chapter_0020

20 – It Doesn’t Always Go as Planned

20 – It Doesn’t Always Go as Planned

Here is the English translation of the Korean novel excerpt:

Four hours after Dora’s last break, at 4 AM.

And eight hours since starting the game Pandemic Village.

Finally, cheers erupted from the soundproof booth.

“I did it!!!”

— Kyaaaaaaaa

— Finallyyyyyy

— My teeth are all broken, take responsibilityyyy

— Aaagh finally

— Dora wins!

— Dragon noona wins!!!!!

— She actually beat it lol

Dora succeeded in clearing the game after trying the final boss thirteen times.

She was supposed to do story dubbing as usual.

But she was so moved by clearing it that she couldn’t even speak properly through her tears.

“Hnnng, huuuuuung, heeeeek.”

:: :: Anonymous donor has donated 100,000 Clouds! :: :: ** **:: :: To celebrate clearing :: ::

Of course, her donation reaction wasn’t human-sounding either.

“Huehehe…. Yeoeu hueoaeeo, hiaeoeuuuuu….”

— Speak words lololol

— You’d think she won an Olympic gold medal lol

— She’s really something else lol

— Is this a reaction or crying? lol

— This is why I can’t quit Dragon noona’s horror games lol

It’s cute, but if she does this, someone might complain that her reaction to the 100,000 won donation was half-hearted.

So I translated her babbling words for the viewers to hear.

Normally I would have waited, but having seen Dora struggle up close, I didn’t want to leave room for misunderstandings.

If left alone, it would take time to sort out later and delay going home.

“Hueu Anonymous donor has donated 100,000 Clouds, she says.”

— lololol What kind of translation is this

— You can understand that? lol

— Being a Parallel manager isn’t easy huh lol

“Hunghii… Haaaeu…! Hunghii haaa!”

“Thank you very much. Thank you very much, she says.”

— This is the first time I’ve seen such a dry 100k reaction

— Why is this funny lololol

— This is cute too though?

— Possible

“Eeeu haeeo!”

“Do it properly, she says.”

— You are doing it properly lol

— Why are you getting mad at Employee D lol

— Delicious

The 100,000 won donor left a comment saying it was delicious, so that was reassuring.

What was strange was that the chat atmosphere had changed quite a bit after that.

The majority had been comforting Dora for her hard work, but suddenly there were many people sympathizing with me.

— You must have a hard time taking care of kids who don’t listen

— Just D D D

— King D Emperor D God D

:: Anonymous donor has donated 10,000 Clouds! ::

:: Thank you for taking care of our loser, you must be tired so go home early ㅠㅠ ::

I wasn’t as tired as people were worried since I’d been up at this hour for days.

My ears were just a bit muffled from constantly hearing Dora’s dragon-like screams.

But I felt strange seeing viewers be gentle for the first time in a while.

If they were usually like this, there’d be no need to swing the ban hammer.

However, in this relatively cheerful atmosphere, only one person’s eyes were still moist – Dora, who hadn’t yet escaped the flood of emotions.

“Sheesh… really. You guys… why are you only caring about Employee D… I! I worked the hardest…”

— Uh oh

— Why is it suddenly getting dark?

— Black dragon appears!”!!

— Hisssss

But when a broadcaster gets emotional, viewers become mischievous.

After all, there’s no time more fun than that.

Sure enough, before long everyone was busy teasing Dora.

… She’s too excited right now, we shouldn’t provoke her too much.

:: Anonymous donor has donated 10,000 Clouds! ::

:: Honestly, if noona had done well, wouldn’t Employee D have gone home earlier? ::

— lololololol

— Youuuuu

— Don’t hit too hard, the humidity is rising lol

— Stop, the opponent is already damp!!

“Yeah. I didn’t do well… It’s true it took long because I wasn’t good. But honestly, the enemies run around too much. I bet even if Employee D did it, there wouldn’t be much difference?”

— Huh?

— Getting scratchy?

— No matter how bad you are, it wouldn’t take 15 minutes lol

— Someone who took 15 minutes shouldn’t talk…

— Huh?

— Sigh this is a bit

— Tsk tsk

— Why provoke this?

— Why provoke at 55 degrees

— You’re taking the bait?

— Whoa

:: Anonymous donor has donated 1,000 Clouds! ::

:: Honestly, shouldn’t we praise Employee D for not giving any advice while watching the whole time? If it were me, I would’ve immediately said “That’s not how you do it” to her face and snatched the keyboard and mouse for real ::

— For real lol

— I agree with this

— I’m a signal flare and that’s correct

— Giving a tearful thumbs up ㅠㅠ

It’s heating up as expected.

Dora’s lips are trembling, about to burst into tears again.

The vibe doesn’t feel good, so I was wondering if I should intervene when…

:: Anonymous donor has donated 1,000 Clouds! ::

:: Yeah~ If Employee D did it, it’d be a 3 minute clear on the first try~ ::

Thankfully, Dora burst into laughter at one amusing donation.

But donor, do you know that the anonymous donation feature isn’t actually anonymous?

The streamer can see all the donor nicknames, so if you throw 1,000 won punches behind anonymity, you end up getting hit like this yourself.

I know because I was dissected like that by the boss when I hadn’t been watching streams for long.

Well, at least my nickname wasn’t like that…

[Donation received]

– dydWbWb : 1,000 Clouds “Yeah~ If Employee D did it, it’d be a 3 minute clear on the first try~”

— Aaack

— Protect the hatchling!!

— Holy shit that nickname lololololol

— What…?

— What kind of choo choo…?

— Is it furry furry…

— Farewell

— Nickname normalization OUT

— It was anonymous!! It was anonymous!!!

Dora left the viewers hanging on the captured image and asked me.

She burst out laughing in disbelief, but it seemed she wasn’t fully over her anger yet.

“Employee D, can you really beat it in 3 minutes?”

I just blinked, expressing my desire to go home, but what followed was an adorable provocation.

“Are you scared? Afraid you might be slower than me, so you’re pretending not to hear?”

— This is really annoying

— lol

— As if that could happen~

— This is a bit hard to endure

— Since it’s come to this, show them and then coolly go home?

— My head says send him home but my heart wants to see

— Dragon noona, is this right?

— Woo trash

Thanks to that, she became trash for bullying a tired employee, but Dora didn’t seem to particularly care.

… You were just crying.

What exactly are broadcasters?

Of course, it’s understandable to feel bad when you get donations like that after struggling for 8 hours to clear it.

Especially in an unusual situation where I was suddenly being praised for working hard.

After all that effort, having the spotlight stolen and viewers caring more about me than her.

This would definitely make anyone upset.

It’s only natural for feelings of jealousy to be directed at me.

… But if I succeed in clearing it in 3 minutes, then everyone will really only look at me, right?

I can’t half-ass it either. Now that it’s known I’m a signal flare, people will definitely say I went easy on purpose if I hold back even a little.

And if I go easy, it’ll only make Dora’s image worse.

It was natural for Dora to look immature and pathetic compared to me calmly responding to her sincere challenge.

Of course, those who watched the broadcast know the circumstances that led to this, so it’s fine.

The problem is when people who didn’t watch spread distorted rumors without knowing the full story.

“Employee D. Be honest. You’re scared, right? Afraid you might do worse than me?”

Anyway, Dora kept pressuring me, and I’ve never experienced a situation like this before so I don’t have a response manual.

But it feels wrong to avoid it like a coward.

Given how things are going lately, I’ll keep getting entangled with the members whether I want to or not. There’s no guarantee a similar incident won’t happen again even if I avoid it this time.

In other words, I need to develop the ability to improvise in these situations if I want to have longevity as a general manager.

OTNXSU9XcTFURXdtd0tweHpoait4akVEQVJoTmMrTm16VjVSWTNEeEJiUXB6allwOVdZRXdoMWVZdmhBQVVXSw

If there’s a way to get out of this situation without manipulating Dora’s broadcast to my liking, then…

“Alright. But let’s make a bet.”

“A bet? Okay! What are we betting?”

“If I clear it in 3 minutes, you give the viewers a rare ‘onee-san’ voice.”

The big sister voice (real voice) is a 500,000 won reaction, so it’s really hard to hear normally.

The chat immediately reacted.

— Signal flare trying to win over public opinion~

— Employee D! Employee D! Employee D! Employee D! Employee D! Employee D! Employee D!

— Oh my god ㅠㅠㅠ

— Sir D, how can we ever repay this kindness!!!

Dora, who had been emotional, calmed down considerably after hearing my words.

After pondering for a while after first taking the bait, she said:

“Okay, but. If Employee D can’t do it in 3 minutes, promise to play a game with me sometime this month.”

“Alright.”

— Kyaaaaaaaa

— Queen Do Ra

— Let’s gooo~

— This is good too? lol

— Let’s do ittttt

And so the bet was made.

It almost looked like Dora was throwing a tantrum and I was cleaning up after her, but the mood completely reversed since all the bet rewards were good for the viewers.

Now I just need to win, create a cozy time for Dora and the viewers, and exit.

I sat in the chair Dora vacated, adjusted the chair height, and loaded the save data. Bang, bang.

I fired a few shots into the air, swinging the mouse around.

This was to check the sensitivity and maximum angle I could move.

‘This angle should be enough…’

After checking the angle, next was checking the battlefield.

The boss room is a cave with an intertwined multi-level structure, with shortcuts only I as a human can use scattered throughout.

The boss constantly crawls towards me inside, and its speed is fast so I have to keep running through shortcuts or it’ll catch up quickly.

In other words, it’s a boss that forces hit-and-run tactics.

However, I have four health bars, so I can take up to three hits.

The final boss fight doesn’t allow using healing items, but that means I can fight like a berserker while taking those three hits.

“I’m ready.”

Dora grinned and said:

“It’ll be really hard, you know? His weak point is hard to hit because he keeps dangling, and he’s super fast,”

The boss is in the form of a spider larger than a human, with two eyeballs the size of half a dangling human head as its only weak point.

And as Dora said, the boss is not only fast but frequently changes direction, so it shakes like crazy.

Speedrunners often ignore it completely because trying to hit it actually slows them down.

But avoiding a weak point just because it’s hard to hit isn’t my style.

“Here I go.”

As soon as I entered the boss room, I fired a barrage of bullets at the boss approaching from a distance.

The boss moves between the floor, walls and ceiling with each hit, and its weak point eyeballs shake wildly, but.

That doesn’t mean I can’t hit it.

The shaking of the eyeballs may seem random, but it’s not.

When coming from the wall to the floor, or floor to ceiling, you can somewhat predict the angle and trajectory of the shaking.

One magazine empty, so I replace it with a new one.

The boss is suddenly right in front of me, but I don’t run away and fire three more shots.

Bang bang bang!

With the third gunshot, the boss bites my body, and I push it away through a QTE, giving me a brief invincibility period.

I empty the remaining three bullets in the magazine, then immediately throw myself into a shortcut.

— ???

— Wait, weren’t all 12 shots headshots?

— Whoa

— I just woke up completely

— ?

— At this speed it won’t even take 2 minutes. Reload, and repeat the same thing until I have one health bar left.

Easy, right?

… ─ Real-time Best ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ …

[D Emperor is so damn cool for real]

(Final_boss_1min_51sec_clear.(clip)

I asked the Pandemic gallery

They said even in speedruns 2 min 30 sec is the standard

Because hitting the head is super difficult

But D Emperor just hit all headshots and coolly went home

My dopamine exploded watching it and I woke right up

(Source: Dora (VTuber) Gallery [View Original])

[Comments]

— Dora915: This is seriously insane

— Dora531: Wow still so awesome watching again

— Dora375: (D_Emperor_all_shots_headshot_confirmation.- Dora375: Slowed it down to check and they’re all headshots.

–
Integrated831: TAS?

–
Integrated241: It’s a live stream;

— Mugeon: Who is this person?

–
Mugeon: They shoot well

–
Integrated151: Gasp

–
Integrated381: The real Mugeon here?

–
Integrated414: Search for “signal flare” on Treewiki

–
Mugeon: Thank you

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Author’s Note (Afterword)

I’m sorry for being a bit late!!

I didn’t get much sleep yesterday ㅠㅠ so proofreading was delayed…!

I’ll make sure not to be late tomorrow!!