FOG [e-sports]

Chapter 133 - Extra 1

In order to ensure the fairness of the matches, half an hour before the match, the league officials would draw a referees for each team. The rule was that the referee must not be from the same competitive division as either team.

This was so that the clubs would have no chance to have any py deals with the referee and the referee would have no time to have any contact with the players.

The event organizer for this World Competition has mobilized a total of 48 referees from every corner of all the major competitive divisions. The referees who were drawn must never be from the same competitive division as the players.

For the first quarterfinals match of Team Free against Team Sacred Sword, Team Free drew a young referee from the wild card Latin American division.

This young referee has just entered the industry this year and has just been a referee for half a year. He usually happily spent his days in this peaceful and serene small wild card Latin American division. He has never had any dealings with the major competitive divisions and didn’t understand the grievances between them. He had been selected by the event organizers purely because he could speak several languages.

For the first public appearance in the World Championships, he was going to be the referee for a match-up between two world giants. The young referee was surprised but also very happy.

For him, it didn’t matter who won. It was good enough if he’s able to do his job well.

The young referee was born in the wild card competitive division known as the “Weak Chicken Mutual Pecking Alliance”. It was his first time to come to such a big stadium. It was his first time seeing such impassioned cheers of support before a match. He felt that this trip was worthwhile. He had broadened his horizons!

The players of Club Free were very powerful. They defeated last year’s champion by winning three consecutive games; allowing him to see three charged high-energy games. The young referee felt that this trip was not in vain! The collision between the strong teams was too intense! It’s just so cool!

Being assigned to Team Free’s side, he was able to see the very famous Gemini twin stars of the China Division up close. He was very satisfied. In the flesh, the real Gemini twin stars of the Chinese Division were exactly as rumored — handsome and their playing was even more handsome! The other two players were also awesome!

It’s just that they don’t like talking to the staff much. They don’t like to laugh a lot either. They also always love to insult each before the start of each game. They didn’t seem very approachable.

But coming from such a powerful and illustrious club and being that strong to boot, it was normal for them to be a little niubi.

But what the young referees never ever expected was that Team Free would be so proud that even after winning the game, they didn’t hug, didn’t disconnect their peripherals, didn’t hug and cry with their backstage coaching staff. They remained sitting where they were as though waiting for something.

What were they waiting for?

Was there some sort of special routine that was part of the culture of players from big competitive divisions?

This was not in line with the normal operation of the matches. The young referee naturally had to go and ask. The game was already over and the players needed to leave the soundproof room.

The youngest player inside, Evil said unhurriedly, “We’re not in any hurry, we’ll wait for our opponents to delete their accounts before we leave.”

...

This young referee from Bolivia, a weak, innocent young referee, ignorant of the ways of the world, in his first year at the World Championships quarterfinals, took a half step back. His pupils quaked, having received such terrible culture shock because of this strongly oppressive bandit-like behavior.

Is this how matches between major competitive divisions went?

Was this a collision between big shot clubs?

Was this how star players played?

Only then did the young referee understand the implication behind the cheers chanted by the audience throughout the entire third game.

The audience weren’t mocking. They really wanted to have their accounts deleted!

There was no need to mention how precious their account was to the players. To put it seriously, this was no different from tearing down the opponent’s club base and then tearing down the other team’s flag in front of their faces.

Overly shocked, the young referee now looked at Free’s young players with a little more fear.

Even though his experience was not so rich, he has never seen this kind of game!!!

Did they play in the quarterfinals? The kind where they have to delete their accounts if they lost?

...What a frightful Eastern Club.

The young referee looked up and down at Evil, this player who was barely an adult. He didn’t dare to rule out the possibility that this rumored badass ‘f*ck the heaves, f*ck the earth’ player was joking. He lowered his voice and whispered to the intercom, asking the general referee group and the referee assigned to Sacred Sword.

Within ten seconds, the voice of Sacred Sword’s referee came through the intercom:

“...It’s true. Sacred Sword are already deleting their accounts.”

Young referee: “...”

The director was also quite good at his job and he cut the screen to Evil Xuanshou’s monitor.

Evil Xuanshou’s monitor was synchronized to the giant screen in the stadium.

His monitor displayed the game ending screen with the player IDs of the two teams appearing on either side.

Free was on the left and Sacred Sword was on the right.

Evil Xuanshou knew that the director had cut the screen to him. He tilted his head and smiled. He simply enlarged the game window, letting the audience see only the IDs of Sacred Sword’s players on the right. This allowed the audience to see it clearer.

After a few seconds-

In the game client, the ID of Sacred Sword’s medic disappeared.

It was not the usual graying out of the name once the account goes offline. Rather, it had completely disappeared.

The significance was clear to everyone. At this moment, this account has been erased.

After a momentary silence, the audience from the Chinese Division boiled over with excitement.

A few seconds later.

Sacred Sword’s sniper ID disappeared...

Then Sacred Sword’s strikers’ IDs disappeared...

For every account that disappeared, the stadium let out enthusiastic cheers.

The Chinese players who’d been insulted and ridiculed from all directions since before the start of the World Championships, at this moment, in Sacred Sword’s home division, have completely regained their dignity.

With the disappearance of Sacred Sword’s striker captain’s ID, the IDs of all of Sacred Sword’s players have disappeared from the client.

Whisper Xuanshou looked at the empty game client screen. He clicked out of the finished game screen and opened his in-game friend group.

The young referee saw at a glance that had named one of his friends group as the “Victims List”.

Whisper looked at this group. Tone calm, he said, “Continue.”

The young referee looked confused. What continue? Continue what?

Less than a moment later, the director cut the view to Whisper Xuanshou’s monitor. The audience looked at Whisper Xuanshou’s friend group and for some reason, after hoots of laughter, they continued to yell out Team Free’s ID.

In the soundproof room, Puppy Xuanshou leaned back on his gaming chair and looked at Whisper Xuanshou’s friends group. He laughed and slapped his thigh. He kindly explained to the young referee, “These are the IDs of the other people within the Sacred Sword Club. Their boss is on top and their manager is next.”

The referee choked.

He can’t be sure that this is the most wonderful game of this World Championships, but he can bet that this was definitely the most watched game!

The league was even following to broadcast this matter. Who could stand this?

Chen Huo Xuanshou was laughing so much, he couldn’t sit steady. “The tournament group is something else. They’re unexpectedly synching with our interface. I thought that after the game, we would have to settle our deal with Sacred Sword privately. Looks like the tournament group is making use of our private wager to hype up the event, huh?”

“You think the officials also haven’t had it up to here with Sacred Sword?” Puppy Xuanshou sneered, “Has there been any club that has attacked the other participating teams one by one even before the game began?”

“Is there any club with even an ounce of the spirit of competition that would control points and destroy the fairness of the group stage just for their own grudges?”

“Which club’s executives would use their side accounts to personally attack other players, specifically destroying their morale before the game?”

“They already can’t officially mete out punishments, now they can’t even whip their corpse after the game?”

Of course, they can.

The director did a simultaneous broadcast of Whisper’s interface. Millions of people had focused their attention on Sacred Sword’s wager so now they had no choice but to delete their accounts.

The IDs in the group disappeared one by one. After it was completely emptied, the game officially ended. The players then got up and began to calmly dismantle their peripherals.

The young referee couldn’t help it and courteously asked Team Free’s Evil Xuanshou, “Uh...does every team that competes with you have to delete their accounts if they lose?”

The young referee humbly said, “I have a team that I like very much. They also managed to enter the quarterfinals, uh... I don’t know if they’ll be matched against you.”

Evil Xuanshou: “...”

The other players of Team Free laughed.

The evil player looked back at the referee with a complicated expression on his face. After a moment, he said, “...rest assured, this is only for Sacred Sword.”

The young referee still had lingering fears. He nodded, “That’s good, that’s good.”

Evil Xuanshou used his mouse pad to roll up his peripherals. He took a couple of steps to head out. He looked at the referee, “You think we went too far? You think we’re being tyrannical?”

The young referee hurriedly shook his head. Not knowing the inside story, he declined to comment.

He just thought that this was too f*cking stimulating.

Evil Xuanshou glanced at Whisper Xuanshou beside him and said lightly, “If we had lost today, Sacred Sword would have directly rushed into this soundproof room. Right here, they would have used our computer to permanently delete our team’s living fossil account. And then they would have made this into a video which, from hereafter, they would play in a loop every time we appear on the field. Don’t you think so?”

The referee was inexperienced but he has also heard a bit about Sacred Sword’s behavior. This indeed...seemed like something they would do.

Evil Xuanshou said, “We weren’t the ones who started this fight. Since they dared to provoke us, they should have prepared themselves to have their faces trampled against the ground. Sorry, but our team, we’re not good people.”

“But we won’t be as despicable as they are... Their accounts have already been deleted. This matter is over.”

“Deleting their accounts... It’s just taking back what they had taken.”

What had they taken?

The referee swallowed, not daring to ask. Thinking about it, maybe it was their dignity.

Although, from start to finish, he was an outsider to this situation and he wasn’t clear on what had occurred but seeing the fingers of these young players trembling with pain as they removed their peripherals, seeing the faint sense of relief in their eyes, seeing their tall and slender backs as they exited the soundproof room...

He had an inexplicable feeling that these youngsters must have gone through a lot of suffering that they couldn’t easily voice out.

What they did today must have also been just.

The players won back their dignity by playing the matches. Wasn’t this the fairness of competition?

The oppressive aura of these young players from this rich and powerful club from the Chinese division was too strong. The young referees let out a long sigh of relief when they finally left the soundproof room.

He suddenly found that Whisper Xuanshou had forgotten to log out of his account. The other staff members who were going to check the equipment and clean the soundproof room were about to come. Leaving the account as is simply wasn’t safe. The young referee was going to help Whisper Xuanshou to log out of his account.

While quitting, he inadvertently glanced at Whisper Xuanshou’s friends list and accidentally discovered that his “Victims list” group had been renamed.

It had been changed to: “Over and done”

The young referee clicked his tongue. Whisper Xuanshou was so cool. A real man changes the friend group name and doesn’t look back! A real man doesn’t log out of his account after the match!

That inside story that the young referee wasn’t clear about, it seems that for Whisper Xuanshou, those things really were already in the past.

...

But for some people, it obviously still wasn’t.

The young referee looked at the other soundproof room in the distance. He shrugged his shoulders as Sacred Sword’s captain smashed equipment in a fury.

Such a sore loser. Completely lacking in poise and grace. Not cool at all.