The Final Match
Every gunshot stole a life.
The players fired back with desperate resolve, but there wasn’t a single person here who could thread a bullet through the open window of a moving vehicle from a kilometer away with that kind of precision.
“Damn it! Why won’t they go down?”
“Then you try shooting!”
“Just blow up the car already!”
As one player suggested, quite a few of them gave up on aiming for the people inside and started emptying their magazines straight at the vehicle instead.
It was easier to hit, for one thing, and once the durability ran out, it would explode anyway.
Besides, after they got out, the terrain here didn’t offer much in the way of cover. A concentrated barrage should be enough to mow them down in short order.
The problem was that the car Dokgo Jun’s team had arrived in wasn’t just any car.
It was a high-mobility tactical vehicle, the kind that only had a chance to spawn in military loot zones or supply depots—the sort of machine people usually knew as a Humvee.
With armor panels and bulletproof glass slapped all over it, it wasn’t the kind of vehicle that crumpled just because a few bullets hit it.
Because the radioactive zone kept shrinking, the combatants had already closed to about seven hundred meters.
Even so, they were still outside the effective range of most firearms.
Of course, being outside effective range didn’t mean bullets lost all their force.
Battle Island was a game, after all, which meant the damage calculations for distance were clearly defined.
Once you added the heavy damage drop-off from being out of range and the fact that the target was one of the toughest tactical vehicles in the game, even a few dozen people spraying bullets at it could only chip away at its durability at a pace so maddeningly slow it felt like the attackers might choke on their own frustration.
While that was happening, the number of players picked off by sniper fire had already climbed into the twenties.
The count, which had been well over seventy, had fallen to fifty.
“This isn’t going to work! Just get out there and fight!”
“Close the distance a bit! Once you’re up close, even a bulletproof car turns into rags in no time!”
“Isn’t it still better to fight here?”
“If we just lob a few grenades in, the game’s over! Let’s go!”
As panic set in and it started to look like they’d be crushed the same way as the previous match, several squads rushed out of the building and began sprinting toward the vehicle.
Opinions split. The group fractured.
Some squads agreed that getting close and fighting was the right call.
Others muttered, Isn’t that a little much? and stayed in cover, focusing on suppressive fire.
Some even decided the smartest move was to keep their heads down, muttering that the one who laughed last was the winner, and pulled back from the battlefield entirely.
Still, about twenty people managed to gather themselves and charge.
Then, just as the distance between the two sides shrank to around five hundred meters, the vehicle that had been circling in loops suddenly jerked its wheel and charged straight at the advancing attackers.
“W-wait!? It’s coming!”
“At this distance, we’ve got enough! Fire!”
“No! Throw grenades!”
Their teamwork was a mess, all hesitation and confusion, but in the end most of them did pull out grenades and hurl them forward.
The vehicle was coming straight at them, and the gap was closing fast.
On top of that, grenades, if timed right, could deal far more damage than gunfire.
So roughly twenty grenades arced through the air toward the charging vehicle.
If even half of them landed, it would be enough to wreck it.
But the situation did not unfold the way they expected.
Crack! Bang! Crack! Bang-bang!
From the back seat, a man leaned out over the window and used the rapid fire of the pistols in both hands to knock the grenades out of the air.
It was Yeongho, who had switched from the Winchester to dual pistols the moment the grenade trajectory changed.
In the span of about two seconds, more than a dozen grenades were struck by bullets and sent bouncing off in useless directions.
The rest either failed to reach the vehicle at all or landed in spots where they could do only a little damage.
“W-what the hell?”
“Huh? Eeeh!?”
“Jesus, no way...”
The grenade throwers stared with their mouths hanging open, unable to believe what they were seeing no matter how hard they rubbed their eyes.
Then the grenades began detonating one after another, and the entire battlefield exploded into chaos. Everyone was knocked flat by the ear-splitting roar and the shockwaves, too stunned to even lift their heads.
Some of the grenades Yeongho had shot down had fallen back behind the throwers the instant they left their hands, rolling right into the middle of the players.
In a single heartbeat, complete havoc erupted, and the charging group was annihilated on the spot.
Yeongho calmly reloaded, then began driving bullets into the bodies of the enemies staggering to their feet or crawling helplessly across the ground.
The players who had rushed out to stop the vehicle were slaughtered before they even got the chance to do anything.
There were now fewer than thirty people left.
It was still technically a winnable numbers game, but the enemies’ morale had collapsed so completely that they couldn’t form up properly; they scattered in every direction, only to be hunted down one by one by Dokgo Jun’s team.
And just like that, the second match also ended with the spotlight fixed on a single man, the curtain falling on another scene.
“Yaaay! We’re on a winning streak, nyong!”
“This actually worked...”
“Good work, everyone. That ended faster than I thought.”
“Huh? The tournament’s not over yet.”
“Right, that’s true. The finals are still left.”
The final match still remained, but by then the atmosphere was already one of near-certain victory.
What squad could possibly stand up to Dokgo Jun’s team, after they had already flattened the field even with seventy people trying to stop them?
As they waited to put on the grand finale, the tournament seemed to stall for a moment—then a platform staff member contacted Dokgo Jun, the team leader, with a bizarre proposal.
“No, wait. How are you just going to change the rules now?”
It already looks too obvious how this ends, and the viewers are going to lose interest. Isn’t there some way to make it work?
“I mean, come on...”
Normally, if there was a repeated winner like this, the organizers would draw the opponent from among the second-place teams in each game.
But the suggestion here was to bring both second-place teams into the finals and turn it into a three-way match.
Honestly, it was basically the same as telling them to take on two squads at once.
Yeongho didn’t think they’d lose even then, but there was no reason to accept a rule change that only put them at a disadvantage, so he was still weighing the issue when—
“Let’s just do it. I’m confident.”
“Oh. Uh, really?”
Since Yeongho, who was basically the true power in the team, had given the green light, the rest of the teammates, who hadn’t been keen on the idea, immediately changed their minds and voted in favor too.
“Sure, why not? It’s not like it gets much harder.”
“We went through two whole matches and I didn’t even get to fire a gun once, nyong! Yeongho took them all out before KumoNyong could even shoot! This time, I’m really going to make my mark, nyong!”
“Well, if Godfather says yes and nobody else has a problem with it, then let’s go with that.”
Tens of thousands of viewers were watching the broadcast.
They had already endured all the absurdity thrown at them and still won. At this point, he decided there was no way they could show weakness just because another squad was added.
No matter how the opponents come at us, we have to keep winning quietly and cleanly. That way the viewers can cheer without a single complaint.
With that thought in mind, Yeongho sat calmly and waited for the tournament to resume.
Once the organizers finished setting the map, a message inviting the finalists appeared.
The final battle.
Since this was a small-format tournament map where the match began directly on the ground without parachuting in, the team members immediately started scanning the area for loot.
“Whoa! Is this place just an abandoned house?”
“Feels more like a farm building, nyong! I’ve heard places like this rarely have good gear, so this is a bad start!”
“Oh, right. The female streamer who made the viewer-selected ranking of streamers whose brains and bodies seem to live separate lives. Even if KumoNyong is terrible at games, she really does know her info~”
“Eek! I’ll bite you!”
Unlike the others, Yeongho moved out ahead and swept his detection range across the area first. Once he identified the positions of the enemy teams, he frowned slightly.
The opposing squads were spread out to the left and right.
If they stayed still, they’d be pincered from both sides, which would put them at a disadvantage no matter what.
It feels like they arranged this on purpose, not randomly.
He let it go as a cute little bit of resistance from the organizers.
In the end, it wouldn’t change the outcome anyway.
While the others were tearing through the farm buildings, complaining over voice chat about the absurdly poor loot, Dokgo Jun’s team had managed to find only two firearms.
The farming area was already a massive shell of a place, all size and no substance.
Even so, it was ridiculous that the entire haul amounted to a single revolver and a sawed-off shotgun.
On top of that, the only other items they found were a few bandages, some useless ammo that didn’t even match anything they had, and, if they were being generous, a single level-one bulletproof helmet.
“Doesn’t this seem a little weird?”
“Feels like the map settings adjusted the drop rate or something.”
“This is the worst loot run I’ve ever had, nyong!”
“Seriously! They already agreed to change the rules, and now they’re crossing the line?”
It felt like someone had intentionally meddled with the probability settings so that this team wouldn’t get decent items.
But there was no proof, so there was nothing to argue with.
If they just insisted it was bad luck, there wasn’t any immediate way to check.
“Can’t be helped. For now, the hyeong-nim and I will take the guns.”
“Haah, what is this, some farming sim tournament? I made it all the way to the finals just to end up carrying a pitchfork around.”
“I’m completely unarmed, nyong!”
“Doesn’t matter if you get a weapon anyway—you can’t fight with it.”
“Kyaaah!”
“Hey, don’t bite me! I’m already bleeding!”
Yeongho, who was the strongest combatant on the team, took the revolver, while Choi Pinam equipped the shotgun.
Even their weapons were lacking, and what they did have were a pistol and a shotgun—the firearms with the shortest effective range of all.
Choi Pinam’s sawed-off shotgun, in particular, scattered its pellets over a wide spread, making it easier to hit targets but brutally short-ranged.
The only vaguely good thing about it was that it was light and easy to carry.
But because the pellets spread out, the damage was divided as well, which made it a pretty lousy gun overall.
“You should take the helmet, Pinam-ssi.”
“Huh? But wouldn’t it be better if hyeong-nim wore it?”
“I can just dodge.”
“Damn! That’s the kind of line I’m supposed to push back against, but I know how good you are, hyeong-nim... Fine, got it!”
After distributing all the gear, Yeongho concentrated on the sensations in the air and picked up the approach of enemy players, signaling that it was time to prepare for battle.
“What should we do? Fight here?”
“There don’t seem to be many places to take cover—just a bunch of half-collapsed buildings...”
“With our gear in this state, we’d have a hard time fighting out in the open, nyong!”
“Ugh. Hold on a second.”
They were poorly armed, and the location wasn’t exactly the kind of place you’d want to defend.
At the same time, rushing out recklessly didn’t seem like a good decision either.
Choi Pinam, who needed to give the orders, didn’t seem able to settle on a clear direction, so Yeongho stepped in first and spoke up.
“I’ll go out and stop one team. While I’m doing that, the rest of you should handle the other team from here.”
“Uh... wouldn’t it be better if we all went out and cleared one side first?”
“From what I can tell, there’s going to be a big difference in armament. Maybe I can handle it, but the rest of you would be in danger. Just hold out until I get back.”
To put it bluntly, he was saying that he could manage, but they probably couldn’t. Still, instead of pushing back in irritation, the team chose to accept it.
It was better to wait behind at least a little cover than to trail after him into the field without armor and get taken out by a stray bullet.
That said, having everyone stay on defense wasn’t possible either, because there wasn’t enough cover to go around.
And if two teams joined forces, then in the blink of an eye everyone except Yeongho could be wiped out.
“All right! We’ll hold out until hyeong-nim gets back!”
“Come back fast, nyong!”
“And if you can, bring some guns back with you!”
Nobody objected to the casual way they spoke about winning a four-on-one fight and coming back alive.
By now, everyone knew he was the kind of monster who could do exactly that.
After Yeongho split off from the team, he used the detection range again to gauge the distance, then moved quickly toward the closer enemies.
Around the farm, there was nothing much to hide behind besides a few trees, so the two sides recognized each other almost immediately and plunged straight into combat.
“Aaaah! It’s him!”
“Him? What do you mean, him?”
“Ghk! Shoot, shoot, shoot!”
Him? What kind of way is that to refer to a person?
He wanted to ask about that bizarre reaction, but there was no time for it now. He raised the revolver and focused all his attention.
Let’s pour everything we have left into this match.
It was the final game, after all.
He intended to push his concentration to the limit, take out the enemies as fast as possible, and then rejoin his teammates.
In a single instant, the enemy movements seemed to slow to a crawl.
With cries that stretched out like a warped tape, bullets began pouring toward him.
Hooosh—
He drew a deep breath, filling his lungs with oxygen, then recognized the enemies’ motions and the direction of their gun barrels, drawing every bullet’s path in his mind before he kicked off the ground with all his strength and pulled the trigger at his target.