Chapter 31 - Support Position
translator: xiin
editors: apricot & juurensha
Thin Fire quickly disappeared out the door.
It was not until a long time later that the beautifying lens lit up at the far end of the corridor. Thin Fire artfully disordered his hair, using the water spray he always carried with him to create the effect of a light sweat. He tugged at his collar and once again looked like a manly man:
“My darlings haven’t slept yet? You’re all still waiting at my studio so late at night. Did you think of me, hm? …”
Back in the training room, Wu Jin’s eyes were shining as he scurried over to take the big boss’s simulation gun from his hand, setting it down alongside his own like piling carrots back in their place in the corner.
The carrots and carrot tops were all tidy and neat.
Wu Jin was very excited, “Big brother! You came so early––”
He immediately recalled that today was the first position selection a.s.sessment, and there wasn’t much opportunity to slack off. Wei Shi had to at least show up and punch in.
He seemed to have never asked what position big brother was planning to play.
Wu Jin raised up his small round face and met Wei Shi’s gaze head on––
The man’s eyes narrowed, just like they had when he had told Wu Jin to lower his head. Only when he saw the youth’s wide eyes did he restrain his expression slightly.
Yet for a moment, Wu Jin seemed to vaguely see that within Wei Shi’s deep eye sockets, his pupils were burning like a scorching desert.
“Scout.” Wei Shi shifted his line of sight away as he spoke in a perfunctory tone.
Wu Jin stilled for a moment. He had imagined the big boss making precision sniper shots, or charging out with an a.s.sault rifle. As for the scout position…
On the other side, Wei Shi raised his chin, signaling for Wu Jin to take his a.s.sessment report out of his bag.
Wu Jin obediently did as he was asked, offering up the report like a child handing over his test papers to his parents.
At this time, the first round of the a.s.sessment was over, and the position scores for all the compet.i.tors had been made public.
Based on the highest points for a single position, the highest ranked was Wei Yan with a full score for the sniper position, followed by Thin Fire with a score of 96 for a.s.sault. He was tied for second place with Zoe, who had the same score in the sniper position.
Amidst this, Wu Jin scored the highest for the support position at 72 points, but his primary position of choice, a.s.sault, was a tragic mere 36 points.
However, Wu Jin wasn’t discouraged, his small curls full of spirit, “There are still two weeks left. With hard training, I should be able to reach 40––”
Wu Jin looked at the big boss’s gaze and immediately replaced it with, “Can reach 45!”
Wei Shi was still unmoved, so Wu Jin upped the number again, “Er, 50––”
Wei Shi glanced him over, and Wu Jin offered weakly, “51…”
Wei Shi stated coolly, “97.”
Wu Jin: “……!!!”
In the evaluation for the a.s.sault position, not only was tactical a.s.sessment and dynamic target shooting required, there was also a basic requirement for body strength that Wu Jin absolutely was not up to par for. He was 108,000 miles away from 97 points.
In a crowd of burly men, his muscle density and body fat content was far from that of normal survival contestants.
It was said that Caesar had the most standard body type for the compet.i.tion… When Wu Jin had returned, the a.s.sessment teacher had looked at his skinny arms and legs and stuffed him with two cans of protein powder. He had thumped against the ground when he walked.
Wei Shi’s indifferent, bottomless gaze swept over Wu Jin’s open backpack and reached in to pluck out an evaluation form. “Two weeks, support position, 97 points.”
Wu Jin was stunned, “Support position…”
Wei Shi, “Tell me how much you know about the support position.”
Wu Jin looked up, “Support position. Unite teammates, be courageous and willing to sacrifice oneself, selfless dedication, er, carry a dust rag for the camera lensk2026;”
“k2026;k2026;” Wei Shi raised his brows, “Tactical command, resource allocation, information collection, engineering, defense, communications.”
“Once the offensive positions are fully prepared, and the scout leaves the team, only the support position can help establish positional advantage and collect information and resources. In the professional league, in a complete team configuration, all players must be able to cover for the support.”
Wu Jin suddenly came to a realization.
There was another meaning to what Wei Shi had said––to be qualified for the a.s.sault position, one must be able to fill the gaps in the support position at any time.
By the time he received the a.s.sessment reports back from the man’s hand, the a.s.sessment for the support position was placed first.
The curfew was approaching.
Wei Shi gave him a slight nod and didn’t say more––he glanced at Wu Jin’s backpack as he left.
Wu Jin opened it in confusion, and when Wei Shi gestured, he turned out the two cans of protein powder.
The green cans were covered with drawings of bright red muscles and a bodybuilding champion spokesperson.
Wei Shi’s eyes were indifferent as he confiscated them.
Wu Jin hurriedly tried to argue, “Big, big brother, I still need to prepare for next week’s body strength a.s.sessment––”
“No need.” Wei Shi categorically refused.
Seeing the little rabbit spirit droop, Wei Shi tsked in his heart and gestured for him to reach out a hand, “Have this instead.”
Wu Jin’s eyes brightened, and he accepted two cylindrical pieces of food from the big boss.
A gift from the big boss––was never ordinary!!
Wei Shi nodded his head, then pushed open the door and left.
Inside the training room, Wu Jin happily opened his hand. On the soft palm of his hand lay two pieces of white––XX rabbit milk candy.
Wu Jin’s eyes opened wide abruptly.
After going through thousands of years of evolution, the packaging for milk candy had already changed completely from his recollection of it, but the little rabbit painted on the candy wrapper was still quietly squatting there.
Wu Jin tentatively peeled one open.
Sweet.
It didn’t seem to have any effect.
He thought about it for a second. Since it was given to him by the big boss, perhaps when he went to sleep in the evening and got up early the next morning, his muscles would have increased dramatically!!
Wu Jin happily swallowed down the milk candy and cheerfully left.
The South Tower was quiet and serene at night. The slightly opened windows let in the scorching summer wind, but it was caught at the air-conditioning vent and swallowed up by the cold air.
Wu Jin pondered deeply as he climbed up the building. The big boss had chosen the scout position… There was a flash of understanding in his mind.
In team games, each team consisted of four people, and had their own personal camera. The camera followed the C-position, which was usually the commander or sniper.
Throughout the camera recording process, the only one who had a reason to run off without leaving a shadow was the team’s scout, who wasn’t necessarily with the team at all times.
The big boss… Sure enough, he was still following the same style. During the entire Crosson Show, other than making sure his ranking went up as required, he was like an invisible ghost in front the camera.
Wu Jin was very impressed, and at the same time, he remembered that the voting for the second match of the program seemed to have begun today.
The light of the terminal glowed slightly. Amidst the rankings, Wu Jin’s and Thin Fire’s scores were almost tied. Wei Yan ranked first due to the advantage he’d gained from the elimination match, and Zoe and Red were also ranked quite high.
He scrolled all the way to the bottom.
Sure enough, big boss had pitifully few votes.
Even his profile image was blurred, not even showing 1/10000 of the big boss’s real appearance!
Wu Jin paused for a moment, then reached out to poke at the voting b.u.t.ton at the bottom.
“Please confirm your pick.”
Wu Jin input ‘Wei Shi’. His ears were slightly warm.
“Please select your number of votes.”
Wu Jin pointed at ‘all remaining votes’, and the display suddenly changed.
“Congratulations on locking this contestant as your ONE PICK! You can log into the list from this page––only 100 credits are required to reach n.o.ble status, allowing you to cheer for your little brother! 300 credits will open Baron status, unlocking additional information on your little brother! 500 credits to open Viscount…”
Wu Jin swept an eye over his balance on the terminal, and took in the fact that the big boss had very few votes.
The second recorded release for the Crosson Show hadn’t begun yet, but the virtual area for fan comments was already filling up, with expressions of love, images, and even propaganda for the station…
One more––it wouldn’t even be noticed by anyone!!
He quickly withdrew one hundred credits from his terminal.
“Congratulations on opening up n.o.ble status for little brother Wei Shi. You’re now watching over his promotion in the next round!”
… It was a little juvenile.
Wu Jin felt his face turn red and quickly rubbed his face.
“Please enter your comment for the banner. It will be displayed on the large screen after submission––”
Wu Jin used his index finger to draw a rabbit with simple strokes. It could barely be recognized as Brother Rabbit who was currently gnawing on gra.s.s in his dorm room.
The banner was submitted with a whoosh and flashed across the big screen. The foolishly smiling Brother Rabbit squeezed in amongst a long string of red hearts drawn by little fans, and disappeared after flashing twice.
Wu Jin blinked twice, his small curls rising up with the summer breeze.
He put away the terminal, then bounced upstairs delightedly, disappearing into the upper floors of the South Tower.
South Tower 701. As soon as Wu Jin opened the door, he heard Caesar shouting from the bedroom next door.
He first stroked the rabbit a few times before sticking the support position a.s.sessment form onto the wall.
––There were a total of six subjects, including static target accuracy.
The second position a.s.sessment was going to be in two weeks, and the highest score out of the two a.s.sessments would be the final position score. Teammates would be chosen based on that score.
Wu Jin tore out a blank page from his notebook and carefully formulated a study schedule based on the a.s.sessment topics. In the lower right corner, he also marked down his target––97.
Next door, Caesar was still being noisy.
There was still half an hour until bedtime by the time Wu Jin finished writing down his schedule, so he instantly entered learning mode. Only the sound of the tip of the pen rustling over the pages could be heard in the bedroom.
Soon, post-it notes full of a.s.sessment key points covered the entire top of his desk.
The rabbit in the drawer jumped out and bounced around on the key points.
“Ah, Brother Rabbit––” Wu Jin hurriedly rolled the rabbit into a storage box and stuffed it with some gra.s.s.
At twelve o’clock, the lights in the bedroom went out. Wu Jin got under the quilt and settled himself in comfortably.
At five minutes after midnight, in the corridor of the South Tower’s 7th floor.
Zoe frowned. “You said that for the elimination match––Thin Fire wants to take Little Witch?”
Caesar was annoyed, “Who the h.e.l.l knows what he’s thinking? He teamed up with Little Witch last time, maybe he’s addicted?”
Zoe: “Forget it for now. Thin Fire… That flirt, his sniper score is 96 points. Once he’s ranked first amongst the A-level trainees, there’s no chance that any teammate he chooses will turn him down. It’s better for me or you to surpa.s.s him during the next a.s.sessment than fight with him over this. Leave it alone for now. I’ll go and find Little Witch.”
The door to the quiet bedroom was pushed open, revealing nothing but darkness inside.
Wu Jin was sleeping sweetly in bed. Zoe stilled and was just about to leave when he was taken by surprise by half a rabbit head that poked itself out from the crack in the door.
Zoe naturally remembered this rabbit of Wu Jin’s.
At this time, a bunch of post it notes that had come from who-knew-where were stuck to the white fluff.
Zoe crouched down and removed the post it notes. Wu Jin’s notes were written on them.
Prediction of the battle situation… Resource line a.n.a.lysis… Anti-reconnaissance…
When he plucked off the last one, Zoe froze slightly.
There were two lines of small text written on it.
6/20 Initial Score: 71
7/4 Target Score: 97
Zoe stilled, then shook his head and produced a smile that was filled with both helplessness and relief.
Meanwhile, on the 2nd floor of the North Tower.
Red was making a phone call on the balcony. He was shaking his foot as he peeled melon seeds, his words fast as he talked to the other side through the terminal.
“Big brother, ah, why am I missing two candies? I put them in the living room and counted them just now… No, I’m already grown up, I didn’t count wrong!”
“Brother Wei took them? Brother Wei eats candy? Ah, brother, I told you to stop staying at the base. You’ve turned foolish from all that nesting!”
“The black cat went out to fight? That’s fine! Brother Wei raised him, the poor thing can fight––wasn’t there that dog before that always liked to provoke the black cat? We all thought that Brother Wei would beat up the dog, but as a result, he took the black cat away for special training. Awesome!”
“But no, the entire base is this little ancestor’s territory. Brother Wei’s therapy companion––ah, big brother, what did you say?! You suspect that his therapy companion isn’t the black cat? How is that possible? It couldn’t be your guinea pig, right… Hahahaha, that silly guinea pig…”
“What?! The results are out––the emotional connection between the patient and the therapy companion isn’t due to psychological cues? It’s subject to the patient’s will?!”
Juurensha: Awww cute Little Witch hard at work.
xiin: post-it note bunny~