PAID

Gocheok Sky Dome, spectator seats for the Great Martial Arts Tournament.

Amid the seated ranks of the Red and White guild, Cherny and Baymerung were studying the profiles of the tournament’s contestants on the main stage’s screen.

“Where’s Chris?”

“She’s by Rain’s capsule booth.”

Baymerung, the mage with pink hair in the game but sporting her natural black locks in real life, scrunched her adorable face as she scrolled through the holographic display.

“Let’s see… Anyone notable in the group with Death of Death in Group A? Ah, a few top-ranked players from overseas servers, and… swordsman Jo Hyunsoo, the ‘Gyueom.’”

“That guy who kind of looks like a merman? The guild master of Plan B, right? He jumped into our Green Dragon raid back then. Asia Arena ranking #2.”

“Yeah. Looks like he and Death of Death will face off in the quarterfinals.”

“The quarterfinals—that’ll be today’s last match, right? Death of Death should do well, right?”

“For now, the key players in Group A are Death of Death and Jo Hyunsoo. As for Group B, where Rain’s competing…”

Baymerung highlighted a hologram of a massive, muscular user avatar.

“This guy. He’s a player who climbed up through a tournament hosted by the game developers in the Americas server. Since most people focus on arena rankers, he wasn’t initially on anyone’s radar. But according to information gathered by AI scrapers from Reddit and other sites…”

Baymerung’s typically round eyes sharpened.

“…He seems to be the strongest among the overseas players in Group B. He’s a warrior who’s dominated the faction wars in the Americas server.”@@novelbin@@

“Nickname… Gregory?”

“Yeah. He’s our dear Whitey’s first-round opponent.”

The holographic display shifted to play a video clip—footage from the Americas server’s preliminary rounds.