A Parting Word
Clack!
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
A lightning-fast reload, and the muzzle belched flame once more. So Rihwa had not used a single skill. It was partly because she was still unfamiliar with the controls, but mostly because emptying a single magazine was more than enough to shred anyone other than a tank.
Swish! Zip!
Through sheer, breathtaking evasion, she slipped past the hail of enemy fire without a scratch. Granted, the two enemy damage dealers had picked projectile-based heroes, but for a complete novice to weave through their trajectory with such effortless grace was downright unnatural.
"Get out of the damn way, you useless bastard!"
Jo Meohyeop cursed loudly at the enemy tank directly in front of him. Kill notifications were flashing across the feed at an alarming rate, yet this meat shield kept blocking his line of sight.
The stream had clearly witnessed So Rihwa demonstrate her 0% Movement Correction Setting on her UI without touching another slider. Bewildered, public sentiment in the chat immediately fractured.
Under normal circumstances, an average player took about a minute and a half into the round to charge their ultimate ability. So Rihwa had topped hers off in forty seconds. Given the game mechanics, where dealing damage accelerated ultimate generation, her bar filling that quickly was proof that nearly every single round she fired had buried itself in an enemy skull.
"I'm watching her feed right alongside you guys, but what am I even seeing?" Jo Meohyeop muttered, having long abandoned his own crosshair to spectate her through his peripheral HUD. "Can a human being even do that at 0% correction?"
He was a veteran who had played Royal Commando since its closed beta, yet this completely defied his comprehension. To call it raw skill seemed lunatic, but to call it a hack made even less sense—her fluid movements lacked the telltale stutters of script-assisted tracking, and the system had issued no ban.
While the chat bickered fiercely, So Rihwa's Trooper raised a radio and barked into the transceiver. It was the Trooper's signature ultimate: Artillery Bombardment, carpet-bombing a targeted zone and blanketing the terrain in lingering flames.
With three of their five players already dead, the surviving two enemies had no choice but to retreat. Even though this was So Rihwa's first match, blanketing their only retreat route in white-hot ordnance was elementary tactics.
Kaboom!
Wadeulwadeul ☠ SuperRapper
Wadeulwadeul ☠ BlazingMountHuaSect
The ultimate kill notifications flashed across the screen in radiant crimson, capped by the golden banner of an ace. Their own tank and Jo Meohyeop had barely lifted a finger; two damage dealers and a healer had effectively wiped an entire five-man roster. In terms of combat contribution and raw damage, So Rihwa had solo-carried the engagement from start to finish.
Accusations that Jo Meohyeop had orchestrated an elaborate hidden camera prank quickly took root. Viewers spun increasingly wild hypotheses, whipping the chat into utter pandemonium.
The viewers ruthlessly hauled out an active pro who had been quietly spectating the stream. Because the viewer list was public, there was nowhere to hide.
"Why are you people dragging out someone who was just minding his own business?" Jo Meohyeop sighed. They were his fans, but they possessed a supernatural talent for doing the exact opposite of what he told them.
"Still, since you're already here, Jaehyun, could you weigh in for a second? I genuinely can't make heads or tails of this."
Jo Meohyeop granted God Jaehyun moderator privileges and promptly locked the chat into moderator-only mode. Now, only God Jaehyun had permission to type.
"We met at that event broadcast last time, right?"
"So what do you think? Does this Wadeulwadeul person look like she's cheating?"
Even across text, God Jaehyun's fluster was palpable. Every eye converged on the frozen chat log. Even in this lull, the viewer count continued to skyrocket, rapidly approaching twenty thousand. Royal Commando held undisputed dominance over the gaming scene, so community forum lurkers were flooding in by the thousands.
"...Ah. Okay. Thank you. I'll unfreeze the chat now. Sorry for putting you on the spot."
The instant the lock lifted, the chat erupted into a raging inferno. If an active professional player could not say with certainty, it was only natural for the chaos to redouble. Furthermore, vague as it was, God Jaehyun had leaned closer to declaring Wadeulwadeul clean, which added endless fuel to the flames.
"Dammit, this isn't working. The chat's going to melt down at this rate. Listen, I have the personal phone number of a contact at Blue Storm. I'm calling them."
Jo Meohyeop brought out his trump card. Blue Storm was the game development studio behind Royal Commando. Having made several guest appearances on official event broadcasts, he had built a network of acquaintances within the company.
Jo Meohyeop did feel a twinge of guilt about dragging an office worker into work on a weekend evening. But it would only take a brief glance. I'll just compensate them with a fried chicken gift coupon, he thought.
The capsule was a state-of-the-art terminal integrated with personal phone services. Without hesitation, Jo Meohyeop dialed his Blue Storm contact.
Ring... Ring...
"Oh, hello? Mr. Jo Meohyeop?"
The line connected. Jo Meohyeop immediately cut straight to the chase in a breathless rush.
"Ah, hey, I'm really sorry to bother you on your off day. But I have a player suspected of hacking in my lobby right now. Could you check the server logs just once for me?"
"Ah, no worries at all. I'm actually on the weekend night-shift rotation at the office anyway."
Fortuitously, the staff member was on duty. Game developers had to maintain readiness for server crashes and sudden crises, so staff were always rostered on weekends. By sheer luck, his acquaintance was the one sitting at the console.
"Give me the player's handle."
"It's Wadeulwadeul. The battle tag is... wait a moment..."
Jo Meohyeop recited Wadeulwadeul's battle tag directly from his friends list. The employee promised to look into it right away. Over the phone line came the faint clacking of rapid mechanical keystrokes and crisp mouse clicks. In that suspended breath, Jo Meohyeop and twenty thousand viewers fell entirely silent.
"This is an account created today, correct?"
"Yes, that's right."
"And she's currently in a normal unranked match with you?"
"Yes."
"There are zero traces of unauthorized third-party software or modified packets."
Jo Meohyeop was struck utterly dumb. The chat was plunged into identical mental collapse.
Blue Storm was notorious for enforcing draconian anti-cheat protocols. For an official employee to perform a live backend audit and find nothing meant she truly wasn't a cheater.
"Mr. Jo Meohyeop?"
When Jo Meohyeop remained frozen in silence, the contact spoke again.
"Ah, yes! Yes, I'm here."
"Since that's settled, may I hang up now?"
"Ah, of course. And please send me a message with whatever chicken you'd like to eat."
"I was on duty anyway, you really don't have to... though I do love Gochon Chicken."
"Oh, absolutely, consider it done. Thank you so much!"
Jo Meohyeop ended the call. While his attention had been diverted by the phone call, another team fight had broken out. So Rihwa had once again massacred the opposing squad, crushing their will to fight until the remaining enemies disconnected from the match entirely. Since it was merely an unranked normal game, leaving incurred no real penalties.
Because the entire enemy team had surrendered, the victory banner manifested before the timer had even run its course. It was an astonishing triumph achieved with an absent tank and an idle off-healer.
Promptly, So Rihwa and Jo Meohyeop were pulled back into the lobby. Having reverted to her default female avatar, So Rihwa strolled over to stand squarely before him.
"Are you done with your phone call?"
"Pardon? Ah, yes."
"I'll read out my bank account number."
Her voice was flat, practical, and utterly unbothered.
The chat threatened to burst at the seams once more. Even a six-month follower restriction couldn't stem the deluge. In a frantic scramble, Jo Meohyeop raised the threshold to one-year followers.
Even with a full year requirement, the text scrolled at a dizzying pace. Still, the barrier weeded out the casual mob, restoring a semblance of order.
Now that the chat was reasonably suppressed, he had a task to take care of. In truth, it was what he should have done before anything else.
"Miss Wadeulwadeul."
"Yes?"
"Could you send that account number via private message instead?"
"Sure."
"And... I'm truly sorry. You really weren't hacking. And it wasn't staged either."
"Of course it wasn't. I told you that from the very beginning."
"Yeah. You did." Jo Meohyeop managed a self-deprecating smile. She had pleaded her innocence from the moment she loaded in; it was he and his viewers who had refused to listen. "I feel like I might have just lost a fan today."
"...Perhaps?"
Seeing his awkward distress, So Rihwa offered a faint, amused smile.
"Really?"
"No, not really. You gave me this VR capsule, and you're about to wire me cold hard cash—how could I hold a grudge? In any case, I'm very grateful to you, Mr. Jo."
To be sure, being dogpiled as a fraud and a cheat had been infuriating at first. Yet given the fickle, reactionary nature of internet streaming culture, she knew this was par for the course. More than anything, So Rihwa despised dragging out an awkward atmosphere on account of her own pride.
Not just Jo Meohyeop, but the entire chat was collectively groveling on the floor. Watching them scramble was darkly hilarious. To top it off, massive donations of apology came cascading in for Wadeulwadeul one after another.
"I know I'm not one to talk," Jo Meohyeop grunted, shaking his head, "but the speed of your sudden one-eighties is genuinely nauseating."
The broadcast had finally returned to its natural rhythm: that comfortable, warm atmosphere where the creator and his chat spent the evening roasting each other.
"Whew, anyway, you worked incredibly hard today, Miss Wadeulwadeul."
"Yes. You too, Mr. Jo. Are you wrapping up the stream now?"
"I have to. I'm completely wiped out. Must be getting old."
Three hours had passed in the blink of an eye, packed wall-to-wall with relentless chaos. Even though he was signing off after a mere three-hour broadcast, not a single viewer dared complain about a lack of content.
"Ah, Miss Wadeulwadeul. Before I cut the feed, would you like to say one final word to the viewers?"
"Shall I?"
So Rihwa tilted her head, appearing to ponder for a fleeting second. Then, in the sweetest, most delicate, demure voice imaginable, she delivered her parting thought:
It was the immaculate birth of a legendary moment—one destined to reign comfortably within Ogogok's all-time Top 10 clip rankings for years to come.