The Regression of a Challenger-Level Player - Chapter 22

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

Episode 22. Can You Pull It Off? (1)
-And he clears it?
-He collapses the cliff and sweeps them all away at once lol
-So there’s a method like this…
-At first I thought it was crazy that he’d collapse the cliff, but it actually works
-Shin Jaeha! Shin Jaeha! Shin Jaeha! Shin Jaeha!
-An Unranked player solo-holding the wave in a Bronze Tier game? And he clears it too?
-fr what’s his actual identity…?
-lmaooo the monsters getting swept away is actually hilarious
-Eulji Mundeok (Rock Type)
The chat surged upward with manic speed.
The torrent scrolled so fast that even my tracking could barely keep pace, and the world spun before my eyes.
“Krhahahaha! This fool trusted his brother all along!”
Jo Ik-deok seized me in a crushing embrace and hoisted me skyward.
His grip was so powerful I thought my spine might snap.
“Ahhhhh! It hurts! I’m telling you it hurts!”
“You’re incredible, brother!”
“I get it, now put me down!”
Only after being spun through the air several times could I finally break free.
No matter how I thought about it, this Korean player had the makings of a Warrior, not a Support.
“Ahem! Are you alright?”
“…Fortunately, I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“Krhahahaha! I got a little too excited there!”
Jo Ik-deok scratched the back of his large head sheepishly.
“So you’re Jo Ik-deok?”
“Yes indeed, brother!”
“Your skill potential as a Support is definitely high, but your physical stats and musculature are even stronger. Why don’t you try Paladin instead—a hybrid between Warrior and Support? That would suit your aptitudes much better.”
“I’ll take your words to heart and study them well!”
His personality was a bit rough around the edges, but his potential as a player was considerable.
If he kept going like this… we might even face each other in KPL down the line.
“How did we…?”
“Did we actually clear it?”
The Archer and Mage rose to their feet, nursing the wounds from the ambush they’d taken.
I smiled faintly and brought them the news of victory.
“Yes, we’ve cleared it.”
“…!”
“Thank… thank goodness…!”
At the word “cleared,” they collapsed where they stood, hands pressing to their chests or exhaling long sighs of relief.
That was how much weight a single Placement Exam round carried.
With only three attempts total, losing one meant an immediate third of your chances were already gone.
“Thank you so much! If you hadn’t been there as the Warrior, we would’ve been in real trouble!”
“When that snake-eyed bastard suddenly attacked, I thought we were done for… but you really saved us.”
“You both did plenty. You gave it your all.”
Without the two ranged dealers consistently building up enough damage on the cliff, that strategy wouldn’t have been possible.
Valkyrie Gorge’s Cliff Collapse mechanic required far more accumulated damage than most people realized to trigger.
Because those two kept hammering away at the cliff without suspicion, I was able to finish it with Fireball.
“If you really want to repay me, just follow my Streaming account when I set it up. And maybe promote it to people you know?”
“Of course!”
“Haha… I’ll get everyone I know to follow you.”
“If that happens, we can keep watching your journey unfold! There’s no reason not to!”
“Thanks again, everyone. I should give you the account name then.”
I’d actually created a Streaming account before coming here.
The most efficient nickname for promoting myself.
“Shin Jaeha.”
My real name.
***
[You’ve cleared a game that exceeds average difficulty!]
[You led the clear as the party leader!]
[You discovered the mechanic of a hidden map!]
[Your gameplay will be reflected in your Rank placement.]
[Placement Exam: ■■□]
[Level increased!]
[Level increased!]
[Ability Points +2]
[Strength +1]
[Stamina +1]
[Magic Power +1]
[Luck +1]
[+10,000C]
That wrapped up the second Placement Exam.
Despite the variable of team play, compounded by the variable of a Bronze Tier game on the line, I’d cleared it without a hitch.
“Hey~!”
Teya, whose face had grown even shinier than before, greeted me warmly.
“Oh my~ You worked so hard! I knew I could trust you this time too~!”
The kid massaged my shoulders thoroughly while letting out a string of dopey laughter.
“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”
“Oh, it’s nothing much~.”
Teya leaned in close to my ear, speaking softly so the viewers couldn’t hear.
The subject was none other than the amount of sponsorship money that had come in while I was playing the second game.
“…Hehehehehehe.”
“Hahaha! Why are you laughing like that?”
“No~ just suddenly in such a good mood. Hehehehe!”
“Hahahaha! If you’re happy, then I’m happy too. Hahahaha!”
“Hehehehe!”
It’s true what they say—people’s hearts grow generous when they have wealth.
Look at me now; laughter just pours out for absolutely no reason.
“Besides the money… the scenes you showed today were incredible too. Especially the way you disciplined that Troll without even negotiating—I couldn’t help but gasp in admiration.”
“I wasn’t really thinking about the broadcast.”
“Ohhh, that makes it even better.”
-lol that was serious troll re-education
-how dare you threaten our Shin Jaeha!
-the way he attacked without hesitation the moment the Penalty wore off was so cool ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
The chat reactions were tremendous.
I mean, trolls run rampant in the Stone, Iron, and Bronze brackets. So naturally, plenty of people had suffered at the hands of snakes like that one, and they were getting vicarious satisfaction.
Conversely, from Silver onwards, the number of trolls drops dramatically.
Players at that Rank simply don’t have the skill to resort to trolling, and it’s not a bracket where you’d climb weighted down with Penalties.
“Well… anyway….”
I smiled at the camera with the most capitalistic grin.
“Mission accomplished, yeah?”
[Mission Success!]
[You’ve received 5,000,000 won as a reward!]
Boom-boom-boom~!
The mission reward came in along with a grand burst of fireworks.
‘Five million won! Even split, that’s two and a half million!’
My jaw trembled at that astronomical sum.
That was enough to repair the Training Room several times over.
And if I added the sponsorship amount Teya had mentioned earlier…
‘This is insane.’
I had no idea how much I’d made in a single day.
Maybe I should just quit everything and become a channel streamer.
“Phew!”
I gathered all those indulgent thoughts and exhaled them away.
Right—money was ultimately nothing more than a means to carry out my plan without strain.
Once the world collapsed, money would mean nothing, anyway…
[‘K1’ has sent a sponsorship of 10,000,000 won!]
<This is K1. I’d very much like to meet you, Shin Jaeha.>
What the hell is this right now.
How many zeros are there even?
“One huuuundred million won!”
Teya let out a shriek that was almost a scream and leaped from his seat like a flopping fish.
-??????
-Ten million won…?
-I mean, ten million won is one thing, but who sent it…?!
-K1? Is this real?
-Now that’s something—even K1 is throwing their hat in the ring lol
-Wow, I’ve never seen K1 sponsor someone directly like this before
A record-breaking sum, a legendary team name.
Among the three prestigious organizations in the KPL, the very best.
“Brother! This is huge! It’s K1!”
Teya grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard.
I was the one who received the offer, yet somehow he looked more excited than I was.
‘That amount makes sense for K1.’
K1 wasn’t just skilled—they were the wealthiest team in the league.
Their parent company was none other than the Hwarang Group, the largest in South Korea and one of Asia’s most elite conglomerates.
So K1 had extended their hand to me first.
Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the world would know how rare an opportunity this was.
A hundred out of a hundred would have prostrated themselves and thanked them for deigning to look in their direction.
“…Thank you for the generous sponsorship.”
But I wasn’t that person.
“I’ll be in touch with you as well in due course.”
I had nothing to be desperate about.
-Wait, is that the right reaction?
-Hyung, are you crazy? You should snap that up!
“No, I mean, other teams have offered sponsorship too. Even if the amounts differ, it wouldn’t be right to show favoritism, you know~.”
-A tenfold difference might deserve a little favoritism though.
-lol fr fr
-This guy’s something else… K1 makes their move, and he just bats it away like that…
Even if I did end up joining K1, responding too eagerly to this would be a mistake.
I hadn’t yet shown them my full value.
In other words, now was when my stock was cheapest.
‘No one sells a stock they know is about to rise.’
The other teams likely sensed the same thing and were rushing their acquisition offers while the price was low.
“Sigh… I understand. You probably have your reasons, brother.”
Teya nodded reluctantly, his head creaking with the effort.
“So, the second Placement Exam is done now!”
-Let’s get to the finals already
-Can’t wait to see what Rank comes out
-He’s definitely hitting the upper echelon of Iron, right?
-If he plays right, he could get Bronze Tier on placement—a first
-Let’s go now~!!!
The viewers’ anticipation had reached a fever pitch.
I raised my hand and pulled my lips into a grin.
“Unfortunately, I won’t be doing a third Placement Exam today.”
-?
-Huh?
-What??
“The final Placement Exam and your Rank results will be on my personal stream. So… hit follow and turn on notifications and wait for me!”
-What are you saying?
-Stop messing around!!! Don’t do this!!!
-Is he really going through with this? He’s actually doing this?
-Stop playing around and hurry up with the next game!
-Please!!! Just one more match! One mooore match!
-Shin Jaeha, you bastard!
The chat erupted, smoldering with warmth as expected.
“Thanks for watching the stream today! I’m out! Buh-bye!”
[Stream ended.]
Teya cut the broadcast at just the right moment, before the flames grew into an inferno.
From the start, we’d decided the final match would happen on my personal stream.
-This is what you call hooking, basically. Once you gather an audience, you can always build a loyal viewership one way or another!
-I like that approach better. If you show everything at once, people might lose interest in your stream.
It was an idea that Teya and Su Hyeok had proposed.
And the result was—
Ding! Ding! Ding!
[‘Roblee’ has started following you!]
[‘Potatodori’ has started following you!]
[‘Noodle Master’ has started following you!]
[‘Tiger71’ has started following you…!]
.
.
.
It was explosive in every sense of the word.
***
“What… what is this…?”
At that same moment.
Ju Yeon-seo, who had been watching Teya’s stream, felt her shoulders tremble slightly.
[This broadcast has ended.]
Could it really be ending just like this?
After she’d sponsored fifteen million won?
“How can you not be surprised when you see the name K1…!”
To confirm that the skill she’d witnessed in the Underground Prison wasn’t mere luck, she’d personally sponsored five million won from her personal account and placed a Mission to match it.
-Hmm, as expected. A man worthy of both my and grandfather’s attention.
This time too, Shin Jaeha had demonstrated extraordinary skill, and Ju Yeon-seo became even more resolved to bring him to K1.
So she’d approached Shin Jaeha by sponsoring ten million won from the K1 account, but.
-I’ll contact you again later.
His response had been lukewarm.
Identical to how he’d responded when sponsorships came from other teams, even from Division Two league teams—not a single word different.
For her, it was a fresh shock.
“How is this possible? Why…?”
He hadn’t even finished the Placement Exam yet.
Since she’d been watching the stream with genuine interest the whole time, she felt a wave of regret mixed with disappointment.
“Why aren’t you showing any interest!”
K1 was the undisputed top player team—anyone would come running at the mere mention of its name.
For someone still Unranked like Shin Jaeha to behave this way struck her as rather audacious.
‘…Could it be?’
A hypothesis flashed through Ju Yeon-seo’s mind in that instant.
“Is he deliberately acting uninterested like this to raise his own value?”
It was a plausible hypothesis.
Indeed, it would be better to show equal treatment toward all teams rather than fawn over only K1 and project a mercenary image.
At least, that was the only explanation that made sense to Ju Yeon-seo.
There was no way he wouldn’t be impressed upon seeing K1, surely.
“Heh, and here I thought. You have a rather cute side to you, don’t you? Jaeha.”
She was someone who knew how to package herself quite well.
And there’s always a certain pleasure in unwrapping the packaging of such people.
“Just wait a little longer. I’ll come and collect you myself.”
A secretive smile crossed Ju Yeon-seo’s face.
.
.
.
Meanwhile, at that very same moment.
…….
Teya’s broadcast was also playing in a corner of Sky Epic’s dedicated Training Room.
The Return of a Challenger-Tier Player
Author
: Ki Sa-hon
Date of Publication
: August 10, 2026
Publisher
: A.C. Systems Media Inc.
Editor
: A.C. Systems Media Editorial Team
Address
: 10F Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work has been published by ACES Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder,
and the content may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.
This e-book is a copyrighted work protected by copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or copying may result in legal liability.
UCI
: G720:N+A129-20260730114

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