Backseat Gaming Drives Even the Saintess Crazy? (1)

I could see the stream title Ha Yeeun had put up.

Standing beside me, Jiyu spoke up.

"Ah...! Ha Yeeun hasn't streamed in a while... You must've been bored, Junwoo."

She snuck a glance at my face.

Not long ago, when I'd briefly stayed at her place, we'd sat side by side in her room playing Northern Warworld together. Even then, I'd kept Saintess TV running in the background whenever I could.

Even after leaving Aegis, she still seemed to think I was a fan of that hero party.

Well, I suppose that's fair enough.

As long as An Yumin stayed with Aegis, Song Sia and Ha Yeeun would remain the main party of the original story. All three of them would coast into the high class without trouble, which meant they'd be doing collaborative training and field deployments together going forward.

And those deployments will still go out under the Aegis name, no doubt.

From Theia's perspective, Aegis was basically a promotional model — they seemed to be pouring considerable support into the current lineup as-is.

No downside for me.

The deeper those three got tangled into the main story, the closer I'd get to the truth of Theia Academy itself.

Still, I set the future aside for now and focused on Ha Yeeun's stream.

Normally she opened with a heavily filtered photo of herself, but right now the screen was just solid black, the way it always looked before she went live.

The chat was still a complete mess.

Properly managing a runaway chat was a non-negotiable virtue for any major streamer. But Ha Yeeun carried trauma from her bottom-tier no-name days — hours of dead silence in a chat that never moved.

Which is why she used to yell at me every time I managed the chat.

Watching that chat fly by and getting high off major-streamer status was pure Ha Yeeun. But a major streamer's chat is a war zone of every kind of baiting and fighting. Fail to manage it and the stream naturally goes to hell.

Especially if the streamer herself gets pierced by a single line of chat, picks a fight with a viewer, or tanks the energy — the whole day's broadcast unravels.

Regulars might stick around, but the casuals all leave.

A single-celled organism like Ha Yeeun had no way of understanding a manager's complicated realities. Comparing her looks to other streamers, or bringing up her weight — those were her rage buttons. Once someone hit them, she'd try to fight viewers not just on her personal stream but even mid-hero-activity broadcast.

So the moment I saw those chats brewing, I'd ban the viewers at near light-speed.

And for that, I got absolutely roasted by the viewers for abusing my mod powers.

Even from Ha Yeeun herself.

"A major streamer's chat is supposed to be lively! Instead of just kicking people like you do, read the flow! The flow!"

"With my streaming talent, I can turn even toxic chat into content! How long have you even been a manager? You still don't get it?"

Every fan of Saintess-ddang was precious, she insisted — stop being so strict — and got angry at me instead.

Well. Water under the bridge.

And even though the opening stream had been running for a while, the viewer count had clearly dropped. The opening used to always hit four digits; now it was sitting around eight hundred.

A moment later, Ha Yeeun's voice came through.

"My Saintess Fam... Saintess-ddang was sooo sick... *sob*... Did you all miss me lots...? Saintess-ddang missed her Saintess Fam too... *sniffle*..."

The chat accelerated. Endless curses demanding she turn the cam on flooded in, but Ha Yeeun kept dodging with one excuse after another, leaving the camera off.

Her hardcore fans threw up blood-soaked shields, and the chat went nuclear.

Yeah... I think I get it.

At the entrance ceremony, after An Yumin, the other two members of Aegis had also received awards. Something about Ha Yeeun's walk that day had been off. She'd also wrapped her face tight under a long nun's veil, and her habit had looked a size larger than usual.

She was probably wearing shapewear or something.

She'd put on weight. Quite a lot of it. She'd clearly pulled every trick she had to hide it.

The cadets at the entrance ceremony might not have noticed. But going no-cam even on stream meant Ha Yeeun's condition was serious.

Hero activity required intense physical movement, so that would be rough — but a personal stream from home could at least partially hide the weight with filter programs.

And if she still can't turn the cam on...

Fully correcting the weight made the face look unnatural, and for a Ha Yeeun whose confidence in her appearance ran extremely high, that was a problem.

If she still had access to my authority — Peacefully Sparkling Mirror — and its correction effect, maybe. Of course, the current Ha Yeeun couldn't use that lighting.

Still, she'll have to force herself to stream somehow.

Her donation ranking had dropped, and more importantly, a large-scale game tournament hosted by the MungseokQ Crew was coming up soon. Ha Yeeun had been loudly declaring for months that she'd participate in that content, so she was obligated to at least show herself playing Northern Warworld.

Jiyu's entering that tournament too.

Unlike Jiyu, though, Ha Yeeun playing that game alone wouldn't be easy. Her gaming talent sat at rock bottom — and then one floor beneath that.

"Looks like she's going no-cam today. That's weird..."

Jiyu found it strange too. She was the type who deeply envied female streamers who just turned their face cam on and went live.

I glanced at Jiyu's monitor. She was running her own personal stream right now.

Over the month I'd spent with her, I'd helped her personal broadcast in all kinds of ways. The content was Northern Warworld, of course.

Alright, enough about Ha Yeeun. Time to focus on my own work.

I needed to score points with the evaluators by going up against Song Sia, the top freshman.

Jiyu and I logged into the VR equipment at the training grounds.

The FPS game Northern Warworld.

It was the online game currently holding an overwhelming number-one spot in concurrent players. A first-person shooter where you picked heroes of various classes and dueled opponents.

Logging into that game from Theia's training grounds — packed with elite cadets — might have seemed odd. But Northern Warworld had been built with the combat and movement of real Awakened as its motif.

It took famous hunters and villains who actually existed as its inspiration.

Which meant the systems were refined enough to serve as a training simulator at the academy. On top of that, like the AR gear used in the retest, Northern Warworld also had a mode that linked directly to VR equipment through a Mana Heart.

And that wasn't all. Northern Warworld was also official content from the original work. In the mobile game Full Moon's Grey City, the PVP content was literally named Northern Warworld.

You could generate and train skills in Northern Warworld.

At the same time, the original's PVP content came with a streaming system. You could raise your reputation through a character's internet broadcasts — and earn currency, naturally.

In other words, it mattered in this reality too, in more ways than one.

A low hum vibrated through the gear.

I finished the VR link. Jiyu was already settled into her personal VR space.

"Oh... what content am I doing today? Ah... um... I was thinking of trying some solo play..."

She must have just turned her mic back on after I'd arrived and she'd briefly muted it. The stream was live again.

At least the past month wasn't a waste.

Jiyu wanted to be a streamer with an almost strange intensity, so during the month at her place, I'd helped her. For a girl who couldn't get a single word out even with the cam off, I'd used the daily wages from working at Uncle Yongcheol's job sites to make her a streaming profile.

It's not Baek Jiyu streaming — it's this persona. So you don't have to be that embarrassed.

I glanced at the stream profile. A gloomy girl with messy hair — an image that called back to high-school Jiyu. She'd pinned that profile in the corner of her broadcast screen.

"I-I'm good at games? Th-thank you for the compliment!"

My read had been right. Jiyu actually felt more secure with that profile. Because it wasn't the version of her that had changed in real life. The look she'd worn all through high school — she seemed to like it as her streaming persona.

She'd started talking on stream with the mic on.

Viewer count: fifteen. A manageable number for building her streaming skills. Still, Jiyu was a girl who was genuinely excellent at games, so once the audio started filling in, people began trickling in one by one.

"Yeah... I was just going to do a light match in duel mode... Ah, I'll be picking a hero, and the opponent will be on linked custom, I think..."

It was kind of fun, like raising a streamer of my own from scratch.

Just like I had on Ha Yeeun's stream, I'd become the broadcast manager for Jiyu's. And of course, it wasn't meaningless time-wasting for me either.

A side quest had spawned.

Just becoming Jiyu's stream manager seemed to count as party recognition. Clearing this quest would also get me the stat bonus points I was short on right now.

Internet Broadcast Streamer... Level 2.

It would have been nice if helping Ha Yeeun's stream had raised the quest clear level like this too — but that had been pure unpaid labor, so my contribution as a party member hadn't been heavily recognized. Relative to Ha Yeeun's follower count, my quest level had stayed low.

Well, this setup isn't bad either.

Unlike Ha Yeeun, Jiyu split even donations of a few tens of thousands of won with me fifty-fifty. That meant she recognized my contribution as a party member.

For higher-tier quests I'd eventually need my own personal stream, but right now I had neither the time nor the content to start one. Helping ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Jiyu like this was actually an easy way to push my quest stages up.

As Unknown, I'll need streams too.

As a villain, to shake this dumpster-fire of a city — there would come a day when I'd have to go live under the name Unknown.

Side content quests also came with special skills usable within the quests. Raising the level now was pure profit.

I finished setting up my custom hero. Naturally, a Paladin-class hero linked directly to my current specs.

Jiyu, on the other hand, picked a mage hero with darkness and rock attributes. Song Sia's attributes, exactly.

A deep rumble rolled out.

Jiyu used a skill. Her real class was Assassin, but she was so good at games that even on an off-class hero, she played extremely well.

Yeah — with my current stats alone, this is rough.

A circular fissure opened above the field map where I stood. A darkness-attribute curse poured from the crack. Jiyu had used the skill the way I'd asked — as close to Song Sia's as possible.

A soft hiss of light.

I tried to protect myself with the skill Sacred Shield, but I couldn't block a full-directional curse completely.

So of course, like the chat said, it looked like smurfing.

If I take the class placement evaluation against Song Sia like this, the result will be about the same.

The wide-area curse a half-vampire like Song Sia could produce would drop me before I even closed the distance — before I could properly swing a sword at her. Even light-attribute Sacred Shield couldn't fully protect my body, just like now.

Well, I already know full well that as I am right now, it's too much.

There was still ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time. It was only Tuesday. The class placement evaluation was Friday.

A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sharp whistle of air.

I used the skill Multi Mirror Summon. My Intelligence stat was still low, so the mirrors summoned slowly. But the authority Peacefully Sparkling Mirror was light-attribute — and Multi Mirror could summon as many mirrors as the number of authorities I held.

If I evolve this skill, I'll be able to block Song Sia's curse too. I'm sure of it.

And for that evolution, I planned to put the Rain Weapons membership card I'd gotten from Choi Hana to use.

I spent more time at the training grounds with Jiyu.

Haa... I'm seriously going to lose it!!!

Ha Yeeun was on edge.

The streaming problems were one thing — especially the weight she'd put on so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠suddenly, which was enough to drive her crazy on its own. But in just a few days, she had to enter the Northern Warworld tournament hosted by the MungseokQ Crew.

As an Awakened, she could play in Mana Heart link mode — but this tournament was standard mode. A competition of pure gaming talent.

And Ha Yeeun was catastrophically bad at that game. The fact that she was even playing it at all right now was something of a miracle.

If only... if that guy Lee Junwoo were here right now...

Lee Junwoo was the one who'd taught her the game. Without his inputs, she honestly couldn't understand a single thing about it.

Sure enough, the chat was descending into chaos under an infinite barrage of backseat advice.

"Ah!! Seriously!!! Stop telling me what to do already!!! Are you guys my parents or what??"

Unable to take the backseat gaming any longer, Ha Yeeun finally snapped for real and shouted at the chat.