A Direct Confrontation
Go Jaehyun smiled. Though he was primarily a support player rather than a DPS, he was still an active professional. His mechanics and game sense were more than sharp enough to reach Grandmaster on damage or tank roles with ease.
"God Jaehyun-nim, would you like to join Discord? I sent you my Discord tag via direct message."
Wadeulwadeul called out to him over the broadcast. When Go Jaehyun checked his inbox, a direct message was indeed waiting for him.
Was it 'wadle2' because there were two 'wadles' in Wadeulwadeul? It was quite an endearing handle. Go Jaehyun sent a friend request on Discord, which was accepted almost instantly, and an invitation to a voice channel followed right after.
"Ah, ah. Can you hear me?"
"Yes, I hear you loud and clear."
Hearing Wadeulwadeul's voice directly through Discord, Go Jaehyun promptly muted her stream to prevent the audio from echoing.
"Hello! I'm Wadeulwadeul."
"Ah, yes, hello. I'm God Jaehyun."
Hearing her voice not filtered through the stream feed, but speaking directly into his headset via private call gave him an odd, tingling sensation. With the added depth and clarity over Discord, she sounded somehow even more palpably adorable than she did on air.
"I saw that you stopped by chat earlier during that hack controversy. Thank you so much for that."
"Ah, well, yes. But I worded things pretty vaguely back then, so I feel a bit sheepish accepting your thanks."
"Not at all. From your position, God Jaehyun-nim, that was really all you could say."
"Hearing you put it that way makes me feel a whole lot better."
Go Jaehyun gave an awkward chuckle.
"By the way, what made you decide to join my viewer custom match?" Wadeulwadeul asked out of the blue.
In truth, he had fully anticipated this question. Every single viewer watching the stream was wondering the exact same thing.
"Speaking as a pro, I've never seen anyone perform that well with zero assist compensation. I really wanted to experience playing against you myself. Even among pros, those with remarkably low assist settings usually sit around seven or eight."
Go Jaehyun offered only half the truth. Everything he said was genuine—except for the part where he intentionally steered the chat into demanding a viewer match in the first place.
"Ah, I see. But for me, zero assist feels the most natural."
"With zero assist, that means you're physically executing every single micro-movement of your in-game avatar in real life. How on earth is that possible?"
"Haha. Well, who knows...?"
It was a razor-sharp probe, yet Wadeulwadeul merely laughed and brushed it aside. Then again, if someone possessed that degree of physical prowess, they undoubtedly harbored internal energy far beyond what an ordinary civilian could even fathom. Realizing there was no point in prying further, Go Jaehyun smoothly changed the subject.
"Since we're both team captains, shall we start picking our teammates one by one?"
"Yes, let's. How should we decide who picks first? Rock, paper, scissors?"
"You're the lobby host, Wadeul-nim. Go ahead and take the first pick."
"Is that alright? Hehe..."
Hearing that goofy little giggle, he could tell she had planned to go first all along. Though he had never met her in person, he got the impression she was completely incapable of maintaining a poker face.
"Then I'll pick this person. Latima? This one. They're Grandmaster 1."
"Grandmaster 1 is definitely top-tier."
Wadeulwadeul immediately selected the highest-ranked participant available after Go Jaehyun.
Royal Commando's competitive tiers spanned from the so-called 'mineral' divisions—Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond—up into Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger. Each tier was further subdivided from 5 to 1, with 1 being the highest. A Grandmaster 1 was literally perched on the precipice of Challenger.
"Shall we look up their match history and most-played heroes?"
"Ah, good idea."
At Go Jaehyun's prompt, Wadeulwadeul searched the player's battle tag. The career profile popped up on screen immediately.
"Oh, they're a support main," Wadeulwadeul remarked. Latima's top three most-played heroes were all healers.
Go Jaehyun stifled a smirk. He had already known Latima's hero pool. At the celestial high-Elo brackets, the matchmaking pool was small enough that you ran into the same familiar faces every day; it was virtually impossible not to know who played what.
Furthermore, Latima's top picks, Siren and Rita, were notorious for being heavily team-reliant. Because both functioned as backline enchanters and buffers, the performance of the frontline tank and DPS who received those buffs mattered above all else.
Thus, Go Jaehyun had never intended to draft Latima in the first place.
"In that case, I'll check some profiles before making my pick."
"Wait, what?!"
At Go Jaehyun's shameless declaration, Wadeulwadeul let out a cry of sheer disbelief. Her delightfully animated reaction instantly set the stream chat ablaze.
A few viewers playfully teased Go Jaehyun, but it was all just WWE-style entertainment. As long as the broadcast was hilarious, the audience couldn't care less.
Unfazed, Go Jaehyun methodically searched battle tags starting from the highest rank down.
"I'll take this person. IDidAllICould."
He locked in his choice on the third profile he checked.
The moment IDidAllICould's profile flashed on screen, the chat erupted. Royal Commando was structured around a 1 Tank, 2 DPS, 2 Support team composition. Naturally, the solitary tank held the most pivotal role on the map. Knowing full well how crucial the position was, Go Jaehyun had snatched the tank without hesitation.
"...Understood."
Hearing the faint note of betrayal in Wadeulwadeul's voice gave Go Jaehyun a twinge of guilt, but the competitive realm was cold and unforgiving.
To be frank, this was a match where winning yielded almost nothing for Go Jaehyun. Even if he won, he was guaranteed to be mocked for going all-out against a rookie who had barely touched the game for a week. Yet that ribbing was harmless compared to the catastrophic fallout of a defeat.
A win could be laughed off as harmless banter; a loss would subject him to unending, excruciating ridicule. Go Jaehyun had to win this, no matter what.
"I'll make my next pick now."
Wadeulwadeul began inspecting profiles as well. Seeing her pass over high-ranked DPS and support players, she was clearly hunting for a tank of her own. Unfortunately, the next tank main was buried near the bottom of the list. With tank players being such a rare breed, it was simply bad luck of the draw.
"I'll pick this person. WaPyaKya."
WaPyaKya was a Master 2 tank—practically the lowest-ranked player among all the participants. Out of everyone selected, there had only been two tank mains to begin with. By locking the Grandmaster tank first, Go Jaehyun had already secured a massive strategic edge.
"Alright. Next pick is mine."
"Okay."
Taking turns, Wadeulwadeul and Go Jaehyun drafted the rest of their rosters. The resulting teams were finalized as follows:
Excluding the tanks, some players ended up off-role. For instance, GuangdongSniper on Team God Jaehyun was originally a DPS player, but was shuffled into support due to the overflow of damage dealers.
However, Go Jaehyun wasn't the least bit concerned. There was a three-subtier gap between the opposing tanks. At that skill disparity, his team's frontline was practically guaranteed to dominate.
"All that's left is to set up the custom lobby."
"Ah, I don't actually know how to create one... Could you make it instead, Jaehyun-nim?"
"Ah, sure, sure. No problem."
Once the rosters were finalized, the other participants were brought into the Discord channel. Go Jaehyun created the custom lobby and password-protected it, sharing the key only with the players so that no random stream snipers could barge in.
"Shall we split into team channels now?"
"Ah, wait just a moment before that."
Just before Wadeulwadeul separated the Discord channels, Go Jaehyun called for a timeout.
"Sorry, but would you mind if I added one observer? A friend of mine really wanted to spectate."
"Eh? An observer?"
Custom games allowed up to four observers. Since an observer had zero impact on the gameplay itself, there was no reason to refuse.
"I don't mind. Who is it?"
"Thanks. It's Gahu, a close dongsaeng of mine."
"...He's a pro."
Wadeulwadeul recognized the name instantly. Anyone who knew God Jaehyun was bound to know Gahu; they were teammates on the same roster, after all.
In the end, Gahu, the starting DPS for the Qingdao Magic Stars, entered the lobby as an observer. Since Go Jaehyun would be locked into first-person perspective during the match, he had brought in Gahu so someone could observe Wadeulwadeul from a third-person camera.
"Let's split channels now. We'll head down."
Following Go Jaehyun's instructions, his team moved into the lower Discord channel. Now, it was just the five of them.
"You guys know the stakes, right? If I lose here, our head coach and director might literally tear me to shreds. We have to win this, no excuses."
The moment the channel closed, Go Jaehyun made his grim declaration. None of this would be heard on Wadeulwadeul's stream, since her broadcast only captured her own audio and screen.
His teammates chuckled at the intensity. One team was led by an active professional, the other by an unranked rookie; the pressure on the pro's shoulders was incomparable.
"Ah, of course."
"I ran into their tank once in lower queue, and I completely wrecked him."
His teammates brimmed with confidence. The Grandmaster tank, IDidAllICould, was especially vocal.
"Good to hear. Let's do this."
"One, two, three—fighting!"
Bellowing a dramatic battle cry, Team God Jaehyun rallied together as the match finally loaded.
The selected map was Gwangmak Plateau, known for its expansive, open-plaza battleground. Since map selection was completely random, a satisfied smirk crept onto Go Jaehyun's lips.
Gwangmak Plateau featured flat, open terrain that kept random environmental variables to an absolute minimum. It was a map where raw mechanical aim and physical reaction time dictated everything—the ultimate proving ground, and the exact map Go Jaehyun had hoped for.
Let's see what you've got.
Muttering under his breath, Go Jaehyun locked in the sniper hero, Mikhail. A character where pure hitscan precision was everything. Having made a name for himself as a pro, he had zero intention of resorting to cheap flanker assassinations.
This was going to be a direct, head-on confrontation.