SC vs TLB
The 2023 PCK Summer Promotion Series.
For a first-division team it was the nightmare of relegation. For a second-division team it was the hope of climbing up. SC, the organization Han Seongun belonged to, had come to fight in that tournament.
They had finished second in PCLK, the second division, at seven wins and two losses. Set aside JG—who were a first-division side in all but name—and SC had been the most conspicuous team in the league. They had proved they belonged in the Promotion Series.
A little farther, and they could reach the dream every second-division roster chased: promotion into the first division. But...
"Ah, shit."
"They hit B."
"Can we get off it? Backup's coming."
"Ah, sorry. Too late... Haah, shit, we're getting absolutely rolled."
On the road to that dream, the Promotion Series, they looked as if they had walked straight into a wall.
On Ascent, the map they themselves had picked, the score sat at a hopeless 8–3. With SC short on money, the next round was likely to stretch it to 9–3. And this was Ascent, a map everyone called defender-sided, after they had been handed defense first.
If anything about it was predictable, it was this: the team's mood was already a wreck. They weren't saying what needed to be said, and the only sound coming through the voice channel was sighing.
"Haah, we're screwed. Even on a defense map, down 9–3..."
"The game isn't over. Focus."
"Hyung, haven't we already lost? You know our attack win rate in scrims."
"It's still not over, though. Let's lock in and play it out."
"Yeah, right. What's focusing going to change..."
His teammates had already smelled the loss. Pola, the oldest of them, tried to settle the others down, but it did little good. Pola himself was halfway convinced they were beaten.
The score was already 8–3. No—effectively 9–3. They could tell themselves the second-half attack would claw it back, but ever since Nebula had been moved onto entry, SC's offense had been a complete mess. It was hardly strange that Pola could already feel the first set slipping away.
Everyone had sunk into helplessness and was thinking about the next set—or, in truth, about the next Promotion Series—when a voice cut in.
"Hey."
Han Seongun, who had barely spoken all game outside the briefings that mattered, spoke up out of nowhere. He was talking to teammates who had already half abandoned the match.
"I've got one favor to ask."
"I'm not planning to give up on this game. Losing is even further from my mind."
As if any of them didn't know that. Unlike the trio, whose releases were all but confirmed no matter how the Promotion Series ended, Nebula could stay if he wanted to stay. It didn't even have to be SC. Plenty of first-division teams would take Nebula. Nebula was special.
And that specialness was exactly why the rest of them, Pola aside, had been jealous of him.
"Season ends and you're getting cut, so you'll just phone it in? If that's what you're thinking, listen carefully."
Nebula said the thing that struck the three of them in the bone. Dead on the mark. Any other day they would have torn into him and snarled right back, but this once they couldn't get a word out.
"I'll get us the win. So shut up and listen to me."
They were the same three who usually chewed Han Seongun out for sport, and still, this time, they had no choice but to take it.
"If you win too, and we actually get promoted, you'll be able to find another team just fine. Getting through a Promotion Series and going up is a massive line on a career by itself."
He had a point. Teams that had successfully climbed from the second division to the first could be counted on one hand. There was a reason the leagues were split. The gap between them was enormous, and the best second-division sides always met that wall here.
But if they broke it?
Even players whose skill would normally struggle to land them on a second-division roster would have a career they could actually point to.
"I'll get you the win."
To them, the words tasted sweet. Hate him or not, the carrot he held out was too hard to refuse.
"I'll win it for you, so shut up and do what I say."
"Uh... yeah."
"Got... it."
"Mm..."
In the end they answered with some stupid noise that might have been agreement and might have been a mumble, and the trio went along with him.
Pathetic.
I didn't ask Choi Eunha to come to the arena just so I could show her this.
Stupid.
I didn't debut in PCLK to play like this.
Humiliating.
I didn't become a pro gamer so I could feel like this.
Why did I even want to be one?
At first I simply liked being held up as talented. I had been called a genius since I was little, and as the world started treating me like an ordinary person, Project A was the only place left where I could be special again the way I used to be. It made me happy when someone looked at me that way. It thrilled me when people looked up at me. So I got arrogant, the way a kid does, and I even put on a mysterious persona that never suited me.
Most of those famous pros wanted to play with me. Maybe I had no choice but to get conceited.
Anyway, to me Project A was only a tool for filling my self-esteem—a way back to those childhood days when they called me a genius of the world. Nothing more, nothing less. That was what I thought. So at first I was skeptical about going pro, too. I might have had to face the fact that I wasn't the genius I believed I was.
Time passed. After I met you, that changed.
Those two weeks with you at the Platform Exhibition were not some tool for patching up my ego. They were fun. Unbelievably fun. Fun enough that I wondered if I had ever enjoyed a game that much. Teammates whose hearts lined up, all of us moving toward a single goal. Back then, you showed me what this game actually is. You showed me it wasn't just something to fill a hole in my pride.
After that, I decided to debut.
What I learned once I did was that the job was not the romance-soaked place I had imagined. Not everyone here was chasing an ideal, and they didn't dream the dream I did. So until not long ago, I was thinking I might simply quit.
But. But, listen.
"If Project A were a one-on-one game? Ugh... I think I'd throw up. No, that's just because I played a ton of ones with some kid way back."
"It's more fun when there are more people, right? Five of you becoming one team and moving toward a single goal—that's more fun."
"I really like that. The cooperation, the team play. The things you can't feel in a game you play alone."
Do I really have to look at it from so far away? Even if we don't dream the same dream. Even if we aren't looking at the same ideal. If, in this game at least, we can move together toward the single goal of winning—isn't that enough?
And now that I think about it, those words were yours too. You really do make me realize a lot.
"Ah..."
Was this meant to make me see it all over again? Or was it only a coincidence—that I glanced at the stands during the buy phase and found you there? That I saw you staring at the screen with a sullen face, as if you didn't like what you were watching?
Was it really a coincidence?
No. What does that matter.
What matters is that I saw you, and that you are not satisfied with the me I am right now.
"Hey."
Thank you, Choi Eunha.
"I'm not planning to give up on this game. Losing is even further from my mind."
For getting me back on my feet.
"Season ends and you're getting cut, so you'll just phone it in? If that's what you're thinking, listen carefully."
So...
"I'll get you the win."
"If you win too and we get promoted, you'll be able to find another team just fine. Getting through the Promotion Series is a massive career line by itself."
This time, I'll show you.
A hopeless score, but too early to give up. They had dug into our weaknesses. All we had to do was dig into theirs.
"Kids. I've said it before, but TLB doesn't put bodies in mid on Ascent."
The second-half buy phase. Aside from a timeout, this was the window when the players and the coach could talk freely.
"They only smoke mid off, or check it with Killjoy's Alarmbot. Everyone else tends to stack the mains."
And through that window, Coach Kim Sangho was handing us TLB's weakness.
"So don't open by brawling on the mains. Start by touching mid. Understood?"
"Coach."
"Yeah?"
"Please let me call again."
"...You're the entry right now. We already decided Gyeonghwan would IGL. And did this come out of a talk with the team?"
"Yes. Gyeonghwan accepted it, and so did everyone else. And..."
Entry and IGL. Two roles that pulled in opposite directions, carried at the same time. Practically impossible. Even if it were possible, it would be insane.
But...
Coach, is it all right if I push it a little this game?
"I can entry and IGL at the same time."
He had done something like that once before.
"...I'm only asking because I'm worried. This isn't just bravado, is it?"
"No."
"Fine. But if it looks like it isn't working, I'm calling a timeout and the IGL goes straight back to Gyeonghwan. Everyone clear?"
"Yes!"
"Thank you. For trusting me."
"Don't thank me. If anything, I'm sorry. I haven't done a damn thing all this time."
"...Coach?"
"All of you, let's go! Remember what I said! Their mid—"
...Time was up.
The line to the coach had cut. Thirty seconds of prep remained.
"Byeoli, B Main alone. The rest of you, on me."
And thirty seconds was more than enough time to set an attack.
"Yeah. Got it."
"...Okay."
Them finishing second only happened because Nebula put on a superhuman carry. They don't even have the skill to be at a Promotion Series.
Nebula's base weight class is different, sure, since he actually hit rank one on the Asia server. The rest, though...
Pola at least pulls his own weight with real FPS pro experience. Everyone else is pure despair.
[SC cheering section, masked girl.jpg]
She's gorgeous...
http://ProjectAGallery/board..
Pretty sure this is Eunha. The outfit matches the proof post exactly.