Chapter 9
To build a fire in the wild without a high-performance torch, the first step is to light the kindling that will become the fuel. A flame that’s too small can’t properly ignite the logs or firewood, so the priority is making something big enough to catch fire.
Kim Haru was a newcomer on the platform. She was a two-time reincarnator in her third year, but nobody watching her broadcast knew that. There was no promotion, no buzz, zero virality. She wasn’t even targeting “middle-school-girl aggro.” Not many people fell for that anymore. The camera had to be on for it to matter, and hers wasn’t even on at first. She barely scraped together twenty viewers. Without anything happening, they would’ve vanished like ash in seconds. But one viewer sparked a tiny flame by dropping a comment in the gallery. It was pure luck. If she’d just ignored it, it would’ve been the end. Luckily, it was a day without a match, a day when people were bored, and a day when they were itching for a fight. So that tiny spark could actually catch fire.
That spark grew into a wildfire. Two days later, today, it was raging. She crushed the deputy controversy head-on with a handheld cam. She smashed the human benchmark controversy head-on with a cheeky alt. A tiny cute hand-cam that makes viewers smile just hearing her voice. Every single thing she did was measured by something that sat in the top 0.1 percent.
On one community alone, the little fire she’d started was spreading outward, turning into a forest fire that lit up the neighboring mountain and the whole village. [Screenshot of her record wall.jpg] [(Roughly a top 0.1 percent screenshot)]
The chat was exploding. One viewer typed: “I don’t see even top 1 percent at all, how come everyone’s top 0.1?” Another replied, “One of them is world rank 6 lol.” Then: “He’s updating his aim trainer world rank 6 record.”
“If this all happened in one live stream, would you believe it?” the chat asked. “I’ve been waiting for a streamer like Kim Haru for so long.” “The world is so big and there’s no game-nerd who can smack a girl’s ass?”
“Real lol.” “Yeah, net-cam ending, how does a girl even play games like that.” “Hand-cam all authenticated, but her back view is gross.” “How do you tell boy from girl just looking at hands? Take your clothes off.” “I sent the screenshot by email lol. Peace out.” “She’ll never sue, just shut up.” The controversy was everywhere now. With that performance she was basically showing pro-level talent. Maybe she could even be seen in the first league one day. [Is Kim Haru virtual? Is it a cam?] “While I’m watching this broadcast, there’s one idiot with a big mouth.”
“That’s Kim Haru virtual, yeah.” “What the hell is this girl doing with this stuff?” “She’s not selling parasocial vibes and going straight for real game streaming. I kinda like that.”
“Info: Kim Haru started with middle-school cam to aggro people, then showed off the 5000-won dog avatar and pissed everyone off.” “Not cute at all?” “Aigoo, just shave that hair already.” “Shave it?” “I’m shaving mine too!”
Normal games in I Am Hero that don’t count toward rank are basically “gochujang without seasoning.” No score saved, so not many people try. Way easier to give up than in ranked. New players pick random heroes and mess with the item tree however they feel. So normal games are rarely played seriously, and almost nobody streams them. Kim Haru had been dropped straight into the “gochujang without seasoning” zone. She needed thirty wins to unlock ranked because the game was designed with a fifty-fifty win rate in mind. If she kept it at fifty percent, sixty games. Real newbies or unlucky people usually needed a hundred normal games before they could go ranked. But Haru, the chef, was turning “gochujang without seasoning” into a five-star feast. She was at nineteen wins, zero losses. One more win and she’d break the record for the fewest games to climb out of the normal zone. The gameplay looked sloppy, but the way she played was still entertaining to watch. It wasn’t the watery, soupy home-style gochujag nor the greasy institutional mess. This was fresh green peppers, just stir-fried and still firm! Might actually taste good?
The viewer count had just broken three thousand. Unbelievable joy. Only two days in and already three k. Ninety percent of streamers who top thirty viewers in two years just quit. But not everyone was happy about the sudden surge. Gaming is money, and that applies to the darkest corners too. Illegal betting, match fixing. When big streamers or pros play big games, every single result can end up on a bookmaker’s table. Haru wasn’t famous enough to be on the illegal-betting radar yet. “Shit year, just because I was born without the mark.”
The illegal-snipe team. Players who sat in the sky realm. They hung out in underground betting chats, took 100,000 to 500,000 won per match, and fixed games. The bigger the target, the more they earned. Sky-realm users who weren’t good enough to become pros but couldn’t cut it as streamers either. Some of them even sold their souls for this. “Not even good at anything.” One of them was watching Haru’s broadcast and the chat exploding and got so worked up he could barely sit still. He hated living underground, but he didn’t have the talent to go mainstream. At least that was what he told himself. “Such a bitch.” He had no real grudge, just burned by inferiority. He messaged his snipe buddies. Target: the nineteen-win streak of Kim Haru. Smash it.***
“What the hell is this?”
“Twenty in a row? Lol lol lol lol lol.”
“Info: Scientifically the win rate in this game is fixed at 50 percent.”
In the loading screen for I Am Hero you could see the players’ tier symbols. The opponent was five Challengers. A disaster: five players from the top three hundred had all queued the same normal game. “Wait, how is this even possible?” There were over two million players in I Am Hero. Probability of five of them ending up in the same normal game? Zero percent. But there was a way. They had pre-formed a team. Normal games let you make a 1-to-5 man squad and just matchmake. That’s why those five were already in a normal game from the start.***
“The four main plagues of streamers: the deputy.”
“The final chapter: Kim Haru dies.”
“This is where it ends…”
“Nineteen wins is nothing.”
“Five Challengers have nothing to do? Just snipe lol.”
“Everyone’s so loud, must be here to watch.”
The sniping was obvious. Five Challengers. Their side was a mess: Silver one, Diamond two, Master one, Haru one. Excluding the Silver, it was still a low-tier team, but facing five Challengers was like getting your eyes punched out. They were probably getting stomped from the lane phase already.***
“I fought but lost.”
“Aigoo~”
“Losing to five Challengers isn’t embarrassing! Well done, Haru!”
The chat already looked like Haru had lost. That was obvious. Facing a monster team like that, you couldn’t win unless the other side was exactly the same five Challengers. That’s the cruel truth of tier.***
“The loading screen isn’t even done and they’re already saying I lost?” Haru thought. Yeah. Losing was normal. But as a gamer and a streamer, that didn’t mean you played sloppy. Then she’d do her absolute best. The only thing she could do was her best.***
“Egg vs rock lol lol lol lol.”
“I haven’t seen a Challenger before, so I thought ranking 300 was easy lol.”
“Aigoo~ 15 ㄱㄱ Aigoo~ 15 ㄱㄱ Aigoo~ 15 ㄱㄱ.”
These viewers couldn’t cheer, but they sure could mock. Who even made the chat this toxic? Oops, it was Haru herself who banned every single one of the parasocial ones and turned the chat into this. You picked the vibe, you deal with it. “First blood!” A huge first-kill notification popped up in the center and the announcer voice rolled out. But…***
“?”
“Lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol.”
“Shout it! Godber!”
“The four main plagues of streamers: the deputy.”
“Silver hiding her strength.”
“What a game this is.”
“That’s why I quit this game lol.”
“Legendary real broadcast.”
“A= b= sil= go= ple= da= ma= gma= Challenger is official today too.”
The first blood had gone to the Challengers. Specifically, a 1v1 matchup with the hidden Silver. A single line popped up in the in-game chat. [Gwanunjang: I physically beat the enemy general.] “Concept guy, shit.” “It’s a duel for a weird person!” “Of course solo kills are Gwanunjang bb.”
The chance that a hidden Silver rank player was showing off talent was almost zero. Anyone could see it. The classic smurf that deliberately dropped tier.***
“The game’s a mess.” Welcome to the world of I Am Hero.