NOVEL WEB Chapter 138 - Event Match
Chapter 138 – Event Match
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[General] Honestly, it seems like Yoo Jin manipulated the match, thumbs up, LOL.
< Rough image of Yoo Jin and Dice dominating in first place />
Anyway, since they manipulated the match, they should both take responsibility and participate in all 14 remaining games, LOL.
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I agree.
This is so true, LOL.
Why do they get to have all the fun, blowing things up and smashing everything? Why did they only show the first two games? Are they trying to leave us out? What am I supposed to do, as a jobless bum, watch?
ㄴHey…
ㄴIf I were Yoo Jin, I’d quit too, LOL.
ㄴI’m also jobless, but I don’t want to be associated with you.
ㄴIsn’t everyone here jobless? Why is everyone pretending otherwise? Am I the only one who’s jobless?
Petition for Yoo Jin and Dice’s match manipulation (1/9999).
ㄴI agree.
ㄴAh, LOL. Quickly review it and make them participate in all the games, LOL.
ㄴHey guys, I feel a headache coming on, should I order some jokbal? I’m sad, phewㅠㅠㅠㅠ.
ㄴThey’re going nuts, LOL.
They made the game so fun and now they want to quit? No way.
ㄴExactly.
ㄴNow I’m addicted to the explosions, take responsibility!
ㄴI watched with my mouth open when the cargo ship exploded, LOL.
ㄴIs there anyone who wasn’t surprised by that?
They made an amazing opening match and now they run away, LOL.
ㄴI can hear the despair of the following teams from here.
If they edit today’s first and second games properly on the ICARUS main channel, it will hit 10 million views in no time, LOL.
ㄴTotally possible within a day.
ㄴIt’s crazy that it’s even possible.
I’m new to DarkZone because of Yoo Jin, but was KSM like this last year?
ㄴNope.
ㄴLast year was just moderately fun, LOL.
ㄴVegan diet vs. pizza, chicken, hamburger, MSG storm.
ㄴLOL.
ㄴIs it really that much different? Whoa.
ㄴNoob is cute.
[General] If those guys do well in the next two rounds, they might just get priority selection in the first set.
Yoo Jin already got over 40 points by placing first consecutively, and Dice scored 17 points in the second round by eliminating 11 people + finishing second. She’s crazy, LOL.
Better to assume there won’t be a match with those two on Sunday.
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Of course, LOL.
Anyway, it’s match manipulation, LOL. If not, they should participate in other games, LOL.
They’re really crazy, LOL.
Where’s the fine dining that serves a steak for the appetizer and ends the course, you crazy people, LOL.
ㄴAh, because they didn’t order a la carte, LOL.
ㄴHearing this makes so much sense, LOL.
ㄴSo funny, LOL.
ㄴIf you don’t like it, the other menus should’ve done better, LOL.
I don’t care at all~ Just break through the event match with skill~
ㄴImmediately turning on the tail attachment.
ㄴFor real, LOL. You can have a fan meeting even without watching the match.
ㄴHonestly, at this rate, they should double the number of event matches.
ㄴThey’re already doing three or four rounds per set, what more do you want, LOL.
ㄴThere are 2 million people, shouldn’t they accommodate?
People who are going up should go up first, LOL.
My honest opinion) I had no expectations anyway.
ㄴFor real, LOL.
ㄴOnly idiots complain, they were going up soon anyway.
ㄴIt was amazing, but I expected it, LOL.
Crazy people… crazy people… crazy people… crazy people… crazy people…
As expected from someone taught by Yoo Jin, they cause big accidents, LOL.
ㄴIs it Blooming’s turn next? LOL.
ㄴSuddenly, I’m filled with expectations, LOL.
ㄴBlooming is bewildered.
ㄴFact) It’s just that Senior Ji and the trainer have lost their minds.
Breaking News) Next match starts now.
ㄴRunning like crazy, LOL.
ㄴLet’s gooooooo!
“──For the first time ever, Yoo Jin has secured the preliminary selection right in the third KSM match! Appearing like a comet, surpassing everyone, and reaching the top faster than anyone else, the apex predator, she has won the first ticket to the Asian preliminaries!”
The prediction was not wrong.
As soon as the fourth match concluded successfully, Yoo Jin seized the opportunity to advance to higher levels.
This happened just 2 hours and 20 minutes after the tournament began.
“This concludes the first cycle of KSM! After a 10-minute break, we will introduce the event match and recommend participants!”
The number 100 floating in the sky changed to 99 as applause followed, and many people started to disperse like ebbing tides. They were heading to the restroom in real life or going to buy cyber snacks during the break.
The seven-digit number on the ceiling was fluctuating in real time, but the number of viewers had already surpassed 3 million. This was proof that the popularity of Dark Zone was sky-high, given that this was just within South Korea.
The users who participated in the four matches began to reappear on the central stage, just as before the start of KSM. The total number was 100. They sat in identical chairs that had appeared out of nowhere, engaging in various conversations.
“Where’s Dice? Dice!”
“Hey, who went around blowing everything up?”
“Waaaah───!”
Correction.
It was not a conversation but a proper lesson. Or retribution, or something that could be expressed in such terms.
The start was by Summit of TK1. The CheeseNyang character ran up, jumped, and put her arm around Dice’s neck, taking her down. Then, more cute girl avatars piled on top, resembling the process of making a sandwich.
Dice screamed while Yoo Jin leisurely watched from the side. Unfortunately, Dice, having developed a taste for explosions since the second match, did a similar act in the fourth match.
At the California Gas Storage Facility—where Yoo Jin had rampaged with a fire axe—Dice sniped the kiloliter-sized gas tanks, which normally would explode only at the end of the game, with high-explosive incendiary armor-piercing rounds from afar, causing them to detonate.
The fourth match ended in just 14 minutes.
At the point where it was hard to tell who was the victim and who was the perpetrator among the piled-up avatars, a hand reached out desperately toward Yoo Jin from between the cute girl avatars, but, well, it was karma.
In the midst of this, Yoo Jin made eye contact.
“Ah, um… please continue to enjoy the show!”
“Haha.”
Though she had demolished the Rock Base, the first match had few victims. Besides, who could possibly overwhelm Yoo Jin? In just a few matches, nearly 80 people had witnessed her formidable skills.
In contrast, Dice had gone around destroying every strategy set based on last year’s play. It was almost strange that she wasn’t being punished.
“Waaargh─!”
“Should I just dunk you in seawater and eat you as shabu-shabu, dieeeee!”
“Kill her! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!”
“Stick your shin out!”
It took 2 minutes.
That was how long it took for Dice to be beaten to a pulp.
It was utter chaos. As the players, a bit relieved, returned to their seats, Blooming poked Dice’s thigh with her finger to check if she was still alive.
A complete mess.
“Time to get up.”
“Ugh….”
Dice was slowly dragged forward, wrapping her tail around her legs. Then, wrapping her tail around her waist and shoulders, she was lifted and placed in a chair. Those seated around her watched curiously, as this was now an annual event.
Anyway, there was something I needed to ask Dice.
“What exactly is an event match?”
“Didn’t you hear during the briefing?”
“I need personal experience. I have a rough idea, but….”
It’s a kind of obstacle race that accommodates 520 participants at a time.
Instead, you participate as an SD (super deformed) character. Viewers can decide whether to participate during the draw, and there are five games in total. The overall winner receives a bonus of 3 KSM points.
The 100 participants are split into five rooms with 20 people each. Therefore, the maximum number of participants for this event is about 13,000. As it takes place over Saturday and Sunday, viewers have to overcome roughly 1:200 odds to participate.
Among them, to play with me… there are five rooms, so 1/5. Roughly, one out of a thousand will get to play with me.
But that’s not the point.
Dice hit the nail on the head and continued.
“Last year, I wasn’t that famous, so based on the people who were popular at the time… it was just chaos. One match takes about 20 minutes, and some couldn’t even take a single step for 15 minutes.”
“Goodness.”
“Yoo Jin, well… You’re going to push through everyone anyway, aren’t you?”
“If there are too many, then who knows.”
Crowd violence is the scariest.
The explanation continued.
“Moreover, the game itself is structured to perfectly mess with others. You can grab them, or slime-like stuff on the floor can make you slip. If you put your mind to it, you can endlessly torment a single person.”
“Sounds intense.”
“…I went through it too.”
Of course.
Next came brief explanations about the map gimmicks.
“Giant fans, toy hammers, slime platforms, speed boost platforms, trampoline platforms… It’s more fun to experience it than to explain it.”
As I listened to various stories, time flew by.
The drawing began.
“Now, the event match draw begins! Who among these will be the lucky 2500 selected users to spread out into each room? Those who are chosen will see their bracelet on the left wrist light up in pink!”
A soft pink glow that was easily visible even from a distance. Notifications of the drawing winners started shining here and there in the audience, with some people shaking their bodies excitedly to express their joy.
The map was chosen, and 100 users were divided. Since Dice was running with the next best score after me, we couldn’t be on the same team. With a pop, LD transformed into SD, which meant tall avatars changed into short, chubby characters, and the background music changed accordingly.
Even my voice had become cuter compared to before.
While I was checking the faces of those I would be playing with for this round,
“…Why does everyone look like that?”
“Hehe.”
Nineteen.
Plus, the 500 spawned around me.
All of them were looking at me with strange eyes.
“Now, we will move to the map! During this round, do your best to run as hard as you can without losing to anyone! Or grab and hold others! The choice is yours! Let’s count together! 3! 2! 1! Start───!”
My event match was going to be a thorny path.
Probably.
“There are too many people….”
Not just many, but literally swarming.
There were many ways to describe the density of people – for example, onomatopoeic words like bustling, or saying it’s crowded would give people a sense of the situation.
But here… I mean, where I was standing, those words were insufficient. Bustling. It wasn’t a word that could be used to describe the situation here; it was the most accurate word for the current state.
A line of 25 people in total, twenty times. They were spaced apart, but if that spacing was less than 50 cm, it was practically the same as being stuck together. Anyway, since all the avatars were cute SD female avatars, it was nice to look at.
While glancing sideways…
“…?”
The stares were strange here too.
And turning my head the other way showed the same thing.
Everyone was looking at me.
───Gulp.
I carefully swallowed dryly and checked the horizon.
The colorfully designed obstacles and map, and the level. The goal point standing grandly at the end seemed so far away.
As I tensed my body and got ready to spring forward,
[Notification: The match begins!］
“Attack!”
“It’s like a snake tail, a snake tail!”
“Don’t let her escape, quack!”
“Just let me touch your tail once───!”
“Why are there so many!?”
Escape was impossible.
As soon as it started, I was hit by a barrage of about 30 people and became the second Dice.
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