More than 99% of the participants were 10,000th rank users, but to Sangryul they were mere commoners.
"What is more important than winning is how do you win, right? I must certainly carve my three-syllable-name into the hearts of the people. So, even if is a recorded broadcasting, when I get on air, a boy like me can appeal to the audience"
Sangryul was thinking a lot. It was really different with his age.
But at this moment there was a person looking at Sangryul with a very interesting look.
The man who is looking for a win like Sangryul.
It was Sang Hyuk.
"Choi Sangryul! That kid was in this competition. Ah! Right. Now I remember. That kid was once the big hit as 'The Best One'." *
Sangryul has climbed dramatically from the bottom to the top in his previous life, and he has gained the attention of the viewers. And as a result, after getting a considerable fan base, he soon became a specialized pro-gamer and became very popular.
"And I met you a few years later."
He still looked childish, but recognizable.
"Although he looked like that, he was a boy with about 10 frogs digging inside." (TL note: He was like thoughtless boy, but actually thinking very deeply)
Sangryul had learned the Heavenly Dragon Card Deck from Sang Hyuk and had been listening well and playing a good dongsaeng (little brother/sister) until his rebuilt character reached the top. However, since he had gained what he wanted, he stabbed Sang Hyuk in the back.
Sangryul was such a person. *
"I think it would be more fun to meet the unexpected fate, nope, bad fate." *
Sang Hyuk smiled at Choi Sangryul.
If there was no Sang Hyuk in this place, for Choi Sangryul the present life would have been almost identical to the previous timeline.
However, as Sang Hyuk intervened, the present timeline will be completely different.
"At this time, Choi Sangryul would be very proud of his skills right? Hehe, let me today show you how worthless your pride was."
Sang Hyuk thought that someday he would give back the disrespectful treatment from Sangryul in his previous life, he did not know that the opportunity would come so early.
It was an offline preliminaries that he planned to do with a light heart, but an unexpected gift was waiting for Sang Hyuk.
This gift was of course…. will be received with thankful heart.
The offline competition started.
Like Choi Sangryul said, 99% of the applicant were regular users who lacked a lot of skills.
Therefore, the skilled applicants like Sang Hyuk and Choi Sangryul have defeated those people and rose to the top very easily.
The competition was very fierce because only 16 of the 1,000 players who participated in this offline qualifying tournament could go the final.
However, although the competition was intense the content of the game was not changed.
The skillful people began to stand out and LGN began to shoot mainly those skillful people.
Out of the 1,000 participants in the offline preliminaries, 940 participants are eliminated and only 64 remains.
The most prominent participants were five.
The one that seemed to be the best was 'Crash' Choi Sangryul. All opponents were literally crushed, and even those who were mentioned as candidates for the championship were smashed.
No matter who see it, the skill of 'Crash' Choi Sangryul was real.
And after that, Double Canon Jeon Changmin, Black Acorn and Jay, Free Sword Yang Jiryang, Momonoke Kaoru were following Choi Sangryul in ranking.
LGN predicted that one of these five would win. Of course, they thought that Choi Sangryul has the greatest possibility, so they took the best shots of him
LGN's five winner candidates has showed not only strong, but powerful and destructive power in the preliminaries.
In this degree, it was the skill that possible to enter in the 1,000th rank for sure and even 100th rank.
"The winner is Choi Sangryul, right?"
Kim Jongwoo, who came late due to some urgent work that he had to solve to the DN Center, where the offline qualifying matches are held, has nodded his head as he looked over the preliminary results so far and the simple comments of his subordinates.
"I think so no matter how I see it."
"Then make a good picture of Choi Sangryul. Maybe the 'hook' that we wanted could come up."
"Yes, I am doing it without you saying it."
"Okay, as expected you do it well without my nagging. Sunggyun, just believe and follow me. I'll treat you well."
Kim Jongwoo patted Shin Sunggyun's shoulder lightly and smiled.
"But… The opponent that Choi Sangryul will meet in the 64th round is peculiar."
"Huh? 64th?"
Kim Jongwoo, who listened to Shin Sunggyun's words, looked at the battle list in his hand.
"Immortal? Immortal…. I've seen it somewhere…. Ah, the user with a very high level. Why him?"
Kim Jongwoo remembered that Immortal was the user he had passed himself.
"He cleaned up his matches up to now and never dies, not even once."
"No death you said? So is he one of the champions?"
"Ah, but…. That's a little subtle. No users that became his opponent could see him at all, even when I did a simple monitoring later on, only a very vague look was captured in our camera. I think he has an assassin-like job, but the problem is that all of his opponents have been killed in a single strike."
"One strike? Even if you are an assassin user, is that possible? And if it was like that, you should put him in the final candidates, right?"
"Of course, if this is a normal skill. However, the level of the users he met was not very high. The analysts concluded that he was a user specializing in a surprise attack skill, and because he continued to meet the low-level users by good luck, so it was easy to win and get a winning streak….. So, for now I have excluded him from the finals."
"Hmm… A lucky assassin user… But you don't know, right. Even he is not one of the winning candidates, but make him one of the targets of interest. Ah! But he will meet Choi Sangryul in the 64th round anyway. So, his luck will be ended there."
"Yes, his skill won't be revealed properly, right. That's way I didn't put him in the finalist list."
"Yeah, it's a consumable guy anyway, so you don't need to waste the manpower to keep following him."
By Shin Sunggyu's report, Kim Jongwoo nodded and replied.
It was as if a tree was so huge, that it would cover the whole world, one would not be able to recognize the tree itself.
They thought it was only by mere luck and didn't recognize that it was by the power of Sang Hyuk's great and terrible ability.
If they played the video and checked Sang Hyuk, no, the Immortal more thoroughly, they would have found that Immortal and the guildmaster of the One Guild to be the one and the same.
But it didn't happen, so as a result Immortal became lucky and became a common user who advanced to the 64th round.
Chapter 111 [Episode 57] Offline Competition 2 - End
Editor's Notes: Royal Roader is the prestigious Korean Starcraft League. (the first) Given how important Starcraft is in Korea, in fact, people have made a living playing professionally, we can guess by context that Sang Hyuk plans to teach his juniors the power of a Sunbae. 😀
Editor's Notes: The translator and I are just guessing here. In this line, the author seems to use a lot of Korean colloquial terms when he writes, to the point that the translator and I are sometimes confused by what he means. This is part of the reason why translation can be slow at times. The translator and I are sometimes forced to translate using our best guess, based on the plot and past published chapters. We don't like it, but we're doing the very best we can. 🙁
Fortunately these two lines don't seem central to the story.:p
PS: If anyone has a better translation for this passage from the Korean raws, do not hesitate to post this in Asian Hobbyist. I have admin rights, so I would be happy to edit this chapter if anyone shares a better translation for this passage.
Editor's Notes: Please read the first chapter of One Man Army, for the first reference to "Crash" Choi Sangryul. This chapter also partially fills out the backstory between Sang Hyuk and Choi Sangryul…
Editor's Notes: Choi Sangryul rebuilt his account. To Card Master, as mentioned in chapter one. The translation and the mtl suggested that Choi Sangryul "stepped on" and discarded Sang Hyuk once he got what he wanted. However, both the translator and I like "stabbed Sang Hyuk in the back" as that reads better.
Editor's Notes: Oh YES! There will be a curb-stomping coming up… 😀
Editor: Userunfriendly