Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Isn’t This Stream Sniping?
Research, by nature, is work accompanied by countless successes and failures.
An enormous number of experiments. Most of them ended up producing bizarre results completely unrelated to their original purpose.
Experiments were a form of repetitive labor. If you continued running tests long enough, eventually one or two ideal results would appear, and among those, you’d make use of whatever proved useful. Those would solidify into the first successful cases.
But there was one thing I wanted to ask here.
Just because a result different from the original purpose appeared, just because some completely unexpected value emerged, could you truly dismiss it as a failure?
Different researchers would have different opinions, but I didn’t think so.
After all, there’s a saying that failure is the mother of success.
Things like that accumulated one by one and became the nutrients that produced successful examples later on. Some of them even showed room for improvement.
There was no such thing as a pure failure, and likewise no such thing as a complete failure. Even if I failed, it would merely become the foundation for future builds I created, another piece of experience for me.
That was why I could remain so composed despite facing defeat right now.
However, even if I accepted defeat through this process, there was no reason my teammates had to feel the same way.
[IjaNox(Nox): No but what kind of character is Camilla supposed to be if she stands frontline and melts in one second? I can’t deal damage like this]
[TrashCharHater(Ran): If you can’t play then just pick a tank and fit the comp, sigh…]
This part felt a little unfair.
I wasn’t some stubborn idiot who instalocked without even looking at the team composition.
This game too, I knew the comp needed a tank, so I deliberately brought the sturdy Camilla MK.1 build.
[CamillaIsWeak(Camilla): This is tank Camilla though]
I offered a small excuse in response to their resentful complaints, but—
[IjaNox(Nox): What the fuck even is that supposed to mean;;]
[ShrimpTangTang(Evie): Reporting for intentional trolling]
My explanation only returned cold stares from my teammates.
Mm, yeah. Honestly, I’d admit it myself.
Unlike the ideal scenario I imagined before entering the game, Camilla failed to properly perform the role of a tank.
Maybe it was because of the hero’s structural limitations, but she simply couldn’t properly hold the frontline.
It felt like a breakwater shattered apart the moment a wave crashed into it.
Since my understanding of Abyss was more than sufficient, I could roughly imagine the burden my teammates, especially the damage dealers, must’ve felt.
“Sturdy Camilla MK.1 discarded….”
I drew a harsh line across the memo pad sitting beside my computer.
I’d thought Camilla was all-purpose, but it seemed tanking simply wasn’t possible for her.
While I was at it, I crossed out the planned MK.2 and MK.3 builds as well.
That last game had made me realize it clearly.
You couldn’t ask something born as a dolphin to fly through the sky. I decided not to stubbornly force Camilla into suffering anymore.
[IjaNox(Nox): Ah, this was such a free win too]
[CamillaIsWeak(Camilla): Ah close close, I kinda played badly sorry ;]
From Nox bitterly venting his frustration in chat to Miriam, who for some reason had been spamming emotes nonstop since earlier.
Feeling guilty for making my teammates lose points, I offered them a brief apology.
But even as defeat became certain, I remained satisfied.
Because I’d gathered data.
When refining builds, sometimes you won and sometimes you lost. Unfortunately, this just happened to be one of the losing games.
I’d just win the next one. While conducting research, you couldn’t obsess over victory and defeat.
That was the proper path for both a researcher and for Camilla.
Thinking that, I queued for another match.
“....”
A catastrophic two-game losing streak!
The shock rendered Nikang speechless for a moment.
Considering how her streams usually maintained high energy without dead air, this was quite a rare sight.
[Her mental just shattered]
[This is the cruel world of Abyss…]
[Nikang has broken…!]
[Two losses right after reaching Plat hmm…]
[Guess it’s time for Gold…?]
Nikang blankly stared at the monitor for a moment before glancing at chat and flinching slightly.
“No, but they played well earlier…!”
[What do you mean they played well earlier]
[The streamer did play well earlier]
[Wait is she actually blaming her team right now?]
[Didn’t you fail to carry too though hmm….]
[Honestly they weren’t nearly as terrifying as when they hunted Nikang]
The target of “they played well earlier” was obvious to everyone.
The Camilla who had ruthlessly torn Nikang apart in the previous game.
But in this match, that same player had strangely underperformed.
“Then why are they bad when they’re on my team?!”
[People can have bad games lol]
[Looks like the items and traits were different from before]
[They said it was tank Camilla;]
[Should’ve just picked an actual tank then]
[You played badly too, why are you yelling hmm….]
[What kind of mutant species even is tank Camilla]
“Aah… my precious LP, no!”
Nikang screamed dramatically in despair.
But honestly, she wasn’t actually that upset.
She was just exaggerating slightly for entertainment purposes. The sort of fake hype streamers commonly used.
It simply didn’t show very obviously.
Honestly, losing one or two games wasn’t enough to break someone mentally. Losing two games in a row was a little disappointing, but only that much.
‘It’s not like it’s a five-loss or ten-loss streak. It’s just two games.’
If someone got shaken by this much, how could they ever stream in the first place? If she were that mentally weak, she wouldn’t even be able to look at a chatroom full of people flooding in and saying whatever they wanted.
It was all just performance because viewers liked this sort of thing.
‘Viewers enjoy watching streamers suffer.’
For some reason, that was simply true.
Maybe human nature was just inherently cruel, finding entertainment in standing far away and watching someone else’s despair.
‘This should be enough.’
Nikang stopped her thoughts and adjusted her expression again.
Like someone who had sunk into sadness but calmed down somewhat afterward.
It was a kind of acting, but really, what unscripted program existed in the world?
Even human relationships weren’t completely genuine, so there was no way streaming could be purely genuine either.
[Calling it here for today?]
[Plat 4 0LP Nikang dies here…]
[Hurry and queue already what are you doing]
“You think my mental broke? Nope, heh. It’s just two losses. I’m not that soft. Games are… meant to be won back eventually.”
Her eyes shone brightly again, as if she’d pulled herself together.
That alone completed a storyline.
Streamer Nikang hits a wall in Platinum. Yet without giving up, she continues queuing games while aiming higher.
‘Though I might lose more while doing it, but that’s fine.’
She’d always expected to hit a wall eventually. It wasn’t like she’d played Abyss consistently from the start; she came from other games.
Winning nonstop would’ve been nice, but realistically she never believed that was possible forever.
And it wasn’t as though losing would genuinely break her mental. There was no real problem.
“The queue popped.”
With that mindset, Nikang entered another game—
And discovered a familiar face.
“No way, this person….”
[That ‘Camilla’ again]
[Enemy team this time]
[Time for the revenge match]
[It’d be hilarious if they suddenly played well again]
[Aren’t they using tank Camilla this time?]
Something felt off.
Something ominous.
But regardless of Nikang’s unease, the game began.
Just like before, she picked Miriam and started playing standard ADC the way she was used to—
“Ah, ah. Why?! What is it this time?!”
Suddenly, Camilla appeared while diving directly into the allied formation and somehow slit her throat before she could even understand what happened.
Of course, the overly aggressive Camilla immediately died to the allied team right afterward.
But the teamfight was still a disastrous loss.
The reason was Nikang’s death.
As the core damage dealer, once she died, the rest of the team collapsed helplessly.
[Wow she just exploded instantly]
[What was that burst combo just now?]
[A Challenger really is a Challenger holy shit]
[Kayak! Kayak! Kayak! Kayak! Kayak!]
[Nikangnikangah….]
Similar scenes repeated several more times afterward, and Nikang once again tasted bitter defeat.
“Mmm, it’s okay! I’ll just win the next game!”
Up until this point, things were still fine.
The losses felt slightly bad, but these kinds of games made great VTuber content.
Maybe something like “I Met a Mysterious Camilla Master in Abyss” would make a good title.
However, as time passed, Nikang became progressively less okay.
To the point where maintaining her expression grew difficult.
Her real emotions were beginning to show.
“No, what even is this person doing? How are they doing that…?!”
The reason was, once again, that person.
This time, the former Challenger Camilla master ended up on her team.
Apparently using yet another completely different build from before, they failed to exert much influence unlike the previous game.
And the result naturally became defeat.
Cruelly enough, similar scenes kept repeating over and over, almost as though someone was deliberately messing with her.
[I’ve definitely seen this situation somewhere before…]
[A catastrophic losing streak ;]
[Hey shouldn’t you take a break before queueing again?]
[You lose every time you meet that person]
[The streamer is actually pissed now]
Six consecutive losses.
A full six-loss streak.
At this point, even Nikang’s composure was beginning to crack.
Every time she met that person, she lost.
When they were on her team, they played badly. But whenever they were enemies, they mysteriously played well.
Grinding her teeth hard enough to make a creaking sound, she spoke.
“This bast— no, this person isn’t stream sniping me?”
Normally, the viewers would’ve immediately told her to stop talking nonsense.
But the fact that they unusually agreed with her this time wasn’t strange at all.