Chapter 278 Harvesting the reward
"..." Immediately Ken became tongue-tied as his expression became ashen upon meeting eyes with Hiro.
His brows frowned as a chill ran down his body. Suddenly his legs turned weak as he staggeringly retreated few steps. He could no longer muster his courage to speak while facing Hiro.
As Ken stopped his bickering, slowly Hiro then swept his gaze over his other teammates.
Most of them shut their mouth not because they were afraid of Hiro but because it was all thanks to Hiro that they were spared from the public humiliation.
And raising question against his decision was like saying that they ungrateful towards Hiro for saving them.
At once as everyone stopped their bickering, the surrounding became somewhat less noisy but not completely silent.
The crowd were in marvell once again by the domineering presence of Hiro. Just his single gaze alone made all his teammates tongue-tied. They simply couldn't fathom his authority.
Kim Tae-ri who was witnessing this scene first hand was also marvelled by Hiro's attitude.
'Such dominance...' She couldn't help but look Hiro with eyes full of reverence and astonishment.
Hiro then continued, "You don't have to fulfill the bet. However I think, at the least we still owe an apology from you guys, don't you think so?"
Hiro's words immediately uplifted his teammates mood to some extent. And as he said so, once again they all abruptly turned towards Hiro.
However this time there gaze concealed a hint of gratitude and happiness.
Park Seung-gyu and few others immediately understood Hiro's intention. He was giving them face by nullifying the deal to some extent. But he also had to think about his teammates feelings.
If he simply exempted their punishment totally, his teammates would be unhappy about his decision. But by altering the contents of the bet to some extent, he was trying to create a stalemate.
In this way he could both appease his teammates and give face to his opponents.
Afterall kneeling infront of this many people would surely tarnish their reputation and they might develop deep hatred towards Hiro and Japan overall.
So it was the least Hiro could do to prevent such outcome.
And this whole event was being recorded and streamed by countless people as well. Thus everybody were actually quite reluctant to abide by the contents of the bet.
But now that Hiro had provided them some leeway, they'd only be a fool if they don't agree to his verdict.
Although Park Seung-gyu still had to apologise to his opponents and was a bit indignant, Park Seung-gyu let out a subtle smile as he heard about Hiro's final verdict.
'No wonder this guy is the captain of his team at such an young age' his admiration for Hiro grew substantially.
Even with this reformed punishment, most of Park Seung-gyu's teammates were still hesitant to apologise.
Specially Kim Tae-ri's brother Kim Il-sung, he was the most adamant. Not only was his sister harassed, now he had to lower his head and apologise to the culprit instead.
How could he accept such outcome?
But the next moment, his eyes opened wide as it displayed extreme shock, 'Why?? Why is he stepping forward?'
Before his eyes, Park Seung-gyu was stepping infront.
The same guy who had instigated him to confront Japanese players. The same guy who had suggested this bet.
Now he himself was the first one to step infront and apologise.
Kim Il-sung felt betrayed upon seeing this scenario. He felt confused. He couldn't tell whether to be angry, sad or perplexed.
His face became extremely complicated as it reflected indignance, sorrow and humiliation.
His mouth opened as he was about to rebuke Park Seung-gyu's decision. However before any words could be formed, one after other all of his teammates followed after Park Seung-gyu as they apologised to their opponent.
Kim Il-sung felt even more ridiculous upon seeing his teammates apologising to the opposing players.
But if he kept being stubborn and refused to apologise, people might think ill of him and his reputation might be tarnished.
People might even brandish him as irresponsible and weak-
minded.
To save him from public backlashes, he bit his tongue as he reluctantly submitted to his fate. Afterall once his reputation becomes bad, he'd find it really hard to get into a club. Since clubs values reputation greatly, bad reputation would only make him less appealing.
His career might even be hampered badly if he kept being stubborn.
Thus at the end, he too followed suit as he apologised to the culprits who had harassed his sister with a bitter mood.
Although the response of the crowd was still negative, it wasn't as negative as it would have been if they had refused to abide the bet.
"So they had made a bet that whoever losses the duel has to apologise"
"I guess something must have taken place between them"
Most of the crowd were kept in dark. Nobody among the crowd knew about the conflict which had led to this duel.
They simply assumed that there was some sort of misunderstanding between the two teams.
After apologising to Japanese players, Korean players started to leave the premises.
Before leaving Park Seung-gyu however whispered something while walking past Hiro, "You won this duel. But I won't let you win the final match"
Hiro however wasn't affected by such taunts. Instead he calmly replied with a smile on his face, "Then be prepared. Because this won't be the only time you'll see me victorious"
Faced with Hiro's reply, Park Seung-gyu however smiled instead of becoming agitated.
Watching the receding figure of Park Seung-gyu, Hiro curled his lips as he made his decision after analysing all the wow-factor he could copy, "Then as for my reward, I'll be choosing this Knight in the area"
Just as he made his decision, the description of the wow-
factor presented itself before his eyes.
[Knight in the area(A+->SS)]
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