1st Place In The Ranking Is A Villager

1st place in the ranking is the villager

- Volume 7 Episode 11

11. Under the Mask (2)

After finishing her pre-interview, Ho-young left her interview room after receiving a black hooded jacket from Jang Hye-young.

When she unfolded it, the logo of Initium was engraved on her left chest.

It was a group uniform given to all the offline qualifiers, and it was also the clothes worn by the people in the waiting room where Hoyoung visited before going to the interview room.

I now understand why you asked for the size of your clothes in advance.

'Should I wear it?'

Putting on a hooded jacket, Hoyoung took a deep breath before opening the door to the waiting room to clear her stomach.

Previously, as soon as he opened the door of the waiting room and put one of his feet in, he was guided to the interview room and couldn't look inside, but he seemed to have most of the players there except himself.

And in it, Ho-young could also find Lee Dae-hyun's friendly-looking face.

He had raised his eyes to the size of a fist, perhaps recognizing him for a moment.

He said, 'I don't know if I was thinking about two years ago or high school... but it's probably two years ago.'

Hoyoung thought so, opened the door to the waiting room and went inside.

* * *

When all the lights in the Goyang Gymnasium went out, the people inside noticed that the preliminaries were starting, and lowered their voices and looked at the large electric sign installed on one side.

At that time, the light on the stage in front of the billboard lit up, illuminating Mina, who was in charge of the Korean offline qualifier for this heroic Daejeon.

Although the level of her character itself is not high, she was a very famous streamer in Korea who broadcasts analyzing and commenting on Initium videos with her unique insight and speaking skills.

"Hello, everyone! I would like to say hello to Mina, who is now in charge of the 3rd Hero Daejeon Korea Offline Qualifier! Please take care of me for the next 4 days, including individual and group exhibitions!"

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-!"

"Thanks to your support! The 3rd! Heroes Daejeon Korea Offline Qualifier begins now! Officially announcing!"

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-!"

Mina smiled broadly at the sound of shouts echoing in the gym along with the sound of music.

"Then, before we start in earnest, I will introduce people who will comment with me in this offline qualifier."

In line with Mina's progress, commentator Park Soo-hyeok and commentator Kim Hyun-woo, who were in charge of commentary for the preliminary round with her, came up on the stage.

The two were exchanging light jokes with Mina, raising the atmosphere of the gym.

However, they were not the interest of the audience who came to the gym.

"Everyone, aren't you too indifferent to us? I'm going to choke while looking at the entrance."

The gym became a sea of ​​laughter when Park Soo-hyuk complained in a sharp tone.

Seeing this, Park Soo-hyuk laughed at the fact that his words worked.

"The audience wants to see the players quickly, so we need to stop talking quickly, Mina-sama.""I think so."

"Hahaha, sadly you don't deny it."

"Hmm! So, let's get today's heroes right now. A total of 32 powerful heroes! Only one hero advances to the finals! Who will be that one? Let's introduce the heroes who have run towards that single spot. !"

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-!"

A video edited by mixing the appearances of 32 players from the online qualifiers was displayed on a large electronic board installed on the stage.

At the same time, the door connected to the hallway in front of the players waiting room opened and the players started to climb up the stage one by one past the screen.

The host, Mina, looked at the cue cards and was busy calling out their nicknames and names whenever the players came up to the stage.

Among the players who came up on stage, there were people who were very familiar, and there were also newcomers whose faces were not well known.

But even if they were newcomers, people who knew them knew their faces.

And what people were looking for among the players was a figure whose face was completely unknown.

The entry order was alphabetical after English, so the person they were looking for was probably the last to enter.

Among the players participating in this offline qualifier, he was the only one with a nickname that started with hi.

And as the 32nd last contestant passed the screen and climbed onto the stage, a loud shout resounded in the gymnasium.

"The 32nd and last hero. Nickname Hoya, Sun.Ho.Young!"

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-!"

On the face of Hoya, which was revealed for the first time, the audience shed a small amount of their feelings.

"Awesome..., you're so handsome..."

"All the kids who said that Hoya-nim was ugly and walked around with their faces covered will now go in."

"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah-!"

The other players on the stage also had the same sentiments as those of the audience.

'I have it all, I have it all. Shouts are no joke.'

'Why are you wearing a mask unfortunately, Hoya-sama. ugh.'

When he first came to the waiting room, someone did it.

But the moment I realized that all the players except Hoya had arrived, my curiosity turned to admiration.

Everyone tried to imagine Hoya's face, but seeing his face was beyond imagination in a good sense.

"Wow! The cheers are really hot~. Then, we will continue this atmosphere and start drawing the draw for the preliminary rounds."

Mina was not embarrassed by the huge cheers and continued the rehearsal as she had done.

When Mina stretched out her arm and pointed to the billboard behind the stage, the video of the players was over and a draw with a total of 32 blanks was displayed on the screen displaying Initium's logo.

And a lottery machine in the form of randomly discharging the ball came up on the stage.

"The draw table is decided by the players themselves. In this lottery machine, there are balls numbered 1 to 32, and the leftmost draw on the display board is number 1 and the far right is number 32."

The draw of the draw was done in the order of entry.

Ho-young was the last to enter and there was no need to run the lottery, so he looked around with curious eyes.

Since I had never been to a place like this before, everything seemed strange.

Hoyoung's gaze, who had been looking around, suddenly turned to the audience seat.

And Hoyoung was able to find YooA and Doban in the audience.

It was difficult to recognize the face due to the dim lighting in the audience, but he was recognizable at a glance because people with the same physique as Doban are not common.

When Ho-young saw Do-ban and Yoo-a, he smiled brightly and raised his left hand toward them and waved them.

Then, Yoo Ah grinned and waved her hand to Ho Young.

Doban remained expressionless, but Hoyoung could read the emotion in his expressionless face.

He didn't look any different from a toddler.

* * *

"Damn, great... Why is that person over there?"

Han Yun-seo, who was doing a college assignment at home and watching the live broadcast of the Hero Wars Offline Qualifier through a laptop, put down the sharpener he was holding in his hand and stared intently at the laptop.

Inside the laptop, there was a face of a man I met by chance when I went on a school trip to Jeju Island when I was in high school.

"Hey, was that person Hoya-sama? It's ridiculous..."

Yunseo Han didn't believe in the saying that the world was narrow until now, but from now on, he believes it.

“Then, was it because he felt that he had seen him somewhere because he was Hoya-sama?”

The feeling he felt when he met him in the maze of Jeju Island was not an illusion at all.

Still, he couldn't remember where he saw it, and I was wondering if his sense was wrong ..., and if that was a vaguely recognizable fact that he was Hoya, it could be explained.

"...No, that's not it."

But Han Yun-seo thought that wasn't the case.

If he vaguely remembered Hoya-sama when he met in Labyrinth, he would have recognized him the next time he met in-game.

But then he didn't feel anything like this.

"That means I've actually seen him before... but where did he see him?"

Yoon-seo Han shook his head, leaving the task alone.

He was stuffy, as if something was clogged up in his stomach, and it seemed that he would not be able to handle the task in this state.

"If you haven't actually seen it, have you seen it indirectly..."

No matter how much he shook his head, he couldn't remember actually meeting Hoya, so Han Yoon-seo changed the direction of his thinking.

Then, a memory flashed through her mind.

"Ah!"

In order to check the truth of his own memories, Han Yun-seo got up from his seat and headed downstairs to his father Inji-cheol's study.

In Han Ji-cheol's library, the articles he had scraped as a social issue while living as a journalist were organized into scrapbooks by year, filling up the bookshelves.

Among them, Han Yun-seo began to search for articles about the subway fire accident, which had previously occurred in Seoul.Because it was such a big accident, Han Ji-cheol had made a separate scrapbook for the subway fire accident.

After finding the scrapbook, Yunseo Han took it out of the bookshelf and turned the pages page by page to find the article she wanted.

"Yunseo, what are you doing here?"

At that time, Ji-cheol Han, who had been resting at home for a long holiday, saw that the door of the study was open, went inside and found Yun-seo Han.

"Dad, it's looking for something."

"What are you looking for?"

At Han Yun-seo's words, Han Ji-cheol confirmed the identity of the scrapbook she was flipping through.

"What are you looking for in the subway fire? Just tell me what it is and Daddy will find it."

"As for what it is..., ah! I found it."

Yoonseo Han, who was flipping through the scrapbook, found a page where an article about what she was looking for was scrapped.

Han Ji-cheol, who approached her in response to Han Yun-seo's reaction, read aloud the title of the scrapped article.

"Seoul subway fire accident, funeral scene where tears don't dry up... Were you looking for this?"

"No, this is what I was looking for."

The place Han Yun-seo pointed to was a corner of the photo that accompanied her article.

In the photo, the faces of the bereaved family members were lying on their faces and weeping. In the back corner pointed to by Han Yun-seo, a young student in a school uniform sat on the floor and wept together.

"What does that mean?"

"Dad! You're the chairman of the Hanlim Ilbo, and you don't even remember crying?"

"Remember that. I mean, why are you looking for it?"

"The tearful man was Hoya!"

"what?"

As Han Ji-cheol tilted his head, Han Yun-seo turned on the laptop placed in the study room and showed him the video of the offline preliminaries currently being broadcast live.

At the same time, Hoya was being caught on the screen.

"Look! It's the same person, right?"

"......"

Han Ji-cheol did not respond to Han Yun-seo's words, but stared at the screen and fell into thoughts.

'...I have to destroy all the manuscripts that Jaegeon asked for. Even if I don't do what he asked me to do, I think the story will naturally spread. If that's the case, we'll just have to turn the steering wheel well. That side would be less risky to that child and our Hanlim Daily...'

"dad?"

Han Ji-cheol, who had been immersed in her thoughts inside her, looked at her at the voice of her Han Yun-seo calling her.

Then he stroked her hair.

"Good job, Yoonseo."

"Oh, Dad! How many times have I told you not to touch your hair!"

"Uh, yes... I'm sorry."

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