Minor Streamer
My thoughts stalled for a moment at the appearance of a corporate giant.
When I checked the donation window, the donor’s nickname really was Luccia.
*Luccia-nim sent this to me? Why?*
Who was Luccia?
She was one of the top one or two streamers on Watch Korea, a true giant among giants. With stunning looks that had once landed her an idol trainee spot through street casting, sharp, breezy talk, and game skills that could go toe-to-toe with most men, she had more than 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube alone.
“Seriously, it really is Luccia-nim. What brings someone as honored as you to a humble little stream like mine? ...I’ll join Discord right away.”
Still confused about what was going on, I entered Discord through the invitation link Luccia-nim had sent me in a private message.
Looking at the names of the participants in the invited channel, I saw the Discord nicknames of a lot of major streamers. Why was I here, of all people? What in the world did she need from me?
I swallowed my questions and looked for Luccia-nim in the voice chat. Worried I might be late, I hurried into the chat room and turned on my mic.
“Ah, can you hear me?”
“Yes! I can hear you just fine! Sorry for bothering you while you’re streaming!”
“I know it was rude to interrupt, but I wanted to say something for just a moment. Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I was actually getting ready to take a break anyway, because I just lost my mind during a mission.”
“Before that, could I ask for your understanding first? This is part of an event hosted by Watch Korea right now.”
“Huh? Yes, that’s fine.”
Of course. There was no way a corporate giant like this would call me on Discord for no reason at all. At my answer, Luccia hesitated a little before continuing.
“In the middle of the event stream, a funding mission was added for a new feature that Watch is planning to introduce, and the mission is to win a squad match with random streamers.”
“Yes.”
Funding missions, one of the features coming in the next update, let multiple viewers pool money together and put a mission on a streamer.
Before, only one mission per person was possible, which led to a chaotic mess of identical missions stacking up, but Watch had apparently taken the feedback seriously and was adding funding missions as an extra feature.
“You were the last member selected in the random draw for that squad.”
“Huh? Really?”
It was hard to tell whether this was a dream or reality. A squad game with two of the most famous streamers in FPS, and with the undisputed giant of Watch itself?
*This is at least good enough for YouTube.*
“If you have time, would you be able to play a couple of squad matches with us?”
“Of course. I just came out to lobby because I missed the win by a hair.”
“Then please send me your nickname and code through Watch private chat, and I’ll add you right away!”
I sent over my nickname and unique code to the chat window where the invitation link had come from, and a friend request arrived almost immediately. After accepting it and taking the party invite, a beautifully dressed character appeared right next to mine.
“Ah, just in case some people don’t know you, would you mind greeting the viewers for a moment?”
“Understood.”
Come to think of it, maybe because people had been calling me by titles like host lately, introducing my nickname felt a little embarrassing. It reminded me of when I first turned on the stream and tried to greet everyone, so I felt a little shy, but I still opened my mouth to announce myself.
“Hello to all the viewers watching the Watch event stream! I’m Hazy, the guy from that two-win chicken video you may have seen in Shorts at least once. Nice to meet you!”
In my chat, everyone was laughing, saying my voice was shaking. Then I realized I had greeted the event stream viewers, but the event chat itself wasn’t even open, so I pulled up the event broadcast on the second computer.
I had been a little afraid that people would react with things like, “Who the hell is this nobody?” or “Bring in another big streamer already,” but fortunately that didn’t happen. Most of the viewers seemed welcoming, which actually put me at ease.
Then, when a few comments about the mission money suddenly appeared in the event chat, I looked over at the broadcast screen.
On the mission board, there was one mission sitting alone at the top: the win mission. And the amount was...
One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten-thousand... ten million? The first digit was 2, and the unit was ten million?
“Thank you for the introduction! The mission we’re doing together is the squad win mission you all placed.”
The mission money was a staggering 20 million won.
After I checked the amount, I couldn’t hear anything else. Obviously, this wasn’t something that happened every day, but even so, the scale itself hit me hard.
I figured it was probably a number built from a mixture of different things: an event broadcast run by the platform, the firepower of the platform’s most famous streamer fan club, and maybe donations from sponsor groups and the like...
No, there was no need to think about the details. I was just jealous. I knew better than anyone that they weren’t earning that amount every day, and I was still jealous anyway.
“If the mission is cleared, 5 million won will be split among the three of us excluding me, and the remaining 5 million won will go to one person chosen by MVP vote from all four of us!”
At Luccia’s words, the speed of the event chat started exploding. Not only Luccia’s fans but random passersby had come in too, apparently shocked by the sheer amount.
My own chat was actually telling me not to get in the way of the three of them, and instead just carry the ammo and health items they needed and resupply them.
That’s a good idea. Let’s do that right away.
“Hello. I’m Yoon Red, a former pro and current streamer.”
“Hello! I’m Yoon Red-hyung’s slave, Killer Sniper.”
Red, is that really all right?
I’m supposed to be a daily slave because I lost the bet today.
After a short self-introduction from the two people who had joined not long after, a little talk time followed. It seemed they’d played a bet game before coming in, and Yoon Red had won by the narrowest of margins, which apparently made him the day’s temporary master.
“I’m honestly a huge fan of both of you. The day I started Battle Sky, I shut off my stream and watched your videos while practicing my aim like crazy.”
“Oh! I saw your two-win chicken video.”
“Wow, I saw the Short that went viral, and I was nervous on your behalf the whole time while you were chasing that guy.”
While I was talking with the two people who had helped me the most in settling into Battle Sky, Luccia finally opened her mouth, as if it was time to actually start the game.
“Okay, okay, you should probably head off to do the mission now, right?”
“Ah, right. Let’s go.”
The start went smoothly. Everyone landed in the same place, but while I looted a little, the other three cleaned up everyone else.
“Footsteps on the first floor.”
“Got one! Person behind the wall in front of Red-nim!”
“Got it!”
With a wild burst of gunfire, the kill log stacked up one after another, and before I knew it, the in-game sound had fallen silent.
“Three teams landed here, you know?”
“Ah, as soon as one guy dropped, they got in a car and ran.”
“...This bus ride really is smooth.”
My words sent the other three into laughter through my earphones. I meant it, though. Was there really a squad with better ride quality than this one? I didn’t think so.
“There’s a level 3 backpack here.”
“Oh, thanks!”
After some time, everyone finished looting, found a car, and started driving into the shrinking play zone.
“Then we should take the ridge, right?”
“Or maybe we should just take an inside position... no, maybe taking the ridge is better?”
“Then let’s take position on the ridge and decide after seeing how the zone closes?”
There was one big problem, though.
“Professors... you’re moving way too fast for me...”
At my words, all three of them burst out laughing again. I’m serious, you’re moving too fast. How are you all drawing the whole map out like that just by glancing at it?
Maybe realizing they’d gotten ahead of themselves, Red explained it to me.
“If we take the ridge, it’s basically the same as getting natural cover, right? And the back side of that ridge is the edge of the zone anyway, so nobody should be coming from behind.”
“So we hide behind the ridge like a barricade, then watch where the zone closes and move accordingly?”
“That’s right! You catch on fast. Hazy, I think you’d be pretty good if you just polished up the basics a little.”
Bang!
“Huh?”
A single gunshot rang out from far away, followed by a death cry through the speaker. And Red, who had been in the same vehicle with us, dropped out of the car.
“Whoa, they hit that?”
“A car behind us! Two of them are coming? Just leave me and take the ridge.”
The moment he finished speaking, the kill log showed that he’d been run over for the confirmed kill. If you died like that, it would feel so unfair.
But Red continued giving orders as if this was all normal.
“Looks like we can keep taking the ridge from the way the zone’s closing.”
“We should probably check this once more?”
“Two people at 135.”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bang!
The moment he spoke, gunfire erupted from the side.
Two confirmed kills appeared in the log almost instantly.
There were 14 people left.
The zone was still wide, but it looked like a lot of people had died while fighting after landing in good looting spots.
“I can hear gunfire from far away. Over there...”
One person, then two... with the shots ringing out one after another, the kill log kept popping up.
“Ah, that’s a hacker.”
“Wasn’t the ID that was sniping you like that one too?”
“Yeah.”
Red answered Killer Sniper’s question. Looking at the log, the name was shangdi in English letters.
“What’s that in Chinese?”
“Shangdi? What, is he a One Piece fan or something?”
“Hey, he’s coming.”
After the hacker racked up an absurd number of kills, there were only 4 people left. The fact that he was openly coming straight at us, trying to kill all three of us alone, made it impossible to think he wasn’t cheating.
“Can you take him?”
“We have to try.”
Bang!
“Whoa, insane.”
The name in the kill log wasn’t the hacker’s.
It was Killer Sniper’s.
“He’s definitely a hacker. The moment he saw me, he shifted positions and fired.”
“At this point, the only way is for the two of us to blow up the car together.”
There was almost no way to stop the hacker, who was already practically in front of us, except by destroying the vehicle.
“Si-a, do you have a potato?”
“I’ve got one.”
“Hand it over.”
Just as the hacker got caught on a rock for a moment and tried to circle around, I took the grenade from her.
I heard the click as the pin was pulled. Everyone watching this stream right now, the three streamers, and even that hacker had no idea what I was about to do.
I started running forward with the grenade pin pulled. Counting the seconds in my head, I crested the hill and saw a car slowing directly in front of me, along with the hacker who had just gotten out of it.
“Die!”
I jumped from the slope toward the hacker, and my character died in midair.
And then, boom!
The grenade I’d been carrying exploded when my character died, taking the hacker with it.
It wasn’t really how it worked in real life, but in the game, if you pulled a grenade without throwing it, it would blow up after a set amount of time. I’d used that to turn myself into a suicide bomb.
With the speakers falling silent behind me, I looked at the single line of congratulations that appeared on the screen to celebrate the win and muttered one word.
“Carry.”