Mukgeom

When a competitive game boasts an extensive roster of characters and classes, there are always those left languishing in obscurity. Some suffer from wretched base stats, others simply clash with the prevailing meta, while a few demand an insanely steep learning curve. And then there are those who are just irredeemable garbage all around.

Mukgeom—the sole Murim-themed martial artist in Royal Commando—happened to fall squarely into that last category.

Players had been pointing out Mukgeom's glaring flaws ever since open beta. Every single one of his skills was conditional; his survivability hinged entirely on Just Guard; the execution window for that very core mechanic was sickeningly tight; his base health was paper-thin; and his basic attack range was downright abysmal.

Summed up, he was a squishy melee DPS with the lowest base survivability in the game, an astronomical skill floor, and an atrocious return on investment even when played to perfection.

In a competitive shooter where balance between heroes was paramount, countless players flooded the forums begging for buffs, but developer Blue Storm remained stubbornly firm.

Which was just corporate speak for: No buffs. Deal with it. For a game universally praised for listening to community feedback and delivering stellar live-service management, Royal Commando had an impenetrable brick wall when it came to Mukgeom.

Questions regarding Mukgeom's balance inevitably cropped up at every offline convention, yet the lead director flatly maintained that they had zero intention of touching him.

After years of this stubborn impasse, players simply treated Mukgeom as if he didn't exist. The only time anyone ever locked him in was when team infighting broke out and someone decided to intentionally throw the match—a truly pitiful existence.

"Hoo."

Go Jaehyun held his breath, piloting the sniper Mikhail. In the crosshairs of his scope, the shifting silhouette of Mukgeom locked into place. Without a shred of hesitation, he squeezed the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trigger.

Phssht!

The round tore through the air at blistering speed. Yet right at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that fraction of a second, Mikhail's crosshairs met Mukgeom's gaze. Even from a distance of at least three hundred meters, the swordmaster was staring straight down the tiny lens of the optic. An icy shiver ran down Go Jaehyun's spine.

Clang!

What followed was even more absurd. Mukgeom parried the bullet aimed dead center at his forehead with the edge of his blade. It was a Just Guard.

"…Are you insane?"

Go Jaehyun gasped in shock, but he was no amateur to freeze up mid-combat. Activating his grappling hook, he immediately zipped backward to disengage. Mukgeom didn't bother chasing Mikhail; instead, he pivoted toward the enemy tank who had been left isolated.

The opposing tank, Great Harley, had finally snapped the spine of their allied Iron Belt.

"Wait, what just happened?"

"What was that?"

"How am I dead?"

Naturally, God Jaehyun's teammates erupted into utter chaos. It couldn't be helped; if an active pro like Jaehyun found it hard to believe his own eyes, how could ordinary players comprehend it? They seemed completely oblivious to how they had even been killed.

Granted, the enemy support Paracel had detonated a smoke grenade to obscure vision, but Jaehyun's teammates had actually escaped the smoke before being cut down. The smoke had merely served as a distraction to let Mukgeom close the distance.

"I'll switch to Desperado," Jaehyun announced as Mikhail zipped back into the respawn room. Desperado was a ranged hitscan DPS equipped with close-quarters crowd control—the hard counter to melee brawlers.

"Let's run a barrier comp."

Under Go Jaehyun's shotcalling, the team swiftly swapped their hero picks in perfect synchronization. Sitting at Master rank at the bare minimum, they understood team compositions intuitively.

"Alright, listen up. We just dropped a single teamfight, that's all. Fight from behind our barriers as much as possible, and let's play to counter-engage."

"Got it."

Jaehyun rallied his flustered squad. With a genuine pro cheering them on, the teammates shook off their panic in no time.

Then came the clash over the capture point. Go Jaehyun swept his eyes across the front line. Mukgeom was nowhere to be seen. For a melee hero, flanking was the most fundamental tactic in the book.

"No Mukgeom on front. Healers, heads up."

"Understood."

With Mukgeom absent, a four-versus-five skirmish broke out at the chokepoint. The enemy tank, Great Harley, barely attacked, simply weaving in and out of cover while using defensive abilities to bait out their cooldowns.

Their team wasting minor cooldowns didn't matter. What truly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠counted was Desperado's point-blank crowd control ability: Paralyzing Round.

Jaehyun methodically pumped damage into Great Harley, who was crouching to mitigate incoming fire, all while conserving his CC skill.

How long are you planning to wait?

Teamfights were typically decided within ten seconds. By Jaehyun's internal clock, nine seconds had just ticked by. If the flanker didn't show right now, they could simply steamroll the front line.

"Mukgeom behind us!" a backline healer shrieked.

Even before the callout came through, Go Jaehyun's audio sense had already caught the subtle rustle.

Got you!

Pivoting toward the healers, Jaehyun triggered his frontal stun skill, Paralyzing Round.

In his mind's eye, he could already picture Mukgeom frozen solid in a helpless daze.

Yet the reality defied his calculations entirely. The instant Jaehyun wheeled left to loose the shot, a dark silhouette darted past on his right with terrifying velocity.

"…!"

The Paralyzing Round's area of effect only covered a frontal cone. In other words, anyone positioned behind the caster was completely safe.

Go Jaehyun whipped his head around, his eyes wide with horror. There stood Mukgeom, eyes brimming with chilling Killing Intent, unsheathing his dark blade.

The holographic defeat screen materialized before Jaehyun's stunned gaze. Trapped in the animation recovery frames of his missed skill, Desperado had his throat ruthlessly slit by Wadeulwadeul's Mukgeom. Only then did Mukgeom unleash Just Guard, batting away the desperate support skills aimed at saving Desperado while simultaneously cutting off the healing corridor to the allied frontline tank.

"…How?"

Had the player anticipated the immediate Paralyzing Round and deliberately bypassed the healers to dive even deeper? Was such high-level psychological warfare even conceivable from an unranked player? Even after being sent to the respawn screen, Go Jaehyun couldn't quite fathom how he had been outplayed.

Naturally, the rest of the team was wiped out in seconds. Because Jaehyun's team was in a private match with their streams off, they had no idea—the viewer chat over on Wadeulwadeul's side had completely erupted into flames.

The chat was in an uproar, but Wadeulwadeul's own teammates were just as dumbfounded.

"What did I just witness?"

"No way. There's just no way."

When Wadeulwadeul locked in Mukgeom for round two without saying a word, none of the teammates had dared to speak up. To any onlooker, it looked like a classic rage-pick to throw the match after getting utterly humiliated in round one. It felt a bit petty of the opposing team to bring out such a sweat-tier meta composition for a friendly scrimmage, too.

That was why Latima, reading the room, had stepped forward to take the heat and suggested shuffling the teams. Coincidentally, Go Jaehyun on the opposing side had even offered in all-chat to mix up the rosters.

Yet Wadeulwadeul had flatly refused.

A veteran streamer would have laughed it off and kept the vibe lighthearted, but to the teammates' eyes, Wadeulwadeul was an absolute novice to broadcasting. And understandably so—it was only her second day streaming.

More importantly, the teammates could viscerally feel her terrifying competitive drive. What made it even more frightening was that she never once raised her voice in anger.

"Nice try. Let's reset for the next fight."

Wadeulwadeul had repeated those exact words every single time they got wiped—devoid of any emotion. What began as a convivial atmosphere had frozen solid under the weight of consecutive team wipes.

Yet the moment Wadeulwadeul picked Mukgeom, the tables turned completely. A teamfight they were destined to lose was flipped on its head when Mukgeom created a miracle opening through Just Guard, and the subsequent fight played out the exact same way.

The dense terrain of Welcome to the Jungle—a map naturally favoring melee combatants—certainly played a part, but the real game-changer was a style of Mukgeom play that no one on the server had ever witnessed before.

"Waddle-nim, how on earth did you do that just now?" asked Boost, their allied DPS.

Wadeulwadeul answered in a tone that made it sound like the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠most ordinary thing in the world.

"I just blocked with Just Guard and countered."

"No, wait, did you predict when he'd use the skill and pre-emptively time the Just Guard?"

"No? I reacted to it."

"…You can react to that?"

"Of course you can."

Just Guard's active window was literally on the order of 0.1 seconds. While it completely negated all incoming damage during that split second, the duration was so ridiculously short that normal players considered it purely reliant on luck.

Yet here Wadeulwadeul was, claiming she used it on pure visual reaction. It sounded utterly preposterous, but since she had just backed it up with her own hands, no one could refute her.

"Honestly, if I play this character, it completely breaks the game's balance, so I was trying not to use it... but the other team was playing better than expected..."

Wadeulwadeul casually dropped an absurd excuse. The opposing team had an active professional player and boasted an average tier of Grandmaster, yet she claimed she hadn't picked her main because it would break game balance? Ordinarily, it would sound like sheer arrogance, but having witnessed that performance firsthand, no one could call it a bluff.

Viewers in the chat were increasingly starting to look like they had fallen under some potent genjutsu.

From that point on, every teamfight was an absolute slaughter. Mukgeom tore through the enemy ranks like a whirlwind, and the rest of the team swooped in to clean up the remains. Go Jaehyun desperately swapped heroes to find an answer to Mukgeom, but his four teammates had completely mentally collapsed, causing their team coordination to crumble entirely. Because Mukgeom was virtually non-existent in high-tier queues, none of them had the faintest idea how to play against him.

The series concluded 2–1 in a hard-fought victory for Wadeulwadeul's team. In the final round, Go Jaehyun brought out Razorback to counter in close-quarters melee, and both aces tore through each other's backlines. But Wadeulwadeul's squad held together with tighter synergy, leaving Jaehyun isolated to be overwhelmed and finished off alone.

When the match concluded and the characters on Wadeulwadeul's team struck their victory poses, Wadeulwadeul had typed into all-chat.

A heavy silence hung over the lobby for a moment before team captain Go Jaehyun belatedly sent his reply.

It was a total, unconditional surrender.

And later that day, a short post quietly surfaced on the online forums.