First Pick for the Fireworks Festival: Kim Deok-bae
The gallery was already on fire.
In reality, once Rain MK2 showed up, the little one and Maru started copying her acting too, so it only got harder and harder. When we finally narrowed it down to two, it basically turned into pure random. Hey, Rain you brat—if you don’t want to give me pizza just say so before you—
Wait, even Manager Ki-cheol is like this. What, are you running a celebrity farm or something? Where the hell do you keep finding these people eeeeeeeee
In my opinion she’s a 2nd gen debutant. There’s no way a regular employee can do voice impressions and rap that well. If you think I’m just hating, want me to go on other streams and explain it step by step? We can start with the CEO Momo’s broadcast since she’s the boss (Upvotes: 332)(Downvotes: 1)
Right after the broadcast ended, CEO Cheon Do-hee scanned the reactions and let out a small sigh.
“...The interest is way hotter than I expected.”
It wasn’t that she hadn’t anticipated any reaction at all. The problem was that it had blown up far beyond what she’d predicted. If things had ended with Jia simply playing the comedian like she originally planned, the chatter would’ve stopped at “Oh, that staff member? She was funny.”
But looking at the current atmosphere, it almost felt like the real protagonist of the night hadn’t been Rain at all—it had been Jia.
‘As expected from a former troll… she really is on another level.’
When it came to getting under people’s skin, she operated on a completely different plane. Making someone furious with just a few words wasn’t easy, yet Mazia pulled it off like it was nothing. The only reason people were holding back even a little was because they knew she was a Parallel employee. If not for that, the whole place would’ve already gone up in flames and Do-hee would be drowning in damage control.
“...Still, there don’t seem to be any immediate problems.”
Her biggest worry had been the first-generation members, but from what she saw in the group chat, none of them seemed particularly anxious about tomorrow’s stream. After all, during broadcasts it was strictly forbidden to talk about anything unrelated to the stream itself. As long as they banned the persistent ones, that would be the end of it.
Rain: Jia, you free tomorrow evening?
Rain: Let’s talk while I cook
Parallel Operations Team Mazia: No thanks.
Rain: My god, I was just asking about time
Komari: Rain-unnie don’t cut in line
Komari: I called dibs first……
Maru: No, stop that!
Maru: Can’t we all just eat together?!
Parallel Operations Team Mazia: No thanks.
Maru: What’s with the constant rejection
Maru: (extremely pissed meme)
Dora: Whoa I just watched the stream too
Dora: Jia-nim what the heck that was so cool I got goosebumps
Parallel Operations Team Mazia: It’s all thanks to the voice modulator.
Rain: wtf that’s such bullshit
They really got along well. Or at least, it looked that way to Do-hee. This level of chaos was basically warm and friendly by their standards. The real issue was that whenever something serious came up, Mazia would rush over like a blade to help, but the moment anyone suggested hanging out privately she would draw a firm line and say she wasn’t interested. That was why, even after nearly a year, her relationship with the first-gen members hadn’t progressed much.
Of course, while Jia did care for the first-gen members, she was fundamentally Do-hee’s fan first and foremost. In the group chat she acted indifferent, yet the way she would sprint over to Do-hee waiting in front of the PC bang near her house was exactly like a dog reuniting with its owner after ten years apart.
“Boss!”
She would come running on those short little legs, flailing in some incomprehensible gesture, and it was honestly adorable. She really loved playing games together that much.
“You submitted the vacation request, right?”
“Of course I handled it perfectly. Wow, I get to go to a PC bang with the CEO. I’ve made it. I’ve truly made it in life.”
“...What’s so impressive about playing Battle Coliseum together? And doing it at a PC bang means we have to readjust all the sensitivity and audio settings again. It’s such a hassle.”
The moment those words left her mouth, Jia shot her a long, withering stare. To her, those few hours were the most important thing in the world. As expected from a former sniper main—she was completely obsessed with playing games with Oshi.
“We can just tweak the settings roughly. What does that matter? Every second counts right now.”
Watching Jia literally start humming a little tune, Do-hee muttered under her breath.
“You were seriously going to quit if I didn’t play with you, weren’t you.”
“I told you that was a joke.”
“Please don’t ever do that again.”
“I won’t. Why would I?”
She giggled quietly, looking for all the world like a little witch dying to pull some prank.
And before long, Do-hee’s worries became reality.
“Hey—!! Stop firing that gun! You’re pulling everything toward us!!”
Her double-barrel shotgun had been spitting fire nonstop since the start of the match, dragging every enemy in the area straight to them.
“The mouse sensitivity is different, so I have to get used to it. Can’t be helped. How about you just surrender yourself to the sound of Deok-bae-kun, Boss?”
“This is actually driving me insane!”
Even when the troll became an ally—even when she became a friend—she was still the same damn troll.
* Battle Coliseum is a battle royale game played in teams of three. However, there are plenty of eccentrics who run solo or in duos instead of filling the full party. These are what people commonly call “fast queues.” They’ve grown so used to the game that they can’t feel any thrill unless the numbers are uneven. Of course, some parties simply queue as two because they don’t want random teammates. In those cases, a proper three-man team has an easy numerical advantage to pressure them.
Since Battle Coliseum is a TPS hero shooter, the absence of even a single game-changing special ability creates a massive power gap.
“Two-man queue on ping.”
[Confirmed. Moving in right away.]
[I’ll follow.]
The three-man party currently in the middle of their game consisted of confident Platinum-rank players who sat comfortably in the top 10% of the server. It wasn’t even ranked—why hesitate to push a duo in a casual match?
“One Revolt, one Crazy Shot. Don’t get too close. Surround them from a moderate distance.”
[Roger that.]
“I’ve got eyes on them already.”
The man watching the two enemies through his scope from a distance waited for his teammates to close in. The moment they entered combat range—
Pew!
A perfect headshot. With a loud metallic clang, the stationary Revolt’s entire shield shattered. The startled Revolt quickly popped smoke and tried to escape, but a barrage of grenades from the approaching team drained his HP and he went down instantly.
Unfortunately, all three of them had focused so hard on the Revolt that they lost track of the Crazy Shot’s position. They figured it wouldn’t matter since he was right next to them anyway.
“Revolt down. Where’s the Crazy Shot?”
[Weren’t you the one watching him?]
“Who broke the Revolt’s shield? I looked away for a second while pulling scope.”
[Hold on, I can’t see through the smoke.]
“Just finish the Revolt first. I’ll look for the Crazy Sh—.”
Shashak.
The sound of footsteps approaching tickled the man’s ears.
“Crazy Shot’s here!”
He immediately called it out and rushed forward, but releasing the zoom he’d been holding slowed his movement. He was already a beat too late.
Bang!
A double-barrel shotgun fired at point-blank range was basically a bomb. Every pellet slammed into his head, and his max-level shield vanished in an instant.
But a double-barrel traded massive damage for only two shots. And since it fired both at once, the enemy also needed time to reload.
The man quickly drew the SMG from his secondary slot—
Bang!
His HP bar disappeared. His character flopped onto the ground. And then, just to be extra, a smoke grenade hissed out.
“What the hell? Why does this crazy bastard have two shotguns…?!”
Crazy Shot was a character that got extra damage from shotguns, sure. But nobody usually ran around with two double-barrels. After all, once you fired all four shells, each reload took three seconds—for a total of six. In higher tiers, those six seconds felt like an eternity in hell.
In other words, the player who had just downed him was completely insane. It took both absolute confidence that two double-barrel shots would definitely down at least one person, and the sheer madness to abandon all long-range capability. That kind of concept play.
One of his downed teammates must have remembered a certain famous Battle Coliseum player, because after they finished the Revolt with an execution, they backed up toward the man and said:
[Two shotguns? Is this the human flare gun Kim Fireworks?]
[Flare gun? You mean that Momo broth guy?]
[Yeah, that dude loves dual shotguns.]
But when the man checked the kill feed, it clearly wasn’t the human flare gun himself.
FireworksFestivalFirstPickKimDeokbae >> (Headshot)(Down) MyEyesAreNot
“...Not the flare gun?”
[But look at that username though.]
“The naming sense is kinda flare-gun adjacent.”
[This has to be a sub-account of the flare gun guy. The name is hilarious.]
While the two of them were exchanging bewildered comments, the downed man suddenly saw the Crazy Shot approaching from behind his teammate who was coming to revive him. The smoke hadn’t been for escape—it had been to set up the kill angle.
“Behind you! Behind!!”
Bang!
FireworksFestivalFirstPickKimDeokbae >> (Headshot)(Down) SoloYa
The teammate who had rushed over without even filling his shield paid the price and went down. The last surviving teammate had at least filled his shield, so he immediately charged the enemy the moment they started reloading. But—
Bang!
Once again, a single shot completely destroyed his max-level shield. Before he could even be shocked by the absurd accuracy, a sticky grenade flew in right after.
The lone survivor let out a short scream and exploded.
FireworksFestivalFirstPickKimDeokbae >> (Sticky Grenade)(Down) MarblingBeef
FireworksFestivalFirstPickKimDeokbae >> (Kill) MyEyesAreNot
FireworksFestivalFirstPickKimDeokbae >> (Kill) SoloYa
FireworksFestivalFirstPickKimDeokbae >> (Kill) MarblingBeef
In the blink of an eye, the entire three-man party was wiped out. Game over. They ended up placing 15th out of 30 teams—an awkward middle-of-the-pack finish.
“What the hell was that?”
Up until that point, they had all just accepted it. Even though there was MMR, casual games mixed players from every tier, so getting stomped by some mysterious high-skill player was common enough.
But if a voice suddenly came from the opponent who had just destroyed them—
And if that voice sounded like an adorable little girl—
[Boss, I’ll save you!]
[………da.]
[Sigh, what kind of trash gear is this? How are you supposed to protect Jangpanpa like that?]
[………not!!]
That kind of experience was bound to remain a shocking memory for a very, very long time.