Mutual Destruction of Confirmation
The cafe was buzzing with the usual energy, but then someone clicked on a photo and the whole thing exploded.
“No way, this is the fan cafe! You can’t just post that kind of picture right in front of everyone like this…”
Tti-hwak-jjit chuckled. “Hahaha the sunglasses are straight-up picked up from somewhere, lol.”
Silver Pantheon chuckled too. “I see them everywhere in Daily Pig and Living South.”
WHWeat’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Watching Noeul laugh like this makes me feel so touched…”
NVOD laughed out loud. “What’s the main screen background, hahaha.”
VMPF joined in. “Hold on, my brain just froze, but watching Noeul laugh makes me feel like I can laugh too, lol.”
Honestly, the joke was all in good fun with my face.
If I was upset, well, I could’ve been in a worse situation.
But it was hilarious.
I was just sitting normally at my desk, nothing fancy.
Yet one pair of sunglasses on and suddenly my expression was pure comedy gold.
That’s why I ended up laughing, and the viewers who had hesitated for a second at first started joining in too.
Honestly, no matter who wears those sunglasses, the way my eyes are narrowed is just ridiculous, isn’t it?
Tti-hwak-jjit kept going. “But Noeul, are you okay with this? Hahaha, it turned into the perfect gag photo.”
Silver Pantheon added, “I tried composing it just to make you laugh, hahaha. Mod, if you’re feeling bad, post another one instead.”
Noeul’s Attacker replied, “Noeul put on sunglasses because she has no confidence in her eyes, right?”
Silver Pantheon confirmed, “Yeah, that’s exactly what happened.”
Even so, there were viewers who kept checking with me one more time.
But I was already moved by what someone had said.
“I’m fine. Actually, it’s a good thing. Since people get uncomfortable when they see my eyes, you guys are helping me out by putting on the sunglasses. I’m grateful. It’s better for everyone to leave smiling than to come into the fan cafe, see my photo, and leave feeling bad.”
Tti-hwak-jjit said, “Still, Noeul’s eye beauty is too good to make yourself look that self-deprecating.”
Silver Pantheon agreed. “Exactly… Mod, don’t be so hard on yourself… You’re a Miss Korea to us!”
MissingBnB laughed. “Miss Korea is way too exaggerated, lol. We should be talking about Kim Tae-in or Jeon Young-hyun.”
HDVR0416 added, “Those grandpas are way too old-fashioned…”
There was a brief argument about the viewers’ ages, but honestly, since it was my stream and I always told people to keep the random gossip to a minimum, the topic died down fast.
The conversation shifted to how the fan cafe should actually be run.
“But it’s kind of tricky… I haven’t made any profit yet from streaming, so I don’t know what I can offer you guys by running a cafe. Once I become a professional player and have stable income, that would be different.”
Silver Pantheon said, “It’s all for fan service, lol. Just like the managers say.”
Tti-hwak-jjit agreed. “Yeah, right now Noeul’s doing it for fun too, and we’re just watching it as a hobby.”
GFE2047 clarified, “It’s not about profit. We just want to know how Noeul wants the fan cafe to run.”
“Oh, I see. Then I’ll just… do whatever you want? Honestly, I’ve never watched anyone else’s stream besides Jaemin’s. Maybe I can look at how others do it.”
Lecia Queen replied, “Streamer genres really vary a lot.”
Lecia Queen continued, “If it’s a pure game stream, you announce your schedule, your rank tier that day, and what you’ll play after the game ends, yeah.”
In Fangboon Daesu Fang said, “Around there it’s pretty similar, yeah. If you’re not League of Champions but another game, you just announce that too.”
Yeah, that made sense. Since it was a fan cafe, it wasn’t meant for me to be the main host. They should just post related notices.
The atmosphere was left to the viewers’ freedom.
“Um, I’ll leave the rest up to you guys. I don’t want to come across as too pushy and give you all these expectations.”
Silver Pantheon asked, “But aren’t there some vibes you’d like?”
GFE2047 added, “Yeah, we viewers want to know what kind of atmosphere we should have.”
“If I have to pick one… to avoid anyone getting angry and coming with a knife, let’s just talk to each other with kindness and live happily?”
Tti-hwak-jjit laughed. “What? Noeul’s mindset is so dark…”
Noeul’s Blanket Thief said, “But that’s true lol. Respect comes from fear, after all.”
M2HB quoted Richard Jordan Gately. “You were right, friend… mutual assured destruction can prevent war and tragedy.”
Borgle added, “Hahaha but a machine gun is still too weak for that…”
Lecia Queen laughed. “We should make nuclear deterrence!”
Green Day Bang Han Once said, “Yeah, politicians who send young people to the front lines should be terrified too lol.”
Yeah, people really think the same everywhere, even between parents and kids. When someone pisses me off, they hit me, and since it’s the same for strangers, it’s no different.
In real life, you can get stabbed with a knife if someone doesn’t like you.
We just have to assume everyone might have a knife in their heart.
If we just think, “Don’t mess with the other person, they’ll mess with me too,” maybe we could all live in peace.
Thinking about it, I wondered if Bae Deuro had come to mess with me because I seemed too harmless.
But the law is there to stop that.
To protect people who are physically weaker, it says, “If you treat me like trash, you’ll get some too.”
Honestly, it would be nice if we all thought about that cause and effect.
The reality is cold, though. We’re supposed to live in a world where everyone thinks that way, but it’s not really that simple.
“It might sound childish, but honestly, world peace sounds great. I hope wars only happen in games. I want to pack in a bunch of plot twists.”
Tti-hwak-jjit said, “Noeul wants world peace? Go offer it up.”
Nan Ayo said, “Peace is won with strength… Noeul really wants to conquer the world!”
KJH4822 asked, “Was this a challenge?”
Hell’O’World replied, “Don’t get hung up, you have to go, it’s a burden.”
Silver Pantheon said, “Row.”
Lecia Queen said, “Row.”
“Ahaha, what is that?”
As soon as the mood got even slightly heated, the viewers jumped in without hesitation.
Oh no, am I really getting addicted to internet streaming?
Of course, when I think about it, I’m up the whole time before streaming anyway, but that doesn’t mean my daily life is ruined.
I don’t skip meals or skip showers, so it’s not like an addiction.
Anyway, not that.
After they kept talking, the queue time had passed ten minutes.
At that point the ranked game matched.
[Team] Two-Headed Wolf: Is there a Jinx game on the server?
[Team] Four-Legged Chicken: Who was that?
[Team] Four-Legged Chicken: Was it Lilya?
[Team] Two-Headed Wolf: Yeah, fuck, Jinx is so strong lately that I can’t even beat it with Jax.
[Team] Two-Headed Wolf: Even if I don’t manage the lane, I just keep getting killed when I rotate.
[Team] Four-Legged Chicken: What did you do while the enemy jungler came to top three times?
[Team] Four-Legged Chicken: I got dragon stolen and didn’t even jungle better, hahaha, it’s just jungle difference and you’re pretending it’s politics.
[Team] Two-Headed Wolf: If that guy’s there I can’t win at all, gg.
And right at the start, the two teams started fighting for real.
Even though the anonymous system was introduced, there was still a trap: if they really wanted to settle old grudges, there was nothing stopping them.
Tti-hwak-jjit said, “Whoa, I waited twenty minutes for the match and the chat is already exploding hahaha.”
Silver Pantheon sighed. “Ah… that’s why I hate RioChamp lately, it’s all blood in the air…”
Blood in the Air laughed. “The blood that escaped has no paradise lol, it’s the same everywhere, just more bragging.”
Our Son Donkaseu said, “Um, Noeul’s games have been pretty clean so far hahaha, this is more like actual RioChamp.”
Noeul’s World Peace Thief replied, “Wow, even the heavenly realm fights like this…”
According to someone, this game was already doomed to lose.
Of course, even in a bad mood, if everyone just plays their role seriously, you can still win.
But these two were clearly out for revenge, so they were deliberately sabotaging the game.
They just needed to stop playing and their teammates could still win it, but to give each other losses, they picked champions that blocked growth and denied gold.
They followed the enemy and stole experience, and they took last hits on minions to stop gold income.
Since I didn’t want viewers to learn bad habits, I didn’t explain the champions, but with only two players having the strong early clear spell and not even being junglers, the viewers noticed right away.
Silver Pantheon said, “They’re feeding…”
Lecia Queen laughed. “This game is really chaotic hahaha.”
Deathly Tired said, “I had 500 points and now I’m getting a free loss, ugh.”
PWDS said, “There really is match-making fake news, right? When you have a long winning streak, they put in the players with bad records lately.”
SiGongJoA typed, “??? : I won? Then let’s bring that guy and win too? I won again? How did we win?”
SLV0031 laughed. “Hahaha I thought only this happened in champion queue, but RioChamp is like this too?”
If we had just sat there quietly, there would’ve been a chance.
Even a 4v5 game sometimes wins.
If we just kept dying, there were ways to turn it around too.
If the enemy team captured that one and got a bounty, we could steal it and get gold.
Or use them as bait by sacrificing them over and over.
But when two people are fully committed to throwing the game, there is no way to win.
According to the viewers, it was just a free loss.
Ah, I was in a good mood until now.
Thanks to this, I’m a little annoyed.
But honestly, it’s probably a good thing they started trolling in the ban-pick phase from the very beginning.
If they had waited until the game started, there would’ve been no escape.
I hope those guys learned a little about mutual assured destruction.
The simple fact that if you mess with someone else, they’ll mess with you.
Thanks to them showing their true colors early, I still had the choice.
First choice: I would try to end the game early with surrender votes.
If two people were full of revenge, they would keep voting against surrender and torture the three innocent teammates with me.
Second choice: just give up the game and take the penalty.
Compared to AFK penalty, the queue abandon penalty was lighter.
15 to 20 points for losing the game, but only 5 for just leaving, so it was better.
Of course, this wasn’t 100% guaranteed loss either.
There was a chance the enemy team had teammates trying to help them lose.
Like the two people on our team right now, people with old grudges.
But when I weighed the penalties and probabilities, I leaned toward surrendering.
So I waited for the game to start countdown, kept an eye out hoping someone would dodge, and at zero seconds I ended the game.
When I relaunched the League of Champions client, a warning popped up that I couldn’t queue ranked for the next six minutes because of a dodge penalty.
“Whew, no one dodged. Okay, I guess. Did everyone just hope someone else would do it? Waiting another six minutes is exhausting, though. Should we just play another game?”
Tti-hwak-jjit suggested, “Helden Ring DLC just came out, how about we try that? The main game is on sale too.”
Silver Pantheon said, “That’s too long of a playtime… maybe too much for a RioChamp streamer.”
I’m Not the One said, “How about Palworld? It’s an open-world monster taming game, easy to play lightly, and also a healing game, yeah.”
Lecia Queen said, “I would’ve just accepted it if someone else recommended it, but that name is weird…”
Viewers jumped in with recommendations exactly then.
It was also perfect because I didn’t want to queue during League of Champions match time.
And sometimes the time felt suspended, so I was a little worried.
But playing another game felt like a good idea.
“Really? Then let’s vote. Let’s try out the cafe feature this time.”
Since the viewers would recommend anyway, and I had no knowledge, I gave the choice to them.
1. Helden Ring, famous for being hard.
2. Palworld, a healing game.
3. Horror game.
4. Roguelike shooter.
No matter what we picked, I was ready to accept it humbly.