A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step
Abyss nickname: Jjang-Camilla. Real-world name: Lee Ji-an.
At first, she thought she was dreaming.
As a Kayak fan, this was collab content she simply could not miss. And deep down, Ji-an felt that no one was better suited for this content than she was.
So she scrambled to write a comment—only to watch the replies pile up at roughly one per minute, give or take a little exaggeration, and quietly set aside the hopes she'd been nursing.
She just sat there watching the stream in real time, thinking nothing more than please pick me.
Even when cannon number 521 fired, it wasn't much different. How many people actually count out which number their comment is and commit it to memory? There might well be that kind of fanatic among Kayak's fans, but Ji-an, at least, was not one of them.
She only realized something extraordinary was happening when Kayak called her nickname.
The first time it was spoken, she just sat there with a blank face, wondering if she'd misheard. A moment later she grasped reality and shrieked, "Kyaaah—!"
Just how steep had the odds been? It was fair to call this the luckiest thing that had happened to her in recent memory. She'd probably burned through half a lifetime's worth of fortune right there.
As the unexpected dream became real, Ji-an picked her discarded expectations back up. What would content alongside Kayak be like? What about the coaching she'd receive?
Honestly, it wasn't that she had no idea. As a Kayak fan, Ji-an had watched every education session from a viewer's seat.
Probably, just like with Nikang and Ririyang, Kayak would be strict but methodical—pointing out each problem one by one. It would be an extremely harsh feedback session, but she'd already steeled herself for that the moment she wrote the application comment.
For Ji-an, this was also something she was quietly confident about. What had driven her through thousands of games, after all?
It was a mental fortitude that left other people speechless. With that unshakeable will, she had never crumbled—no matter how many losses stacked up in a row.
What Ji-an had not anticipated, however, was that she was a far more serious case than Nikang or Ririyang.
And that, as a result, the feedback would operate on a much higher plane than anything those two had endured.
"Jjangmilla."
"Y-yes?"
At that rather chilly voice, Ji-an flinched hard and answered with a tremble. Every time that ridiculous name—Jjangmilla—was called, she froze like a child about to take a cane to the palm.
"What did I tell you to do when side-pushing?"
"Yes, th-… um…"
Ji-an shivered as she swallowed her words. Meanwhile, the other half of her brain was spinning at full speed.
I'm sure I heard it earlier—what was it again? She'd been so busy fighting enemies that she'd just answered and moved on.
This was the moment Kayak's perception of Ji-an shifted. From She takes a ton of criticism without getting discouraged and answers well— to Ah. She just answers well without thinking about any of it—.
"I told you to clear vision on the side first, then push. So you can at least somewhat see the enemy coming. Then, based on whether they're coming, you decide whether to dribble or just back off."
"Yeees…"
Maybe it was the naturally low register. Kayak's chilly voice had something in it that cowed people flat.
It was a completely different picture from the confident attitude she'd started with. It was also the moment she realized that watching through a screen and experiencing it firsthand were two very different things.
But Ji-an had her grievances too. The issues Kayak kept pointing out were simply too numerous.
She was already dying under the mental load of playing the game—when was she supposed to sit there thinking through every single one of those points? If she tried to call them up one by one, she couldn't even control Camilla properly.
"So what have you been doing all this time—just mindlessly charging in? For hundreds of games? Thousands?"
"Well… yeah? I'm the type who finds thinking bothersome. I don't want to get a headache even while gaming…"
The way she answered so diligently was almost annoying. It wasn't frustrating, exactly—but on the other hand, how could someone be this dense.
Games, at their core—no, beyond just games, everything in life worked this way.
Everyone might start from different points due to differences in talent, but the longer you do something, the better you get. There was a reason people who'd done one thing for decades were called masters. The more you did it, the more skilled you became at the work itself, and know-how accumulated.
But the student in front of her was denying that fundamental law outright, and for Kayak it was simply absurd.
It was because she hadn't thought at all. That was why she hadn't even grasped the in-game common sense that long-time users would naturally know.
She'd literally just ground time into it. Kayak swallowed back the sigh of regret that was about to burst out and continued.
"This is your punishment for playing without thinking all this time. Wipe out every behavior and habit you've had until now, and learn from scratch."
It wouldn't matter if she just kept playing games in this state. Games were originally something you did for fun, after all.
But if she'd left a comment on an announcement about running an education stream, that meant she herself wasn't satisfied with her current situation.
"Yes…"
"But I won't abandon you halfway, so don't worry. If you just do as I say—if you just follow through to the end—you can climb not just out of Bronze but to Gold, even Diamond. So stop fighting with your teammates like you do now."
"…Yes!"
Still, Kayak felt certain she'd accurately assessed the person.
The elements she wanted in a student—solid mental fortitude and the drive to improve—seemed sufficiently present. Along with reasonably skilled Camilla play born from sheer volume of games.
"Still, your mechanics are good. Combos are clean, and for a Bronze, your physicals—"
"Ah…"
No sooner had she offered praise than the screen washed over in black and white. She'd landed the combo well—but gotten sucked in too deep. In crude terms, she'd brain-farted.
As expected, it won't fix itself overnight.
She remembered pointing out a similar mistake earlier, and it was just disappointing.
A long road ahead.
At this rate, Kayak's throat might give out first. She looked at her empty water glass and opened her mouth again.
"Let's take a short break and go again."