The head coach quickly logged in to the club’s Facebook account and posted a clarification notice.

Club HS E-Sports: ‘We believe that our players have the freedom to engage in romantic relationships, but we would still like to clarify that Lionel is currently not in one; the young lady is a new member of our club. As for who she is, we’re keeping it a secret for now.’

Players easily became targets in e-sports competitions.

C was an expert gunner who could be said to be among the top tier of players in the league. Because of this, there were many who liked to study her habits and play style.

This made it easy for her to become a target for other teams.

Though she would reveal her presence in competitions sooner or later, having their competitors study her play style after the start of the competition was still preferable to revealing her identity at this point and giving them sufficient time to target her.

They would just keep it a secret for as long as they could.

It would be ideal if they could keep it a secret until the first round of the competition so that they could catch the opponents by surprise.

This was what everyone in the club had agreed upon previously.

As soon as the coach posted the notice, the fans calmed down.

To be honest, the fans were just expecting better from Club HS, that was all. They were the champions every year, yet they had come in second place this year. The retirement of the top gunner in the league due to injury had led to everyone paying special attention to Club HS.

They were afraid that the club would not fare well in the future.

Therefore, now that the club had cleared the air, the issue was resolved.

Nevertheless, when some looked at Cheryl’s side profile in the photo, they couldn’t help but raise a few questions.

‘Is the new gunner a girl? Isn’t she the first female professional player in the league?’

‘What’s wrong with female players? Can’t we girls take part in the competition? What a joke! What age are we in now? Are there still people discriminating against girls?’

‘Men have better reflexes in e-sports than women, right? Besides, the people who make it to the pinnacle of various industries all seem to be men.’

‘LMAOing at the guy above. Here, let me tell you a story: the most famous surgeon in the world is a woman.’

‘Here’s another piece of trivia: Yanci, the top car racer in the world, is also a woman.’

‘Chiming in to add that Q, the most well-known hacker in the world, is also a woman.’

…

After receiving a crash course from the rest, the person who had raised the question in the beginning immediately wussed out.

‘I’m not discriminating against her. I’m welcoming her… In any case, the godly Zac is so strong that he can carry anyone anyway!’

‘Yes, I welcome female players!’

The comments were relatively peaceful. After all, women had successfully achieved high positions in various industries over the years. Though there were few female competitive e-sports players, they did exist.

The head coach looked at the rest of the staff with a smile and said, “It’s fortunate that women have made it into the ranks of top performers in every industry over the years, so there aren’t many who question their abilities anymore when they become professional players.”

However, among these comments was a question:

‘Judging from her side-profile, she seems very young, though? Is she an elementary school student?’

The coach immediately replied to the message: ‘Don’t worry, our new member just took her college entrance examination this year. She reported for duty right after that.’

‘Then it’s fine.’

The problem was resolved easily and smoothly. All the dissent online seemed to have disappeared, and not many had raised doubts about girls participating in e-sports.

Even though the coach knew that there wouldn’t be that much opposition in the first place, wasn’t this going a little too smoothly?

Little did he know…

In New York, Alexander stretched lazily and said, “Tsk, tsk. Trending on social media when she has only just reached the club. As expected, Cherry can’t manage without her big brother!”

As he spoke, Peter, who was sitting opposite him, slowly looked up.

Differences were already starting to show in fifteen-year-old Peter and Cheryl’s looks.

Cheryl still looked cute and adorable, but there was an additional sense of toughness in the same facial features on Peter. In addition, Peter had trained in martial arts frequently over the years, so his features were more defined, and he didn’t have any baby fat. He looked absolutely dashing.

He slowly said, “You mean big brothers.”

“… Fine,” said Alexander.

He pulled his hand from the keyboard and said, “Write a program and keep an eye on the Internet. If anyone says things like ‘girls can’t be professional e-sports players’ again, ban their accounts! Also, Cherry’s side profile is more than enough on the Internet; all full-frontal photos must be deleted. Don’t go too soft on them. I have something on, so I’ll go for now.”

—

The incident was resolved quietly. When Cheryl returned to the club after she was done shopping for daily necessities, she didn’t yet know that she had trended on social media.

Her teammates enthusiastically escorted her to the room and even helped her clean it up.

When the head coach came over, he immediately saw Cheryl seated on the sofa while the rest of the team was busy with chores.

The corners of his lips spasmed.

Generally, whenever there was fresh blood in the team, everyone treated them with mild skepticism. Moreover, they were all still young and hot-blooded. The head coach had been worried that they would get into a dispute with the new member.

But from how things looked… It seemed despite having only been here for two hours, Cheryl had already become the club favorite!

However… the head coach looked at Cheryl.

The teen girl sat quietly on the sofa as she munched on a potato chip she was holding between her fair fingers. Her little mouth was moving constantly, making her look cute and well-behaved, like a little squirrel. Even he didn’t dare to raise his voice at her!

So, it was only natural that she would end up as the club favorite, right?

While the head coach was musing, a staff member suddenly came over. The man looked serious as he said, “Coach, Club JQ is so shameless!”

Surprised, the head coach asked, “What happened?”

“Take a look at this!”

The staff member took out his cell phone, opened up Facebook, and handed it to the coach.

Only then did the head coach realize that Club JQ, their archrival, had officially announced a new member in their team this year!

Team JQ had also welcomed a new player this year, and everyone had been guessing who it might be…

However, they had just made an official announcement, and the new member was also a well-known player in the game—the female live-streamer, Jimy.

A female player!

Well, that was some pretty hot news.

The problem, though, was that Team JQ had made a special mention of Jimy’s education when they introduced her—because she was a rare one with relatively high academic qualifications among the group!

She was an undergraduate at a prestigious university!

After the news went public, fans of Team JQ took the opportunity to create the image of a highly-educated intellectual for her…

They were clearly facing off with Club HS by doing this!

Fans of Team JQ were even starting to antagonize them on the Internet.

They outright at-mentioned Club HS’ official account and asked, “How high can your new member score in the college entrance examination?”

The head coach: “!!!”

This was an e-sports competition!! What was the point of obsessing over the players’ college entrance examination results?!

What a ridiculous way of antagonizing them!

Had they let their win go to their heads after becoming the champions just once?

They had practically come all the way to their doorstep to bully them now!

Yet…

He glanced at Cheryl.

Sensing that he was looking at her, Cheryl looked up, whereupon she saw the head coach smile kindly at her as he said, “It’s okay. College entrance examination scores aren’t everything. We don’t look at one’s college entrance examination results in this industry.”

Cheryl: “??”