Gotta Do What Gotta Do
The Pokémon lecture stream I'd prepared with such ambition had been utterly annihilated by some deranged chicken-pigeon hybrid of pure insanity, and in the end, just as Lee Yebin said, we had no choice but to scramble for a new stream concept.
So what did we scramble to switch to?
"Just teach me Endless instead."
"Endless?"
"Yeah. You're good at it."
Endless — short for Endless Return, a game where three players form a team and try to survive on an island.
What set it apart was that it was a domestic title, and that it quietly nailed that anime-otaku vibe so well that pretty much every streamer dabbled in it at least once.
Lee Yebin was no exception. She'd tried Endless Return once and it had become one of the games she quietly put real effort into.
As for her skill level — I'll stop there. I don't even feel it's worth putting into words.
For the record, I still sit inside the top 0.1%. I hit Grandmaster in Battle Royale games, so of course I'd at least reach the highest tier in Endless Return too.
"What character do you play in Endless again?"
"Me? Sisely."
Ah. So she played Sisely.
"Why?"
"She's pretty."
Sisely, yeah — she was pretty. Sure. Not that this game had many female characters who weren't pretty to begin with.
"Not a bad pick. Her kit's well-balanced, and if you play her perfectly she barely has any weaknesses."
"Right?"
"So then why is your tier like that."
Hearing that, Lee Yebin delivered a true masterclass in answering a dumb question with a brilliant answer.
"My tier's like this, which is exactly why I'm asking you for coaching."
"Oh, did you go to Harvard? Ah — my apologies, everyone at Harvard. I nearly tarnished the institution's good name just now."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean."
"Exactly what it sounds like."
"Do you seriously want to die?"
I ignored Yebin's needling and just said what I needed to say.
"Wouldn't it be better to play a different character, though?"
"A different character? Why?"
"Because she's hard."
Sisely was a genuinely difficult character.
The one actually dealing the damage was a ghost she controlled, so you had to constantly track both your own position and the ghost's. She also had no mobility skill, which left her surprisingly vulnerable to bruisers and assassins.
If you played her perfectly, you could pressure endlessly with her range and never let anyone close the gap — but if Yebin could already do that, she wouldn't be asking me for help.
"I still want to play Sisely, though."
"You have no dash, so assassins just eat you alive every game."
"You think I wouldn't get eaten alive even if I did play a character with a dash?"
What was this. Suddenly Lee Yebin had become the incarnation of self-awareness.
"Why are you so good at being objective all of a sudden. You're not actually Vini, are you."
"There you go with that nonsense again. So are you going to help me or not."
"Hmm… first let's spectate you once. I've never actually watched you play Endless."
"Then how do you know my Endless tier?"
"I don't. But there's no way it's high."
"I genuinely want to murder you, you damn dodo bird."
Hearing Lee Yebin's fury only improved my mood. Why was that? Needling Yebin made me feel like my lifespan was stretching out.
"Anyway, just let me spectate one game. I need to see how you play before I can give feedback."
"Oki."
At that, Lee Yebin immediately queued into a solo game of Endless Return.
While she did, I quietly pinged one of the people from the Gyeoljagye and slipped into spectator mode.
And then…
"Hey, Vini."
"What."
"You should just quit Endless Return."
She had forced pure, unfiltered criticism out of me. Truly. Honestly.
"Why are you picking a fight out of nowhere again, what the hell."
Yebin's fury was unmistakable in her retort, but I still had things that needed saying.
"You're a poke damage dealer. So why are you sitting in the backline."
"I'm a poke damage dealer, so of course I'm in the back, are you brain-dead?"
"No — you have to sit forward and keep harassing them so they can't even approach. If you're the one hanging back, they just walk right up."
"If I'm in front it's even easier for them to jump me."
"Are your invulnerability skill and your teammates just decoration?"
At that, Lee Yebin clamped her mouth shut, and I immediately launched into a continuous barrage of pure criticism.
"You don't even deserve to play a long-range damage dealer. A poke damage dealer is supposed to deliberately step up and hit people, and only fall back when they start walking at you. That's literally the whole job of a poke damage dealer."
"Okay, then what am I supposed to do."
She seemed to agree with me at least a little, because she bent her pride just enough to ask.
What was she supposed to do? Obviously…
"You learn spacing even if it means taking hits."
She needed to get beaten up.
Of course, if she only got beaten up, she might quit Endless Return altogether even though she used to enjoy it, so I brought in a special guest instructor.
"Hey, can we invite one more person into this Discord call right now?"
"Who."
"Someone you know too."
"That could be a ton of people, that's why I'm asking."
"I'm calling them first."
I lightly ignored whatever Lee Yebin was saying and invited the person. And that person was…
"Hello~ It's Elia~"
"Elia…?"
Elia.
Among the people Lee Yebin and I both knew, she was without a doubt the best Endless Return player.
She was also a Vtuber tied into the Gyeoljagye with us.
"But is it okay for me to join when you two are on a date?"
"It's fine. It's written as a date but read as teaching a brain-dead student."
"What did you just say."
"Teaching brain-dead Vini."
"Do you seriously want to die. And a second ago it was just 'student.' Why'd that change."
"Because you're so brain-dead someone might not realize the student in question is you."
"That's it. You're actually dying today."
"Kyaaah!"
Calling Elia over and then doing our usual back-and-forth in front of her was a little much, but this was something Elia just had to put up with to a degree.
Saying this might make me sound full of myself, but right now Yebin and I were an extremely hot topic on the Ppeonchi platform.
Thanks to a "hate-watch virtual marriage" concept no one had ever seen before, plus the fact that we really had been childhood friends, we were famous as the virtual marriage couple you had to invite first if you ever got the chance to collab.
Getting to collab with us? Even if she just spectated our banter from the side and reacted at the right moments, the viewers would love it. Definitely.
And sure enough.
"Ugh, PDA already… Maybe I should just eat all the gacha items myself."
See? She was already like that.
"That wouldn't be the worst thing, but since we're here to teach Vini the game, please go a little easy on the gacha items."
"Okaaay~"
With that from Elia, I sent friend requests to both her and Lee Yebin and invited them right away.
Time to queue a game. Time to teach.
Just how brain-dead Vini actually played.
Once the game started, I immediately kept real-time track of Lee Yebin's position while I farmed.
The reason was obvious — the second my own farming was done, I was going to rotate straight to her.
When I finally finished farming and checked her side…
"Yaaaaaah! Help me! Help me! Help meeeeeee!!!"
Lee Yebin was already surrounded by two people and dying.
For the record, the character I'd picked — Estil — did have an ultimate that let me join a teammate from any distance…
But even if I went, she was dead. If I flew in, I'd probably just die with her.
In the end, there was only one thing left for me to say.
"Hey, Vini."
"What! What now!"
"Drown clutching your ideals."
"You insane bastard."
— Beep!
With those words, Lee Yebin died, and I offered a little comfort.
"Did we get her?"
"I'm not dead, you bastard!"
"Weird. I definitely finished her."
"Finished what!!!"
With that furious shout, Lee Yebin respawned, and Yebin, Elia, and I started moving as a group.
Then came a Day 2 teamfight.
Chaos broke out in every direction, and of course the one in the most danger was Lee Yebin. Unlike Lady Elia, who was calmly dodging every skill, this one had no movement options.
"Kyaaaaah! Help me! Get them off meeeee!!!"
At that, I immediately raised my shield and charged in front of her.
— Wham!
I shoved the enemy back, then without missing a beat landed a stun, applied a slow — everything I could do at full effort.
And yet.
— Rumble! KRA-BOOM! Crack! Slash! Shhk! Crack! BOOM!!
Lee Yebin stood there like an idiot and got deleted in an instant by the enemy assassin's combo.
"What, what!! Why am I dying! Why am I dyiiiiing!"
"That damn dual-blade guaranteed-crit long-range auto-attack man…! So you've obtained independent walking ability!"
"What the hell does that even mean, you weeb!"
"If you don't even know that, just stop playing Endless."
We were still trading banter, but the fight itself was basically over.
Why?
— Ratatatatat! Click! Bang! Fwoom! FWOOM!!
Because Lady Elia-nim-nim-nim beside me was killing everyone.
In the end Elia wiped them all out and we took the fight…
"Heal me a little…!"
Lee Yebin was wriggling her way toward me across the ground.
Aww. So cute. Our little Yebin. Crawling over all wriggly like that — did you want to live that badly?
But you know…
"Hey there, Vini-Vini."
"What…!"
"Do I really need to heal you?"
"……What kind of insane thing are you saying."
"Equivalent exchange! I'll sacrifice your life — so tell me every enemy's position!"
It was currently Day 2 of in-game time, and on Day 2 you got a free revive if you died.
As a bonus, when you respawned you could see exactly how many people were in every zone.
"You absolute bastard…!"
"This is optimal play. So hurry up and die."
And so Lee Yebin died exactly as I told her to, fed us the location intel, and respawned.
Yeah. This was the right call. Mm-hmm.
……Of course, I may have tormented her a little too much, so now I had to do some proper cooing and fussing over her.
Otherwise she'd sulk.