The Super Soldier of South Korea
Finally, the Republic of Korea's Super Soldier Project was revealed. 6 minutes and 27 seconds.
The pain had grown larger than my will to set a new record, so I let go of the mouse. The targets were already pouring in without stopping, so the moment I released the mouse, barely a second passed before it was game over.
It was just that she was good. So ridiculously good that there was nothing to do but praise her. The chat window, which had been flooded with first-wave compliments, suddenly saw a new fact drop in, kicking off the second wave.
The aim trainer that FPS players all over the world used—the one everyone had tried at least once. After twenty years of service, that very trainer had just seen Kim Haru set a world 6th place record.
"Hmm..."
The reactions were intense. Kim Haru had stopped because she felt the threat of injury, not because she was actually hurt. She massaged her throbbing right hand and screaming joints, staring blankly at the chat window that kept scrolling for a long while.
"I guess I'm pretty good at games..."
Haru thought back to her three years as a hako streamer. Something felt off. As far as she remembered, this body's physical stats hadn't changed much since she became a girl three years ago. So what exactly had those three years of obscure streaming been about?
She recalled the time she played RPGs. She had briefly thought she was incredibly good at games. But no one ever acknowledged it. People would say, "Who's a pro at RPGs? It's just pattern-based boss fights—who cares if you're good? Anyone can get good if they dump in the hours." They always put her down.
And then there was the Ultima Project she'd hammered away at nonstop for those three years of streaming. Along with all the random other games. She'd shot up at the beginning and stood out, but quickly settled into the upper 20-30% range and never climbed higher.
With reaction speed like this, aim like this, and gaming talent like this—why had it been that way? A sense of unease she'd never noticed during those three years slowly began to surface.
"Hold on. I overworked my hand a bit. I'm gonna ice it for a second."
She rummaged around, pulled out a hot pack, cracked it open, and held it in her hand. Not sure where to put it, she set it down in front of the keyboard, and the chat window immediately exploded.
The scorching heat seeped into her fingers, and only then did she feel like she could breathe again. A sigh escaped her.
"Huuuuaa..."
"I'm not an elementary schooler. As for being a female middle schooler..."
"My heart will always be that of an eternal middle schooler!"
She'd trolled as much as she could. It wouldn't be good if people actually started believing she was a middle schooler for real. Time to drop the female middle schooler RP here.
While I kneaded the hot pack, loosening my startled hand muscles and joints, the chat window carried on the broadcast all by itself, passionately debating among themselves.
"Pfft."
And at the ridiculous statement that pretty girls always turn their cams on, I couldn't help but laugh.
This body's cuteness didn't even need to be put into words. Just walking down the street was enough for aunties to rummage through their bags and hand out candies, chocolates, tangerines, or grapes. If I went to the convenience store, the owner would suddenly stamp "discard" on perfectly good food and give it to me. I was so cute that I was scared a stalker might appear, so I couldn't even turn on my cam or go outside properly. It was absolutely not because I was a natural-born hikikomori.
And yet here they were saying I couldn't turn on my cam because I was ugly. It was like the superior feeling of someone hiding their power, like Lee Mong-ryong carrying the royal inspector plaque in his chest. I couldn't help but laugh.
"The secret royal inspector has arrived!"
Who could understand? The heart of a guardian who had no choice but to hide this perfect face.
"My startled hand seems to have calmed down. Shall we move on to the next test?"
A test where you remember the order in which glowing blocks moved inside square tiles. Top 0.1%.
A test where you memorize increasingly long strings of random numbers. Top 0.1%.
A test where you remember the placement of glowing tiles that flash for a moment inside square tiles. Top 0.1%.
"Not America. She's a super soldier made in Korea. Be careful. If one day an unfamiliar car stops in front of your house..."
"Get out of here, you idiot."
I'd called for WWE and ended up with UFC. Just as a streamer needs to read the room for when they're about to fall off a cliff, viewers also need to know when to hit the ban button. I foolishly executed the acrobat who'd crossed the line and wrapped up today's first segment.
'I had no idea I was this strong.'
Back in my Kim Hako days, I'd thought of my room's viewers as nothing but bastards who chased away new incoming viewers. Lovely people who gave me money. But something had been strange. My stats were at this level? Yet no matter what game I played, I always crashed into the top 10-30% and couldn't climb any further.
Unless I was an idiot, I had no choice but to suspect the guys who were always with me. After all, almost every game I'd played had been while streaming. If I wasn't an ordinary person, then the thing preventing me from becoming a ranker had to be...
Which meant it could only be the viewers, right?
'No, even so, that can't be it.'
I knew all too well about the four plagues that attacked streamers. Dae-jeo-bang-bu. Account boosting, stream sniping, ghosting, and smurfing. They say if you get hit by those, a streamer can drop anywhere from one tier to two or three tiers. But wasn't that only for the big corporations with thousands of viewers, where the number of snipers exceeded two digits?
Could it make sense that I, a hako with only about twenty regular viewers back then, couldn't climb tiers because of ghosting and sniping? It didn't make sense, but looking at my current physical ability and stats, those made even less sense.
"Hold on. I'm gonna smoke one real quick."
I pulled out a party horn balloon. I put it in my mouth and blew, producing a unique peeeeek sound. I held the party horn up to the hand cam.
"Huu."
When you sucked on the balloon it would shrink, and when you blew again it would make that peeeeek sound. After finishing my fake cigarette performance, I thought to myself:
'Let's focus on the present.'
I couldn't reach a conclusion right away about what exactly had happened to me during my Kim Hako days. But there was nothing more pathetic than throwing a menhera fit in front of the viewers who had come to watch me now, obsessing over the past.
"Part two is finishing the 30-win streak I couldn't finish yesterday. We're at 19 wins in a row right now, yeah?"
"Where do you think you're gonna leech off easy wins? Stop complaining about the side dishes and eat your normals, you idiot!"
You're banned for a week.