A Transformed South Korea (4)
The first match target is Player 'Baek Jinwoo'!
When that message flashed across the screen—
"Huuuuugh!"
"Aaaaargh..."
Groans rolled across France like a wave. It was the kind of sound that erupts when a striker misses a one-on-one by the narrowest of margins, the ball grazing the post instead of the net.
Wow. Is this even real?
Of all those countless opponents, Baek Jinwoo had to be the first one drawn?
Of course, he was an opponent they would inevitably have to face sooner or later. But like this, France now risked suffering the humiliation of becoming the first nation in its history to hand an all-kill to a foreign country.
Summoned players are being transported to the arena!
Shwut, shwushwut!
Amadou Jean Lyon, materializing in the prepared arena, wore an equally grim expression.
Of all possible first opponents — Baek Jinwoo!
How am I supposed to beat that monster who vies with Rachel for first and second place in the world?
By now, the whole world knew. Knew that the being called the One-Sky Jinugod, whom the Five Emperors had spoken of at the very beginning, was this very Baek Jinwoo. Knew that he was no phantom beast existing only within illusion.
The moment he was drawn, Lyon's teammates had pleaded with him. Just handle one summon somehow, they said. They wouldn't even ask him to finish it off — just shave off a little of its HP. Do that much, and wouldn't there at least be a one percent hope of scraping past?
No.
Are they insane? Absolutely not.
Shing!
Now that the Training Instructor's figure stood summoned before his very eyes, blade already drawn, Lyon felt he wouldn't last ten seconds — never mind shaving off HP. Such was the overwhelming force of the man's presence.
It was like looking at one of Rachel's S-rank summons.
God, I'm so fucking jealous.
Heaven is so cruel. Why on earth was I never given a summon that magnificent?!
"Hungyo."
As Baek Jinwoo spoke with a small nod—
Whoosh.
Hungyo lowered his stance and readied himself to spring into the empty air. His movements weren't as fast as they had been in the Battle Royale; his stacks had reset to zero upon re-entering this place.
Baek Jinwoo pressed his lips together.
This is exactly why Ramba isn't much use in PVP.
In multi-combatant matches like the Battle Royale, she grew worth bringing as time wore on, but in one-on-one duels that rarely lasted a full minute, her efficiency dropped off sharply. Then again—
With a skill gap this vast between him and his opponent, it hardly mattered.
"Um..."
Looking up at Hungyo hovering in the sky, Lyon called out in English.
"It's an honor."
"Sorry?"
"I'll lose one hundred percent if I face you, of course. But even so, to cross blades with the famous Jinugod — it's an honor."
"Ah. Right."
Baek Jinwoo nodded, having caught the gist. With all his traveling overseas lately, he could manage basic listening well enough.
And here I thought it was something.
He, too, bore no ill will toward his opponent. Still—
I should end this quickly.
The British players, Rachel included, would surely be watching. It was best to keep his combat style as concealed as possible. And the best way to do that?
Simple. End it with overwhelming force!
"Don't beat yourself up. I'm just the strong one. Well then — shall we?"
Whoosh.
The moment Baek Jinwoo gave Hungyo the signal—
"Huaaaap!"
Lyon, too, drove his five summons forward with a battle cry. A situation where he had no choice but to give his all, even knowing he would lose!
But—
Tat!
Hungyo, soaring high into the sky, swept his blade downward. Energies splitting from its tip spread like a spider's web and plummeted toward the ground.
Kuwagagagagaga!
The white sword strikes threaded cleanly between Lyon's summons, and in an instant, every HP bar dropped to zero.
"..."
Lyon — who had known the result in advance — still couldn't keep his jaw from hanging open—
Tat!
Hungyo touched down and, with effortless flair, slid his blade home into its sheath — shing!
SPURT!
Blood geysered up through the parted seams. At the same time—
Plop-plop-plop!
The butchered summons' flesh came raining down to the ground a beat too late. And that was that.
So this is...
It was the kind of scene that felt as though explosive cheers ought to come pouring down at any second.
Baek Jinwoo bowed his head politely toward Lyon.
"Don't feel too cheated. Every other player is going to get exactly the same treatment."
"WAAAAAAH!"
"THE BEST! HUNGYO!"
"Seriously. Seriously, genuinely amazing... I honestly thought I was watching a comic. How is the speed of sheathing his sword faster than the speed flesh falls off?!"
"Keep this up and I'm actually going to fall in love with a summon!"
It was exactly as Baek Jinwoo had predicted. The moment Hungyo's immaculate attack aired across the broadcast, the entire nation erupted in cheers.
"Seriously, how does a busted summon like that even exist?"
"And that Lyon guy is supposed to be a pretty big deal back in his own country..."
"'Big deal' doesn't cover it! He's a national representative of a country in the round of sixteen!"
"Who's next? Who's next up!"
"All of you, bow your heads before Hungyo!"
France's dice are rolling!
The second match target is Player 'Nordi Mope'!
The second match was more of the same.
Shrrrk!
This time Hungyo didn't even leap — he simply split his blade into a fan of strikes and snapped it back into its sheath with a crisp tak! And once again, that was the end!
Plop-plop-plop!
The flesh rained down just the same. Hungyo's momentum showed no sign of slowing.
The third match target is Player 'Nampali Depréville'!
The fourth match target is Player 'Raphael Diarra'!
The fifth match target is Player 'Luca Toussard'!
Whatever player stepped up, he dispatched them in a single strike, the same way every time. And then—
The sixth match target is Player 'Evan Parker'!
Evan Parker — world rank 19, the man they called captain of the French national team!
Even he was no different. Granted, he couldn't be finished in a single strike the way the previous players had been, but the process was much the same. Failing to properly block Hungyo's blade, he fled — and ultimately met the same end, forcibly unsummoned!
KRAK!
Hungyo's sword was sleek and exhilarating all at once. The sight of him lopping the head clean off Parker's main summon sent a thrill bursting through the chests of every Korean watching.
How long had they waited for this! Some citizens had pulled all-nighters just to see this overwhelming gameplay with their own eyes.
"WAAAAAAAH!"
"UWAAAAAAAH!"
The citizens screamed until their throats tore. Honk! HOOOONK! Car horns blared in the streets, and champagne arced into the sky.
Evan Parker — finished too!
Hungyo's crisp, exhilarating style had the backsides of citizens in red shirts bouncing clean off their seats. Was this a dream, or waking life? Was that really France's number one, Evan Parker?
And Baek Jinwoo hadn't even used a second summon yet. With Hungyo alone, he had the momentum to all-kill the entirety of France.
France was every bit as stunned.
"Wow."
"Insane..."
"Evan Parker is world rank nineteen, though... How is that possible? It looked like he lost without landing a single thing?"
What had been despair and lamentation was now turning to awe. Since when had South Korea been that strong?
So the Five Emperors really was right. That was no idle talk.
A Korea that found Jinugod has nothing left to do but take flight.
It's frightening to think how much further they'll grow. They really might surpass Rachel, couldn't they?
Of course, the French citizens had already grasped the scale of Baek Jinwoo's power from watching the Battle Royale. They had a rough sense of what he was capable of. But—
Seeing it with your own eyes and facing it yourself were two entirely different things. Frankly, no one had imagined it would be this overwhelming.
There was nothing left for the French people to do now. Nothing but stare blankly at their television screens.
"Next."
With that single clipped word, Baek Jinwoo waited for the seventh player. The seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth players appeared wearing the gloomy expressions of oxen being led to the slaughter—
Shrrrk!
—and the result, just as everyone expected, ended in an all-kill.
South Korea, through to the quarterfinals! And that, too, was of course a first in their history.
The British players' lounge.
"Kya."
"Wow."
Exclamations burst out there as well. The enormous broadcast screen showed Hungyo cutting down the final player.
"...He really is good."
Rachel, seated with her legs crossed, nodded and murmured.
The Training Instructor. The summon who had given her such a headache in the Battle Royale. That one was no ordinary creature. No — 'not ordinary' didn't even begin to cover it. He was tremendous.
Something about him is off, though.
The E-rank Training Instructor she knew had never performed like this, no matter how good the runes socketed into him. Hadn't he been hit with the balance patch precisely because — rather than being a caster himself — he drew out other summons' latent potential far too easily?
That level of performance is something you only see from A-rank-and-above martial artists.
So what was it? High level? That didn't seem likely either. As far as she knew, Baek Jinwoo had been seriously raising summons for less than a year... and even she, now in her fourth year, still had no summon past level 60.
"He's strong, sure. But that's where it ends, unnie."
Olivia, world rank 6, remained skeptical of Baek Jinwoo.
"He doesn't use anything besides that thing. I'll admit he's strong for an unranked player... but at that level, Bale would cut them off, no? What's there to worry about?"
At Olivia's words, Gareth Bale — world rank 7 — who had been listening quietly beside them bristled.
"'Bale would cut them off'... hey, anyone listening would think there's a huge gap between us. It's one single rank."
"'One single rank'?"
Olivia gave a derisive snort and flipped her hair.
"You've failed to cross that 'single rank' for three years running, and you have a lot to say."
"What did you say?"
"Got a problem with it? If you do, shall we settle it in a duel? You've never once beaten me head-to-head."
They looked like they were bickering, but the two were actually quite close — Rachel's right arm and left arm, respectively. And Olivia's words weren't entirely wrong, either. Only the Five Emperors standing at the very front were overwhelmingly strong; the skill of Olivia at rank 6 was itself tremendous. In fact, the gap between her and Bale at rank 7 was quite severe.
"That's right. You're correct."
Rachel, who had been listening, nodded as well. Her gaze was still fixed on Hungyo.
"Realistically, Baek Jinwoo hasn't had the time to grow his summons. The current world rankers are all just hype — that's the only reason they put up that kind of performance... Against a properly equipped player, it won't work. Probably."
"See? Told you."
"However. Don't let your guard down."
Rachel said, firm and unyielding.
"As I said before — Jinugod is a man who cannot be explained by ordinary standards."
It had been the same in the past. When everyone else said summons had their limits, he alone had shattered that limit. He was the one who had cut down that colossal Chaos Demon Dragon in under a minute, and the one who had cleared floor 99 of the Tower of Ordeal as if it were a stroll.
"If we do end up meeting Korea this time, I'll give it everything I have."
"Unnie."
Olivia pushed back against Rachel's words.
"Do you seriously believe South Korea will make it all the way to the finals? They'd have to get past Xenos or Beskov in the semifinals?"
Xenos was America. Beskov was Russia. Both were far stronger than Olivia — and both were nations belonging to the Five Emperors she revered without end. In other words, if Rachel was right, her own hypothesis — that everything would be settled at the Bale line — would come crashing down.
"Yes."
Rachel smiled, slow and certain.
"I believe there's a very high chance of exactly that."