3. A Celebrity of Another World
3. A Celebrity of Another World
***
In a space that looked like a broadcast studio, a man and a woman sat in front of a massive monitor of a kind rarely seen on the market, talking.
"What do you think, bro?"
"What's there to think? It's just hacks. No matter how many times I watch it, you can't deny that."
"Still... if you think about it, that skill is top-ranker level."
"No, like I said, a top ranker can't just drop out of nowhere overnight. If they had that kind of skill in Arena Solo Queue or individual PVP, their name would've been known ages ago."
"You think? I mean, with a look that flashy and even using a Crescent-Moon Weight, I've never heard of them either..."
On the monitor, a single video was playing.
A silver-haired woman swinging a Crescent-Moon Weight, over and over on repeat.
It wasn't just blowing up on a major community site—someone had uploaded it to NewTube, and it was spreading far and wide.
On the surface, it was just one of the countless Another World gameplay videos out there.
As the game with the overwhelming number-one market share, Another World videos were always among the day's or week's trending videos.
So normally, it wouldn't have been anything surprising or newsworthy.
But for gamers who played Another World, that video had a charm that made it hard to just scroll past.
And so the video posted on the community site was becoming more controversial by the minute.
The view count, driven by word of mouth and controversy, kept climbing with no end in sight, and now, less than ten hours after being uploaded to NewTube, it had already passed two million views.
Even among Another World's most popular videos, that was an absolutely overwhelming number. And when something got that much attention, even celebrities naturally took an interest.
Even streamers—people who did what was commonly called internet broadcasting—were all chiming in about the controversial video.
Right now, there were two people more obsessed with Another World than just about anyone else.
They had become famous after practically devoting half their lives to Another World, then turned that fame into careers as streamers.
The female streamer "Hana" and her biological older brother, "StopDyingSoMuch."
"But actually, isn't the Crescent-Moon Weight a better weapon than people think?"
Hana stared intently at the video still playing on one side of the monitor on repeat.
"Hana, didn't I tell you my review after grinding a hundred hours with that thing for proficiency?"
"Maybe you just have no talent, bro."
“...Seriously, quit trying to get a rise out of me.”
"Ah, sorry, sorry. But whether it's hacks or not, the way she moves while swinging a Crescent-Moon Weight like that is really pretty."
StopDyingSoMuch let out a baffled laugh at his sister, who was staring at the video as if spellbound.
That blank, fixed staring at one thing was a habit Hana showed whenever she got hooked on something, so he could already imagine her fiddling with a Crescent-Moon Weight before long.
"Don't bother. If you try using that thing, you'll die to trash mobs."
"Ugh, whatever! Starting today, I'm picking up the Crescent-Moon Weight, everyone!!"
At her shrill shout, StopDyingSoMuch turned his gaze to one corner of the monitor.
The number of person-shaped icons had already passed twenty thousand.
He moved his mouse cursor over the icon, and the viewer count appeared.
—25,439 viewers.
It was an absolutely overwhelming number of viewers.
They had broken their all-time peak viewer count since starting streaming.
StopDyingSoMuch wasn't the only one who noticed. Hana was also trying to suppress a grin.
They paused their conversation for a moment and checked the chat reaction.
Even the speed of the chat scrolling by was explosive compared to usual.
Dozens of viewer messages were flooding in every second.
[fr how is that not hacks lmaooo]
[If StopDyingSoMuch says he's never seen them, that just means they were never in the top Arena ranks]
[I'm Master tier and that's just hacks]
[I'm Grandmaster tier too and that bitch is hacking yeah]
[Everyone suddenly flexing their tier in chat lmaooo]
[But the other player is that PK piece of shit with a reputation, why would they openly use hacks?]
[Right, did they think they wouldn't get caught? That bastard records everything in-game so he can accuse the other person of hacking if he loses]
[Did Another World even have hacks in the first place?]
[It did]
[Couldn't it not be hacks? If you told that crazy bitch ranked 8th to do it, couldn't she pull it off?]
[Isrilda uses a bunch of different weapons though]
[You're a handless loser who couldn't climb the rankings no matter what, so what are you on about lmaooo]
[If it was 'Gosu,' maybe?]
[Now they're just throwing out every ranker name they know lmao]
“What's with chat going this crazy? You should be this active all the time.”
“Whoa, whoa. Everyone, I haven't said anything, but we're already into double digits for bans today. Let's take it easy in chat.”
"Right, sorry everyone, but I'm going to put a delay on chat. The stream's lagging right now."
As the overheated chat began to threaten the stream itself, they enabled a restriction limiting each viewer to one message every thirty seconds.
It was a system they'd never used before, but today was an exception.
That was how explosive the viewer reaction was.
"Bro, go back to your room and log in then. I'm going to warm up and mess around with the Crescent-Moon Weight too."
"Huh? Weren't you going to analyze that video frame by frame or something?"
"You said it yourself, it's hacks. What else is there to analyze?"
"No, but still."
They'd finally passed twenty thousand viewers for the first time in ages.
And she wanted to end this and go do their own individual streams?
When StopDyingSoMuch looked at his sister with that expression, Hana smiled brightly and fiddled with her hands.
"Everyone. I really want to play Another World now?"
Even after becoming a streamer, she was still just as crazy about games.
StopDyingSoMuch thought that without realizing it. The collab was doing this well, and she wanted to end it already and send everyone back to separate solo streams?
He considered himself pretty obsessed with Another World too, but after starting streaming, that obsession had faded a little.
Because money came in directly, and seeing viewer reactions made him feel like he was living in reality after all.
But his sister was still more serious about the game than about streaming.
At his sister's dismissive hand gesture shooing him away, StopDyingSoMuch finally stood up.
"Since my sister keeps kicking me out, I'll stop talking about the video here too. I'll start my own stream right away, so you all have to follow me, okay?"
If they were going to split up anyway, he at least wanted to bring some of the viewers over to his own stream.
[nah not going]
[why would anyone watch a dude stream lmaooo]
[fr lol]
[only watching Hana, gtfo]
[dickhead gtfo gtfo]
"If I run into any of you in Another World, consider yourselves dead."
StopDyingSoMuch let out a hollow laugh at the chat, growled, and reluctantly walked off.
Hana even pushed his back with her hands, urging him to hurry up and leave. Once he was out of the room, she grinned from ear to ear, looked at the monitor, and continued.
"Who wants to do Arena with me!?"
Hana's words—"Who wants to do Arena with me"—were, in effect,
an unspoken fundraising drive.
"Oh, Bling donated 60,000 won!! Thank you so much. If you log into Another World today, you're getting a Black Ark drop. I've seen the future! I mean it!"
"Wait, what, 150,000 won!? Tulia, what's with this huge donation all of a sudden!!"
She was going to do Arena with a few of the highest donors.
Hana's viewers all understood.
After all, there weren't just one or two viewers—there were thousands—so she couldn't do Arena with all of them. They understood that the duels were decided by capitalism.
[ah, I wanna be a female streamer too]
[if you're jealous, cut it off and go]
[you think cutting it off makes everyone blow up? you have to be pretty to blow up lmaooo]
[Hana's pretty enough though, isn't she?]
[She looks extra pretty today. Guess she dressed up a bit]
[why are the simps so desperate to make it obvious?]
After just about ten minutes of fundraising, the money Hana had brought in was already reaching hundreds of thousands of won.
'That's pretty lucrative...?'
Normally she wouldn't have received this many donations, but a collaboration stream built around a video suspected of hacking was a big deal after all.
Streaming really is all about baiting attention.
Hana smiled brightly and spoke.
“Okay, okay, that's enough! Everyone, thank you so, so much for the donations, seriously, but now I really want to play Another World! I'll send the invites, so if you get one, please log in!”