Korea-Japan Friendship Match (7)
Grrk. Shusuke gritted his teeth.
How on earth had it come to this? South Korea? An opponent he had been certain they would beat without even trying. Having to break out a Top-Grade Movement Speed Scroll against players like these had already bruised his pride enough—
"Go on, then. Tear it, if you think you can."
And then watching Baek Jinwoo taunt him with it, having read him perfectly in advance, made the blood surge backward in his veins.
If I lose here, it's all over.
Of course, a loss wouldn't be broadcast to the world; this was a private match. But his pride would crack all the same. An irreparable fissure would split the confidence he carried as a ranker of Japan, a superpower of summoning—and that fissure would slowly drag the whole country down with it.
This humiliation ends here.
Shusuke's eyes snapped open, feral, glaring at Baek Jinwoo. Then—
Riiiip!
He tore the scroll.
Kugugugugu...! He could feel the enormous buff flooding into his summons.
"You're finished now. The moment I tear this, even Hikaru-sama would struggle to face me."
"...Is that so?"
Baek Jinwoo scratched his head. "Not that I'm curious. Nobody asked."
Even Sugoi couldn't handle this thing? Well, it was possible. Even if the man had ranked third in Battle of Summoners, the main stage there had always been the Tower of Ordeal, not player-versus-player combat.
"Don't underestimate me!"
Pabababat! Shusuke's summons came charging at Baek Jinwoo's wolves—but Baek Jinwoo had already set Doldori's scythe across their path. All five of them, no less, were well within its range.
"Doldori."
HRAAAAAK!
The death god burst out of nowhere and swept his scythe in a full arc.
"Huh?"
Shusuke recoiled—because all five of his summons' HP bars had dipped at the same instant.
But it's survivable. So that death god must be Baek Jinwoo's main summon, was it? A very poor choice. The man doesn't even have the basics down. Sending a summon alone into the middle of the enemy line? That was an open invitation to be swarmed.
"Everyone, charge! Tear it apart!"
His speed-inflated summons hurled themselves at the Gale Slaughterer (EX-rank).
Well, what's this? Baek Jinwoo put on the face of a man who'd just stumbled into an unexpected windfall. If they'd pushed in on speed alone, he might actually have been a little flustered—but they were handing him this on a platter? Doldori's attacks were splash damage. And right now, with Ramba's stacks built up over four hours and counting, his attack speed was nothing to sneeze at. Which meant—charging in like that?
HRAHRAHRAHRAHRAHRAK!
Doldori spun his scythe faster than the eye could follow. From a distance it might have passed for a tornado, and within that storm of strikes, Shusuke's five summons vanished. Literally evaporated.
"Wh-what the—?"
Shusuke stared ahead, dumbfounded. A bug? What was this? Whatever else was true, his tank summon—the Guardian (A-rank)—had over 100,000 HP. And that Guardian had been caught in the tornado and simply torn apart.
Tududududuk! In under ten seconds, its HP hit zero and it was forcibly unsummoned.
"See? I told you not to tear that thing. What a waste."
"Y-you..."
"I was genuinely planning to stick to my wolves, you know? But when you break out an item that broken, my hands are tied. I have no choice but to use my broken summons."
Sssk! The scythe-wielding summon melted back into thin air.
Impossible... What kind of world spawns a summon like that! It felt unjust, but there was nothing to be done. No status window appearing meant they were honoring the contract to the letter.
Vwooom. Shusuke's protective barrier dissolved. And what that meant—
I... lost? Him? World rank 30? Utterly defeated, even after using the most notoriously broken item in existence, the scroll? Which meant the five rankers would now have to pool their money and pay Yubaek 100 billion won...!
Thud.
With a hollow look on his face, Shusuke slumped to his knees.
"Whoa. Jiho, you see that?"
Exclamations kept tumbling out of Ki Jaehyeok's mouth.
"...I saw it. Is that even possible, hyung?"
Kang Jiho wore a dazed expression of his own.
"Ha. Honestly, I'm out of words at this point."
Hong Ari simply shook her head. Broken. So broken there was nothing left to say. He'd utterly dominated Japan's Shusuke? Korea had truly climbed to a position from which it could rise as a superpower of summoning.
Even if it wasn't us who did it... it was Baek Jinwoo. And wasn't that the same thing? Baek Jinwoo belonged to South Korea, didn't he? And they were his disciples, no less.
Clench. Hong Ari squeezed her fist tight, fighting to hold down the emotions boiling up inside her.
Potential. She could see it now. If they simply trusted Baek Jinwoo's word and followed his orders... how far would they have grown in a year? Two? Might they not be commanding the world stage by then?
Wow. Unbelievable. Hong Ari still couldn't quite believe her eyes. That Shusuke. K the Terror. On his knees, wearing that hollow, defeated look.
And it wasn't just Shusuke. Ryo, Atsuto, Makoto... every last one of them had been blown apart here in YooBaek City. Not that Japan didn't still have two rankers stronger than Shusuke.
Baek Jinwoo. Watching him wear that easy expression—as if beating a mere Shusuke meant nothing at all—something about the man made her believe.
"Ari."
"Yeah, unni."
"I've made up my mind."
Oh Seon-young must have been feeling the exact same thing. These days, a single look in each other's eyes was enough to know.
"From now on, I'm following Master's word and nothing else."
Pfft. Hong Ari laughed. As if she'd ever done otherwise. Truth be told, she felt the same. If her heart had its way, she'd have folded up Arirang and moved into Yubaek to live. Not that she could ever allow herself that.
"Sh-Shusuke!"
"Are you all right?"
The Japanese rankers hurried over and helped him up—but were their hearts any different? Now they had to face reality. South Korea was no longer the South Korea of the past. They were strong. Not an imugi, a serpent still waiting to become a dragon, but a dragon already prepared to ascend to the heavens.
Now I understand. Shusuke remembered what Hikaru-sama had told him before he left. Never. Never, under any circumstances, provoke that man.
Hikaru-sama knew everything all along. Just what a rule-breaking monster the gamer who had once been Jinugod truly was. Five Emperors, world rankings—none of it applied. He had known from the very beginning that this was a man common sense simply didn't govern. That was why he'd been sent—to confirm whether this man really was Jinugod. And why Hikaru had hoped his feelings wouldn't be bruised along the way. Because he might be Jinugod.
And the result?
He's Jinugod, all right. Nothing else could explain what he'd just witnessed.
Which raised the question—had he done the right thing? No. He'd shot his mouth off from the very start, demanding a billion won per match, and Ryo—a member of their own national team—had gone so far as to try to kill them. If any of that reached Hikaru-sama's ears? ...He'll cast me aside.
Shusuke sank into despair. He was afraid. Terrified that everything he had built would come crashing down because of this one trip.
What do I do? There was only one answer. Settle up cleanly and get out fast! Once they had their 100 billion in a lump sum, surely even that crowd would soften a little?
He shot to his feet and looked at Yoo Jia.
"We lost. We will pay as promised. Please give me the account number."
"Ah."
Yoo Jia nodded and read out the account details. In his haste, Shusuke transferred his own money on the spot. This single trip had cost him two scrolls and 100 billion won. The loss was staggering, but he wanted this over with as quickly as possible.
"We'll send the footage within the week."
"...Thank you. This unofficial match has been a great learning experience for us as well. We'll take our leave, then."
Rushing through the formalities, Shusuke called out to the Japanese rankers.
"Everyone, get ready. Grab Ryo!"
Ryo, in whatever agony he was still in, lay sprawled where he had fallen, snot and drool smeared across his face.
"Y-yes, sir."
"Hey, get up! We're leaving!"
The disciples watched the backs of the men as they slunk away like routed soldiers, their eyes shining with something like awe. All but one. Baek Jinwoo alone stood with the corner of his mouth curled upward, quietly watching them go.
Trudge. Trudge.
By the time the Japanese rankers reached the shore at Yangyang, they had finished preparing to cross the East Sea. The mood was so crushed that not one of them had spoken a single word on the way.
Rage? No. What they felt was, more precisely, emptiness. And dread, too. How were they supposed to report this to Hikaru-sama?
"Hoo."
He let out a long sigh and looked over his fellow rankers. Ryo—that bastard was still flat on his back, out cold. Or maybe he simply didn't want to wake. The moment consciousness returned, he would have to swallow this godawful reality. And the others? The light had drained from their eyes. A humiliation none of them had ever tasted before—and it cut that much deeper coming from Korea, the country they usually dismissed without a thought. Had they lost to one of the other great powers, they could at least have conceded with grace.
"...Summon the wyvern."
The Sky Wyvern (B-rank). That was what they had ridden across the East Sea.
"Yes, sir."
Right. What was the point of thinking? Just go home. But just as they summoned their wyverns—
Krrruuurururu!
Another wyvern came diving down out of the sky and touched down in a flurry of wingbeats, blasting them with a spray of sand.
"Off somewhere in such a hurry?"
Shusuke's eyes went round. A man was dropping lightly from the massive wyvern's back. Baek Jinwoo.
Why is he—? He'd actually followed them all the way out here?! D-don't tell me—
There was exactly one reason Shusuke had tried to leave Korea so quickly. He feared Jinwoo would keep picking at their wrongs and their mistakes. That it would snowball until word reached Hikaru's ears.
Please. Shusuke prayed silently. Let him be wrong.
"You know, thinking it over, I'm pretty pissed off."
But judging by the grin spreading across Baek Jinwoo's face as he approached, the feeling was bad. Like the man could see straight through everything in his head.
"Wh-what could you possibly be angry about?"
"There's Ryo, who tried to kill my disciples. And then there's you, demanding a billion won a match right out of the gate..."
I knew it! Shusuke went cold. That damned Jinugod! It wasn't just his summoning that was terrifying. The man himself was sharp as a knife.
"I'm thinking I'll have to ask either the Japanese government or that Yoshida Hikaru fellow—your national team's leader, was it?—whether this is really acceptable. Whether it's something I can just let slide."
Baek Jinwoo smiled, easy and pleasant. To be honest, Baek Jinwoo was not a forgiving man. If anything, he leaned petty—the type to dig into a wrong with relentless focus rather than laugh it off.
"...What is it you want."
"Oh." Baek Jinwoo's eyes widened. "You catch on quick. I'll give you that."
"..."
"Well, honestly, I do think matters between us should stay between us."
Liar! You came here to threaten us!
As Shusuke stared at him, flabbergasted, Baek Jinwoo went on.
"That said, I can't stand the sight of someone who tried to take a life so casually playing for his national team."
In an instant, the warmth drained from Baek Jinwoo's smiling face. Then—
"Ryo."
He pointed at the collapsed man.
"Get him cut from your national team, and make sure he never plays as a player again. Do that much, and everything that happened between us stays a secret for life."
"..."
Shusuke's eyes wavered. Then his mind began to race. Ryo? Ninth on Japan's national team. Cut him loose, and Shusuke could remain at Hikaru's side for good.
"...Am I safe to take you at your word?"
To lend words credibility, there would need to be a contract. A system contract, at that. But Baek Jinwoo shook his head.
"You've got the wrong idea."
"Pardon?"
"I didn't come here to negotiate. I just came to tell you how it is."
And Baek Jinwoo smiled again.
"If I ever catch so much as a glimpse of Ryo active again? I'll be taking that up with Yoshida Hikaru. Him, personally. The call is yours to make, so choose wisely."
Pat, pat. Baek Jinwoo gave Shusuke's shoulder two light taps, then whirled around. Having said his piece, he mounted his wyvern once more.
...Tch.
Shusuke could only stare after him, wearing the aggrieved expression of a man who'd been thoroughly, utterly wronged.