Reunion (4)
After finishing the meal with SolidHeavy, I headed straight home.
“Haa~”
A sigh escaped me even as I slipped off my shoes. To think a weirdo like that lived in the neighborhood.
Can’t even move because of money problems.
My current situation was pure debt. I still hadn’t repaid half of what I borrowed from DeepSeaCleaner, so wasting money was out of the question. For now, it seemed like a problem I just had to bury.
—Swaaaah.
The moment I got back I jumped straight into the shower. I’d gone pretty hard on the run, and my body was soaked in sweat. Once I finished showering…
“Mm.”
I swept my wet hair back and looked in the mirror. Reflected there, of course, was nothing but a frail-looking kid.
“I’m fucked. With this body I couldn’t even beat a minion.”
Maybe not even that. One auto and I’d be fountain-bound.
“….”
No, why am I imagining a soul-to-soul brawl with minions that don’t even exist in reality? Might as well pick something with a shred of realism. Like… that guy today, for example.
His forearm was as thick as my thigh.
….
No. The more the thoughts chained together, the more nonsense filled my head. I ruffled my wet hair with one hand and muttered under my breath.
“Time to stream.”
More precisely, Asgard.
The main base of my life. The reason I keep living.
Has my era finally arrived?
Was I destined to become Challenger all along!!!
Lately I’ve felt different. A sudden spike in skill starting a few days ago. The phrase “late bloomer” might as well have been invented for me.
“Hell yeah.”
A victory march. I gazed fondly at my recent match history. Seeing the entire record painted blue filled me with pure joy.
In summary, the recent record sat at 13 wins and 2 losses. And even those two losses were because our mid threw—absolutely not my fault. Probably.
“Am I kinda cracked right now?”
“A booster? Why would I need to hire one of those? Iron trash gets completely stomped by my raw skill.”
Actually, maybe the real absurdity was thinking Iron could ever fully contain my vessel. No matter how hard the world tries to gank you, you can’t hide the sky with two hands forever. Truth has a way of coming out eventually.
“See? This is my real skill.”
Even I found it a little mysterious. Stringing together this many consecutive wins over a few days was pretty rare for me.
Was the part-time grind the real problem after all?
Squeezing in day-labor shifts every time money ran dry versus the current environment where I could full-send focus on Asgard—the situations weren’t even comparable. At this pace, escaping Iron 5 was only a matter of time. Hell, if things kept going I might even start eyeing Silver or Gold before long.
“Everyone shocked by my skill? Honestly I’m shocked too. So I prepared a little content for you.”
Are they stupid? With momentum this good, why the hell would I troll?
“Not doing that crap. Instead I edited together some of my highlight moments. Do we call this a mad movie? Anyway, I even did the editing myself.”
I hit play on the video I’d prepared in advance. It was a collection of only the best plays from the recent win streak, and even I was surprised by how clean the mechanics looked. Anyone who didn’t know my tier might honestly mistake it for high-elo footage.
HungADC Highlight Compilation
Free-site BGM started flowing. Soft and chill at first, then it transformed into something that could rival heavy metal whenever the decisive moments hit.
“Eh?”
Was it that weird? To my eyes it looked decent enough…?
I could practically see myself last night frantically learning the program and cobbling the video together. Guess this is where not having an editor shows.
It’s fine. Minor issue. The plays themselves are completely solid.
Mid-lane 5v5 teamfight standoff.
Both sides dancing and jockeying for position. But the peace didn’t last long. Both supports initiated at the same time and a brutal brawl erupted.
Heroes tangled together, dumping every skill without restraint. The ground shook like a natural disaster and lightning kept crashing from the sky. A genuine all-in for both teams.
And HungADC just stood in the back doing absolutely nothing.
With the ADC playing it safe, it became a total allied collapse. Blue team’s polar bear hero howled and collapsed onto the freezing ground. The warrior king from the northern lands planted his sword into the dirt to stay upright before finally dropping to his knees. And still HungADC just stood there with his arms crossed, surveying the battlefield.
A fight in which blue team’s ADC had effectively gone missing. Yet they must have put up one hell of a last stand, because most of the enemies were sitting on low health.
And the moment every blue hero fell…
HungADC surged forward, feet flying.
—Shuuung!
The chill BGM flipped into hype mode as the first highlight moment hit.
An arrow buried itself into the skull of an enemy who had gotten cocky after the teamfight win.
First sacrifice claimed. Dynamic camera-shake effects kicked in as he dashed toward the next victim.
Enemies finally realized the ADC was still full HP and scrambled to run. One of them even burned flash trying to escape behind a wall, but…
—Piyuuung!
A fully charged arrow left a purple trail as it punched straight through the wall.
After that it was pure slaughter. Like a wolf among sheep, HungADC fired arrows in every direction. Moments later the only thing left standing on the battlefield was a muscular partial-build Nike, planted atop nine corpses.
“Carry.”
“I got a penta kill. Results are what matter.”
Yeah, zero impact feels whatsoever~
“Still ended 13-2 though, right?”
Heh. Already proven it with pure skill.
“Alright, let’s finish watching the next one and then go get win number 14?”
Yeah, scream all you want—it won’t help.
With my momentum right now, Iron is like twisting a little kid’s wrist.
The stream ended in the middle of the night.
—Growl.
My stomach was sending signals.
Time for the pyegi to come out.
It was always like this around this hour. Shockingly, just like Pavlov’s dog, the second pyegi time hit my body reacted with perfect timing.
Sad.
But there was no helping it. This too was my karma.
—Rustle.
I changed clothes, slid into slippers, and made a beeline for the convenience store. When I opened the door the part-timer at the counter was staring at his smartphone. Same guy who always worked this late shift.
“Hello.”
Customer… well, calling myself a customer felt embarrassing, but he looked up from his phone when I walked in.
“Yeah. Today as well… shamefully.”
Give me the pyegi.
I poured that feeling into my gaze and the part-timer nodded.
“Sure, one sec.”
He stepped out from behind the counter and headed toward the lunchbox section. I politely moved aside and watched him. Looking at him from the side again, he was pretty striking.
That ear must hurt.
The part-timer was wearing an earring. No—more like a huge piercing? Way too big for any normal office worker.
The rest of him was pretty unique too. Leaf-cut hair that looked gelled, obvious makeup on his face. Sure, guys style themselves these days, but this felt a little excessive. If I had to describe it, he gave off male menhera vibes. The kind of look you’d spot a couple of in Hongdae. Not that he looked bad or anything…
“Ah…”
The menhera part-timer’s mouth opened slightly. Then he turned to me with an apologetic expression. At the same time the big piercing dangling from his ear swayed.
“Looks like there’s no pyegi today?”
Ah, fuck?
“No… pyegi?”
“Yeah. Some ajusshi just cleaned everything out a second ago.”
…No pyegi?
For real?
“Ha!”
My legs gave out and I dropped to my knees right there on the convenience store floor.
“The world is ruined.”
God is dead.