Chapter 137

[Now then! Are there any other dissenting opinions? No? Alright then, let’s move on to Spoon-nim, who lost to an unranked player with a 10 synchronization rate.]

The center screen changed. The second A-tier player was Spoon.

And the description caption written below was exactly as Navigator had said, word for word without a single typo, just like it had been for Seo-jun.

“Is that even allowed?”

Seo-jun asked his viewers with a laugh.

Seo-jun had also received a permission request from the management team the day before. Was it the same for Spoon?

-Who knows lol

-The management team must have really committed to this

-They actually approved that?

[Now. Spoon-nim’s position is ADC, and his tier is solidly Challenger. I know there’s been a somewhat dismissive atmosphere among some viewers recently because he took a beating from a certain someone, but a Challenger ADC is truly a carry machine that can lead the team straight to victory with just a little momentum! A true bus driver! Plus, being the only A-tier ADC makes his value all the more precious!]

-That’s true

-Having the royal family ADC be the highest tier is definitely best

-Since when were ADCs the royal family? Those spoon guys

Spoon was a derogatory term for ADCs that had been passed down since ancient times.

ADCs just put their spoon into already-cooked rice in the game.

Or they need to be spoon-fed.

Or, do you hit people with a spoon?

It was an outdated saying now.

“Well, I do have quite some expertise with spoons. Though it’s actually with pipes.”

-Pipe serial killer…

[Oh, I forgot to mention—there was a message from the management team. The description caption was written at Spoon-nim’s request. He said he wanted to reflect and learn from his mistakes. Haha. So what do you all think of this Spoon-nim!]

So that’s what it was?

* * *

The LOS preview show continued for another two hours before ending.

[Let’s give a round of applause to all the team captains who worked hard so far!]

-Clap clap clap clap

-Wow!

-Clap clap

-Clap clap clap clap

Those double consonants weren’t the sound of clicking tongues, but represented the clapping sound when hands come together.

[And also for Navigator-nim who provided commentary!]

Ha Yoon-ho skillfully added his remarks.

“Wow, but both the team captains and Navigator-nim are amazing. It seemed like there wasn’t a single person among the 25 players they didn’t know.”

-True lol

-I still don’t know anyone except the streamer and Tae-woo

-That’s professionalism

-Their heads must’ve been splitting for the past few days

It wasn’t for nothing that Tae-woo had been glued to videos for the past two days.

“I only know Alpaca-nim and Rumi-nim, Mallang-nim, and Windstorm Sword-nim who I met during the Point friendly match.”

The only new thing he learned was that Alpaca was a mid player?

-You only know the people you’ve actually met, streamer LOL

-No sincerity at all lol

-Well, you’re not a team captain so it doesn’t matter

That’s right.

Unless you’re a team captain, there’s no need to research them.

Once teams are decided tomorrow, it’ll be enough to learn about them then.

“Professionalism is professionalism. Well then, I’ll be heading off too.”

-Ah…

-Don’t you have any streamer spirit?

-Please, streaming comes before health!

-When will you develop some?

-You grew too fast…

-Let’s find our original intention

-No to original intentions!

“The tournament is tomorrow. Seriously.”

Seo-jun ended his broadcast without a moment’s hesitation, got up from his chair, went straight to Tae-woo’s room after enjoying the interesting spectacle.

“Oh, brother, why are you here?”

Tae-woo hurriedly pressed alt+tab to close the window that had been open on his monitor screen.

“What are you hiding?”

“Hey now. It’s privacy. My secret stash folder!”

Crazy bastard.

Seeing him make up such excuses when he had nothing else to say definitely confirmed he was crazy.

“That doesn’t seem right at all. Were you working on strategy by any chance?”

Seo-jun hadn’t actually seen any of the content.

He hadn’t burst in suddenly but had gently opened the door, and Tae-woo had sensed him as soon as he grabbed the handle and quickly pressed alt+tab.

Still, what he was doing now was obvious.

“Oh, right. So what, you’re not going to show me?”

Tae-woo readily admitted it.

Seo-jun snorted as if he’d expected as much and asked why.

“Why not? I’m not a competitor, I’m a participant.”

“That’s true, but I’m still not showing you. Am I crazy? You never know what kind of method you’d use to screw me over if I told you.”

Damn.

‘He knows me too well.’

This was also why Tae-woo didn’t openly show his intention to buy him.

Because he didn’t know what kind of stunt Seo-jun might pull!

But Tae-woo didn’t know that Seo-jun had seen through everything from the beginning and had brought Ha Yoon-ho into the mix.

“I think it would be right to eliminate you since you’ve learned too much about me.”

Seo-jun seriously fell into thought.

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

However, he decided that you still need at least one friend like this in life as a negative example, so he scrapped the plan entirely.

“Well, I’m kidding. I have something to say.”

“What?”

“Earlier during the preview show…”

Tae-woo realized what Seo-jun was going to say and quickly cut him off.

“Oh right. Sorry about that!”

‘Still, I only forgot some facts and didn’t do any false propaganda though.’

Tae-woo was about to make that excuse but realized Seo-jun wouldn’t listen anyway.

“Ah, I said I’m sorry!”

Looks like I’ll have to sleep at his parents’ house tonight.

* * *

Tae-woo’s intentions were good.

Trashing him would actually not be bad for Seo-jun either.

Not because he wanted to go to Ha Yoon-ho’s team.

It’s because auctions are better when you sell cheap.

That’s the only way.

‘I can win the championship easily.’

Seo-jun wanted to be moderately trashed, sold at a reasonable price, and join a decent team.

At that level, it seemed like winning the championship would be within reach.

If he had gone into B tier, he wouldn’t have had to worry about the team, but then he’d have to worry about streaming after winning, so that was out of the question.

So Seo-jun had shown his skills while also deliberately revealing some weaknesses.

Some people might know that weaknesses deliberately revealed by a predator aren’t really weaknesses but traps, but they’d still reconsider.

‘The League is impossible to handle alone.’

Honestly, he wasn’t sure how it would turn out now, but seven years ago he had often experienced defeats.

It was only natural since it was a team game.

‘The environment was harsh back then, but even considering that, teammates are important.’

He wanted to win.

That’s why today’s auction was important.

[Hello everyone! The streamers’ festival of madness begins! I’m announcer Arin, handling the casting for this LOS!]

-Waaah!

-Arin-noona is so beautiful!!

-The streamer would be prettier if he crossdressed

-Get lost

-LOS officially starting!

-Is Jin Seo-jun A-tier rank 1? Is Jin Seo-jun A-tier rank 1? Is Jin Seo-jun A-tier rank 1? Is Jin Seo-jun A-tier rank 1?

[And the three people beside me are commentator Navigator-nim and former pros Penguin and Taeyang-nim who will be handling commentary!]

Seo-jun was similarly broadcasting while seated today as well.

This was really convenient.

“The commentary team has two former pros besides Navigator-nim.”

They briefly finished their introductions and engaged in small talk.

Stories about past events and tales that streamers would know came up.

And as time passed, the caster began talking about today’s schedule.

[Now! With a total prize pool of 100 million won and individual prizes worth 100 million won in the form of cutting-edge capsules, the prizes for this tournament are truly unprecedented! Today we’ll have an auction to form teams, and then we’ll play games to determine which groups everyone will be in for the group stage. What that game is remains a secret!]

Navigator also added his comments.

[If we revealed it now, they might pick players good at that specific game during the auction, so the game will be revealed after the auction ends! After the teams are formed.]

LOS operates with group leagues followed by tournaments.

First, in the group stage, three teams form a group and take turns fighting each other once.

Then the last-place team from each group gets eliminated, and they proceed to the semifinals tournament.

‘I think The League world championships also operate this way?’

Actually, if you think about it, European football leagues also operate like this.

[Now, we can’t avoid talking about the auction, can we? LOS’s auction system is quite unique. Penguin-nim, could you explain it?]

A window showing the rules filled the screen, and Penguin first explained the most basic system.

First, the points each team captain receives at the start vary.

They start with 1,000 points, then different amounts are deducted based on the team captain’s LOS grade.

The grade-based deductions considering the average winning bid prices from previous LOS tournaments were as follows,

E deducts 5, D deducts 50, C deducts 100, B deducts 150.

In other words, if the team captain is E grade, they get 995 points; if they’re D grade, they get 950 points.

For reference, no A-grade team captain had ever been selected in LOS so far. This time was the same.

The auction order for players is set by pre-draw lots.

The minimum bid for auctions is 5 points, and you can bid within 15 seconds.

If a player goes unsold, their order moves to the very end. And when all but one team is decided for each grade, the remaining player naturally goes to the remaining team.

[Are there any special features to note?]

[Of course there are. Unlike the PC era, the most diabolical aspect since moving to virtual reality is precisely this auction system. The basic rules haven’t changed. But previously, they would gather players of similar skill levels and auction them with positions perfectly matched, right?]

In the past, instead of dividing by skill like now, they just divided by position.

And since each position could only take one person.

[Right. So teams rarely got completely ruined back then.]

[Exactly. Even if you missed the players you wanted or your team was formed entirely of unsold players, everyone’s skill levels were similar anyway and positions didn’t overlap!]

[But now it’s different, hence why you’re mentioning this?]

[Yes. Actually, most people probably know this already, but after switching to LOS, the management team somehow stopped caring about positions.]

More precisely, from the moment they started dividing players by skill level, matching exactly 6 players per lane out of 30 became meaningless.

So you need to auction well.

[Those people who ate something wrong also picked Penguin-nim?]

[Yes, so it makes me even more suspicious.]

[Ah.]

[Anyway, they made it so you could have players of similar skill levels instead of positions, and while this looks fair on the surface, once team members’ positions start overlapping, there’s no answer!]

[That would be the case.]

[So every time, lower-tier players end up crying about having to learn new lanes.]

[That’s another viewing point! Now, let’s hope the team captains execute their well-thought-out plans. Shall we draw lots for the auction order?]

-What order would be good for the streamer?

-Doesn’t he have the mentality to buy anyone anyway? Lmao

-The draw is spinning

The players come out randomly and the order is fixed.

First was someone Seo-jun knew.

Rumi.

Second was a streamer he didn’t know.

Third was the same.

And then.

[Oh?]

[Heh, I’m not sure how this will turn out. An interesting person came up as the first A-tier player.]

It was Seo-jun.

* * *

After the auction order was revealed, there was time for brief interviews with the team captains.

They all looked like they’d eaten shit.

Seo-jun understood their feelings.

‘No matter how the order came out, it would have been a headache anyway.’

What are the odds that the auction order would come out exactly as you want it?

More importantly, the problem was.

‘I’m fourth.’

Not good. It was really, really not good.

It would have been different if he’d been placed later when everyone had spent some points already.

[Ah! Rumi goes unsold! She received pretty good evaluations among the D-tiers. They didn’t even spend 5 points. She goes to the back for now. Now the next streamer is…]

The next streamer also went unsold.

And the third streamer was.

[Mental – 5 points]

[A bid came in! Mental-nim is famous for buying randomly from the last tournament, right?]

[Yes. He always builds teams strangely, but somehow his results aren’t completely terrible either.]

[No other bids? Is he taking it for 5 points? Getting your desired C-tier merchandise for 5 points feels amazing!]

[Ah! No other bids! Then the next player is Seo-jun. He didn’t receive particularly good evaluations yesterday. Let’s see how this goes.]

The caster thought Seo-jun would either go unsold or be bought cheap by Mental.

But Seo-jun just watched with a devastated expression.

Because he felt like he knew the outcome.

[Bidding starts! Oh?]

The auction window’s messages scrolled up rapidly.

[Mental – 5 points]

[Kim Tae-woo – 10 points]

[Mental – 15 points]

[Kim Tae-woo – 20 points]

[Mental – 25 points]

[Kim Tae-woo – 30 points]

[Ah, they’re just mindlessly rapid-firing the bid button!]

[Team captain Kim Tae-woo, what’s your intention here? You were trashing him yesterday but now you’re telling Mental-nim to give up on getting him cheap?]

[Mental – 85 points]

[Kim Tae-woo – 95 points]

[Mental – 100 points]

[Kim Tae-woo – 105 points]

[Mental – 110 points]

[Kim Tae-woo – 115 points]

[They broke through 100 in less than 3 seconds! Both team captains are clicking their mice at incredible speed!]

Seo-jun felt anxious. Not because of the rapid 5-point increases. A-tiers usually go for 300-400 minimum anyway.

The real problem was Ha Yoon-ho.

Why is he just sitting there?

He could soon understand why.

He was preparing for a big move.

[Ha Yoon-ho – 500 points]

[Kim Tae-woo – 505 points]

[What?]

Mental’s rapid clicking stopped. And Tae-woo, who had been rapid-firing, got outbid.

Then the next bid came.

[Ha Yoon-ho – 600 points]

[Insane! It jumped up to 600 points at once!]

Ha Yoon-ho jumping by 100s each time.

You could feel his confidence saying ‘come at me if you dare.’

But if you back down here, you shouldn’t be streaming.

So Mental jumped in.

[Mental – 605 points]

Soon the next message appeared.

[Ha Yoon-ho – 700 points]

[This is crazy! Really!]

[What, is this ‘I’m definitely buying him’ or price manipulation?]

[A completely different development from yesterday is unfolding!]

Silence fell and the auction timer dropped below 15 seconds for the first time.

[15]

[14]

[13]

[12]

.

.

And Seo-jun just stared at the monitor with disbelief.

Huh.

Heh heh heh.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t have asked for the favor?’

Screwed.

After winning the bid, Ha Yoon-ho’s points would be 295.

It might seem like a lot, but it’s only enough to maybe get one more popular top-tier merchandise if you’re lucky.

Since it’s an auction where you compete against others.

‘How bold.’

He should have known when he learned he was friends with Tae-woo.

‘Can’t be helped.’

Still, this wasn’t bad.

Ha Yoon-ho probably calculated this too. That this was exactly the right amount where he could bring Seo-jun over and still build a reasonably balanced team.

But neither Seo-jun nor Ha Yoon-ho knew.

This was just a brief lull.

[3]

[2]

[1]

[Going once?]

[Kim Tae-woo – 750 points]

The auction caught fire again.