Hand It Over

Hand it over.

Why on earth did Oh Hong-gyun — total director, a genuine heavyweight — want me this badly? I'd only gone to the meeting out of simple curiosity.

He'd declared that I wouldn't be disappointed once I actually showed up and heard him out. So I went. And he wasn't wrong — it wasn't disappointing at all.

At the same time, I finally understood why Abyss had become a god-tier game. From my perspective, I'd simply made a wish and the game had ascended. I hadn't known a thing about the cause and effect, the middle steps in between.

Of course the game thrived when people worked this hard. Hong-gyun's pitch for reforming the Supporters program — presenting an entirely new paradigm — was so genuinely fascinating that I nearly nodded along without realizing it.

Truth be told, the old Supporters had been little more than a budget sink. Completely useless. Plenty of regular players probably didn't even know the program existed.

But now they were overhauling the whole thing. As a longtime OG player who knew the internal situation inside and out, it felt like someone finally scratching an itch I'd been living with for years.

If you were going to do this well, you should've done it from the start. Just like I'd transformed into Camilla at the absolute brink of disaster, maybe these people had only found enlightenment right before the servers were about to shut down. Who could say.

Either way, it was an interesting offer just to listen to. I wanted to stamp the contract right then and there and declare myself a Supporter on the spot. Especially as someone who prided herself on loving Abyss more than anyone.

But I deliberately kept that eagerness off my face and held a poker face. Viewers always teased that I was an open book whenever I lied — but I could pull it off when it counted. That was the idea, anyway.

The reason I was pretending not to be interested was simple. Beyond the money that came with Supporter work, I had a personal condition I wanted to put on the table.

I already had enough money. I wasn't particularly greedy, and what I was pulling in from streaming alone already felt like more than I deserved.

Not money. Something else. Something game-related. Something about Abyss.

Obviously I wasn't asking for anything unethical. Getting advance word on the next patch? That thought never even crossed my mind.

Doing something that shady would wreck my conscience — and more importantly, what would be the point of playing the game at all? Even back when unauthorized programs that let people play far above their actual skill level were floating around the market, I never understood the appeal.

Well… now I'd ended up with Camilla's body, which was half a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cheat code in its own right… but I hadn't asked for it. It wasn't something I'd demanded. So that was different.

Which is why Hong-gyun's next words left me completely stunned.

What? A Camilla buff? Did he really think a clean player like me would want something like that? That I'd put that on the table as a condition? That was basically a bribe.

If anything, I wanted a nerf more than a buff. Sure, it was nice that lots of people played Camilla — but I preferred it when she was my own little exclusive again, the way she used to be.

So I fixed Hong-gyun with a withering stare, packing every ounce of disappointment I could into it.

Only then did he throw both hands up in surrender.

"My apologies. I misspoke in front of a gamer among gamers like yourself, Kayak."

"I don't do dirty favors like that."

After a string of apologies, he asked:

"Yes, well… so what condition do you want? As long as it's not buffing or nerfing a specific hero, I'll accommodate just about anything."

Finally. The answer I'd been waiting for.

They say that to seize the high ground at a negotiation table, you first have to make the other side desperate.

This was exactly that situation.

Acting uninterested in Hong-gyun's pitch had been for this exact reason — to leave the impression that if he didn't grant my request, I simply wouldn't become a Supporter.

That snowball of performance, the price of hiding my true feelings, now let me make a bold demand.

In a way, Hong-gyun's guess had been half right. It wasn't a Camilla buff — but I was absolutely planning to ask for something Camilla-related.

At his invitation to name whatever I wanted, I deliberately paused for a beat before opening my mouth.

I ran a mental simulation so I wouldn't stumble over the words, swallowed hard, and delivered it with deliberate weight.

"Give me a new Camilla skin."

Yes! I said it!

Inside, relief at finally stating my condition warred with anxiety over what Hong-gyun might say back. Every emotion was crashing through me at once — but once again I fought to keep my face blank.

Whether he could read any of that or not, Hong-gyun wore a thoroughly puzzled expression as he echoed me.

"…Excuse me?"

That vacant look. Had he even been listening? Making me repeat something this important?

I leaned in close, face dead serious, and drove the point home.

"New Camilla skin. Hand it over."

"…?"

Hong-gyun's expression went even blanker. He tilted his head and scratched one ear, looking for all the world like he was second-guessing what he'd just heard.

Watching him, I finally realized.

I'd misspoken.

Hand it over? What kind of "hand it over" was that? My inner monologue had leaked out without me noticing. I hadn't meant to sound that aggressive…

But the damage was done. No taking it back. I beamed and stated my condition with full confidence.

"In exchange for becoming a Supporter — give me a Camilla skin!"

Present-day Eonics was, without question, a major corporation. A company that had poured everything into a game that nearly vanished, only to claw its way back from the dead and climb to the absolute peak — a near-mythical story, at least within the gaming industry.

And Eonics' major patches didn't just affect the players. Their ripple effects reached far beyond the game itself.

The stock market started thrashing from the moment it opened. A sharp surge in Eonics shares driven by the major patch.

This had become something of an annual tradition whenever Abyss rolled out a large-scale update. Once a patch landed successfully, the stock always rocketed upward like it was on a trampoline.

But this time, the pattern was different. Even granting that the patch had gone well, the climb simply refused to stop.

The reason became clear within minutes.

And so, across every community board and even into the stock discussion forums where domestic equities were debated — Kayak's name spread far and wide.