The Aso Show
"Huh?"
I couldn't tell whether the streaming system had generated it automatically, but there it was — a video clip. Sent to Aso through the clip-donation feature, it looked like something someone had edited together well in advance.
However many years I had lived, and however much time I had poured into living them, I was hardly so ossified that I couldn't accept a gift like this. Yes — I am no old fossil. The moment the word fossil crossed my mind, the Sword King surfaced in my memory. A man who looked a good twenty years my senior, though in truth he was twenty years my junior.
Hmm. Surely not.
I had watched the Sword King get branded a tight-lidded old geezer more times than I could count. He was my friend, that man — and I, for the record, am no fossil.
I am not... am I...
"This isn't a forum comment section! Manager!"
Viewers — no, chaturds — scrambled every which way to dodge the sword dance raining down in the chat window.
"Indeed. I am a man."
No brat either, mind you — if anything, I'm of an age where you lot ought to be calling me elder.
"I suppose this much would count as mid-grade."
"Wow, this guy has high standards. The tutorial sword is a genuinely good sword."
"You're watching a game clip and the in-game chat has ONE message?! How does that make sense!"
"But honestly, if there's anyone here who can't break the tutorial balloon, step right up! If you can't do this, you're not a person! I'm gonna have a hard time acknowledging you after this."
Is that so. You, my dear, certainly possess skill no human being should.
"No, that's not what I—!"
"Let us begin."
"Ooh, not bad...?"
So this was what it felt like to watch oneself. There was a time when such a thing had been as ordinary as breathing. But the longer the years I spent in Murim stretched on, the more those old days were buried along with them — and now that I had at last returned to this place, I found myself recalling the days of old.
"What is this...? She's insane. Genuinely insane!"
So you've come back to your senses. She hadn't been lost in her own thoughts for all that long.
"Banned! You jerk! Nobody wants to hear about your panty situation!"
"Then you can get lost too!"
"No but seriously, that is HELLA cool. Like, forget man or woman or whatever — that's just straight-up awesome."
"Wow, he's spinning around like he's dancing or something — balloon or not, how do they pop like THAT?"
"Take your own little league over to the forums, please. But that thing at the end — what was it again... I just cannot wrap my head around it."
"But still, this makes no sense, I'm telling you. Balloon or no balloon, those things are actually pretty thick, you know?"
"Aagh...!"
"Don't you mean Heo Suk-hee?"
"Sorry. My bad."
"I wanna watch it again."
"For those reasons then, would it please you to grant me leave to rewatch your broadcast, Sword God-nim?!"
Watching the two of them carry on and banter for so long, so utterly at ease with each other, was a pleasant sight. It had been a long while since anything stirred this feeling in me — surely granting a little permission for that much could do no harm.
A broadcast exists, first and foremost, to be watched by others — and yet there she was, asking leave of me. It said something about Aso's character. Or perhaps she simply didn't care to be caught doing anything punishable on stream. Either way, what of it?
But so what, either way? However deep her little schemes might run, could they measure up to those old snakes I once knew?
"Well then, permission granted — let's freakin' goooo!"
"You made your channel yesterday? Just recorded it and uploaded it on a whim?"
"Hold on, I think I just saw something impossible. Like, 'he only started Mukgeomrok yesterday'... is what I ALMOST said! Didn't I?"
"That actually seems more plausible. A guy who's supposed to be backseat-gaming suddenly uploads a verification video — and he's dancing to PPAP!"
Anyone who witnessed the username-picking had truly seen it from the very beginning. I suspected it was that person — the one who had done the promoting. And speaking of which, what exactly was PPAP again?
For people claiming to read the room, they certainly speak their minds freely enough. And I, if I may say so, have lived at least twice as long as any of you. Though surely there are those who have outlived even me. Such is the mercy of anonymity, I suppose.
"You really didn't set up anything at all, did you? The channel's spotless."
"You're banned, you bastard!"
It had been nearly a week since I first started watching Aso's streams. And yet that shrieking of hers still hadn't grown on me, honestly. The dissonance born of this world's reversed gender roles still felt every bit as jarring.
"Wow... this spinning really is an art form. Seriously, it's beautiful."
Well. I suppose it's not bad.
"I've been rewatching from this point, but I don't get anything after here? Okay, fine, I didn't get the earlier parts either, but with this one I can't even find the feel of it."
"MANAGER!!"
"But did anyone here actually see that part clearly? Because I genuinely can't tell."
"Facts! And banned!"
"No, no! No! Even Sword God-nim... But seriously, what kind of person — no, what kind of man IS he? Or was? That ending, it just goes flash and it's over, every single time."
"Grrrr! Ah! No wait, that's not—"
"Ughhhh... I want to cry. Wait. Did I seriously call THIS person a bratty little kid?"
"What year is that joke from, you old-timer!"
"Ah, 1,000 won won't cut it."
"Oh my, unnie! Prove my purity, my foot! I'm telling you I've never dated!"
"I'm TELLING you I'm not!"
So I watched for a while as Aso and her viewers squabbled back and forth over romance. Romance in this world must be quite far removed from the romance I once knew. And I, for my part, am far removed from romance besides. Merely watching was entertaining enough.
"You really do know how to have fun, don't you."
She looked like she was enjoying herself so thoroughly that, before I knew it, I had fallen into this stream of my own accord. She possessed a strange charm that pulled people in — this girl, Aso.
"By the way, Sword God-nim? Are you streaming again?"
"When are you planning to stream?"
"Lessons? Walking?"
"What even was that? No internal energy, right— oh. Right. It's Sword God-nim. Still, swinging like that should look wrong, shouldn't it?!"
"Uh... even ONE person pulling that off would defy belief... how are there THREE?!"
"How couwd you say such a cwool thing..."
"Yep. Banned."
Even for me — so far removed from this world's sensibilities and notions — putting on that lisping baby-talk act felt like a strain. What unmitigated agony, then, must it have been for them? A moment of silence, then, for the brave soul who spoke a hard truth and ate the ban for it...
"Ahhh... I'm doomed."