Genius Archer’s Streaming - Chapter 705

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Genius Archer’s Streaming Season 3 Episode 175
58. Pandora’s Hope (1)
Match result between Joseon and Viking: 2-0.
Regardless of how it happened, the outcome was a dominant victory for Joseon.
This sent quite a shockwave through the entire national competition.
“What? Joseon won 2 to 0?”
“So Joseon faces Persia next?”
“Well, I’ve lived long enough to see this.”
“This doesn’t make sense…”
Various officials participating in the national competition had assumed Joseon’s limit was reaching the main tournament.
“Underdog surges usually end in the preliminaries.”
The preliminaries could be breached with enough luck.
You only need to win a single match against your opponent.
Looking at Joseon’s preliminary matches, you can see quite a few strategies designed with the mindset of winning just one match.
Even doing only that made it possible to advance through the preliminaries without difficulty.
But the main tournament was different.
“How did they win a best-of series with that kind of player pool?”
Because starting from the main tournament, it’s a “best-of series” where you must win multiple matches.
Each matchup requires winning at least 2-3 games against your opponent.
In these prolonged contests that can extend up to five games, there are almost no variables beyond pure skill.
“Winning in a best-of series changes the story…”
“Right. Completely different.”
Single matches and best-of series have always been treated as entirely different categories in the esports world.
In best-of series, it’s possible to assess your opponent’s full strength and then reconstruct the next match accordingly.
In other words, the flexibility of the think tank and the stamina of the players.
The skill of second-string players who receive their weapons first instead of the exhausted first-string…… many more things are required.
To meet these requirements, capital often became the most necessary factor above all else.
Since Joseon was the team most lacking in such capital, this news was shocking to the other teams.
“It seems like the first-string kept playing.”
“Joseon’s second-string is significantly weaker, after all.”
“Maybe it was because of the map selection advantage?”
“They could only win because they won 2-0. If they’d played all three matches, who knows what would’ve happened.”
Other teams offered not-quite-sophistry like Joseon’s map selection advantage being key, or that they only won because it was a two-game series, trying to make sense of this news.
Joseon’s current trajectory was that difficult to comprehend, and that threatening.
“Damn it, a team we never even considered is starting to rise.”
“Sigh…”
The reason was simple.
It was the difference between being prepared or not.
When someone you know performs well, you can roughly imagine how they did it.
But in the main tournament, Joseon was truly a dark horse.
No one truly understands how they fight, or the way they think.
If they weren’t a team facing Joseon, I wouldn’t have paid much attention to them.
But with Joseon completely crushing Viking like that, the confusion must be palpable.
Because no one knows how to respond.
Especially for Persia, who would face them next, it was even more so.
“…Joseon?”
Elifer, Persia’s supreme commander, heard the news after the match ended.
“Joseon advanced?”
His expression showed considerable bewilderment.
During the victory interview, smiles had been abundant.
Now his face had hardened into rigidity.
“What was the score?”
“2 to 0, they say.”
….
Elifer nodded slowly, savoring that score like fine wine, and gathered his coat.
“An unexpected ambush, indeed.”
I’d thought quite extensively about Viking. But I hadn’t made any particular preparations against Joseon.
The problem was that the gap between the Round of 32 and Round of 16 was extremely short.
‘There’s no time to prepare.’
All my preparations for the Round of 16 against Viking had come to nothing. I had to start thinking from scratch.
“Extract the key points from the match footage and send it to me. Convene a think tank meeting. I won’t be sleeping properly tonight.”
The Round of 32 and Round of 16 take place just two days apart.
Only one day remained.
He pulled out his phone and headed to the international tournament’s live broadcast to watch highlights of the current match.
There was a channel broadcasting the Joseon match, not the Persia match.
Elifer, without much thought, simply entered that channel and turned on the broadcast.
If highlights appeared, I’d watch those, or otherwise I’d rewind the live broadcast timeline to watch it again.
But then….
[I believe we’ll win.]
[Uh… well, confidence! I like that?! But why do you think so?]
[Because you can’t fit an elephant into a capsule.]
‘What is this bastard talking about.’
Elifer’s face stiffened.
And as if delivering a finishing blow to that rigid surface, the final words came through.
Along with English subtitles.
[Because in their civilization, elephants play the game better than the players.]
Crash.
Elifer’s composed expression shattered and twisted into a grimace.

* * *
The ripples brought by Joseon’s victory were not merely tension.
Regardless of how those who had to face them felt, the fans were in a festive mood.
In other words, this side was excitement, not tension.
Juhyeok’s computer suddenly slowed down.
“Oh lag…”
Too many people had flooded into the community server.
Small communities like M-bul eventually crashed, and Rilpro’s server also began teetering between life and death.
Still, Juhyeok barely managed to get in and check the general reactions.
[Next Persia Match Predictions]
[Breaking: Osaka Tickets Sold Out]
[The Devil of Interviews Summoned Again ㄷㄷ]
Ah, I wish I had known this would happen and gone to see it in person ㅠㅠㅠ
[That was truly a legendary match]
.
.
.
The scrolling finally stopped.
“What…? It froze.”
Several of the many windows Juhyeok had open became unresponsive.
“Hmm.”
Still, Juhyeok didn’t mind much.
He had only opened them in the first place as something amusing to glance at—just the community reactions.
“Well, doesn’t matter.”
They had won today’s match so brilliantly that no matter how mischievous the online communities were, they were all places where people who loved the game gathered.
Not a single person was saying anything negative.
Big) Never doubt Kuboji again
Big) Tae-Jeong, Tae-Se, Mun-Dan-Se-Ku…
Big) The Bow-An-Bow fashion that the cool kids wear
Big) Almond: Victory Factor “Fashion”
They were simply competing on the Big board over who could package this victory more coolly or more humorously.
If one were to compare this to a war between trolls and Almond, it would be like Almond’s air force had indiscriminately carpet-bombed the troll nation into rubble.
And Almond’s ground occupation forces had already moved in, personally eliminating every hidden resistance cell one by one.
It could be described as a complete victory.
A skilled commander would have little interest in a battlefield where complete victory had already been achieved.
Juhyeok was no different.
He had already lost interest in debating the match results.
He had simply opened it out of habit, trying to scrape together some entertaining reactions.
Actually, Jia would handle that herself, scraping and editing it well for the video.
‘This is what’s more important to me.’
Juhyeok’s gaze shifted to another window.
The movement of the company’s funds.
[Merchandise Sales Trend]
Merchandise was the only self-produced capital source for the startup company ‘Mix Nuts’.
Juhyeok considered this their most critical business venture at present.
Thus, he began meticulously noting down his analyses while observing the sales trend graph.
Then he briefly entered a famous portal site to search.
Originally, it was to check the shopping mall sales figures provided by this portal.
‘Huh?’
One prominent main article from the famous portal caught his eye.
[The Talk of the Town: “Fake National Team” – Their Victory Was “Real”]
It was an article from a major news outlet.
‘Even here?’
It wasn’t simply a report-style article about defeating Vikings in a numbers game—it contained substantive content.
Moreover, judging by the comment count, something was amiss.
So Juhyeok checked the portal’s news rankings.
“!?”
He was startled.
“1st place…?”
The article was ranking 1st on the portal.
“Wow.”
Of course, such cases happened.
Even people or events that normally received little attention could gain buzz if an article dropped at the right moment.
The Civil Empire was probably in such a situation.
With massive traffic flooding in as they secured their first victory in the main tournament, an article perfectly timed to capitalize on it.
And….
‘Ah. The Dinner Party episode!’
Ding.
[Fake National Team ep.6 Fashion National Team]
It was also the timing when the delayed Fake National Team episode had been uploaded.

* * *
Ding.
My phone chimed with a notification from inside my pocket.
[Almond Channel Upload Notification]
[Fake National Team ep.6 Fashion National Team]
It was a notification alerting me to a video uploaded on my channel.
However, I didn’t check the notification.
I was simply staring blankly at the person who had appeared at my door.
‘This person… she came all the way here?’
It was Hana Song.
A doctor who researches my arm and Sarang’s leg.
Though she’s called a doctor, honestly she’s closer to a researcher, and her staff members aren’t all doctors either—they call her Director.
Anyway, I thought she was a busy person, so what is she doing coming all the way here?
Did she come to drag me away because I didn’t go to the hospital?
That doesn’t make sense.
“Sanghyeon, you blocked me, didn’t you?”
Hana Song was smiling brightly, but her eyes looked rather scary.
“Ah… no?”
“Hmm. Is that so? Then you’re getting my calls right now?”
Hehe.
“…”
I eventually admitted that I had blocked her.
“Sigh. At least put on some proper clothes and come out. I think I know why you got blocked. I’ll wait for you in the hotel lobby. I have some things to tell you too…”
“Ah…”
Only then did I realize I had my shirt half off.
I was so flustered by meeting someone I never expected to see here that I had forgotten even this.
“Why clothes?”
‘Huh?’
But then, suddenly another voice rang out, and someone poked their head out from beside the door.
It was a head poking out from a position much lower than Hana Song’s.
It was either a very young child, or the height at which someone sitting in a wheelchair might lean out.
After poking her face out, she hastily covered her eyes with her hands.
“Oh.”
Even if you spread your fingers wide like that to cover your eyes, you can still see everything, can’t you?
“See you in the lobby.”
Whoosh.
She quickly pulled her head back and hurried toward the lobby.

* * *
After dressing properly, I made my way to the lobby.
In the hotel lobby, Hana Song sat on the sofa alongside a Western man, with Choi Sa-rang positioned across from them.
‘What is this about?’
The person I had deliberately avoided had sought me out, so my expression wasn’t particularly pleasant.
Yet the fact that Choi Sa-rang had come along suggested I might at least hear some explanation.
She was just as sensitive to these matters as I was—surely she wouldn’t have come here with baseless information.
“Hello. It’s nice to properly greet you. Meeting like this in a foreign land feels so warm and wonderful, doesn’t it?”
Ha.
Hana Song laughed brightly and introduced the man beside her.
“I mentioned I sent someone for research in America, didn’t I? This gentleman is from that research facility.”
The man bowed awkwardly, attempting to follow Korean etiquette.
He introduced himself as Nathan.
I didn’t catch the rest of his rambling.
I simply sat down beside Choi Sa-rang.
I thought she might signal me with a glance to explain what this was about, but she just kept staring at Hana Song.
“First, I want to apologize,” Hana Song began.
She opened her mouth to speak.
Apologize?
My heart already began to race with anxiety.
Had I missed a few appointments? Had something gone wrong?
“I am indeed the best in this field of research in our country. But truthfully, I’m not even a doctor, and I don’t know much about the human psyche or counseling methods….”
Of course, I do have a medical license.
Both in America and Korea simultaneously…, Hana Song added, scratching her head.
‘What is she trying to say?’
I simply stared at her, waiting for her to continue.
Gulp.
I swallowed hard, tension gripping me.
I rarely felt nervous, yet whenever this topic arose, I became as tense as an introverted student forced to sing in front of classmates for the first time.
I hated feeling this way.
I hated this situation.
The end of this tension had never been good.
This trembling wasn’t excitement for me—it was remembered as anxiety.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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