45. You're Terrible at This
45. You're Terrible at This
***
"I have no idea what they're talking about."
In the Another World Colosseum, Sua was chatting with a user named Gosu about the pro league, but even while watching the stream, Serin couldn't understand most of what they were saying.
'Is that a famous team?'
They were clearly talking about a pro team, but since she'd never watched the ACK pro league in the first place, she couldn't make sense of it.
Her interest in the stream naturally faded.
Sluuurp.
She sucked cola through a straw while moving the mouse, leaving the stream window open and opening a new tab.
When she searched ACK, she found a lion-emblem logo with the distinct logos of ten teams displayed beneath it.
—I heard G1 is on a six-game win streak lately. What do you think, Gosu? Do you think G1's momentum will keep going?
And of the ten teams, the name she heard most often even now.
G1.
Currently third in the ACK League standings.
—I think the momentum will continue, but we'll have to wait and see. The first round is almost over.
She roughly picked up the rest of the conversation through Namu Wiki and searches, but it didn't really land for her.
She'd never seen how good pro teams or players actually were, so she just thought "I guess so" and listened to the back-and-forth like a radio.
—SS Team is 3 wins, 7 losses, so their record is......
Sua's voice drifted softly into my ears, but I turned to the community site I visited most often—
Another Level—and opened it to browse today's trending posts.
[Made a highlight video of Greatsword Dancer Rin in the Arena]
[Analysis of G1's six-game win streak]
[This isn't even the streamer gallery, and I'm fucking sick of Rin posts flooding the trending page. Upvote if you agree lolololololol]
[Upvote if you like talking about Rin lololololol]
[How likely do you think the ACK champion will win the international tournament starting this year?]
[Tried to recreate Rin's character customization, rate it]
Seeing multiple posts about herself among the trending topics, Serin was curious about the reactions to her, yet hesitated to actually click on them.
"...Should I take this as a good thing?"
Apparently there really were quite a lot of posts about her on the streamer gallery and elsewhere, because she could see trending posts that disliked her too. On the other hand, there were also posts from people who kept wanting to talk about her.
Honestly, I wondered if I really deserved to be this much of a hot topic, but at the same time, having so many people interested in me didn't feel bad.
Now that I'd actually received this kind of attention, I realized it wasn't as bad as I'd expected.
I'd also found streaming itself fun over the past couple of days. Constantly communicating with other people was a new kind of stimulation for me.
Then I clicked on a post that stood out: the one about someone recreating my character customization.
She was curious whether someone could actually replicate an appearance that was a carbon copy of her real self.
— [Tried to recreate Rin's character customization, rate it]
Author: Anonymous
(6 Another World character screenshots)
- Doesn't it look like I did a pretty good job making it resemble Rin? Looking again, honestly she's fucking gorgeous lol
If anyone wants this customization, I'll specially pick a few people and share it
"...?"
Looking at the Another World screenshots that hit her eyes first, she just... she was genuinely dumbfounded.
No words came out.
A grotesque character with completely ruined body proportions.
The breasts were enlarged to the point of bursting and the hips grotesquely widened. Even if she set those customization choices aside—
more than anything, the face was so grotesque that it was almost painful to look at.
It was almost impressive that someone could make a character look this terrible.
And yet, if I had to find one feature that looked like me, it was the silver hair. Other than that single detail, I couldn't see myself in the character at all.
"They really... made it like dogshit."
The more she scrolled down and looked at the character screenshots, the more curses slipped out without her realizing.
'They made this looking at me?'
At this point she wondered if they'd deliberately made it like this as a concept, but she felt thoroughly disgusted.
Then, growing curious about other people's reactions, she quickly scrolled down. As expected of a trending post, hundreds of comments were attached.
[fuck you]
[Disgusting pic, you fuck]
[No but why is this shit a trending post lolololololol]
[Fuck lol is this one of those "I can't be the only one seeing this" posts so you upvoted it?]
[Gosu was linking this all day begging for upvotes, is he actually mentally ill??]
[The rapier gallery people collectively having seizures is hilarious lolololololol]
[There must be a reason you're doing this...]
[I want to show this to Rin and see her reaction lololololololol]
[└The moment you show her, you'll get IP banned lololololololol]
[Looking at how this fucker took not just one but multiple screenshots, did he actually think this was good?]
[You fucking weebs simping for virtual reality characters seriously need to go outside and die]
[└Rin's worth simping for though]
[└What's there to simp for when she's a dullahan bitch who doesn't even turn on a cam lolololololol]
[└But her voice is seriously insane. With a voice like that, it'd be weird if she weren't pretty.]
[I should donate 100,000 won tomorrow during her stream and tell her to look at this lol]
[└I saw Rin today—her donation reactions aren't just stingy, she straight-up doesn't react at all. You think she'll look just because you give her money? lololololol]
"This is making my head spin. Seriously."
She muttered that blankly and just closed the customization trending post.
Continuing to look at it genuinely made her dizzy.
Besides, leaving a comment on a post like that telling them to delete it would be weird too, so she figured ignoring it was the answer. All the comment reactions were horrified anyway, so it didn't seem worth worrying about.
'The world is full of weird people. Yeah.'
She was about to just brush it off, thinking there were people like this too, when.
—Anyway, let's wrap up the talk about the first round of ACK here. Gosu, shall we move on to some personal chat now?
—Personal chat? I didn't hear anything about that.
They seemed ready to wrap up the Pro League talk. Honestly, nothing was more boring than a topic I knew nothing about, so this time I hoped they'd talk about something I understood—or at least something I didn't need background knowledge for.
She turned her gaze to Sua's stream.
—She's been a hot topic every day lately, right? I'd like to talk with Gosu about the super-rookie streamer Rin!!
As she said this, Sua was clapping by herself, raising the energy.
"...No."
No, suddenly me again?
—When you said Rin, I wondered what you meant. Ah. Another World Rin?
—When you say Rin, of course it's her. What other Rin is there?
—Well, putting that aside, Plea? Didn't you get completely wrecked by that "Rin" a few days ago?
He deliberately emphasized the word "Rin" when speaking, and something about it felt off.
On the surface, his character had a macho appearance, but his behavior was, how should she put it, unpleasant.
—Yes. Rin was so good that... even I, who completely wrecked "Gosu," ended up... losing 2:0, you know?
Sua smiled brightly and spoke as if she'd taken no damage at all, and Serin couldn't help but laugh.
From their exchange, they seemed close, bantering back and forth without hesitation.
"She's surprisingly the type who doesn't take the bait."
Also, because he used the nickname "Gosu," she'd assumed he must be a very high-ranked player, but from what Sua had just said, it sounded like Sua was better.
Well, Sua was still maintaining her rank of 8th in Challenger Tier as far as she knew, so even if there were rankers above Sua, there were only seven of them.
Objectively, Sua was a top-tier ranker by anyone's standards.
—No, when did I get wrecked?
—My arena head-to-head record against you is 55:53 in my favor. All 40,000 viewers watching right now know that fact, don't they? Why act so surprised.
Then, at Sua's mention of 40,000, she instinctively checked the viewer count.
42,175 viewers.
Maybe because I was a streamer now too, my eyes occasionally drifted to viewer counts, unlike when I'd watched streams a few days ago.
She'd thought the viewer count kept rising quickly, but she hadn't realized when it had hit 40,000.
—No... you're ahead by only 2 games in head-to-head, and nowadays people call that getting wrecked?
—If my 2:0 loss to Rin counts as getting wrecked, then the two times I beat you in a row recently count too. So that means I wrecked you, doesn't it?
The user called Gosu clenched his fists and trembled, glaring fiercely at Sua, but Sua handled it with composure from start to finish.
Maybe because Sua also hated losing, she didn't give an inch, steadily refuting the user called Gosu point by point.
—Ah. And Gosu, didn't your rank drop again today? You're 39th now, right? Just how many users are you getting beaten up by?
She flicked her rapier repeatedly at Gosu as if landing a combo. Plea had absolutely no hesitation in mocking him. It was a perfect response, as if she'd known in advance that he would try to provoke her.
At Sua's relaxed handling of the situation, the chat began scrolling so fast it seemed ready to burst.
[lolololololololol]
[Gosu got wrecked, why is Plea provoking him?]
[Is he actually a dumbass lolololololol]
[Plea! Plea! Plea! Plea!]
[Gosu getting mad and suddenly dropping formal speech is hilarious lolololololololol]
[Who doesn't know Plea is tweetie's top ranker, come on lol]
[Plea's about to hit him with the "so what's your Tier?" card too lol]
[Gosu is shaking with rage lol]
Deciding this was enough, Sua looked at the trembling Gosu and asked primly.
—Well. So, Gosu, you saw Rin using a greatsword today too, right?