The Number One Streamer

Streamer Cloud.

His broadcast always opened the same way: a man fishing inside a game.

"They're not biting very well today."

"Change the bobber, you say? That's a good point. I'll give it a try."

The streamer fished in silence. The viewers, as always, howled.

To anyone drifting in for the first time, the whole arrangement was deeply strange. And sure enough, a post about the broadcast went up on a related forum that very day.

Cloud.

A year had already passed since the streamer with that lazy nickname—cloud, nothing more—first went on the air. Soft-spoken, unhurried, his voice strangely pleasant to listen to, he mostly just fished... and somewhere along the way he had gathered a genuine cult following in the world of internet broadcasts.

But.

There was something even his viewers did not know. Something even the owner of the streaming platform did not know.

"I've changed the bobber, so they ought to start biting now, right?"

The man who had been fishing in that spot all day was the savior the entire nation adored. The hero who had saved the country.

He was Snow.

"They're really not biting today of all days. Maybe the spot's no good..."

Inside the game, an open clearing held a wide, clear lake. I had been staring blankly at that blue water with nothing else to do, watching a rod that refused to move, and at last I murmured it at the line that would not so much ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as twitch.

"I see you're all just as heartbroken that nothing's biting. Thank you for getting angry on my behalf."

One remark from me and the chat on the monitor went into an uproar, as if delighted. I propped my chin on my hand and looked it over with a lazy eye.

"Everyone. You're all far too addicted to dopamine. You need to learn how to enjoy a healing broadcast like this, too."

I left the blazing chat behind and stared blankly at the lake in the game, waiting for the line to sing. After a while I turned my head and looked out the window.

Night pressed dark against the glass, and the bright room threw my reflection back at me: messy white hair, eyes wound in a pale sky blue. A face exotic enough that calling myself Korean anywhere would earn me a suspicious look. I regarded that man with the ease of long familiarity.

My name is Seol Woon.

One day I was in an accident, and after that I was born into a world perfectly identical to the Republic of Korea I had known... except that, for reasons no one could explain, Gates had opened and monsters wheeled through the sky. Somehow I awakened, and now I live as the rank-one Hero.

Status Window.

It was reality, and yet a blue window rose before my eyes as if this were a game. That was the sort of world this was. Gates had appeared all across the earth, and beyond each one a region called a dungeon waited. Slay the monsters inside, and the Magic Stones they left behind fed every kind of technology—so simply hunting monsters was enough to make a fortune.

And so the people who received a Status Window along with some special power, the ones called Heroes, hunted monsters and hauled Magic Stones home. The economy turned on their backs.

Not me, of course...!

I'm going to live quietly, doing nothing but my one and only hobby—streaming...! So long as things stay reasonable. Reasonable.

A shrill alarm ripped through the room. Beeeeeeeeeep.

Unfortunately, today did not appear to be one of those reasonable days.

"Mm..."

A faint tremor reached even here, and at the same moment my phone began to shriek. I looked at the emergency disaster text the Association had fired off and let out a small sigh.

For the record, the EX-Rank Disaster response manual mentioned in that text amounted to staying home and praying that someone would solve the problem. It meant a calamity without precedent—one there was no way to outrun.

And the someone they were praying would solve it was me.

"...Everyone. I'll end today's broadcast here. See you tomorrow."

I looked at the chat, flipped clean upside down, and cut the stream. Then I answered the call that had been ringing for a while already—the Association President.

I hung up on the Association President's grandfatherly voice, sighed, and pulled a black hooded cloak from the closet, drawing it over my head.

Cognitive-interference magic settled over me as well. All right.

"Guess I'll head out."

With that light little resolve, I rose on a spell straight into the dark night sky, carrying nothing heavier than the idle thought that today was shaping up to be something of a nuisance.

The night sky over Seoul was pitch-dark.

Up there, a reporter from one of the networks was broadcasting from a helicopter, shaking so hard he could barely hold the mic. Even if today was the day the world ended, he had sworn to deliver that final broadcast to the people himself.

"Yes, can you see this?! I'm on the scene in Samseong-dong. As you can see, there's a colossal, whale-like monster in the sky—aaagh!"

The words were barely out of his mouth when a tremendous blast of wind slammed through the air. At its center, a whale that seemed woven out of the Milky Way—glittering with starlight—howled savagely across the heavens.

Thrown off balance, the reporter caught himself, dragged his wits back together, and began rattling off news so bleak it hardly felt real.

"According to the Association, the creature is currently charging a single devastating strike...!"

"The moment it's ready, the attack will begin, and judging by the mana stored in its body, they've said the Korean Peninsula will be blown away at the very least!"

"Please spend what may be your final moments with your families, and stay on this channel for updates on the situation..."

He was still driving the words out when his eyes went wide, as if he had seen something. His voice jumped, far more urgent than before, and he stabbed a finger at the sky.

"Even as I speak...! There—Camera Chief, zoom in. There! Do you see that black silhouette? It looks like he's arrived...!"

Before the enormous whale in the sky, a place no one else could approach, someone was flying. A black hood covered their head. They stood in front of the beast and moved their hands through some quiet sequence of gestures.

The reporter recognized him at once. His voice thick with feeling, he spoke to the camera as if he might burst.

"Do you see, everyone?! He's here. Our savior, the strongest Hero in this world...! Snow... he has come!"

And what more needed to be said?

A blue light flashed in the sky.

An instant later, countless round blue magic circles bloomed across the night over Seoul. From within them, a rain of blue meteors began to pour down upon the starlit whale.

Boom. Boom.

Blue fire stitched the night like fireworks. Amid the crushing blast of wind, the whale twisted in agony and tried to loose some attack of its own—but white magic circles kept appearing from nowhere, snuffing out even that last struggle, every one of them.

And then, as if a performance had reached its end—

Boom.

The whale vanished, leaving one last colossal flash of light.

"......"

Just like that. As if nothing had happened at all. The night sky over Seoul was quiet again.

"Did you all see that?! This is the true savior ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of our age, the Hero of Heroes! Snow! He has protected our world once again, everyoooone!!!"

The helicopter's roar fell away behind him. All that rang out into the empty air was the shout of one brave reporter who had filmed the calamity from point-blank range.

And at that very moment, the Hero of Heroes who had saved the Republic of Korea once more was doing nothing but this.

"Haaah... tomorrow's going to be a pain again..."

He let out a long sigh, shook out his white hair, and thought of nothing else.