Chain Reaction
Harmony, and Eugene.
Of everyone in the Dark Zone community lately, these two were without question the hottest names around.
Their meeting had begun as pure coincidence, and in the middle of it they had stumbled into an unregulated zone. A tutorial that somehow overlapped with a PVP zone — something that should have been impossible by design — would have been enough of a spectacle on its own. But the raw skill of the player named Eugene, laid bare for all to see in the middle of that chaos, was gasoline poured over a roaring bonfire.
As if that alone weren't enough, there were the skill-backed stunts that kept happening across main missions and every PVP mode imaginable, and then the successful lockdown of a sniper. You could force the pieces together and call it staged if you really wanted to — but the lawsuit updates that refreshed every single day proved Harmony was taking the whole situation dead seriously.
The flames had died down with time, but the results they left behind remained.
Harmony had weathered every bizarre ordeal thrown at her and come out the other side with an additional fifty percent of her previous fixed viewership. Eugene, the other beneficiary, had gained a rock-solid streamer senior in Harmony — and become a broadcaster without historical precedent, pulling average viewership in the thousands despite having started streaming barely any time at all.
This wasn't just a win-win. These two had delivered complete, mutual success to each other.
Naturally, that was all the proof anyone needed that the two of them would become close in no time.
"Ah! Teacher! Over here, over here!"
The shooting range.
When she'd first started Dark Zone, Harmony had looked like someone forced into gear that didn't fit. Now, through Eugene's eyes, something like ease had begun to settle into her frame. Soldiers weren't born — they were made — and by that measure, Harmony was becoming someone the plate carrier actually suited.
Her mint-colored ears flicked and twitched as they fixed on Eugene. A clear sign of gladness.
"Looks like you've been doing well. Your face is glowing."
"Of course. That's streamers for you. No hard labor, just eating well and lying around at home all day — that's the job, right?"
"I highly doubt that. Is that really how you've been living?"
"Huk."
As Harmony deflated like a punctured balloon under the merciless rejection, Eugene let a smile tug at the corner of her mouth and added,
"Try some cardio at least. Two nights ago at three in the morning you did a four-slice pizza mukbang stream, didn't you? Keep eating like that and you'll grow sticky rice cakes on your stomach."
"Ugh… you know me way too well…."
Two nights ago, Eugene had woken up at an unusual hour, drunk a glass of cold water, and was about to go back to sleep when a stream notification from Harmony lit up her phone. Curiosity got the better of her. She clicked in to find a hazel-haired girl who looked remarkably like Harmony's in-game avatar, chewing pizza under a title that read ThisIsActuallyTheLastOne) 3AM Pizza Mukbang.
It had been the kind of mukbang that practically begged for the word "om-nom-nom," and Eugene remembered the whole scene with vivid clarity.
"…You're not a personal trainer by trade, are you, Eugene?"
"I could be. Don't let your guard down."
"Heeugh…."
And with that, the small talk came to a close.
Before long the topic shifted fully to Dark Zone, and with it Eugene naturally became the instructor while Harmony became the cadet. Which meant Eugene was about to rebuild Harmony from the ground up, literally.
"Since it's a game, I won't bother with field-stripping and reassembly. If you just get comfortable with malfunction drills, tactical reloads, and semi-auto rapid fire, you'll be fine for the most part — and even that alone will take a while."
"Uh… I was picturing something like those CQB videos I saw on YourSpace. Guess that's not it."
"That's advanced material, strictly speaking. You only touch that once the fundamentals are solid. Honestly, whatever you watched — you're better off just learning from me."
Even as chat flooded with that kind of noise, Eugene kept passing on what she knew to Harmony without any particular thought. The playful messages faded, and as a lecture of rare substance unfolded — the kind you wouldn't find easily anywhere — more and more viewers started clipping.
Experience woven into fundamental principles transformed what could have been a dry, difficult lecture into something easy to grasp. Even Harmony, who'd been tilting her head at first, found the feel of it after a few tries.
A lecture that wasn't quite a lecture, continuing without any particular praise. It started with gun handling and moved into actual shooting. Unlike reality, there was no limit on available ammunition, so Harmony was absorbing it at something close to accelerated speed.
Extreme cringe and gasps of awe took turns floating up the chat window. The former when Harmony was learning; the latter when Eugene demonstrated.
One full cycle ended, and Eugene quietly spoke up.
"…You're definitely more proficient than when I first taught you. Have you been working on things in the meantime?"
"Hehe, of course. Whenever I stream Dark Zone, I always hit the shooting range before anything else. Once I started thinking of it like stretching before a workout, it became doable."
"Good work."
Of course, chat was drifting in an entirely different and thoroughly unflattering direction. Putting out that particular fire took a considerable amount of time and a gym membership verification photo from Harmony — and the moment the latter hit the stream screen, that whole line of conversation came to an end.
It was time to push the main missions in earnest.
Roughly an hour of in-game time later, the two of them emerged from the shooting range. A modest crowd had gathered nearby, but unfortunately for them, the concept of open party invites simply did not exist in the mind of Eugene — who believed that only by growing strong did one's skill truly improve.
Their destination was Upstate New York.
Not the lower part of New York State where order had been established, not New York City — but a region that had collapsed under the Rust Belt and then taken a direct hit from the Omega Virus, becoming a complete lawless zone. Unidentified machines and mercenaries that had begun occupying empty land where only corpses piled up without owners.
That was their investigation objective.
"Ugh… man, that feels so damn good. So good. I even donated, sent friend requests, private messages — the whole thing. I told her she could put a hole in my head for all I cared, just please kill me with a gun."
The first-place mark filled my vision. A full-body shiver of electricity ran through me, and at the same time I let out a long breath of relief. This was a fundamentally different sensation from a few days ago, when every single match had felt like walking barefoot through thorns.
Just days earlier I'd been queuing up anxious even when I wasn't matched with Eugene. Experiencing five or more deaths a day by methods other than guns, grenades, or skills was, needless to say, not a good time.
Anyway — after all that, Eugene had cheerfully accepted my request, and had even offered a formal apology, saying she was sorry. In a way, it had been a quick and clean resolution.
And as of today, Eugene had stepped away from the Apex Predator battlefield for at least a few days to do collabs with other streamers. So I decided to use that window — grind hard, lock in a stable rank, and then never look in her direction again. That was the route to no more suffering.
Separately from all that, for some reason I felt like my play was sharper than usual. Specifically, because I'd been put through so much, I was now factoring in things I used to ignore — and it was producing cleaner, more precise play than before.
It was absurd, but if that counted as a positive side effect, then sure. Positive side effect.
"Whew, today's actually going well. Maybe because I've been grinding with my teeth clenched — it's smoother than I expected. If I keep this up, I might make the Tier 1 promotion series within a few days."
Growing pains, huh.
Maybe… just maybe you could call it that. But "growing pains" felt a little too nightmarish for what I'd been through. If that was the alternative, I'd rather live the easy life chat was describing.
Anyway, I came out to the lobby like always. It had been a genuinely satisfying win — the kind of game worth uploading to YourSpace. Even when I'd been on the verge of first place just now, the word "upload" had come flooding in like a tidal wave.
I had no real hesitation about queuing the next one.
The gears turned and matchmaking began. This was the window for chatting with viewers. I read the messages I'd missed earlier while my thoughts kept spinning. The tournament was only a few weeks out. Tournament ranks would lock even sooner than that.
Nobody in this world was free of competitive fire. I'd agreed under a deal with Russ — a pro gamer and coach I knew well — to jump into the Asian qualifiers on short notice. But now that I had a slot, I wanted to seize the honor with my own skill.
I was turning over how best to do that.
Until one donation came in.
"Scrims? Of course I'm doing scrims. Pros are already grinding scrims nonstop with the Tier 2 tournament-rank players right now — once I lock in a spot, I'll jump in immediately."
The Asian qualifiers.
And then the Final Championship — the global stage.
Each country selected twenty players through their own competitions. From those hundred, the qualifiers would determine a maximum of four athletes per nation to send to the Final Championship held in North America.
Along the way, they didn't just compete — they shared information. Because the only thing more important than winning yourself was your country winning.
In other words, every single one of them was both a rival and a colleague.
Coming back to the point — by that logic….
"…And as for that player… uh…."
I opened my mouth to answer, but a clean answer wouldn't come.
"Obviously I'd have to invite her, but…."
I knew better than to overestimate anyone carelessly.
Even so, completely erasing from my mind the possibility that the scrims might get completely demolished was… surprisingly difficult.
For some reason, that was the thought that settled in.