213. Someone More Sincere Than Anyone
213. Someone More Sincere Than Anyone
***
After logging out of Another World, Serin simply sat there, dazed.
All the fatigue she'd accumulated felt doubled, pressing down on her entire body.
She didn't want to lift a finger, and her body was crying out with hunger to match.
"..."
Serin leaned back inside the capsule for only a moment.
BaTalk! BaTalk!
At the sound of BaTalk notifications, Serin's head turned toward the PC where her smartphone sat.
"Seriously, so busy..."
Feeling like the world wouldn't leave her alone for even a second, she forced herself up.
Maybe because of the deep fatigue, even taking a few steps made her whole body feel heavy, like waterlogged cotton.
Click.
Picking up her smartphone, she dropped into the yarn chair in front of the PC, the stream now off.
The moment she opened BaTalk, she saw a flood of messages.
'I definitely checked these.'
She had definitely checked BaTalk once before starting the stream, but somehow over a hundred messages had piled up again. What on earth was going on?
"Seriously. Why did everyone send so many messages?"
She started with the RinTube group chat at the top. The editors must have been watching the stream too, because there was a lot of talk about it.
Kim Hayoon.
[Soyul! Rin's stream really did end, right?]
Park Soyul.
[It ended for me too. A bug? A stream error? Anyway, it cut out at such an important moment, but Rin seems too focused on Another World to know... Ah, seriously!! Do you think Rin recorded it!?]
Kim Hayoon.
[I doubt it. But anyway, Soyul! I don't know much about Another World, but Rin's stream did really well today, right? The viewer reactions seemed great too.]
Park Soyul.
[Of course it was huge! The content itself is something anyone who plays Another World would absolutely have to watch. Ugh, seriously! I'm still working on the Jeanne d'Arc collab, and now Rin's throwing more NewTube material at us mid-project. What are we supposed to do, honestly!]
Kim Hayoon.
[If Rin could at least briefly tell us the ending or what happened, I think we could work with it somehow.]
Park Soyul.
[Ah, Hayoon, then I think it'd be totally fine to start working on the earlier parts. Even just the final battle with the Grim Reaper is enough material.]
......
Mostly, the messages were about how disappointing it was that the stream hadn't come back on, and toward the end, several of them were excited about the RinTube content potential. At the very end, there were a few messages asking her to tell them the result.
Me.
[I'm tired right now, so I'll tell you the result on tomorrow's stream.]
But for now, I put off answering.
Most of the people who'd contacted her seemed curious about today's Cave of Trials result. But she was too exhausted to explain it to each of them individually, and she'd have to explain it to viewers tomorrow anyway.
If that was the case, it made more sense to just explain it all at once on stream.
"Anyway. I should record every stream from now on."
She'd only recorded the G1 scrim last time and hadn't bothered since, but seeing the editors' disappointment and considering situations like this where the stream suddenly cut out, she figured she should start recording.
She wanted to keep Cheon Ryuhwa's Descent state hidden, but she also felt a strong regret that things like Daji's final appearance would have been so much better if the viewers could have seen it.
After leaving the RinTube group chat, she immediately saw messages from Seoyun.
Seoyun.
[Sis, why did your stream suddenly turn off??]
Seoyun.
[Answer me when you see this? I'm curious about the result too!]
The moment I saw Seoyun's messages, a huge wave of relief washed over me.
"Seriously, thank god the stream cut out."
Cheon Ryuhwa acting and speaking through my body—if that had gone out on stream... and if Seoyun had seen it... I didn't even want to imagine it.
Seoyun seemed to have been watching the stream too. Just imagining what I would have had to explain to her gave me a headache, even though it was only hypothetical.
'I should avoid using Dance of the Heaven-Filling Slaughtering Ghosts in Divine Blood state unless absolutely necessary.'
The fact that the Heavenly Demon Cheon Ryuhwa's soul was still connected to her was definitely a major gain.
It proved that the world of Black Ark wasn't just fiction, a game world, or some illusion that didn't exist.
However, if ordinary viewers or people she knew found out, there were far too many things that would be hard to explain in words.
Could I really have brushed off the sight of Cheon Ryuhwa descending into my body as just part of a game skill? No, most people probably wouldn't understand.
And if not that, I would have had to claim I was acting as another version of myself—something like that.
When her thoughts reached that point, Serin immediately shook her head hard.
"They'd think I have dissociative identity disorder or something."
She muttered blankly and sent a reply to Seoyun for now.
Me.
[I'll explain on tomorrow's stream. Too many people are messaging me, so it's hard to explain to everyone individually.]
As soon as she tried to brush it off, BaTalk rang.
BaTalk!
Seoyun.
[Sis, are you really going to reply to me like that? That's so mean. Ugh, fine, just tell me the result at least. I want to hear that you won.]
When she replied that she'd won, she saw Seoyun send an emoticon.
Along with saying the stream was fun, Seoyun said she was going to eat dinner.
Once even the chat with Seoyun ended, she saw an absurd number of messages from Sua.
Sua had sent roughly as many messages as everyone else combined. What on earth was going on?
After entering Sua's chat, Serin could only blink blankly.
Yoon Sua.
[Your stream turned off!!!!!]
Yoon Sua.
[Ah, please... seriously... turn the stream back on. I feel like I'm going insane...]
Yoon Sua.
[When you see this, reply—no, call me. You know, right? I really need to hear the result directly from you. My head is so blank right now, I can't think about anything. Please... just turn the stream back on.]
Reading from the unread messages, the content was ominous from the very start.
Sua had clearly been watching my stream—and the fact that she'd even put her own stream on hiatus to watch it left me momentarily speechless.
As she kept reading through Sua's messages, Serin couldn't help but feel Sua's 'sincerity.'
The way Sua had sent dozens of messages, practically begging to know the result, was so earnest it was almost heartbreaking.
"Seriously... I'm tired."
Honestly, she wasn't in the mood to talk on the phone with anyone right now.
She was tired enough that she just wanted to fill her stomach with good food and go straight to sleep.
But after seeing these dozens of frantic messages, she couldn't bring herself to reply to Sua with 'I'll tell you on tomorrow's stream.'
"If I really reply like that, it feels like she might actually cause a scene."
Muttering blankly, she ended up calling Sua.
@#$...
The ringtone barely sounded once before the call connected.
—Serin!!
At Sua's extremely loud voice, Serin pulled the phone slightly away from her ear and parted her lips.
"...I saw your messages and called."
—Seriously, why did your stream turn off? It cut out so suddenly, I was shocked. And at such an important moment, too. Seriously...!
Sua's voice poured out words like she'd been dying to talk, and the disappointment was palpable.
"Right...? I don't really know why it turned off either. Probably a stream error? Something like that."
She genuinely didn't know the exact reason. She just felt relieved that it had cut out.
—Is that so? tweetie's server management is honestly pretty sloppy. Oh, and Serin! Do you know the community's completely blown up since your stream ended? I was going crazy wondering about the result too. You should've turned the stream back on, even late.
Listening to Sua, Serin could feel that the aftermath of the sudden stream cutoff was bigger than she'd thought.
"Really...? Honestly, I only realized the stream had cut out after everything was over. I was too tired to think about turning it back on."
—Ah, I think I get what you mean. The Cave of Trials is really exhausting, right? And on top of that, the difficulty you went through was abnormally high.
Sua spoke as if sympathizing, and I wondered if Sua also thought the difficulty was high. Then I got straight to the point.
"Sua, so you're curious about the result right now, right?"
She planned to just quickly tell her the result and hang up because of the fatigue.
—Yes. I'm so, so curious! Oh, right, you haven't eaten dinner yet, have you? Do you want to meet up now? Just hearing the result won't be enough for me. If you won, I want to hear how you won; if you lost, how you lost—the details. You have no idea how anxious I've been since your stream cut out, do you?
At Sua's rapid-fire confession, Serin wore an indescribably complicated expression.
She'd meant to just give the result and hang up, but now Sua was asking to meet in person.
After a brief moment of that complicated expression, Serin finally parted her lips.
"I streamed early, so I haven't eaten yet. Hey, Sua? Honestly, I'm pretty tired right now."
—Right. You must be really tired...? Ah, then! How about I buy some good food and come over to your place?
At Sua's insistence on hearing it no matter what, Serin let out an involuntary laugh.
"Sua... do you really want to hear it that badly?"
—I... I know I'm being a huge bother. But I really don't think I can wait. If I don't hear how it ended in detail, I won't be able to sleep. I'll just be agonizing over it all day by myself.
At Sua's completely unfiltered honesty, Serin decided to just accept it.
How could she refuse when Sua was begging so openly and sincerely?
"Okay, fine. Then I'll look forward to the good food?"
—Don't worry! I'll bring food you'll be satisfied with, and even wine!
Sua's voice was bright with excitement, like a child unable to hide her joy. Serin smiled softly, but at the end—
"Why would you even buy wine..."
Click.
Just as she was about to refuse the wine, the call suddenly ended.
"..."
Serin stared blankly at the disconnected phone for a moment, then let out a hollow laugh and sank back into the chair.
In her deep fatigue, she blankly closed the tweetie site where the stream had ended.
Come to think of it, if she opened a delivery app for dinner, she'd spend over 30 minutes just deciding what to eat, and considering the delivery time, eating dinner with Sua wasn't really that much different.
She felt like browsing the communities that had supposedly gone crazy until Sua arrived.
"How crazy could it really be?"