Even the Veterans Can't Stop the Heavenly Demon (2)
The game was Dead by Deadmoonlight—a 1v4 asymmetric game of tag.
It was a PVP title packed with psychological horror, but that description only applied to beginners. For veterans and longtime players, it was little more than a comedy show where the survivors bullied the killer.
Thanks to that, the number of people willing to play as the killer shrank every day. The developers had rolled out multiple patches to boost the killer’s win rate, yet it remained an age-old, intractable problem.
A fundamental flaw that could not be fixed.
Because of it, survivors vastly outnumbered killers inside Dead by Deadmoonlight. To shorten queue times, the game offered “expanded matching.” Normal queues tried to keep ranks even, but expanded matching threw rank brackets into chaos. Veteran killers could be pitted against total newcomers, and vice versa.
And right now, one of the survivors matched with Myeong-yun fell squarely into that category.
The player known as “ButtShakingForest”—shortened by the community to “ButtForest”—was a mid-tier survivor. Neither a rookie nor a veteran, he possessed thoroughly average skills.
“Moon Forest, huh. The other survivors are all newbies, so the killer’s probably a newbie too.”
After scanning the map and confirming it favored survivors, ButtForest hurried toward the nearest generator.
The Forest Bathed in Moonlight had launched alongside the Wolf Hunter character. True to its name, the stage was thick with trees. Even though it was the Wolf Hunter’s home map, the dense foliage made his signature skill, Dagger Throw, exceptionally difficult to use.
“Moon Forest against newbies? Should be easy. A little stealth and the generator will be done in no time.”
ButtForest moved quietly, grabbed the generator, and began the repair minigame.
He was so focused that when roughly a third of the generator had been repaired, a piercing scream tore through the opposite side of the map.
It was the sound a survivor made when they were taken down.
“Kiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaak—!!”
“What? Someone’s already down? For a newbie they lasted pretty long. Maybe the killer really is a newbie too?”
The downed survivor’s location was highlighted as a red silhouette visible from anywhere on the map. ButtForest could see the figure crawling, but he ignored it and kept repairing. The other two newbies seemed close enough to help, so he left them to it.
Then, when the generator was about halfway complete—
“Kuuuuurgh—!!”
“...Second one already? No one’s even been hooked yet. Two people downed in one breath?”
Only then did unease begin to creep in. Still, it was only a vague discomfort, so ButtForest decided to finish the generator first and kept turning the crank.
When it reached eighty percent—
“Aaaaaaaaaaagh—!!”
“...What the hell? Are we screwed?”
The unease had become cold reality.
In the corner of his screen, every teammate’s status was in tatters. After taking enough damage, survivors could no longer stand. They were forced to crawl across the ground like worms—hence the community’s affectionate nickname: “earthworms.”
“...Ah, fuck. Did I get matched with a veteran killer? Even if the others are new, this is ridiculous.”
Sensing the gravity of the situation, ButtForest abandoned the generator. Still crouched low, he began walking toward the distant red silhouettes writhing on the ground.
As he moved, the heartbeat that signaled the killer’s proximity grew steadily louder.
Yet no matter how frantically he scanned his surroundings, the killer was nowhere to be seen. He had not caught a single glimpse of the murderer since the match began, so he did not even know what the killer looked like. Still, he crept closer.
The heartbeat did not fade. If anything, it swelled, pounding as though the killer were standing right beside him.
But the killer remained invisible.
“No way…”
A terrible suspicion bloomed. ButtForest slowly tilted his head upward.
If the killer was not on the ground, perhaps it was even higher.
And there it was.
High in the branches of a towering tree, perched on a bare limb and staring straight down at him, sat a blood-soaked wolf mask.
The master of the moonlit forest.
The wolf-masked killer flicked a hand from atop the tree.
Five daggers slammed into ButtForest from forehead to chest with a rapid thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack.
“Holy… fuck…”
In the blink of an eye, ButtForest joined the others. Reduced to an earthworm squirming across the dirt, he watched the killer leap lightly from the branch and land without a sound.
The killer’s face was utterly emotionless, the way one might look at an actual worm.
That chilling, bone-dry gaze dragged ButtForest back to his very first match of Dead by Deadmoonlight.
Right now, he felt exactly as he had then—screaming at the top of his lungs.
3,700,000 Won
The match had begun with Myeong-yun immediately climbing the tallest tree. From that vantage he surveyed the entire terrain and located all four survivors. Then, with leisurely steps, he approached the closest one.
The newbie panicked and fled in a straight line—the hallmark of an inexperienced player. Myeong-yun hurled all five daggers from his back at once, dropping the survivor instantly.
It was too easy. He left the downed player where they lay and went hunting for the next. If he took his time, perhaps the others would try to heal their fallen teammate. That would give him more opportunities to throw daggers.
Unfortunately, that proved to be a poor decision.
The second survivor was also a newbie. Confused and terrified, the only thing they could do was scream and run. Since two of them were clustered together, Myeong-yun split his charged daggers evenly between their backs.
Three survivors down.
Using the fallen as bait, he lured out the final survivor, planted daggers in them as well, and ended the match.
Once all four had been reduced to earthworms, the survivors had no hope left. Myeong-yun hooked every last one of them, and the game concluded.
The desperate screams of the writhing players filled the otherwise quiet stream audio.
“It seems I have grown somewhat accustomed to this.”
After casually wiping the first match in record time, Myeong-yun immediately queued again.
“They were all fledglings, so their panic was quite visible. It did not even qualify as a warm-up.”
Apparently bored, he yawned softly from his chair.
In this low-rank bracket there were simply no survivors capable of holding his interest. Everyone was a beginner; they did not know how to loop properly or how to manage the game as a survivor.
Some people enjoyed “smurfing” on weaker players, but Myeong-yun took no pleasure in it.
He slaughtered three more lobbies in the same fashion, each within ten minutes. By then the boredom had become genuine.
His MMR was still low because he had only recently started the game, so the matches were all roughly the same level. Even when expanded matching occurred, there was usually only one veteran on the survivor side—and one was not enough to flip the script. At this rate neither he nor the viewers would have any fun.
“WeLoveHeavenlyDemon!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Please marry me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“CultLeader!!!!!!!!!PleaseLookAtMyTeaBagging!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“…Hmm.”
The sudden invasion of Heavenly Demon cultists and random viewers had injected some comedy into the stream, but the atmosphere still needed something to flip it on its head.
Then, the moment he queued for the fourth match—
“Oh?”
A completely different energy stepped into the game.
Every survivor he had met so far had used the game’s default avatars. These four, however, were dressed in flashy, custom outfits.
A female survivor with long blue hair and a glowing halo floating above her head.
A female survivor with pink twin-tails and demonic wings sprouting from her back.
A female survivor with ash-gray bobbed hair and oversized glasses.
And finally, a green-haired male survivor sitting with one leg crossed over the other, already launching into an energetic speech.
“Are you all having a nice green day today? Hello, my beloved clovers! Your fresh, adorable idol, Midorino Clover, has arrived!”
Midorino Clover.
A skilled VTuber who specialized in Dead by Deadmoonlight. His channel boasted just over 350,000 subscribers.
“Today we’re playing Dead by Deadmoonlight! You’re wondering why I’m streaming it again after yesterday? Obviously because I brought a ton of guests! All of them skilled players! Everyone, please introduce yourselves!”
With Clover’s smooth, practiced hosting, the VTubers began their introductions before the match even started.
The blue-haired woman spoke first.
“I will do anything for the lambs’ ascension. Hello, I am Aonami Tenshi, seraph of V-Game Girls!”
Next came the ash-gray bob.
“…A rendezvous with you. Let us write a book together. Hello. I am Akashic Megane, omniscient librarian of V-Game Girls.”
Last was the pink twin-tail.
“Kyaaang! Everyone looks so delicious! Who should I devour today? Hiii! I’m Tenta Tio, the succubus of V-Game Girls! Please take care of me~!”
After their introductions, Myeong-yun added a single line of his own.
They could not hear him, of course.
“This Seat is the master of the Heavenly Demon Cult, ruler of the heavens—Myeong-yun, the Heavenly Demon.”
At the perfect moment when boredom threatened to set in, a one-sided collaboration that would set the stream ablaze had formed.
Myeong-yun pulled the tiger mask down over his face and murmured,
“Veterans of Dead by Deadmoonlight… This Seat wonders whether you will be able to entertain me.”