Ranker's Return

Chapter 609

Translator: rainbowturtle

New York Arena Stadium fell silent. They couldn’t emerge from the shock that Crescent Moon had given them. Only the commentators quickly came to their senses.

“It doesn’t make sense! Again! It happened again! Crescent Moon has killed the atrocious demonic creature, the elemental hydra, in just 4 minutes and 39 seconds!”

The moment the host’s words were over, the crowd started to shout, “Wow!”

It was a tribute to the members of Crescent Moon, who showed ridiculous strength and perfect cooperation.

“It is the first time we're encountering an elemental hydra in Arena, but the monster called a hydra is pretty familiar.”

The hydra was a monster that could be found in any virtual reality game. However, this was the first time an elemental hydra with nine heads and nine attributes had appeared.

“Perhaps Quency took that into account and made it so the cut wounds would no longer regenerate when burned by fire, just like the hydra in Greek mythology. Crescent Moon was perfectly successful in its strategy. It was as if they heard the attack strategy in advance.”

Crescent Moon killed the hydra so perfectly to the point where it was doubtful if they already knew how to attack it.

“I honestly don’t think so. They missed the opportunity at the beginning, and it hurt so much.”

One commentator made an absurd guess, and it was refuted by the commentator sitting next to him. It wasn’t because Quency was a good company, but because Crescent Moon would not have missed that crucial opportunity at the start if they had been told in advance.

“If they had handled the six heads at that time, they would’ve cleared it in a much faster time than when they defeated Clone.”

“Cough… To be honest, that was just big talk. Even if you know the strategy, what team could do it in 4 minutes and 39 seconds? It is only possible with Crescent Moon.”

The strategy was easy to say—just cut off the elemental hydra’s heads and burn its necks with a powerful heat so the heads couldn’t regenerate. However, there was a huge problem implementing it. Firstly, they had to cut off the heads, but it took a long time just to do this.

“All that is left is the boss monster of the third raid time attack. Can Crescent Moon win the perfect Arena Week title by winning first place until the end? I think it is time to fully enjoy Arena Week, which only has two games remaining.”

The host reminded the spectators and viewers that there wasn’t much time left in Arena Week and turned the topic back to the broadcast of the raid time attack.

Crescent Moon had cleared it successfully, but there were still seven teams left in the raid.

***

The elemental hydra’s raid was significantly longer than that of the Clone. After Crescent Moon, the teams that cleared it took over three hours, so there was no need to say anything more about Crescent Moon's achievement. Additionally, there were teams disqualified for exceeding the time limit—two of them.

“Ah! It is a pity. JT Telecom and Xuanhua failed to raid the elemental hydra due to a timeout.”

The main characters of the current commentary were China’s Xuanhua and JT Telecom.

In the case of Xuanhua, the result was very regrettable. The team’s flagship damage dealer, the magician, was killed in one of the elemental hydra’s pattern attacks. This reduced the team’s overall damage. They succeeded in reducing the number of heads to two, but that was it. The time given to them wasn’t infinite after all.

On the other hand, JT Telecom’s case was an obvious raid failure. To be honest, it didn’t even seem like a raid. It was more like they barely withstood the attacks of the large monsters. This was the more appropriate way to describe their raid.

“Xuanhua could’ve killed it as long as there was a bit more time. It is a real pity.”

“I think JT Telecom should be thankful that the four hours are over. It would’ve been harder to hold on over time.”

The commentators accurately pointed this out. The results were the same, but the situations of the two teams were perfectly at odds.

“Arena Week now has only one final raid time attack left. So let’s put together a rough summary of this Arena Week.”

The commentators started talking more to fill up the 30 minutes of break time while the players were resting.“Compared to last year’s Arena Week, this Arena Week is notable for the leap forward of the North American League. To be exact, it is the progress of the New York Warriors. They are overwhelmingly better than they were last year and have secured second place in Arena Week.”

“The mysterious thing is the Korean League. The winning team at the top and the team at the bottom came from the same place. It is unbelievable that there is such a big difference between the Korean League’s first and second places.”

“JT Telecom isn’t just the second-best team in the Korean League. It is the team that got the ticket to Arena Week by winning the Asian wildcard competition.”

The topic of conversation for the commentators changed from a general review of Arena Week to JT Telecom. The sluggishness of JT Telecom was severe during the raids, while Crescent Moon, also from the Korean League, was overwhelmingly ranked first. The comparison was significant.

“There are a number of issues with JT Telecom’s performance at Arena Week… I think we can assert that Locke, Player Jung Hanbaek, is the problem today.”

“That’s right. Player Jung Hanbaek isn’t focused at all today. The most important role when it came to dealing with Clone in the first game was the melee class. Yet the team’s ace, Jung Hanbaek, failed to do his part. This made the raid difficult, so their record was naturally bad.”

The commentators criticized Jung Hanbaek so much it even made people wonder if there used to be positive opinions of him.

“It was even more serious in the second game. Two melee classes were logged out in order to save Jung Hanbaek, making JT Telecom’s elemental hydra raid impossible.”

“There weren’t enough melee classes to protect the priests and magicians, so they couldn’t do their part.”

It was impossible to run the raid without priests and magicians. That was only possible for Hyeonu.

“The teams from Europe have fluctuated a lot. PSG still isn’t as strong as before. Manchester has become stronger, but something is missing. I think it is hard for Zenith to be able to show off more until Karelin becomes cool-headed.”

The reviews of the commentators shifted in focus to the teams from Europe. However, there were people who didn’t hear their words.

South Korea—there were already Arena fans there who couldn’t hear the rest of the commentary.

***

[Ah, it’s embarrassing. Why did JT Telecom appear at Arena Week?]

[If it were me, I would retire. That is the right thing to do for causing a nuisance to the public.]

[The father is a criminal, and the son lacks skills.]

[In fact, didn’t Jung Hanbaek’s father place him in the team? He is a parachute.]

An Arena-related community in South Korea was flooded with posts criticizing Jung Hanbaek. Jung Hanbaek had done nothing wrong in this situation. The competition event was a pity, but it was inevitable for anyone to have ups and downs in their play.

Yet for some people in South Korea, it was meaningless. They just wanted to blame someone. If there was a small gap, they squeezed into it and forced it to become a large space.

[Why go out if you are going to do this?]

[It is really embarrassing.Just drop out of the wildcard.It is a disgrace to the country, a disgrace.How great would it be if Crescent Moon won Arena Week as first in all events?Then people would say we are no longer a low-quality league.Yet there is a last place in all events, so there's nothing we can say even if the foreigners tease us.Sigh…Just retire, all of you.]

A man dressed in a neat suit made a rough clicking sound with his mouth. Then he pulled out the mouse from the computer and threw it off the table because he couldn’t control his anger. “Jang Dongho!”

At the man’s call, the door opened and someone ran in.

“Yes, Boss-nim. Did you call?" Jang Dongho gulped when he saw Choi Hyunsung, the man with furrowed brows. Choi Hyunsung was normally a man who could hold back his anger. So based on the way he was shouting so loudly just now, he must be truly furious.

“Call Supervisor Yoo! Right now! I can’t stand it any longer!”

“Boss-nim, you have to tell me what is going on before I can call Supervisor Yoo… In addition, calm down a bit…”

“What's going on? Come and see. Look. Do I look like I can be calm right now?”

Jang Dongho took small steps and looked at the screen Choi Hyunsung was pointing at.

“There is… nothing? Boss-nim?” Jang Dongho said with a confused expression. There was nothing on the screen. It was just the desktop.

“Open the Internet and go to Arena Land. Go and see what people are saying about JT Telecom,” Choi Hyunsung ordered. Jang Dongho was flustered as he knew what they were saying without looking.

‘It is probably filled with curses.’

Even so, he couldn’t help doing what he was told. After all, Choi Hyunsung was the president, and Jang Dongho was the secretary.

Jang Dongho looked at Choi Hyunsung with an embarrassed expression and said, “Boss-nim… there’s no mouse?”

When Choi Hyunsung heard these words, he realized he had thrown the mouse off the table.

“Look on your phone. And tomorrow, go buy the mouse I was using.”

“Yes, I understand, Boss-nim.”

Jang Dongho pulled out his smartphone and connected to Arena Land. His smartphone was full of apps of Arena-related communities. He usually needed to be aware of the trends in any community. It was only in this way that he could give answers to Choi Hyunsung.

“Dongho, other people are saying that this is just a second generation chaebol playing around, that it’s a joke. They are saying that, but… I worked really hard to make this club. Got it?” Choi Hyunsung expressed.

Jang dong-ho opened his mouth while keeping an eye on his smartphone. He replied, “Of course. The first time I met you was at a virtual reality game community.”

Jang Dongho and Choi Hyunsung had already known each other for 10 years. At first, they were just Hyung and dongsaeng. It was only after five years of knowing each other that Choi Hyunsung revealed his identity to Jang Dongho and hired the latter as his secretary. This was because he saw Jang Dongho’s knowledge and passion for virtual reality games and because he liked Jang Dongho.

At that time, Choi Hyunsung needed a person he could really trust.

“By the way, these words on the internet… The fact that the JT Telecom I made is like this now and that I’m being scolded like this now… It is all because of one person. This has happened once before. I am enduring as much as I did back then, but now I really can’t endure it any longer,” Choi Hyunsung stated.

Due to public opinion, Choi Hyunsung had passed the controversy during the Winter League into the hands of the supervisor. There were already rumors that JT Telecom was a club wilfully run by a second generation chaebol. If he were to fire the players… it was clear that the rumors would grow uncontrollably.

However, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He was annoyed. It was fine if he were criticized alone, but he couldn’t just watch the entire JT Telecom being ruined like this.

“I have to cut it off. I can’t let there be any more disgrace.”

Choi Hyunsung stared at the wreckage of the shattered mouse on the ground.