“You can go this way.”
Following the guidance of the employee, I slowly moved inside. The luxurious hall was decorated extravagantly, fitting for today’s match.
MG’s team color, blue, and their rival IBX’s team color, red, clashed dramatically in the center of the arena, almost as if they were living creatures.
Whoever did the decorating really went all out. It would have been great if the broadcast could show this to the viewers.
As I looked around, I took a seat. Since it was the VIP area reserved for team officials, the seats at the front offered a clear view of the players and commentators right in front of me.
Right there, coaches and staff were busily moving about.
The players seemed to be sitting in front of their computers, checking their equipment. They were probably making sure that their mouse and keyboard were responding as intended and that the game wasn’t lagging.
“Where’s Brutal?”
Like a meerkat, I lifted my head and began scanning ahead. My eyes shifted around, searching for the blue team MG, positioned to the left.
“There he is.”
I soon spotted Brutal. A young player with hazelnut hair, still youthful and not quite out of his boyhood. He must be the one who called me here.
But facing him in person, he looked somewhat anxious, quite different from the confident request he made for me to come watch.
With his hands clasped and a stiff expression, he stared straight ahead, a far cry from his usual confident demeanor.
“Is he nervous?”
That wouldn’t be strange at all. Brutal mentioned that today was his debut in the pro league.
No matter how great he looked in broadcasts or practice scrims, the stage today could feel immense.
After all, how many players perform well in practice but fail to showcase their skills in the actual match? The term “choking” exists for a reason.
A talented young player might not even get the chance to flourish and could potentially disappoint. I really didn’t want things to go that way.
“Should I cheer for him?”
I considered giving Brutal some encouragement. It might be a bit embarrassing, but if it could help him relax, then it would be worth it. If that allowed him to show his true abilities in today’s match, I could tolerate this little embarrassment.
“Brutal—”
I slightly stood up from my seat and called out, ensuring my voice would reach the players in front of me.
Sure enough, Brutal, who had been staring ahead with a stiff face, turned his head around. Eventually, our eyes met.
Brutal, with a stiff face staring straight ahead, started turning his head this way and that. Then, our eyes met.
“Ah, finally looking over here, huh?”
He grinned and raised his voice again.
“Fighting-!”
Don’t shake and do it right, buddy.
I raised my right hand high to show him I was cheering for him.
At that, Brutal, who had been looking at me, suddenly jumped up from his spot and started dashing off somewhere, his earlobes turning bright red.
“Huh…?”
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Maybe my encouragement had backfired.
Suddenly feeling the weight of everyone’s gaze, I hesitated and sat back down.
*
Genius Brutal.
In the Abyss North American League, the word genius had become synonymous with him, but within the MG team, there was an additional descriptor that tagged along.
Arrogant.
That’s how they evaluated Brutal within MG: the arrogant genius.
In reality, that was indeed his image in the team. From the time he was selected as a trainee, he was the confident, arrogant genius. He was called up straight to the first team without even passing through the second.
Like most geniuses, Brutal was a person whose abilities were skewed in one direction. In his case, that was gaming.
His other skills were close to zero. Due to a lack of innate social skills, he couldn’t get along well with the team members.
He didn’t even feel the need to fit in. After all, a king was supposed to be like that. Brutal was destined to stand apart from ordinary folks from birth.
It was clear how Brutal was perceived by his teammates, coaches, and team officials.
A cocky brat, a disrespectful young kid, but without a doubt, a skilled one; he was a talent like no other in Abyss… and so on.
The common thread in the evaluations was that he didn’t talk much and was cold.
It was simply a lack of social skills, but the team couldn’t possibly grasp those underlying circumstances. At least on the surface, Brutal was indeed a young, arrogant kid who was just good at gaming—a detestable, surly guy.
However, thanks to what had just happened, the team members had no choice but to slightly adjust their evaluations of Brutal.
They had no choice but to slightly adjust their evaluation of Brutal.
Brutal, flustered and turning red, suddenly fled the scene. The meaning behind that action was quite simple.
“That guy just…”
“Is he embarrassed?”
“Brutal?”
It wasn’t uncommon for him to hurl insults and criticize opponents during games, but he had never blushed before.
Why is he suddenly acting like this when he didn’t even react to the onslaught of beauties claiming to be his fans?
“By the way, didn’t he take one more direct ticket? He said he had someone to bring.”
“Brutal got a ticket?”
“Besides family, he had someone else to invite? Brutal, who has no friends?”
“Is that her? The one who just greeted Brutal.”
“You mean the silver-haired girl? Hmm…”
A woman sitting in the VIP seats, reserved only for those who personally handed out tickets to players and club officials. A woman who sparkled enough to catch anyone’s eye.
The MG players couldn’t even deduce that she was the one who had beaten Brutal on the Korean server and was the main reason he failed to achieve the top rank across all servers.
They also didn’t know she was a famous streamer in Korea and an exceptional player who received shout-outs from pro gamers.
They simply assumed that Brutal must be pretty close to her to casually hand her a ticket.
Their evaluation of Kayak, however, was…
“She’s so pretty.”
“She looks like Camilla.”
“Did she come in cosplay on purpose? That’s dedication.”
“Brutal, you little rascal… busy with love interests…”
“It’s not that he wasn’t interested in women; he just had high standards.”
The other MG players, excluding Brutal, were also momentarily astonished by Kayak.
They were surprised and jealous that Brutal had any contact with a girl like her.
*
A sudden appearance and an equally sudden greeting.
The unexpected attack at that timing was devastating, forcing Brutal to escape to the restroom.
He couldn’t predict what kind of trouble might unfold if he stayed there.
Blushing like a boy befitting his age, Brutal took a moment to himself and managed to calm down.
And the emotion that visited him was pure joy.
“She came.”
From the moment he received a DM from Kayak, and when he heard she was coming here by plane, he was overjoyed. After all, it wouldn’t have been surprising if she had declined.
From the moment I heard she was coming over by plane, I was over the moon. I mean, I thought it wouldn’t be weird if she said no.
I pondered for ages while handing over the ticket. Brutal himself had no choice but to think it over many times as well. It was all about the physical distance between us.
If she didn’t live in Korea, and was only in the East Coast of the USA or even Canada, I wouldn’t have worried so much about handing over a single ticket.
But Kayak lived on the other side of the continent.
It takes a whopping 15 hours just for a flight from California. That’s 30 hours round trip. Even if I offered her a ticket, the thought of her actually coming would be daunting.
Brutal didn’t just randomly buy the plane ticket and hotel stay. Others might think it’s overboard, but to Brutal, it was only right to provide such comforts since he was the one who invited her.
In conclusion, she lived up to his expectations thoroughly. Just like when they first met and competed in Solo Rank, she surpassed his predictions effortlessly.
‘Now it’s my turn to meet expectations.’
Brutal glared at the bathroom mirror.
For the sake of her who came all this way to watch the game, he absolutely couldn’t lose.
If he showed a pathetic performance and disgraceful behavior, he might just run off in shame and never return to the pro scene.
‘That won’t happen, though.’
Resolved, Brutal returned to his seat.
“Hey, Brutal!”
“Where the heck have you been?”
His teammates, who were about to ask him something, fell silent at his fierce expression.
Just looking at him radiated a solid willpower. It was a rare sight of Brutal that nobody had seen in the usual practice room.
“So we’re sticking to the three strategies we talked about yesterday?”
“Uh… unless there are major variables?”
“You seemed half-hearted, but you were actually listening, huh?”
“Your girlfriend is here, so you can’t lose, Brutal!”
One teammate’s playful shout made Brutal snicker. It was another first for the players to witness this scene.
“Yeah, we have to win.”
No matter what—
*
-Welcome, heroes of the Abyss!
-The moment we’ve all been waiting for, the first game of the ACS League! Let’s introduce the two teams kicking off the season!
-MG vs IBX! The highly anticipated first match starts now!
Let’s get this started—–!
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