Cafe Tour

"Anyway, here's the schedule. So with any luck, there shouldn't be any more hiatuses this month."

"But I already had way too many breaks this month, which is exactly why I overturned my hiatus and turned the stream on today — and all you're doing is roasting me?"

If I'd had a step-counter app on my phone, it would've logged at least eight thousand steps by now.

And I pushed through all that fatigue to show up for you people…!

…Not working.

"Moving on — my full clear got pretty popular yesterday, apparently?"

…That's not working either.

Doing my best to ignore the riot in chat, I turned the screen and pulled up the cafe.

Scrolling to the popular posts, I could see them piled up — reaction posts about my full clear, page after page of them.

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"Oh…."

A few streamers whose names I actually recognized were in there too.

There was even a guide YouTuber who had been the very first to discover one of the shortcuts I used in my run.

"Let's start with the most-liked post, shall we?"

I opened it up, and the content was a video by Namgung Sanwol.

"Oh, it's Namgung junior."

The video was simple.

Just a reaction video — him watching my dragon-slaying playthrough and reacting to it.

Although his facial expressions were extremely dynamic throughout.

"Wow… it's fascinating how much emotion shows on his face."

"Well, that was fun."

It was the kind of reaction that made it obvious why he had a million subscribers on YouTube.

"Next up… oh, another reaction video?"

This time it was an overseas streamer.

"What?! What The Fuck!"

Just like the last one, he was reacting to my gameplay footage — except this guy would. Not. Stop. Talking.

…Not that I could understand a word of it.

He was talking so fast in his excitement that only fragments of words were actually registering.

"Um… I deleted it reflexively…."

I startled even myself — my hand had moved on its own the moment the swear came into view.

"I've lifted the ban for the person who just got muted, by the way."

And with that, we moved on to the next video.

"Oh…."

This one was a game guide YouTuber I used to look up all the time.

"Ugh…! My stomach hurts! That route was supposed to be MINE to discover first…!"

It was yours originally, so don't worry about it.

I'll remember it forever… no, wait, I can't remember everything forever… but I'll remember as much as I possibly can.

"This route skips way more than the ones I ever found…."

And the next one was a YouTuber famous for elite-level gameplay too.

"No way! She clears this on the FIRST try? How is that even possible?!"

And then he went into a detailed explanation of exactly why it wasn't possible.

"Unless she already knew that pattern in advance, in order to react she'd have had to catch this — you see the tell, right? She'd have to notice THIS. I only barely spotted it just now, frame-by-frame, analyzing it in slow motion — and she dodged it in real time?!"

Oh… is that right?

Me? I brute-forced it with a regressor's knowledge and a gender-flipped body's physical stats, so I don't know anything about those details.

"And! All I can say about her route-finding is that the heavens themselves were on her side! She moves THAT smoothly and it turns out she's taking shortcuts?! What an absolute talent-ruining game!"

"Hm… he's laying it on pretty thick, isn't he?"

…Oh, so that's how it was?

"Poor guy… got run over by a tank…."

And not just any tank — a regressor's tank, at that….

"I lost THIS time! But next time, I will win — guaranteed! Just you watch!"

"Absolutely lololololol"

"Ah lolol how could I ever forget that sweet taste of victory lolol gotta do it lolol"

"With mechanics like hers, she can full clear anything lolololol"

↳ This message has been deleted.

"Actually, I won't be."

I'd been planning to quit, you see.

"Sure, part of it this time was my mechanics, like the videos show. But mostly it was the route-finding luck — I got insanely lucky and shaved the run down dramatically."

I'd already thought through everything I wanted to say about full clears, so it came pouring out without a hitch.

"If I try again next time and don't post results as extreme as this one, I'll just get flamed for it. Rather than that, I'd rather retire cleanly, on a high note."

That was one reason — but there was a bigger one.

Back in the day, while speedrunning, a cosmic ray had once flipped the Z-axis of the character I was playing, teleporting it across the map.

Something that could genuinely be described as the entire universe lending a hand had actually happened.

This time, everyone's letting it slide as 'good luck.' But what if I used my knowledge of the future to speedrun again next time — and again after that?

Fine, once could be a fluke.

Suspicious, sure — but twice is still within the realm of believable.

Three times and beyond, though?

From that point on, 'she got lucky' stops being an acceptable explanation. That's how I see it, anyway.

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So I decided to just stop.

Of course, if I took the standard route, I'd be fine.

But like I said — if I don't match this run's numbers, I'd get nothing but a bucketful of hate even for a first-place finish. Better to hang it up entirely and live on as a legend.

"Well, I'm only quitting speedruns and full clears. If a fun new game comes out, I'll still play it, so don't worry."

Thankfully, the viewers bought it too.

"Hm… just pretend the virtual me is the one playing. They say shadow boxing helps you improve too, right?"

"And anyway, I'm under zero obligation to accept anyone's challenge."

Yours truly is an expensive commodity these days.

Did you forget who hit #1 on the music app's TOP 100 chart?

"None of that, please. If you all gang up on him, it puts me in an awkward spot."

Anyway, with that settled, I watched the rest of the reaction videos.

And my overall takeaway, having seen them all:

"Retiring was absolutely the right call."

They were hyping me up way, way too much.

They genuinely seemed to think I was some person blessed with demonic talent.

"Well then, popular posts are all caught up. Time to start winding…"

"Please keep your bodily functions out of the chat…."

Wasn't this the perfect timing to end on, though?

"No, come on — there's nothing left to do. What more do you want?"

"Do we really have to decide the Chuseok Special Stream right now? There's still plenty of time, isn't there?"

…Hearing it put like that does soften me up a little.

"Fine, fine. So what do you want to do?"

…Why is the cooking stream winning?

"Hold on… why is the cooking stream in the lead?"

"…You do realize it's been less than two weeks since I last ate shad, right?"

A cooking stream, huh….

"Hm… no. Suggest something else."

"No. Let's just go with the Yutnori collab that came up in chat earlier."

"Whew… I promise I'll do one cooking stream next time. So for now, let's go with Yutnori, okay?"

…Next time, I absolutely have to build the schedule more carefully so this never happens again.