159. A Giant Gemstone in the Rough
159. A Giant Gemstone in the Rough
***
All I did was have lunch with Eunha, show her around my officetel, and talk, but three hours flew by in the blink of an eye.
4 p.m.
"The Saturday, August 21st stream is starting."
I pressed the 'Stream ON' button and recited the opening line that felt like it had become second nature by now.
Unlike usual, Eunha was right beside me, so saying the line was a little embarrassing, but I didn't let it show.
[lol hi!!]
[Rinnnn]
[weekend streams are the best!!]
[who's the collab guest?????]
[fr who is it, I was so curious I couldn't even sleep last night]
[when you say collab, do you mean an in-person collab? what kind of collab is it?]
[they said it was an Another World collab]
The moment the stream went live, I could see chat messages scrolling up faster than usual in the green-lit chat window.
Maybe because I'd been talking about the collab for the past few days, the viewers were all curious about it, and I quite liked that.
I could also feel Eunha beside me watching the stream screen with a fascinated expression.
"Oh, and since a lot of you seem curious about the collab, let me tell you first. It is an Another World collab, but it's an in-person collab. The guest is already sitting right next to me."
[wait, you're seeing Rin in person?]
[I'm more jealous of the guest lmaooo]
[who's the collab guest??]
[who could possibly be so amazing that Rin's been hyping them up for days?]
[fr I'm curious]
Eunha, who had been watching the chat, silently mouthed a question at me.
-Should I say hi?
I shook my head. Eunha's name carried too much weight to introduce her without any buildup.
-I'll give you a signal later.
After confirming Eunha's small nod, I spoke again.
"So today, we're going to skip Just Chatting and go straight into collab content with the guest. Honestly, she's too amazing to reveal her identity right away. As a small hint, she's one of the Another World pro gamers currently playing in the ACK League. And she's incredibly famous and incredibly skilled."
[a collab with a pro gamer?]
[oh?]
[ah, this is obviously G1 lololol]
[they did a scrim recently, and if you say it's a pro player doing a collab, that narrows it down lol]
[Kang Hyeok?]
[if it's G1, that's definitely worth saying, but which one?]
[I think it's Minseong, anyone who knows anything knows he watches streams a lot]
I couldn't help but laugh at the chat predicting a G1 player. From the viewers' perspective, it was probably only natural to think of G1 first.
After all, if you asked which pro gamer I had a connection with, it was G1, who I'd scrimmed with just this week.
"As an additional hint, she's not a G1 player. But she's someone you could say is just as famous as G1—no, actually even more famous."
I continued while looking at Eunha right beside me, and she was looking back at me with a slightly awkward expression.
[wait, not G1??]
[???]
[does Rin have connections with pro players other than G1?]
[who the hell is it]
[besides G1, what player is there that Rin would tell us to look forward to]
[isn't it TSJ?]
[if you say more famous and more skilled than G1, isn't it basically no one but Jeanne d'Arc?]
[Jeanne d'Arc isn't the type to appear on a stream, how would Rin even collab with her lmaooo]
[fr]
Most of the viewers still hadn't figured it out. I'd expected someone to mention Jeanne d'Arc right away, so it was a little surprising.
A few chat messages did mention Eunha, but even those viewers didn't seem confident.
Then one particular chat message made my gaze drift toward Eunha for no real reason.
—She's not the type to appear on a stream.
Eunha alone, just from her sponsored personal brand, was worth billions. On top of that, I'd heard her salary from TSJ was overwhelmingly high.
......
As I drew things out a little longer, the viewers in chat began mentioning Jeanne d'Arc with increasing frequency, though still uncertainly.
Honestly, I also felt awkward hyping up another person like this, which wasn't like me, but since I thought Eunha was worth it, I intended to build her up as much as possible.
[no but still... that doesn't make sense]
[really?]
[at this point, isn't it just Jeanne d'Arc?]
[nah lmaooo it's probably one of the TSJ players]
[then maybe Seola? Seola seems possible]
[isn't that too random?]
[stop dragging it out and reveal already!! Rin, are you doing Hana-style stream management right now?]
[this really reminds me of Hana dragging out a reveal for over an hour lmaooo]
The viewer count had already shot past ten thousand not long after the stream started. Then, once I felt the atmosphere had been built up enough, I looked at Eunha and spoke.
-Please introduce yourself now.
"..."
Eunha, who seemed to take a moment to steady her breathing, composed herself calmly and then parted her lips.
"...Hello?"
Eunha's voice, starting off with a careful tone, rang out loudly through the mic.
......
Immediately after, the chat window, which had been scrolling rapidly, suddenly stopped as if frozen, with no new messages appearing.
I knew exactly what kind of moment caused that phenomenon, so I thought, as expected.
[holy shit...]
[is that what I think it is?]
[wait, Eunha is appearing here...?]
[wait, this is Jeanne d'Arc, right?]
[look at how calm her voice is]
[no way lmaooo]
[is it really Jeanne d'Arc??????]
[does this even make sense?]
After that, the chat window stuttered as if overloaded by the flood of messages, repeatedly displaying bursts of chat before freezing again.
It was as if the image kept changing—chat messages weren't scrolling up one by one but dozens at once, then stopping, over and over.
"Rin, is this okay?"
I let out a small laugh at Eunha calling me "Rin" for the stream.
"It's fine. Eunha, would you like to introduce yourself?"
Since Eunha's real name was already publicly known, I simply called her by name.
Rather than introducing her myself, I figured from the explosive chat reaction that viewers would want to hear more of Eunha's voice.
"I'm a pro gamer currently with TSJ, nickname Jeanne d'Arc. My name is Yoo Eunha. Hello, everyone."
As Eunha naturally introduced herself, I immediately predicted the fallout wouldn't be small.
Whoosh. Whoosh!
The chat window, stuttering from the sudden surge of messages, looked bizarre in and of itself.
At first, there were messages saying it was hard to believe Eunha was real, but after her introduction, the chat overflowed with shock and admiration, and then outright messages saying they were fans of Eunha.
"The player joining today's collab is... Jeanne d'Arc, Yoo Eunha. And since it seems a bit difficult to continue the stream like this, I'm going to have to turn on slow mode. I hope you all understand."
I immediately turned on slow mode.
A system that imposes a three-minute delay between one chat message and the next.
The chat window, which had been flickering like dozens of images crossing over each other, slowed down, but it was still fast. Before continuing the stream, I carefully chose my words.
"And... one moment, everyone."
Eunha beside me was visibly flustered by the chat window, so I figured I needed to take the lead and steady things.
"I'll open the donation window once the chat calms down a bit. Honestly, even the chat alone seems too overheated right now, so I don't think I'd be able to react properly even if you donated."
Even as I spoke slowly, I had a gut feeling that today's stream wouldn't be as easy as I'd thought.
***
Internet broadcasting.
When it came to so-called "streaming," it had always been hard to say the overall image was positive. Compared to the image of streaming from ten years ago or even earlier, it had improved considerably, but there was still an implicit social stigma.
The idea that people who had risen to a certain position, or celebrities who received a certain level of treatment, didn't go near internet broadcasting.
Worried about damage to their image, they more often avoided appearing on platforms like internet broadcasts altogether.
......
Seong Jinwoo, the current head coach of TSJ, held such views. When Eunha suddenly said she wanted to appear on a personal stream, he wondered how he should talk her out of it.
The name Jeanne d'Arc, taken at face value, was just one pro gamer, but the reality was completely different.
She was responsible for the team's public image, and she objectively possessed an enormous number of fans both domestically and internationally.
She was like a superstar who effectively received more celebrity treatment than most actual celebrities.
Because she was the pro gamer who had actually realized the absurd notion—once dismissed as nothing more than a hypothesis—that a single pro gamer, neither a celebrity, singer, nor actor, could lead the Korean Wave.
Since TSJ's original meaning was "Team SJ Entertainment," entertainment was their main business, so the team never underestimated her value.
But after a conversation that went on for several minutes, the one who ended up persuaded wasn't Eunha—it was Jinwoo. In the end, he had no choice but to give up on convincing her.
......
TSJ headquarters, strategy lab.
With the playoffs right around the corner next week, this was an afternoon when the players and coaching staff would normally have been present, but for some reason, head coach Jinwoo and the TSJ coaching staff were gathered together.
Right now, they were ironically watching a single broadcast in the strategy lab.
On the hologram projected above the massive table was a stream with a black screen background.
[Collab with Jeanne d'Arc]
And it had a title that anyone who played Another World absolutely could not resist clicking.
As they watched the stream together, they exchanged small talk and shared their opinions in low voices. The stream itself wasn't as bad as they'd thought. Since what they'd worried about hadn't happened, they had even relaxed a little.
"Has any scout made contact with this Rin person yet?"
While watching the stream, Jinwoo suddenly spoke up toward the coaching staff.
—I think Rin's skill is at a fairly high level.
The reason Jinwoo brought it up was none other than that one remark Eunha had made on the stream they were watching, which had struck him as remarkable.
The Eunha Jinwoo knew was someone who didn't know the meaning of empty flattery.
She was a woman who always viewed situations objectively, and because of that, the number of people who had received praise from Eunha could be counted on one hand even among current pro players.
Her personality—always speaking as if she stood above other players—could even be seen as arrogant, but she proved everything with her actual results and displayed overwhelming skill in every match.
Her confidence, bordering on arrogance, had been proven in every single game, so by now it had actually become one of the charm points fans cited about Eunha.
"I heard our scouts did try to make contact, but each time they didn't get much of an answer."
When head coach Seongjae spoke with a vague expression, Jinwoo narrowed his eyes and fell into thought.
'That's a talent that makes no sense to waste on streaming.'
Jinwoo, who trusted Eunha's words, felt a deep sense of regret. Even while watching the stream, he felt as if a massive gemstone in the rough was shimmering right before his eyes.
If anyone could mine it first, it would be a golden opportunity—a fortune in an instant.
In Jinwoo's eyes, that was Rin.