“Damn, I could’ve caught her.”

On the bridge of the container ship, one player, Summit, was searching for Dice, who had vanished.

The number of containers was now sparse, barely enough to be noteworthy. Typically, when one thinks of a container ship, they imagine the grand sight of tens of thousands of boxes filled with goods, proudly sailing across the seas. But this ship was far from that image.

This was due to the nature of Port City Tannhäuser. Most of the cargo had already been unloaded here, leaving only about 33% of the ship’s maximum capacity, according to online analysis.

Additionally, the ship itself wasn’t particularly large.

It had a capacity of approximately 1000 TEU, which roughly translates to the ability to carry 1,000 containers. Given that each container could carry about 10 tons, the ship’s total cargo weight would be around 10,000 tons.

Of course, all of this was just based on TreeWiki’s speculation.

Summit, a first-tier pro gamer from TK1, reloaded his magazine as he kept track of the positions of the other players. But even though the ship was only 10,000 tons, it wasn’t possible for him to cover every corner with just his line of sight.

Even if he missed catching Dice, there wasn’t much he could do about it. Engaging in constant firefights would only expose his position, thanks to the gunfire and muzzle flashes.

That was often the case in Apex Predator. Sometimes, letting go of greed was the way to achieve better results.

At least, that’s what Summit believed.

Boom!

“…What was that?”

While cautiously and expertly scouting the area outside the bridge, Summit heard an explosion. The sound of a grenade detonating near the edge of the ship caught his attention. He aimed in that direction but didn’t see anything unusual.

Dice had vanished.

He fired a scan grenade to sweep the area, but no one was found. It took about 30 seconds for him to finally lose interest in Dice and return to his scouting.

‘If the kill zone shifts, I’ll just parachute down, hop in that vehicle, and cross the bridge I deployed earlier.’

Securing an escape route was always crucial.

Gunfire continued to crackle all around him, and the occasional explosion from a grenade could be heard. It was natural for the kill zone to move as the game entered its late stages, but today, it was oddly converging toward the exact center of the map.

Naturally, KSM participants were already gathering in the vicinity. The container ship was located almost exactly in the middle of the central area. If luck was on his side, he could hold his position here for a while.

It was a risky choice, but with the gate deployed, any player who tried to cross would be exposed, given how open the structure was.

The priority was securing kills and victory. He needed to place at least in the top 10 to earn meaningful points.

Rumble!

But when the ship suddenly shook, Summit couldn’t help but be startled.

A fire had broken out in several containers.

“No… This can’t be good.”

A troublesome situation.

The only Revolution Trigger in Port City Tannhäuser was tied to the existence of this ship. If someone set off an explosion, the flammable materials inside the containers could cause a massive blast, sending the remaining containers tumbling into the water.

Although today’s explosion seemed smaller in scale, his carefully laid-out plans had been disrupted. Could this have been Dice’s doing? It was certainly a clever move.

The problem was it wasn’t enough to change the outcome significantly.

In any case—

“I’ll have to go down.”

Summit quickly scanned his surroundings, his brain working at full speed.

He didn’t know exactly what was in the containers, but the explosives had already gone off. Likely, every player in the vicinity had turned their attention to the explosion’s direction. Using a parachute now would be too risky.

The best option was to quickly leave the bridge on foot.

As he descended the stairs, he kept an eye on the situation outside. With his original plan now ruined, he knew that making too much noise would only put him at a disadvantage, so he moved cautiously.

After about two minutes, Summit reached the bottom of the bridge without being detected.

It wasn’t until he got to the edge of the deck that he saw the full extent of the fire. The flames were spreading, heating up the surrounding containers. He needed to escape fast.

Summit attached a steel cable to a thick chain and threw it over the railing. Using the stairs would take too long and attract too much attention, so he opted for the faster method.

Ziiiiip!

After descending the zipline, he abandoned the cable and sprinted toward the vehicle he had scouted earlier. Fortunately, it was still there. It seemed that no one had spotted him so far.

Before getting into the vehicle, he crouched behind it, opened the mini-map, and considered where to go next. It seemed like luck wasn’t on his side today. His goal now was to survive as long as possible. With that thought, he started the engine.

The engine roared loudly, attracting attention, but by the time anyone looked in his direction, the vehicle’s wheels were already spinning, turning Summit into a rogue on the road.

Vrooooom.

It had only been 30 seconds since he’d gotten into the vehicle.

‘…Huh?’

Suddenly, the world went silent.

In an instant, light and darkness flashed simultaneously before his eyes, and everything went black. Before he could even make a sound, time slowed to a crawl as his body seemed to float weightlessly.

And just as suddenly, the screen turned black.

Before he could process what had happened, a familiar scene appeared before his eyes.

He was back in the lobby.

A few words appeared on the screen, explaining what had happened.

Alert: KIA
Cause of Death: Explosion

“…What the hell was that?”

There’s a saying that when something is too absurd, you’re left speechless.

Summit felt that with every fiber of his being as he stared blankly at the screen, hands clutching his head in disbelief.

Boom!

3 kilometers away, Yujin, who had narrowly dodged shattered glass, stared in the direction of the explosion with an unusually bewildered expression.

A mushroom cloud was rising from the center of the map.

Yujin knew exactly what it was.

“…She actually blew it up.”

Even without saying it, she knew who was responsible.

As her expression softened, Yujin’s next reaction was a smile.

Inside the empty factory, the sound of her quiet, amused laughter echoed.

“What… what the hell just happened!?”

The kill feed, showing Dice’s name, scrolled endlessly upward, stopping at a count of eleven kills.

But that wasn’t the most important thing.

The small fire that had started in the central port of Tannhäuser wasn’t just any fire—it was the fuse that had triggered an explosion beyond imagination.

Over 2 million people witnessed the scene, and the spectacle could only be described as awe-inspiring.

In a split second, a massive pillar of fire, hundreds of meters high, erupted from the container ship, enveloped by a dome-shaped cloud. The explosion was so powerful that the atmosphere compressed, causing vapor to condense into mist.

The deafening noise forced everyone to cover their ears, and the massive shockwave turned the port’s cranes and nearby buildings into matchsticks and Styrofoam. Of course, every window in the area shattered.

The area within a 100-meter radius was completely obliterated, and players who hadn’t escaped within 500 meters suffered severe damage. But that wasn’t the end. Several tons of containers, launched like missiles, crashed into nearby buildings.

And at precisely 700 meters from the explosion, Dice, who had been fleeing in a car, was flung along with her vehicle by the sonic boom, narrowly surviving after crashing into a building wall.

But survival wasn’t the main issue here.

The event was so shocking that even the commentators, usually quick to react, were left speechless. The explosion should have been a typical one—large enough to split the ship in half and spill the cargo into the water. But it turned into a colossal detonation that left an indelible mark on the minds of over 2 million viewers.

Dice had managed to open all the propane gas valves, spread powdered sugar inside the containers, strategically placed batteries and propane tanks inside ammonium nitrate containers, and damaged the batteries to create a heat reaction.

All of this had taken only three minutes.

In that short amount of time, Dice had annihilated most of the players within a 200-meter radius, instantly killing nearly everyone in the vicinity.

Finally regaining his composure, the commentator shouted.

“…This is an unimaginable play! We’ve seen explosions in Tannhäuser before, but who could have predicted it would happen during a tournament! SSM’s Dice has pulled off an extraordinary move, racing ahead of everyone else!”

The silence turned to shock.
Shock turned to cheers.
And the cheers eventually erupted into applause and screams. It took time for the audience to process what had just happened, but the massive explosion had completely erased Yujin from their minds—at least for this round.

Just minutes ago, the crowd had been cheering for Yujin. Now, their second wave of applause was directed at none other than Dice. And among those left most bewildered were the players who had died in the blast.

It wasn’t just a random accident—it was an unprecedented stroke of bad luck, the kind that could easily top the list of life’s worst misfortunes. From their perspective, it was as if they had blinked, only to find themselves back in the lobby.

Of course, those who had died simply stared at the destruction from their perspective, their jaws slack as they witnessed the mushroom cloud rising 500 meters into the air and the ruined central port of Tannhäuser.

“Hah… Seriously… What the hell…”
“Pfft, what the… is this even real…?”

Even with all the words in the world, there were no words to explain the absurdity of what had just happened.

Later, during the debrief, there would be nothing left to say.

‘Why do you think you died there?’
‘Because I couldn’t stop Dice, who was 200 meters away, and got blown up.’
‘Right. Let’s keep working hard.’

It wasn’t the kind of situation that could ever happen again.

Their coach, teammates, and analysts would all be left wondering what the hell had just happened. Still, at least they’d have a wild story to tell at the next gathering. After all, when you’re already out of the tournament, it’s best to think positively to avoid dying of frustration.

“Hey, have you ever been hit by a nuke at close range? Man, I went to the sauna with ammonium nitrate and had a heart-to-heart with a propane tank! It was absolutely wild.”

By the end of the day, there would probably be a legendary video of Dice uploaded to TreeWiki’s page, showing the explosion in all its glory, along with the list of the eleven players who had died in the blast.

“…Man, this sucks.”

Thinking about it, wasn’t this all Yujin’s fault?

If Yujin hadn’t been around, Dice wouldn’t have gone crazy like this.

While entertaining these ridiculous thoughts, Summit noticed a cheese cat-girl avatar lying on the ground, moaning, “Uuuurgh…” in a strange tone.

It didn’t take long to recognize her. The AP soloing pro scene was small, after all. It was Summit from TK1, the face of TK1, and someone skilled enough to potentially make it to the Asia preliminaries and maybe even the finals.

But, well—

Flop.

“How could anyone win against a natural disaster? Just let it go.”

“…Ugh, seriously. I can’t deal with AP anymore. This year’s just full of crazy people popping up out of nowhere….”

You’re telling me.

With a shared sense of resignation, the eleven players remained sprawled out on the ground until the game ended.

By then, 30 minutes had passed since the start of KSM.