Is It My Fault This Time Too?
Even after the information that my tier mark wouldn't change right away, I stared blankly at the game result screen for a while.
Then I let out a long sigh in front of the viewers.
“Yeah, well, I won, so that’s basically it, right?”
Honestly, my current feelings were neither thrilled nor proud.
It was that unfamiliar bewilderment of this actually working and the sense of accomplishment that I had pulled it off, far more than any genuine emotion.
……No, maybe it was just that the reality hadn’t fully hit me yet.
Only the score had gone up; the tier hadn’t changed.
So nothing had actually shifted yet, and it was perfectly possible no one would even notice.
And there was just the tiniest flicker of unease.
What if the actual Grandmaster cutoff had risen?
But my viewers were already turning my worries into something concrete.
“Right. Just because other people are playing doesn’t mean they’re staying at this score. Of course there will be people who drop, but there will also be people who climb.”
First I looked up the Grandmaster tier cutoff.
My current score was basically hanging on by a thread.
The lowest Grandmaster player right now sat at 402 points.
Of course there were people who hadn’t even searched their records yet, but anyone serious enough to reach this point would check their own stats or have someone else check for them—fans or anti-fans.
Fans would definitely look and think, Yeah, this friend made it how far?
Anti-fans would think, This kid was messing up our games, let’s see where he ended up.
Honestly, not much difference.
Still, the anti-fan version usually has a stronger desire for them to fall, so it’s genuinely different.
Anyway, that was why I could trust the information.
And because Grandmaster was a ranking system, the viewers were right.
Drop below that score and you’d get demoted straight to Master, of course.
If more people were climbing than falling, or if the current Grandmasters were all gaining points, then I would slide right back down.
“Hmm… the higher the rank, the less you gain from winning and the more you lose from losing, so maintaining 50% win rate probably isn’t enough….”
If I looked at it optimistically, League of Champions always had winners and losers.
Five out of ten would gain points, five would lose them.
So on average, more people might end up dropping, right?
But reality wasn’t that simple.
Even I, who was seeing this score for the first time, knew the cutoff called the Grandmaster cut was creeping upward toward the end of the season.
People who had already passed this stage with high win rates were way ahead.
Right behind me, others were closing in with high win rates.
I wasn’t at the front of the race or even in the middle.
I was at the very tail end.
If I hung back here, the people charging hard behind me would lap me and launch me straight out of the arena.
If I’d just been plain old Noel, I would’ve thought this was incredible and kept playing without a second thought.
Already playing League of Champions all day, it felt a little guilty calling myself a normal person, but objectively, reaching this score as an amateur was pretty impressive.
But right now I was a pro gamer with a goal in mind.
I couldn’t stay satisfied here.
I had to raise the score, not just hold it.
That was how my value would go up.
In other words, horse on a tiger’s back—you can’t dismount.
I could tell I’d been a little deflated.
But the viewers cheering me on with donations made my heavy heart feel lighter for a moment.
Yeah, I’d been doing well so far.
If I kept it up like this, maybe I could manage.
Still, there was one small catch.
“Um, thank you for the donations, but I just ate breakfast so my stomach is still full…… Can I have something to eat tomorrow instead?”
“Ah, my stomach is small. If I eat too much I feel like I’ll throw up. I’ve been eating more lately, but I still find two meals tough.”
I had already eaten breakfast.
And I’d eaten way more than usual.
Rice, fried eggs, and all the sides.
Even though the calories were high, the volume was small, but the rice itself took up space and gave extra fullness, so my stomach was still full.
The one time my stomach felt the most comfortable was when it was just a little empty.
Honestly, I still felt a little uncomfortable right now.
I wished there was cola, but I’d already drunk all the ones I had after pizza and chicken.
Because of that, the viewers started talking about Celesty’s story.
Since I was friends with Jaemin, I was glad his name came up, but hearing another streamer mentioned during a stream wasn’t exactly good.
To prepare for possible drama, I quietly changed the subject.
The world wasn’t kind to a man visiting a woman’s house alone.
Even though the viewers knew Jaemin was a woman, they still joked about him being a guy.
If a stranger heard that, they’d think it was true.
“Anyway, I’ll eat something tomorrow instead…… Um, I have a health check-up next week, so how about just one drink tomorrow? That’s actually within your permission, right?”
“Ah, that’s a bit much.”
Was he saying he didn’t like drinking that much?
Yeah, of course alcohol wasn’t good for health.
Everyone was joking out of a good place, but this was making me feel a little sharp.
So I just queued up the next match.
“You said it yourself. If you hit the GM cutoff you can’t drink. So wouldn’t it be easier to just settle for the safe zone and drink for sure?”
The worry I’d been carrying was the same one I’d been carrying behind me from the other Master players.
The solution was simple.
Just stop being a tightrope score.
Of course my hands were shaking right now.
What if I lost and dropped below Grandmaster?
But becoming a pro gamer wasn’t about being satisfied with just a GM cutoff.
I had to look beyond to Challenger.
Only then would I have the skill to enter tournaments…?
Thinking that way eased my mind.
And this way was probably better for the viewers too.
They’d come to watch my games, not for me to sit and chat idly.