Chapter 83: A Peaceful Match "Ah!! It's on fire!! Is this a tactic from the Red Team?! The Black Dragon team looks absolutely devastated!!"
Despite the MC's boisterous shouting, Sara stared blankly at the screen.
Since only the most elite members of each team could participate in this match, Sara, who hadn't been selected, had no choice but to cheer for her team from the sidelines.
And right now, she and the rest of the supporting teammates were all staring with slack-jawed expressions at the screen showing the forest engulfed in bright red flames.
The match was in its early-to-mid stages.
In a pool of ingredients with randomly assigned effects, the student in charge of alchemy had to identify their properties and combine them to create secret medicines.
The other teammates were supposed to be busy gathering as many diverse materials as possible for experimentation while fending off interference from other teams.
But then, Yeon-woo set the forest on fire.
Since the ingredients had randomized effects regardless of their real-world properties, the students had to grab everything that caught their eye.
This was the time when they should have been collecting familiar herbs, tree roots, weeds, petals, fruits, insects, and even soil to test their efficacy.
Instead, the forest was burning.
The woods, still teeming with uncollected materials, were being devoured by a raging inferno.
Normally, the other teams would have tried to hunt down Yeon-woo for this madness, but they didn't have the luxury to worry about him; they had to secure materials before the forest burned to ash.
"Everyone, hurry up and grab what you can! If you're even a little late, it'll all be gone!! Ahahaha!"
As Yeon-woo ran playfully through the burning forest, laughing his head off, some students grew livid. However, their teammates held them back, urging them to prioritize gathering.
'Um...'
'Yeah? What is it?'
'I don't know how you feel about her, but please help Scarlet-senpai.'
Sara recalled the conversation she'd had with Yeon-woo before the match began.
They had grown closer, so she'd said it half-expecting him to behave for once.
At the time, Yeon-woo had given her a dashing smile.
'Don't worry. I told you, didn't I? I'm going to make sure we win.'
How her heart had fluttered seeing his back as he headed toward the capsule, wearing a cool smile like a movie protagonist!
Sara, who had been briefly charmed back then, was now filled with regret.
Every time she heard Yeon-woo's laughter echoing as he sprinted through the flames, her eyes grew colder.
*
Regardless of the outside evaluation, the match continued.
Since Yeon-woo was alone, he couldn't cause simultaneous chaos everywhere. After pulling a stunt, he would hide for a while and vanish from sight.
The aftermath of the forest fire was so significant that every team scrapped their original plans and scattered to collect materials.
If a region was ruined like the one Yeon-woo torched and a team failed to gather any materials from it, the match was effectively over for them.
The standard strategy was to divide roles into attack, gathering, and research teams, but now, thanks to Yeon-woo, almost everyone was out gathering.
The only saving grace was that he had set fire to the forest—the starting area—after everyone had already managed to collect a decent amount of materials.
However, the next stages involved various maps like deserts and snowy fields, where teams had to decide which area to prioritize. Not knowing what Yeon-woo might do next, every team sent their entire roster out as a gathering unit.
"He did this on purpose."
Park Yu-jeong chuckled, realizing that Yeon-woo was manipulating the flow of the game.
If he truly wanted to ruin the match, he would have waited until the teams were focused on gathering in the starting area and then wiped out the materials in the other maps.
Each region contained materials with essential effects; if even one region was completely destroyed, the match couldn't proceed.
It was a strategy Park Yu-jeong herself had considered.
'To pull something so petty during a tournament where everyone is watching... I love it!'
She wasn't the only one; every team, while brainstorming tactics, had likely thought of this at least once.
However, ruining the match itself wasn't something a student of Yggdrasil was supposed to do. It was an unspoken rule that everyone considered but never acted upon.
In Yggdrasil's long history, there had been only one instance where a region was so devastated that the match became difficult to continue. Even then, it wasn't intentional; it happened when opposing attack teams clashed and accidentally leveled the place.
No matter how strong the students were, it was difficult to devastate an entire region just from the shockwaves of their battle. It just so happened that the attack team back then included Akito's father, Yukio—the man now called the strongest mage of the 12 Zodiacs.
In truth, Yeon-woo had based his plan on that very story of Yukio, which he'd read as flavor text.
"Look over there. It's Scarlet."
The Black Dragon members, who were out gathering, spotted Scarlet in the distance and quickly ducked down.
Originally part of their team's attack unit, they began to creep forward, looking for an opening.
Scarlet was strong, but there were only two of them, while the Black Dragon side had superior numbers and even a third-year. They felt they had a chance.
"We're in luck. Angelica is with her too."
"She hasn't been hit by that perverted magic, has she?"
"I heard Seo Yeon-woo is acting on his own and ignoring his team. If we attack now, Scarlet won't be able to fight properly because she'll be too busy protecting Angelica."
Knocking them out here wouldn't remove them from the match, but it would force them into a respawn timer.
Taking the Red Team's leader and the high-firepower Angelica out of the equation for a while would be a massive advantage.
Furthermore, because of Yeon-woo's rampage, manpower was at a premium as everyone invested in gathering. They needed to reduce the number of hands available to other teams.
Once the decision was made, the Black Dragon members immediately formulated an ambush plan and began their approach.
To avoid detection, they had stayed far back, so they had to move quickly to catch up.
That was when a repulsive voice drifted from behind them.
"That one is my prey."
The Black Dragon members were startled, but they didn't hesitate for a second, immediately unleashing a barrage of offensive magic.
Boom—!!
Hearing the explosion in the distance, Scarlet looked back and, without a moment's delay, immediately fled with Angelica.
"I'm only helping you this once, kid."
Yeon-woo, fully immersed in his role, uttered a line he would surely cringe at later before limping away to another location.
Even with his sturdy mana barrier, he had been facing an attack team composed of the elite students of Black Dragon.
Unlike the assassins of the Geukryu Society, here, numbers translated directly into power. Yeon-woo had consumed a lot of mana for his barrier and had taken quite a bit of damage from the impacts that bled through.
After taking them all down with counter magic, Yeon-woo endured the pain and headed toward the snowy mountains.
*
"Hmm~ Can I attack them?"
Park Yu-jeong asked as she watched Mer and Scarlet, who had landed not far away. Willas let out a loud laugh.
"Ahahaha! It looks like Yu-jeong wants to stretch her legs!"
"I'm getting antsy just pulling boring weeds all day."
"It can't be helped. Since Yeon-woo ruined all our strategies, we don't have time to fight other teams."
Though all their carefully prepared tactics had gone up in smoke, Willas maintained his good-natured smile.
"And besides, we're too late."
Seeing Shizuka lead her teammates to join Scarlet, Park Yu-jeong kicked the snow on the ground with a look of disappointment.
It had been a golden opportunity with two opposing team leaders present, but because of Yeon-woo's presence, no one had the leeway to target each other.
An ambush might have been one thing, but in a situation where everyone's positions were exposed, a direct confrontation would only benefit the other teams.
The same logic applied to the other side, so Scarlet gathered materials leisurely near Mer.
"You're too close. Go away."
"It's not like we can fight anyway. Though Clyde seems to have other ideas."
Mer waved her hand, telling her to back off, but Scarlet shamelessly continued her gathering.
They were wary of each other, but with Blue Lagoon present as well, the first one to attack would be the only one to lose out.
"I'll team up with Willas and attack you."
"You don't even mean that."
Watching the two leaders converse peacefully, Chika tilted her head.
Had there ever been such a peaceful match in the history of Yggdrasil?
The audience, who had expected a thrilling match, might find it boring, but the students, who were gradually growing exhausted by the intense tournament, seemed secretly relieved.
Yeon-woo, the common enemy, and the situation where materials might vanish at any moment, forcing a focus on gathering, had created a forced peace. Students who should have been competing were now gathering side-by-side in harmony.
'This... is actually quite impressive in its own way...'
Everyone cursed Yeon-woo, but Chika held him in high regard.
It was a precarious peace that could shatter at any moment, but regardless, he had ignored the established rules and created this tranquility.
And Yeon-woo had done it all by himself.
Before long, Black Dragon joined the gathering as well.
Since everyone was out gathering and scattered across all maps, it was inevitable they would run into each other.
With three teams already clustered together, Black Dragon didn't even dream of attacking and seemed to have resigned themselves to the gathering effort.
The sight of everyone quietly picking herbs was so absurd that Chika lowered her head and let out a small giggle.
"Is something funny?"
"No, ah, sorry. I'll keep gathering."
"I wasn't trying to scold you."
At Mer's words, Chika's hands moved quickly again.
Mer, who had been peeling tree bark with a reluctant expression, looked at Chika's back as she focused on the task.
After being eliminated in the first round of the Grande Magician, Chika's condition seemed better than ever.
Since she was a prideful junior, Mer had expected her to be depressed for a long while, but seeing her overcome it so easily and work hard was admirable.
'I heard that boy named Akito even forfeited his match.'
If Yeon-woo had heard this, he would have coughed up blood claiming the credit, but the people of Yggdrasil already believed that Akito had helped the discouraged Chika stand on her feet again.
Since he had gone as far as forfeiting a match, the impact was massive, and it was a major event everyone knew about.
Rumble—
Just as Mer was becoming curious about Akito, an ominous sound echoed from afar.
It wasn't her imagination; everyone looked up at the towering peaks.
Rumble—
"Surely... no, right?"
"I think it is."
Though the sound was muffled by the distance and the wide expanse of the peaks, it was unmistakably the sound of something being struck with great force.
As Chika answered one of the White Abyss seniors who had muttered in disbelief, she spotted a white cloud.
A cloud that, unable to defy gravity, was flowing down the peak toward them.
The moment she saw the avalanche, Scarlet screamed.
"Everyone, get out of the way!!"
"Seo Yeon-woo, you son of a bitch!!"
There was no need to even check who had caused the avalanche.
Someone cursed Yeon-woo and started running, and everyone scrambled to descend the mountain in a panic.
"Hard at work, everyone~!!"
Chika looked back and saw Yeon-woo, skillfully riding a board on top of the avalanche, waving cheerfully.
Riding a board he'd fashioned from a tree, he chased the crowd along with the snow. Some furious students tried to attack him, but their team leaders held them back, forcing them to focus on escaping.
However, not everyone listened.
"Shizuka!!"
Scarlet called out desperately, but Shizuka came to a halt. Her silky black hair fluttered as she switched her grip on her weapon.
"I cannot forgive a cowardly person like you."
A red light gleamed in Shizuka's eyes. She lowered her stance, resting her blade against her waist in a drawing posture.
Intense mana gathered into her blade, and her slender, delicate hands slowly wrapped around the hilt.
The compressed mana exploded all at once as Shizuka's blade carved a vertical line from the earth to the sky.
There was no loud noise or flashy effect, but the condensed power generated along the path of the blade cutting through the air was so immense that even those fleeing turned back to stare in awe.
An attack powerful enough to split the avalanche itself flew in a straight line toward Yeon-woo.
Clang—!
"Ow!"
Yeon-woo, who had deflected the attack, made a fuss about his hand stinging, but Shizuka could only stare at him with a blank expression.
She had only attacked once, but he had deflected a strike that contained all of her strength.
And he had done it with that ridiculous baseball bat.
Though Shizuka had been raised in a strict household, even she knew what baseball was.
Yes, the sport where a man just had to hit a ball from the very stance he had just taken.
Her full-power attack had been absurdly neutralized by a full swing that couldn't even be called a combat move.
He hadn't even deflected it perfectly—it had hit his shoulder—yet he seemed perfectly fine.
"Wh-What—?"
"Ahahaha, that's so like Yeon-woo!"
However, it wasn't entirely without effect. Yeon-woo, losing his balance on the board, tumbled over and vanished into the avalanche, prompting Park Yu-jeong to burst into laughter.
If Scarlet hadn't rushed over and pulled her by the shoulder, the dazed Shizuka would have been buried by the snow.
Even as she fled the avalanche, Shizuka kept looking back, searching for the now-invisible Yeon-woo.
Just what is that man...
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