READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 201 - End Means New Start
Chapter 201 – End Means New Start
───Ratatatatatatat!
“Hotteok, retreat while using cover. We can’t hold the frontline.”
“Ugh… Ahhh!”
Boom!
“Limit, push the opposite line, and Stone, provide cover.”
“Oh my, the firepower is too strong!”
“Stone, suppressing fire, suppressing fire! Shoot the UGV first!”
Ratatatatat, Boom.
Amidst the deafening explosions, bullets flew through the air. In the midst of this chaos, a small squad of four desperately held the frontline. The adept movements of the Artemis PMC pounded against their defenses like relentless waves, leading to continuous clashes.
Soon, the falling snowflakes were replaced by the scorching sun, making it hard to breathe. Under this sun, four avatars, strangely out of place on a battlefield, were desperately continuing their fight.
The team was called “Misfits.”
Led by Harmony, this team consisted of members from their previous collaboration, challenging the Artemis mission on the very hard difficulty.
“Wow, isn’t this difficulty too much from the start?”
“Of course it’s hard with so many commands, you die just by grazing!”
Chaos.
However, Harmony held the squad leader’s authority at this point, and before anyone could complain, they focused immediately on her sharp words or corrected their thoughts after being hit by flying bullets.
Suddenly but naturally – Harmony and her team, who had experienced all the very hard difficulties even before reaching the max level, were playing the same difficulty mission for a reason.
They had about two weeks left until the streamer-only Domination mode tournament.
12 vs. 12. Six squads in total split into two teams to capture and hold three points, A, B, and C, making the squad leader’s orders crucial.
Harmony, who had been contemplating until the day of the Asia preliminaries, finally asked Yoo Jin detailed questions on Monday.
In short, she asked, “How can I be a good squad leader?” Yoo Jin gave a very simple answer.
‘Just try it out. On very hard difficulty.’
So, on Tuesday.
They gave it a try.
The result was the current chaos.
“Should I focus on improving target identification skills…?”
First, the UGV that breaks formations, then the grenadiers and drone operators.
To maintain the frontline, these critical enemies had to be dealt with first, meaning the squad leader had to identify them quickly and share their positions with the squad members’ UIs.
There was so much to do. The more she thought about it, the more worries piled up. Whether the squad leader should control everything or focus on improving the squad members’ skills before the tournament… there were dozens of questions. Maybe it would have been easier if she had asked earlier.
One reason she hadn’t asked before was thinking it was unfair, but after confirming the finalized lineup, she saw many skilled individuals, including former and current professionals… she realized she shouldn’t be so reckless.
If help was needed, it had to be sought.
Anyway,
‘I guess I’ll have to start by improving the individual skills of the squad members.’
She calmly assessed the situation.
One of the few drawbacks Harmony gained from doing missions with Yoo Jin was that her standards had become too high. It was inevitable. She just had to follow Yoo Jin’s instructions to shoot the marked enemies, hold areas, and provide covering fire, and the missions progressed smoothly.
Now, it was the opposite. The part Yoo Jin’s immense presence covered was much larger than Harmony had thought.
It took many trials and errors to realize that adding more people didn’t necessarily increase efficiency or firepower. Maybe that’s why Yoo Jin didn’t bring in other users besides herself during missions.
Nonetheless, Harmony’s keen eyes assessed the three fighting members in real time.
“Limit, you need to be more aggressive. If you slow down next time, I’ll shoot you in the back.”
“Okay, got it!”
“Doldol, your threat assessment is too slow. Limit will die like that. Hotteok, no major issues, so you’re good.”
Her eyes, sharp to the limit, cut through the team members multiple times.
Even amidst this, Harmony’s shooting never stopped. She marked targets and pulled the trigger. Each flick of her finger neutralized enemies that others couldn’t identify.
Heads disappeared, chests were pierced, and the UGV collapsed into scrap metal.
The method Yoo Jin used to train herself was not mere neglect. Within the broader scope of engagements, she pointed out elements each squad member missed, leading them to achieve the results themselves.
For Hotteok, she shared positions of cover to hold without retreating the frontline. For Limit, she suggested movement routes to enhance his role as a point man. For Kim Stone – Doldol, she marked the critical roles that needed to be neutralized to collapse the enemy frontline.
She subdivided the goals. She broke them down into achievable tasks for her allies or slightly higher ones that demanded more capability.
What if they couldn’t achieve even that?
That was not an option.
“If you keep at it until it works, it’ll work out somehow, guys.”
“Ahh, someone stop Harmony, please….”
Harmony herself, who wasn’t even an average player, had reached this level of skill in just two months.
Though she didn’t have the systematic curriculum and keen insight like Yoo Jin, and only about 15 days remained, the achievable level of accomplishment would be vastly different. Still, she hadn’t learned nothing over those two months.
Living closely with Yoo Jin, she learned her thought process, analyzing people, which influenced her to deduce how individual squad members should act to lead engagements more effectively.
Harmony, who received this influence most strongly, could provide many things for her team.
-[Alert: Additional enemies detected.]
“Prepare.”
“Oh, yes.”
As the engagement area moved from the NOA research facility’s main gate to the building interior, the rooftop, and underground, the joking tone in their conversations gradually disappeared.
The others, excluding the person involved, slowly realized.
‘Harmony is really serious about this…?’
She was determined to completely transform them no matter what.
The moment Harmony took command as squad leader and grabbed the authority for training, everything changed. Hotteok, Limit, and Stone realized this fully now – well, Limit realized a bit earlier.
He had gotten shot in the back sooner than the others.
───Boom!
“Oh, she really shot!”
“Please save me!”
A warning possible only in VR.
Like a political officer from about a hundred years ago, Harmony’s non-warning warning shots were extraordinarily effective – of course, the skills she occasionally displayed when the game stalled also played a significant role.
Familiar memories overlapped before her eyes. She had walked this path before with Yoo Jin, but everything was different now. Just because a puzzle was once solved doesn’t mean it’s easy to solve again – as if asking that, engagements under Harmony’s lead continued to face difficulty after difficulty.
It was natural. Clearing a very hard difficulty mission with multiple commands was so hard that it was unthinkable in public games.
“Limit, draw aggro with the ballistic shield. Throw smoke grenades and two of you retreat immediately. Withdraw the frontline on my signal. Don’t lower the shield.”
She couldn’t explain everything. The situations in battle changed too rapidly to explain, and after a few were downed once or twice for asking, questions disappeared.
Amidst the ear-splitting roar, flashes and beams burst from the ballistic shield Limit held. Hundreds of bullets per second flew at supersonic speed. The minigun spewed fire to erase the enemies in front.
While barely holding out, smoke grenades went off, and Stone and Hotteok quickly retreated. As the smoke filled the hallway, Limit retreated backward without lowering the shield, as Harmony had said.
-[Warning: Shield durability below 10%.]
‘Even with the smoke, the bullets…!’
If he had lowered the shield, Limit would no longer be among the living.
Before he could thank Harmony, several seeker mines penetrated through the smoke. Explosions, flames, and shockwaves swept through the corridor, and the gunfire subsided. Harmony once again successfully managed to pull the squad through a dangerous situation.
After some time, as the floor was adorned with a mass of brass, they finally managed to open the path to the next sector.
During the perimeter check and reloading, Harmony’s thoughts did not stop.
“This might come in handy later….”
During the last collaboration, she had recruited random users, and since the team was wiped out early, she had to operate solo and cut down enemies without much difficulty in Domination mode. However, this streamer tournament would be different.
Unless Yoo Jin herself was participating, an individual’s superplay would have limits, and squad operation proficiency would be one of the keys to victory.
There was a reason why Yoo Jin had told her to experience it firsthand.
“…Moni, Harmony!”
“Oh, yes? What? Is the path clear?”
“We’re done with maintenance. Let’s go.”
How should I say it, time melts away.
It took some time to move to the next sector, so it was a time for conversation. Maybe because it had been a while since they had a break, there were quite a few questions.
“…Did Yoo Jin teach you all that?”
“Yes. In a way. Rather than teaching, it was more like I learned through experience… though that’s basically the same thing.”
“What did she do to you, seriously.”
A brief wry smile.
Hence, battle and everyday life had to be clearly distinguished, and the more intense the fight, the lighter the conversation topic.
“So what is Yoo Jin doing these days? Is she still streaming?”
“Why wouldn’t she? Just yesterday… speaking of which, she was playing some unknown crappy game? About 60,000 people were watching simultaneously. Foreigners too….”
“Crappy game…?”
“Why are you pretending not to know, it’s all your fault!”
“Hehe, it tickles!”
Once the tension from the battle completely left their bodies, long-suppressed memories began to resurface. Perhaps I really did something terrible to Yoo Jin. For a moment, that thought crossed Harmony’s mind.
Although she had become someone who fearlessly tackled crappy games at her recommendation, the fact that the person who took first place in the Asia preliminaries and received all kinds of attention was doing this from Monday….
She didn’t remember exactly, but it seemed to be a platform game where you had to traverse an island full of strange traps while being hindered by sad frogs.
Of course, Harmony provided her analysis without hesitation.
“If I have time today, I should try it too.”
“You’re enjoying it now, aren’t you?”
“Ah, how can I be the only one enjoying this fun?”
“Sigh….”
But with that, they arrived at the new sector.
A white space filled with all sorts of cutting-edge machines, and among them, enemy AIs wandering around in non-combat status like foreign objects.
She took a deep breath and added.
“Let’s go.”
The green flames in her eyes watched them.
The flames would not go out for a long time.
—
“…Yes. I’ve identified most of the personal details. Fortunately, the route of contact with Yoo Jin is detailed on the streamer’s personal site. She visited Buffet Recitativo, an animal cafe nearby, and a shooting range.”
“No other information? The higher-ups want to locate Yoo Jin’s residence through the most legal and normal channels possible. They don’t want their spines to bend backward.”
“Should we look for CCTV data or nearby base station data inflow?”
“That’s a good way to announce to everyone that we’re searching for Yoo Jin.”
Rustle.
A white man grabbed a handful of snacks from the table. As the snack passed his waist, name tag reading Kendrick Markin Jr., and into his mouth, he spoke nonchalantly.
“We’ll find out in about two days.”
“Based on what?”
“I asked her directly during Viper’s broadcast with a donation.”
Anyway, these people are frustrating – he muttered roughly and continued explaining.
“I asked if I could send a gift to celebrate her first place in the Asia preliminaries. She replied via personal message, saying I could send it to a specific location, and she would pick it up. The classic method is to include a tracker in the package.”
“What guarantees the tracker won’t be detected?”
“It will be detected. Essentially, it’s not a tracker but an indirect way of signaling our intention to visit later.”
Yoo Jin possessed the original ICARUS gear, so there was no reason the tracker wouldn’t be detected.
The confident exploitation of this fact left everyone silent for a moment.
After a moment of silence, someone spoke softly.
“Really, it was resolved in such a ridiculous way. How long do you think it will take Yoo Jin to notice?”
“Two days at the most. We need to think more about what to say, who to send, and what the purpose of the visit will be.”
“Then let’s do that. Everyone here isn’t exactly poor talkers. Anyone wants to volunteer?”
Whip.
Looking around.
Among the sight of everyone raising their hands, the chief coordinator smiled bitterly.