Ecosystem Menace (2)
“This is team leader Dokgo Jun. Team, are you all ready?”
“Yes. Ready to go.”
“Juni-hyung~ Our hyung’s in top form today! Cinch those belts tight!”
“Nyo-nyong~ Kumonyong will just trust the oppas and follow along, nyong~”
Before the tournament began, the four streamers gathered in voice chat.
Dokgo Jun, the team leader who had pulled the members together, suddenly spoke in a cautious voice, sounding more than a little uneasy.
“Since this is a team formed to win the championship, let’s all do our best... uh... wait, is this really okay? We might catch some heat for this.”
After finalizing the roster, he had gone back to his main account and grinded ranked matches in earnest.
In the end, Dokgo Jun had risen from Gold 1 to Platinum 4, climbing two whole tiers and setting a new personal best.
As for Kumonyong, the weakest of them all and originally Bronze 4, she had also done her best... though that still somehow meant dropping to Bronze 5.
Either way, she had been recruited only to satisfy the tier-point limit, so nobody had expected skill from her in the first place.
The real issue was the one-two punch meant to carry the team’s combat power.
“I mean, we signed up as Platinum and figured, after watching your stream clips, you’d at least make Diamond without breaking a sweat—but come on, Crown and Ace? Isn’t that a little much?”
“Ahem! We stayed within the rules. If you’ve got a problem, take it up with the law!”
At Choi Pinam’s loud, self-righteous retort, Dokgo Jun felt a little headache coming on.
It was true that after roster confirmation, ranks could still go up without violating the rules, but hadn’t they pushed that a bit too far?
Still, since it wasn’t technically against the regulations, it should be fine.
“Ah, whatever. That’s on the organizers. Let’s just crush everything and win!”
“That’s the spirit!”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Oh yeah~ Kumonyong always gets knocked out right away in tournaments, so please take care of me, oppas! I wanna win too, nyong!”
At this point, the only right move was to be shameless about it.
If they were small-time streamers with low viewer counts, they might have worried over every little issue and tried to keep a low profile.
But Dokgo Jun was a partner streamer with a big-company reputation.
There might be room to argue over his teammates’ tiers, but nothing about it was morally wrong.
So he decided he might as well embrace the role of villain, stir up some noise like it was a marketing stunt, and bulldoze the competition with the two of them out front on the way to the title.
If it bugs you that much, why don’t you all just show up ten-plus tiers above the rank you signed up with too?
And so, among the streamers gathered for the tournament.
As expected, talk spread about Yeongho and Choi Pinam’s tiers, with plenty of people saying it was going too far.
“No, this is ridiculous!”
“A top Diamond player can absolutely hit Crown. But two people who signed up as Platinum showing up with Crown and Ace? That’s absurd!”
“Isn’t that fake tiering? Everyone else struggled so hard just to build teams that fit the point cap!”
“Ahem! I’m Dokgo Jun, Dokgo Jun! Do you know how long I’ve been streaming? When have I ever done anything to cause trouble? This just happened to line up that way, that’s all!”
With a commotion breaking out before the tournament even started, even the event staff were left with headaches.
But what could they do?
They couldn’t very well delay a tournament they’d worked hard to promote and prepare.
And strictly speaking, nothing about this violated the rules, so they had no solid grounds to sanction Dokgo Jun’s team.
In the end, the streamer tournament went ahead on schedule.
Viewers who had already entered the platform’s official broadcast channel early sat back and watched the opening controversy with gleeful chatter.
There were viewers who pointed out the unfairness, but most simply found the very existence of the controversy entertaining.
After all, the streamer friendship tournament had been marketed to most people like a variety show.
When something went wrong, they laughed, gawked, and enjoyed the spectacle; very few got genuinely upset and started making serious objections.
One thing was certain, though.
From the very start, Dokgo Jun’s team had completely seized the role of the event’s most attention-grabbing stars.
Whether for good reasons or bad, being at the center of the conversation was an unqualified boon for streamers, who lived on viewer attention.
“Hyung-nim, don’t worry about what people are saying. Debate or no debate, once you pull off a few cool plays, even the people who were trashing you will forget the petty stuff and go wild over it.”
“Yeah. I’m just going to focus on showing my skill.”
“Exactly! And all that noise from the other teams—well, sorry, but it’s just them panicking because they’re afraid they’ll end up as nobodies nobody talks about. So, hyung-nim.”
“The stage is set, so let’s put on a proper show.”
Yeongho nodded at Choi Pinam’s words and let his eyes sharpen with quiet focus.
Before long, a hundred streamers and twenty-five squads had gathered in the waiting room.
At the organizer’s signal, the first match began.
The friendly competition consisted of two total games, one in the first half and one in the second, and the two winning teams from those games would face off in a final on a small map specially made for the tournament.
If one team won both games, then the second-place teams from the two matches would be compared, and one of them would be selected as the challenger.
Two wins? That doesn’t sound too hard.
If the other teams had known he was thinking that, they would have blown a gasket.
But Yeongho, who had already ridden a streak of dozens of straight wins over the past week, naturally intended to make sure his own team took both victories.
With only two games and a final, there was no need to worry about losing focus and burning out.
On the scale of Battle Island, Yeongho could pretty much run wild for up to three straight matches and still be nearly untouchable no matter who he faced.
“I’m the team leader, but I’m trash at the game, so could God-bagee-nim or Pinam handle the calls?”
“Ah, actually, we don’t really need calls. Still, I’ll give basic direction.”
“Pinam will? All right, then.”
He didn’t really understand what it meant to not need calls, but Dokgo Jun didn’t dwell on Choi Pinam’s words and simply agreed.
They were heavenly-realm players, so surely they’d handle it themselves.
We never even got together to practice once, though. Still, those two will probably carry us.
To be fair, from Dokgo Jun’s perspective, even though he’d recruited the members in a hurry, there were still four days left before the tournament.
He had planned to use that time to queue up for regular matches and get everyone synchronized.
But Choi Pinam’s side had turned him down, saying,
— Uh... Juni-hyung, sorry, but our hyung-nim just debuted as a streamer, so right now he really needs to focus on his broadcast, okay? Either way, it probably won’t make that much difference. So let’s skip practice.
So all they had done was play separately on their own.
Honestly, he had even wondered whether he should argue that practice mattered at all, and he’d been a little annoyed at the thought that maybe he was the only one taking the tournament seriously.
But after seeing the two of them climb tiers at a ridiculous pace to get here, he decided they were probably strong enough to back it up and let the matter go.
“That way!”
Following Choi Pinam’s call, which was supposedly just a basic directional suggestion.
The four of them jumped out of the plane, the game’s starting point, and hurled themselves toward the small townhouse complex they’d marked as their target.
Experienced players, when dropping from the plane, waited as long as possible to open their parachutes, staying close to the ground.
That shortened the drop and secured first priority on loot ahead of everyone else.
Normally, players aimed to open their parachutes at around two hundred meters above the ground.
That was the sweet spot for seasoned players—close enough to land safely without injury.
Below one hundred meters, the parachute wouldn’t fully deploy, and you had to assume you’d slam into the ground and die or suffer serious injuries.
That was why the true veterans opened their parachutes at a razor-thin window somewhere between one hundred and one hundred fifty meters.
There was a risk of injury since they didn’t fully slow down, but it also guaranteed they could seize the looting area first.
As someone had said, so many parachutes opened in one place that it was hard to tell at a glance how many people had landed there.
<Ha! Those humans look serious.>
<So they really are trying to dogpile us, huh? This is about to turn into a complete mess the second they land.>
<Eep! What do I do, nyong!? Doesn’t this mean I’m dead the moment I hit the ground!?>
Through the team voice chat, Yeongho, who had just landed and rolled once across the ground, activated Battle Sense and scanned the space above him.
If he had looked with ordinary eyes, it would have been hard to grasp at once.
But the detection net spread out through his heightened senses picked up the number of people with perfect accuracy.
Thirty-nine? That’s a lot.
Since the three allies were excluded, that left thirty-six enemies to deal with.
A full nine squads had jumped in after Dokgo Jun’s team.
Considering they had landed at an isolated spot that couldn’t even be called part of the main loot zone, let alone near it, this was a completely absurd sight.
There was only one thing that could mean.
They’re teaming.
The other squads had implicitly agreed to wipe out Dokgo Jun’s team, one of the strongest championship contenders, right from the start.
Choi Pinam had actually chosen the small housing area as their starting point because he’d thought this might happen.
Even so, for forty percent of all players to gather in one place, they had clearly managed to get under the other teams’ skin.
I need to move as fast as I can.
Thinking that, Yeongho kicked open the door of the house in front of him and charged inside.
He could feel someone following right behind him, but he recognized the presence as Choi Pinam’s through pure instinct and didn’t bother looking back.
“Hyung-nim! I’ll take the second floor!”
“Yes. I’ll go first.”
By now they were so in sync after a week of playing together that Yeongho understood Choi Pinam’s brief shout immediately and moved without hesitation.
He yielded the nearest first-floor loot to Yeongho so he could prepare for the battle that was about to begin, and in return he rushed to the second floor to arm himself before joining up again, clearly meaning to provide cover from behind.
Choi Pinam sprinted up the stairs to the second floor at full speed, glanced at the situation through the window, and started thinking fast.
Too many! No matter how amazing hyung-nim is, we need to spread the numbers out.
Yeongho had opened his parachute at almost the exact moment needed for a one-hundred-meter drop, while Choi Pinam had deployed his at around one hundred and thirty meters.
Dokgo Jun had opened at a little over two hundred meters, and Kumonyong, true to her Bronze 5 status, had opened hers at a point that was nearly four hundred meters out.
Leaving Dokgo Jun aside, Kumonyong was still floating lazily from far above, so it didn’t seem likely she would be able to regroup in step with the others.
Having sorted out his thoughts, Choi Pinam dashed into the room and issued orders.
“Kumonyong! Cut left! You don’t need to come here!”
<Eh? Then won’t I die, nyong?>
“It’s fine! Just follow the order!”
<Hwaeeng-!>
Since it was already hopeless for her to join up, Kumonyong was effectively sent off as bait.
“Juni-hyung! Don’t come inside—just buy us some time near the area!”
<Huh? I’m right in front of the entrance though?>
“Just draw the other teams’ attention! We’ll handle the rest!”
<Tch! I don’t get it, so just carry me!>
Dokgo Jun, who had just landed in the yard and was hurrying toward the building entrance, abandoned the idea of going in and instead ran along the outside wall at Choi Pinam’s command.
Players who had landed around the same time swarmed toward him—more than ten of them.
“There he is!”
“Get him!”
“You dirty bastard!”
“You think bringing in a fake-tier player makes you cool?!”
“Kill him!”
They came charging in with fists clenched and savage momentum.
“I’m not fake-tier! I didn’t do anything wrong!”
He dodged left and right, trying to escape the cluster of enemies, but there were too many of them, and he quickly ran out of places to flee before getting caught.
Thwack! Crack! Thwack-thwack!
“Aaagh! Shit! You crazy bastards!”
They had all rushed in without even bothering to loot, so the damage wasn’t especially heavy from any single hit.
But because he wasn’t getting pummeled by just one or two people, his health dropped below half in an instant.
Just as Dokgo Jun, thinking he was probably about to die here, gave up on life halfway—
Twooong-!
A bullet fired from the first-floor window pierced the head of the enemy who had been about to slam a straight punch into Dokgo Jun’s face.
And then, vaulting over the windowsill, one figure appeared.
Whirr—click!
Spinning the Winchester as he reloaded it, Yeongho fixed the enemies with a sharp gaze and pulled the trigger.