The subordinates eating beside me also stopped moving and looked at me.

Without even thinking of leaving the table, I answered the call right away.

“Yes, senior. I got your call.”

At the time, I was having lunch with Yoow and Igor.

Since only people who couldn’t cook had gathered, I had offered to make something myself, but they stopped me and ordered delivery instead. So I was having an unusually happy lunch break, eating Lexic noodles for the first time in a while.

And then suddenly, a call from Trevain?

I had never even exchanged messages with Jason Trevain before.

“What is it, senior?”

Did something happen?

That was the very first thought that came to mind.

What reason would Trevain possibly have to call me unless it was a serious emergency? There were no senior Badgers around me, and I was still living in a state where I didn’t even know what day of the week it was, so my heart dropped even harder.

But Trevain said this.

[You saw the team results, right.]

It took me three full seconds to realize he was talking about the sports festival.

“Ah, yes, sir. I saw them.”

[What events can you compete in?]

“What?”

I hadn’t even checked whether the event list had been posted.

“The events are out?”

[Do you never check your alerts on time?]

Trevain sounded faintly irritated.

[Go in and check right now.]

So I had no choice but to keep the call going while checking the newly released events.

The list wasn’t much different from what Ricardo had said. Three-legged race. Relay. Obstacle run. Tug-of-war. Basketball. Paired dodgeball...

Paired dodgeball?

What even was paired dodgeball?

Anyway, I skimmed through the list quickly and put the phone back to my ear.

“I checked.”

[Which one are you confident you can go out there and win?]

Once again, I had no answer.

“To be honest, my stamina still hasn’t fully recovered...”

[Don’t even think about sitting out.]

Trevain said bluntly.

I was about to reply that I was only worried about being a burden, but the senior continued.

[Using you half-broken is still more reliable than using those idiots. Hurry up and spit out what you’re confident in.]

“Wasn’t I half-broken to begin with? But now I’m worse than half-broken, so strictly speaking I’m more like quarter-brok—”

[The event!]

“Paired dodgeball!”

I had no idea why dodgeball had the word paired attached to it.

Still, I hurriedly answered the shouting senior.

I was far more confident in dodging than running.

“To be honest, I still don’t think I can run fast yet. My strength is also still a little—”

[Good.]

Trevain didn’t let me finish.

[Practice.]

Click.

The call ended.

Practice?

We have to practice too?

Even after the call ended, I stayed dazed for quite a while.

It was only after Igor lightly tapped my shoulder that I came back to myself.

“Captain, what’s wrong?”

“They told me to practice dodgeball...”

The atmosphere felt as heated as a mounted tournament.

But in a mounted tournament, winning meant prize money equal to a knight’s yearly salary and a chance to catch the nobles’ eyes. Of course the heat there made sense.

But this sports festival didn’t really have any special merit even if you won, did it?

Ricardo had definitely said the winning team only got something trivial like extra vacation days or welfare points...

Yoow snorted.

“Why don’t you focus on resting properly first? Didn’t you just finally get to the point where you can swing your sword correctly yesterday?”

“I still can’t release sword force. That means I’m not even back to Sword Expert level yet.”

“Exactly. So rest. What difference is a few days of practice going to make?”

“Still, it sounds fun.”

Igor grinned, holding up a cup of orange juice.

“So that’s why the little shrimp’s been sprinting around in front of us every now and ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) then lately. I’ll come watch, Captain. Outsiders can attend too, right?”

Apparently they could.

It was more popular than expected, and people even bought cheap tickets to come watch. But it didn’t seem like the Black Badgers were staking their lives on the sports festival because of outside eyes.

They were just genuinely serious about the competition.

From the day the team assignments came out, everything started moving quickly.

The day the event list was posted, a group chat for Sports Festival Team X was created.

Luke Lyle made it.

Luke Lyle made it.

Poor youngest.

Poor youngest.

While I had been asleep, quite a few rookies had joined, so strictly speaking the 63rd class was no longer the youngest in Black Badger.

But since none of them had passed the promotion exam yet, they couldn’t participate in the sports festival.

In other words, among the actual sports festival participants, the 63rd class was still the youngest.

In other words, among the actual sports festival participants, the 63rd class was still the youngest.

The moment the junior from the 63rd class made the group chat, the alerts started exploding.

[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: Hey, Taleb]

[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: Heard you’re doing dodgeball?]

[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: Sympathy strategy?]

[X Team / Peter Dream (user not added): Sympathy lmao strategy lmaooo]

[X Team / . (user not added): This bastard’s kinda smart]

[X Team / . (user not added): Senior Choi and Senior Sordi will definitely go easy on you]

[X Team / . (user not added): Leeho, you should appeal to emotions too]

[X Team / Senior Leeho Chang: Ah, senior. Ricardo isn’t interested in things like this to begin with. And what about me would make Rick go easy on me?]

[X Team / Senior Bobby Winter: What? Hilde, you’re joining too?]

[X Team / Yoshika Shastel (user not added): Oh my~~ so many celebrities in this room~ nice to meet you~]

[X Team / Senior Giacomo Ro: Childae!]

A new version, huh.

[X Team / Senior Giacomo Ro: You’re on the same teaaam too!]

I let out a laugh and replied.

[X Team / Me: Yes. Have you been well, senior?]

[X Team / Me: And as Senior Leeho said, I don’t think anyone here is the type to hold back out of sympathy...]

[X Team / Senior Leeho Chang: Who knows. Maybe it’ll be different for you]

[X Team / Me: Huh? What do you mean by that?]

[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: No, just put on the most pathetic act you can in front of them]

[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: Hit their conscience]

[X Team / D (user not added): Whoa Jack Black!! We have Jack Black on our team!!]

[X Team / Kai: Nice to see you, senior^^]

The notifications piled up at an absurd speed.

The moment Kairos appeared, countless seniors jumped in and started freaking out.

[X Team / ☆ (user not added): Black! Can I add you as a friend?!]

[X Team / Kai: Yes, senior. Please speak comfortably^^]

[X Team / sup (user not added): This team seriously has so many celebrities]

[X Team / sup (user not added): I can’t believe I’m in the same room as the real Jack Black...]

[X Team / Senior Leeho Chang: But Hilde, are you seriously participating? Shouldn’t you rest more?]

[X Team / Senior Giacomo Ro: FIGHT FIGHT you bastards!]

[X Team / Senior Giacomo Ro: Crush the peanuts! Smash them! Turn them into peanut butter!!]

[X Team / Gregory (user not added): If Ami weren’t on the other team, this match wouldn’t be this balanced]

[X Team / Dante (user not added): Exactly. If only senior Choi and senior Sordi would just lose interest...]

[X Team / Senior Jason Trevain: Shut up.]

The flood of messages stopped dead.

Watching the whole situation unfold, I let out a dry laugh.

Such a Trevain-like move, but honestly, it was nice once the bombardment of chaotic messages stopped.

Jason Trevain cleaned up the situation with practiced decisiveness.

[X Team / Senior Jason Trevain: Don’t open your mouth unless it’s important]

[X Team / Senior Jason Trevain: Just decide the team name]

[X Team / Senior Jason Trevain: Taleb, keep practicing]

Luke Lyle quickly uploaded a form for collecting team name ideas.

As the unread count silently dropped, I stared at the crowded group chat for a moment before closing the app. Ro said a few more things, ignoring Jason Trevain’s advice, but the conversation didn’t continue.

Anyway, it was very clear now just how serious everyone was about the sports festival.

Kairos even came by the next day to confirm it.

“Good work. How’s headquarters been lately?”

“Everyone’s worked up because of the sports festival.”

The handler, who had gone out for land-reclamation work and spent a night at the Core boundary before returning, answered casually.

Milk leapt out of his pocket and scampered around the cabin.

“That said, it doesn’t seem like things outside the Core are entirely peaceful.”

“What?”

Why?

“Is it because the kin who had been keeping some of the creatures under control are gone?”

“That’s probably a big part of it.”

Kairos gave me a brief explanation.

If I summarized it in one line, it was this: after the Third War, unknown changes had occurred in the ecosystem outside the Core. High-level predators like High Liches had been wiped out during the war, creatures that had once been kept under control were now released from that control, and the creatures that entered when the dimensional rifts opened had all likely affected the changes as well.

Because of that, even Kairos had been observing creature movements he couldn’t understand.

“But wait.”

I stopped wiping down my sword hilt and looked at him.

“Did anything actually come through when the dimension opened? That thing only swallowed everything up like a black hole.”

My kin.

And Kyle.

Even though I knew I had to let go, I wanted to delay the parting, so I had clung to his hand—and what I glimpsed then had been an endless abyss.

Could something really come out of there?

Kairos smiled faintly.

“They say the overall dimensional state became unstable because of the transfer array, so after that, space has occasionally opened and closed in small tears.”

Ah, I see.

“It doesn’t seem like anything major came in, but things invisible to our eyes could have entered.”

“That’s true.”

“There’s been no immediate damage, so identifying what came in has been postponed for now. The Commander-in-Chief plans to push the reclamation work a bit more aggressively once the sports festival ends.”

No wonder Kairos had been going out on reclamation work so often.

Still, since nothing had exploded into a crisis yet, the hottest topic in Black Badger remained the sports festival.

Most of the seniors had started pressuring their juniors to practice.

The heat only grew stronger by the day. Kairos had enough reclamation work to avoid most of the pressure from the seniors, but for me, messages poured in even from seniors I’d never properly spoken to before.

I ended up repeating over and over that I would recover diligently before the sports festival.

The sincerity with which they truly wanted me recovered came through right through the screen...

And in the middle of all that, Team X’s name was decided.

Black Mamba.

Probably because the venom was supposed to be incredibly strong.

Wasn’t it kind of tacky?

That thought crossed my mind, but I wasn’t exactly the sort of person who could judge what was tacky and what wasn’t, so I didn’t dwell on it.

It was only a sports festival anyway, so what did the name matter?

And just like that, we became Team Black Mamba.

The problem was that Team Y named themselves Serpent Eagle.

Since the names were revealed simultaneously, there was no way to change ours!

Someone had definitely leaked the name Black Mamba to another team before the submission deadline. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

And so, on the day the official Black Badger work app revealed each team’s name, the Badgers belonging to Team X—now Team Black Mamba—erupted in fury.

[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: F*ck, who’s the mole?!]

[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: Get out here right now!]

[X Team / Gregory (user not added): That despicable schemer...]

[X Team / Gregory (user not added): But it’s just some bird. We can bite it apart.]

[X Team / Peter Dream (user not added): Civil war!!]

[X Team / Senior Giacomo Ro: Holy shit!]

Ro, too, was overcome with righteous fury.

[X Team / Senior Giacomo Ro: You Bluetooth-looking bastard!]

Brutus, probably?

I quietly looked down at the now-lively group chat again.

Honestly, I was finding it a little fun just watching everyone’s reactions.

At least until the flames of that fire splashed onto me.

[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: Hey Taleb, you go sniff out the mole]

Huh?

[X Team / Me: Me?]