Chapter 40

The long-awaited June 30th!

The matches would be held at the Arena in the Samseong-dong Player Zone.

A building where fair competition was possible, thanks to the System’s assistance!

• Now then! The national team tryouts we’ve all been waiting for have finally begun!

Just like any popular sporting event.

There were commentators, casters, and a full broadcast crew.

From the big three networks to independent streamers, countless cameras were rolling.

• Who will be selected for the national team this time around?! For reference, a total of ten players will be chosen today! They’ll receive government support and spend half a year preparing for the World League!

• That’s right. Government support aside, just being selected comes with incredible benefits, doesn’t it?

• From what I understand, they’re recognized as persons of national merit with a lifetime pension as a baseline, plus tax benefits on top of that. And recently, the government played its trump card! If they achieve a top-sixteen finish or better in the World League, they’ll receive enormous reward money based on their results!

• That just goes to show how desperate our South Korea’s situation really is!

While the broadcast crew took turns explaining the tryouts, citizens began gathering one by one in front of their TV screens.

Baek Jinwoo’s family was no exception.

“Mom! Mom! Hurry up!”

June 30th wasn’t a national holiday, but most companies guaranteed their staff members the day off.

Everyone knew that even if you made people work, they’d just be secretly watching the tryouts anyway.

Most companies figured it was better to let them rest and earn some goodwill.

Thanks to that, Madam Hwang Myeonghui didn’t go to work and was resting at home.

“Oppa’s about to be on!”

“Really?”

Hwang Myeonghui sat down on the living room sofa with a tray of cold beer cans.

“Dad, you too! Hurry!”

“Heheh, just wait a moment. They’re almost done frying.”

Sizzle, sizzzzle!

Dad had practically become a fried chicken researcher at this point.

Baek Jincheol, having showed off the skills he’d been practicing by frying up a delicious batch of chicken, also settled onto the sofa.

• Now then, it’s time to introduce the players who’ve entered the tryouts!

• That’s right! The government selected a total of forty players through various methods, and only ten of them will make the national team!

• I just want to point out that simply standing on that stage makes them remarkable players!

The commentators explained the players one by one, and familiar big-name players who’d been all over the media appeared organized on screen.

And among them.

• Next up is player Baek Jinwoo!

• Yes, he’s a hot player lately! The record holder of the Day Dungeon! I understand he made quite a bit of money selling that information to rankers.

• He’s certainly a player to watch and see what he’ll show us in this Player vs Player event!

“Wow, there, there! That’s Oppa!”

“Oh my, it really is!”

“Heheheh. That kid actually made it to the tryouts.”

Baek Ajin clapped her hands in excitement, while the couple stared at their son’s image on screen with expressions of utter disbelief.

It was nothing short of a family glory.

“Ajin.”

“Yeah, Mom.”

“Can your brother actually win there?”

“Come on, honey!”

It was Baek Jincheol who answered, not Baek Ajin.

“No matter how proud we are of our son, how could he possibly win there? Don’t you see the contestants? They’re all incredible people. This is just for the experience.”

“That’s right, Mom. Oppa’s been awakened for less than half a year. Just standing there is amazing enough. Come on, come on! Let’s toast and cheer for him anyway! To our Oppa’s future! Cheers!”

“Hehe, shall we? Cheers!”

The family’s beer cans clinked together in midair.

And at that very moment.

Outside the Arena, in a temporary waiting room.

Players and staff were gathered together, warming up before the matches.

Baek Jinwoo’s support crew totaled four.

Yu Jia, Park Changseok, Kim Byeongjin, and Hwang Taeseop.

“The first round is a team battle.”

Yu Jia sidled up next to Baek Jinwoo and whispered.

“If they’re selecting twenty, that means they’re cutting half right here…… You need to watch out for the existing cartel.”

“Existing cartel?”

“Yes, the players who were selected last year. They won’t bother going after each other.”

“Ah, that makes sense.”

People are inherently inclined to avoid risk.

The strong wouldn’t want to clash with each other, afraid one wrong move could get them eliminated.

So then?

They’d go after complete newcomers or the weak.

Just like Oh Jimyeong and Park Hoseop over there, blatantly eyeing him and licking their lips.

Yeah.

You two just wait.

I’ll make damn sure you’re the first ones I knock out.

When Baek Jinwoo briefly met their gazes.

Smirk.

The two rankers grinned.

Oh?

Baek Jinwoo let a quiet smile of his own creep across his face.

If the Five Emperors had done that, it might’ve actually gotten under his skin. But these two? They were just cute.

Like a pair of chicks chirping away.

Whether she noticed that silent staredown or not, Yu Jia kept talking.

“Don’t step out if you can help it at first. Watch the room and hold out as long as possible. It’ll still be tough, but that’s the best course of action.”

In truth, Yu Jia was starting to feel a creeping greed.

Of course she knew Baek Jinwoo couldn’t possibly achieve great results here.

Even if he is JinuGod.

He was a player who hadn’t even grown for a full year yet.

Meanwhile, the others were the nation’s top elites who’d spent three years pouring every last bit of money and runes into their Growth.

But.

Why was it?

Watching those calm, easy eyes of his, her heart pounded. Ba-dump, ba-dump! She could feel the excitement building.

Those eyes practically screamed, So, want me to cause another scene?

“Mr. Baek Jinwoo.”

“Yes?”

“If by any chance, just maybe, if by some miracle…… you make the final selection.”

“What, are you gonna give me more equity?”

“Yes, yes. I can absolutely do that much, so please give it your all.”

“Wait, seriously?”

Baek Jinwoo currently held a total seventy percent equity stake in Yubaek.

At first, that hadn’t really sunk in, but lately the reality of it was hitting him like a freight train.

He knew that even one percent of that equity was an astronomical sum.

She’s that desperate, huh?

It was touching, in a strange way.

That pure-hearted devotion, sacrificing even her own share to cheer him on.

Baek Jinwoo wasn’t cold-hearted enough to take from someone like that.

“The equity thing was a joke. Don’t worry.”

Baek Jinwoo smirked.

“Even if heaven and earth flip upside down, there’s no way I’m getting knocked out at this level.”

“……Pardon?”

“Oh, and one more thing I’m curious about.”

“……?”

“What happens if I eliminate all forty people here at the same time? Just—snip—before the System can even process it.”

“……?!”

Yu Jia’s expression twisted into something bizarre.

This man.

What is he even talking about?

“Ah, I guess there’s no real need for that. If I want to make sure those two obnoxious players drop first…… Hmm, no, that won’t work either.”

What?

Is he joking or is he serious?

Is he saying he has the ability to do it but just chooses not to?

“Ms. Yu Jia. And Mr. Park Changseok.”

“……Yes, go ahead.”

“Are there any players who absolutely need to be eliminated, or whose character is questionable? Or maybe players you personally can’t stand?”

“W-why do you ask?”

When Yu Jia asked, Baek Jinwoo’s smile deepened.

“Well, if I make the national team, we’ll have to do group training together, and I figured it’d be uncomfortable having weirdos around.”

“Uh……”

Park Changseok and Yu Jia exchanged glances.

Their faces said they had absolutely no idea how to respond to that insane level of audacity.

The Arena.

It was, in essence, a dungeon.

A dungeon where the System provided the field, and players could fight to their hearts’ content.

The only difference from a regular dungeon was that the opponents weren’t monsters but players, and if you lost all your summons there, you’d automatically be ejected.

• The first match will begin as a team battle, identical to the World League preliminaries! The field has been set to a forest, and the round will proceed survival-style until twenty players are eliminated! Each player, please enter in your assigned order!

Team battle, huh.

Back in his Battle of Summoners days, he hadn’t played that many of them.

The user base had been small to begin with.

And whenever JinuGod entered, everyone would forfeit and leave, complaining it wasn’t fun.

“Go get ’em, Jinwoo!”

“You’ve got this! Fighting!”

Listening to the cheers from the Yubaek staff members, Baek Jinwoo stepped into the Arena’s dungeon.

[Entering ‘Abandoned Forest.’]

His vision shifted, and he spotted birds drifting lazily through the air around him.

More precisely, birds whose eyes were camera lenses.

Oh.

It seemed they were using summons capable of filming inside the dungeon.

They’d be live-broadcasting through those to the outside.

“Ramba. Drill Sarge. Burst Dragon. Rolly. Peregrine.”

The moment he entered, Baek Jinwoo called out his summons.

Rolly in particular had Assassinate activated the instant it appeared.

It was a skill that granted brief invisibility, but if you kept using it without attacking, you could maintain the invisibility indefinitely.

This was Baek Jinwoo’s signature style.

Never expose your core summon’s information to the enemy!

That was precisely why, even during his JinuGod days, Rachel and the other Five Emperors had never caught on to Rolly’s true identity.

• JinuGod. What the hell is that summon?

• Seriously, every match just ends with sudden max DPS out of nowhere…… Did you get some new S-rank summon or something?

They’d never even dreamed that the thing slaughtering their summons was actually a B-rank Gale Slaughterer.

They probably still didn’t know.

He’d never told them, after all.

And shortly after, he’d been put in Quarantine, so they never had the chance to dig deeper.

“Ramba.”

• ……!

Fwish-fwish-fwish-fwish-fwish-fwish!

Without a word, Ramba began swinging her staff.

The target was, of course, Drill Sarge.

• KREEEEEE!

Peregrine piled on movement speed buffs for Drill Sarge as well.

Shring!

Sword drawn, Drill Sarge closed his eyes and received the stacks in a solemn stance.

Normally I’d need to stack Rolly too, but…

He didn’t feel the need.

Keeping his full strength hidden was a strategy in itself.

This team battle starts with Drill Sarge and ends with Drill Sarge.

Grin.

Baek Jinwoo leaned back against a nearby fallen log.

Legs crossed, he settled into a thoroughly comfortable position and began to relax.

Why bother moving?

After all.

The ones about to be eliminated would come to him.

Just as Baek Jinwoo predicted.

Oh Jimyeong and Park Hoseop linked up the moment they entered.

The two players locked eyes and shared a vicious grin.

Some might criticize it.

If people formed teams in a survival match, wasn’t that unfair competition?

But the current international community considered even that part of one’s ability.

“Where’s that little punk right now?”

“Hold on. Hmm, this way. Two hundred meters north, seven hundred west. Pretty close, actually.”

The World League was run directly by the System, not by headquarters.

In other words, judging ‘fairness’ by human standards was meaningless.

“Let’s go hit him with a surprise attack.”

“Do we even need to sneak up on him?”

“Fair point. How about we go humiliate him a bit before finishing it?”

The two players maintained their swaggering confidence.

National ranking ninth and tenth.

On top of that, they’d been selected for last year’s national team, so no player had the guts to mess with them.

Anyone who happened to cross their path simply turned tail and fled.

“Heh.”

Oh Jimyeong sneered at the runners but didn’t bother chasing.

First, Baek Jinwoo.

That pretty-boy leech had to go down first.

Crunch. Crunch.

Pushing through the underbrush, they soon arrived at their destination.

And there.

“Huh?”

Baek Jinwoo sat with his hands laced behind his head, wearing an easy smile.

Would you look at this smug bastard?

Oh Jimyeong’s expression flooded with disbelief.