Fenrir Translations
"Huff."
The analyst scribbled something down on paper after watching the play once. Then, after reviewing the play again, he wrote something else down.
A stadium filled with a massive crowd, most of whom were chanting Yujin's name. The cheers were deafening, uniting the audience in support.
Of course, not everyone was cheering for her. After all, many of their favorite pro gamers were still competing, and not many were content just watching.
However, when something significant happened, it was often Yujin who was involved, or at the very least, connected to it.
Right now, for example, a massive structure had suddenly collapsed. When the highlight camera focused on the scene, they caught Yujin sprinting across a crumbling rock platform, covering 600 meters in under a minute, barely escaping the destruction zone using a zipline.
Someone had once remarked about her: "She always seems to capture the coolest moments in the Dark Zone."
Though the analyst watching her play wasn't aware of this, his focus was drawn entirely to her. The sheer skill on display in front of him was too impressive for even his professional detachment to ignore.
"...What the hell is this?"
This man was an analyzer from the Republic of Japan.
He looked down at the paper in his hand, filled with scribbled notes and red marks, with entire sections crossed out in red ink. At this point, analyzing players—whether officially or otherwise—was a given.
The Korea Selection Match was about selecting 20 players from 100, and it was easy to infer that 20 would be selected from other countries as well.
With the Asia preliminaries approaching, it was natural to assess the skill level of players from other countries. Like him, analysts from Russia, the China Federation, and Taiwan were likely somewhere in the stadium as well. On the flip side, Korean teams’ analyzers were probably observing the selection matches in other countries.
Naturally, the topic that had been on everyone's lips recently was Yujin. Roughly a month and a half ago, she had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, skyrocketing her MMR and throwing her hat into the ring for the tournament’s qualifiers.
It only took a month for this previously unknown player to become a famous figure, even discussed in foreign countries. And just like in Korea, it wasn’t any different abroad.
People analyzed her strengths and weaknesses, looking for her vulnerabilities. However, just when they thought they had her figured out, she’d do something completely unpredictable. Her plays were so consistent, yet random at the same time—like she was daring them to try and analyze her. Even former special forces soldiers in her own country found her plays impossible to imitate, as her superhuman performance and instinctive plays poured out like a waterfall every day.
The paper in his hand reflected this conundrum.
“…This seems doable, but this….”
He crossed out another line without hesitation.
Following the simple guideline of "Is this something our players can imitate or analyze?" Yujin's gameplay was being dissected in real-time. However, using arrows as close-range weapons or sprinting 600 meters in under a minute? Impossible.
He hadn’t been doing this job for long, but even he had never seen so many red marks indicating impossibility.
He knew what would happen when he submitted this report back home—they'd ask, "What the hell are you talking about?" He could already imagine the scenario playing out in his mind.
“…Why did I cross this one out? What’s the note here?”
“User retrieved a zipline launcher with one minute left until the NBV2 base’s self-destruction, sprinted 600 meters while reloading the launcher, and escaped the collapsing base by ziplining off a cliff. That’s why it was crossed out.”
“What?”
He wished it was a joke.
If the higher-ups had any sense, they’d just pass this on to the players as "Here's some information to keep in mind." There’s no way anyone would actually try to make someone pull off a stunt like that.
As an analyzer, he knew the ins and outs of the Dark Zone and AP system. He himself was hovering just on the edge of Tier 2 and SOF in skill.
However, as always, certain plays were only possible at the highest level, and in the upper echelons where there was nowhere else to climb, legendary plays that only happened once every few years became the norm.
The problem was, there was someone over there doing those legendary plays in every single match.
“…At this rate, Korea’s going to dominate this year.”
It could be dismissed as stomping low-tier players in tournament rankings, but if Yujin’s plays continued like this in both the qualifier and selection matches, that would be a genuine display of skill. Someone who could pull off such plays without breaking a sweat wouldn’t be any different in the Asia preliminaries.
You couldn’t change people that easily. The past reflected the present and the future. The Asia preliminaries were just an extension of that—and he was barely suppressing the urge to voice this out loud, knowing it would get him pelted with tomatoes and eggs.
A few more calculations were scribbled on his paper. Currently, there were 12 players left. Yujin had seven kills. Although bonus points were awarded based on play performance, the point system for KSM that he was aware of was simple:
1st place: 10 points.
2nd place: 6 points.
3rd place: 5 points.
4th place: 4 points.
5th-6th place: 3 points.
7th-8th place: 2 points.
9th-10th place: 1 point.
And one kill equaled one point.
In other words, if Yujin kept five kills per match and secured first place five times, she would accumulate 75 points. Realistically, with bonus points based on playstyle and kills, she’d surpass 80 easily.
Furthermore, it wasn’t like she was going to skip the remaining matches. Given her physical prowess, she would easily surpass 100 points. Even if she didn’t place first in every match, she would still finish within the top 10.
Which meant….
“I might not get to see much more of Yujin’s gameplay.”
If she kept up this pace and secured first place in five of the 16 matches, she’d be guaranteed to finish first in the KSM qualifiers. Even if she only secured first place three times, she’d have about 50 points, which would likely land her in the top five.
However, that’s assuming she quit after securing first place a specific number of times. Realistically, Icarus might decide there was no need for her to participate in Sunday’s matches and only include her in exhibition games.
Of course, this logic wouldn’t hold if she didn’t win first place, but with plays like hers, could that even happen?
“Waaaaaaaah─!”
“…?”
“And as we speak! Yujin! Yujin takes first place in the first round of the Korea Selection Match! No surprises here! Is this even real?! With 12 kills, she’s crowned the top predator! No more adjectives are needed!!!”
Ah.
It seemed his calculations were a bit off.
He crossed out the note about placing in the top five in the qualifiers and re-wrote it, confirming her as the number one.
Along with a small footnote that she might not be human.
______________
“Ugh, I’m dying here.”
Unlike the qualifying ranks, KSM has much less player interaction. After introducing all 100 players at the start, they are individually isolated to manage their mentality and to prevent players from talking to each other after the match.
And just like that, the room was empty. It was like being given a large bedroom that could easily belong to a wealthy person, and most of the players had no qualms about collapsing onto the bed placed in the center of the room.
One of them was Dice.
As she rolled around on the bed, memories from the last match surfaced in her mind. Or more precisely... it was her first time facing Yujin after she had removed her limiter.
“No matter how you look at it, she’s not human, so why does she keep denying it?”
Dice wasn’t a fool.
Many people were under the misconception that she was sloppy and careless after spending so much time around Yujin recently, but last year, Dice was the one carrying the SSM AP soloing division with insane physical prowess and intelligence.
As the qualifiers progressed, she had already formed a rough idea of how KSM would play out, and Yujin’s presence only made that vision clearer. She even accounted for variables that most pro gamers wouldn’t consider because of their pride.
She had assumed from the start that Yujin could consistently place in the top 10 in every match.
Naturally, and unfortunately, she wasn’t wrong.
Third place.
Unfortunately, due to poor positioning, despite fighting hard, Dice was eventually devoured by Yujin. Had another player been closer to Yujin, Dice would have taken second place. Still, it wasn’t a bad result. Actually, it was a great outcome.
But more than the result, what pleased Dice was the fact that the strategy she had been formulating in her mind had actually worked—it was nothing too complex. Simply put, it was an aggro ping-pong strategy.
As the player pool shrank to the top 10, she minimized her movements and noise as much as possible, passing the engagement onto other users when necessary. After all, as long as you're human, you’ll pay attention to the direction noise is coming from.
Every participant was given a 10-minute break to refresh.
It could be considered an unbearably short time or quite a long one, depending on the situation. For Dice, it was the former. There was so much she needed to sort out before the next match began. If only Yujin had stayed on as a coach for SSM, but she was also a competitor.
Would she ever be able to land a solid victory against Yujin, even just once? The odds were much higher that Yujin would rack up such an impressive record that she wouldn’t need to participate in the rest of the matches.
After all, Dice herself had gone through the same experience last year.
‘If she keeps showing this level of physical skill, it’ll all be over within three matches.’
If Yujin dominated the first few matches, racking up scores in an overwhelming fashion, then even after all the hype and anticipation for her, she'd stop competing early. It would be quite the spectacle in its own way—front-loading the excitement with the main course right from the start and never appearing again afterward.
Still, unless they advanced her early, someone capable of climbing higher wouldn’t get the chance.
It was like a natural disaster, sparing no one in its path. Players who were supposed to be honed through fierce battles, sharpened into the finest blades, would instead get crushed in a press without ever being forged.
Thinking that way, she wondered—what was Yujin doing right now?
“Guess I’ll see her again in the exhibition matches.”
The exhibition matches took place once every four rounds.
They were a way to cool the atmosphere for the players and allow viewers to participate in fun events. Sometimes it was an obstacle course, sometimes a close-quarters fight with only pistols and soft mallets. Basically, it was like a sports day.
This too was a tradition from last year’s matches. Dice herself had qualified as a representative player last year around mid-Sunday, and with four matches left, there was no longer any need for her to compete, but she still participated in every exhibition match.
Would things play out the same way this year? Or would something be different?
In any case, what happened to her didn’t matter all that much—what was certain was that Yujin might experience the largest fan meeting in her entire career.
“Heh.”
Thinking about it made Dice chuckle to herself.
Is it time already?
It was a pity for many of the viewers, but—Yujin needed to finish up in KSM as quickly as possible. Players who needed to advance should do so fast. Only then would the real competition begin.
As Dice opened her eyes, feeling a little lighter, she found herself on board a transport plane with the other 99 participants—one of the few matches that started with an airborne drop on the map, Port City, Tannhäuser.
Familiar faces exchanged shouts and laughs, voices raised over the noise of the engine and the wind.
“Hey! Take it easy! You’re gonna kill all the noobs!”
“Haha! Hey! Look, there’s third place, there’s third place!”
“Let us have a taste of those qualifiers too!”
“Ugh! Everyone just sit down already! Argh!”
The true faces of pro gamers.
Even though they were all competitors and the ending wouldn’t be pretty, moments like this, the joy and camaraderie, couldn’t be denied. For this moment, at least, everyone was enjoying themselves before the drop.
Of course...
“Haha, see you all later.”
“…”
“Uh…”
“…”
“...Why does everyone react like this when I talk?”
In the middle of it all, Yujin had awkwardly tried to break the ice, only to kill the mood.
But in the next moment:
“Get her!”
“Now’s your chance!”
“Let’s grab that talkative snake’s tail!”
“Wha—Why are you all suddenly… Ughhh!”
In the safe zone, Yujin found herself on the receiving end of an overenthusiastic, albeit playful, greeting from her fellow pro gamers for the first time.
That’s how these people live.
It was a particularly clear day.