Chapter 155
CHAPTER 155
By the way—
Coaching...
Seo Jun fell into thought.
It wasn't as though he had never considered asking Lee Dong-su for help.
Not as an official coach, of course.
Just someone to help with practice.
Once the six-day scrim period ended, there would be a stretch of free time.
That period existed so teams could analyze opponents and improve their coordination based on what they'd learned from the scrims.
In fact, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that most teams completed their teamwork during that time.
Some teams even held training camps together.
Still, it was nice of him to offer first.
Seo Jun smiled faintly.
But—
“I'll let you know if I need your help.”
There was no need to ask already.
“Yes. Wait, what? Ah, fine. But you do realize that no matter how good your mechanics are, when it comes to game knowledge, you can't beat me, right?”
He certainly would be useful.
His understanding of five-versus-five team games was far deeper than that of ordinary players.
At this point, professional players' theoretical knowledge was so advanced that they could practically be called masters.
“Of course I know that.”
“Why are you admitting it so easily?”
Dong-su turned his head suspiciously.
Seo Jun was practically the type who teased people the way an uncle tormented his nephews.
“Well, I never needed to learn theory in the first place. What's so hard about admitting it?”
“Huh?”
“Brains are something people use when their bodies aren't good enough.”
“...”
Just as expected.
There had to be a catch.
Once again, Dong-su took psychic damage.
He absentmindedly played with the boxing glove he'd taken off earlier.
Maybe today...
Maybe today he'd finally challenge him again.
He was starting to get a feel for sparring.
Just one punch.
If he could land just one punch on that annoyingly handsome face—
Then Dong-su suddenly remembered something.
“Then how bad was your body?”
“Why?”
“You got into Korea University.”
Where else would that brain have come from?
“Hmm. Hehehe. Maybe I was physically lacking during my school days? You weren't some kind of bullied errand boy, were you?”
Obviously not.
But there was no harm in asking.
As Dong-su opened his mouth, Tae-woo suddenly coughed from behind them.
What?
That guy had supposedly come here only because Seo Jun dragged him along after checking the patch notes again.
Was he sleepy?
“Oh. A bullied errand boy?”
Cough. Cough.
Seo Jun smiled strangely.
Tae-woo's coughing intensified.
“I definitely ate a lot of bread during my school days.”
Dong-su felt confused.
Wait. Really?
Had Seo Jun seriously transformed himself after being bullied?
Did he become strong by doing one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and a ten-kilometer run every day?
If that's the case, I'd better watch out for hair loss.
While the typical high-schooler entertained such ridiculous thoughts, a large hand landed on his shoulder.
“Dong-su.”
It was the gym owner.
“Yes?”
“It's nothing.”
“What is it?”
“That stinging nettle was exactly the same back then.”
The owner recalled a secret he had never properly told anyone.
The son of a friend who had come asking to learn modern martial arts had immediately stepped into the ring.
The kid's confidence had seemed both arrogant and adorable.
As usual, the owner had intended to establish dominance first.
Then, without warning, his vision went black.
That's right.
That damned stinging nettle had been fully completed from the very beginning.
“Ah? What's a stinging nettle?”
“You don't need to know.”
4:05 PM.
Seo Jun entered Ha Yoon-ho's lobby.
“You're here! Our team's ace!”
The agreed meeting time was 4:20, but everyone except Seo Jun had already arrived.
And that immediately made him suspicious.
“Wait. It's only 4:05. How is Baram Sword already here?”
“He went straight to a capsule café near his company!”
“Ah.”
“Well, as everyone knows, there are capsule cafés practically on every block in Seoul.”
Not quite every block.
But there really were a lot.
Wait.
Seoul?
Seo Jun wasn't the type to miss a slip of the tongue.
The meeting time had been set at 4:20 specifically because of Baram Sword's work schedule.
If his company was in Seoul and he got off work at four, then naturally his home was probably in Seoul too.
So he wasn't living in the countryside after all.
Baram Sword didn't even realize he'd exposed himself.
Seo Jun silently stored the information away.
“Alright. First, let's discuss positions.”
“Okay.”
“What do you think about Lumi and me taking bot lane?”
Their primary roles were ADC and Support.
However, putting the two of them in bot lane would essentially mean sacrificing the lane entirely.
“Lumi and I talked yesterday, and we're confident we can survive! Hahaha. We're both experts at hanging on.”
Normally, lower-tier players only needed to avoid dying and hold their lane to contribute their share.
Sometimes that alone was enough to earn praise as the team's carry or MVP.
“Well, concentrating all our weaknesses in one lane and blowing up the top side of the map isn't necessarily a bad strategy. But if any of you three happen to play ADC or Support better than your other roles, we'd rather build around that.”
He shrugged and looked to the remaining three for their opinions.
And then—
“......”
“......”
Alpaca and Baram Sword both wore expressions of apology.
If they had been streaming right now, the viewers would have roasted them mercilessly.
“Yes, understood. Hahaha. It's fine. What about you, Seo Jun?”
“As for me, I think I could probably play anywhere. Though I've only ever played mid.”
“I know. You haven't actually played that many games, after all.”
Seo Jun had meant that including his previous life experiences.
But his point got across anyway.
“In that case, I think Seo Jun should stay in mid lane. We need to invest our resources into our strongest player.”
I think I could do fine in the other lanes too, though.
Seo Jun was confident about that.
With that in mind, if Baram Sword or Alpaca turned out to be too weak in another role, it might be better for Seo Jun to switch lanes and have one of them move to mid.
Naturally, Ha Yoon-ho knew that too.
Is that what he's trying to evaluate today?
At that moment, Ha Yoon-ho continued.
“And more importantly, if we build our system around Seo Jun playing mid, and the other two gradually become comfortable in their assigned positions, we'll gain a huge advantage. The reason is that, although it isn't widely known, I'm actually comfortable playing top lane as a secondary role.”
Ah.
Seo Jun understood what he was getting at.
The others' eyes widened.
“If Seo Jun ever needs to play top, we can simply swap him with the top laner. If he needs to jungle, we can swap him with the jungler. Since both of those players started as mid laners anyway. And if he needs to play ADC? Then the top laner can move to mid, and I'll take top.”
In other words—
“So we can use Seo Jun however we want depending on the situation?”
Exactly as Alpaca said.
“That's right. Of course, this only becomes an advantage if the other two become reasonably proficient in their roles. But if that happens... isn't this basically an unbeatable strategy?”
He had found a way to turn a weakness into an opportunity.
The absurd premise was that Seo Jun had to be good in every role.
Yet not a single team member doubted that assumption.
“That's definitely something only our team can do.”
“What do you think, Seo Jun?”
“I like it.”
“Then let's test it today. We'll queue as five. I've already contacted some streamer friends.”
As expected.
Even if his auction decisions had been a little reckless, Ha Yoon-ho's preparation was impeccable.
“Alright then. Who wants to play top?”
His voice sounded refreshed, as though everything was falling perfectly into place.
“Good work, everyone.”
“Thanks for joining today's practice matches!”
After the scrims ended, they gathered back in the lobby.
Ha Yoon-ho, sitting next to Seo Jun, let out a deep sigh and muttered to himself.
“What are we supposed to do?”
The anguish in his voice was unmistakable.
-LMAO, as expected.
-Just put Baram Sword top and give him Kale lol.
-Baram Sword was Challenger and Grandmaster a few years ago. Why is his jungle so awful?
-That's exactly why he got rated B. Did you think the operations team was blind? lol
-But honestly, Mid-Kale-less Baram Sword doesn't even look B-tier lol.
-Reorganize the positions.
Everyone knew what Ha Yoon-ho was thinking.
Should we just abandon the Seo Jun mid-centered system and move one of those two to mid instead?
In fact, the exact same thought had entered the minds of the other four team members.
Haa...
Today they had played three practice games.
The result:
Two wins and one loss.
But perhaps because the third game had been a loss—
-Heh, streamer. Let's pay off your karma tomorrow.
-If you're losing even here, what's going to happen in the actual tournament? lol
-Aren't you guys supposedly not even tryharding today?
-Team games really are rough lol.
The chat had become unruly.
“Hmm.”
Seo Jun silently read the messages.
Then he spoke.
It seemed they needed a little discipline.
“Should we end the stream now? Bye.”
-???
-Holy shit, don't turn it off... we were wrong!
-Aren't the people who were mocking him going to apologize?
-I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! I SWEAR!
-AAAHHH! He's ending the stream because we teased him?!
“Bye.”
“It's about time to end mine too. Bye.”
“See you, guys.”
One by one, the streams ended.
Seo Jun felt a tiny bit sorry for the viewers in the neighboring streams.
Then quickly got over it.
It was time to end anyway.
They couldn't risk revealing strategies.
“By the way, Yoon-ho. The enemy jungler today was Platinum, right? C-rank?”
Baram Sword asked.
Ha Yoon-ho calmly forced everyone to face reality.
“No. D-rank. Low Platinum.”
“Ugh.”
Baram Sword and Alpaca both swallowed hard.
Despair had arrived.
And understandably so.
The two of them had been completely dismantled by that jungler today.
And that jungler was only D-rank.
Sure, they'd improve with practice.
Sure, they were playing unfamiliar roles.
But the fact remained:
They had gotten completely schooled by a D-rank jungler.
“At least Alpaca looked a little closer to D-rank when he jungled in the first and last games.”
“Ugh...”
Lumi's comment drove another dagger into Baram Sword's heart.
“So what should we do?”
Ha Yoon-ho asked Seo Jun for his opinion.
Not because Seo Jun was the A-rank player.
“Earlier you said that regardless of lane carry potential, it's best to put people where they perform best, right?”
“Looking at the strongest teams in previous tournaments, that seems to be the case.”
“For now, I think we need to observe a little longer.”
Seo Jun still believed the flexible system built around a mid-lane core was extremely valuable.
“Tomorrow's the scrim, remember?”
What Ha Yoon-ho really meant was this:
Winning and losing didn't matter.
But if they lost...
“Are you worried about the karma?”
“Yes.”
Their team desperately needed practice.
And if they used tomorrow's practice match for experimentation, the odds of losing would increase significantly.
The result of a scrim wasn't important.
The problem was the mountain of karma Seo Jun had accumulated.
“What's the big deal? It's only a scrim. We lost today too.”
“The reaction tomorrow will probably be different.”
Seo Jun remembered the chat messages that had been teasing him earlier.
Then he shrugged.
“It's fine.”
If they lost—
And if chat exploded—
People would start donating just to make fun of him.
Wouldn't that be a perfect opportunity to collect money?
The rest of the team, completely unaware of Seo Jun's thoughts, burned with determination.
Scrim or not, they would give it everything they had.
“Sounds good.”
“Then Baram Sword will play top for now.”
“Let's all do our best tomorrow!”
The next day.
Seo Jun's team's opponent was decided.
It was Dokkaebi's team, the team with the A-rank jungler.