-[Alert: Scrim ended. The winner is 'Eugene'.]

-[Alert: Session concluded. All participants confirmed in the debriefing room.]

A silence fell over the room.

Regardless of their status, position, or role, everyone watching the match found themselves unsure of how to react as the game came to an end. For some, the outcome was an unexpected twist; for others, it was something they could have predicted to some extent.

For those who were slow to pick up on the news and information about the player named Yujin, or who hadn’t yet conducted a thorough analysis, this was akin to being forcibly confronted with an uncomfortable truth.

There had been plenty of ways to diminish Yujin's accomplishments—claiming she was just a Tier 2 player, that she hadn’t been playing Dark Zone for long, or that her skills had been overhyped—but what did it matter?

Ultimately, the result imprinted on their retinas didn’t change, regardless of what they believed.

Conversely, for those who had some inkling of Yujin's potential and abilities, this became a moment where their vague suspicions were more solidly confirmed.

It was just one match.

Sure, some might say that. The number of matches in the four-part scrim schedule could range from 20 to 30, and she had only won the first one.

But that didn't diminish the weight of the scrim's significance. It was absurd to try to downplay the event's importance with such reasoning, and it certainly didn’t alleviate the restrictions Yujin had been under.

This was her first participation.

Therefore, she hadn't received any direct guidance or tactics from professional gamers.

Moreover, the scrim didn’t just include Tier 2 players. There were also Tier 1 participants, Medal of Honor players—a rank or two above her—and even a dozen or so professionals whose skills alone were enough to make them valuable.

So how did she do it?

She didn’t just hide and wait for the right moment to strike. By the end of the session, one out of every ten participants had fallen to her gunfire.

And she did it wielding an ASh-12.7, one of the hardest guns to control due to its heavy recoil, turning those who stood in her way into minced meat.

On top of that, she used a Barrett sniper rifle—a weapon typically brought out for entertainment value—to literally obliterate two Juggernauts.

"…Huh."

It might be too early to draw any definitive conclusions.

But at the same time, it was hard to ignore just how much she had accomplished in her first match.

Considering that many professional gamers often debut only after overcoming numerous challenges, Yujin was already something beyond their control.

A poisoned chalice.

It might be a cliché, or an overly grand metaphor, but what other words could describe this situation?

The silence lingered a bit longer.

In the Briefing Room.

"Yujin! Yujin! Yujin! Yujin! Yujin! Yujin! Yujin! Yujin! Yujin! Yujin!"

"The god of Battle Royale walks among us!"

"Alright, everyone, calm down! Settle down!"

Unlike the muted reactions outside, this place was a whirlwind of excitement.

Of course, this wasn’t unique to Yujin; such behavior was almost a tradition. Even in a scrim, the winner was the one who had outlasted 99 other competitors, so offering a round of applause wasn’t out of the ordinary.

And while it was a tradition, that didn’t mean the sentiment wasn’t sincere.

With a slightly awkward expression, Yujin slowly walked into a space resembling a state-of-the-art lecture hall. Above her head, the word "1st Place" floated in sparkling letters.

Her avatar, now unarmed, was dressed in form-fitting clothes that subtly highlighted her figure. It was a look that could be described as ordinary, yet also unique.

Her long, flowing hair was somewhat conventional, and her face, as always, was stunningly beautiful—a feature that everyone considered crucial. The curves of her body, where they should be prominent, were very prominent, and where they should taper, they tapered sharply.

This extended down to her tail, a sleek, smooth appendage that almost invited the touch, and it was at this point that most people barely managed to tear their eyes away.

The excitement began to subside.

In the next moment, a comprehensive analysis—far superior to Dark Zone’s native recording capabilities—appeared, displaying Yujin’s every move throughout the match.

This was Korea's proprietary analysis engine, something that would never be shared outside the country.

As Yujin shook her head in mild exasperation, a professional gamer from Xi, holding a microphone, approached her.

"Congratulations on your first-place finish. How are you feeling?"

"I came here for the debriefing, but now it feels like I’m giving a speech."

A brief laugh rippled through the room.

As always, her tone was calm and collected. Some of those gathered were familiar with this manner of speaking, while others were not—indicating that even some of her regular viewers were present.

From their perspective, Yujin seemed to transcend time and space, as if she might never experience nervousness or show any strong reactions.

Regardless, even if she had been through many debriefings, this was her first after a scrim, so the person standing next to her, like a seasoned host, smoothly took over.

"Haha, everyone has that reaction during their first post-scrim debriefing. It’s rare to speak in front of a hundred people like this.

Anyway, I’m sure you have an idea of the purpose of the debriefing… So, if you could talk us through the scrim you just played, from your perspective, that would be great. There’s no need to feel pressured, just speak comfortably.

Others might ask questions in the middle, but you can keep your answers brief. Even saying that you acted on instinct is fine."

"I’ll keep that in mind."

At that moment, a massive screen appeared in midair, showing the initial phase of the match: the descent, the landing of all the players, and the subsequent infiltration of the facility. This footage was from Yujin’s point of view.

A smaller screen appeared in front of Yujin, with a playback bar marked with several pause points.

The 99 players reviewing her gameplay intended to ask questions about specific moments.

Questions began pouring in just a few minutes into the replay.

At that point, Yujin was selecting two guns from a high-caliber firearms storage.

<Q: Among all the firearms, why did you choose the high-caliber gun, which is known for its difficult recoil control?>

"Recoil control wasn’t much of an issue, so I picked a weapon that could incapacitate the enemy quickly. Besides… it was the first weapon I grabbed from the gun case after entering."

In other words, she simply grabbed the first gun she saw.

Some were biting their tongues, resisting the urge to ask if she would have used a pencil to kill if that had been the first thing she found. But these players had more patience than her usual chatroom audience.

As the video continued, the first part of the playback bar was densely packed with pause requests—specifically, the moment when Yujin and Dice faced off in a curved hallway.

Unsurprisingly, one of the questions came from Dice herself.

Hers was the first to be addressed.

<Q: What were you thinking at this moment?>

"To put it simply, I instinctively knew a grenade would be thrown as soon as I identified the enemy. So, I intentionally manipulated the timing to exploit that window."

The screen showed Yujin deliberately kicking a wooden plank on the floor, causing Dice to cautiously pull out a grenade from the opposite hallway. Yujin caught the sound perfectly, tensed her muscles, and prepared to sprint.

As soon as Dice applied pressure to the grenade pin, Yujin’s avatar dashed across the hallway with ferocious speed, reaching her before she could even pull the pin and raise her gun again.

What followed was straightforward. Half-disarmed, Dice was… to put it simply, shot dead.

Her chest was struck, and she was obliterated.

Dice was left utterly flabbergasted.

While the Apex Predator scene was known for its razor-thin margins of victory, to predict the entire situation and exploit the opening?

It was, to put it bluntly, a psychological play against a professional, which resulted in Dice’s catastrophic defeat.

Yet, despite everything, she didn’t feel anger, defeat, or even a burning desire to win.

Instead, as a professional, she found herself thinking:

…Well, she deserved to die.

It was an involuntary thought, but it was hard to deny.

Somehow, she felt a strange sense of relief. The suffocating tension she had felt up until now seemed to ease just a little.

Naturally, she found herself drawn to Yujin’s words.

Her fingers moved.

<Q: Did you have a specific goal in mind for this scrim?>

"Not really. I didn’t play with the specific goal of winning, but rather focused on overturning the situation.

The research complex typically forms kill zones through Juggernauts, so it’s hard to guarantee that everyone will be uniformly pushed toward a single point like in an electric field or radiation zone.

Additionally, Juggernauts can be killed if you position yourself correctly. This often shifts the focus from combat to survival in the research complex.

So, I eliminated the assumption that there was any safe place… but I didn’t intentionally aim for that. My approach to combat is, to put it negatively, improvisational, and to put it positively, adaptable, so I generally choose the actions that bring me the best outcome."

It’s easy to say, but how many people in the world can actually do that?

To put it bluntly, she was saying that she instinctively chooses the best outcome.

It was difficult to articulate, but her words indirectly proved that Yujin's mindset was deeply rooted in combat and optimized for it.

In other words… she always acted with a bigger picture in mind.

While it couldn’t be said that no one else could do what Yujin did, was it possible to constantly consider the big picture in every second of combat in Apex Predator, where survival and stealth were paramount?

Even Dice herself found her vision narrowing and her heart racing the moment she sensed Yujin’s presence.

"…What kind of person is she?"

Muttering to herself unconsciously, Dice casually swept her disheveled blonde hair behind her ear.

The debriefing wasn’t over, and the scrim had just begun.