4
# Chapter 4
— Reward will be granted.
— The reward has been changed due to exceeding the goal.
— As a quest-clear reward, you have acquired ‘Vocalization.’
“Vocalization?”
Vocalization was the technique of producing one’s voice.
Speaking in everyday life was also vocalization. However, the term vocalization was a somewhat more professional expression.
The method of producing sound when actors delivered lines or singers sang was called vocalization technique.
Naturally, the reward for clearing the quest must be related to professional vocalization.
“Why are you giving me vocalization?”
The reward for clearing the first quest had been ‘Voice Imitation.’
“Voice imitation and vocalization? Do you want me to become a singer?”
He asked while looking at the stars sparkling in the night sky.
Naturally, there was no answer.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to give me music theory when I clear the next quest?”
Perhaps it was just an optical illusion, but the brightest star seemed to blur for a moment.
“Ah— Ah— Ah—!”
A clear sound flowed between Yoon Geon’s parted lips.
Yoon Geon tried alternating between high and low notes.
“Definitely...”
The reward was real.
Yoon Geon had always been good at singing.
The expression ‘good at singing’ could be interpreted differently depending on where the standard was set.
Good for an ordinary person, good among singers, the best in Korea.
Previously, Yoon Geon had been someone who was ‘good at singing for an ordinary person.’
But after receiving vocalization as a reward, he realized it clearly when he produced sound.
The sound he had produced before and the sound he was producing now were definitely different.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this... but thank you.”
Why these things were happening to him.
What exactly the being behind these ridiculous quests wanted from him.
He did not know.
But there was one thing he was certain of.
The being giving him these quests was not doing all this to harm him.
“Sleep well.”
He waved toward the sky before turning around.
---
“Good grief. There are even more messages.”
Yoon Geon shook his head and sighed when he saw 99+ in the message inbox on the Legend of Legends website.
It was the third day since he had started his gaming stream.
After enjoying himself playing with a support champion on the first day, he had recently been broadcasting games using champions that players hardly ever used anymore.
Naturally, the results had been good as well.
There were some games he lost, but he won most of them.
The viewers loved Yoon Geon’s broadcasts.
There was hardly a viewer who would dislike watching someone hard-carry a game using forgotten champions that nobody even looked at.
Eventually, requests began coming in for him to play champions that nobody picked because their attack and defense balance was so terrible.
They did not merely make requests.
They offered ‘missions.’
— Play XXX in the top lane. If you win with at least five kills, I’ll donate 100,000 won.
Those were the kinds of missions people gave him.
When someone posted a mission, others would join in shouting, ‘I’ll donate 100,000 won too,’ causing the size of the mission to grow.
Over the course of three days, Yoon Geon had earned more than 20 million won.
Since it was still the early days of his stream, it was possible that he was receiving a large number of one-time donations due to the novelty.
But even if the donations decreased over time, he would not care much.
Even if nobody donated anything, Yoon Geon was already more than wealthy enough.
No, he possessed a fortune beyond what ordinary people could even imagine.
He was not yet legally an adult, so he could not exercise full control over his assets, but even now, with Hwang Choong-sik’s consent, he could spend billions of won.
After Yoon Geon started streaming, many broadcasts such as ‘XXX Reinterpreted’ began appearing.
They were streams where people imitated Yoon Geon’s bizarre plays, and because of them, Yoon Geon sometimes received criticism he had never intended to attract.
— These bugs born because of Yoon Geon just won’t disappear.
He clicked on the message inbox.
As expected, it was filled with messages from coaches and managers of professional gaming teams.
They exchanged greetings or talked about various personal matters, but there was only one thing they wanted.
Yoon Geon’s recruitment.
Naturally, Yoon Geon had no intention of accepting their offers.
If he were somehow forced to enter the professional gaming scene, he was more likely to become an owner of a team than a player.
Rattle—
His phone vibrated.
When he checked it, he saw a message saying that the items he had ordered had arrived.
Yoon Geon went down to the basement, opened the door connected to the garage, and stepped outside.
There were four cars that his father and mother had driven.
And there was also one car that belonged to Yoon Geon.
It was a small cart that Yoon Geon used to ride around and play with in the garden.
Now he used it to transport heavy items whenever necessary.
When he drove the cart to the gate, he found a huge pile of his ordered items waiting there.
“Wow, that’s a lot.”
---
The first thing he did was install soundproof walls.
Since they were prefabricated, the work was not difficult to complete.
He replaced the existing audio equipment, such as the microphone and speakers, with the newly purchased ones.
He wondered whether he would ever have any use for soundproof walls and microphones, but for the time being, he decided to follow the advice of other streamers.
It took more than three hours to finish the work.
Yoon Geon looked at what he had created with satisfaction.
He turned on the voice recorder on his phone, placed it outside the room, and closed the door.
Then he shouted as loudly as he could.
After letting out several loud screams, he checked his phone.
Only a faint sound had been recorded.
That meant the soundproofing had been successfully installed.
He sat in the newly purchased chair.
He had bought an expensive chair used by professional gamers, and it was extremely comfortable for his back, making it seem well worth the money.
While he was at it, he logged into Legend of Legends and played two consecutive games to test the performance of his newly purchased equipment.
He finished with a satisfied smile.
A broadcasting microphone was mounted diagonally above his face.
Like the other equipment, it was a very expensive microphone designed for use in professional recording studios.
— Geon, take responsibility.
Just as he was about to exit the game, a message arrived.
The title was extremely provocative, so he clicked on it to see what it was about.
— Geon, there are way too many bugs because of you these days. People are pulling out Narmi in the top lane, and there are even idiots playing Baku in mid. Take responsibility!
Yoon Geon chuckled after reading it.
Recently, streams featuring bizarre plays with forgotten champions had been appearing frequently on MeTube.
Apparently, they had been influenced by him.
At Yoon Geon’s Grandmaster tier, there were no users doing such crazy things, but the lower tiers were nothing short of hell.
Yoon Geon shut down the computer and went to the kitchen, where he opened the refrigerator.
The refrigerator, which had been completely empty only a few days earlier, was now filled with fresh ingredients.
He dissolved soybean paste in a clay pot and brought it to a boil.
While the water was heating, he took out vegetables and roughly chopped them.
His knife work looked careless, but the vegetables he cut were all remarkably uniform in size.
He put the vegetables into the clay pot, cracked eggs into a bowl, and made rolled omelet.
It was his first time preparing a proper meal in a long while, but Yoon Geon’s hands moved with great skill.
“Done.”
Once he set out the soybean paste stew and rolled omelet, along with kimchi and various side dishes he had ordered from a home-shopping channel, the dining table looked abundant.
Suddenly, he remembered the vegetable garden his mother had tended behind the house.
He decided to make time to clean it up and plant some leafy greens, including lettuce.
Slurp—
“Wow!”
After taking a mouthful of soybean paste stew, he exclaimed in delight.
A flavor that could never be found in instant foods such as ramen spread throughout his mouth.
He scooped up a generous spoonful of rice and put it into his mouth, then ate some rolled omelet as well.
When was the last time he had eaten a proper home-cooked meal like this?
Remembering the times when he had eaten with his parents at the very dining table where he was sitting now, Yoon Geon’s eyes became moist.
Yoon Geon quickly finished one bowl of rice and served himself another.
“It’s delicious.”
With his mouth full of rice, he took a bite of seokbakji.
He mixed the soybean paste stew into his rice, stirring it around, and his mouth watered at the sight.
He regretted having eaten nothing but ramen and instant rice until now.
After finishing his satisfying meal, Yoon Geon headed to the study his father had used.
He rarely came here except when cleaning.
It was because coming here reminded him of his father.
In the study, he took out the tea set and tea leaves.
His father had enjoyed brewing tea while reading books.
“Pu-erh tea.”
It was tea one of his father’s employees had brought back from a business trip to China.
Quite a long time had passed, but that did not matter.
Pu-erh tea was a premium tea whose value increased the longer it aged.
He boiled water and brewed the tea.
Yoon Geon had learned the art of tea from his father, so he prepared it skillfully.
He discarded the first infusion, poured the second infusion into a cup, and smelled its fragrance.
“Nice.”
He took the tea outside into the garden.
The autumn night air was somewhat chilly.
Sitting in the pavilion, he drank his tea while looking around the garden.
It was a mess because it had not been properly maintained.
When his parents were alive, the garden had been beautiful.
After they passed away, just as Yoon Geon’s time seemed to have stopped, so had the garden’s.
The image of the garden from the past appeared vividly in Yoon Geon’s mind, like a photograph.
He should take care of the garden when morning came.
If he invested an hour a day, then someday he could restore it to the beautiful garden it had been during the happiest period of his life.
— Are you happy there?
Because I’m crying.
Yoon Geon began singing softly.
It was a ballad by a singer his mother had liked.
— I miss you so much it drives me crazy, but I swallow my tears because I cannot see you.
After singing the entire song, tears flowed from Yoon Geon’s eyes.
But there was a small smile on his lips.
Suddenly, he remembered the voice imitation he had obtained from clearing the quest.
— God.
The song his father had loved.
Confession by Im Dae-ho, known as a legend of Korea’s music industry.
After singing a single line, Yoon Geon’s eyes widened in surprise.
It was clearly his own singing, yet it felt as though it were not his voice at all.
The voice was like...
“Im Dae-ho.”
Even skilled singers were reluctant to cover Im Dae-ho’s Confession.
So when a voice remarkably similar to Im Dae-ho’s came out of his own mouth, there was no way he could not be shocked.
— God, please hear the confession of this foolish child kneeling before You.
A low voice that seemed to press down a scream filled with deep resentment and sorrow.
An endlessly captivating song flowed from Yoon Geon’s lips.
As he sang and gradually moved toward the higher notes, he was startled once again.
He had reached the high notes far too easily.
A thought surfaced in his mind.
‘Vocalization.’
The reward he had received after clearing the second quest.
After finishing the first verse, Yoon Geon shook his head in disbelief.
It was absurd.
“Then again... are quests supposed to make sense?”
He sang the songs his father and mother had loved, one after another.
No more tears flowed.
Yoon Geon looked at the stars in the night sky and smiled brightly.
“I’ll live happily. So don’t worry.”
Yoon Geon’s time, which had been frozen, had begun to move again.