Preparation
The victory screen filled the display. It flickered out, and the game summary window appeared. The contents were too extensive to fit on a single page—movement routes for the session, number of rounds fired, total damage dealt, kill cams, and more. In a way, it was like a wrong-answer notebook. For users looking to improve their skills or climb the ranks, it was an essential tool. The only real downside was the massive file size.
As always, he linked it to the in-game Dark Zone community so everyone could see it. Early in his streaming career, he'd just let it go without a second thought, but as his rank climbed, requests for it had grown.
The promotion animation in Dark Zone was simpler than he'd expected. On the left breast of his military uniform avatar, the insignia—accompanied by a dazzlingly brilliant effect—transformed into the rank he'd just earned. The Recon insignia, equivalent to Platinum in other games, crumbled into dust and vanished, replaced by a newly affixed SOF insignia. Of course, there was a separate uniform patch as well.
OneCupOfRedTea has donated ₩1,000.
"Thank you for the donation."
He exhaled, the fatigue evident in the breath that escaped his lips. The hardcore nature of the game meant each match consumed a significant amount of stamina. Even with most movement done by vehicle, it was still exhausting.
The rough benchmark he'd established over this past week of streaming… was about ten in-game hours. If he'd kept pushing without thinking about tomorrow the way he used to, he could have gone days on end, but with a clear goal in mind, managing his condition was important.
Until now, he'd been able to take first place without much thought, so it had felt like conserving his reserves.
He'd also vaguely heard that the climb would become genuinely treacherous from SOF onward.
The current stream time was 10 hours and 22 minutes in-game. Viewer count: 2,813.
The 30,000 viewers on the first day, in a way, had been severely inflated by the novelty of a "nuclear explanation" broadcast. To put it simply, it was like a grand opening special.
Rolling with the punches, this was truly a massive save.
Back in the lobby, his rank gleamed in elegant silver and diamond transparency. But the number 5 displayed beside it hinted that he still had a long way to go.
Glancing over, he saw viewers clamoring for just one more match as a promotion celebration… but as he'd said, managing fatigue was important.
It wasn't like he couldn't do it, but… how should he put it? Watching how every single word he said swayed the viewers' reactions was quite fascinating in its own way.
"…Alright, let's do this. Instead of one more match, I'll end today's broadcast without explaining my play, or wrap it up with a feedback session. I'll leave it to your decision."
The admin bot, attuned to his intent, automatically opened a vote.
The numbers were fluctuating.
A brilliant tactical shift.
Separate from simply watching the broadcast, gamers always harbored the desire to climb higher. Those aspects were being revealed with striking directness.
On the other hand, there were those who disagreed with this sentiment—players uninterested in battle royale mode or those who focused primarily on PVE content.
However, over this past week of streaming, most of the latter had naturally filtered out, and the vote naturally settled on ending with a feedback broadcast.
He ended the game and transferred the files to a VR studio set up just for chatting.
He took a small breath and chose his words.
Fortunately, delivering commentary while streaming wasn't as difficult as he'd imagined. It wasn't a talk show or anything—just explaining his area of expertise was enough to fill the audio.
The initial burden he'd felt had largely subsided.
He played back the video and spoke the first words that had assembled in his mind like a puzzle.
"To summarize the playstyle of users stuck at this stage… they tend to be impatient while simultaneously being overly cautious with their positioning. I haven't really seen any exceptions."
It wasn't hard to understand.
At a stage where you could claim some level of skill, you'd have picked up psychological warfare to some degree, and you'd know the maps better than someone like him who'd only been at it for a week.
That was why, if you exposed a weakness, they'd ruthlessly exploit it. If your countermeasures were inadequate, you'd die immediately.
Average-skilled users got cut down mercilessly at this stage.
But conversely, if you showed a weakness while creating a situation that couldn't be easily exploited, they'd be drawn in like to a trap, disregarding even their own safety.
After that, it was simple. It was like tripping someone who was sprinting full speed—the faster they were going, the more devastating the fall.
By the time he'd explained that far, the video showed an enemy who had been chasing him enthusiastically before getting killed by a simple Claymore trap.
A perfect example.
"That said, if you're too cautious, your field of view narrows. You overreact to even the slightest provocation. In any case, in a game like this, creating a board that favors you is the best approach."
Of course, with a hundred people fighting on a single field, it was easy to say but naturally very difficult to actually execute.
To be blunt, even if he explained it this way, he didn't think anyone would actually be able to apply it.
Still, the explanation continued.
A single video contained a variety of plays, a chaotic mix of smart kills that viewers might attempt at least once and kills that should never be attempted under any circumstances.
The former involved combat around complex buildings and terrain, while the latter were the results of millisecond kills, lead shots, and shooting techniques bordering on acrobatics that only he could pull off.
It was hard to say which was more prevalent, but for the sake of explanation, he'd have to focus more on the former.
Anyway, his approach to managing the game was generally simple. To summarize: take items from enemies, and once you had a decent setup, secure a good position inside the circle.
It was something you could figure out just by looking around, but as always, knowing it didn't make it easy to counter.
For roughly an hour, he continued explaining his play while thousands watched.
As always, it was an embarrassing time.
In this world… no, in the world he had returned to and must remain in, the breadth of his interpersonal relationships was, at this point, quite shallow.
If he had to mention anything, on the fitness side, there was the manager at the gym. For other areas, there were contacts from various shops for promotional purposes. The former was at least the more consistent source of contact.
Regarding streaming, there was no need to mention Harmony. But whether communicating only through social media could be considered a full interpersonal relationship, he wasn't sure.
Of course, there was no way he'd be getting in touch with middle school or high school friends.
At first, he'd wondered if the broadcast might be the answer, but he wasn't working hard to communicate with viewers to the extent that it would fill his lack of relationships. He wasn't completely ignoring them either, but he wasn't spending time on it either.
In a way, it could only be described as truly lukewarm. He wasn't sure if he was trying to make streaming his future profession, and yet he wasn't going out and doing something else either.
These days, he was in that transitional phase.
Actually, the answer wasn't entirely undecided.
In a way, the "sit around and make money" that everyone wanted had been realized in all but name, and to be honest, he might just stay cooped up at home doing whatever he wanted for the next few years.
But that wasn't the mission he'd been given. And how long had it been since he returned? Was he really going to be satisfied here? He didn't even know why this damn game called Dark Zone existed, and the day he'd meet his teammates again felt impossibly distant.
Thinking about it that way… was he doing well?
He knew it was far too early to make a judgment, but the impatience was unavoidable.
That meant she planned to do it someday, then.
Anyway, this person, once they'd opened up a conversation, tended to reach out occasionally even without a specific reason. The main topics of conversation were the legal action against the sniper bug from last time, or advice about streaming.
Since he'd only started streaming a week ago, she was, in fact, an invaluable teacher for him.
A sense of mission. Maybe she was right about that.
He stopped his fingers, which had been moving unconsciously. The unsent message had been asking how to find that goal.
Even if he sent this, he wouldn't get the answer he wanted.
In the end, a goal had to exist somewhere between what you had to do and what you wanted to do.
Unless there was an immediate crisis threatening your safety and future if you didn't act right away, composing your goals solely from things you had to do would eventually lead to inertia.
Anyway, she was incredibly perceptive in this regard.
Messages came in while he'd briefly looked away from his phone.
What could he do.
But one thing was certain: the plan she'd proposed wasn't completely ineffective.
With a lighter heart, he moved his fingers.
Of course.
Rather than touching on that kind of thing just a week into streaming, it would be better to try communicating with viewers—something he'd never done before.
Presenting a goal that obviously looked like a headache, then mentioning a much lower goal as a compromise, was one of the methods of negotiation.
In a way, Harmony had achieved that almost unconsciously.
Remarkable in every way.
Or maybe he was just broken.
It hadn't been that long since he'd returned, but how should he put it…
He was still drifting aimlessly across the sea called this world, without even his own anchor.
It was a day when he had so many people he wanted to see.