"…So, is this the reason why you cling to me right after the interview?"

"Ugh… Yujin, don’t go away…."

What should I say about this?

As the sun set on Wednesday and the day began to turn towards Thursday, my evening was starting with Dice's clinginess disguised as a tantrum after he returned from the interview.

With an insincerely cheerful tone that could confidently declare that not a single person felt sad, he buried himself in the bed and, while subtly moving his body, began to stroke my tail like a pillow. I was so surprised that I seriously considered whether I should give him a light slap.

However, well… After hearing about the interview later, I didn’t completely misunderstand it.

"It’s astonishing that the way to get motivation can be this bizarre."

"Ugh…."

"Still, I kind of get what you mean. In fact, I’m here to solve those kinds of problems…."

I understood their concerns, but that didn’t mean my position would vanish. The task force preparing for the Final Championship was still operational, and I had long since formed a solid alliance with it.

In other words, my goal was to elevate the skills of the Korean representative users as much as possible. And that was based on the premise that I could proudly operate as an individual operator even in my absence.

It would be absurd to quit before even completing half of the task.

"So, when do you plan to let go of my tail?"

"Why do you keep trying to kick me out?!"

"Aah."

I decided I shouldn’t use words.

The moment I concentrated a little on my tail, I felt a heaviness. At the same time, the snake-like tail cautiously lifted. Even Minah, who had been watching the scene with delight, started to look speechless.

Dice, who had wrapped around my tail, was suddenly lifted into the air.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let me down; I think I’m going to fall! Waaaah!"

"People often think a tail is just a toy these days."

Little do they know, if you hit someone with this, it could easily break ribs and lift weights of up to 300 kg. In other words, I could casually lift and swing around someone like Dice.

Holding onto the tail with his fragile limbs, Dice screamed as if he were on an amusement park ride. The only consolation was that this lasted only a few dozen seconds.

In any case, after a not-so-long time suspended in mid-air, Dice finally fell back onto the bed, immediately complaining of muscle soreness. For someone who was already clumsy, putting too much force into it resulted in a disastrous outcome.

Harmony, who had been subtly glancing at Dice as he thudded onto the bed, began to pay attention to me.

"Um… I’ll try to be more careful from now on."

"Feeling a bit guilty, are we?"

"Hehe."

Why do people’s intelligence drop so significantly when my tail is involved?

Anyway, since this had happened, I thought it would be good to decide tonight’s dinner topic based on this conversation. I considered pulling a table over to create a more formal discussion space but quickly gave up. Setting up an official gathering just didn’t match my temperament.

Instead, I asked Dice, who was gradually recovering from the aftermath of the exercise.

"So, Yerin, what answer do you want to hear?"

"…Well, honestly, I don’t know what to say either."

"Then I’ll have to tell you what you want to hear—there’s no reason for me to abandon you all, so rest assured."

The Final Championship.

The existence of one of the global sporting events that gained popularity comparable to the Super Bowl in just a few years was enormous—specifically, the more trivial discussions would vanish without a trace in comparison.

However, this festive atmosphere could not last forever. Once the game was over and ranks were assigned to all players, the issues that had not been dealt with would naturally bubble up like foam.

Perhaps by that time, whether minority or majority, doubts would arise.

How would my actions unfold?

"But the problem lies elsewhere. Your concerns are misdirected."

"What do you mean…?"

"First, ask yourself whether you have the will to endure through the grueling times when your mind feels hazy, and your body feels like it’s breaking. Are you confident?"

Achieving good results in the match and becoming a single operator were completely different matters.

If I were to step away from the Dark Zone, the four individuals before me, including this tail fetishist, would take on my role in the soloing section. Therefore, they would literally need to function as milestones, and the preparation required to reach that point would be incomparable to before.

To become an operator, one had to cut away many things. Even if that meant breaking their past selves, they had to accept and embrace it.

As I met Dice’s gaze, he added a surprisingly impressive response.

"If we were going to question whether we are confident, we wouldn’t have come this far."

And that answer was more than enough to satisfy me.

"Make sure you’re determined. Starting tomorrow, an abundance of 'special gifts' awaits you, enough to burst your socks. Does that count as an answer to Yerin's question?"

"…Yes, of course. I’ll let the others know."

Meanwhile, my gaze subtly shifted.

I looked at Harmony, who appeared to think something was going awry.

"Harmony, you have nothing to worry about."

"Ugh… it’s not that! You’ll still be throwing us in there at intervals, right?!"

"You won’t struggle with that, right?"

She couldn’t deny it, so it was already too late for Harmony.

In any case, this fact was naturally communicated to the schedule manager and, of course, passed without any major issues. It was because this would be implemented in VR rather than reality, and also because I planned to rest without any worries or concerns for three days on Friday, Christmas Eve, and Sunday, Christmas.

"Even though it’s quite sudden, I guess I need to draft the training curriculum now. Everyone else besides Dice is prepared, right?"

"I’m the one who brought this up, so everyone has to accept it, no matter what."

"Then there’s no need to worry anymore."

At the same time, I wrote down a single word.

Dice seemed to have already guessed what it was.

"…That’s the name of this curriculum, I suppose."

"That’s right."

Hell Week.

This was the name of the hellish flames that would forge them into a single sword.

"We might end up begging for our lives."

"If you beg about 150 times, it should be over, so don’t worry."

One thing was for sure: it would become an unforgettable memory.

The media doesn’t tell the whole truth. This saying applies universally, not just to politics and economics, but also to the interviews of professional gamers.

The fact that the interview broadcast live to Korea didn’t create a significant stir was precisely for this reason.

Most internet users went crazy receiving gifts that could burst their socks before Christmas, thanks to the joint effort between Yujin and the Korean squad representative team, and they were busily going about their days as if they were the main characters of this year's Final Championship.

Sadly, that was the complete truth, which extinguished any means or reasons to restrain them.

However, there was a reason I described it as mostly.

"…A lamp."

The quick-witted ones, who had been involved in esports for a long time, were already catching on to the fact that none of the interview participants mentioned Yujin when discussing these issues.

Creating valuable results that would not lose to this year was 'us.' In other words, the users, including Dice, had already assumed the IF scenario. It wasn’t difficult for them to figure this out, and it didn’t take long for them to arrive at the same conclusion.

And the conclusion converged to one point.

Not long after the interview was conducted, Yujin received an urgent contact.

"Yes, what’s going on?"

"Ah, Coach Yujin. I’m contacting you quickly after watching the interview. Do you have some time?"

"There’s no major problem. But I think I’ll be going to bed soon, so a long conversation might be difficult. It’s currently around midnight in New York."

A brief silence. But Yujin already knew why they were reaching out.

She preferred a more straightforward method rather than adding unnecessary words—and soon her fingers flicked through the air briefly.

A message containing one PDF file was sent within seconds.

"…What’s this?"

"It’s the curriculum we’ll start from tomorrow. Since the competition is just around the corner, we won’t be implementing this kind of training often, but we plan to incorporate this format of curriculum occasionally in the future."

I wondered if they could understand this right away.

Yujin already knew that it wasn’t very hopeful, and before they even opened the file, she quickly added,

"I understand your concerns, but aside from coaching, these individuals are my students. I have no intention of stopping when they haven’t even learned half of what they need to."

"Ah…!"

"Does this suffice as an answer?"

Of course, it didn’t matter if I received a reply. The excited exclamation just now was already the answer.

However, neither the individuals in Korea engaged in the call nor Yujin, who was about 10,000 kilometers away, believed that this encapsulated everything.

And unless it was a very serious matter, Yujin was not someone who would sit back and allow someone to harbor false hopes.

"…Of course, this doesn’t mean I’m partnering with anyone. I might do so if necessary, but even if not, I can meet with the students."

"Ah, haha. That makes sense."

Sadly, it was unavoidable. Yujin's coaching career had already entered a realm where it was completely impossible for others to replicate.

Not only had she raised the Korean team to the top spot in Asia in less than a year, but just last year, she had also propelled the Korean squad team, which had been hovering in the TOP 10, to the current rank of 4th.

And while simultaneously pursuing her coaching activities, she had proudly claimed 1st place in the preliminaries leading to the Final Championship, KSM, and the entire Asia qualifiers.

A myth that would not be found in history again. She had snatched the quill of the god of destiny and rewritten it as her career, thereby dividing the Apex Predator pro realm into before and after Yujin.

There was no way to simply draw such a person into a team.

Meanwhile, a brief silence followed.

How long had it been since then?

"…Isn’t the curriculum too harsh?"

"A dull knife causes pain to the ingredients, and if the foundation of a lamp is weak, it easily collapses. And at the end of it, there will be sweet fruits, so you don’t need to worry too much."

"Can I take that as meaning such a skill improvement is possible?"

"No."

"What? Then what does the sweet fruit mean…?"

A striking blow that felt like a mental punch, but soon Yujin on the other side burst out laughing.

"Christmas Eve is coming soon. It means I’ll let you take it easy then."

"Ah, I see…."

Sadly, Yujin’s sense of humor was still a bit early for an ordinary person to grasp.

As the interview content briefly flickered in the mind of the staff dealing with Yujin, Dice’s remark echoed—quite literally. Yujin was certainly a person who could be described as 4D or more.

But soon, in her smooth, rolling voice, she added softly.

"Of course, there will be sufficiently sweet fruits for you all as well. This time, I won’t be joking, so don’t worry."

"That joke is quite deadly. I’m a bit too fragile to take in Coach Yujin’s sense of humor, haha."

"I’ve overstepped my bounds."

Then, in a tone as if a coin had simply fallen on the road, she added.

"In any case, by the end of this year, at least one person will be in the soloing TOP 5, and another will make it into the TOP 10. This may not be the last gift, though. Does this count as a fruitful result?"

At that moment, the responding staff felt faint.

But one thing was certain: in just about a week, Korea would embrace a bomb in the name of an unbearable, colossal year-end gift and live happily.

The call soon ended, but the staff would need quite some time to gather their wits.

After the call, before his eyes lay a single PDF file.

But its content was far from simple.

"…Can this even happen?"

Hell Week.

In other words, hellish week.

A nonstop training curriculum lasting 72 hours—without a single piece of sleep—based on virtual reality was laid out before him.