Chapter 130
Chapter 130
Chapter 130: Option Addition Ticket (3)
Translation: godtl
The Blue Sand Desert.
The expressions of the seven players heading toward the highest dune's capture point were anything but ordinary.
And for good reason.
Kugugung!
Kwaaang!
From the summit of the towering dune—the capture point—incessant explosions and the screams of humans and beasts poured forth without pause.
With each eruption of those brutal sounds, the faces of the players approaching the capture point grew increasingly tense.
At the very least—
"We're almost there. Everyone, stay alert."
The oldest-looking man among them, Lee Sang-min, was the only one maintaining his composure.
But even that was short-lived.
"Damn it......."
When Lee Sang-min finally arrived at the summit of the towering dune—the capture point—his expression inevitably crumbled.
"What the hell......?"
Hell.
No, even that word couldn't fully describe the horrific scene before him.
"Ugh......"
A vaguely human-shaped something groaned.
Had it not been for that faint, pitiful sound, no one would have even recognized that blood-soaked mass as a person.
And this wasn't limited to humans.
Kki, kkiing......
Kii......
Demonic Beasts, usually fearsome in appearance, now lay scattered everywhere, whimpering in pain. And even those were the lucky ones who still had their heads intact.
Most of the Demonic Beasts had been reduced to shattered corpses, forming thick pools of blood.
And in the center of this carnage—
Ggrrk.
A figure sculpted from sand raised a long, elongated arm.
Beneath it—
"Kyaaak!"
A man with a once-luxurious turban now wildly disheveled screamed like a beast, thrashing desperately.
Though drenched in enough blood to fill a basin, the chilling Sword Energy radiating from his blade and the way he effortlessly disrupted the sand forming the Golem easily revealed his identity.
"Zayed Van......?"
Palestine's national representative.
The top-ranked Platinum player and owner of the S-rank Trait, Sand Sculpting—Zayed Van.
Since Platinum-tier matches were conducted on a global scale, Lee Sang-min had also faced Zayed Van in the Arena before.
'Zayed Van is one of the stronger combatants among Platinum-tier fighters......'
"One of the stronger" was putting it mildly—if you considered the entire world as the playing field, the scale changed entirely.
Among all Platinum-tier combatants worldwide, he was undeniably in the upper echelons.
And yet, that very player—
Thud!
"Ghk!"
—was sent flying with a spray of blood.
What made it even more absurd was that the thing that had struck him was a Golem made of sand.
Of course—
Grrrk.
Given that it had faced the wielder of an S-rank Trait like Sand Sculpting, the Sand Golem hadn't come out unscathed either.
Only one of its arms remained, the rest shattered into pieces.
Then, the half-destroyed Sand Golem turned its gaze toward the Korean national team.
Flinch.
The team members instinctively recoiled—all except Lee Sang-min, who calmly met the Golem's gaze.
—The rest... is up to you.
With a strange, grating sound like sand being scraped—
Ssshh.
—the broken Sand Golem collapsed.
"Gyaaaaah!!"
Immediately after, a roar—no, a shriek—assaulted the Korean team's ears.
"Get up! Get up and fight me again, damn you!!"
Zayed Van, drenched in blood, thrashed like a wounded beast, madly slashing at the remains of the fallen Sand Golem.
"I won't accept this! I refuse to end it like this!!"
Whatever had happened, Zayed Van now behaved like a madman, relentlessly hacking at the pile of sand.
"S-Sang-min hyung......"
"I'll handle him. You all, head to the capture point."
Lee Sang-min adjusted his grip on his tonfa.
Then, following Si-mun's orders, he stepped forward.
Click.
The capsule—the Arena access device for the National Tournament—opened its hatch, and a strikingly handsome man with sharp features stepped out.
The moment his feet touched the ground—
Bzzzt.
A continuous vibration.
Si-mun rummaged through his pocket to check the source.
[Kim Si-hyeok: Hyung! That match was insane! What the hell were those summons?!]
[Lee Yu-jeong: Oppa! Congratulations on your victory!]
[Go Mal-suk: You heartless bastard. Now you're even summoning demonic beasts? Just what the hell are you?]
[Park Jin-uk: I believed in you! Loyalty, loyalty!]
Messages flooded in rapidly.
They were from his companions.
'So they were all watching the match.'
A faint smile tugged at Si-mun's lips.
It was only natural.
'They must be busy running their own Arenas.'
Except for Go Mal-suk, every one of them was a top-tier player.
Even Go Mal-suk—though her rank was low—he knew full well that she was just as renowned within her tier as he was.
So they must have been preoccupied with raising their own specs, even by a single point, by grinding their own Arenas.
Yet they still took the time to watch a mere Platinum division match—one that wasn't even part of the main tournament. How could he not be grateful?
But that smile quickly vanished.
[Lin: Congratulations on your victory~. As expected of you, Si-mun. Thanks to you, I made a hefty profit from the underdog bet~?]
A message from someone he never expected had arrived.
'Lin? Why is she messaging me all of a sudden?'
Lin, the Nine-Tailed Fox and owner of the Black Market.
Before he could even begin to wonder why she had sent him this message—
'How the hell did she even send this?'
Si-mun quickly checked Lin's profile attached to the message.
'What the—her number is right there?'
A photo taken at the typical angle women used for social media.
And below it, Lin's number was clearly written.
Put another way—
'This means she didn't just message me through the system ID—she actually saved my phone number...'
But how the hell did she even get it?
The question arose, but at the same time, it made sense.
'Well, she is the owner of the Black Market. It probably wasn't that hard for her to find a phone number.'
This was the Black Market's proprietor, after all.
[Lin: Hehe. As thanks, I'll treat you to a nice meal sometime~.]
At the second message from Lin, Si-mun let out a dry chuckle and was about to reply with "No thanks" before pocketing his phone.
The reason was simple.
"Si-muuun!!!"
A slightly pot-bellied middle-aged man—
Along with the coaching staff, Platinum Division Director Jang Yun-sik came running, eyes brimming with tears.
"Oh my god! Si-mun, thank you! Thank you so much!!"
"Sniff! You saved us!"
The sight of middle-aged men sprinting at him with tears in their eyes was admittedly a bit overwhelming, but—
'They must've been under a lot of stress.'
This was a special match that determined their seed rights for the main tournament.
They were already considered a weak team, and with all the noise about option addition tickets and other complications—
And then, in just a single day, they were hit with the lightning bolt of having to field eight players?
If they had lost here—
The atmosphere would've branded them as traitors who threw away the national buff.
Of course, they must've been on edge about everything.
"If it weren't for you, we really would've—"
"Ugh—sob!"
Their anguish must've been immense.
Tears—no, even snot—streamed down the faces of the director and coaching staff.
As Si-mun awkwardly tried to console them, a deep, steady voice came to his rescue.
"Everyone, calm down. You're making Si-mun uncomfortable."
"S-Sang-min!"
It was Lee Sang-min, currently ranked third in Korea's Platinum division.
"Ahem! Sorry, Si-mun. We were just so happy that—"
"W-We're sorry!"
"It's fine. I'm happy we won too."
Wiping his damp face with his sleeve, Si-mun smiled at the retreating coaching staff.
Then, the seven players approached him.
"When we first entered the match, it was like staring into total darkness... I never thought we'd win without doing anything... It's all thanks to you!"
"Thanks to you, we had a comfortable victory. Appreciate the carry!"
"You—you were amazing! I've never been carried this hard even in regular Arenas!"
Just before the match—
Apart from Lee Sang-min, none of the players had even properly spoken to him.
Yet now, all of them wore bright smiles as they thanked him warmly.
Si-mun responded with a quiet smile and a nod.
'As expected, battle really is the best bonding experience.'
People tended to grow closer after enduring tough fights together.
Though, of course, it wasn't quite the same as life-or-death battles in the regular Arenas of his past life.
In that desperate environment of an 8-player match, they had managed to seize victory—enough to shatter the walls of difficulty they'd faced until now.
Then.
"Hey, you brats. Is that really something you should be saying in front of Si-mun?"
That same low, resonant voice from earlier drilled into their ears.
"Uncle Sang-min..."
"Ahjussi..."
It was Lee Sang-min.
His gaze was sharp as he spoke.
"This isn't some personal Arena match. This is a Special Match that determines our advancement to the main event of the National Tournament. You're all national representatives. And yet you're proudly boasting about getting carried? What kind of pride is that?"
"W-well, that's..."
"......"
The players immediately deflated.
Since he wasn't wrong, they couldn't offer any rebuttal and instead glanced nervously at Si-mun's reaction. Yet Lee Sang-min's stern expression remained unyielding.
"Expressing gratitude is only natural, but we're national representatives too. Brazenly admitting you were carried like that could be considered disrespectful to Si-mun. Let's be blunt—did we actually accomplish anything? In this match, we might as well have not existed at all."
"...We apologize, Si-mun-nim."
"Sorry, Si-mun-nim. We weren't thinking."
At Lee Sang-min's words, the players immediately bowed their heads. A momentarily flustered Si-mun scratched his cheek with an awkward smile when even Lee Sang-min lowered his head.
'I didn't think that deeply about it, though...'
He'd simply assumed they were all expressing gratitude.
Ah, well—he'd just taken it at face value.
'Well, I can understand why he'd say that, though.'
As Lee Sang-min had pointed out.
They, too, were players selected as national representatives.
Technically speaking, they were national team athletes in the same position as Si-mun.
Yet here they were, openly acknowledging that they'd been carried by Si-mun—who had been blatantly targeted by the Option Addition Ticket—without lifting a finger to secure victory.
While expressing gratitude was perfectly acceptable in this situation...
From the perspective of being national representatives just like Si-mun, openly admitting they'd been carried or "bus-driven" wasn't exactly a good look.
'Their pride must've taken a hit, too.'
After all, they were Platinum-ranked players classified as upper-tier.
Not to mention, many had extensive Arena experience, and among the 30 selected for the national team, they weren't exactly third-rate, were they?
From that standpoint, the fact that they'd been carried by a single person must have been quite embarrassing—a blow to their pride.
'That kind of mindset is probably why they'll eventually rank up to Diamond.'
Suppressing a small smile, Si-mun carefully placed a hand on Lee Sang-min's shoulder—his head still bowed.
"Please, don't be like this. I never thought of it that way."
Then, gently helping Lee Sang-min straighten up, Si-mun continued.
"I won't take back the fact that I carried you. But I can't agree with the statement that you all did nothing."
He smiled softly, meeting Lee Sang-min's stiffened gaze.
"This wasn't a match I could've won alone. It's true that I swept through with my summons, but in the end, I didn't manage to take down Zayed Ban—the opposing team's top player."
"No. You would've defeated them all even without us, Si-mun-nim. You don't have to say things like that just to—"
"No, I'm just stating facts."
Si-mun cut off Lee Sang-min's protest mid-sentence.
And truthfully, he wasn't wrong.
He had nearly annihilated the Palestinian team with a hundred Demonic Beasts and the massive Sand Golem—but that was it.
"Nearly" annihilated, not "completely."
"The Palestinian team's occupied point had already surpassed 90%. If you hadn't taken care of Zayed Ban, Lee Sang-min, this match would've ended in our defeat."
"I—I just put the spoon into an already finished meal. Zayed Ban wasn't in his usual condition because of you, Si-mun-nim."
"But you still took him down in the end, didn't you? Even if I had defeated Zayed Ban myself, the Activity Range Restriction would've prevented me from entering the occupied zone. Then we would've lost anyway."
The Arena event against Palestine had been a "Domination Match."
Even if Si-mun had slaughtered every last one of them...
Unless he could physically step into the occupied zone, it would've still counted as their defeat.
"Truthfully, a complete solo carry is impossible in the National Tournament. If it were, we wouldn't be struggling like this. The Sword Saint would've just swept through the preliminaries by himself."
The National Tournament is like that.
Even that so-called prodigy Ranker, my younger brother.
And the countless players who had shone in past National Tournaments.
Not a single one of them had ever achieved a solo carry in the National Tournament.
No matter how exceptional a player might be, no one could single-handedly counter the systematic strategies of dozens of opponents of similar rank.
Of course, since this was still the realm of human affairs, there were exceptions.
Exactly two.
Since the opening of the Galaxy Arena, only two players had ever achieved the feat of a solo carry in the National Tournament.
One was the founder of America's strongest guild—
the American Dream.
And the other was...
'Father...'
The former president of the Korea Awakened Association, and the elder brother of the current president, his uncle Kim Mu-yeol.
At the same time, his own father—Kim Mu-jin.
The man who had once stood toe-to-toe with the Guild Master of the American Dream, the strongest guild of its era, in this small country called Korea.
As thoughts of his father Kim Mu-jin surfaced, a bitter taste lingered at the corners of his mouth.
As if shaking it off,
Si-mun lightly tilted his head.
"Si-mun-ssi...?"
Perhaps interpreting his expression differently—
"...I swear. Next match, I will be of help to you."
Lee Sang-min, his eyes glistening, clenched his fists tightly as he spoke.
The Jamsil Galaxy Arena's dedicated stadium.
Once oppressively subdued with its unprecedented eight-player roster, the venue was now boiling over with fervor.
Though the difference from ordinary stadiums filled with spectators was—
"Congratulations on your victory! Did you anticipate this win against Palestine from the start?"
"There are claims you said Palestine would be an easy win. Is that true?"
"What exactly is your precise class? Many are curious!"
"During your Platinum Debut Match, you stated summoning Demons was impossible. How did you summon such a massive horde of Demonic Beasts this time?!"
"Player Kim Si-mun! Regarding the summons you displayed in this match—"
The source of the stadium's heat wasn't spectators,
but—
"How do you feel about the discord with past national team members?"
"Rumors say you joined the national team through Association connections and ousted the selected players. Is that accurate?"
"What is your relationship with the Association President? How did you cut 23 national representatives at once? Is there someone else pulling the strings behind you?!"
"Just one word, please!!"
—countless camera lenses, flashes, and reporters.
Sigh. This is dizzying.
An involuntary sigh escaped him.
It couldn't be helped.
The barrage of camera flashes was one thing, but—
When the hell did I ever say any of that?
Where were these statements he'd supposedly made even coming from?
"Everyone, step back! This is a restricted area for authorized personnel only!"
"Advance further, and we will take direct action."
"Hey! Don't cross that line!"
Even the security team and national team players—
all united to form a wall around Si-mun, but that was it.
"Player Kim Si-mun! Just one word!"
"Let go! We bear the public's right to know!!"
"Viewers, are you seeing this? An Awakened is assaulting a non-Awakened. This is excessive suppression!"
From terrestrial broadcasts to private streams—
the swarming crowd wasn't something they could easily handle.
Most of them were ordinary people, while most on this side were Awakened.
One wrong move, and casualties could occur.
Then—
Buzz.
Feeling a slight vibration in his pocket, Si-mun pulled out his phone.
Then—
Snap.
A crisp, light sound cut through the stadium's chaos.
Si-mun raised his hand and flicked his fingers.
An act devoid of any intent, unlike usual, yet it seized the attention of everyone present.
"There's still one more Special Match left, so I won't be doing separate interviews. And—"
Si-mun casually waved the phone he was holding.
"Since I've been summoned by the Association President and must head to the Association immediately, anyone dissatisfied with my refusal to interview may file a complaint directly with Iron Wood King Kim Mu-yeol, the Association President."
"......"
"......"
A silence as heavy as a crushing weight descended.
Iron Wood King.
And Association President Kim Mu-yeol.
The effect of that name exceeded even Si-mun's expectations.
"T-the Iron Wood King?!"
"Ahem! If the Association President calls, there's nothing to be done..."
Was this how Moses felt in the Bible?
This is practically cheat-code level...
Without lifting a finger—
Si-mun parted Korea's most treacherous sea and strolled leisurely through the gap.