Alone on Survival Island

······.

Left alone in the middle of nowhere, Yeon-woo scratched his head as he stared at the distances to his teammates displayed on the operation pad.

Well, I don't really need to worry, do I?

In truth, there was no real systemic penalty for being separated from the team. Wandering alone simply meant that if you ran into another opponent, your odds of winning dropped sharply—and for any team leader who wasn't Yeon-woo, that fight would be amateur versus professional, so the odds would be close to zero.

But if you shifted the focus from victory to survival, moving alone could actually be an advantage; the chance of being discovered was lower.

And if that applies to me, it applies just as much to Kim Su-hyeok and Park Jung-hyeon.

Being alone wouldn't mean they'd get eliminated easily.

Yeon-woo watched the distances between his teammates shift in real time and began running a few calculations.

First…

He sprinted full speed toward the mountain rising at the center of the island.

After roughly a hundred meters, the distances to both teammates shrank.

Distance to Kim Su-hyeok dropped by 115 meters. Distance to Park Jung-hyeon dropped by 60.

After confirming no other players were nearby, Yeon-woo crouched in a corner of the underbrush, picked up a stick, and began scratching calculations into the dirt.

Kim Su-hyeok and Park Jung-hyeon were moving in real time as well, so perfect precision was impossible—but he could still extract quite a few facts.

First: just because he was roughly two kilometers from Kim Su-hyeok and 2.3 from Park Jung-hyeon did not mean the two of them were only three hundred meters apart from each other.

The production team really did a thorough job of scattering us.

When he ran toward the center of the island, the distance to Kim Su-hyeok shrank by nearly twice as much as the distance to Park Jung-hyeon. That meant Kim Su-hyeok's position was far closer to the island's center than Park Jung-hyeon's.

Using trigonometry to roughly plot their locations, he confirmed that the gap between Kim Su-hyeok and Park Jung-hyeon was considerable as well.

Those two are probably more than 1.5 kilometers apart from each other too.

They were scattered across this vast island in the shape of a giant triangle.

Still, calculating from the real-time distance changes, both of them seemed to be heading north.

Good.

Seeing the production vehicle approaching earlier, Yeon-woo had sensed some kind of debuff or penalty might be coming, so he had at least told them which direction to head. Thanks to that, all three of them were now moving the same way.

The two men who had gotten out of the production vehicle would have had several options. Yeon-woo could use the operation pad to check the real-time distances to the other two and adjust accordingly, but Kim Su-hyeok and Park Jung-hyeon had no information at all.

If they trusted Yeon-woo's skill, they would head north. If worry outweighed trust, they would turn back to protect the place where Yeon-woo was supposed to be.

Apparently both of them now trusted his ability completely.

I'll head north first, then find the two of them from there.

Meanwhile, the large screen in the broadcast room displayed the current win probabilities.

Two men frowned at the announced odds.

One was, of course, Manager Kim Min-su. The other, equally displeased with the numbers, was Myles Kroeger of the Canadian team.

"Bullshit. Korea at eight percent? Those so-called outside experts only ever look at simulations built out of game theory on mock battlefields. They don't know a damn thing about reality."

The Australian team sitting nearby turned to look at Myles Kroeger.

The Canadian and Australian members had met regularly during joint exercises under the UKUSA Agreement—the so-called Five Eyes—so they had a certain familiarity and were watching the match together in the gallery.

"That's true enough. If you haven't actually run the field yourself, the 'experts' always end up spouting desk theory and then demand completely impossible things once a real operation starts."

"So Myles, you're saying Korea's win rate is lower than eight percent?"

Brad Mavil of the Australian team—relatively junior among the people present—asked, and Myles Kroeger stared at him like the man had just said something insane.

"What are you talking about? Obviously I mean it's higher. Those guys don't get weaker just because they're scattered and a little distance has opened up. At least, not from any fight I've ever had with them."

"Huh? But even if their skill is good, this isn't the Middle Ages where you're fighting with cold weapons. If you're outgunned, you lose in the end, right?"

Myles Kroeger waggled a finger.

"Real combat isn't a firepower contest. If you're dumping missiles on each other, sure, the side with more firepower wins. But when you're each carrying one rifle across terrain that wide, what matters is the split-second strategic judgment that comes from experience."

Brad Mavil looked even more confused.

"…So that still means they're at a disadvantage. Korea's team leader is just an actor, and that island is crawling with top-tier specialists."

"…Hm?"

Myles Kroeger thought for a moment and realized Mavil was completely right.

From the perspective of someone who had actually faced them, he had been treating Ryu Yeon-woo as simply one of the Korean team's specialists—and his instincts had even judged Yeon-woo the hardest of them to crack. But by Mavil's logic, and by his own, an actor should be the one at the greatest disadvantage.

"Ah, I don't know about that part. Anyway, the Korean team is strong, okay?"

"Sigh. Uncle Myles. There's that old-man stubborn ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠talk again."

"…You little punk. You'll understand once you face them yourself."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure we will."

Bzzzt—.

When Yeon-woo broke through the center of the island and entered the northern sector, his smartwatch vibrated.

Hm? A kill log?

He slipped into a dense cornfield for cover and checked the watch.

What had arrived, however, was not a kill log but an interim status report from the production team.

Yeon-woo scratched his cheek at the message and tapped the screen to scroll down.

Scanning the survival rankings, Yeon-woo tilted his head.

Points? What's that?

It listed him at 9 points, Kim Su-hyeok at 5, and Park Jung-hyeon at 0.

Scrolling to the very end of the message, he found an explanation of how the rankings were calculated.

After reading the scoring explanation, Yeon-woo nodded and let out a short laugh.

Come to think of it, Park Jung-hyeon still hasn't eliminated anyone.

When they took out the French team in the center of the island, Park Jung-hyeon had been holding the opposite side. During the fight in front of the concrete building he had drawn the enemies' attention and, far from scoring a kill, had taken three hits himself. And just earlier, in the underbrush terrain when they eliminated Norway's Gunnar Hundsen, he had been circling wide according to the pre-set plan to hit the enemy from behind—only for Yeon-woo to finish the opposing team leader so quickly that Park Jung-hyeon had to return to the rally point empty-handed.

Yeon-woo could already picture Lee Gyu-jin watching Global Match later and mercilessly teasing Park Jung-hyeon about it.

Maybe I should try to feed him a kill if the chance comes up…

Yeon-woo himself had eliminated five people so far, and by coincidence four of them had been team leaders, which was how he had racked up 9 points.

At that same moment, players scattered across the island were reading the same message.

The German team checked it, shook their heads, and shrugged.

"What the hell did he do to be sitting alone at the top with nine points…"

Of course the second-place Italian teammate had 7 points, so the gap wasn't enormous—but the problem was that the first-place identifier was A.

"Who even is this guy? If it's A, that's the team leader, right?"

After thinking it over, team leader Fritz Kaufmann spoke.

"If it's Korea's team leader, he does shoot rather well. He took ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠first in the pre-round shooting and beat me…"

Fritz Kaufmann himself had scored a single 9-point hit and finished third with a total of 99.

Kaufmann had easily accepted that Italy's Marco Banchero—considered a freak even in European entertainment circles—had outscored him. Marco Banchero was a hunting-obsessed eccentric; special documentaries about him were popular across Europe, so he was famous in this field.

But after watching last season's Survival Island, Kaufmann had assumed that while Ryu Yeon-woo might have some real skill, there had probably been a fair amount of production interference for the sake of the show's ratings. Not a "scriptless drama," but a "scripted sport"—a heavily staged reality show, in other words.

The combat had been so overwhelmingly stylish it looked scripted; the suspicion was natural. When Norway's team leader had ranted about being "extras in a fake hero-making production," Kaufmann had even nodded inwardly.

But then, in the shooting round, Ryu Yeon-woo had actually beaten both him and Marco Banchero with overwhelming skill and taken first place. That left a powerful impression, and Kaufmann had begun to think maybe it wasn't staged after all.

"Hmm. Perhaps this is the result of Orientalism—unconsciously looking down on Asia."

"Anyway, stay sharp. Looking at the rankings, they're clearly serious talent. That side of the world is famous for ninjas and samurai and all that, right?"

If Kim Su-hyeok had overheard that, he might have loaded a sniper round with pure patriotism and delivered a headshot. With that conversation, the German team slowly advanced toward their next destination.

Meanwhile, after entering the northern region of the island, Yeon-woo kept checking Kim Su-hyeok and Park Jung-hyeon's positions in real time as he advanced to link up with them.

The vast cornfields stretching around him looked like a great sea filled with green leaves. When the Atlantic sea wind swept across the island, the entire cornfield swayed in unison, giving the sensation of waves rolling in.

In America's giant Corn Belt—places like Michigan or Missouri—if you get lost inside a cornfield they send up helicopters to search for people.

This wasn't the United States, of course, but Central America; still, the scale of the agriculture was similar, and it felt completely different from Korea.

Checking the operation pad, Yeon-woo nodded.

It was different from when they had been completely scattered. As he advanced in one direction, both distances shrank at roughly the same rate—meaning they were no longer in a triangle but lined up in a single file.

I'll keep moving, pick up Kim Su-hyeok, then link with Park Jung-hyeon. After that we won't be far from the destination we set earlier.

Rustle—.

Just as he was laying out the plan, the man-high corn stalks near Yeon-woo's position began swaying left and right.

······!

It was definitely not the wind.

Of all times to run into another team.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Holding his breath and listening carefully, he judged that fortunately only two people were moving.

I set this destination in the first place while tracking the Japanese team, so it's either Japan or Brazil—who fought them recently.

The fact that they were moving rather than ambushing, and that only two were moving, made Brazil more likely than Japan.

Surrounded on all sides by corn taller than a person, his field of view was completely blocked; he had only his hearing to rely on—but a great deal of information still came through.

Rustle—.

Rustle—.

From the sound and spacing of the corn stalks, both of them were holding their breath and advancing extremely slowly.

Movement that had already noticed someone else was nearby.

They don't know my exact position, but they've sensed that I'm in the area.

The direction they were approaching from completely overlapped with the route Yeon-woo needed to take; dodging past them to keep advancing looked difficult, and circling wide to avoid them was already too close.

It looked like he would have to fight two-on-one.