"How many points do I have left now?"
One, two, three, four.
Dice counted on her fingers but soon gave up, popping open a notepad and calculator. The synced match records were converted into a series of data, and the necessary threshold to reach safety automatically appeared.
First ga: 4 kills, 3rd place.
Second ga: 11 kills, 2nd place. That made 9 points and 17 points, respectively. So far, so good—26 points total. But unfortunately, the third ga didn’t yield anything significant. Only 2 kills, and she didn’t even make it into the top 10, leaving her with just 28 points.
The fourth ga was a different story, though. Thanks to another crazy stunt reminiscent of Tannhäuser, Dice managed a 4th place finish with 9 kills. That added 13 more points, bringing her total to 41. A far better result compared to last year.
Plus, the next cycle—starting with the 5th ga on Saturday and continuing through Sunday—would be without Eugene. She’d mastered all sorts of wild techniques, so securing priority selection by Saturday seed almost guaranteed.
"How on earth did she learn all of that?"
Even Dice, who had been closest to Eugene and learned all kinds of tricks from her, was baffled.
The fact that Eugene could steer the chaotic flow of player-versus-player combat in her favor alone was groundbreaking. How many players had struggled with that before her?
While the teachings Dice had received focused on using raw physical ability to overco situations, Eugene’s thod was all about using her combat objectives to manipulate the opponent’s actions, finding gaps to exploit.
Of course, it required constant thought and judgnt before, during, and after each encounter to hit the target.
'Do places like the U.S. have curriculums like this?'
There was a reason the U.S. was often said to hold the top spot in Dark Zone. With veterans from Afghanistan, Iraq, and other warzones jumping into the ga, no wonder they were a force to be reckoned with.
It wasn’t that countries like Korea were weak—the U.S. was just ridiculously overpowered, as if they’d handpicked human weapons to build their special forces for the highest tier of Dark Zone.
Thinking back to the scrims at last year’s finals, Dice rembered how she’d been utterly clueless back then…
'Now I kind of get it.'
If you want to beat the enemy, you have to beco like them.
In that sense, Eugene’s thod was more advanced than anything Dice had seen, resembling the tactics used by top-tier players from the U.S.—or even beyond that. It was like Eugene had optimized her mindset solely for taking down operators.
It felt as though she had distilled countless experiences into their purest form…
"Where did she learn all of this?"
"Oh, right."
She’s probably still playing, right?
The average competition rate for the so-called “viewers’ participation matches” was over 200 to 1. Naturally, there were viewing thods for those who couldn’t participate. There was even sensory sharing available for those who wanted to experience the action up close.
If you think about it, there were probably tens of thousands of sensory sharers watching Eugene, trying to grab her tail. Which, frankly, sounded a bit perverted. Good thing Eugene was tolerant.
…Wait, was that tail even real?
Dice recalled a video she had seen recently about multi-jointed chanical aluminum third-arm technology. It made her wonder.
Anyway, what was Eugene doing right now?
Curious, she opened the official Icarus streaming channel, where the total viewership had surpassed 3.5 million—an increase from last year. It was honestly a bit scary how much the audience grew each year.
She clicked into the channel and browsed the categories. The search bar at the top used a logical engine, allowing viewers to search for whatever they were looking for, and related streams would automatically pop up.
She typed in "Eugene," and over 300 results instantly appeared. Of course, the most popular stream, with hundreds of thousands of viewers, was the one she was expecting.
After scrolling down and choosing a less crowded stream with a more average viewer count...
Boom!
"Waaah!"
…What was this?
The mont she entered, a viewer was sent flying through the air, and beneath them stood Eugene, holding a rocket launcher. Dice knew what it was—one of those things the armored units carried.
But why was Eugene holding it? Well, given her antics, it wasn’t all that surprising.
"This person really is a legend..."
anwhile, the battle continued.
For so reason, there was an absurd standoff between Eugene and a group of players desperately trying to get close to her. Most of them failed miserably, but a few managed to approach. One player barely managed to touch her foot, but Eugene simply rolled them off and sent them tumbling down below.
Countless players fell before her.
Yet, amidst all that chaos...
"Hehe."
Dice smiled contentedly, syncing her sensory feed with a viewer who had sneakily grabbed Eugene’s tail from behind.
After all, it wasn’t her getting whacked by the toy hamr.
"Hello, everyone! It’s Hotteok here! Ready for another energetic day!"
"It’s 9 p.m., how is it still an energetic day, LOL."
"He’s the only one with energy, hahaha."
"Don’t be fooled! This is Hotteok’s trap to break people’s spines, haha."
"Didn’t he just finish working out?"
"THOKK!"
A character with flowing, striped hair that resembled a white tiger greeted the viewers. The voluptuous avatar sat in a chair, waving to the 3,000 viewers watching the stream as it went live. Hotteok, a mber of the Toy Hamr Brothers, was also a strear who had recently been tearing through the battlefields of Dark Zone alongside Harmony.
Fortunately, though, their specialties didn’t overlap too much. Harmony specialized in chaotic gas, while KimStone and Limit were more well-rounded strears.
And Hotteok? He was a famous fitness trainer in real life.
"Why does this stream sll like sweat? Is it just ?"
"Thank you for the donation, Arestoteelres! Yes, I just got back from my evening workout. Rember, you should hit the gym at least three tis a day!"
"No wonder he doesn’t gain weight, LOL."
"Fact: This guy recently hit a 3-lift total of 1,200. He’s an E2-grade awakened individual."
"Man, if only his gender were different..."
"Fitness maniac, lol."
"He’s squeezing out tiger juice like it’s nothing, haha."
True to form, though Hotteok’s avatar was beautiful and curvy, it was also ironically the most accurate to his real-life self out of all his fellow strears.
Hotteok, still talking, casually brushed aside the jokes his viewers were making. With his sheer strength and presence, it was rare for any fan to cross the line.
After so unrelated chatter, naturally, the conversation shifted toward the Korean Selection Match.
"A real gym rat doesn’t even watch KSM while working out... That’s dedication!"
"Well, I did peek at it here and there. How could I not? Even my gym mbers were watching while working out, shouting ‘Wow!’ every ti sothing happened. It’s not like I don’t play Dark Zone, so of course I watched. It was pretty entertaining."
Soon enough, the conversation inevitably turned to the priority selection.
And, of course, the main subject was none other than Eugene. What had once been a hot topic had now grown into sothing no one could dispute—her dominance had skyrocketed.
However, on today’s stream, there wasn’t much talk about her popularity or skill, mostly due to the unique nature of Hotteok’s broadcast.
"So, do awakened individuals get any in-ga advantages? People have been talking about Eugene’s tail a lot."
"Uh... well, I can’t say for sure. Just like you all can’t fully understand how I perceive things, I can’t exactly grasp what your senses are like either."
An honest answer—but one that could easily beco fodder for trolls.
In the real world, awakened individuals were barred from physical competitions using only their bodies, but in virtual reality, things were murky. How to regulate it, if at all, was a complex issue with no easy solutions. The whole topic was a minefield of potential discrimination.
Hotteok, for one, had already realized that this was a sensitive issue.
'Is Eugene’s tail real? No, more importantly, whether her tail is real or not, would using such a system to gain an advantage even be fair?'
It was a question too delicate to answer lightly.
But fortunately, Hotteok believed Eugene could defend herself on that front.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to lay so groundwork.
"Look, I get where you're coming from. As an E2-grade awakened individual, my physical capabilities are far beyond the average person’s. And this also applies to certain sensory aspects."
He didn’t specify how much more superior, as that wasn’t the point.
The important part ca next.
"But… aren’t you all already benefiting from a similar form of ‘enhancent’ while playing Dark Zone?"
Auto-aim.
Recoil control.
Health buffs.
Movent adjustnts.
Damage modifiers.
All the various systems that turned regular people into near-special forces operatives. These enhancents minimized the physical gap between awakened individuals and regular users to the point where the difference hardly mattered.
After all, what use is physical prowess in the face of a bullet?
"I don’t deny that this can be a controversial topic… but let’s be real. Put your hand on your heart and ask yourselves—if Eugene didn’t have a tail, do you really think she wouldn’t still co out on top?"
"Ah, well, yeah, that’s true, lol."
"She’d probably just be slightly annoyed, haha."
"Damn, that’s one way to spin it!"
"Honestly, she’s shown too much skill for that to matter, lol."
Exactly.
Unless every single kill Eugene had made was thanks to her tail, it didn’t matter. Most of the ti, her enemies either exploded or ended up with holes in their bodies. And knowing her, if losing the tail ant a rematch, she’d happily accept, only to turn the remaining gas into a complete massacre.
Taking it further—though it felt like Hotteok was now defending Eugene—he decided to bring up a more difficult point.
"And on top of that, for those of you thinking, ‘Awakened individuals should have their abilities nerfed in-ga,’ let put it like this... actually, no. Let’s try sothing different. Imagine you woke up one day as Eugene."
With a few clicks, Hotteok pulled up a collaboration video with Harmony, still in the editing phase. It was packed with monts where Harmony had dominated the battlefield.
Tapping the screen, Hotteok’s tiger-striped avatar spoke in a cool voice.
"You know what's in this video. It’s filled with scenes of Harmony absolutely wrecking the place. Now, let’s go back to what I said earlier. You wake up one day as Eugene. Then, you et Harmony."
And here ca the crux of the matter.
"For those of you asking for nerfs, or saying awakened abilities need to be balanced… Could you, within 45 days, raise soone like Harmony—who couldn’t even load a magazine at first—up to this level purely on your own ability?"
Clears throat.
Hotteok cleared his throat before continuing.
"And if that’s the case, why am I not a pro player? As far as I know, there aren’t any awakened individuals playing professionally right now. Do you think I’m just not climbing the ranks on purpose?"
Reversing the argunt made the point clear.
This was sothing only Eugene could do, a journey she had paved through sheer effort and skill.
Putting limitations on that would be nonsense. After all, in Apex Predator, skill always ca first, and Eugene had earned her place at the top through nothing but her abilities.
Whether people agreed or disagreed with this was irrelevant. Eugene wasn’t the type to be tripped up by trivial issues like this.
And then, a donation ca in.
"So, in summary, Eugene’s tail is freakin' aweso, right?"
"...Yeah, sure. At least you didn’t say anything too inappropriate, you perverts."
With an exasperated sigh, Hotteok waved his hand dismissively.
As expected, it had co to this—dealing with all these degenerates.
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