The Fresh Newbie and the Toxic Veteran (3)

"Whew... getting a donation means... this is no ordinary thing...!"

Why was she so flustered? Receiving a donation hardly seemed worth that much shock. It wasn't as if I looked down on streaming, or had grown arrogant just because someone had sent me money.

When I blinked at her words, she kindly began to explain.

"These days, devices for playing virtual reality games are everywhere. In short, the barrier to starting a stream has dropped."

Hmm. So that was it. Back when I still lived in South Korea, hardly anyone streamed at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all. Just buying the equipment to start cost a serious investment. I turned the meaning over, and a doubt caught me.

"Isn't that a good thing, though...? You wouldn't even have to buy streaming gear separately..."

"That's not what I mean. There are so many competitors that it's hard to survive. You see what I'm saying now, don't you?"

Ah. That. So many rivals that someone just starting out couldn't easily stay afloat. In the Heavenly Realm, too, a Fighter of only middling skill was weeded out in no time. Plenty of people took up that romantic trade, after all. In a word, a red ocean. And I had gone so far as to receive a donation—no wonder she was surprised. Only then understanding, I let out an "Ah" and nodded.

"So take your time, and think it over again."

"No. I want to be of some financial help to you, Hyeeun, so I'm going to take the challenge. Emotional support included."

I said it without hesitation. Hyeeun seemed to grasp what I really meant: that I wanted, even a little, to contribute to the household of the woman who had given me a place to live, and that by taking on the same challenge, I meant to reach out a hand to her.

Surprise crossed her face. Then the look eased, and she quietly closed her eyes. Amid all that, I waited calmly for her answer.

"Siyeon... you're a very courageous person. I'd suspected as much, ever since you saved me from that stalker..."

Courageous, was I. My personality had changed a little, true enough, after I became a martial artist. Back when I was a man, I could never have imagined any of this. In those days I was too afraid of the challenge itself even to manage steady effort. Failure after failure had dropped me into a swamp called regret, and the me of that time was truly weak... And so, looking at Hyeeun, I saw my past self reflected once again. Someday, I wanted to give back to her the courage she had lost—the courage she didn't have now. For the moment, answering with a bright, confident smile was the best I could do.

"Don't worry. I'm not the type to give up easily. And usually, when you're just starting—"

My heart lurched. Without even realizing it, I had nearly launched into one of my lectures. Catching myself, I cut the words short and stole a glance at Hyeeun.

When I carefully shifted my gaze, she had a hand lightly over her mouth and was wearing a small smile. Whew. Thank goodness. The slightly heavy air seemed to have loosened, and that smile had to mean she was all right with me streaming. A major hurdle, cleared.

I was wiping the sweat from my brow when a thought struck me.

Come to think of it, GodTierGunslinger called the Fighter class trash. Was that actually true...?

Something I'd run into while playing Battle Mania. I remembered that guy lumping the entire Fighter class together and cursing it. Judging by the way every eye in the game had locked onto me in my martial arts uniform, he might not have been entirely wrong... Even so, I didn't bother asking Hyeeun. That was the sort of thing a player ought to find out for herself. Ask Hyeeun and the right answer would come at once, but where was the romance in that? A game, properly speaking, is fun precisely because you figure it out on your own. After dinner, I'd look into how to create skills, and into what people really thought of Fighters.

"Oh—and tonight I'll pick out something truly comfortable for you from the dressing room. I'm sure you'll like it, Siyeon."

I startled. The shock left me unable to say a word. Wait... had she seen me fidgeting with the clothes I was wearing and gotten the wrong idea...? It wasn't that they were uncomfortable. They just felt so tight—so why... I needed to tell her it was a misunderstanding, but flatly refusing her kindness felt wrong. Even if I did speak up, common sense said you changed clothes every day, so I couldn't very well insist on wearing the same thing. Normally I had no trouble saying what I thought. Why did it always go like this in front of Hyeeun?

And what on earth counts as clothes even more comfortable than these?!

I was going to lose my mind. If "comfortable," as women's clothing, meant comfortable, wouldn't that stray even further outside anything ordinary? It felt like the moment just before opening Pandora's box. Refuse that bright little smile, and her face would surely fall... So I had no choice but to smile only on the outside, praying it wouldn't be something beyond my understanding of clothes. Inside, the tears were already pouring like a waterfall...

While Yoo Siyeon and Ju Hyeeun were talking, the Battle Mania community was heating up—over Siyeon streaming under the name Baekryun, and over her taking down ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the newbie-farming smurf GodTierGunslinger without using a single skill. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Proof enough: on the first page of featured posts, a recommended thread about Baekryun.

A pretty high upvote count. From that alone, you could tell plenty of users in the community agreed with the poster. Catching a bullet was no ordinary feat. Normally you blocked them with a shield or dodged them; almost no one caught them as they were. The reason was simple. The developers had judged a skill for catching bullets bare-handed to be overpowered, so it was impossible to create. If a skill like that were allowed, it would follow that other ranged attacks ought to be catchable by hand as well. So a bullet-catching skill could not be made. It came down entirely to the user's own ability.

Players hadn't given up, of course. They had challenged themselves to catch bullets on physical skill alone, without using a skill. But none of them could calculate the incoming speed precisely enough, and every attempt failed. The well-trained could manage it at an extremely low rate, but never at a level they could actually use in a real match. Which was why, right now, the comments under that featured post had erupted into argument.

From those comments, you could tell just how difficult the Fighter class was right now. In a word, the difficulty was brutal. Other classes came with a certain amount of assistance built in. Fighter had nothing of the sort. It demanded precise movement—and if a class like that had to face guns and blades, what then? An ordinary person in South Korea would never be able to cope. It was something only Yoo Siyeon, playing as Baekryun, could do. And in the middle of all that, there was a post that read like this.

Alongside the fact that she had caught a bullet, the appearance of Soldier's editor drew attention of its own. By ordinary common sense, a famous Nutuber's editor had no reason to act that way. There was no need to abandon a ship that was sailing just fine. And so the little spark lit in the Battle Mania Minor Gallery began, slowly, to grow.