Chapter 112: Controversy

SY dorms.

Rainbow’s Ryu Jinhyeok, as usual, finished his daily routine and sat down, engrossed in personal practice.

[DEFEAT]

“…I lost.”

He had lost, but that was all.

Ryu Jinhyeok casually started queueing again.

For some reason, defeat didn’t feel as frustrating as it used to.

To be precise, it was the same even when he won.

Since when had it been like this…?

Playing games wasn’t just purely enjoyable like before.

It wasn’t simply due to the pressure of being a pro gamer.

It was more like, how should he put it?

A feeling of having lost the reason to play games itself.

Ryu Jinhyeok himself would desperately deny it, but on some level, he knew.

This was one of the symptoms of burnout.

[VICTORY]

Victory and defeat.

Good results and not-so-good results.

Championships and runner-up finishes.

What was the point of it all?

Somehow, struggling desperately in this well felt foolish.

‘Is it time for me to retire…’

It had even reached the point where thoughts he’d never usually entertain crossed his mind.

‘…I’ve been practicing for too long. I need to rest.’

Indeed, he hadn’t been sleeping well lately.

A healthy mind comes from a healthy body.

Ryu Jinhyeok kept that in mind, shook his head, and got up from his seat.

As Ryu Jinhyeok stood up, Choi Won, “The One,” turned his head from a distance.

“Going to sleep?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright? Sleep well.”

After the brief exchange, Choi Won turned his head back to his screen.

Ryu Jinhyeok, too, was about to head to his room without any lingering attachment when.

‘Hmm?’

Something caught his eye.

It was YunGi’s screen.

‘A stream?’

And not just any stream, but a League of Legends stream.

He wasn’t practicing like he was supposed to, but watching an internet stream instead…

Well, it wasn’t something he, who was already heading off to rest, should say, but it was a bit unusual since YunGi didn’t usually watch internet streams.

“What are you doing?”

“Ah, hyung. You know this? Sanghyeon told me about her, she’s f*cking amazing.”

He wondered who had spread this poison in the dorm, and as expected, it was the guinea pig, Yu Sanghyeon.

If he could, he would have grabbed him and had a scuffle, but unfortunately, Ryu Jinhyeok wasn’t that type of person.

“What is it?”

“She’s a new BJ who just debuted. She’s a woman, and her tier is Grandmaster. Plus, her position is jungle. She’s super hot right now. If you look at the online communities these days, everyone’s talking about this BJ.”

“…Really?”

A female Grandmaster BJ jungler.

Even for someone like Ryu Jinhyeok, it was a story that couldn’t help but pique his interest.

“Huh… A foreigner?”

Moreover, that appearance.

Even Ryu Jinhyeok, who had no interest in anything other than League of Legends, found his heart unknowingly pounding.

“No… From the way she talks, she seems Korean… Ah, I’m not sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Though he said that, Ryu Jinhyeok’s gaze was already fixed on the stream.

Beyond just being pretty, her mysterious aura had something that captivated people’s attention.

The screen showed the ban/pick phase in progress.

Ryu Jinhyeok blurted out without much thought.

“Is she good?”

“She’s good. Very.”

“…Really?”

“You didn’t think I was watching a female streamer just for fun, did you? This is all studying, studying.”

“Wasn’t that it?”

“Ahem.”

The answer was unexpected.

YunGi himself would never admit it, but in truth, YunGi was quite stingy when it came to acknowledging others.

In fact, wasn’t it YunGi who, until recently, refused to acknowledge Prisoner even if it killed him?

But for YunGi to readily admit it like this?

“It’s hard to explain in words… Just watch for a bit.”

Just then, the game started.

The stream itself couldn’t be called particularly entertaining.

She didn’t actively communicate with viewers, nor was she witty with her words.

Of course, her unrealistically beautiful appearance covered most of these shortcomings, but that was the gist of it.

“This isn’t really Grandmaster-level mechanics… Though, looking at her win rate, it seems like she’ll hit Challenger soon.”

“What’s her win rate?”

“It was a hundred percent?”

“…What?”

Was such a win rate actually possible?

Even Ryu Jinhyeok himself, a two-time Red Cup champion, wasn’t confident he could achieve a 100% win rate in the wild jungle of solo queue.

‘No way.’

At the mention of a one hundred percent win rate, someone flashed through Ryu Jinhyeok’s mind, but he quickly shook his head.

Literally, it was an absurd story.

‘What is this?’

That wasn’t the only strange thing.

As the game progressed, Ryu Jinhyeok found his gaze increasingly drawn to the stream.

He was mesmerized by the fantastic plays Outlaw was making.

“Wow, she survived that.”

• [Outlaw!Outlaw!Outlaw!Outlaw!Outlaw!Outlaw!Outlaw!Outlaw!Outlaw!Outlaw!Outlaw!]
• [Nuna, please die!Nuna, please die!Nuna, please die!Nuna, please die!Nuna, please die!Nuna, please die!Nuna, please die!Nuna, please die!Nuna, please die!Nuna, please die!]
  (TL Note: “Nuna” means older sister, used by males. “Nuna, please die!” is a common, often paradoxical, expression of awe or frustration in Korean gaming communities when a streamer makes an unbelievable play, implying it’s so good it’s ‘killing’ them or that they wish the streamer would make a mistake for once because they’re too good. Here it’s likely awe.)
• [Does this even make sense? Outlaw is truly a legend…]

Strange.

The gameplay felt somehow familiar.

‘……Why?’

It was gameplay footage of a BJ he was seeing for the first time in his life.

Yet, for some reason, the playstyle felt unsettlingly familiar.

What was even more baffling was that the hypothesis forming in Ryu Jinhyeok’s mind was utterly incomprehensible.

‘…Prisoner?’

No, that’s not it.

It’s not Prisoner.

But Outlaw’s gameplay was strikingly similar to Prisoner’s.

Does this even make sense?

Could a player of Prisoner’s caliber appear so suddenly like this?

And a woman at that?

He wasn’t disrespecting women.

In reality, globally, there were female pro gamers in League of Legends.

But there were limits to everything.

‘I don’t understand. I just don’t understand…….’

Ryu Jinhyeok stood frozen for a long time, his gaze lost in the internet stream.

Watching the continuously brilliant plays, Ryu Jinhyeok quietly murmured in his heart.

Who on earth are you.

---

“Hwaaam…”

• [Ooh…]
• [What’s with the yawn lol]
• [Nuna, I’m dying! Nuna, I’m dying! Nuna, I’m dying! Nuna, I’m dying! Nuna, I’m dying! Nuna, I’m dying! Nuna, I’m dying! Nuna, I’m dying! Nuna, I’m dying!]

“Quiet down, everyone. Or I’ll ban you all.”

• [ㅠㅠ]
• [N]
• [Holding breath]
• [Hmph]

After that, the stream went quite smoothly.

One of the goals of the no-end stream, recruiting team members, was about half-achieved.

All that was left was, true to its name, to raise my tier to rank 1.

[VICTORY]

• [She wins again, crazy]
• [When are you ever going to lose?]
• [The woman who doesn’t know defeat lol]
• [Nuna, stop winning so much! Nuna, stop winning so much! Nuna, stop winning so much! Nuna, stop winning so much! Nuna, stop winning so much! Nuna, stop winning so much!]
• [Is this even possible?]
• [Crazy, crazy]
• [Nuna, I’m dying!Nuna, I’m dying!Nuna, I’m dying!Nuna, I’m dying!Nuna, I’m dying!Nuna, I’m dying!Nuna, I’m dying!Nuna, I’m dying!]

Amidst the cheers of the viewers,

About four days had passed since I started the no-end stream.

---

[Outlaw]

Rank 284

Solo Queue

• • Challenger

  • 761 LP / 78 Wins 0 Losses

  • Win Rate 100%

Should I say, finally?

I became a Challenger.

• [At this rate, isn’t she really going to hit rank 1 on this no-end stream within a week? lol]
• [Does this even make sense?]
• [FR lol]

Thanks to the marathon no-end stream that lasted a full three days, the number of viewers had also increased significantly.

[Current Viewers: 14,154]

A whopping 14,000 people.

Considering I had only been streaming for about four days, it was an enormous achievement.

‘I haven’t checked the number of Star Balloons yet… but it’s not a small amount.’

The minimum price for the TTS voice on my stream was 10 Star Balloons.

Furthermore, a considerable number of Star Balloons came in from various missions and pure donations.

Although I hadn’t checked the specific monetary amount yet, if this upward trend continued, I might really earn 100 million won within a month.

‘Ah, is my head in the clouds again?’

Calm down, calm down.

Don’t get ahead of yourself, my heart.

• [I want to lick the streamer’s armpit]
• [FR lol]
• [Crossing the line]
• [Ban him]

Of course, as the number of people grew, some guys occasionally crossed the line, but thanks to appointing a few moderators, they were dealt with immediately.

• [‘SimpKimSimp’ has been forcibly removed.]
• [Good riddance]
• [Keep your regards to yourself]

That wasn’t the only good news.

Earlier, I had shown myself recruiting team members live on stream.

Given the situation, it was natural that the viewers’ interest in the team I was trying to create was also quite high.

• [When are you founding the team?]
• [Are you starting from the 3rd division and aiming for the 2nd division promotion match?]
• [Are the top and support positions confirmed?]

“I’ll tell you about the team slowly later. There’s nothing confirmed yet.”

• [lol, no plan]
• [If you’re the streamer, it’s okay to have no plan]
• [FR lol]

Everything was going smoothly.

It felt like everything would work out if it just continued like this.

However,

As irregularities always do, change came suddenly.

• [‘FlyingDorae’ has gifted 10 Star Balloons.]
• [– “Is this the place where the legendary deserter is?”]
• [?]
• [Deserter?]
• [What are you talking about?]
• [Don’t feed the troll]
• [Don’t feed him, seems like a troll]

At first, it seemed like it would just get buried.

This was Red TV, and trolls like that popped up tens, even hundreds of times a day, so it wasn’t unusual.

However,

• [‘FlyingDorae’ has gifted 10 Star Balloons.]
• [– “Please explain deserting YSG.”]

When a specific team name was mentioned, the troll was no longer just a troll.

Credibility was added to a provocation that would normally have been ignored.

• [?]
• [Why YSG all of a sudden?]
• [What are you talking about?]
• [Streamer, did you desert YSG?]
• [Oh, come to think of it, I think Juwon talked about Outlaw during his stream last time.]
• [Really?]
• [What is it?]
• [Did something happen?]

When the situation reached this point, I could instinctively feel it.

Ah, what was bound to come has finally arrived.

The deeds I committed in the past have returned as karma.

• [Explain]
• [Ex]
• [Plain]
• [Ex]
• [Explain]
• [Please explain that incident]
• [Ex]
• [Plain]

In the chaotic stream of chat messages, I slowly moved my lips.