Victory's Hero Camilla

Everything in this world has a beginning, and so it must have an end. Nothing lasts forever.

It felt like only yesterday that I'd started working as an Abyss Supporter—and yet today already felt like the last day.

"Unfortunately, today's broadcast will be Kayak's final appearance. She won't be joining us from the next stream onward."

The moment Oh Hong-gyun finished speaking, the chat exploded like a tidal wave. Were we sitting at nearly twenty thousand viewers right now? The chat firepower rivaled my own personal streams—I couldn't help but click my tongue in admiration.

"I've already tried to talk her into it, everyone. Yes."

In fairness, Hong-gyun had every right to feel wronged. The heated response every broadcast, the way the community lit up around her—he'd even floated the idea of making her a regular on the official stream.

I was the one who'd turned down the re-contract. There wasn't any grand reason for it. The offer just didn't particularly appeal to me.

Appearing on the official broadcast had become familiar by now. Putting on Camilla's prepared costume every stream, working in an environment that wasn't my own house, following a loosely scripted format—I'd gotten used to all of it.

But getting used to something wasn't a reason to keep doing it. I wasn't exactly hard up for cash, and it wasn't like I had nothing else going on. If something was neither good nor bad, there was no reason to refuse it—but there was equally no reason to accept it.

I'd only taken Hong-gyun's original offer because of Camilla's skin in the first place. Re-signing wasn't going to get me another Camilla skin on top of that, so there was no point in tying myself down any further.

"See you next time, everyone. The Supporter gig's over, that's all—if you invite me as a guest, I'm always happy to drop by."

There was something more important waiting for me. With the Supporter work more or less wrapped up, I headed over to the programming and development team at Eonics Headquarters.

"Ah, Kayak. You're here."

The employee glanced at me once, as if he'd long since gotten used to this, then went right back to focusing on his work.

I could still picture how, at the beginning, the whole office would get flustered and start scurrying around the moment I showed up. People really were creatures of adaptation.

I preferred it this way, honestly—far better than special treatment. No small talk. Straight to the point.

"So, how's the status?"

"If you look here…"

He spun the monitor around to show me whatever he'd been working on so intently. The screen was packed with English—programming languages, command lines, the works. Not that showing me any of it would help. I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"Ah, sorry. We've been seeing you so often lately that you basically feel like one of the team."

"I don't really get it, but the prep's pretty much done, right?"

"Yes. We've never put something together this fast before, but… it should be fine."

And if there's a problem, we just pull an all-nighter, right!

Watching him force a smile as he said it, I felt a twinge of pity. The fact that he and the rest of the team had been stuck with this unscheduled work was entirely because of me.

That's right—they were developing a new Camilla skin at my request.

The art team and I had sat down together to lock in the design and overall look, then handed it off to the other departments to implement in-game and run every kind of bug test imaginable.

I didn't know the exact pipeline, but from what I'd seen of the process secondhand, it was a lot more hands-on than I'd expected.

Especially with Camilla—touch her code the wrong way and everything tangled, and she was somehow more prone to in-game bugs than anyone else.

Thanks to everyone pouring their effort into it, the new Camilla skin was scheduled to drop within the week. It was an event skin, sure, but putting one together on this kind of short timeline was a first for them, and even the staff seemed a little amazed by it.

I hadn't done that much of the actual work myself, but as the person who'd set the whole thing in motion—and the one who'd come up with Camilla's design and concept—it felt like I'd just finished a major project.

I couldn't wait for the release day. I wanted to see the finished product as soon as possible.

"Looks like Eonics is really pushing Camilla, huh? Between Snow Queen Camilla and now this, her skins have been dropping nonstop."

Having caught wind of the new Camilla skin's release, Nikang had fired up Abyss and was currently trying it out.

"Ah, so it was Kayak. Mmhmm, because of the Supporter thing. I see. And she even donated? That's our teacher for you. Incredible."

Behind-the-scenes details flooded the chat in real time. Supporter, Kayak, new skin, donation… put simply, this was a skin that existed because of Kayak.

She really did operate on a level beyond imagination. Things had been quiet for a while, and then she went and dropped something like this.

The sheer scale of it was different, Nikang thought. What ordinary user—what streamer—could extract a skin out of a game company like this?

This was basically a shout-out. It carried the meaning that Eonics was formally endorsing and recognizing Kayak.

"Hold on, let me try them one at a time."

For something put together on such a short timeline, the skin's quality was impressive. It wasn't just different skill effects and a pretty model—true to an event skin, it was packed with little easter eggs.

Following the viewers' instructions, she hit the interaction key, and Camilla on screen started to move. She stepped slowly into a dance, and beneath her feet two letters appeared.

K.Y.—Kayak's initials.

"Kayak's initials are in there. And the cape goes transparent, disappears, then you can pull it back out again… Do the voice lines just play as you move around?"

Unlike toggling the cape or triggering the dance, the character's voice lines couldn't be selected and played on demand. Normally they fired off whenever you cast a skill or moved around in-game.

So Nikang was piloting Camilla, listening to the lines as they came, when one hit her.

"Ah, that line? That one right there? They made this one exclusively for Kayak too, huh. She recorded just this one separately? She really squeezed every last drop out of the deal."

"I'll hop into a few ranked games so I can properly try out the skin. Our Kayak got us a skin—least I can do is use it."

Nikang considered herself Kayak's first disciple, more or less.

There had been the Abyss streamer tournament after that, and Kayak had even run a disciple-recruitment segment on her own stream, so the title had half faded into the background—but still.

Having been taught through actual matches by Kayak herself, her Camilla play was solid. Her main role was ADC, but every so often, for a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠change of pace, she'd pull Camilla out. All thanks to Kayak's teaching.

"Okay. Camilla didn't get banned. First pick's locking her in for me? You sniping me?"

Even in the queue that popped right away, nobody dodged, and she locked Camilla without a hitch and loaded into the game.

The snipers who'd queued with her seemed content to just play quietly this time—no throwing, no stream sabotage.

Everything was perfect. That was what Nikang was thinking when—

"Uh, uh-uh? What's going on all of a sudden."

Camilla, who'd been casting skills just fine, suddenly started acting weird.

Mid-dance she'd kick a leg straight up into the air; her limbs would bend at angles that made no sense. It wasn't a game-breaking bug, but the visual was so grotesque it left an impression.

An emergency patch fixed the bug in about an hour.