Questions and Answers
The 15th Round.
VS
The match had exploded into a massive topic thanks to Royal Sword Guild’s deliberate provocation.
Fans, officials, and experts had been buzzing about it long before the game even started, but at the heart of every conversation was the same thing: the clash between the two commanders representing Korea—Sanwang and the Guardian.
“Can the Guardian truly defeat Sanwang? That is the key point experts are highlighting for this 15th round. Commissioner Choi Moon-seong, could you give us a quick breakdown of this matchup?”
“Sanwang and the Guardian. It’s a fascinating contest. A lot of people lump them together simply as ‘commanders,’ but the truth is their styles are completely different.”
Experts called Sanwang defensive and the Guardian offensive.
Choi Moon-seong offered a more cautious perspective.
“I don’t think it’s that simple. Sanwang can be plenty aggressive, and the Guardian can play extremely defensively. These are world-class commanders. No matter the situation, they will find an answer.”
What he saw as the real difference was their approach.
If Sanwang played with a vast field of vision and controlled the whole board, the Guardian focused on localized skirmishes and meticulous design.
If that was hard to understand, there was one simple way to tell them apart: watch how they responded to the unexpected.
“When faced with a sudden situation, Sanwang weighs his experience and plans to produce the optimal answer. It’s like he’s saying, ‘You’re already in the palm of my hand.’ The Guardian, on the other hand, responds by making an even bigger gamble and throwing the question right back at her opponent.”
“Is that why Sanwang’s matches tend to run long, and why the Guardian sometimes looks helpless when she loses?”
“Very good. Sharp observation.”
“As we speak, the players are entering the arena. First up is Mir Guild with Sanwang Kim Jong-pil, Hwarang Kim Yu-shin, the Colossus Park Su—”
The showdown between the one who found answers and the one who posed questions.
Seen in that light, the pre-match provocation from the Guardian and Royal Sword Guild made perfect sense.
Even the taunt had been part of a larger design. Park Moon-seong had expected as much; a ranker of Yeo Eun-seo’s caliber wouldn’t provoke without purpose.
And Guardian and Royal Sword Guild did not disappoint.
“The Guardian, riding her divine beast ‘Bengal Tiger,’ is heading into the jungle… Wait, what? The entire Royal Sword Guild is planting totems in their own jungle formation.”
“Is that the Spirit-Blocking Totem?!”
“What’s more, the Guardian and Light Sword are using their mobility to plant totems deep inside the enemy camp.”
“We knew they were preparing something, but I never imagined they would start building their strategy the second the match began.”
“This is what a battle of wits between the league’s top commanders looks like. The fight for vision is fierce right from the start!”
By blocking the ‘Spirit’s Vision’ that covered the entire canyon, they blinded Sanwang’s all-seeing eye. Meanwhile, the Guardian effortlessly secured her own vision with ‘Owl Deployment.’
“Here’s an interesting stat. This is the first time in the entire league that Mir Guild has lost the vision score within the first ten minutes.”
“Mir Guild’s unpredictable strategies always begin with vision control. But when the support is securing the bottom jungle and the mid laner’s Light Sword is actively helping secure the upper jungle, it becomes very difficult.”
“Sanwang is clearing the jungle, but the owl has caught his movement path. His options are shrinking.”
“On the other hand, the Guardian’s options are only growing. Matchups are always relative, after all.”
The Guardian kept throwing out questions.
What will you do, senior? Are you really going to stay put?
The Guardian already knew the answer. If it was the Sanwang she knew…
He would definitely come.
“Sanwang is moving! Stumps are erupting from the ground! His destination is the enemy jungle!”
“He’s drawn his blade! Once he commits, it’s a fight!”
“At the same time, as if she’d been waiting for exactly this, the Guardian on her tiger pounces on Sanwang!”
Yeo Eun-seo, the Guardian, clad in supple leather armor built for mobility, pressed Sanwang hard alongside her tiger divine beast. She swung her spear, rammed him with her body, then dismounted to engage in raw hand-to-hand combat.
Sanwang countered with spirit-enhanced martial arts and the surrounding trees, but his opponent possessed the most overwhelming physical stats of any jungler he had ever faced.
Neither gave an inch.
The fierce struggle was snapping jungle trees like dry twigs.
“The Guardian is relentless. She’s pressing Sanwang with both sword and spear! He’s trying to retreat while using the surrounding plants as a shield, but arrows are incoming! Arrows three times larger than normal are slamming into the plant wall with explosive force!”
“Sanwang was careless this time. His opponent is a pure martial warrior. A ranked warrior, no less! He should have maintained maximum distance!”
“He’s trying to create space now, but the Guardian is cracking her whip and sticking to him like glue. She has zero intention of letting him go!”
“This is ultimately good news for Royal Sword Guild. They’ve successfully stolen Sanwang’s focus.”
While the Guardian kept Sanwang occupied, the Royal Sword team that had been holding solid positions began to move. Their support secured bottom vision.
The top laner abandoned all offense to focus entirely on shutting down Baek Yeon-woo.
And the mid laner, Light Sword, was joyfully spraying white sword energy everywhere as if daring anyone to try and stop him.
Then, the moment Sanwang and the Guardian’s fight drifted down to the river between mid and bottom lane—
The Guardian tapped her in-ear communicator three quick times while continuing her assault. At this level, lip-reading was standard, so they used the signal instead.
That was the cue.
The wildly flying sword energy slammed into Park Su-bin’s light orb and was neutralized. At the same time, a blinding flash erased all vision.
They had been had.
“Light Sword Jong-yu! He’s descending with the light. His target is—”
“The Guardian! He’s linking up with the Guardian!”
Light Sword Jong-yu, streaking forward like a beam of light, locked onto Sanwang and the Guardian fighting by the river. Just as planned. In that case, all they had to do was follow the plan on their end.
He swung his sword at the precise point they had practiced.
In that instant, the blade ignited with brilliant light.
The claws of light carved the entire area apart.
“It’s the Light Sword! Unpredictable, impossible to counter, sword energy that ignores trajectory and space itself! Anything the light touches is severed. And the target is—”
“The trees! The plants! He’s turning the spirits and vegetation under Sanwang’s control into dust!”
Blinding their vision.
Luring them into an unfavorable river formation.
Stripping away the trees and plants to bind even their limbs.
“Even now, Sanwang is breaking free from the pressure. It’s monstrously impressive.”
“The Guardian, as if she expected it, instantly brings in the support.”
“It’s a perfect trap!”
She hadn’t earned the name Guardian for nothing. The spine-chilling design she had maintained since the start of the match and the lightning-fast rotation.
At least for the first ten minutes, the winner was…
Yeo Eun-seo has slain Kim Jong-pil
The winner of the opening ten minutes was Royal Sword Guild.
* * *
“Yes!!”
“We got him!!”
In Royal Sword Guild’s waiting room, the strategy director high-fived the team members and clenched his fist tightly.
At that moment, applause rang out from the side. Joanna Lee was whistling and clapping.
“They stole one of Sanwang’s most important weapons—his vision—destroyed his early plan, and cut off the opponent’s breath by making him desperate. It was impressive. The fact that the entire operation began with media manipulation is truly fantastic.”
Exactly.
The Guardian and the strategy director had begun their design with public opinion warfare.
By provoking Sanwang and Mir Guild, they had framed the entire match as ‘Guardian versus Sanwang.’
“The legendary Sanwang probably wouldn’t be shaken by childish taunts. But the younger players are different.”
Sanwang would move aggressively to protect his young teammates. That had been Yeo Eun-seo’s judgment, based on her deep understanding of the man.
“After the first set of the round is thrown into chaos by the mind games, the kids will become anxious the moment they hit a real wall. And Sanwang, who is practically a father figure to them, would never sit still while his momentum wavers.”
“Now that you explain it, it’s quite interesting. So does that mean Sanwang saw through the scheme?”
“He is Sanwang, after all. From the moment he saw the provocation, he must have understood the intention behind it.”
After that, everything unfolded exactly as planned.
It was almost like prophecy—every situation within the first ten minutes had been foreseen, culminating in a perfect first kill.
“Then…”
Joanna Lee asked in a slightly excited voice. Did that mean victory was possible? The strategy director nodded vigorously, his own excitement still not cooled.
“The first set is crucial.”
If they could take the first set, victory was no longer a dream.
That had been the prediction of the Guardian, the architect of this match.
* * *
Meanwhile, in the opposite waiting room, Lee Shin was clapping continuously.
“See? I told you they could do it. Doesn’t it look good? Man, when the league has real tension, even the way the kids move is different. Right, hyung?”
“They certainly look desperate.”
“Desperate—now that’s a good word. Yeah, this is it. You have to bet everything. That’s when winning feels truly fun.”
The Bureau was right after all!!
While Lee Shin kept grinning from ear to ear, Chae Dong-ha was staring at him with a look that said he found the man repulsive.
What the hell is this guy?
The story had begun a few days earlier.
Precisely on the day Royal Sword Guild had run the narrative that they had “figured out the pattern.” The moment Lee Shin saw it, he had spoken after just one second.
“I wondered why the Guardian had been so quiet. So it was psychological warfare.”
There was only one world-class commander in Korea who could currently be compared to Sanwang. The woman currently appearing on the screen—Yeo Eun-seo, the Guardian.
She had taken Amazoness for raw power, stamina, crowd control, and injury immunity.
She had taken Master Tactician for intelligence, brainpower, leadership, and tactical learning ability.
And she had taken All-Weather for advantages related to weather, terrain, and the field itself.
She was a fraudulent woman who was a leader in her very person.
As a side note, the only reason Lee Shin had raised Sanwang was because he had a soft spot for the man. Honestly, the correct choice for a Korean player would have been to raise the Guardian.
At any rate, to Chae Dong-ha who didn’t know any of this, Lee Shin pointing straight at the Guardian made him seem like a fortune teller.
And it continued like that afterward too.
The match would not be easy.
If it was the Guardian, she would design something, and it would most likely be in the early game.
If they overcame the design, they would win easily. If they fell for it, they would completely lose the initiative and momentum.
And with high probability…
They would fall for it.
He had told them not to waste mental energy trying to figure out exactly what she would do, but to simply watch what she did instead. He had even suggested they try playing a passive game for once.
Having followed Lee Shin for a long time, Chae Dong-ha immediately understood what it meant.
This guy never intended to stop the Guardian’s early design in the first place.
He had let it happen. Or rather, he had deliberately allowed it.
Chae Dong-ha’s mind could not comprehend the reasoning. It was then that Lee Shin, who had been watching Chae Dong-ha’s furrowed brow, let out a small laugh.
“What? Are you wondering why I let them look like that?”
“Do you read minds too?”
“Your mouth is shut, but your forehead is honest.”
“If you noticed, then please explain it to me. I really don’t understand.”
“As the kind Representative Lee? Or as the cold Professor Lee? Which do you want to hear first?”
“Let’s start with the representative.”
“The kind Representative Lee says this. Royal Sword Guild is currently ranked seventh. They’re a high-tier guild with two rankers. Doesn’t it seem strange that they would show the same one-sided games as before in a high-stakes matchup like this?”
It was a principled, textbook answer.
Which meant it was absolutely not his true thoughts.
“Then what does the professor say?”
“Heh heh. You’ve gone and awakened the cold Professor Lee after all.”
Lee Shin twisted his hands together and covered his face theatrically.
“Tell me, student. When do you think humans feel the greatest despair?”
“……?”
“It is when hope shines the brightest.”
“!!”
The Guardian was a good character. She was undoubtedly a commander who could reach world-class level.
But right now, she was the enemy. So she had to be crushed.
Thoroughly. So thoroughly that she would never be able to look him in the eye again.
On the screen, an unexpected figure was now visible beside Sanwang.
* * *
“It’s finally being revealed.”
“Indeed.”
“It’s been a while since you ran. Will you be all right?”
At Sanwang’s question, the man in silver armor hopped lightly in place.
Hwarang Kim Yu-shin.
He gave a cool smile.
“I don’t lose to anyone when it comes to running.”
Sanwang and Hwarang.
The two men who would shatter the current meta kicked off the ground.