Chapter 127
The grades for the Rios participants are as follows.
A.
This grade is given to the undisputed leaders of each team, possessing skills ranging from Challenger to Grandmaster.
If the team leader participating in the auction serves as the leader outside the game, then within the game, that role belongs to the participants who received an A.
If you won’t listen to the calls of those with the highest understanding and greatest skill, whose calls will you follow?
Of course, it’s not set in stone, so you can just leave it to whoever is best at shot-calling.
B.
Streamers with skills from Master to high Diamond receive this grade.
If they meet a lower-tier participant in lane, they might snowball immensely.
In such cases, they have the potential to become an ace no less valuable than an A.
Generally, from A to B, they are selected with extreme care. Ensuring their main roles never overlap.
C.
Streamers around low Diamond to high Platinum receive this grade.
They’re just about at the level of being good by ordinary standards.
If they manage to hold on against an A or B, that alone is beyond pulling their weight—it’s considered a carry.
D.
Low Platinum to Gold streamers get this grade.
Though they’re on the lower end, their average skill means they don’t become especially hot or avoided commodities.
E.
Bronze to Silver.
Just surviving without dying too much and playing safe makes them a coveted pick.
Hugging the turret tightly and not venturing out to avoid fights.
That is their goal.
Occasionally, E grades end up luckily facing off against each other in lane.
When that happens, they’re allowed to step outside the turret and fight.
Since even if one of them gets immensely fed, it won’t be game-changing, the other laners completely leave their fight alone.
Even overly immersed viewers don’t really curse when E grades lane against each other. They only tease.
Thus, Rios has a total of 6 teams, 30 participants, with one person from each grade per team.
Also, the number of participants per grade varies depending on the team leaders.
If all the team leaders recruited in advance are A’s, then any applicants who are Challenger or Grandmaster are automatically excluded.
Of course, the operations team exists to prevent such a situation.
“You’re sure all the team leaders have replied, right?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
The man and woman answered simultaneously.
The team leader of the operations team, the overall manager of Rios, interjected to stop the man and woman who had been debating until just a moment ago.
“So that means only this streamer is left. We didn’t recruit anyone other than the team leaders, after all.”
“That’s correct.”
They always recruit the six team leaders in advance.
Partly because how many to select from each grade changes depending on the team leaders.
And above all, since the team leader serves as the team’s captain, they have no choice but to select streamers with long careers.
If they didn’t ask in advance and then tried to pick team leaders from the applicants later, they could end up in a bind.
The man spoke.
“Well, we decided not to recruit anyone besides the team leaders unless absolutely necessary. Isn’t that right, Deputy Lee?”
In fact, for this tournament, other than the team leaders, Seojun was the only person they had recruited.
“That’s only ‘unless absolutely necessary.’ You answer me, Deputy Kim. If that streamer had applied, wouldn’t we have accepted him?”
The woman, Lee Yeongju, the one called Deputy Lee, shot back.
“If he applied, of course we’d accept him. The question is whether we absolutely have to bring him in. This isn’t that kind of situation.”
“I hope you haven’t forgotten that our goal is to run the tournament—not just smoothly, but in a way that draws a crowd.”
“Agreed. But wouldn’t running it smoothly be the most important? It’s going to draw a crowd anyway.”
“…….”
She wasn’t wrong.
“And so?”
“Let’s say we assign Seojun to A. But what if Seojun underperforms? And because of that, a team gets eliminated right from the group stage? Who will people blame?”
They would naturally blame the operations team.
If it were people who played ranked and had a tier, no one would argue—the blame would lie with the underperforming streamer.
But Seojun is unranked.
If Seojun is placed in A but can’t perform the role of an A, then the team that wins him in the auction will have to play without an A-grade user.
Because of them—the operations team.
Such a situation must be prevented.
Deputy Kim Juhwan thought so.
But Lee Yeongju also had something to say.
“And what if we assign him to B, and then he plays better than someone who got A? Won’t that cause a riot too?”
If Seojun is placed in B but shows performance surpassing an A?
The team that gets Seojun would effectively end up with two A-grade players.
A team with two A’s would win the tournament barring a major upset.
If that happens?
Deputy Lee said,
“In fact, this side is more reasonable. If it goes wrong after following my suggestion, we’ll only hear the resentment of fans rooting for one team. But if it goes wrong after following Deputy Kim’s suggestion? We’d have to bear the resentment of fans from the other five teams that lost to a team with two A’s. Can you handle that?”
“Hmm……”
The operations team leader interjected.
“That does seem correct, Deputy Lee.”
“Right?”
“But does that make it unreasonable to give him an A just because we’ll get cursed at less if we’re wrong?”
“That’s true too.”
“In the end, what we need to know is just how good that person is at League… but it’s ambiguous.”
Deputy Lee, however, was confident.
“Just looking, he’s Grandmaster at minimum, isn’t he? He’s beating up Kael master one-on-one right now.”
“Again, Baramgeom’s Kael is Master level. And in a one-on-one with no minions, it’s hard to call it your true skill.”
“You’ve all seen For the Sake of Chivalry, haven’t you?!”
Deputy Lee raised her voice slightly, as if frustrated that they were agonizing over something so obvious.
And then the team leader and Deputy Kim.
“I haven’t seen For the Sake of Chivalry, so I wouldn’t know, heh heh.”
“It is a rather peculiar game.”
They only reacted like this.
Deputy Kim spoke.
“I admit that his physical mechanics with the sword are more than worthy of an A.”
“The same for me.”
“But there aren’t that many good heroes who use swords, and relying only on physical ability won’t cut it against Challenger players in League who understand the game too deeply. Skill in the game isn’t just physical; in fact, as you go higher in tier, this other aspect becomes more important.”
Deputy Kim tapped his temple with his finger.
There were other issues as well.
So far, Seojun had only played one hero: Kael.
If Kael gets nerfed, his patterns changed, or he gets banned—would Seojun’s skill still be Challenger-level then?
He needs more proof.
“We don’t have time. No time to watch more of the other things.”
“Exactly. To prove it, he’d have to climb to Challenger in ranked, but by then the season would end, the tournament would end, and the year would end.”
“If his skill were just decent, we’d just put him in C or D.”
“In that case, it wouldn’t matter if he turned out to be a jackpot or a bust.”
At lower tiers, a person with random skill was always a fun element in every tournament.
But the A and B tiers are too crucial in deciding victory or defeat to include any gamble.
In the end, the cause of this whole discussion was that Seojun had performed far better than they expected.
The original plan was B.
Around high Diamond to Master.
But after actually watching him play, they feared this might go wrong.
“Isn’t there any way to check? I think we’d get a feel if he faced off against a Challenger in lane.”
“Hmm. Shall we ask for a friendly match?”
“Pardon?”
“You know the showcase we used to have.”
Showcase.
A kind of initiation ceremony, a friendly match held before past tournaments to show various aspects of the participants.
Not only participants but other streamers also joined in, making it a festival everyone enjoyed. And with a scrim period, they were no longer necessary, so they disappeared.
“You mean do that again? Hmm……”
“No, not that we host it. It’s perfectly natural and common for streamers to gather and play games among themselves, isn’t it?”
The two deputies instantly realized what the team leader was saying.
Ask another streamer to create an opportunity to check!
“Who are you thinking of asking?”
“There’s someone who fits the situation perfectly. As an MCN president, no, simply by nature, someone who loves mingling with streamers.”
He was also a team leader in this tournament.
“Ah!”
* * *
“Ah……”
Baramgeom, thoroughly picked apart by Seojun, collapsed to the floor as if exhausted.
The streaming had finally ended.
The moments of being one-sidedly overwhelmed with pure physical skill had at last come to an end.
“You’re really, unbelievably good.”
Actually, that part was fine.
Even if his lack of skill was exposed, it didn’t matter. Just because he’s worse than Seojun, his absolute standing doesn’t go down.
The problem was.
“You could’ve gone a little easier…… really……”
Sure, how much could it hurt to get hit in virtual reality?
But he felt phantom pain.
Truly.
This had never happened before.
“I was just letting you build real combat experience.”
“Is that so……”
Anyway, for Baramgeom, this day had been fulfilling.
Seojun personally engraved the sensations into his body.
Through real combat experience.
Real combat.
Real.
Damn.
His head hurt.
Anyway, it was now time for Baramgeom to ask what he was curious about.
This was the biggest reason for the joint broadcast.
In fact, he could practically be considered Seojun’s viewer number one.
“Seojun.”
“Yes?”
“Why did you stop playing for a while?”
If he had that level of skill in the past, it could only be called talent.
So why on earth did he disappear?!
Baramgeom was extremely curious after searching through old videos.
But Seojun’s answer was too simple.
“College entrance exams.”
“Ah… ha!”
He understood.
“Then, in the past, were the patterns also like this?”
Baramgeom fired off a series of other questions as well.
“Ah, the patterns? They changed once.”
“What?”
“Back when I was playing, maybe someone tried to snipe me or something, but suddenly the patterns changed.”
“And?”
“I played one game, adapted right away, and played like usual. The next day, they went back to normal.”
If viewers had heard this conversation, the chat would have been flooded with ‘kek.’
Baramgeom laughed heartily at the developer’s sorrow, then asked about various things.
About swords.
About streaming.
Though Baramgeom was a streaming senior, Seojun’s scale was ten times larger.
“Lastly, um, if it’s not too sensitive a question: why did you ask me not to mention your past? When I was curious in the past and posted your video in a community, no one recognized it. If I were to post it now, everyone would know it’s you, Seojun. But that just means no one knows what you looked like seven years ago anyway.”
“It’s simple. Someone told me to hide my strength.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ve been recruited for Rios. They said I shouldn’t go for a high price in the auction, so I should hide my strength.”
“Ah. I see……”
Then what about today’s broadcast?
You’re saying that was you hiding your strength?
Seojun was a truly fascinating streamer.
Nothing he said made sense, yet he had the power to make it all fit.
It must be his streaming concept.
“By the way, Baramgeom.”
“Yes?”
“Where do you live?”
At the eerie sensation crawling up his spine, Baramgeom found himself lying.
“Ah, I live out in the countryside! The countryside!”
“Ah, that’s a shame. I have two gym membership spots left.”
Phew.
Letting out a sigh of relief, he resolved to leave quickly.
“Seojun. Then, thank you for today. Hope we can meet again.”
“Good work.”
“Haha. Thank you.”
With that, he got out of the capsule, and after a moment of thought, submitted his application to participate in Rios.
Since he has a job, if he gets in, things will probably be tight for a while.
But for some reason, it seemed like it’d be fun.
* * *
At the same time.
In the room next to Seojun’s, Taewoo had finished a game and was chatting in front of his computer.
“Yes, I am indeed one of the team leaders this time. Heh heh. I’m definitely going to win this time!”
Taewoo had been utterly crushed last time.
“You say the team leader is a landmine? No, what are you…… Don’t worry about the auction. It’s just that I’m not interested in studying; my brain is really good, you know. This time, I’m planning to build a team that’s totally unbalanced…… Oh? Hold on.”
Taewoo tilted his head at a message that suddenly arrived.
‘The boss?’
No way.
He’s not going to suggest a horror game, is he?