There's No Way a Toxic Troll Could Be This Cute (2)
「Whoa. They're actually letting me in? As thanks, I'll hard carry this round.」
Mr. Kim, who knew next to nothing about the community or the notorious troll known as SignalFlare, snorted to himself.
…Two double barrels?
The double barrel was beloved as a close-range weapon, but it was rare to see someone running around with two of them. Even if the hero in question was Crazy Shot, whose passive granted a shotgun damage bonus. On top of that, the total ammo count was only forty shells. The rest of the inventory was packed to the brim with throwing weapons—mostly molotovs, with a few other explosives mixed in.
Even though his own skill wasn't anything special, Mr. Kim had played the game long enough to roughly picture what the other player was trying to do. A strategy centered around close-quarters urban combat: closing the distance with smoke grenades whenever the fight stretched out. It wasn't a common playstyle, though, so there was a high chance of dragging the rest of the team into unnecessary chaos.
This was where Mr. Kim had to make a choice. Trust the random teammate who had boldly declared they would carry, or play it safe and go solo?
The remaining teammate was Chinese and hadn't said a word. Their class was Thief, a pick specialized in harassing the enemy backline and stirring up trouble. They probably wouldn't bother helping Mr. Kim even if a fight broke out.
Unfortunately, Mr. Kim's own class was Supporter. It was the kind of class that grew exponentially stronger when backed by allies. Of course, a skilled player could still solo with a Supporter, but Mr. Kim had no interest in sweating through that kind of exhausting gameplay so late at night.
Besides, despite the ridiculous loadout, that cute voice had a strangely soothing effect on Mr. Kim, who was already irritated from losing too many games in a row.
“I’ll be watching to see if you really can carry while I back you up.”
「Oh, then I’d appreciate it.」
Decision made: trust FinalEducationChickenSchoolMomo.
About fifteen minutes later, Mr. Kim realized his choice had been the correct one.
「Don’t come this way. I’ll clear it. Watch the chicken side.」
“Yes, ChickenSchool-nim.”
The voice was adorably high-pitched, like a little girl’s, but the playstyle was as bold and aggressive as a battle-hardened man. The moment an enemy appeared, they would drop smoke, lay down Crazy Shot’s ultimate acceleration zone, then charge in with two thunderous bang! bang! shots.
There were occasional crises—when both their shields broke at the same time and the long reload animation of the double barrel shotgun overlapped with the enemy’s—but those were overcome with perfectly timed stick grenades of impossible accuracy. Even when their own shield was completely shattered, they always managed to down at least two enemies. Thanks to that, Mr. Kim’s squad never had to worry about losing.
The final fight in particular left a deep impression. ChickenSchool had gone on a complete rampage against a fully intact enemy team, pulling off an unbelievable clutch. And they had done it using nothing but double barrels, smoke grenades, and stick grenades.
— !! Victory !! —
KimGrillMaster / FinalEducationChickenSchoolMomo / Tang-tang, hulu-hulu
Mr. Kim’s squad had won far more easily than expected. Even better, ChickenSchool had good manners.
「Wow. KimGrillMaster-nim, your support was excellent. Is this a sub account?」
“No. It’s my main.”
「You got lucky then. Thanks to you, we won. Good work.」
In truth, the lucky one had been Mr. Kim. Before meeting ChickenSchool, he had played over twenty games with terrible teammates and had been seriously considering calling it a night.
“...It was chaotic, but they’re a fun person.”
Cheon Do-hee loved Battle Colosseum. It wasn’t an exaggeration—she loved it so much that she made sure to play it at least once a week during her streams. Her skill wasn’t exceptional, so she tended to get destroyed in ranked, but she was the stubborn type who kept grinding until she at least hit Gold by the end of every season.
Because of that, she often visited the Battle Colosseum gallery when looking up related news. This morning, while eating breakfast and scrolling, she noticed the thread refresh rate was unusually high.
The post read:
The comments exploded:
There was no doubt about it. It was Mazia. She must have been spamming “Hello~” a hundred times to every random teammate she met while queuing at dawn. It wouldn’t have been strange for her identity as SignalFlare to be exposed at any moment, yet she was pulling stunts like this—
“Why… are all the reactions positive?”
She had been worried there might be people cursing her out, but every single comment was positive. When she checked the reason, it turned out that whenever someone responded to the greeting, Mazia would hard carry that match and then leave gracefully. There were already over ten clips circulating, and even full videos that captured her communicating with her teammates the entire game.
「No but her supporting is actually insane? It feels like I’m meeting Helen Keller.」
「Sniper bro, do you have any shield battery left? Just one please.」
「This is what a sniper is. This is what sniping is. Sniper bro, confiscate every other gun. From now on only shoot with the sniper.」
She didn’t have time to listen to everything, so she skimmed through a few. It was clear Mazia had been enthusiastically giving her teammates vocal buffs, telling them they were doing great.
“...She really does have a way with words.”
This was exactly why Mazia was a professional troll. She never said anything that could actually get her in trouble. She had been the same back when she trolled as Momo. She only used pretty words that couldn’t be banned, yet somehow managed to scratch people’s nerves perfectly. She walked that razor-thin line between annoying and unforgivable so well that it drove people insane.
That was why Do-hee had charged straight at her. She realized that if she didn’t meet this person in real life, she would keep getting tormented forever.
“How has no one figured out she’s one of our employees yet?”
Were they all deliberately pretending not to know? Or was it really impossible to recognize her from voice alone?
Since Do-hee’s main content was Battle Colosseum, many of the regular viewers in Momo’s gallery also frequented the Battle Colosseum gallery. Yet it seemed no one had caught any decisive clues.
Maybe the shocking revelation that SignalFlare was a girl—and one with such a cute voice at that—had made everyone’s brains short-circuit. Perhaps that was why the story about Parallel staff member D-Rain, which had been burning up the Parallel and first-generation member galleries for the past two days, had been buried.
Still, even if it was buried for now, the truth would come out eventually. If it was going to be revealed anyway, it would be better to do it all at once during the upcoming collab stream.
Scandals, after all, created far more impact when they exploded across multiple layers and directions rather than going off in one big blast. Right now it was only “SignalFlare = cute-voiced female troll,” but once the puzzle pieces clicked together—“SignalFlare = female = troll = D-Rain”—the ripple effect would be enormous.
If she revealed it during the collab that was coming up soon, they could handle the fallout on the same day. Otherwise, it was obvious she would end up suffering even more headaches later. That thought kept nagging at her.
After agonizing over it all morning, Do-hee finally sent a DingTalk message to Jia around lunchtime.
They were surprisingly on the same wavelength.
The reason Mazia was saying all this was because, after finishing her little social experiment, she had reached one slightly twisted conclusion: a cute troll could get away with almost anything, no matter how wildly they misbehaved.
But if she went too far, it would only attract even more persistent people.
Aww, my ass.
…She was cute, so Do-hee let it slide.
⚡Pazizik
Aoyagi Rain / AOYAGI RAIN @aoyagirain_parallel_vtuber | 166,000 followers
Parallel 1st Gen, rain that falls from the sky, Aoyagi Rain☂
「(🔴Live) Something HUGE just arrived.」
👪15,227 #BattleColosseum #Momo #Parallel
One week later, on the day of the planned Battle Colosseum collab stream.
Rain’s usual average of around four thousand viewers had skyrocketed to fifteen thousand. The already high interest in staff member D-Rain, combined with the other members declaring breaks as if they had all promised to watch the collab, had created this perfect storm.
It was a choice that could have cost her some of her own fans, but it was also a strategy that CEO Do-hee had taught the first-generation members.
「Momo: The fans who watch one of you have a very high chance of watching the others too.」
「Momo: You’re a group, so whenever you do something, you’ll naturally end up collaborating with other members.」
「Momo: Taking strategic breaks can be very effective.」
「Momo: For example, let’s say a huge collab that none of you are participating in gets scheduled for another member, but you haven’t taken a break this month.」
「Momo: If you take a break right then, all the people who would have come to watch you will flock to the collab instead, massively inflating the viewer count.」
「Momo: When new viewers see that huge number and flood in, those people will eventually scatter to each member’s individual streams according to their tastes.」
「Momo: It’s a kind of trickle-down effect, yeah.」
That was why the rest of the first-generation members had deliberately cleared their entire schedules—including hospital visits and external appointments—for that day. Even from their perspective, it was clear that the current hottest topic in Parallel was “D-Rain.”
“Oh hell yeah! Dropping the rain from the sky. Here to soak the dry ground nice and cool again today!”
The massive energy orb gathered by all the first-generation members, plus the viewer count inflation provided by CEO Momo, was immediately visible in the speed at which the chat was flying by.
“It’s been a week. Did you all wait long?”
“Ahaha! Right? About to dry up? Then let me introduce two guests who will fill you with moisture right away! First, our boss!”
In the Battle Colosseum lobby, in the empty third slot of the three-person waiting room, the ID momopeach appeared.
“Hello everyone. It’s been a while, puddle-dwellers.”
“Next! The puddle-dwelling, pot-like bastards who don’t listen to a single word I say called me here. Even though I’m busy, I split my schedule to come~ The staff member, D, Lupin~!”
Under everyone’s watchful eyes, Mazia made her return after a week.
“Hello. I am staff member D from Parallel’s management team, the one who played the role of D-Rain in last week’s ‘Find Rain’ content. Please take care of me today.”
Up until that point, everyone had been warmly welcoming Mazia, who had made the previous content shine. However, today’s stream was packed with Momo’s loyal “Mungmung” fans since she was the one who had brought the Battle Colosseum collab together.
After the name SignalFlare appeared in chat a few times, just as Cheon Do-hee had planned, a donation flew in.
Anonymous Supporter has donated 10,000 Clouds!
「Wait, Staff D’s nickname is……」
Only then did everyone notice the nickname displayed in the third slot of the waiting screen.
One of Battle Colosseum’s most infamous names. The very SignalFlare famous for being Momo’s personal troll soup was right there.