Dare You Try to Beat a Veteran Newbie?
October 4, 2053.
"Finally!"
Hwi-hyeon burst into cheers, clapping his hands against his knees. The day the long, long thirty-day ban was finally lifted at last. In practical terms, only three days had really passed, but still. For Hwi-hyeon, who had never once been banned before, even a thirty-day suspension had been a mental punishment.
"Time to hit them with the flex."
"What the hell. Why are they reacting like this?"
Shaken by the flood of what passed for applause—negative applause, if such a thing existed—Hwi-hyeon couldn’t hide his confusion. What? He’d definitely poked them the right way, the way people on that forum always did.
But once something had been posted, it couldn’t be taken back. He’d already served the thirty-day ban, had already recovered from it, and there were still plenty of accumulated reports standing between him and another suspension. Hwi-hyeon began combing through the community’s most popular posts, trying to figure out why the atmosphere had suddenly shifted.
"There’s definitely a reason for this..."
And then he saw one post that stood out.
"Wh-what? I’d become a likable anonymous poster who flexed?"
That was the truth.
Unexpectedly... the players were far stupider than he’d thought.
They didn’t know how to designate and construct production complexes, or how to increase and deploy drones, or how to optimize and maximize food production, or how to snowball early, or how to secure public order and send out external reconnaissance. Seriously, they knew nothing.
"No, seriously... they banned me just because they didn’t know things they could’ve learned by watching the tutorial, or by looking at the shorts from YouTubers on YouTube, or even from the popular posts on the board!?"
Yes.
Unexpectedly... the players were even more helpless than he’d thought.
"Hell, if they’d just followed the advice from the control system, they wouldn’t even know how to let their citizens starve!!!"
Yes.
Unexpectedly... the players were even bigger idiots than he’d thought.
"Well. That’s how it goes. Community boards are just places where idiots gather."
Still, since every community board in the world was basically a breeding ground for idiots, the wound to Hwi-hyeon’s pride wasn’t all that deep.
After all, just reading thirty days’ worth of popular posts had been enough to blow off steam. It was like someone who’d made a killing on a quick stock trade sitting in the stock forum and sneering at the agony of all the losers howling in defeat.
"There are plenty of idiots in the world, but the comfort comes from knowing I’m not one of them."
For the majority of users still coughing and wheezing because they couldn’t even run one quarantine zone properly, that was the kind of line that made them want to stab him with a spear. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any bamboo inside the quarantine zone. Even if there had been, it would’ve been contaminated by spores long ago.
But if he kept stirring things up, there might be an awful repeat of thirty-day ban, unban, thirty-day ban, unban... so Hwi-hyeon decided he wouldn’t post bragging threads anymore. From now on, he would become a complete lurker—someone who didn’t vote, didn’t post, and just sat there watching.
"If I don’t write posts... if I don’t upvote or downvote anything... what exactly can you do?"
That was right.
He was applying the one fatal flaw all communities suffered from: if you do nothing, then nothing can be done to you.
To file a report, you first needed a post or comment to report. And if he disabled his gallog and didn’t write anything, then to report him you’d have to go out of your way to search for posts by “ShiningBlack,” click into them, and file a report there. Even then, if the post was more than a week old, a window would pop up saying, "You cannot report, recommend, or downvote posts older than one week."
He hadn’t known galleries even had functions like that, but apparently that was how it worked in the galleries of this world. Well, unless you were leaving comments, because then it was just a matter of posting hateful replies.
"Kek. This is what they call pleasure without responsibility."
So Hwi-hyeon said, savoring his chicken, which had somehow become even crispier, and his beer, which had somehow become even cleaner. By now, after several months of this, chicken and beer had practically become franchised local specialties. It was a good thing—he’d planned to push them as Roseberry’s signature products.
"No, but seriously, damn it."
Still, if that had been possible, he wouldn’t have been having a meltdown over getting banned from the board in the first place.
Hwi-hyeon got triggered the moment he saw a post meant to provoke him, and in the end he ended up scrapping the promise he’d made to himself only ten minutes earlier.
Not a single person answered.
In truth, this was all just another kind of WWE, so they weren’t answering because they couldn’t—they weren’t answering because they wouldn’t.
And if that was the case, Hwi-hyeon’s philosophy was simple: if they wouldn’t answer, then he’d just keep baiting them until they did.
"Look closely... at what I can do...!"
Another peaceful day came to an end.