Keep Your Sycophants at a Distance and Your Haters Close — It's Rally Time
The rally point was set. Ten heroes gathered atop a shallowly pitted floor, standing in a puddle of stagnant water. Massive, grotesque spiderwebs stretched across the cliffs surrounding them. From those webs, heroes from opposing factions began clashing in a chaotic frenzy.
A swamp curse that slowed anyone who stepped in it. Frost storms that froze enemies solid on impact. Assassins slipping into the shadows amid the confusion. Mages, archers, warriors, assassins—every kind of hero unleashed their secret techniques and ultimate skills. It looked like a dazzling festival. The scene was so overwhelming that losing focus for even a second made you forget what you were even watching.
And in the middle of that hellish battlefield, one presence shone brighter than the rest. In a space where magic, bombardments, and suicidal charges flew in every direction, where a colossal spider scuttled along its webs attacking heroes indiscriminately and doubling the chaos, there was one warrior. He parried the most dangerous attacks in sequence and took down enemies with nimble movements.
The countless spectators—viewers sitting comfortably in their chairs and staring blankly at this perilous battlefield—cheered wildly.
The winning call came before the battle even ended. That was how completely one warrior dominated the entire field.
Fifteen seconds later, just as expected, every enemy marker vanished from the map. The warrior controlling the one-handed sword and shield—Hector—was being played by Kim Haru. His shield skill could nullify any form of attack once. It sounded good on paper, but in action games—especially 3D back-view action games—it was an extremely high-skill technique.
From predicting which attack to block, to recognizing what skill was actually hitting your body, to reacting in time—it demanded perfection. And because Hector possessed this defensive ability, he had less health than other warrior heroes. If you couldn't use it properly, it became a straight-up penalty. Using it out of fear on attacks that wouldn't even hit you, wasting it on insignificant skills, or burning it on basic attacks. The opponent wasn't stupid either. Once they realized the shield wasn't on cooldown, they'd try to bait it out with harass.
That was why it was considered high-skill. And Kim Haru, using that very Hector, had blocked three key enemy ultimates in a single teamfight. The way she used her shield to cancel a spreading area-of-effect skill that started as a small point and expanded outward was nothing short of a super save—the best play possible. Picking off wide-area crowd control, high-damage abilities, and even the epic monster's ultimate made her both her team's savior and the enemy's nightmare.
The Denial Squad that nitpicked everything tried to stir up trouble, but they were quickly suppressed. Kim Haru's winning streak continued, and by now high-tier players had mixed into the enemy team. The excuse that she could only shine because the opponents were trash had been completely shut down.
From the start, Hector's defensive skill was valued so highly that he came with short reach and awkward attack ranges. He was the kind of high-skill character where even if you launched enemies into the air, half the time your combos would whiff. A hero who could trip over himself if you weren't skilled. Kim Haru not only used Hector's combos appropriately but positioned herself like an artist—using that awkward range to harass two enemies at once. Anyone could see she was an incredible expert.
Even though more than eighty percent of the audience came from that toxic site, countless praises flooded the chat.
Delicate, unmistakably feminine hands. A voice with zero sense of incongruity. The proxy controversy was over. Everyone playing the game now saw her as a girl with cute, dainty hands and an adorable voice. The stream's atmosphere was pure worship.
Of course, since their brains weren't all wired together, there were still a few grumbling until the very end.
"You guys don't have to praise me that much."
After a decisive victory in the final fight, Kim Haru even took down the objective—a giant spider—and claimed the buff to end the game. Before queuing for the next match, she gave her tired hands a rest and took a moment to chat casually with the viewers.
"What can I say? I'm just good at it. I literally just turned the game on today for the first time and I'm already this good."
Having beautifully refuted the proxy accusations, Kim Haru's guardian squad was riding high. On the other hand, the haters could only parrot the same lines like broken records.
…Wait, were these even haters? Weren't they all giving her the highest praise?
'Am I really that good at games?'
Kim Haru was genuinely confused. She'd streamed as a hako for three whole years, but she'd never received this level of praise before. Come to think of it, people had occasionally said she had talent. But after a few games where things didn't go well, even those who praised her would quietly grow disappointed and leave.
'Does this game just suit me?'
Top-down view. Ultima Project was a game that required good map awareness and situational judgment rather than focusing on the precision of every individual fight. The game she'd played for so long and I Am Hero were completely different in many ways.
I Am Hero used a back-view perspective. Switching between offense and defense on a frame-by-frame basis was crucial. If Ultima Project was the descendant of RTS games, I Am Hero was closer to the descendant of fighting games. Of course, if you listed out every system it used, you'd understand it as a fusion genre fitting for the current era. But simply looking at controls and combat, that was the difference.
3v3v3v3v3v3v3... A survival game where many small squads scattered across a huge map to claim resources and become the last survivor. Versus a simple 5v5. An AOS game where two teams used siege units and neutral objectives to push down the enemy's main base.
Even looking at the big picture while ignoring controls and combat, they were vastly different. So it made sense that someone who was only average in Ultima could be an absolute monster in I Am Hero.
"I've been thinking," Kim Haru said. "I might actually have talent in this game. I might be a genius."
The loyal followers, now fully pumped up, began pleading. Your Majesty, please execute all those heinous traitors. Please severely punish the wicked ones who pollute the chat with nonsense that cannot be refuted. Please conquer them with the sword of permanent bans and make the chat clean once more.
"That won't do."
But the loyal subjects' plea was rejected by Kim Haru.
"I received a valuable broadcasting tip, you see."
She didn't know any actual broadcasters. So this tip was something she'd learned by watching videos on a video site.
"Keep your sycophants at a distance and your haters close."
She'd experienced three years of it during her hako days. The result of embracing viewers who only said nice things to her was living as a hako for three years—barely receiving 500,000 won in donations per month and taking home only 300,000 won after taxes. Things bad for the body always taste sweet in the mouth. The thirty loyal fans who liked Kim Hako felt good to have around, but in the end they became turrets and entry barriers that prevented the stream from growing.
That was why her reincarnation gave her no hints. In this life, in this stream, she would never laugh and joke around with sycophants. Kim Haru held an ambition—to grow this stream big.
"Therefore, I am issuing a 'No Excessive Praise' decree in our stream as well."
The No Excessive Praise decree. It was a chat rule set by some streamers that banned mindless "you're so cute" or "you're so pretty" comments. The reason for such rules was that they were 'chats that are difficult to respond to.' The same category as long donation messages that broke stream flow or diary-like ramblings.
However, Kim Haru hadn't reached that true reason yet. She simply saw the broadcasting tip on the internet that said to keep sycophants away, so she issued the No Excessive Praise decree.
"From now on, any chat that excessively praises me will result in a ban."
It was the first day of Close Up's opening. Kim Haru's very first day of streaming. There shouldn't have been any over-obsessed fans yet, but some people had already become completely hooked on her every little movement. The small and dainty hands, the cute voice, the talent-filled genius newbie who handled Hector so well.
"Saying my voice is cute, that my hands are pretty, asking me to do a V sign—this is yuksu behavior. Off to the reflection room you go."
Kim Haru began clicking on the praise messages in chat, reading through each user's chat history. And if they showed signs of becoming yuksu, she executed them immediately.
That day, five yuksu fans received 10-day bans, and three of them turned into haters. Later, people would call this event the Yuksu Sabyeon.