramped one-room apartment, drinking cheap soju while watching his friends succeed on television.
I did it. This life… is the real one.
The awards ceremony.
Gold medals were draped around the necks of the Haeseong players on the podium. The kids bit into the medals, eyes wide with wonder.
Then came the moment everyone had waited for—the presentation of the championship trophy.
Captain Ma Gang-cheol accepted it. It was heavy. That weight made everything real.
“Lift it! One, two, three!”
Waaaaaaaaah!
As Gang-cheol hoisted the trophy high, confetti exploded and fireworks cracked. Camera flashes fired without pause, capturing the historic instant.
“MVP! Ma Gang-cheol! MVP! Ma Gang-cheol!”
Chants thundered from the stands. The tournament’s Most Valuable Player award was, of course, his. He had swept both the top scorer and top assist titles with an overwhelming performance.
The stadium announcer handed him the microphone.
Every eye inside the ground—and every eye and ear of the football fans watching across the nation on television—locked onto him.
“Congratulations on the championship, Ma Gang-cheol! This is your club’s first title. How do you feel right now?”
Gang-cheol brushed sweat-soaked hair from his forehead and took the mic. Even the way he steadied his breathing carried a seasoned poise no eleven-year-old should possess.
“I’m happy. My teammates worked incredibly hard. Especially putting up with all my nagging.”
Laughter rippled through the stands. Gang-cheol smiled faintly and looked toward the VIP seats. There sat Chairman Lee Dae-su with a deeply satisfied expression, and Team Leader Choi Hyeon-seok giving him a thumbs-up. And beside them…
Han Se-hui stood wrapped in a Haeseong flag, eyes red-rimmed.
Promise kept, Manager.
Gang-cheol greeted her with his eyes, then spoke again.
“Honestly, I expected today’s match to be tough. Daedong Elementary is a really strong side. But…”
He paused and stared straight into the camera lens. His eyes glittered with playful sharpness.
“Korea’s a little small.”
The stadium stirred.
“I hear there’s going to be an interesting party in Korea soon. My friends are flying in, apparently.”
The announcer asked, flustered, “Friends? Who exactly are you talking about?”
Gang-cheol grinned and dropped the bombshell.
“My friends in Spain. The ones living in Madrid and Barcelona… I wonder if they’re watching on TV.”
He waved at the camera and threw a wink.
“Hey, pack your bags and get over here already. I’m bored out of my mind. Come to Korea and learn a thing or two, yeah? I’ll be waiting.”
Silence. Then an explosion of laughter and cheers.
It was the boldest, most arrogant, and most magnetic interview in the history of Korean youth football. An open provocation aimed at the youth academies of Real Madrid and Barcelona—and a declaration of war for the upcoming LK Global Youth Cup.
When the interview ended and the players filed out of the mixed zone, Han Se-hui was waiting for Gang-cheol. The moment she saw him she smacked him hard on the back.
“Ow! We just won the championship—why are you hitting me again?!”
“You crazy bastard. What the hell was that interview? Spanish friends? When have you ever even met those guys? There’s a limit to how much hot air you can blow.”
“Come on, we’re gonna be friends soon anyway. Just getting a head start on the buddy-buddy act.”
Gang-cheol snickered and lifted the gold medal hanging around his neck.
“Here. I promised, right? First person to see it.”
Se-hui took the medal and stared at it for a long time. The pure, radiant gold. The result that the kid who used to roll around on the dirt fields of a rural school had finally brought home after conquering the entire nation.
“You worked hard. Really.”
“Huh? Are you crying?”
“I’m not crying! It’s sweat, okay?!”
Se-hui wiped the corners of her eyes and turned her head away. Gang-cheol smirked and placed the championship trophy into her arms.
“Hold it. Pretty heavy, right?”
“Ugh… it really is. So this is the weight of being number one in the country?”
“Nope. That’s the weight of my market value. Take good care of it, Team Leader Han. You just hit the jackpot.”
The two of them bickered their way out of the stadium. Brilliant lights poured down over their retreating figures.
National champions.
But for Gang-cheol, this was not the end. The tutorial had only just finished.
That night, the top search rankings on every major portal site were plastered with Ma Gang-cheol, Haeseong Elementary Champions, and Ma Gang-cheol’s Spanish Provocation.
And the next morning.
In front of Gang-cheol’s house, coaches from every prestigious middle school in the country, along with black sedans carrying unidentified foreigners, stood lined up in a long row.
The storm was only just beginning.