The Great Thief

Translator: Halcyon Translations  Editor: Halcyon Translations

“So, Master Huang, can you comment on Ruling Sword’s team?” the reporter asked, continuing to add salt to the wound.

But in some ways, this was unavoidable. They had lost the match, so anything they said could be taken the wrong way.

“I will simply give you my personal opinion,” Master Huang emphasized this point before continuing, “This is a new team that is very unlike a new team. They are a group that has never been defeated. No matter how much you despise them, know that they will eventually taste the bitter fruit of failure.”

In fact, it was only after Lu Li carefully thought about it that he realized the sinister intention behind Master Huang’s praise.

Because Ruling Sword was such a strong player now, they had many enemies and some of them might treat them ruthlessly. They would likely bring Ruling Sword a lot of trouble.

However, even though he knew what Master Huang was doing, Lu Li couldn’t do anything about it.

There were a few remaining questions directed at Glory Capital, but Master Huang was able to answer most of them quite naturally.

“In the next round, we will go all out, no matter the outcome. We won’t just admit defeat,” Demigod Asura declared.

As the Warlock, he was the first to be killed by the snow monsters in that game. He didn’t mention how he had felt at the time, but he had planned to target Lu Li with this status buff.

“There are still many opportunities in the future and I’m glad that we got to fight such a strong opponent. With opponents like these, Glory Capital will become even stronger in future,” White Westhill added, with thorns in his words.

Ethereal Wind was a newcomer who had just graduated from the training camp. He simply expressed his admiration for Lu Li.

“In this game, I made a major mistake. I will be reflecting on that and look forward to meeting Ruling Sword in future competitions.”

Blood Dagger didn’t hide his gloomy expression; he blamed himself for this match. He thought that if he had seen Lu Li and the snow monsters in time, he could have intercepted them with his speed. Even if there were four players fighting Ruling Sword’s five, he was confident that they could have won. or at least not suffered such a crushing defeat.

In fact, Sorrowless hadn’t even seen the threat in time, so what responsibility did Blood Dagger really have?

Then again, would Lu Li have allowed Blood Dagger to take the snow monsters he had brought?

After that, there were more questions about the details of the game. Fortunately, Glory Capital had done this before, so they could cover up their resentment. Master Huang was also there, so no one dared to scream in front of their instructor.

After the questions had been answered, Glory Capital could have stayed to listen. However, this seemed inappropriate, so no one said anything about their departure.

After Glory Capital’s departure, the focus was on the winners of the match, Ruling Sword. The atmosphere of the press conference was completely changed. Even the reporters seemed to be relieved as the dark clouds cleared and there was a sense of clarity.

The opening was still a congratulations for their victory before the conventional question of how they thought the game went.

“This match was really quite lucky,” Lu Li had to admit. Although he didn’t have to lay out the tactics he employed, he had really just led the snow monsters that eventually overpowered Sorrowless…

Moreover, acknowledging that it was luck didn’t come without its benefits.

If they had really defeated Glory Capital by pure strength, then Ruling Sword would likely be seen as stronger than Glory Capital.

What was Glory Capital’s current position? They were not just a giant in the gaming industry, but really a giant in the global scheme of things. No matter who was up and coming, they would see Glory Capital as the organisation to beat.

However, Glory Capital family of alliances was extensive and there were many people that relied on them. Sometimes, these so-called alliances would fall.

This was something that Ruling Sword couldn’t afford to deal with right now.

“What do you think of the next round?” the reporter asked.

“We will go all out.”

Lu Li’s answer was simple and wasn’t very impactful. This guy who had been completely unknown six month ago now seemed invulnerable.

The reporters asked a few more questions, but they stopped paying attention to Lu Li and turned to interview the other players.

“Fat Monkey, what were you thinking of when you challenged Sorrowless?” In terms of interviewing value, there was no one that could match Fat Monkey. As such, after Lu Li answered some of the routine questions, the focus shifted to Fat Monkey.

“I wasn’t thinking at the time…” Fat Monkey said regretfully.

According to normal procedure, Fat Monkey should have said that he had always admired the industry’s predecessors. Although he didn’t have all the knowledge yet, he was still brave enough to issue the challenge. He should then thank the predecessors for their advice.

The reporters all laughed loudly as none of them expected Fat Monkey to say that he wasn’t thinking at all.

“We will skip this question first then. If you looked back at how you did, how do you feel about it?” the reporter continued. Since Fat Monkey was so entertaining, they didn’t mind asking him a few more questions.

“I played very well, but next time I face something like that, I will be even better,” Fat Monkey said without flinching.

The reporters laughed again.

In fact, there wasn’t really a problem with Fat Monkey’s response. It was just that it was very unlikely that such an occasion would arise again. In fact, when he was fighting Sorrowless, he was already familiar with Sorrowless’ style of play, but it was only in the second half that Fat Monkey started his counterattacks. He really would do better the next time they fought.

“So what else do you think of that round?”

There was nothing that could be asked of Lu Li. The reporter saw that Fat Monkey was being very straightforward, so they directed all their questions to him.

“Our Boss is really the best. I just can’t believe we won,” Fat Monkey said without thinking.

“If it was just a normal fight, do you think Ruling Sword could defeat Glory Capital?” the reporter asked.

“It would have just been a dream I think.”

Fat Monkey had forgotten everything Lu Li told them before the interview and was just chatting with the reporters.

It was also expected that the reporter would guide the topic to him challenging Sorrowless.

The other players were eventually interviewed. For example, after Moonlight had come back from his break, he had suddenly joined the championship team. These were the kinds of efforts that journalists wanted to write about.

The same was true of several other newcomers. This was the first time they had participated in the league and they were now in the championship. There were many professional players that would have envied them.

Although Mu Qiu didn’t play very much, and he didn’t get to participate in the team round, he also contributed to their campaign. He calmly accepted the result and didn’t feel any anxiety about it. He was a pragmatic person and had a good attitude. He knew his situation and what his club needed from him in his position.

Even though he was a substitute player, he was still a part of the championship team.

He had joined as a second or third-rate player who had no chance to see the limelight. Now, he was almost able to appear in the arena in every match, so he was quite satisfied. At this time, he still didn’t know how he would go in the future, so he remained humble in front of the audience.

When the interview was about to end, Lu Li came forward to make a statement.

The reporters were keenly aware that this probably meant he was about to break some major news. They all held their breath and wondered what Lu Li was going to say.

Was he going to announce his relationship with Water Fairy? Today seemed like a good occasion for this. Water Fairy wasn’t here to stop him and everyone thought they understood Lu Li. Even if they were dating, Lu Li wouldn’t have been obvious about it.

Or perhaps Ruling Sword had found another expert to join the guild?

They hadn’t heard of any expert players changing positions recently. Even if they wanted to announce a newcomer joining them, they would want an audience.

It would probably be something related to the game.

So what was it?

Lu Li paused before slowly saying, “We, Ruling Sword, are announcing that in the match coming in five days, the map will be…”

Could it be?

Reporters’ eyes widened as they started breathing heavily. Someone even dropped their notepad.

“We will use the snowfield again!”

Could it be that they had heard it wrong? The reporters all looked at each other and saw the same question in their peers’ eyes. Since they all had the same reaction, that meant Ruling Sword had really just made this formal announcement.

This was a press conference, so anything that you said couldn’t be taken back.

The reporters saw that the other Ruling Sword players were looking quite normally at Lu Li as he spoke. This meant that it wasn’t a decision that Lu Li had made on his own. When a reporter asked him to elaborate, Lu Li declined to comment and left with the other players.

Ruling Sword stayed at the Imperial Capital for one more night and the service they received that night wasn’t as good.

It wasn’t that Glory Capital hadn’t paid for the best. This was the best hotel and the best catering service. It was just that no one there wanted to hang around Ruling Sword, so the plans that had been made were cancelled.

However, just because Glory Capital hadn’t arranged anything didn’t meant that Ruling Sword couldn’t do it themselves.

They spent that night celebrating and even Lu Li, who was normally very reserved, let himself go. However, since there were so many people there, he didn’t think it would be a problem.

“In the ten years of competitive gaming, they are the strongest dark horse!”

This was the title that the media used the next day; it was quite normal by their standards.

There were also other gimmicky titles like ‘Six to one finish against Glory Capital. Ruling Sword rising to the peak’, ‘100 million in funds sunk overnight’, ‘The King has fallen – Glory Capital is no longer the best’. In fact, all the content was the same as it was just a report on the match.

This news not only hit the headlines of major e-sports media but even the mainstream media. It seemed that China was rather uneventful in those two days, so they had focused in on this video game competition.

Because the gap was so large, this season’s league came to an end, the voting activities began and the trophies were directly awarded to the winners.

Lu Li’s trophy was handed over to his sister. The little girl just couldn’t sit still and wanted something to do.

The best newcomer was thought to be Ruling Sword’s Fat Monkey, but eventually turned out to be Kitty Likes Meat because Fat Monkey had already received this title in the Magic Cup. Kitty Likes Meat wasn’t worse than Fat Monkey; she just didn’t perform as well this match.

However, following the trend of this championship team, there were no other rivals for this title outside of Ruling Sword.

There were also other titles like, most beautiful, most handsome, best commander, best performing, most unexpected, most unlucky…

As long as the title could be imagined, it would be voted on. The Professional League was also following this chaos and were awarded small trophies to the winners of these titles.

It was worth mentioning that Master Huang had received the most accomplished award.

This kind of award was only given to old players announcing their retirement. It seemed like Master Huang really was retiring this time, as Glory Capital’s list of players no longer had his name from that day onwards.

In fact, whether he retired now or not wouldn’t make a difference. Even if Lu Li hadn’t made him impulsively jump into the arena, he would have officially announced his retirement in six months. He would later go on to the become the chief training instructor and focus his energy on training newcomers.

After returning to Jiangnan City, Lu Li and the others were naturally given a very warm welcome.