Korea-Japan Friendly Match (5)
Ryo had actually been in a foul mood for a while now.
To be precise, ever since he'd arrived at this place. He simply could not understand the attitude of the other side.
What was this? They'd hand over ten billion won per match? And if he didn't like that, they'd wager a hundred billion on a single bout?
He couldn't fathom how Shusuke had managed to swallow such absurd nonsense without so much as a word of protest.
Japan had already proven its strength to the entire world. So why on earth was that Japan being dragged around by players from some backward country?
Fine. Whatever.
He could let the bet slide. But the earlier matches had set his blood boiling all over again.
They beat Atsuto?
Korea's hidden depth had proven far more considerable than he'd anticipated. Kang Jiho and Hong Ari had given it their all, sure—but he'd never imagined they'd hold their own against Atsuto, one of Japan's top national players.
And that had stung his pride, just a little.
Fine. He'd bend one more time and let even that go. It wasn't Korea's fault that Japan had failed to dominate.
But then—
"Why? Can't you win?"
"...I'll win. No matter what it takes."
"Good. That's the spirit."
He'd overheard their conversation. That tone—as if beating someone like Ryo were simply a given—had lodged itself in his skull and refused to leave.
Arrogant little bastards.
That was where he exploded.
"...Where does some nobody who's never even heard of me get off acting so relaxed against me?"
Ryo curled the corners of his mouth upward as he watched Ki Jaehyeok square up against him with a grim, determined face.
"You'll see."
I'll show you! The true gap in our power! Why Japan is called a great power!
Kwagagaga!
At Ryo's gesture, two chickens the size of grown men began charging toward Ki Jaehyeok.
These were no ordinary chickens. They were Transcendent Chickens (B-rank), said to devour even birds of prey.
Ki Jaehyeok's summons were built around goblins. Where Oh Seon-young insisted on wolves and nothing else, Ki Jaehyeok insisted on goblins and nothing else. The reason for that was a story for another day.
Two Hob Goblins (B-rank) and a Poison Goblin (B-rank) formed the front line. A Forest Goblin (C-rank) played healer, while a Goblin Priest (B-rank) provided buffs.
"Goblins? Who the hell fights with trash summons like that?"
Kwagagaga!
Ryo sneered after their first clash.
Ki Jaehyeok was young. And the youthful fire of South Korea was not about to let that sneer slide.
"Yep. KFC."
"..."
"Way cooler than a couple of chickens, don't you think?"
"Shut your mouth."
"Ooh, I'm grabbing Baeksi Chicken again after this match. Nom nom nom."
"Why, you—!"
Grit!
Outmatched in the war of words, Ryo ground his teeth. Japan had never been much good at verbal sparring—some say if you looked far enough back into history, it was because they'd always preferred to simply kill people rather than argue with them.
...In any case, it wasn't easy to out-talk a Korean high schooler who'd been tempered in profanity since elementary school.
"Then just die!"
The Transcendent Chicken's beak began hammering into the goblin's torso at the speed of light. Perhaps because its player was enraged, the summon's movements had grown even wilder than before.
Kyaaaaak!
The Hob Goblin instinctively swung its club—
Swish!
—but the chicken batted it aside with ease and pecked a straight line across its belly.
"H-he's insane."
"What kind of chicken is that?"
"That thing is no joke. Our phoenix went down to it just like that."
The watching disciples marveled. It was genuinely fascinating—any summon, without exception, performed wildly differently depending on who wielded it.
Ki Jaehyeok, apparently lacking any proper counter, kept pulling his goblins backward.
"That's it!"
"Push him!"
Only now did relief soften the Japanese rankers' faces. Yes, this is more like it. Losing ground even to Japan's Rank 9 was the reality of the Korean national team—this was the scene they should have witnessed from the very start.
"As expected of the Transcendent Chicken!"
"Ryo! Just solo-carry the whole thing!"
But.
Among the Japanese rankers, one man's expression alone did not soften.
"..."
Shusuke.
Against the Korea of old, this should have been over long ago.
The Transcendent Chicken's movements were explosive and blindingly fast, which meant the shorter the match, the better—there was real advantage in ending things in the opening seconds...
Ki Jaehyeok, was it? That kid's control is no joke.
He looked like he was being overwhelmed, but dodging like that was anything but easy. Keep this up, and the Transcendent Chicken would be the first to tire out and drop.
Grit!
Shusuke had called it.
Damn it all.
Contrary to his composed exterior, Ryo was burning up inside.
"You little gnat! How long are you going to keep running away!"
It was maddening. He could almost reach them, yet never quite did, and every scrap of flesh he pecked and tore away was instantly healed by the Forest Goblin.
And on top of that—
"Whoa, 'gnat' is a bit harsh, no? Who says we're dodging because we want to?"
The mouth just kept yammering, needling Ryo's nerves without pause.
"If you don't want to dodge, then stand and fight!"
"Come on, practice what you preach. If you want us to fight back, quit pecking at us."
"This brat—nothing but a mouth on him...!"
"Yep. Bok bok."
"GRAAAAGH!"
In the end, the berserk Ryo had only one option left.
Smoothly, he drew something from his pocket.
◈ Temporarily amplifies a summon's movement speed tenfold.
This scroll was crafted from a blueprint obtained as a Tower of Ordeal reward. Its materials were so outrageous that virtually no one ever bothered to make it. The effect was excellent, but the ingredients alone cost well over a hundred billion won. In other words: terrible value for money.
No other way.
Ryo, already twisted beyond reason, was past the point of rational thought.
"H-hey!"
Shusuke, catching on to what Ryo intended, shrieked and lunged to stop him.
That lunatic.
Scroll use in official bouts was banned under international law. The system technically permitted it, but it had been formally resolved—on Rachel's recommendation that leagues shouldn't be burning resources needlessly—to prohibit it.
If he uses that, winning the hundred billion won't mean a thing!
But it was already too late.
Riiip!
Ryo had already torn the scroll in half.
"You're dead."
At the same instant, the Transcendent Chickens' movements shifted into another dimension entirely.
Pwagagagagak!
They lunged like beams of light and devoured the Hob Goblin's vitals.
"You moron. This is the gap between you and me."
Ki Jaehyeok's goblins were subdued in the blink of an eye.
"Oh ho?"
Baek Jinwoo crossed his arms, eyes gleaming.
So Japan had gotten its hands on that blueprint.
For the record, that scroll's blueprint was Unique-grade—only one existed in the entire world. He knew it well; Baek Jinwoo had held it himself back during the Battle of Summoners.
But still.
The materials for that thing couldn't have come cheap, and he was burning it here? It made no sense. A scroll that precious should be stockpiled and saved for punching through the upper floors of the Tower of Ordeal.
In any case.
With that on the table, the story changed. No matter how superb Ki Jaehyeok's control was, he could no longer compete.
"N-no way..."
Ki Jaehyeok stared at his goblins with a crestfallen face. They had already collapsed, combat-incapacitated, and the chickens had thoroughly ravaged them.
"A mutant chicken... It's way too strong."
And then Ryo piled on. Instead of de-summoning his opponent's goblins, he kept them subdued right at the brink of defeat and began to humiliate them.
— Krik?
When a goblin tried to rise, the chicken pecked its legs out from under it.
Whoooosh!
When it swung its club from flat on its back, the chicken evaded and pecked at its armpits and arms.
"What the hell is that?"
"Isn't that going too far?"
The watching disciples bristled.
"Matches are supposed to be clean! How is torturing them like that acceptable?"
Players, above all, poured affection into their summons. They had no choice. For better or worse, they went through everything together, and somewhere along the way you couldn't help but feel that these creatures, too, were living beings with hearts of their own.
Ryo smirked at the ones fuming.
"What, was there some special clause about that in the contract?"
"Show some sportsmanship!"
"Sportsmanship? Spare me."
Ryo's lips trembled.
"That brat's the one who threw manners out first!"
He'd already caught his share of flak from the Japanese public over his summons. KFC, MOS Burger, Toribani... He carried a genuine trauma about people taunting him by calling his summons Japanese chicken brand names, and Ki Jaehyeok had pinched that nerve dead-on.
"Sorry... It was just a joke. I didn't know you'd blow up like that."
Ki Jaehyeok scratched his head and apologized, which only poured fuel on Ryo's rage.
"You son of a bitch!"
Crunch!
He had a chicken gouge out a goblin's heart, de-summoned it, and then hurled the Transcendent Chickens straight at Ki Jaehyeok, whose protective barrier had completely vanished.
"Ryo, stop!"
Shusuke screamed in horror, but—
— Bok bok bok!
The enraged chickens were already bearing down on Ki Jaehyeok at full sprint!
"Uh, uhh?"
Ki Jaehyeok could only gape. The match was over—attacking someone out of sheer spite, wasn't that a crime? A flagrant violation of international law. Attempted murder.
"Tsk."
Baek Jinwoo clicked his tongue. Then he raised his hand.
Shff, shff!
Doldori, who had been waiting all along, swung his scythe from within his veil of invisibility, lopping off the necks of both Transcendent Chickens as lightly as slicing radishes.
"What..."
Ryo's mouth hung open in disbelief.
"What the hell was that?"
Something unknown had burst out of empty air, butchered the fully buffed Transcendent Chickens in an instant, and vanished without a trace.
A death god? A scythe? No—whatever it was, was that even possible? The buffed chickens could have held their own even if Shusuke himself had jumped in.
And that wasn't all.
Shhhk!
The necks of the three summons providing support from the rear were severed in the same breath.
And then—
Step. Step.
Baek Jinwoo strode toward Ryo, whose barrier was gone. The sheer momentum of it was like watching an aggressive summon close in on its prey.
"W-wait..."
THWACK!
Baek Jinwoo drove his fist—loaded with the full rotational force of his entire body—into Ryo's abdomen. It was so fast, so sudden, that Ryo couldn't even think to summon a backup.
"Guh, GAAAAAAAH!"
Baek Jinwoo's strength and resilience, tempered daily under Hungyo's special training, were already beyond human. That single blow dropped Ryo where he stood, and he retched up everything he'd ever eaten.
And still—
"Kheh... hah... th-this is...!"
Trembling uncontrollably, he still managed to shoot Baek Jinwoo a look of wounded injustice.
Baek Jinwoo regarded him with icy indifference.
"What, was there some special clause about that in the contract?"
You bastard. How dare you lay a hand on my disciple? With a summon, no less.
No matter how he turned it over, he could not let this pass. Shusuke or whoever—none of it mattered.
BAM!
Baek Jinwoo punted Ryo square in the side as he lay sprawled on the ground.
"GRAAAAH!"
Ryo spun round and round, kicking up dust as he rolled across the floor. A horrified Shusuke came rushing over—but he had nothing to say. From any third party's perspective, Ryo was so plainly at fault.
That said, Baek Jinwoo hadn't played it perfectly either. He should have dealt with only the Transcendent Chickens and left Ryo's punishment to Shusuke, the sitting representative of Japan.
"Even so, this is plainly a slap in the face to all of us..."
"What."
Baek Jinwoo turned to Shusuke this time.
"You want a beating too?"
Pathetic nobody, actually looking to die.
Even if that Sugoi guy showed up in person, he'd be leaving in pieces. Baek Jinwoo despised, above all things, anyone who touched his people. Whatever the circumstances, Ki Jaehyeok was his disciple, and Ryo had threatened that disciple's life. Begging for it to end at just those two blows wouldn't have been enough—and he was whining about disrespect?
These bastards. This won't do.
"Hungyo."
Whoosh!
At Baek Jinwoo's call, Hungyo sprang forth.
"Him. One minute."
He murmured it, eyes fixed on Ryo.
Pwak!
A blade of qi shot from Hungyo's fingertip.
Root-Splitting Bone-Lodging Strike.
"GRAAAAAAAAGH!"
Ryo's horrific screams filled the training grounds to bursting.