Countermeasures (3)
I shut off the computer and flung myself onto the bed.
Thud.
Then I buried my face in the pillow and scrubbed it furiously, howling.
"Uwaaaaah!"
I was furious. So furious my chest felt ready to split open. I'd poured everything I had into it—so why the hell was I this godawful? Was this what one-sided love felt like? If so, that was the most pathetic part of all.
Tremble-tremble...!
Me, the universe's strongest ADC!
Grief and rage teamed up to torment my heart. I rained gazelle punches down on the innocent pillow.
Thwack-thwack-thwack!
After a few minutes of hammering the pillow, my head cleared a little.
Yeah. Even the universe's strongest ADC has trials. Life can't always be smooth sailing. But enduring them is exactly what makes me the universe's strongest ADC.
"Just you wait."
I carved this humiliation deep into my burning heart. The day I hit Challenger, I'd show every last one of them.
...And just as I was about to close my eyes for tomorrow's sake—
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
My smartphone buzzed. Who the hell? I checked, and...
"Urgh."
Don't get mad. Getting mad here means I lose. I took a deep breath and shoved the phone aside.
Ignore it.
Good job, me. Held it together.
Bzzzt.
Bzzzt.
More messages rolled in back-to-back. Obviously just trying to mess with me.
"Nope. Not looking. Absolutely not looking."
Right. Just go to sleep. Tomorrow, once my mental recovers, I'll cook up a proper plan—the kind that makes everyone look up to me. I don't even have to grind day labor anymore. I can play Asgard all day. Skill gains are coming fast now.
Bzzzzzt.
I yanked the blanket over my head. Only then did the phone's vibration start to feel distant.
Bzzzt.
Buzz off. Not checking. Ever.
I was deep in a cozy sleep when it happened.
Vrrrm, vrrrm, vrrrm.
Some vibrating noise dragged me awake.
"Uuungh..."
What time is it? Still dark out, so I must've woken up early.
I should at least check the time on my phone.
"What time is it..."
I lit up the screen. 11:30. Roughly an hour of sleep, then.
"Mmm."
No wonder I was still drowsy.
I rubbed my eyes and started to drift off again—until I saw something weird.
Missed Calls (27)
New Messages (33)
"...What the hell?"
Sleep vanished in an instant.
I immediately scrolled to the caller. Bizarrely, every single one of those alerts came from the same person.
We'd exchanged numbers exactly once ages ago because of a chat glitch. After that we'd only ever used the in-game messenger. Real-life contact? Zero. So this completely unhinged situation was a first for me too.
...What the hell happened in one hour?
I opened the chat window first.
...Everything up to there was expected.
But about twenty minutes later his tone started getting weird.
Why was he suddenly this obsessed with getting a reply? Was I just easy bait right now?
That thought vanished completely after the next messages.
...
...
...
Shiver.
Goosebumps suddenly erupted all over my body.
Why the sudden chills?
A normal person tracking an address is basically impossible in reality. Even I know that. And DeepSeaCleaner was the same bottom-tier loser as me—zero money, zero connections to pull that off. But the chill still hit hard.
"He's joking, right?"
Yet a creepy gut feeling whispered otherwise. If I stayed silent now, something terrifying would happen. Logic said no way, but my instincts screamed yes.
What the hell had even happened in that short window?
An immediate reply.
I had no choice but to ask about this whole situation. Some invisible pressure was radiating through the LAN cable—way past the point where I could write it off as a joke.
A reply came a minute later. I'd seen the message instantly, but he seemed to be choosing his words carefully.
"...Hmm."
What the actual hell?
I'd genuinely gotten chills just now.
...
Normally I would've yelled at him to stop spewing nonsense.
But...
Somehow this felt like the only correct response. Not a thought from my brain—pure instinct.
Next morning.
As always, I started the day with a jog. And of course RockSolid was right there beside me, offering unsolicited advice with that oppressive face of his.
"Huff, huff. Slow down a bit."
"ADC-nim! You must keep your breathing steady!"
RockSolid jogged in place beside me, shouting in a completely unbothered voice.
"By the way, DeepSeaCleaner-nim's play yesterday. Truly incredible."
"That good?"
"Yes. Goosebumps the entire time I spectated. His movement inspired genuine awe—made me question whether we were even playing the same game."
"Okay, okay. Enough praise."
What am I, the guy who got completely destroyed?
...But that guy really was weird yesterday.
The image of him flooding my phone with missed calls and freaking out about address tracking after just one hour of no contact kept replaying in my head.
It was miles away from anything I'd seen from him before.
"Hey. Yesterday, after I left—did anything happen with him?"
RockSolid tilted his head at my random question.
"What sort of thing?"
"Nothing specific. He just overreacted hard when I suddenly dipped. Yesterday he was off compared to usual."
"Hmm..."
RockSolid slowed his jogging pace a touch, looking like he was seriously thinking it over.
"I wouldn't know. Though I was quite startled myself when ADC-nim suddenly vanished yesterday."
"I'm always like that."
It's just my daily routine.
"...Is that so?"
Even bouncing ideas off RockSolid didn't produce any real answers.
Then one thought brushed across my mind.
"Wait—maybe it's because I got fired from day labor?"
"...Excuse me?"
RockSolid's eyes went wide.
"Day labor? Why are we suddenly talking about day labor?"
"I used to hit the manpower office and do construction gigs. But my condition's been trash lately so they cut me."
I glossed over the details. No way I could explain every single thing from start to finish.
"Excuse me?!"
"Why the shock?"
"You're not joking, right?"
"Dead serious."
RockSolid covered his mouth with one massive palm and muttered.
"This might be far more serious than I assumed..."
What is he even talking about.
"Anyway, day labor... Every time I hear from you it's some story I can barely imagine..."
I shrugged lightly at RockSolid's pure astonishment.
"Hard to imagine, my ass. Remember how I said I owed DeepSeaCleaner money last time?"
"Yes, you did."
"That's why. Got cut from the gigs, no income, so I took a little help."
"Ahh..."
RockSolid suddenly clutched his head with both hands like he'd just connected the dots.
"Th-that story connects like this...?!"
"Yep."
"Then I roughly understand why DeepSeaCleaner-nim panicked so suddenly..."
"Yeah. I got fired from day labor and got stomped in game... He probably thought I'd take the shock so hard I'd just die or something."
Suddenly I felt kind of bad for worrying him.
"Still, good thing special forces didn't actually raid my place."
"...ADC-nim? What on earth are you talking about now?"
Night fell.
After yesterday's chaos my mood had been weird all day.
Must've been possessed by a ghost.
Yeah, let's go with that.
The missed calls and messages were still sitting in the log, but this was the right call.
Starting today we'd begun BlackRoro counter-training. The plan was one hour every night with DeepSeaCleaner.
His tone was pure business, like yesterday had never happened.
I suddenly felt a little lonely.
I don't want the horn-rimmed glasses, vicious Spartan instructor version.