Pro Inquiries via DM
Three days of grinding for a Camilla hotfix, and afterward I was completely drained.
No matter how many mad-movie plays I pulled off in Grandmaster Challenger, there was no hotfix coming. Effort with no return value. It felt like screaming at a deaf person — no matter how loud you get, if they can't hear you in the first place, nothing you do makes a difference.
Whether it was burnout or something else, my motivation had cratered. What's the point of working this hard? Ionic's never going to give Camilla a hotfix anyway — thoughts like that kept looping. Reality had hit hard. I couldn't find meaning in any of it, and because of that, I didn't want to do anything at all.
Today was an off day. For days I'd kept Camilla in rotation for the hotfix campaign, streaming more than twelve hours a day. Now that I'd stopped playing out of pure disillusionment with the whole endeavor, I had no reason to go live either. Sure, I was supposed to stream consistently regardless of the hotfix, but right now I just wanted to rest. My viewers had been pitying me for a while already and telling me to take a break.
So I took a rare day off and went outside.
It was my first time leaving the house after days of holing up in my room playing games, but I didn't have anything particular to do. No one to meet, nowhere to be. What did other people do in situations like this?
Probably something they enjoyed, or just rest… but with Abyss — the thing I loved most — currently a source of problems, it felt like I'd lost my one sanctuary.
"You seem down today. Is something wrong?"
"Well, you see…"
I'd been wandering around in a daze when I ran into Sihyeon and ended up spilling the whole story. What kind of adult leans on a kid for emotional support instead of guiding them? Even if Sihyeon was mature for her age, dumping my problems on her made me a pretty terrible adult.
But then again, I was already a useless adult who couldn't even get Camilla a hotfix, so… yeah. Maybe leaning on Sihyeon was allowed.
"Unnie has something she really wants to do, but it's not working out."
I kept the details vague and just conveyed the general vibe. Even so, Sihyeon nodded like she understood perfectly.
"When something you want doesn't work out, it feels awful!"
"Yeah… it does."
"You worked really hard and put in a lot of effort, right? And it still didn't work, so of course it's hard."
How did she always know exactly the right things to say? No wonder I liked this kid so much.
Sihyeon kept going after that — she didn't know what the problem was, but I shouldn't feel too bad, everything I did from now on would go well, that kind of thing. At the end she even hugged me with that soft, fluffy little body of hers.
I held onto that uniquely kid-soft, warm, squishy frame for a moment, and then Sihyeon asked, carefully:
"Um… the hard thing isn't because of my uncle, is it?"
"Huh? No. Mr. Kim Jaejun is doing great. The Vtube subscriber count keeps climbing steadily…"
"Okay, good."
She let out a sigh of relief. That only made me more curious.
"Why? Is something going on with Mr. Kim Jaejun?"
I asked because I was worried something might be wrong with one of my precious staff members, but Sihyeon's response was lukewarm at best.
"I'm still the boss, so I should know. If it's something I can help with, I will."
"Hmm… it's nothing big."
My problem was a private war no one around me could fight for me — but Kim Jaejun's problem was the kind other people could help with. People like Yu Sia. Or me.
What Sihyeon said next, though, was a little hard to process.
"I think he might be having a hard time… because of you, Unnie…"
"M-me? Why? I'm super nice to him. I'm a good boss! I'm not a bad person!"
"I think that's actually the problem."
"Huh?"
"Don't be too nice to Uncle. He might get the wrong id—"
Sihyeon never finished the sentence. Kim Jaejun appeared out of nowhere, scooped her up under one arm like lightning, tossed out a greeting, and vanished.
"Good morning, boss! You're working hard on the hotfix thing — please don't overdo it!"
"Jaejun, I heard you have something on your mind. Let's talk about—"
"No, I'm fine! Heading in now!"
As fast as he'd appeared, he was gone. Left alone where the little niece and her uncle had just been, I muttered under my breath.
"What was he worried about…?"
Meanwhile, at Fusion Gaming's practice room, practice was in full swing.
More precisely, research was still underway. Camilla — a hero who had never once been used in league play. The players were studying whether she had any place in competitive matches.
"Not bad… not bad, but."
The man reclining casually in his chair, still in his team jersey, spoke up.
Two players had told him Camilla seemed viable, and he'd just finished reviewing their findings.
Lee Jun-hyeok. Pro gamer ID: Telles.
Captain of Fusion Gaming, the undisputed number-one team in the ACK League. A living legend. That was the man sitting in front of them.
"Doesn't it feel a little rough around the edges? Like the finishing touches are missing. An incomplete build, almost."
That was Jun-hyeok's verdict.
Missing that last two percent. For the absolute extremes of the pro scene and team play, the polish just wasn't there.
"Did you guys watch overseas league matches or something? The Camilla usage, the weird build — it has that vibe."
"Hyung, that's not it. Take a look at this for a second."
Only then did Minhyung reveal where the idea had come from.
Solo queue replays. Jun-hyeok sensed something off and sat up straight. With their captain leading the way, everyone in the practice room gathered around.
"What is this, solo queue?"
"It's Kayak. This person is good."
"Her voice is nice too. I got wrecked by her and even subscribed to the stream."
"Wait, a girl is this good?"
"And her figure is insanely—"
"Hajun, manage your eyes in front of the female fans. You'll end up in a scandal."
From the starting roster all the way down to the remaining second-stringers, everyone watched the video Minhyung had queued up and tossed out their reactions.
"…"
Through all the noise, Jun-hyeok alone watched the replays with total seriousness.
And after finishing all three, he nodded with a grave expression and opened his mouth.
"She's good."
"Whoa, Jun-hyeok hyung said she's good."
"If it's coming from Jun-hyeok hyung, it's solid. This person must actually be cracked."
The practice room buzzed for a moment, then fell quiet again — because Jun-hyeok kept talking.
"Camilla got a lot of buffs this patch. I tried her a few times after the update myself, and I figured she was only good in solo queue — unusable in tournament play."
"But watching this person…"
"Hyeongyu's right. The texture is completely different."
"Even the footwork is different."
Jun-hyeok rewound a specific section of the replay and spoke.
"This person's Camilla is special, I guess you'd say. Looking at just this, it feels like it could work in team games too. The playstyle actually seems more specialized for teamfighting than solo queue… and the synergy with teammates is solid. It's not just the first game — all three show a similar pattern. Is she just really used to team play?"
"Jun-hyeok hyung's gone into analysis mode again."
"The play is weirdly interesting, though."
The teammates muttered as they recognized their captain's familiar habit.
"If we can absorb this person's playstyle, it'd be usable in tournament. Fine as a surprise joker pick, too… the problem is we need her know-how. The early game here, this section here — I can't tell why she made these decisions. The perspective of a high-mastery one-trick. Something like that?"
"I'll drop her a whisper, hyung."
"Her friend request window is probably exploding. You think she'll take a whisper?"
"True. Is there any way to contact her? Learning this would actually be really useful."
This wasn't a first for them. How had Fusion Gaming become the number-one organization?
If something looked even slightly useful for the team's strategy, they didn't hesitate — they'd hand over serious money to acquire the know-how. The knowledge accumulated that way became the foundation for the wide variety of picks Fusion Gaming ran.
This time was no different. The conclusion: it would be great to learn techniques from the streamer Kayak. The problem: no way to reach her.
They'd hit a wall — and then someone spoke up.
"I have Hangang's contact. Want me to ask him to connect us?"
"Oh, nice. Give it a shot."
"Make it happen."
"Let's talk to a girl for once."
"Dude, we're trying to learn techniques from a master. What's with the flirting?"
Jun-hyeok nodded at his teammate's suggestion.
"Yeah, reach out. Hopefully we get a positive answer."