Viewer Participation Is Fun
There were a lot of Dead Zone streamers out there, which meant the skill gap between them was pretty wild.
Challenger streams had a certain gravitas to them, but they were also slick and satisfying to watch.
The lower tiers? Half the time, just breathing was enough to make you want to backseat them, but they were noisy in a way that made them fun.
Honestly, they were all interesting in their own way, but…
Personally, Chaewon found Challenger streams kind of boring.
The screen was clean, the mouse movement crisp, and they were easy on the eyes, but the streamers focused so hard they barely talked and almost never looked at chat.
At that point, I might as well just watch highlights on NotTube. Hmph.
No matter how much she typed, if they never answered back, it was no different from writing in her own memo pad.
Without even realizing it, her follow list had naturally filled up with streamers who were good at interacting with their chat.
And today, too, while she was happily hopping from stream to stream—
“Hmm… that’s not how you do a crawl-kite move.”
Tap-tap-tap—
She’d only meant to leave a friendly little tip for some newbie who was struggling like crazy.
[Shut the hell up, you backseat piece of shit.]
“Eh?”
Hurt.
She had kindly explained that for crawl-kiting, the crouch key mattered more than the prone key, and that what he’d just done was basically lying down, firing a few shots, then standing up like some random guy who’d lost his nerve—so he should try again.
- You have been forcibly removed -
“…Tch.”
That was sound advice that could’ve become bone and flesh, and he was petty enough to kick her for it.
Fine, whatever. There were plenty of other streams.
This time, she opened one where a pitiful girl was hanging on at the very edge of Gold.
“Aaaah! Stop sniping meeeee! At least don’t make it obviousss!”
“Jeez, that startled me.”
The instant she joined, she was greeted by a roar.
This had the smell of a good time.
She watched for a bit, poking around to figure out what was going on, and soon she understood the situation.
Because of the game’s nature, the broadest population spread sat in Bronze, Silver, and Gold.
Which meant those were also the tiers where stream sniping happened most often.
Is sniping really that fun…?
Thinking back to when she’d run into Momozi and Jeong Taeyeon, yeah, it actually had been fun.
The streamer’s reaction after the match had been delicious.
There had been viewers at the time who suspected she’d been sniping.
So Chaewon had assumed sniping was always a bad thing.
But here, the viewers seemed to love it.
Was there such a thing as good sniping and bad sniping?
She had no idea what the difference was.
Still, from the way the streamer was flailing around in fury, it really did seem like only the viewers were having fun.
I want to do it too.
It looked fun.
Sadly, her own account couldn’t snipe.
If it were a quick match, maybe, but she hadn’t touched ranked at all, so she had no tier.
Should I start ranked?
For the first time in her life, she found herself a little interested in ranked matches, something she’d never cared about before.
“Oh, she died.”
Just then, the streamer died.
Looks like she’d have to write another line for this poor thing.
DuelKingChaeChae: You should move as if snipers are definitely around. Don’t stay in one spot too long—factor in the delay and move somewhere else within at most five, ideally three seconds. So instead of a sniper, I’d recommend switching to a rifle you can reposition with often. And from what I’m seeing, your sniping is basically lotto shots, so honestly a rifle would be better.
She carefully polished up her chat and sent it.
- You have been forcibly removed -
Oh, come on.
“How am I supposed to explain it if I don’t write a wall of text!”
She was supposed to say it through donations?
They should’ve been paying her, not the other way around.
Her lips stuck out in a pout.
…Where the hell would a middle schooler get money?
She wanted to join in too.
Momozi had read everything she wrote.
And she hadn’t discriminated just because Chaewon had no money.
Momozi was the best.
Feeling a little down, Chaewon dragged the stream list downward again and again.
As she went from the lively upper ranks to the lower ones, the viewer counts dropped sharply.
There were still plenty of streamers down there.
Like her old self.
Of course, there wasn’t anyone quite as bad as her. At the very least, everyone had one or two viewers.
Just how badly did I stream back then?
At the bottom, she noticed a word that seemed to appear in a lot of stream titles.
“Viewer participation?”
That was it—viewer participation.
What was viewer participation?
She knew what a snack break was.
Since so many stream titles had it, it felt a little strange and also made her curious.
After browsing around for a while—
(Streamer - Kim Eunha)
2 viewers
DuelKingChaeChae: Hello.
She clicked on the rather adorable nickname that made her think of a kindergarten, and sent a chat.
Huh.
What was with this extremely respectful treatment?
She was glad she’d been read, sure, but…
This is a little much.
Probably because she didn’t have many viewers, and she wanted to cling to even one more if she could.
DuelKingChaeChae: What is viewer participation?
She should ask what she wanted to know quickly, then run.
Viewer participation?
What the heck was that?
Oh. She wanted to do duo ranked?
Was this like legal sniping?
“Should I try it?”
She’d just been thinking about trying ranked herself.
Doing it together might be fun.
First, though, she should ask politely.
DuelKingChaeChae: I’ve never played a single ranked match. Is that okay? I’m not bad or anything!
Five thousand won was enough money to stuff herself stupid on tteokbokki.
Absolutely not.
Besides, she didn’t even have a mic.
DuelKingChaeChae: I don’t have a mic. Let’s just do it.
“My ID?”
Wait, hold on—freeze.
Was it okay to use Woniwoni?
She’d played around in Momozi’s stream while hiding the fact that she was Woniwoni.
Hmm.
She actually worked her brain over that question with the same seriousness as checking a school lunch menu.
“Whatever!”
And then she decided to just go with it.
There were only three viewers here, counting her, and even they weren’t chatting.
There was no way word would spread.
Right now, all she wanted was to do this legal sniping thing called viewer participation.
DuelKingChaeChae: My ID is Woniwoni>.<
The blood-red Weapon Master title and maxed-out signature weapon pretty much screamed that she wasn’t a newbie.
Like she’d said. She wasn’t bad.
DuelKingChaeChae: I play a lot! I just haven’t tried ranked!
DuelKingChaeChae: No. I only have this one account.
This is gonna be fun.
If her imperfect memory was right, when she’d hit Master in her past life and then quit, she probably only dabbed in ranked because she had nothing else to do right before dropping the game.
She liked solo play.
But once she’d climbed into the higher tiers, everybody kept wanting to use voice chat.
So she’d quit right away.
“Ooh, it’s starting.”
Unlike back then, Dead Zone was in its boom period now, and after watching streams, her interest kept bubbling up.
🏛 Type: Map
⚔ Difficulty: Close-quarters
📍 Floor: 1 / 1
💀 Boss: Unknown
For the first ranked placement match, the mode was my favorite: Team Deathmatch.
Unlike 8v8 quick matches with a 100-kill limit, ranked was 5v5 with a 70-kill limit.
“What should I start with?”
The map they got was Bunker Hill.
Its defining feature was narrow terrain, which made rifles more comfortable than snipers.
There were fewer enemies than in 8v8.
A hard-hitting gun seemed best.
Not so much “I’ll win against a crowd,” but more “I’ll absolutely win any one-on-one.”
In that case—
This one.
Click—!
The man’s gun: Beryl N62
Among Dead Zone’s assault rifles, it had the worst recoil, but no other gun could compete with its raw power.
Where other guns needed five bullets to finish someone off, the Beryl could kill in three or four.
DuelKingChaeChae: Yup.
She typed her final chat message while waiting, then turned back to the game and focused.
Tap—
The moment the match began, she sprinted toward the left entrance.
Bunker Hill had two entrances for each team.
Likewise, the enemy Red Team had one open entrance and one with at least a little cover.
Ping—!
Most people would naturally choose the one with cover.
And this wasn’t even a tier where complicated mind games mattered much.
She pulled the pin on a grenade.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1… now!
She hurled it high into the air.
Her target was the side path that opened up if the enemy pushed forward while using that cover.
It was the perfect timing for when they’d come out most cautiously.
Woniwoni>.< (💣)All the way!
Woniwoni>.< (💣)LoverRoro
“Nice.”
Two down.
With two of the five removed, she pushed forward immediately.
She rushed into the now-empty side path and entered without resistance.
The closer she got to enemy territory, the more she stopped sprinting and began stepping carefully.
Tap—
As soon as she heard footsteps, she dashed in that direction.
Rat-a-tat-tat—!
Woniwoni>.< ︻╦0╤─ IWillBecomeAStar
One cut down.
Since gunfire had broken out, the rest of the enemies probably had a rough idea of where she was.
Normally, she should’ve fallen back once.
But instead—
Thud-thud-thud—
With the mindset that she would win the shootout, she pushed boldly forward.
The moment she met a guy who was nervously checking left and right, she opened fire.
Woniwoni>.< ︻╦0╤─ CyberWarrior
No sooner had she taken him out than another enemy burst out from behind.
Looks like they were together.
He came in almost like a pre-aimed shot, firing before her, but—
Prone. Crouch.
Using the crawl-kite move to minimize the hitbox,
Rat-a-tat-tat—!!
Woniwoni>.< ︻╦0╤─ LinkSmeoDuriheok
“Haaah!”
Electric!
After pulling off a solo wipe with one big swing, she hid and reloaded.
Now it was time for the enemies she’d killed at the start to respawn.
This was close to their base, so they’d probably come flying out like maniacs.
When people got excited, their vision narrowed and their precision fell apart.
Should I push farther instead of running? If I hide over there and make it work, I’ll probably shatter their mental.
She crouched behind cover near the enemy base and listened.
Shuffling steps—
Soon enough, she heard footsteps.
Unfortunately, the ones she’d killed at the start had gone a different way.
Without even realizing she was hiding there, one of them dropped right in front of her—thud—and she gobbled him up.
Tang—!
Woniwoni>.< ︻╦0╤─ (HEAD)LinkSmeoDuriheok
Now that she’d made noise, she simply charged sideways.
Rat-a-tat-tat—!
Woniwoni>.< ︻╦0╤─ CyberWarrior
“Haaah. Die, all of youuu. Heh.”
This is so much fun.
***
New streamer Kim Eunha was, to put it mildly, extremely, extremely flustered.
Like most streamers, she had simply jumped on Dead Zone’s popularity and dreamed of going viral.
Until just a little while ago, she’d had three viewers total.
Her computer, her smartphone, and one viewer who’d asked what viewer participation even meant.
He’d seemed suspicious, with a quick-match K/D that was absurdly high despite claiming he’d never played ranked before.
But for tiny streamers who treasured every single viewer, did that really matter?
“Haha… what do I do…?”
The viewer who had joined the duo ranked participation match was putting on a performance so far beyond the level of ranked play that anyone could see the difference.
Was that Kim Eunha’s fault?
Not really.
What was she supposed to do if she hadn’t known?
Besides, the owner of that account had said he’d never played ranked either.
And there was no ranked history on the account, so even the game company couldn’t really complain. It was a perfectly legitimate match.
So what was the problem?
“Uh… uh. Ah, hello?”
The problem was that the other team had a streamer of their own.
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