Mud Festival

Day two of Global Match came with a handful of rule changes from the day before.

First: the red dots that had marked opponents' positions during each strategy window were gone.

Probably because too many teams were just reading the map and bolting as far away as possible.

From production's point of view, the more explosive the combat, the more usable footage they got.

Second: the mandatory travel distance each round had doubled — from five hundred meters to a full kilometer.

Five hundred or a thousand, neither was a hard distance to cover in three hours. With the field cut to less than half of day one's teams, doubling the range felt like a fair adjustment.

Yeon-woo ran through the new rules once more and lifted his operations pad.

After climbing out of the helicopter, they walked for about ten minutes and arrived at the point where yesterday's match had ended. A number still sat beside the destination-reached message — meaning not every team was there yet.

Three of eight still haven't made it.

Yeon-woo pulled up a rough mental map of the island. If the island were a clock face, he and his teammates were standing at about six o'clock. Most teams moved at roughly the same walking speed, so three teams still missing almost certainly meant teams that had been sent in the same direction.

The three helicopters that headed the same way were flying toward the center of the island.

The center had a fairly large hill — nowhere ideal for a helicopter to set down. That made it likely the teams sent inland still hadn't reached their destinations.

He bothered with this kind of deduction because the secondary information it produced was rich with usable leads.

In modern warfare, nothing matters more than knowing where the enemy is.

On the mental map, he marked his own position at six o'clock, the three teams still moving from the center toward their own destinations, and then eliminated the teams already arrived in the north and northwest.

The Norwegian helicopter that was most likely trailing behind ours.

While their own bird was landing, no helicopter had passed overhead. That meant the Norwegians had already been on the ground ahead of them.

Miami, where the helicopters had launched from, sat on the island's nine-o'clock side — due west. If the Norwegian team's destination had also been on the western side of the island, they would have flown alongside the northwest-bound birds. That left a fan-shaped zone between roughly seven and eight o'clock as the only plausible place for Norway to be.

The forest past the coastal dunes we used when we headed for the center yesterday.

Yeon-woo sharpened his focus, thinking of the Norwegian team somewhere out there.

I opened the operations pad the moment we arrived, and it said five of eight teams had reached their destinations.

He looked at the pad again.

Two more teams had checked in — seven of eight now. That meant his own team had been fifth to arrive. It had taken them about ten minutes from the landing zone to the destination, so the Norwegian team's landing-to-destination distance had to be shorter than theirs, at minimum.

Flying between Miami and the island yesterday and today, he had kept his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eyes locked on the window, committing every scrap of terrain to memory. Even if the specialists from every nation had served as intelligence agents or special-operations combatants, there was one decisive difference between them and Yeon-woo.

Experience as an operations commander.

In the ability to take in every piece of information, sort it, stack it, and analyze it, he was on a level no specialist could match. He floated the carefully organized terrain in his mind and began calculating, piece by piece.

The fan-shaped zone between seven and eight o'clock. The island's radius, measured on day one while heading for the center, was roughly 3.4 kilometers. Estimated area of the target zone: about 3.02 square kilometers.

This time he recalled the island's topography as seen from the air and started eliminating possibilities one by one.

That stretch is too densely wooded — even if there were a clearing big enough to land, any pilot would avoid it. A little farther out, though, there was an open patch with nothing but a small stream.

Only one place near there was suitable for a helicopter to set down. A zone reachable from that projected landing site within ten minutes. The place where the Norwegian team was most likely waiting.

He locked in the target.

Vmmmm—

As if on cue — all eight teams finally arrived — the operations pad vibrated.

Yeon-woo selected the point he had already decided on without a second's hesitation. Then he tapped open the item window and checked the data he had entered in advance.

Yeon-woo nodded and walked back to his teammates thirty meters away.

"Our top priority today is Norway. I've already registered them on the radar detector we picked up yesterday — their position will display in an hour and a half."

Both men nodded. He had briefed them on the helicopter about the information from the Canadian team, so they both understood why Norway came first.

Kim Su-hyeok tilted his head and asked anyway.

"The radar detector only displays for a very short window, doesn't it? Unless we get lucky and they're already close, they'll keep moving while we head for that point. Tracking them with it alone is practically impossible."

Yeon-woo nodded and smiled. He had factored in countless variables to roughly deduce where the Norwegian team might be, but explaining all of it would take time he didn't have — and there was no guarantee the deduction was even correct. So he laughed it off.

"I've set a target point for now. We'll just have to hope they're nearby. Better than nothing, right?"

"That's true enough."

Yeon-woo looked at the two of them and started walking.

"Let's move. We're heading west."

"Understood."

"Heh-heh-heh."

Gunnar Hundsen of the Norwegian team was chuckling to himself, thoroughly pleased. He looked like a wreck — covered head to toe in mud, as if he'd been put through hell training all by himself.

The championship is ours. Hahaha.

He looked down at his body, damp and heavy with mud, and grinned.

On the first morning, when they'd been choosing gear in the harbor warehouse, the factor Gunnar Hundsen had weighed most heavily was fashion.

He was the star of this show. He was the one who needed to shine brightest. So he had carefully separated the equipment his two teammates would wear from what he would wear himself, and the most important criterion, of course, had been looking cool.

A Sahara-desert-colored flight carrier that looked like something a special-forces unit would wear in a movie. Cotid's protective gear had stood out most of all. Other players had passed it over, deciding the tactical pockets studded all over it would only get in the way of actual combat — but Gunnar Hundsen had decided that design captured special-forces cool better than anything else.

And after discovering, by accident during the fight with the Brazilian team on day one, what Cotid's protective gear was actually capable of, he had regretted not grabbing matching sets for his teammates too.

Rolling around in the mud during that ugly scrap with Brazil had packed every tactical pocket on his gear full of wet earth, and it had hardened solid. After that, Gunnar Hundsen had taken concentrated fire from ambushes aimed squarely at him — and somehow only three lives had been deducted.

At first he had no idea why. Then he found the mud baked hard inside the tactical pockets, and realized he was running a bug-level exploit.

So what? It's production's fault for leaving gear like this lying around. I didn't do it on purpose — it happened naturally. Not my problem. If anything, this is just strategy, right?

Having finished a light round of self-justification, Gunnar Hundsen felt like a PC gamer who alone had activated a cheat key — as if he were walking around with an extra shield layer no one else had.

"Heh-heh-heh."

Standing on what he believed was vastly higher ground than anyone else, Gunnar Hundsen could practically see the championship already.

Meanwhile, someone was watching him through a scope.

"Confirmed. It's Norway."

Having verified the target through the scope, Kim Su-hyeok looked at Yeon-woo with a faintly astonished expression.

An hour and a half after the match began, Yeon-woo's operations pad had vibrated to signal the radar detector activating — and it had shown the registered Norwegian team less than four ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hundred meters away.

In truth, Yeon-woo had already roughly pinpointed Norway's position and started tracking them, so the result was only natural. But Kim Su-hyeok didn't know that. On an island this size, locking onto Norway specifically and arriving right next to them struck him as pure, uncanny luck on Yeon-woo's part.

While tracking Norway and keeping eyes on them, Yeon-woo and his teammates found the team leader's appearance increasingly strange — Gunnar Hundsen alone looked like he had been rolling in a dirt field.

"No kill logs came up while we were chasing them. Did they fight someone?"

"Doesn't make sense that only the team leader looks like he was thrashing on the ground."

After a long stretch of observation, they reached a conclusion.

"Canada said they landed more than seven hits and he still didn't go out — and production told them the system only registered three hits."

"Right. That's what they said. Looking at him, I'd say that Norwegian team leader's protective gear is…"

Both men nodded, agreeing with Yeon-woo's suspicion.

"He's done something to the sensors with the mud."

"Hmmm…"

Yeon-woo rubbed his chin, then borrowed Kim Su-hyeok's sniper rifle for a moment and studied Gunnar Hundsen carefully through the scope.

"Then let's try this."

He whispered something to Kim Su-hyeok. Su-hyeok's eyes went wide.

"Uh… isn't that a bit much?"

"He's wearing full-body protection either way. The rounds are designed so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the impact spreads the moment they hit — it'll sting, but it won't actually be dangerous."

Kim Su-hyeok nodded. Park Jung-hyeon, standing beside them, added his own weight.

"He brought this on himself. You do dirty work, you get punished for it."

Yeon-woo agreed.

"These days they shorten that to SBD, apparently."

A phrase from Yeon-woo's slang notebook.

"An abbreviation? Self-Brought… Disaster? Wait, that would be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠SBD, not—"

Yeon-woo shook his head.

"Self-Brought Disaster."

"Ah. Why bother shortening something like that? Team Leader Ryu really is a different generation."

Hearing "different generation" from Kim Su-hyeok's mouth left Yeon-woo feeling oddly proud.

"Ahem. Let's begin the operation."

The distance to the target was well under a hundred meters. Even without an exact range, Kim Su-hyeok's skill was more than enough to put a training special round on target.

He settled into a position with a clear view of Gunnar Hundsen and began steadying his breath. Once the tremor in his body had settled, he held his breath completely and locked the target in his sight.

Click—

BANG—!

The sniper rifle roared and sent the round flying. It tore through the air between the leaves, cutting a clean path straight toward Gunnar Hundsen.

To drain his lives, they had to hit somewhere the hardened mud wasn't covering. Helmet, torso, thighs — nearly every part of him was already caked in mud. Below the knees, the undergrowth blocked the line of sight, and shoes had no sensors anyway — hits there wouldn't register.

A spot without Cotid's tactical pockets. A spot free of mud. And at the same time, a critical area — which was why production had issued mandatory protective gear for it separately.

The bullet flew toward a rather unfortunate place.