Week 7 Mentoring, PvP (11)
Song Cheon-hye100% vs Son Hyeong-taek78%
Crystal:0%
A single body slam had carved a massive chunk out of Son Hyeong-taek's health gauge.
The impact knocked the crystal clean out of his grip, but even as he tumbled head over heels across the ground, he flashed enough agility to snatch it right back up. And the way he then popped to his feet without so much as a wobble, settling into his stance as if nothing had happened, certainly befitted a physical-type class.
"..."
For the briefest of moments, the two of them squared off, glaring at each other.
Son Hyeong-taek moved first. He stepped forward and hammered the air with rapid punches, and a barrage of fist winds came shooting out.
- Papapapow!
While Song Cheon-hye advanced to meet him, swatting the incoming fist winds aside one by one, Son Hyeong-taek spun on his heel and fled the spot.
That's his best play right now.
It had become clear that Song Cheon-hye held the advantage not only in combat power but even in pure movement speed — and yet, standing and trading blows now would be the worst possible move. The only way for Son Hyeong-taek to seize victory was to hunker down and charge the crystal, and for that, he had to reach the Sanctuary first, however cowardly it might look.
Song Cheon-hye gave chase at once. As she ran, she spread one hand open, and the current coursing over her ink-black gauntlet split in two, assembling itself into a pair of hummingbirds.
Hummingbird
- Bzzt-crackle,
The two birds of lightning sliced across the open air on sleek, nimble wings.
"......!"
Keeping his pace, Son Hyeong-taek stole a glance over his shoulder, and the instant the first hummingbird dove in at him, he broke into evasive footwork. Irregular footprints stamped into the ground as his figure blurred for the briefest instant like an afterimage, and the hummingbird skimmed past him by a hair's breadth.
Seriously, she can't even hit that?...
All she had to do was control it a little more finely. Poor control looked like it would remain Song Cheon-hye's homework for a long while yet.
"Ah."
Song Cheon-hye herself clearly hadn't expected to miss; for an instant, a crack split right down her expressionless face. But as if this much fell within tolerable limits, she recovered her composure at once and smoothly steered the next hummingbird.
- BZZT-CRACK!
Fortunately, the second one struck home. Son Hyeong-taek's movements slowed noticeably for a few seconds,
"Hah!"
but with a sharp battle cry, a faint wave of ki rippled out from his entire body and his movements snapped back to normal. He had shaken off the paralysis with some manner of debuff-cleansing skill.
And so the chase went on, pursuer and pursued. The two of them climbed up and down terraced cliffs that stepped like staircases, treating them as if they were flat ground.
- Bzzzt-crack-crack-crack,
Song Cheon-hye came surging on as a living current. Once more, the distance between them was closing fast.
"......Ngh!"
Son Hyeong-taek glanced behind him and panicked. He must have sensed intuitively that another body slam was coming if this kept up, because he began punching wildly in every direction even as he ran.
- Ku-boom! Ku-boom!
Towering crags along his path burst apart and toppled, the ground churned itself inside out, and chunks of rock large and small scattered in every direction. For Song Cheon-hye trailing behind, dodging or blocking them forced her to slow down whether she liked it or not.
- Vreee—
Son Hyeong-taek crossed into the Sanctuary's radius a step ahead. The rock standing like a lighthouse and the crystal linked up with a thick beam of light,
and the charge gauge began to fill. Even then, Son Hyeong-taek didn't slow his pace one bit — apparently he had resolved to do nothing but run until the match ended.
That's it. Nice work.
Go, Son Hyeong-taek, go!
With Dang Gyu-young nearby, I couldn't cheer out loud, so I kept a grave expression on my face and sent my encouragement silently. If he was going to do it anyway, I'd have preferred he got even dirtier about it — kicked up billowing clouds of dust, thrown in a few taunting one-liners while he was at it.
Because,
I'm going to be running around just like that myself.
The logic was simple: as much groundwork as Son Hyeong-taek was laying now, my own future behavior would be granted full legitimacy. So when my opponents inevitably complained,
"Quit running away already!"
"Why? I'm doing exactly what Son Hyeong-taek did."
I would have the perfect comeback ready.
Somewhat disappointingly, though, Son Hyeong-taek did not commit any of the various unsportsmanlike acts I had imagined and hoped for. Martial artists are, as a rule, a crowd accustomed to settling things face to face, so playing tag like this was probably alien to him in the first place — which was why dirty tricks never even crossed his mind.
Still, as far as running went, Son Hyeong-taek was doing his level best in his own way.
- KWA-BOOM!
His indiscriminate punching sent rocks crashing down in a rush from a nearby cliff. Every time Song Cheon-hye nearly caught up, he would throw up obstacles like this and open the gap again. She caught up again, he made more obstacles, the gap opened again.
All the while, the charge was creeping steadily upward. Song Cheon-hye glanced at the scoreboard and furrowed her brow.
She couldn't keep being dragged around like this. Deciding she needed a way through, she moved — not because some brilliant new scheme had come to her, but simply because she drew her mana up far, far higher than before. Yet when the mana poured into the same spell tripled, then quadrupled, the result was something else entirely.
- BZZZZZT-CRACK!
The lightning wreathing her body grew thicker and fiercer by the moment, until at last a full-blown bolt storm swallowed her whole.
- Rumble... rumble-rumble...
Merely moving made thunder roll without pause.
"Hah!"
Once again, a fist wind from Son Hyeong-taek blasted a boulder on the cliff into pieces that came pouring down. But unlike before, Song Cheon-hye pushed straight ahead as if no obstacle existed in front of her at all, and the debris crumbled away without a trace before it could even touch her.
Seeing that, Son Hyeong-taek's face went rigid.
"Oh, oh no."
It meant the obstacle strategy was dead. The distance kept shrinking. And to make matters worse,
the light pouring from the Sanctuary sputtered out, and the charge began to drop. He had poured all his attention into running and absentmindedly drifted out of the Sanctuary's range.
"Ngh......"
Judging that running any farther was hopeless, Son Hyeong-taek stopped and wheeled around. Bracing for the impact, he too drew up every scrap of mana he had, wreathed himself in it, and cast the strongest defensive skill in his arsenal. And at last, the two of them clashed for the second time this match.
- KRRRRUMBLE!! KWA-BOOM!!
"GWAAAAAAAH!!"
Son Hyeong-taek went flying with a harrowing scream. He bounced across the ground like a skipped stone and somehow managed to stay upright on two legs — but his mind was already on the verge of abandoning his body. His eyes had gone glassy, his body swaying drunkenly.
Mercilessly, Song Cheon-hye showed none of that any consideration. She closed the distance in a flash and brought a thunderbolt crashing down with everything she had.
- KWA-BOOM!
Song Cheon-hye — WIN
Son Hyeong-taek — LOSS
"Thank you for the match."
"..."
Song Cheon-hye bowed politely to Son Hyeong-taek, who lay sprawled out like a dead frog, then turned away. And when she returned to the stands through the teleport portal, Dang Gyu-young offered a brief word.
"Good work."
"Thank you."
Song Cheon-hye, too, dipped her head calmly. It had been a match where losing would have been stranger than winning, so neither of them needed any particular reaction.
Next, Dang Gyu-young turned her head and let her gaze fall on Hong Yeon-hwa and Gwak Ji-cheol. She seemed to be weighing which of the two to send out. As for me, I had been pushed all the way to the final match, so I wasn't under consideration at all.
Then, unexpectedly, Gwak Ji-cheol raised his hand.
"I'd like to fight in the second match."
"I was going to send Hong Yeon-hwa. Any particular reason?"
She would hear him out, but if it was nothing more than vanity, she wouldn't permit it. As a mentor, Dang Gyu-young had to strip emotion out of the equation as much as possible and put the team's victory first.
But surprisingly, Gwak Ji-cheol seemed to have thought it through in his own way.
"I heard something from my brother once. About Senior Kim Gap-du."
"Seung-jae did? What'd he say?"
"He said that, unlike most martial artists, he's cautious to the point of excess."
"Hm. That lines up with what I've heard."
Dang Gyu-young's team had led from the very start with their 900-point-tier Song Cheon-hye in the vanguard, while Kim Gap-du's team had sent out the 600-point-tier Son Hyeong-taek. He was half a discard card, and Son Hyeong-taek had played that role more than adequately. On top of that, if Kim Gap-du really was 'cautious to the point of excess' as the rumors said, there was a very good chance he would send out another 600-point-tier fighter — Il Gong — for the second match as well. Which was Gwak Ji-cheol's argument: with their point tiers so similar, he should be the one to face him.
Dang Gyu-young asked,
"And what if you draw Bukgung Han-seol instead? Can you beat her?"
However cautious Kim Gap-du might be, the possibility that he would want to grab a win in the second match couldn't be ruled out either.
Gwak Ji-cheol fell silent for a moment, then answered honestly.
"......Realistically, that would be difficult. But it would force them to burn a strong card, so I don't see it as a loss. And......"
Gwak Ji-cheol looked back and forth between me and Hong Yeon-hwa, then went on.
"......I hate to admit it, but those two are a little stronger than me."
Meaning: if a discard card had to be played at all, it was best played by the weakest hand — himself.
Dang Gyu-young confirmed once more.
"So — can you beat Il Gong?"
"I'll secure the crystal first, then dig in on defense. The terrain suits me well, too."
An earth-and-wood mage of the Emerald Magic Tower — whatever else you could say about him, his defense was rock solid. This arena, too, was strewn with stone, tailor-made for putting earth-attribute magic to use. So against a similar point tier, his chances looked good from every angle.
Dang Gyu-young studied Gwak Ji-cheol for a while, then nodded — apparently deciding this much was convincing enough.
"Good. Go get 'em."
Gwak Ji-cheol gave a small bow, then descended to the arena via the teleport circle. Soon, the names of both participants appeared on the scoreboard.
Gwak Ji-cheol620 pts vs Il Gong670 pts
Il Gong was indeed his opponent. Kim Gap-du really was the excessively cautious toad of rumor.
Meanwhile, I couldn't help but wonder at this point.
How did a man that cautious end up making a bet like that......
Both the four-on-four match and the wager felt less like something meticulously planned and prepared in advance and more like an impulse settled on the spot. He had even overreached on the stakes, dragging club privileges in on top of the elixirs.
Perhaps seeing Dang Gyu-young put me forward as her stand-in boyfriend had made him impatient. He must have thought this was his last chance. Such is what happens when a cautious toad goes blind with love — normal thinking becomes impossible.
In any case, the deed was already done; what mattered now was how the remaining matches would unfold.
I sent my support to Gwak Ji-cheol.
Stay strong, Gwak Ji-cheol.
If you and Hong Yeon-hwa both win, I won't even have to set foot in the arena.