Gaining the Upper Hand

“Festival of female summoners! We greet you again with the team selection ceremony for the League of Legends Ladies Tournament. Hello, viewers. I’m BJ Life, in charge of hosting.”

“Hello! I’m BJ Redback, co-hosting.”

A wide space reminiscent of a wedding hall.

Intense lighting shines here and there, and on the slightly raised stage in front stand Life, who also commentated during the blame game tournament, and Redback, a former pro player who did a joint broadcast through Soldier’s connections last time.

They’re dressed up, even wearing suits, to host the Ladies Tournament.

High-end broadcasting equipment capturing their appearance.

All these scenes are being broadcast through New Continent TV’s official tournament channel.

Checking on my phone, the viewer count has instantly exceeded 150,000.

It doesn’t stop there and continues to rise.

I turn my gaze back to the hosts.

“Many female summoners applied for this tournament, but unfortunately, as announced initially, the tournament scale is set at 16 teams, so we inform you that a total of 16 teams were selected through fierce internal review.”

“For teams that unfortunately didn’t make it through the review, there will be another chance in the winter season, so please apply again then.”

The hosts’ skilled hosting, and the camera pans over the interior once.

Circular tables placed at some distance in the wide space.

The members of each team participating in this tournament were seated at a total of 8 tables placed there, and nameplates on the tables had the names of the respective teams written on them.

“Now! Before introducing the teams, we’ll have a congratulatory speech from New Continent TV’s pride, CEO Seo So-gil.”

“Please welcome him with applause.”

Clap clap clap-!

CEO Seo So-gil’s congratulatory speech, as boring as a principal’s sermon, continues.

I was listening halfheartedly when suddenly Mia beside me pokes my side.

“…?”

When I look at her with a puzzled expression, she desperately signals me to look forward, so I turn my gaze and make eye contact with CEO Seo So-gil.

And everyone around was looking at me too.

“Ahaha, was my voice too quiet for you to hear? I was saying I’ve been very impressed by your recent activities.”

“Ah, yes! Thank you. I’ll continue to work hard.”

“Yes. I’ll look forward to it.”

With that, CEO Seo So-gil’s congratulatory speech ended.

No, I was startled.

Why did he suddenly talk to me and make a fuss?

“……”

But the thoughts of people around seem a bit different.

Our team members were happy, saying we caught the CEO’s eye so we only have victories ahead of us, and BJs from other teams around sent envious glances.

And among them was ‘Levia’ too.

The one who gained fame as the first female BJ to reach Challenger.

Of course, there were a lot of behind-the-scenes stories.

It’s one thing that her main position is support, but she played too many duo games in that season.

Perhaps conscious of such critical public opinion, she reduced the proportion of duo games afterwards, but since then she never reached Challenger rank again, so she was also ridiculed as a fake Challenger.

“Now, then we’ll start the team selection ceremony in earnest. I know the method is very simple, but how does it work?”

“Yes! Let me explain. It’s simple. Representatives from each team come out and have a charm battle.”

“A charm battle?”

“Yes. We determine each team’s ranking through real-time voting and give selection rights to the top 4 teams. Starting from the 1st place team, they can choose which team to face in the round of 16 among the bottom 8 teams.”

“Wow! This will be really fierce then. Look, ‘We Won The Championship Team’! Team leader Levia-nim’s eyes are no joke. She already has the eyes of a carnivore choosing its prey!”

“Ah, don’t push it too much. Where is there such a kind-eyed carnivore!”

Levia pretends to be upset and bickers with the host.

Levia, known to have a decent overall reputation and top-tier League of Legends skills among female BJs.

“Interesting.”

“Huh? What is, unnie?”

“Nothing.”

I brush off Mia, who tilts her head curiously, saying it’s nothing, and recall my memories.

What happened in the bathroom we stopped by before the event started.

“Unnie, did you see the members of the Fighting Girl team this time?”

“What?”

“Ah, you’re pretending not to know again. You said it before. That there’s a slightly annoying woman. It’s Hani, right?”

“Ha… Miyeon-ah.”

“I understand how you feel too, unnie. With a face like that, she should just do cam broadcasts, why is she hanging around the game scene? Recently she’s been doing only League of Legends for a week saying she’ll hit Master. Isn’t that really lacking in business ethics?”

“Ah, that damn face.”

“Unnie?”

“Listen well. Does that look natural to you? When she debuted, she didn’t do cam broadcasts at first, and later even when she did cam broadcasts, she only did mask cams, right? Why do you think that is? If her face was really that pretty, she would have done face reveals and cam broadcasts from the start. But she didn’t.”

“T-That’s true?”

“It’s obvious. She had everything fixed. And she did the face reveal when the surgery aftereffects settled. Can’t you tell even looking? It’s obvious she did her eyes, nose, and jaw. She’s completely plastic!”

“Oh my, oh my! Really? I wondered…”

The voices gradually fade away.

I missed the timing to see their faces, but with my numerous abilities related to voice mimicry and tone, I could identify the culprits just by hearing their voices.

Levia and the short-haired team member chattering beside her.

Now that I’ve found the culprits, it’s time to punish them.

---

Each table selects a representative team member to do the charm battle… that is, a talent show.

From our team, I’m going out as we discussed in advance.

Mia and Yerin kept asking what I prepared, curious, but I played dumb and didn’t tell them.

The first participant sang a song, and the second participant danced with a sexy concept.

-ㅋ A game innocent’s sexy dance, this is quite novel.

-For real, after always seeing female streamer dances that look like they came off an assembly line, seeing an amateur-like dance is attractive.

-But isn’t it getting boring? Why do they always just dance and sing at these things? I want to see something different.

-It’s because dancing and singing are the easiest to pull off, right.

The hosts move quickly, observing such chat reactions from viewers.

They briefly stop the third participant who was about to sing and ask if there’s anyone who prepared a different talent, and Levia slightly raises her hand.

“Oh! Levia-nim, may I ask what secret weapon you’ve prepared?”

“Um… I prepared about the differences in dance motions for each of Ahri’s skins. And I prepared some voice imitations of League of Legends champions too.”

“Wow, this is fresh? Let’s see Levia-nim first to change the mood a bit.”

-Oh! This will be fun. ㅋ

-I like Popstar Ahri.

-The original skin is Star Guardian Ahri, don’t you even know that?

-Otaku-nims, let’s watch without fighting.

The viewers’ reactions were quite good to this fresh attempt.

The prepared accompaniment plays, and Levia, who was pretending to be shy and stalling for a moment, starts dancing Ahri’s dance that borrows from famous girl groups in the center of the stage.

“Shall we… get enchanted together?”

“Ooh! That’s good. That’s good.”

“Even I can see she clearly captured the feeling well. You can tell she practiced hard.”

Led by the nodding hosts, the surrounding participants also start applauding.

Levia looks satisfied, but it was too early for her to feel at ease.

Swish-!

“Huh? Hani-nim? What’s wrong?”

I quietly raised my hand.

Redback reacts immediately.

He approaches me with the microphone.

“Ah, coincidentally, one of the things I prepared is voice imitation. It seems to overlap a bit with Levia-nim…”

“Huh! I-Is that so? How did this happen?”

As soon as he hears my words, Redback acts exaggeratedly and looks at Life.

Then Life immediately plays along and induces viewer reactions.

“As soon as Levia-nim shows voice imitation, you say you prepared the same thing? This is blatantly saying, ‘What? It’s nothing special. I could do better even casually,’ right?”

“No, don’t push it! I’m just saying I prepared hard too.”

I act flustered.

In fact, Life’s explanation accurately grasped my inner thoughts.

That’s right.

I deliberately waited for Levia’s turn.

No matter what she prepared, I intended to show something much more amazing and make the viewers completely forget her performance.

But there’s a limit to putting your head in the tiger’s mouth.

She says one of the things Levia prepared is voice imitation.

It makes me laugh.

Isn’t this like spoon-feeding me?

-ㅋ That’s right, Hani was there.

-When it comes to voice imitation, it’s Hani. Isn’t she almost top in New Continent TV?

-It reminds me of Detective Conan and Pokemon. It was almost copy machine level.

-What’s that? Is Hani-nim good at voice imitation?

-No, don’t talk about things only you know ㅋ

When I showed voice imitation and such during the Miracle joint broadcast, I was so new and lacked recognition, so there were quite a few viewers who didn’t know about it.

The hosts seem not to know either.

But I’ve caught on to something, so I’ll hold onto it.

Life and Redback unnecessarily create a confrontational structure and ask Levia and me if we’re confident.

Levia said “I’ll do my best” with a slightly disgruntled expression, and I parodied the textbook-like answers of ‘Miss Korea’ contestants that were popular in old broadcasts.

“I hope the unnie next to me gets chosen rather than me.”

“Eh?”

“Pfft!”

Levia with a dumbfounded reaction and the hosts who can’t hold back their laughter.

And the chat window was the same with viewers laughing uproariously.

-Is this what they call women’s language? It’s hilarious ㅋ

-Wow, Hani really hit the mark. Is she saying Levia has an aged face? That was a killer opening. ㅋ

-This is king politics! Looking at just their faces, Hani does look like the younger one!

“U-Unnie…? Um, I’m actually younger though?”

“What? Ah! I’m sorry. I thought I was the younger one!”

“……”

22 years old this year.

Levia, two years younger than Hani, had her expression completely distorted.