Locusts
Angler's days—Lee Sihyeok's days—spun in the same endless loop, like a hamster on its wheel.
Stream, sign off, sleep, grab a meal in between. Stream, sign off, sleep, grab a meal in between.
Being a full-time streamer made that routine understandable enough. The problem was that he had been running it without a single day off.
When his no-break streak pushed past two months, people around him started voicing their concern. Practically by force, he took a break and went to see the ocean with his family.
Yeah, no—staying home and gaming suits me way better than going out.
What he had come back with felt less like healing and more like killing, but at least he had rested. That counted for something.
Returning after a full two-day break even let him feel a little genuine excitement for once.
"Hey, everyone~ I'm back from my long vacation. Hi hi."
He fired up the stream like any other day, ready to spin a few stories about the trip for his viewers and maybe hop into Dead Zone after a bit—when suddenly—
"Huh?"
A sudden spike in viewers and a chat overflowing with pure rage. Something had gone very, very wrong.
"Uh…. Sniping…? What happened?"
I take one break and this is the event I come back to?
He quickly flipped chat to followers-only and asked his regulars.
"What? Why are they coming after me?"
"Okay, hang on a second."
He frantically clicked open the video of Woniwoni school-of-hard-knocks-ing that toxic guild.
Holy.
Between his viewers' explanations and the absolute state of the comments, the picture was complete.
"So let me get this straight. Woniwoni sniped Durihyeok. Durihyeok flipped out and told his viewers to go snipe Woniwoni back? With prizes on the line?"
"Hey, how was I supposed to know they were a sniper?"
He tried to protest out of sheer injustice, but the viewer count kept climbing in real time. Chat was restricted, so there were no messages—but those countless eyes were still watching him.
Of all people, it had to be Durihyeok.
Just look at those hyena-like viewers. Durihyeok chased a loud, raw, wild broadcasting style, and his audience had turned out just as vicious.
"You want my money?! Fine, I'll give it to you!! Go find it! I've put everything I have on that bastard's neck!!"
"…."
Yeah, he definitely earned that terms-of-service ban. At least he was smart enough to avoid cash transactions so he wouldn't get platform-banned on top of it.
Thanks to that, his Dead Zone account got thirty days, and the streaming platform gave him a week. Whether that counted as cunning or just stupid was an open question.
"Ha… seriously…."
For a streamer, public opinion was everything. Durihyeok had said his piece loud and clear and gotten banned, so now he was the righteous hero. Woniwoni was the detestable toxic sniper. And somehow even the ban length felt like a slap on the wrist.
"Uh, okay, for everyone who just dropped in. I have absolutely no connection to Woniwoni, and I do not defend snipers. If someone snipes, that's wrong. I'm one of the streamers who suffers from stream-hopping and sniping myself."
With a civilian mixed up in the mess, he handled it as carefully and by-the-book as he could—and all he could do was silently pray that he wouldn't be forced into the nightmare of taking down his breakout video.
A day after Durihyeok put a bounty on my head—or more precisely, once the clips started circulating—the number of people who recognized me exploded.
"Uuuugh…!"
I queued into ranked and suddenly someone was trolling. I'd already survived the flashbang trolling of a toxic guild, so I carried that idiot to a win too, but still.
This is not the kind of fame I wanted….
And the guy who started the fire, Durihyeok? People were treating him like a martyr who sacrificed everything fighting a wicked sniper.
……Okay, fine, I did snipe him.
But I don't deserve this much hate, do I?
I didn't troll. I didn't smurf down ranks on purpose. I just joined his stream while grinding ranked. What, would I have trolled if I'd landed on his team? Of course not.
And for the record, he griefed me first. Call it even at one game each, and the second snipe… if I absolutely had to apologize, I would… but come on. How petty can you get?
A grown man putting real money on a kids' game.
Cheapskate. Small-minded, minnow-hearted little man.
My lower lip jutted out a solid few inches as I grumbled to myself.
Durihyeok's newly freed viewers had scattered in every direction, even more aggressively spreading clips. Now they were flooding into the small YouTube highlight channels I sometimes watched, trashing the comment sections of Woniwoni clips.
Guess I should keep a low profile for a while.
I felt just a tiny bit deflated. People coming after me, I could live with… but why go after the people around me? That just made me feel bad.
Maybe I'd take it out on some Dead Zone. Or maybe watch a stream and heal… I was weighing my options when—
"Oh, Momozi's live."
I hopped in right away, thinking I might drop some advice. She'd asked me to coach her before, but I'd been too busy. Now I could enjoy a stream in a blissful Durihyeok-free world—or so I thought, for all of ten minutes.
Did you hear Durihyeok got banned over that clip from yesterday?
"Ik—!"
Again, again, again.
I'd hoped Momozi would shut the topic down with her no-talking-about-other-streamers rule, but once chat started saying Momozi was a victim too, the whole thing reignited.
"Back then, Jung Taeyeon and I must've actually gotten sniped too. They said it was a famous sniper."
No we weren't!
This filthy place where fabrications ran wild! I seethed, a civilian with no right to speak. I yanked the keyboard up to my chest and typed in pure fury.
"Hoo—"
Getting that off my chest felt a little better.
But then… I really shouldn't have.
"Uh-uh-uh."
"Hmm? Who? Woniwoni is in this chat? Who is it? The long message?"
"Ah, nooo."
I prayed for a miracle blackout at Momozi's house. The seconds she spent scrolling up through chat stretched into eternity.
"Oh! Wait. DualKing? You were Woniwoni?"
Kyaaaaaaah.
I slammed my forehead into the desk. Thunk, thunk.
"Hold on, I need to do an autopsy on DualKingChaechae's chat history."
I'd seen Momozi do these "autopsies" on stream before. When a streamer clicks your ID, every single chat message you've ever sent comes flooding up. Truly one of the most horrifying features ever invented.
Please stopppp.
My hands and feet were trembling. Don't do it, Momozi. Stop. We had a good thing going. Don't do this to me.
"Let's see, the first message is— 'Hehe, this person seems really good. I think they were on Angler's YouTube too?' Huh? What is this? That's so cute, pfft."
I was so mortified my face burned past the point of heat—I think a tear even slipped out. Momozi, you cruel woman. How could you do this to me. This was social murder.
"Other than that, every single message is coaching advice. You must really love Dead Zone…"
They were talking about me, so I couldn't bring myself to leave—but listening was pure agony. Trapped in a death-dilemma of two impossible choices, I just sat there weakly absorbing the sound.
After toying with me like a plaything for a good long while, Momozi hummed thoughtfully.
"Hmm, but if you read the last message they sent—'That wasn't sniping, probably just a coincidence? They only ever played quick match, so running into Momozi and Jung Taeyeon by chance and discovering streams that way seems pretty natural imo.'"
"I think that could actually be true. It has some credibility—according to the autopsy, the first day they ever came to my stream really was that day."
"Huh?"
She believed me? Y-yes, of course, Momozi. I knew I could count on you.
"What am I supposed to do with that pure little soul who doesn't even realize their ID info just got doxxed. They probably left out of embarrassment."
"When did I defend sniping. Get out, you guys. I said it might not have been sniping in my case."
She even personally cleaned out the trolls.
Momozi is an angel!
I probably wouldn't be able to chat for a while, but I'd come back someday. Maybe I should temporarily steal Dad's phone and ID card?
"Alright! Let's talk about something else~"
After that she completely changed the subject, and my name didn't come up again. Completely drained, I closed the stream.
I pressed both hands to my cheeks.
My face still feels warm.
My hands were warm too, so I couldn't be sure, but the heat was definitely still there. While I cooled off, I spun my chair left and right with little creaks, staring blankly into space.
Are all the streams connected to me this much of a mess right now?
Angler's YouTube was a disaster. People were flooding into Momozi's stream too. Jung Taeyeon was probably in the same boat.
Being a civilian meant I couldn't defend myself the way streamers could, which was frustrating—but it also meant I wasn't getting directly attacked either.
Wait, or was I? I did get trolled in Dead Zone.
Anyway! If people came after me, I could just eat something tasty and brush it off. But when other people got attacked because of me, it bothered me a little.
"Ugh."
There shouldn't be any more victims, right? It was clearly over, so why did I feel so unsettled? Like a sneeze that almost came out and then vanished back inside.
"Nnngh."
I dug for the root of that unease, cranking my brain as hard as it would go. Tracing back through my memories, one username suddenly flashed bright.
"Ah—! Kim Eunha—!!"
I forgot because her name wasn't showing at the top of the stream!
I'd only been in her stream for a tiny amount of time, and everything after that had been a nonstop dopamine rush, so I'd completely erased her from my mind. Honestly, you could say this whole mess started in Kim Eunha's stream. How do you forget that? Am I an idiot?
I hurriedly searched for Kim Eunha.
Viewers: 220
"Hik."
Way too many. She'd only had two viewers back then.
Praying those weren't all trolls, I clicked into Kim Eunha's stream.
"No spamming, please. I'll timeout instead of ban this time. Do it again and it's a ban, okay?"
"……"
She had caught the full runoff of the troll flood, and somehow. She looked so calm I couldn't even tell how long this had been going on.
Uh, this is not okay.
Other streamers had their own fanbases—they could just cut the trolls out and keep going. A rookie streamer like Kim Eunha didn't have that luxury. And if I had to pick the single most wronged person in this whole situation, it was hands-down her.
So deciding I had to help Kim Eunha somehow was easy.
"Hmm…."
But how was I supposed to fix this…?
I propped my chin on my hand and thought hard. Durihyeok's banned channel. His viewers roaming around like a swarm of locusts, jumping from place to place… was it because their anger still hadn't burned out, so they were venting it everywhere?
"…Okay."
A way to minimize the collateral damage came to me.
Gather that whole pack in one place.
And while I was at it, I should do a little explaining of my own. I had plenty of grievances too.
I installed a broadcasting program and poked around at it a bit.
How do you even get the chat overlay to show on screen again?
Hmm, no idea. I fussed with it for a few more minutes, then—
Ah, screw it…! Good enough!
I gave up. This was a throwaway account destined for deletion the moment the rage cooled off anyway.
I'm not a professional streamer. Once the explanation's done, I'll just delete it.
I confirmed that the broadcast software was showing my desktop wallpaper, then hit Start Stream.
And then—
This user requires a guardian's consent.
"Eek."
Minors needed parental permission to stream, apparently.
I sucked in a deep breath.
"Daaaaaad—!"
I ran to Dad instead of my suspicious Mom. I told him it was a free online lecture site, and he actually believed me.