After three straight hours of gaming, Seunghoon was finally done with his first 5 classic games.
[Mission Complete!]
[Reward: +1 Attribute Point.]
[Please select an attribute to upgrade.]
A holographic panel popped up in front of him.
[Current Stats]
Control: D
Awareness: D+
Decision Making: D-
Speed: D
Seunghoon didn't even hesitate when choosing.
Speed.
When his hands hovered over the keyboard earlier, it felt slow. His mouse felt sluggish. His dodges weren't as fast. He was reacting late to ganks, sometimes even struggling to pull off simple combos the way he used to.
'Yeah.This was just right.'
He clicked on the attribute, a warm pulse flowed through the panel under his skin.
[Attribute upgraded: Speed – D ➝ D+]
[New List of Missions Loading…]
[New Mission:]
- Rank Up to Flare (Current Rank: Arc III ⭐⭐☆☆)
[Reward: +1 Attribute Upgrade of your choice]
Seunghoon stared at the screen for a moment, blinking slowly.
'Flare, huh?'
It was the next rank after Arc, already considered in between medium-high elo. He hadn't thought about climbing rank so soon, but it seemed like he had no choice.
He leaned back in his gaming chair, letting the moment settle in.
He sighed. He had just realized a lot of things while playing those 5 games.
The matches had been good. He won 4 out of 5 games. But still, it was painfully clear how far he'd fallen.
From a respected professional player, he now felt as if he was just an average one. Maybe average in terms of skills, but a noob when it comes to in-game knowledge.
He had realized that there were new heroes. A dozen of them.
Some of them had mechanics he didn't recognize, combos he didn't understand. There were some ultimates that caught him completely off guard.
Even the item shop was different now. There were items that had been changed and new items that he had just seen.
And God, his mouse felt off and stiff. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't the one he'd trained with for years. The weight was wrong, feeling too heavy against his palms. The glide wasn't smooth.
His keyboard wasn't any better. They were a little too soft and too quiet for his liking. He liked it when he could feel the keys being pressed down, instead of feeling as if he was typing against a marshmallow.
"Is this what it felt like to be a noob again," he muttered in a low voice, followed by a tired laugh.
But his laugh wasn't bitter or frustrated.
Instead, it was motivating.
As long as his wrist was working, then everything was fine.
He could make it work.
He would make it work.
Seunghoon closed the game and shut the client for the meantime. A blinking cursor returned him to his desktop. In there, folders of replays, builds, and notes could be seen.
"Woah, this is helpful." He frowned and opened notes folder.
/META PATCH NOTES
/SCRIM SETUPS
/MIDLANE ROTATION
Inside were spreadsheets, screenshots, matchup notes color-coded by patch version, and even full-page breakdowns of enemy pick patterns.
He scrolled through them slowly.
There was a list of heroes to counter one another. Different kinds of rotations. Ward timings. And even skill order variations per role.
Even a document comparing the current midlaners and ranking them based on who was the meta.
It was ridiculous and brilliant at the same time.
Seunghoon stared at the screen, lips twitching into a half-smile as he scrolled through the organized chaos.
It was all so… excessive.
"Goddamn…" He let out a breathy laugh before his smile faded a little.
"All these notes," he said under his breath, "and he still couldn't apply it in the game."
"…"
He sat up a little straighter.
"But still…"
He highlighted a few files, dragging them to his desktop.
"This is helpful."
Because even if the former Seunghoon couldn't bring all of this to life, he was now here to do that for him.
Seunghoon leaned back in his chair, stretching for the first time in hours. His legs ached. His back cracked.
His gaze instinctively flicked to the small digital clock in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
3:42 PM.
"...Shit."
He rubbed his eyes.
"It's just afternoon?" He hadn't realized because the room was covered with thick curtains as if he were scared of the sun.
Grrrr…
Seungoon's stomach made a small sound.
That's when he realized that he hadn't eaten for the whole day.
He didn't even stand up or go outside his room.
"I guess it's time for me to face reality." He sighed and stood up.
Seunghoon stepped out of the room for the first time that day, blinking at the way sunlight poured from the hallway. It cast a warm, golden hue over the framed pictures on the wall.
It showed a few pictures of his family and him. It was his first time seeing his new face.
He stared at it closely.
In the earliest photo, he must've been five or six. He had chubby cheeks, bright eyes, and a tiny grin as he clutched a toy robot in one hand and a medal in the other. His parents hugged him—his mother with a warm smile on and his father with a firm but proud expression.
Then came the graduation photos—elementary, then middle school. He was thinner, taller. His brown hair was neatly parted to one side. A Honor student badges clung to his uniform, and he always stood in the front row.
There was even a photo of him holding a golden trophy, wearing a stiff blazer at a debate competition when he was young. The was also one from a science fair and another from a school paper award ceremony.
He was a good student back then.
Someone his relatives would point at and said, "He's going somewhere."
Below the pictures of him were a series of neatly framed certificates, lined up in perfect rows.
Certificate of Excellence
Academic Honor Roll
Outstanding Science Performance Award
1st Place in Debate Competition
Best In English Paper
Most Honest Award
Most Kind Award
Perfect Attendance
And more.
They painted a picture that was hard to look at.
A reminder of what Seunghoon used to be.
Someone brilliant.
A good student.
A perfect child.
And yet here he was.
Not in school. Not with a degree. Not holding another medal.
But playing a game.