No Easy Task
A man in a T-shirt printed with the Fusion Gaming logo gestured toward me.
"Have a seat over here, and, uh… would you mind waiting just a moment?"
Was he one of the players who actually competed? If I'd known it would be like this, I might have looked up the roster before coming. A faint regret settled in.
His manner was natural enough, yet oddly awkward. His eyes scanned my face in a quick sweep, then drifted toward my chest before he hastily reined his gaze back in.
Whether he'd done it consciously or not, it was a fairly solid recovery. The only reason I caught it was because I had Camilla's body—superhuman dynamic vision that ordinary women would never have noticed. To them, the glance at my chest would have slipped right past.
The looks people sent when they faced me—or more precisely, when they faced Camilla. By now, none of it surprised me anymore.
When Fusion Gaming first reached out, they'd said they wanted me to visit in person. I'd pointed out that I was a no-cam streamer and a woman, and that teaching over a remote connection would be more than enough. Even that much, they promised, would earn a proper show of gratitude.
So why had I gone out of my way to come here?
Honestly, even I couldn't pin down a clean answer. I'd always hated going out, and I still didn't particularly enjoy being out in the world.
The reasons were tangled—a mix of this and that. But the first real thought that I should go to the team myself had been simple: if I was going to do it, better to do it properly.
I'd already taught people more than a few times. I wasn't any kind of professional educator, but somehow I'd ended up coaching Nikang, Ririyang, and a handful of other teammates along the way.
Passing on technique through a screen was surprisingly hard. It started with the student not understanding what I was saying at all, and went all the way to having to explain in long, roundabout circles what I could have simply demonstrated right in front of them if we'd been side by side.
Of course, these people were pros. Whether I knew them or not, they had to be people as serious about Abyss as I was. Teaching them online shouldn't have been a real problem.
Still, something in me was uneasy. What if I failed to hand over everything I knew about Camilla? What if Camilla never even made it into matches and just got nerfed into the ground instead?
And I was curious, too. If I poured everything I had into teaching them up close, how much of it could pro gamers—especially players from a team called the best—actually absorb?
Anxiety, curiosity, hunger, interest: all of it compressed into a quiet impulse that had finally brought me here.
One of the people in the practice room handed me a sheet of paper and a pen.
"I-I'm a fan."
"…Of me?"
"Yes. Of you, Kayak…"
He looked a little awkward—skinny arms and legs, thick-rimmed glasses. He wore the same logoed uniform as the others, but somehow he seemed short on confidence. Even when I tried to meet his eyes, he kept his head down and wouldn't hold my gaze.
"Do you watch my streams?"
"Yes. I've been subscribed for three months, but honestly I've been watching for a long time."
"A long time—since when, exactly?"
"Back when… you streamed with no mic."
"Oh."
So one of the Thirty Diehards was right here. A sudden sense of kinship bloomed. This guy was a proper old-school gamer—an original from back then.
Wondering if he might be someone I already knew, the way Yu Sia had been, I asked,
"Mind if I ask your Twish and gallery nicknames?"
"Uh, well. That's…"
"You don't have to if it's awkward. I was just curious."
"It's 'Mudfish'… Do you remember me?"
Mudfish? It sounded familiar. Mudfish, Mudfish… Mud. Ah.
"Didn't you come to me for advice back then? About wanting to go pro."
"Yes! You remember?"
"You actually made it. Congrats. That's cool."
Back then he'd been a kid—sixteen or seventeen. A student who'd kept climbing the ranks alongside me, who wanted to become an Abyss pro but fretted, the way I had, about whether the game even had a future.
And now here he was, settled into a real career. Something proud and fond rose in me at the sight of a dream fulfilled, and I took both his hands and gave them a firm squeeze. His face went bright red as he yanked them free.
"Ah—sorry. Didn't mean to."
"N-no, it's fine. Uh. That's not—"
He scratched at his head and mumbled on.
"Anyway, thank you. The advice you gave me back then helped a lot…. Things like, if you really want it, don't give up—go for it. Or think seriously about whether it's something you truly love…. Even the practical stuff, like try it until your early twenties and if it doesn't work out you can always go to the military after. Nobody else gave me advice that grounded."
"Ah, uh. Yeah. I see."
So I'd said all that. Hearing it again brought the memory back. I'd known nothing and still handed out advice like that.
"Turns out you weren't even a hyung—you were a noona only a year older than me—but thanks to you, I went pro. I've been watching your streams steadily ever since you came back…"
It was cringey enough to make me squirm, and yet it warmed a corner of my chest all the same.
I wrapped up the conversation roughly and left him a cute little Camilla doodle and a small signature on the paper.
While I was at it, the other players started lining up in front of me one by one.
"…?"
I must have looked completely lost, because they started talking.
"Can I get a signature too, hehe…"
"I'm becoming a fan starting today. You stream on Twish, right?"
"You're so pretty."
I was pretty sure I'd come here to pass on know-how. So why did this feel like a fan meet?
With a strange, unplaceable feeling, I diligently signed for every single one of them.
"Sorry that took a while. You've been waiting, haven't you?"
"Ah, yes. A little…"
The woman answering—Kayak—looked considerably more worn out than before. Had something happened? Junhyeok, the team's captain and eldest, swept a look around the practice room.
The kids must have bothered her.
It was obvious. A few of them were still snickering without quite showing it. An outsider had shown up—and a woman striking enough to make anyone's eyes light up—and of course they'd gotten excited.
As a man in his prime, Junhyeok understood the feeling well enough, but today he needed the team to keep it in check.
Can't have her drained for no reason.
If her condition dipped and she couldn't show her real skill, that would be a problem. The whole idea of learning Camilla play from the player in front of him—Kayak—had originally come from Junhyeok himself.
She'd been hard to bring in. Even after they'd said they'd love for her to visit in person, he hadn't actually expected her to come, which made it matter all the more.
This was valuable time before the new league season. Having gone to the trouble of calling someone in, Junhyeok wanted results.
"Right. Pick any empty seat you like. If the keyboard or mouse feels off, feel free to switch stations."
"Okay."
Guiding Kayak—who wore the look of someone thinking, so it finally starts—Junhyeok quietly warned the rest of the team. Watching was fine, but he asked them to keep chatter and behavior that might break her concentration to a minimum.
Three people would be learning from Kayak: Minhyeong, who'd run into her in solo queue; Hyeongyu, who'd analyzed her play; and Junhyeok himself, the captain.
If they fully absorbed Camilla's playstyle, the pick would revolve around these three. The decision had been made with the possibility of swaps in mind, not just one dedicated player.
"Where should we start?"
"Teach this guy first. About Camilla. How you usually play, what calls you make in what situations… no, that's too broad. Could you just play this build for us here? And we'll ask questions as they come up."
"Hmm, sure. I'll queue up a solo queue, then."
And so a ranked game began.
Kayak put on the distinctive playstyle that had caught Junhyeok's interest and tore through the highest queue like she owned it.
"Why did you drop down just now instead of pushing straight through?"
"If I keep going, it gets a little rough. Camilla looks invincible, but she's actually pretty weak in these head-on fights. The build's concept is the same—I try to drag it into a messy brawl as much as I can."
"So you take advantages through skirmishes. Guerrilla-style hit-and-run."
"Exactly. I'll poke again this time. Timing they won't see coming."
She answered the questions that came in between as if they were nothing, and kept playing with perfect composure.
People said that if someone made a thing look easy, they were exceptionally good at it. Kayak right now was the living proof.
When the ranked game ended and they'd finished studying the build, Junhyeok spoke with a satisfied look.
"You're really good. This time, could this guy play the same build, and you point out what he's missing in real time?"
"When you say point out—how far am I allowed to go? Is there a line, like only fixing the overall framework?"
"You can nitpick every tiny detail. We're pros."
"Is that so."
For a split second, Junhyeok thought he saw Kayak's blue eyes flash—like Camilla in-game when she awakened and snapped her eyes wide open.
But it must have been his imagination. When he looked again, her eyes were the same ordinary blue. Of course they were. Human eyes lighting up was not a normal thing.
Soon a Camilla ranked game started again, almost identical to the last—except the pilot had changed.
The real difference was the voice chattering at the player's side.
"You could've gone in deeper just now."
"You should push the ping-pong to the absolute limit."
"What about looking for a counter?"
The in-game voice—perfectly matching Camilla's lines from the game—calmly picked apart Minhyeong's play.
"W-what's going on with this?"
"Ah. Sometimes that happens if you press Q and W stacked. You'll probably need to respawn once to clear it."
"What kind of trash champion is this…"
"Hmm… you've never played Camilla before, have you."
A quiet note of disappointment colored the words. Watching it, Junhyeok thought to himself that receiving this know-how might not turn out to be quite so easy after all.