Chapter 168
The world moves more busily than one thinks.
“Everyone’s so diligent.”
What kind of work are those people out there doing?
Ha Yun-ho thought as he gazed through the car window.
Countless cars starting their day along the Han River boulevard, and people waking up their bodies with exercise in the park.
It was a fascinating sight.
He had never once thought about it.
When it’s late, he streams until 4 or 5 a.m. and then goes to sleep.
Normally, he sleeps a bit earlier and then sleeps in.
So this time slot was one he hadn’t been awake for in the past few years of his streaming life.
And so he had forgotten that so many people start their mornings this early.
“Well, at least it’s not jammed.”
It wasn’t exactly the usual commuting hours.
Then what makes people move around now?
Because their work requires them to head out early?
Or for self-improvement?
If it’s because they hate traffic jams during commute hours, that would be both funny and a bit sad.
There must be something to it.
“In any case, the important thing is...”
That he felt refreshed.
It wasn’t simply because he was going to meet pro Lee Dong-su.
Last night he went to sleep three hours earlier than usual, and today he woke up seven hours earlier.
*‘Thinking about it, I really slept a damn lot normally.’*
Because everyone around him lived like that, he had thought it was normal to go to bed at dawn and wake up at noon or 1 p.m., but it wasn’t.
Though some say six hours is not quite enough for a proper night’s sleep, his body felt light and refreshed.
“Should I push my streaming hours forward and start waking up earlier?”
He needed to think about his health.
He might not be in his thirties. But they say if you feel like you’re getting old when you haven’t even hit thirty, it’s just that your health isn’t good. Ha Yun-ho was exactly in that state.
It might be a resolution that only lasts three days.
But for now, because of the tournament prep, it would easily last longer than three days.
And if he did it together with others, that three days would stretch into a month.
Once a habit forms, it could last a year.
What would you even do after waking up early?
“Seo Jun-nim seems to like exercising... it’d be nice to get closer, wouldn’t it?”
No harm in that, right?
“Was it here?”
He’d arrived before he knew it.
The drive took about twenty minutes, which was just right.
“Whoa, they’re using two floors of the building?”
Even seen from outside through the glass, the gym clearly had scale.
It looked like they’d rented two floors of a fairly large building.
“Underground parking, nice.”
After parking, he took the elevator up.
“They said to come up to the 4th floor.”
Apparently the 3rd floor was for regular members, and the 4th floor wasn’t without regular members, but its character was a little different.
* * *
‘What kind of place could it be?’
Watching the floor numbers change above the elevator, Ha Yun-ho imagined.
‘Must have amazing facilities, right?’
It’s well-known that each professional team has its own dedicated fitness center.
A dedicated facility that can take care of everything from real-life physical condition to your state when connecting to virtual reality.
But if pro Lee Dong-su had skipped that and come here, it was clear there had to be something special.
Maybe there was custom equipment on the level of urban legends, even more expensive than the 100-million-won capsule that was the championship prize.
Or maybe, surprisingly, there was a martial arts dojo, seeking an analog sensibility.
Isn’t it famous that martial arts gained even more influence with the rise of virtual reality?
And that was precisely the kind of special thing even pro teams found hard to prepare.
That’s why Ha Yun-ho was full of anticipation.
And then he reached the 4th floor, the doors opened, and he stepped out of the elevator.
*Bang! Bang!*
The first thing that caught his eye was a clean facility.
All kinds of equipment (Ha Yun-ho didn’t know their uses since he wasn’t familiar with gyms) were lined up in rows and columns, and there were already quite a few people.
He saw a young man working out extremely, really extremely hard.
*‘I feel like I’ve seen that person on a broadcast before…….’*
He wasn’t sure.
And there was none of that special something he’d been looking forward to.
*Bang! Bang!*
Except for a certain sound that echoed through the space.
He moved a little further and another area, separated by a glass wall, came into view.
That space was as large as the gym and filled with multiple rings and a crowd of people—no, a crowd of hyungs.
Whatever their real ages, with looks like that, they were definitely hyungs. There was no way they weren’t hyungs.
And.
*Bang! Bang!*
‘Is that Seo Jun-nim?’
Ha Yun-ho, who had been hesitating beyond the glass wall and taking it all in, realized the person on the ring was handsome.
Those deep, distinctive features and the way his clothes draped, recognizable even from a distance, made it possible to identify him.
‘He really looks exactly the same in real life. I only touched myself up a tiny bit. Just a tiiiny bit.’
His conscience pricked him, and because of offline broadcasts, he really had only touched himself up a little.
Anyway, who was he sparring with this morning?
Once he confirmed it was Seo Jun, he went closer and stepped inside.
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*
The identity of the sound was someone getting hit by Seo Jun. Once he stepped inside, it rang even louder.
Brutal.
His opponent looked like he was training as a fighter.
Where was pro Lee Dong-su? They had definitely said they were meeting today.
That’s when Ha Yun-ho was looking around.
“Hello.”
A mountain bandit approached him with a gravelly voice.
“Hello?”
“That bastard—no, are you Seo Jun’s fellow streamer?”
“Ah! Yes, I am.”
The bandit’s gaze shifted to the signed paper and pen in Ha Yun-ho’s hand.
Then it shifted back and looked at him with pity.
*What’s this?*
*Why is he looking at me with enough pity to recognize me at a glance?*
The bandit seemed about to say something, then stopped and turned his head.
“Well... no, nothing. Yah, you bastard! Your colleague is here! Stop already!”
*Bang!*
“Ah. Thanks, Director. Hello, Yun-ho-nim.”
But Seo Jun didn’t stop.
“I said stop! No, a guest a hundred times more precious than you!”
“More precious than me?”
What precious guest?
As expected, his opponent must be a fighter.
“Stop now!”
“Neop.” (Yes, sir)
The person facing Seo Jun flopped onto his back as soon as those words came out.
“Phew. Barely held out again today. Without passing out.”
They even pass out.
“24 effective hits, you did well.”
“But I didn’t land a single hit?”
“Yep.”
“I got pummeled 24 times in 3 minutes?”
“Well, you did well.”
“Hehehe. Right!”
*What on earth is that otherworldly conversation?*
Ha Yun-ho headed toward where Seo Jun was.
Seo Jun, leaning against the ring, greeted him.
“You came early, very commendable. As expected of team lead.”
“Ha ha. I’m not the only one coming early and getting cursed at, right?”
At Ha Yun-ho’s words, Seo Jun just smiled.
And someone lying next to them just laughed.
“Hehehe. Hehehe. Hehehehe.”
*What the. Creepy.*
It seemed like laughing at him, or just out of his mind.
“You won’t get cursed at, you know?”
“Really?”
“Of course. The team leader takes the initiative and says he’ll come train first. Who would hate that?”
“Hehehehe. Hehehe.”
*That guy keeps laughing.*
“But where is pro Lee Dong-su?”
Ha Yun-ho could finally ask Seo Jun what he was curious about.
Never mind the facilities or anything else.
If only he could meet Lee Dong-su!
Only then did Seo Jun step back a bit. And said,
“Ah, allow me to introduce. This is pro Lee Dong-su.”
Seo Jun pointed to the person who’d been lying next to them, and when that deranged person got up and took off his headgear, a familiar face appeared.
“Hehehe. Hello, Ha Yun-ho hyung! I’m coach Lee Dong-su! Welcome. Really, so very welcome…….”
*What?*
*Wait.*
*The person who’d been getting hit this whole time was Lee Dong-su?*
Looking at the confused Ha Yun-ho, Seo Jun smiled brightly.
“I’ll go easy on you today.”
*Huh?*
*Wasn’t the coach supposed to be pro Lee Dong-su?*
“Yun-ho hyung. From now on, we’re comrades.”
*What on earth?*
Soon, Seo Jun climbed down from the ring.
* * *
“Training together……”
“Ohh!”
“No, I mean together……”
“Ohhh!”
“No, really, *together*?”
“*Ohhhh!*”
Watching all his teammates turn into fools, Ha Yun-ho squeezed his eyes shut.
He couldn’t say any more.
Seo Jun was watching him. If he pushed it any further, he’d definitely get beaten even more next time.
Seo Jun had deliberately shown him that brutal sight, sparring with the others after training today and making sure Ha Yun-ho saw.
Silently telling him to keep his mouth shut.
*‘Or not?’*
But the other hyungs there were completely calm, so maybe it was just a normal everyday thing?
Anyway, it was terrifying.
So Ha Yun-ho just hoped his teammates would understand.
The problem was.
“An opportunity to train with the very Lee Dong-su himself!”
“I’m a bit salty you got to meet him first, Yun-ho, but you’re the team lead. I’ll accept it! This means we’ll get to meet him too eventually.”
“I, Baram-gum, who’s always on time no matter how much work piles up! From now on, no matter what, I’ll wake up right at 6 a.m. every day and head out!”
Even though he was in virtual reality, his whole body ached. His arms felt prickly and sore.
It was phantom pain. For real.
Athletes’ high-intensity training? Ha Yun-ho could confidently say what he’d done today made that look like nothing.
And on top of that.
That training.
“No, I said it’s *together*……”
To be exact, we’ll be training *together*.
“Ah. How many times are you going to say it? We’re seriously going to do it properly anyway, so stop.”
“Right. Is it some kind of team leader sense of duty or something?”
“Can’t I just start going from tomorrow?”
Ah.
Judging that conversation was impossible, Ha Yun-ho immediately pulled out an item in the lobby.
It was a carrot doll.
And he held it and shook it.
It was his SOS, figuring that at least Seo Jun, who was weak to memes and jokes like this, wouldn’t understand.
- Ha Yun-ho, why’s he acting like a fool lol
- Why the sudden carrot? lol
- Shaking the carrot so lifelessly is so damn funny lol lol lol
* * *
Hmm.
Seo Jun watched Ha Yun-ho working hard shaking the carrot.
‘Maybe his body felt a bit too comfortable?’
If it had been harder, he wouldn’t have the energy for thoughts like that.
In Seo Jun’s view, the first step to improving one’s skills was to more clearly perceive the sensation of moving the body in reality.
In his past life, there was a training method of swinging a sword extremely slowly.
Swinging quickly and accurately is harder than swinging lightly.
And swinging without a single shake, infinitely slow, is several times harder than swinging quickly and accurately.
The sole reason for that training was this:
To magnify the body’s movements in slow motion and examine each one precisely.
‘I don’t expect that much. Just simple repetitive exercises would be fine.’
You have to become aware of your body’s movements.
He could see they weren’t even managing that.
And raising basic stamina on top of that would be good, wouldn’t it? So he had assigned simple repetitive exercises.
Just the effort to maintain correct posture could produce a similar effect.
Of course, both objectively and subjectively to Ha Yun-ho, it had indeed been a bit much.
*‘It wasn’t enough.’*
Seo Jun’s subjectivity didn’t think so.
“Then let’s wrap up here! Good luck on tomorrow’s match!”
Ha Yun-ho stayed until the very last moment shaking the carrot, then ended the broadcast.
* * *
When Seo Jun got out of the capsule, Tae-woo was waiting for him.
As usual, teetering on the edge of dropping snack crumbs.
Seo Jun frowned.
“What. Why are you waiting?”
Actually, it’s fine. He can just make him clean up.
“Did you order chicken?”
He’ll have him clean while eating.
“I did. No, but why do I always have to order? Huh?”
“Who’s telling you not to? You should be grateful I’m not making you go pick it up yourself because the delivery fee feels like a waste.”
“Well, that’s true.”
Tae-woo accepted it quickly this time too.
“…….”
“Hey. Do you have a strategy for tomorrow?”
Why’s he suddenly asking about strategy?
“I discussed it a bit with my team.”
“And?”
“My team reached a conclusion.”
“What.”
“To dig up info from you.”
“Is that so.”
“You must’ve roughly strategized where to attack from facing our team. Tell me about it a little.”
“Why would I?”
“Just because. You’ll win anyway even if I don’t, right?”
“Well, that’s true.”
“So tell me. We’re a weak team and we need a lot of info.”
“Are you guys 0 wins 2 losses?”
“Yes. And we’ll be 3 losses if we lose tomorrow. But regardless of tomorrow’s match, I just want to know a bit about the perspective of a team facing us. So help me out.”
“Got it.”
“Oh!”
“Our team’s strategy is to make the enemy mid laner quit. That way we can easily win the game.”
“…….”
“Like I said yesterday, my goal is you, Tae-woo.”
Heh heh.
Heh heh heh.
Tae-woo silently cursed with his eyes for a moment, then said.
“That’s my line, you bastard.”