Mistake
[Interview Record/002]
- Please state your affiliation during the war.
- Affiliation... well.
- Just telling us the region you operated in would be enough.
- I didn’t stay in one place long enough to say. You know what guerrillas do, don’t you?
- Understood. Then could you tell us how you ended up as a fighter for the Black Wolf Clan?
- Well, this was two years ago now. My home was in territory occupied by the rebels.
- Were you forcibly conscripted?
- I volunteered, technically, but it was more or less under duress. They’d taken my family hostage, and anyone who refused got killed.
- There are rumors that the Black Wolf Clan gave drugs to child soldiers. Is that true?
- Yes.
- Did you ever go into battle while under the influence?
- No. I passed the dose they issued me on to the others.
- Why?
- When you take the stuff, it feels like you’re flying. You stop feeling fear of death, too.
- So it was for combat enhancement. Then why didn’t you take the drug yourself?
- Because once you’re on it, your head stops working right. If you see a person, you just pull the trigger, and even if you get shot you can’t even feel the pain. Long-term, it was far better not to take it.
- Where were you during Operation Impala?
- We were raiding a residence because there was a civilian who’d passed important information to government forces. We broke down the door and shot the man who resisted.
- So you killed a civilian.
- How was I supposed to refuse when the people above me ordered it? Besides, that man was holding an AK. If I hadn’t shot first, I would’ve been turned into a sieve. Well, I’m paying for that karma now, rotting in a cell like this.
- Understood. Please continue.
- I’d just put another burst into the man’s corpse and was tying up the rest of his family when I heard a strange noise outside. I looked out the window and saw something black moving across the sky.
- It was a helicopter.
- That was a helicopter?
- You didn’t know?
- How would I? In the dead of night with no moon, if some pitch-black thing goes flying by, you’re lucky if you can make out anything at all.
- They say it was a craft modified for special operations. I suppose its camouflage was pretty effective.
- Anyway, I told the others nearby that something had flown past, then went out into the street. There was a technical parked by the roadside. My comrades were right behind me, dragging the bound civilians along after them.
- So that’s when you encountered the Solomon devil.
- Yes. Once I got to the technical, I realized I didn’t have the keys. I turned around to ask one of my comrades for them, and that’s when I saw that all of them, except the civilians, were lying on the ground. Their heads had burst open. They were dead.
- And then what did you do?
- What do you think? I ran to my dead comrade, grabbed the keys, and started the engine right away. I left the bound civilians behind and fled. I didn’t get far before I slammed into a wall, though.
- Please describe the circumstances when you surrendered.
- I stumbled out of the burning technical and sat there stupidly in the middle of the road when they came up to me. They were wearing black uniforms and had these terrifying masks covering their faces. I figured I was going to die, so I prepared to fight, but before I could do anything, one of them drove a fist straight into my face.
- And that was it?
- Yeah. Knocked out cold with one punch. When I woke up, I was already in the holding cell.
- Do you remember what the person who punched you looked like?
- He was a man, with white hair. Oh, and his eyes were red.
- That man, then.
- If my memory’s right, it must’ve been him.
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"Hmm, there are more game genres than I expected?"
To pick an FPS game at the viewers’ request, I logged into the store, only to have a completely unfamiliar list of games fill the monitor. I’d opened it expecting a simple first-person shooter, but the actual subcategories and genres were far more varied than I’d imagined.
Some looked a little more casual, some gave off a horror vibe, and some seemed to be aiming for realism.
Hmm... what on earth should I play here?
Having so many options all at once made my head spin.
As I sat alone in front of the monitor, lost in thought, the viewers started offering opinions one by one. Strange game titles kept streaming through chat without pause, and before long some of them had already started arguing among themselves.
"Hey, stop fighting! I’m trying to decide here!"
Before the chat could get any uglier, I stepped in early and smoothed things over.
Fortunately, the viewers’ mood loosened up quickly, and things didn’t get any worse.
Still...
I used the lull to think through the problem staring me in the face.
I’d heard the streaming platform had a viewer voting system. Maybe I could use that.
This one?
Once an idea came to me, I’ve always believed in acting on it right away.
After fiddling through the broadcast settings for a while, I found the poll function.
"All right, then. Let’s pick the candidates."
As soon as I brought up the poll settings on the broadcast screen and spoke, the passionate viewers immediately reacted.
"Hmm, looks like the candidates are basically split in two."
To get a clearer picture, I searched the store for the two games mentioned most often by viewers.
First, Raid was a game where you played as a SWAT officer, responding to all kinds of crime scenes and subduing criminals. It had various modes, but the common thread was its punishing difficulty and its focus on nonlethal restraint.
By contrast, MILSIM was, just as its name suggested, a game about large-scale warfare. It was basically a war simulator.
With localized hit detection by body part and realistic weapon lethality, it was a favorite among hardcore players.
"I’ll leave these two as the final candidates and run the poll. Number one is Raid, number two is MILSIM."
After roughly finishing the setup, I opened the poll, and the number of participants started climbing fast.
I hadn’t expected everyone to be this fired up about the game they liked.
While the viewers voted, I leaned back from my desk and stretched for a moment.
I’d been sitting in the same position too long, and my neck and lower back were starting to stiffen up.
"Ugh, there we go..."
I loosened my body a little and wetted my throat with the water in the cup on the desk.
Every time I felt it, internet broadcasting really did abuse a person’s throat.
Mentally and physically, it was exhausting, since I had to keep talking so the audio wouldn’t go dead.
And since my main content was story time, I had to talk even more than most streamers.
Honestly, once the stream ended, I might need to keep some throat lozenges around.
A broadcaster’s throat was everything.
After that brief rest, I pulled my chair back in front of the monitor and sat down again.
"All right, let’s see the results."
As tension spread through the chat, my cursor hovered over the button to check the poll results.
Honestly, whatever came out probably wouldn’t matter much—but a little suspense makes a broadcast more fun, so I dragged it out for a second.
With the viewers’ fiery reactions making me chuckle, I clicked the mouse.
"Puhaha... all right, here we go! The first game I’ll be streaming is...!"
- Poll Closed -
- Winner: MILSIM
By a landslide, the winner was MILSIM, the number two candidate.
"MILSIM! Let’s jump right in!"
I snickered at the chat, now split cleanly into joy and despair, and clicked the install button for the game.
Not for a second did I imagine what would happen a little later.
Not at all.
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