The Crossroads

Three hours since going live, the installation for Neo Chronicle finally wrapped up.

My mouse hovered over the [PLAY] button, but my gaze drifted toward the broadcast dashboard.

Between downloading, installing, and patching, roughly forty minutes had slipped by since I declared I would give the game a spin myself. About ten of those minutes had been spent groveling in apologies. And in that window, a staggering two thousand viewers had evaporated into thin air.

Which meant that nearly three thousand people had barged into my channel purely to raise hell—parasites like richboy4, who bounced between camps stirring up flames just to watch the world burn. So they really were just complete bastards, huh?

As for the two thousand still hanging around? Beats me. Who could ever decipher what went on inside the heads of internet strangers?

The moment my mind wandered for even a split second, profanities rained down in sheets. Trying to sort these people into friend or foe felt utterly pointless.

“I was just thinking how I usually study at this hour instead of gaming,” I scrambled to manufacture an excuse. “Well, studying’s off the table tonight anyway, so let’s fire it up.”

Babbling justifications under my breath, I hit launch.

“……”

I expected the monitor to flash right into the title screen, but nothing happened. The [PLAY] button shifted shade, yet the screen remained completely frozen. It certainly wasn't because of a potato rig; the very first thing I splurged on after finishing my military service was a high-end desktop.

I stole a wary glance at the chat box. They were casually chatting amongst themselves as if this were the most routine thing in the world.

Did it always boot up this sluggishly? Was this normal for massive games?

“Is there some kind of problem with—”

Just as I hesitantly parted my lips, a massive logo burst onto the screen.

Fortunately, the game itself seemed fine. My comment, on the other hand, had clearly offended the gallery.

The cursing flared right back up. Who the hell is Go Jonghyuk now? crossed my mind, but the initial sheer panic was gone. When I first stepped into the crosshairs, the vitriol had felt like an ambush out of nowhere. This time, the insults were merely peppered throughout the slowing tide of spam. Surging from sixty to a hundred was far more manageable than getting blindsided from zero to a hundred in a fraction of a second.

It's scary how fast I'm adapting to this, I marveled at myself while eagerly latching onto the chat's explanations.

“Ah, I see. Well, it's been around for over a decade, right? My friend did say there’s an insane amount of content packed into it. That all takes up file size, after all!”

I threw out the comment like a seasoned broadcaster. Seeing the proportion of profanity instantly dilute, I gave a quiet nod of satisfaction. Ah. So that's how you play this game. I was starting to grasp how streaming worked.

Glancing at the viewer counter that continued to flush away like swirling toilet water, I kept up a steady stream of chatter until the game fully initialized. To the resonance of an epic orchestral score, a lineup of characters clad in vibrant, exotic gear appeared, gazing toward an unseen horizon. Following the backseat gaming instructions raining into chat, I picked my server, then settled on the Rapid-fire Archer—a class heralded for functioning on a shoestring budget.

Wait, what does 'ssal-meok character' even mean? Am I allowed to ask?

I had been bombarded with more gamer slang today than in my entire life. A substantial chunk of it felt like the kind of vocabulary viewers could casually fling around, but would spell instant doom if uttered by a streamer. Parroting my friend's words earlier had already earned me a lifetime's worth of abuse; asking questions now felt terrifying. The waters had calmed down for the moment, but if another fire broke out, I might not survive it.

“All right, that's enough customisation. Let's wrap this up.”

I typed in the handle I always used and hit confirm.

It was my high school soccer nickname, earned because my play style was an uncanny mirror of the Premier League striker Erling Haaland. Without a second thought, I clicked Yes.

I pressed [START GAME]—and instantly felt my stomach drop into my boots.

A relentless waterfall of question marks sent a chill down my spine.

“Uh, what's wrong? That's just my real nickname.”

Did game streamers seriously turn every minor detail into audience content? Was consulting the chat on your character's gender and name an unwritten law? And what was that gripe about rolling a male character anyway?

Right at that moment, however—

“Even if memory fades, the body remembers.”

A deep, gravelly voice belonging to a middle-aged warrior rumbled through the speakers.

“A broken husk, stripped of past and technique alike. Still... I fought on, and on.”

As the cinematic voiceover resonated, the vitriol in chat evaporated like mist in morning sun.

I blinked, watching the sudden tonal whiplash. Scratch that. Take back what I said about understanding how to stream. Damned lunatics won't let my heart rest for ten seconds.

Feeling an overwhelming obligation to jump on the bandwagon, I opened my mouth. “Whoa... what is that voice? That sounds insanely badass.”

Stubbornly claiming I genuinely meant it, I glued my eyes to the cutscene. And with that, the game truly, finally began. Getting past the launcher and menus had been an ordeal of its own, but the journey was officially underway.

I figured things would settle down once gameplay started, but that optimism was shattered in short order. Arriving in the starter town unlocked a barrage of system features.

“Looks like a ton of stuff just popped open,” I muttered, steering my character toward the yellow quest marker.

Ding—

A chime chimed softly in the background.

Or rather, it chimed until the chat started swearing at me for failing to notice it.

“Mail? Where?” I scanned the screen frantically before finally spotting it. “It's just a tiny red dot tucked away in the corner! How was I supposed to catch that right away? Anyone could miss the sound effect.”

At least by now, they tolerated a bit of grumbling. Relieved, I clicked the mailbox icon.

See? The world wasn't entirely rotten after all! There was no way every single player of an online game was an unhinged troll.

“Aigoo, you were all only mad because I spoke without thinking earlier. Don't worry about it! Since I've started, I'm definitely going to enjoy the ride.”

After three straight hours of abuse, I had finally received a warm, encouraging message. Congratulating myself on handling it like a dignified adult, I turned back to the game—only to notice the chat exploding again.

Did I give them another reason to curse at me? Squinting at the stream overlay, numbers began flashing through the messages.

Oh! That was actual money!

I reopened the letter in a panic. Only then did the attached figure at the bottom register in my brain.

500,000 G. Five hundred thousand gold.

I scrambled out of my chair in an awkward half-crouch and bowed deeply toward the webcam.

“Ah, thank you so much! One hundred thousand won? A hundred thousand?! Is game currency really worth that much?!”

“When did I say it had no value?! It's hard-earned money... wait, yeah, you're right. And no, I've literally never played an MMORPG before! My friend was always raging at it, so I never even touched the genre.”

“How should I know his ID? All I know is he bragged about being in the top percentile of gear specs or something. Anyway! Thank you once again for the gold!”

After weathering more complaints about my 'soulless reaction' and getting told off whenever I pried too deeply into background lore instead of skipping through, Chapter 1 was drawing toward its conclusion.

“That bitch literally just died! Ah, sorry for swearing. But come on, I put an arrow right between her eyes!! Why is she getting back up and sprinting away?!”

The boss I had barely managed to whittle down suddenly popped back onto her feet during the cinematic, spewed some cryptic, pretentious monologue, and bolted.

Five and a half hours into Neo Chronicle.

Seasoned veterans claimed an experienced player could blast through Chapter 1 in ninety minutes flat, but I had dragged my feet checking out every nook and cranny. I couldn't just brush past things when curiosity got the better of me.

Regardless, after hours of conversing with the chat, I finally understood the true definition, origins, and modern nuance of the term ssal-meok—farming virtual currency to pay for real-life rice.

“Wait, is that really why?”

“All right, will do.”

I pulled up Notepad on my second screen and added another bullet point to my running list of questions, compiling lore mysteries line by line as the plot unfolded.

That aside... the chat had become surprisingly peaceful.

Back when I received the gold, copy-pasta spam and profanities made up ninety percent of the messages. Now, the majority were civilized discussions breaking down story foreshadowing. It was a remarkably heartwarming sight.

The viewer count had shrunk considerably, but this was infinitely better. Besides, yesterday I was thrilled to have forty or fifty people watching! This tranquil atmosphere had come about thanks to an impromptu purge mid-stream.

A little past the early stretch of Chapter 1, right as a major narrative hook dropped, the regulars had suddenly united to clean house. Back then, I didn't fully understand their motives; I just cheered along because it promised an end to the spam. The result was what you saw now: a cozy, communal Neo Chronicle lore club.

My character now stood on the airship docks, concluding the final beat of Chapter 1 before setting sail for another continent. Several NPCs encountered along the journey came out to bid farewell.

“Ah... I really wish I could bring Irine along.”

Irine was a female NPC sporting a rather breezy, revealing outfit—and a recent widow whose husband had perished during the main campaign.

Hoooonk—!

The airship blew its steam horn and lifted into the skies. Honestly, I wanted to wrap up the stream here. I had promised to see the story through, but I never promised to do it all in a single sitting. The broadcast had dragged on far longer than intended, and my parents would be waking up soon.

Slipping my headset down around my neck, I gingerly broached the subject. “Uh, guys...”

“M-Moving it.”

Trapped by my own words, I plowed ahead.

Chapter 2 took four and a half hours. Chapter 3 ate up another six. Total broadcast uptime: roughly nineteen hours.

If I was just gaming solo, pulling two all-nighters back-to-back was child's play. Sure, grinding ranked matches required at least one nap a day to stay sharp, but overall, stamina was never an issue. Live streaming, however, taxed an entirely different reservoir of mental energy. In plain terms: my brain was turning into mush.

Naturally, my danger radar had dulled to absolute zero.

“People told me it was great for clearing various content on a cheap budget?”

“Really? Like what?”

More than my dulled instincts, the primary culprit was that the chat had slowed to a sporadic crawl.

The viewer count had only dropped by two hundred, but chat velocity was less than a tenth of what it used to be. Did these bastards hold me hostage and then go to sleep? Damned hypocrites. I had been fighting off heavy eyelids ever since sunrise myself. At any rate, carrying on an extended back-and-forth with a single chatter proved to be a fatal mistake.

“Oh~ really? There were better classes all along?”

And right then—

Others began dogpiling into what had been a private conversation. Yet faced with immediate pushback, NecNoodleLover didn't flinch for a second.

Huh? Earlier people barely mentioned Mages at all, didn't they?

The atmosphere took a sharp, volatile nosedive. The dormant chat was roaring back to life. Focus ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flickered back into my drooping eyes as my sleep-deprived brain scrambled to defuse the bomb.

“Hey, hey, everyone, don't fight. And whoever's calling everything broken, please calm down too.”

Two distinct options crystallized in my mind:

1. Distract them by complimenting the curves of the female NPC on screen. Even in armor, more than half her skin was exposed—surely that would divert the aggro?

2. Point out that if literally everything is overpowered, isn't that basically ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠balanced? Trying to meticulously dissect right from wrong when I knew nothing was suicide. Channeling Prime Minister Hwang Hui's legendary wisdom—telling Person A they were right, and Person B they were also right—should smoothly stitch this wound shut.

Drooling over a virtual character's body in front of hundreds of people is a bit much, I reasoned.

Settling on my answer, I spoke with conviction.

“Look, if this class is broken and that class is broken, doesn't that just mean the game is wonderfully balanced? Let's stop arguing and focus on the story, everyone.”

Satisfied, I voiced a few lines of in-game dialogue, then turned back toward the chat monitor.

What greeted me was a colossal tidal wave of question-mark hooks.

Following the barrage of question marks came a vertical wall of single-syllable commands.

“Apologize...? You seriously want me to apologize for that?”

Faced with the relentless, unyielding onslaught, whatever willpower remained in me crumbled into dust.

“Fine. I'll do it.”

Is this really how it works? Is this normal? In a daze of sheer exhaustion and confusion, I reached over and pulled my suit jacket back on over my shoulders. Adjusting the webcam angle upward, I stood up and asked one final, desperate question.

One look at the laughing characters breaking up the chain, and the truth hit me.

This time, they were just messing with me.

“Oh, screw you guys!”

I tore the suit jacket off, slammed it violently onto the floor, and dropped back into my chair.

“I'm just pushing through the story. We're supposed to set off on the Zulu Continent expedition, and you're just wasting time!”

Internet broadcasting was truly, utterly brutal. Watching the rolling sea of laughter in the chat, I let out a quiet sigh of relief. You couldn't let your guard down for a single, solitary second.