Genius Archer’s Streaming - Chapter 842

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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 312
101. Heaven Helps (2)
Juhyeok’s mind went blank.
“That might be a bit much for Father to wear.”
It was unreasonable for my grown father to wear something so flashy.
Besides, our relationship was still awkward, wasn’t it?
“Then give me something I can actually use.”
“….”
Juhyeok fumbled for a moment.
He almost handed over the Almond hat that would turn his father’s head into an almond the moment he wore it, but he shook his head and instead pulled out the most reasonable option.
Pop. Pop.
He tested it by tapping it a couple of times in front of his father and explained.
“It’s an Almond Applause Balloon.”
“How much?”
“Just take it.”
Father seemed to contemplate something for a moment, then nodded and took it with him.
Mother, who followed after him, asked for the hat he had tried to give her earlier.
“Oh my! How is it? Don’t I look like I’m in my 40s?”
Though we had been apart for quite a long time, Mother was as she always was.
But Juhyeok could see it.
She was in a much better mood than usual today.
She must have sensed some change between Juhyeok and his father.
It was strange.
Not a single word of apology, regret, or admission of fault had been exchanged.
How could all three of them think the same thing?
“Your 40s might be pushing it.”
“…Ugh. This one never gives an inch.”
Mother grumbled and ran after Father.
Father’s eyes met Juhyeok’s for a moment.
“Are you having dinner with your colleagues after this ends?”
“Ah… No. Everyone will be exhausted from the finals… It’s tomorrow.”
“Then, if you’re free, let’s have dinner together. This evening.”
“…?”
Juhyeok froze for a moment.
Father was extending his hand first.
I hadn’t expected anything like this.
“Is that not possible?”
“Ah, no. Yes. I will.”
Father nodded and entered the stadium.
Juhyeok was left alone in the corridor again.
Though many people moved back and forth, he seemed to exist in a different world altogether.
This phrase wouldn’t leave my mind.
“After today ends, are you having dinner with your colleagues?”
Juhyeok’s mind kept circling around Father’s words.
‘Colleagues….’
Father was acknowledging those who worked alongside me as colleagues.
That statement was equivalent to recognizing the work I did.
So he had asked about my schedule first.
Because he believed my work came first, and dinner with him came second.
‘….’
Juhyeok stared blankly at the stadium entrance where Father had disappeared.
Thump… thump….
My heart began to race.
‘Am I… finally being recognized?’
Perhaps Father’s heart had undergone some profound change?

* * *
Immediately after the first set ended.
Hee-cheol closed his eyes briefly inside the capsule.
Thump, thump, thump….
I had to calm my wildly pounding heart.
“Phew….”
It was difficult to suppress the excitement.
Though I was far more composed than most ordinary people, I couldn’t help myself.
For someone whose goal had been advancing to the main tournament, the championship trophy was now gleaming before me.
‘The preliminaries had meaning.’
All of this miracle existed because I fought Rome with genuine conviction in the preliminaries.
In preliminaries, some matches are strategically conceded.
I didn’t do that.
I never stopped studying Rome.
For me, this game’s significance didn’t lie merely in climbing higher in the tournament.
Since it’s the preliminaries, we throw a few games and advance to the main tournament with real gains?
I hadn’t devoted everything to this game over all these years just to reach such a pathetic conclusion.
I had to prove something.
What kind of person Guk Hee-cheol was.
What mindset I brought to the game, and what this game meant to me.
What it meant to pour passion into something.
Why our team shouldn’t be underestimated.
So in the preliminaries, I clashed with Rome at full strength. Of course, the result was defeat.
The harder I collided, the more it hurt.
No matter what I did, could I really not beat that team? Would Joseon never capture even a single match against Rome? There were moments when despair crept in like that.
Hee-cheol endured.
And—
==== ====
Joseon 1
Rome 0
==== ====
Ascending to the finals stage after passing through the gates of all those trials.
His team had secured one victory.
Hee-cheol bit his lip firmly as he opened the capsule.
Hisssss…!
“Roaaaaaaaaar!!”
The scorching roar of the audience struck his ears.
Yet Hee-cheol calmed his heart.
He moved forward, focused solely on the next match.
Step, step.
With each footfall toward the waiting room, his mind gradually departed from Set 1 and turned toward Set 2.
Set 1 was to be forgotten.
Whether he won or lost, that was already finished.
He had no choice but to prepare for what came next.
Hee-cheol glanced to the side.
‘…!’
He was startled.
Everyone was fighting the same fight.
They all walked toward the next set with emotions as restrained as possible.
No one had given them separate instructions about this. They hadn’t been trained for it.
They simply all shared the same thought.
Now everyone gazed toward the same place.
「The main tournament…?」
「The quarterfinals are the goal, I suppose.」
「Realistically, the main tournament…? Haha…」
「The round of 16 seems appropriate.」
When had it started?
A team that once looked in different directions now drew their bowstrings toward a single target.
Hee-cheol fixed his wavering gaze back toward the waiting room entrance.
If his eyes met those of his teammates, he felt he would crumble.
Before him, one person was heading toward the waiting room faster than anyone else.
It was Sanghyeon.
「The goal is… victory.」
The one person who had gazed at this target from the very beginning.
He now walked at the very front of the team.
Suppressing his emotions more than anyone else.

* * *
“Excellent. Excellent!”
“We won!”
The Think Tank conference room.
The members were overjoyed after Joseon’s first set victory, practically bouncing in their seats.
But they quickly settled back down.
“Wait!!!”
Thud.
Chiseung slammed the table, bringing them back to focus.
“Now it’s set two. Prepare for set two.”
They had to prepare for set two.
And as Chiseung watched set one, he felt something intense.
‘What was that. Just now.’
That seemingly solid Roman wall, that towering Wall of Glory….
There’s a large crack in it.
But it’s not visible to the eye.
Not yet, anyway.
Chiseung asks Mool Mandu beside him.
“Since there’s no hint about set two right now, it’s not a naval battle, right? So what maps are left?”
“Ah, the remaining maps are Mongolia’s grasslands, treacherous mountain valleys, and….”
And so on.
He began establishing strategy while checking the possibilities of the remaining maps.
“Alright, alright… look here. We’ll draw again based on set one. Right? Things like troop types and builds. We just need to narrow down the multiple options we prepared.”
“Yes!”
All the Think Tank members’ eyes blazed with fire.
Everyone was of one mind.
‘We can beat Rome.’
‘We can win the championship!’
Before winning set one, everyone probably harbored a small doubt in their hearts.
Rome is too strong a team. It’ll be difficult with our strength… such thoughts definitely occupied a corner of their minds.
But now it was different.
Everyone here without exception was moving toward the championship.
‘The goal is… the championship!’
Since the first episode of Fake National Team, Chiseung had always engraved Sanghyeon’s words in his mind.
Even as he busily scribbled something on his notepad, he recalled those words again.
‘The goal is the championship!!’
Chiseung’s heart rate climbed higher and higher.
Thud. Thud.
It truly seemed like I could reach it.
Rome definitely has a weakness.
“Rome showed clear gaps in this match. Definitely, definitely showed them!”
Scratch.
Chiseung began sketching out my movement patterns across the map and various possibilities on the pad in intricate detail.
“That, what is that?!”
Gob Spear asks from beside me.
Rome’s weakness?
Such a thing was visible?
I watched the same match but couldn’t see anything.
‘But if it’s Chiseung….’
Gob Spear thought that even if I didn’t know, Chiseung might.
“…I, I don’t know. Not yet.”
But Chiseung shakes his head.
Rather, Gob Spear presses further.
“There is such a thing?! Don’t miss it and think carefully!”
“Ugh… there is… there is! There’s definitely a weakness!”
“Can we use it in the next match too?!”
“Yeah. In the next match too….”
“If we just take our next match, the third set is a naval battle. Naval battles favor us! We can make it 3 to 0!”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s right.”
3 to 0.
The moment I heard those words, my head tingled.
“Wait. It’s not that we can make it 3 to 0… we absolutely must do it that way.”
“What…?”
“It’s actually much harder for the underdog to win 3 to 2! You don’t understand?!”
That was it.
Player depth, basic stamina reserves, and the resilience to recover from it.
Rome’s players were superior in every aspect.
“The more times you roll the dice! All outcomes converge to one-sixth probability! The law of large numbers!”
“….”
Chiseung shouted like someone possessed, while my eyes desperately scanned the footage.
“We can’t roll the dice multiple times. We’re a small number. An underdog.”
My eyes grew more urgent.
‘The weakness exists.’
I could feel it with animal instinct, unmistakably.
Rome’s weakness that only Joseon could exploit.
It definitely existed.
But─
“If more time passes, Rome will come back having addressed this weakness. We only have two sets of opportunity.”
We must conquer it by the second set.
This adds one more reason why we need to finish within three sets here.
Resilience.
The ability to gather feedback from defeat and rise again.
Whether that’s mental, strategic, or physical.
The ability to turn a losing situation around and lead it to victory.
Rome and Joseon are incomparable in this ability.
Joseon hasn’t had many opportunities.
“I have to find it this time.”
In this brief moment between the first and second sets.
Chiseung had to find it.
“What is it! Exactly!”
“I, I don’t know! But in the first set, it was definitely….”
Just one.
One decisive strike that could end this colossal monster in a single blow.
‘Think about it. When did it start? When did things completely tip? Huh?’
At what point did the game completely reverse?
Was it because they couldn’t stop the defense towers? Or because Pierre fell?
‘No. No.’
Chiseung shook his head.
‘Shields, arrows, defense towers, walls….’
I shouldn’t consider the unique characteristics that the Ancient Fortress map provides.
It would be useless on the next map.
It was likely due to some unique characteristic that only Rome possessed.
Something unique that only Joseon had… was sniping it out.
It was truly absurd, but certainly─
“!”
──Whiiiiing!
An arrow whistled through Chiseung’s mind.
An arrow shot in the first match.
Who was it?
Who shot it?
That was when.
Thud.
The players opened the door and entered.
The moment Chiseung saw the face of the person at the front, he trembled.
“The goal is… the championship….”
Without realizing it, he let these words slip from his lips as he gazed once more at the arrow that had whistled through his imagination just moments before.
──Boom!
The arrow shot with tremendous force lodged precisely into the Priest’s head.
‘That’s it.’
I had found it.

* * *
Thud.
Anto settles into the chair positioned at the very center.
“Hmm.”
The moment he sits, he immediately begins to offer feedback.
Everyone watches him with bated breath.
Since they lost the first set, his words would likely address the cause of their defeat.
Anto was the type to assign clear responsibility. A Soldier’s name could very well come from his lips.
That’s why everyone was tense.
However, what emerged from his mouth was actually his own mistake.
“I need to reconsider how we manage the Priest.”
He understood it precisely.
Where exactly the game had gone wrong.

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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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