LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 426
“…….”
[Defeat]
Park Yoon-ki stared blankly at the words on the monitor.
Defeat.
In a way, this was a word that felt utterly unfamiliar to Park Yoon-ki, but now it was becoming less and less strange.
That’s why he absolutely had to win this game.
The very person who made the word defeat come to life for him was currently on the opposing team.
‘……Outlaw.’
For some reason, that jungler reminded him of the Prisoner, and coincidentally, Outlaw had burst onto the scene not long after the Prisoner had vanished.
So many people thought of Outlaw as the Prisoner, but that assumption completely changed when Outlaw’s identity was revealed.
The identity of the Prisoner, who he had once faced in a professional entrance test, was already known among the professionals in Legends of League, and the revelation of Outlaw’s identity was the complete opposite of the Prisoner.
A girl with silvery hair like pouring sunlight and mysterious reddish-brown eyes.
Just looking at her from a distance made his heart skip a beat due to her absurd appearance.
But why, oh why?
Despite the clear fact that Outlaw and the Prisoner were completely different individuals, Park Yoon-ki kept reflecting the Prisoner in Outlaw.
And that was probably because Park Yoon-ki still couldn’t forget the Prisoner.
‘How could she just leave like that?’
Park Yoon-ki always felt like he was overshadowed by the Prisoner.
It was quite a ridiculous thought.
His career, the public’s evaluation, recognition.
Everything was overwhelmingly in Park Yoon-ki’s favor compared to the Prisoner, but he felt otherwise.
The reason was simple.
His only respected professional gamer, the mid-laner Ryu Jin-hyuk, was always looking at the Prisoner, not Park Yoon-ki.
“‘If it were the Prisoner here…’”
“‘How about this route? I saw the Prisoner doing it like this.’”
“‘The Prisoner…’”
Prisoner, Prisoner, Prisoner, that damn Prisoner!
Rainbow, Ryu Jin-hyuk always compared the Prisoner and Park Yoon-ki.
Of course, he knew Ryu Jin-hyuk tried not to show it too obviously, but there was no way Park Yoon-ki wouldn’t notice.
The champion of the Red Cup, himself, overshadowed by an amateur who only played in solo queue.
What drove him even crazier was that Park Yoon-ki himself had lost far more times than he had won against the Prisoner in solo queue.
To be exact, at the very beginning, he had overwhelmingly beaten her, but at some point, the Prisoner changed her playstyle, and it became hard to win since then.
‘Always dodging and running away! Fight already! And you still call yourself a jungler?’
‘What a sneaky way to play. Do you really want to win that badly?’
‘……Well, she plays well, though.’
Then it happened.
The Prisoner set an overwhelming record of 2000 points in solo queue and suddenly vanished.
At first, he couldn’t believe it.
He thought she would return before long, as if nothing had happened.
But it wasn’t so.
The Prisoner disappeared.
And never returned.
Then, shortly after the Prisoner had vanished, the appearance of Outlaw was such that it reminded Park Yoon-ki of the later stage of the Prisoner’s playstyle.
“……Prisoner?”
If that had been the only thing, Park Yoon-ki might have thought of Outlaw as just a good player.
But he wasn’t the only one looking at the Prisoner through Outlaw.
Rainbow was, Ryu Jin-hyuk was.
They were all reflecting on the Prisoner through Outlaw.
The shadow of the Prisoner, once thought lost, was creeping back into view.
‘Outlaw.’
And then, he finally met Outlaw in solo queue again.
It was a stroke of luck.
He thought he could win.
He had indeed started off clearly favorably in terms of the jungle, and the game needed the jungler to carry.
But just like a bag getting soaked, his teammates gradually began to take losses, and with a battle at the Rift Herald timing, the balance of the game completely collapsed.
[Defeat]
After that, it was like a train heading straight toward the word defeat.
“……Outlaw.”
Even though he lost today, Park Yoon-ki knew that the game hadn’t even begun yet.
LCKR.
One day, the Outlaw who had suddenly appeared like a comet began with internet broadcasts, moving through the third and second leagues, and before he knew it, arrived at the top tier of Legends of League, LCKR.
‘Next time won’t be easy.’
Determined to take revenge on Outlaw there, Park Yoon-ki ignited his will.
*
“Ugh… I’m dying.”
“Everyone worked hard today. You can rest now.”
“I have to go solo queue.”
“Looks like the jaem-min is really into solo queue these days?”
“I’m going to hit number one in the rankings.”
“Um… Good luck with that. I’m not sure if that will happen, though.”
Baek Seong-an shook his head.
Just then, Seo Yeon-woo casually approached.
“Sister, are you going to queue up right away?”
“Huh? Why?”
“I was just wondering if you were going to go top.”
“……No. I’m going jungle.”
Practice, practice, and more practice.
It had been a long time coming.
And at last, the schedule for the Legends of League Spring Season was set.
[Match 1: OLZ vs. MAX]
[Match 2: SY vs. GTD]
Our team would participate in the first match of the opening ceremony.
“Hey, sister! Sister──!”
At that moment, Kim Jae-min, who had been napping in the room for a long time, burst through the door.
“What now?”
“Did you see? The match schedule is out?!”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure you really saw it? Our team is in the first match.”
“I said I saw it.”
“Whoa… Why are you so calm about it?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Hmm, shouldn’t you be squealing with excitement? Now that I think about it, I’d actually like to see you do that…”
“Come here.”
“Ah! Violence is not the answer!”
Kim Jae-min’s fussiness stopped along with the palm print on his back.
Indeed, whether it was a person or a machine, if you hit it, it would fix itself to some extent.
“Wha- What’s up with that girl’s strength….”
“Want me to hit you again?”
“I’ll die!”
“Nope, can’t do. There’s a match soon, so if you’re going to die, you better find a substitute first.”
“Cruel team owner…”
Kim Jae-min looked at me with a pale face, but I shifted my gaze away.
TEAM MAX.
They were our first opponent in LCKR, a top-tier team competing at the highest level along with SY and SCV.
We were facing such a strong enemy right from our first match.
But there was no room to cry about it.
All teams in LCKR were monstrous.
In fact, it was a very common pattern for teams promoted from the second division to struggle to adapt to LCKR and then get relegated in the next season.
There was no guarantee that our team wouldn’t become one of those.
“So I need to work even harder.”
Simply working hard wouldn’t be enough.
We had to perform well.
“Ah, were you watching?”
Just as I was checking the information about MAX and the players, Baek Seong-an approached.
“Yeah. They’re our first opponent.”
“I didn’t expect we’d have our opening match right from the start… Not sure if that’s lucky or unlucky.”
“Let’s just call it lucky. The opening ceremony gets the most buzz, after all.”
“That could be why our team was chosen for it.”
“Really?”
“No, never mind.”
Baek Seong-an said, “Since it’s the opening match, they might bring strategies they didn’t show in scrims.”
“Has that happened before?”
“That’s a team that does that particularly well.”
“Have you faced them before?”
“Well… I have.”
Baek Seong-an’s gaze became nostalgic for a moment as if he were looking back on a distant past.
“Though the members are quite different now, the overall tendencies haven’t really changed. It’s probably due to the coach still being the same.”
“Ah, got it.”
“In a way, the way they approach the game is quite similar to us. They might force resources onto the top lane and carry from the bot, or they might completely invest in the top lane to break the enemy top.”
“Since their top and bot are strong.”
As Baek Seong-an mentioned, MAX had a top laner I knew well, Woo-chan, and in the bot lane, there was the King God Emperor, one of the best ADCs in LCKR, along with the Support Lineover.
All of them had notable reputations.
“Speaking of which, the day Woo-chan and Yeon-woo go against each other has finally arrived.”
It was surprising to think that the honorary members of the 3 Min Top School and Woo-chan would meet in LCKR someday…
“Me too.”
In many ways, I had no choice but to feel particularly emotional about it.
“How do you think it will go?”
“It won’t be easy, that’s for sure. But we will win.”
“You’re confident, huh?”
“Was I supposed to think we’d lose?”
“Of course not.”
Baek Seong-an’s voice was quite different from usual.
In the past, it had felt weak, as though an old man was speaking, but now there was a definite strength in Baek Seong-an’s voice.
Confidence.
Yeah, that was confidence.