Global Match - The Final Stage (1)

By the time Yeon-woo finished making his selections and stepped back outside, a crowd of players was already waiting at the entrance to the item shop.

Every one of those gazes locked onto him at once.

"What's inside?"

The one asking was the Israeli team leader.

So he's next in line after me.

An unspoken queue seemed to have formed on its own. The other players pricked up their ears at the Israeli captain's question. Among them Yeon-woo spotted Marco Banchero, the Italian team leader; Italy-B, the teammate who had earned nine points; and even the Japanese team that had once forced Yeon-woo and his men to scatter.

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

They'll find out the moment they go in, but I don't particularly feel like handing them free information.

Whether the Japanese team knew Greek mythology well was anyone's guess, but at the very least they would recognize Pandora's Box. The phrase was common enough as a metaphor even outside the myths. And since the card they wanted most was a penalty card, they would choose that regardless of whether they understood the rest.

The Italians, on the other hand, had Greco-Roman mythology as part of their own cultural heritage, so they would grasp everything immediately. Having already lost one teammate, they might go for Ambrosia (6p), which could well be a revival item—or they might dump every point they had into Vulcan's Forge (8p), which looked like a special-weapon selection ticket. Predicting them was harder.

After sizing up both teams, Yeon-woo gave a short laugh and answered the Israelis.

"They've decorated the interior like ancient Greece. You pay one point as an entrance fee, then you have to order from a menu written entirely in riddles. Everything's expressed metaphorically, so think carefully before you choose."

He explained it all with the thorough, courteous tone of a tour guide—except he spoke in Arabic, not English.

In his previous life, the Middle East had been the theater of operations right up until the sniper's bullet that killed him. His Arabic was not quite on the level of his English or Japanese, but it was at least as solid as his Italian. Hebrew was Israel's official language, and even a long-serving Middle East operative like Yeon-woo had never mastered it; still, Arabic had remained a co-official language in Israel until 2018, so he figured they would understand.

They did. The Israeli team bowed their heads in thanks.

"Oh, shukran, shukran."

The Italian and Japanese teams, who had been watching only Yeon-woo's mouth, of course understood nothing.

"What did he just say?"

"Something tells me Ryu Yeon-woo won't tell us even if we ask. Let's try those Arab guys instead."

"You think they'll tell us? And they're not Arabs—they're Jews. There are cameras around here. Watch your mouth unless you want an international hate-comment storm."

Apparently assuming Yeon-woo didn't speak Japanese, the Japanese team chattered freely in their own language. Yeon-woo smirked and walked past them, heading toward Kim Su-hyeok and Park Jung-hyeon, who were already approaching.

"Team Leader Ryu, you're going to catch a cold at this rate. Let's get upstairs."

Yeon-woo nodded at the worried Su-hyeok, then relayed every piece of information he had gathered inside in precise detail.

"Hmm. So I should spend every point I have on one-point Hermes' Boxes. Is that correct?"

"That's right."

"Understood. I'll carry out the order as given. Now go upstairs, take a shower, and get your body temperature back up."

Yeon-woo nodded, left the rest to Su-hyeok, and started walking. Dragging a body made heavy by waterlogged defensive gear, he made his way up to the hotel room.

Thud-thud-thud—

The now-familiar roar of helicopter rotors filled his ears as they flew through the morning sky. The island below already looked familiar; this was their third insertion, so a sense of recognition was only natural.

"Hmm. The one place we still haven't set foot is the eastern side of the island."

Yeon-woo's voice came through the cabin headsets; the other two nodded.

Park Jung-hyeon peered out the window on his side.

"At the eastern tip there's something that looks faintly like a small lake."

Yeon-woo looked that way. He had always sat on the left side of the helicopter and never noticed; from Jung-hyeon's seat, a reservoir-like terrain was visible.

"We haven't run into the Italian team even once so far," Su-hyeok remarked.

Yeon-woo nodded. With every other team they had at least heard distant gunfire before the kill logs appeared. Up close a gunshot was a sharp bang-bang; from far away it became a dull thud-thud or a rattling dr-dr-dr—what people sometimes called "the sound of roasting beans." Given the decibel level of the modified survival rifles, the sound should carry roughly a kilometer.

Which means the Italian team and we have never once come within a kilometer of each other.

Yeon-woo's team had started on the southeastern shore on day one and pushed toward the center, then dropped south again, been scattered by a penalty card, and each made their own way north. They had regrouped in the north, searched the surrounding area, and ended the second day there. On the northward push Yeon-woo had swept the western half of the island, so only one sector remained.

"Then the Italians are most likely at three o'clock—due east."

"Near that lake, then."

Yeon-woo nodded. A strong premonition told him they were about to fight a very hard battle around that lake.

The helicopter set them down on the island for the third day's combat. Yeon-woo moved to the starting point and immediately pulled out his operations pad.

Six teams. Someone among the teams that had been eliminated—and kept carefully separated even at the hotel—must have clawed their way back through the losers' bracket.

I wonder which team made it back.

Whoever it was, a captain alone would have a hard time surviving. Yeon-woo worked the operations pad and began activating the items he had purchased the night before.

Hmm. Best to keep the radar detector locked on the Japanese team for now. At least we already have a rough idea of where they are.

He transferred one Life ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Recovery Ticket each to Su-hyeok and Jung-hyeon. The pad still showed two remaining because two had already been used, but counting the ones he had handed over, the three of them held four in total. More than enough.

Yeon-woo activated the Aegis he had bought the previous night for a full ten points.

Thinking about it, that price is steep.

Earning ten points was no small feat. You would need to eliminate ten teammates—or five captains if you only hunted leaders. Add the entrance fee and you needed eleven points just to acquire Aegis.

There might be more to it than simply blocking penalty cards. Ambrosia, which is almost certainly a revival item for eliminated teammates, costs only six points. The special-weapon ticket is eight. If a mere curse-warding charm costs ten, the balance feels off.

He suspected it was less a "charm" and more a "shield"—something with additional functions that would make the price feel justified.

He also used two of the Hermes' Boxes Su-hyeok had transferred to him. As expected, they were ammunition-resupply items. A prompt asked which firearm's ammo he wanted; he selected assault-rifle rounds and Su-hyeok's sniper rounds. The reply informed him the packages would be delivered by drone at the next Strategy Time.

Ammo is heavy. I'll use the remaining three one at a time, one per Strategy Time.

Beep—

The third day's match began. For the next three hours they searched the surrounding area, but on an island this large they found no one.

Meanwhile, in the broadcast control room, John McCallan had pulled several staff members into a back corridor and was grilling them hard.

"Are you absolutely certain? If any later investigation turns up even a hint of something else, I will not let it slide. You will be at war with BWGS's entire legal team."

"I-I'm certain, sir. I had nothing to do with it."

"Same here."

McCallan studied them, then nodded.

"Fine. For now. No major variables have appeared yet, so we'll move on."

He returned to the studio shaking his head. Marco Banchero, the Italian captain who had been acting strangely since day one, was already known across Europe as an eccentric; that much McCallan could accept.

From the very first day Marco had operated completely apart from his teammates. The captain wandered alone; the teammates, with no principal to protect, roamed freely and hunted other teams without restraint. Like captain, like crew. Their movements were less combat than pure predation—slowly tightening the noose and eliminating opponents one by one. Specialists who had to protect a civilian captain and specialists who had nothing to protect were worlds apart in combat effectiveness, even if both were professionals. Just as Yeon-woo had held ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the advantage in a two-on-one fight in the cornfield, a three-on-two with a civilian to guard versus a three-on-two with no one to guard produced a massive difference.

Up to that point the strategy looked solid—provided the captain himself could survive alone. And Marco had deliberately separated from his team from the start; the table directors, impressed by the unorthodox play, had even issued him several reward cards. His personal skill was high enough that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he had shaken off every pursuit and stayed alive on his own.

But the way he had played after climbing out of the helicopter today was so bizarre that McCallan could not help suspecting collusion with someone on the production staff. No one would behave like that unless they already knew the new rules that would take effect today. It was simply not the kind of action you took on a battlefield that forced you to relocate every three hours.

McCallan sat back down and stared at the big screen. On it, Italian captain Marco Banchero was digging into the rain-soaked earth with an entrenching tool, constructing a fortified position—as if he intended to build himself a private fortress.

Whirrr—

Bwoooom—

Three hours later the first Strategy Time began, and the drone arrived with the ammunition resupply. Yeon-woo started to move the usual thirty meters away from his teammates—then noticed something different about the operations pad.

"Huh? Why isn't the red light coming on?"

Normally the moment Strategy Time started the pad flashed an urgent red light, practically shoving them apart. Now there was neither red nor green.

A message arrived almost at once.

Six circles appeared on the operations pad. As always, gold marked his own position and red marked the enemy—except this time they were circles instead of dots.

Hmm. Circles of this size… roughly a five-hundred-meter radius.

As if to confirm his estimate, another message arrived.

The message ended, but the circles on the pad did not vanish the way they usually did; they stayed lit. Yeon-woo shared the information with his teammates.

"I was starting to get tired of searching for enemies who never appeared. This works out well."

"Same here."

Yeon-woo nodded. As the number of surviving teams shrank, the frequency of combat had dropped too low; he had expected a rule change. Whether they would shrink the arena or use some other method he hadn't known—but they had gone all-in, broadcasting enemy locations in real time as five-hundred-meter circles and removing movement restrictions entirely. In plain terms: find each other and kill.

Just then his operations pad and smartwatch vibrated in rapid succession.

Yeon-woo scratched his cheek as he read the three consecutive messages.

"Looks like someone just dumped a whole pile of curses on us. Of course, it didn't go the way they hoped."