Chapter 5: Friend to hell (2)

“Uh…”

Streamer Raidel was at a loss for words.

The player Silverhair Silverhair stood in the middle of a hailstorm of steel balls—and didn’t get hit by a single one.

It wasn’t like they were moving a lot.

Just light little taps here and there, yet all the steel balls veered off course.

It felt less like Silverhair was dodging the balls and more like…

The balls were avoiding Silverhair.

「What is that?」

「Isn’t that a hack?」

「Who hacks in a trash game like this lol」

「How the hell are they doing that?」

「You can’t dodge like that with the physics in this game, right?」

The biggest feature of Chain Roller was that all the bald characters were on roller skates.

Because of that, the game had heavy momentum mechanics.

Tapping a direction didn’t immediately start movement—it gradually accelerated.

Even stopping took time.

That momentum was one of the key reasons the game was so difficult.

Precision control was incredibly hard.

But the player Silverhair Silverhair was dodging all the balls with just light, flicking movements.

‘They’re not even looking where the balls are coming from.’

Despite the viewers’ sarcastic tone, Raidel did have some confidence in her own skill.

She had above-average reflexes and visual tracking.

She’d played plenty of obstacle-dodging games before.

She figured if you thought of this as a 3D bullet hell game, it was doable.

‘This is nauseatingly hard though. Seriously.’

But these particular obstacles were just way too much.

Even when she thought she’d perfectly tracked the positions of the twenty flying steel balls and timed her dodges…

One would suddenly come flying out of a blind spot and smash into her side.

Like there was an invisible ball mixed in.

‘No matter how insane the dev is, they wouldn’t add invisible steel balls… right?’

At the very least, the game had to be clearable.

‘No…’

Raidel shook her head.

If there really was something invisible attacking the players, then Silverhair wouldn’t have made it through unscathed either.

There had to be something she just wasn’t seeing.

‘Just unlucky, huh.’

She hadn’t expected a stage this hard.

Usually, even the worst RNG nonsense would get brushed off with some “lololol”s from the chat, but…

This time, the chat was saying this was true bulls*it and suggesting she reset.

[Silverhair Silverhair: Just hold the forward key.]

[Silverhair Silverhair: I’ll carry.]

‘F*ck it, whatever.’

Raidel didn’t know whether this Silverhair was a hacker, a bug abuser, or just a disgusting trash game god…

But they said to just go forward, so she had no choice but to trust them.

She shut her eyes tight and pressed ↑.

---

“Is this stage actually easy?”

I muttered as the steel balls swarmed toward me.

At first glance, it didn’t look easy.

But once I started playing, it didn’t feel hard at all.

[Gwahk!]

[Kuhh—!]

“Okay, maybe it’s not that easy…”

The moment I said that, Raidel and Delbung #3 were sent flying.

That made it harder to tell whether I was just doing well, or if those two were just bad.

Chain Roller was known for its difficulty, but since all the stages were randomly generated, the difficulty could vary.

‘There’s one tricky thing.’

Still, I could understand why they were struggling.

I could see 20 steel balls flying around.

‘But there are three more.’

In reality, there were 23 balls.

The 20 visible ones were flying around normally…

But three were cleverly hidden behind the others.

If you assumed there were only 20 and only dodged the ones you could see, you’d inevitably get slammed by one of the hidden ones.

I almost got knocked out by that trick the first time too.

The pattern wasn’t exactly predictable, but the balls weren’t moving that fast either.

With a bit of focus, they were easy enough to dodge.

Whoosh—!

Another wave of balls came flying, and I dodged them smoothly.

With minimal movement.

Because of the momentum from the roller skates, this kind of precision dodging wasn’t easy.

But—feel.

I could instinctively sense the trajectories of the balls.

My slender fingers moved naturally to dodge them.

Calculating the momentum in advance and moving accordingly—it all just came naturally.

‘Still… I can’t move forward.’

No matter how good I was, I couldn’t progress to the next stage.

[Gkkk!]

[Guhhkk!]

The two bald characters screamed.

Their limbs flailed and twisted as they were sent flying.

Chain Roller was fundamentally a 3-player game.

The other two players were connected to me by chains.

We couldn’t move beyond a certain distance from each other.

“How can I use this…?”

The connected chains.

I remembered seeing other streamers using the chains to their advantage somehow.

“Ah.”

One streamer had used the chain to pull a falling teammate back up.

A unique mechanic available only in 3-player mode—not possible in single-player.

‘If I use that…’

I hit the chain-pull button.

Originally, it was meant for rescuing teammates falling off platforms.

But the button didn’t just pull forward or backward.

You could also pull left or right.

Pull left, and the connected player would fling left.

Pull right, and they’d fling right.

I remembered seeing that feature in a few streamer videos—but no one really used it.

You could control your teammates with it, but…

One wrong pull and it turned into trolling.

If someone was moving just fine and got pulled mid-action, it’d throw them off balance.

But…

Whip—whip—

If you controlled it well, you could forcefully dodge incoming obstacles.

‘Oh. This works.’

With my right hand, I grabbed the chain connected to Raidel.

With my left, the chain linked to Delbung #3.

It was a little harder than managing just one person, but when I twisted my body and pulled—

Both of them moved exactly as I wanted.

‘This dev’s a sadist.’

The control range wasn’t subtle. It was actually pretty wide.

The fact that I could manipulate other players this easily meant trolling was basically built-in.

Given what we know about cauldron-game devs and their personalities on average, it honestly felt intentional.

‘Not that I’m complaining.’

Thanks to that, I could mess with my teammates’ movement easily.

Which meant—I could force them to dodge the steel balls.

“Let’s try this.”

Just as a pair of balls came flying toward Raidel and Delbung #3—

I twisted and pulled both chains in sequence.

Their bodies flung sideways, avoiding the balls.

‘If I just keep doing this…’

While dodging the balls myself, I could control the other two.

It was a little exhausting, but not impossible.

The only real issue was when they moved unpredictably.

If only they’d just stand still, I could handle the rest.

Thankfully, there was a chat function, so I quickly typed between waves of balls.

[Silverhair Silverhair: Just hold the forward key.]

[Silverhair Silverhair: I’ll carry.]

After a moment, player Raidel started running forward.

Not doing anything extra, just following instructions and running straight.

Delbung #3, who had been trying to do his own thing, also gave up and started running forward.

‘Much easier.’

It was way easier for me when they just ran straight.

If they moved around randomly, it only made my control harder.

With both of them heading toward me—

I started pulling the chains left and right, guiding them across the obstacle course.

---

【What’s going on in Raidel’s stream?】

[She’s playing Chain Roller but the difficulty’s off the charts;; What’s with the flying steel balls?]

– The difficulty is weird. I’ve watched full playthroughs from 21 streamers and I’ve never seen that pattern before.

– ㄴ What kind of life are you living…

– ㄴ (Not even human.)

【Did Raidel say she’s gonna full-clear the game today?】

[Looks like another 20-hour stream lololol]

– They say she cleared the steel ball stage already.

– ㄴ For real?

– ㄴ Yeah, apparently someone carried her.

– ㄴ You sure you’re not bullsh*tting?

– ㄴ Go look for yourself, dumb*ss.

【There’s some psycho in Delbung’s stream.】

[They’re dodging all the bullsh*t patterns solo and carrying Raidel and the other player too. Straight up insane.]

– How do you even carry in this game? If two people suck, it’s game over.

– ㄴ They’re using the chain pull to dodge for the others. Raidel’s just standing still and all the balls miss.

– ㄴ Isn’t chain-pulling supposed to be a trolling mechanic?

– Maybe they’re using hacks?

– ㄴ You can’t hack in trash games like this lol

【The movement from that person in Raidel’s stream doesn’t make sense…】

[What the f*ck is this? They’re using a system that was meant for trolling to do this?

Is it even possible to dodge two people at once by pulling chains?]

– Legit LOL

– This is not how the game’s supposed to work lmao

– Who knows?

– Just go watch the stream. Today’s gonna be legendary.

【Delbung’s in full panic mode lolololol】

[They finally cleared the steel ball section and now they’re getting back-to-back bullsh*t pattern season 2.]

– Wow… didn’t even the top streamers just reset when this came up?

– This one doesn’t have patterns. People usually ragequit after an hour.

– But didn’t one of the viewers clear the steel ball part? Can’t they carry the rest?

– ㄴ I didn’t see the ball part, but… probably not. This next part is seriously hard.

---

TL Notes:

• 체인 롤러 (Chain Roller): The in-universe rage game the characters are playing. A parody of games like Getting Over It and Jump King.
• 핵 (hack): Korean slang for cheat programs or hacking, especially in games.
• 트롤 (troll): Used in gaming to mean someone intentionally sabotaging the game.
• 억까 (eok-kka): Internet slang for unfair or ridiculously unlucky situations—short for “억지 + 까임” (forced + criticism).
• 캐리 (carry): Korean gamer slang, adopted from English, meaning to carry the team or do all the work.