Oh Right, Forgot to Log Out
On days one and two, I honestly thought I was dying. Then I wanted to die. Then I wanted to murder someone.
Even now, on day three, when the agony had supposedly begun to subside...
"Ugh, this ache is killing me..."
A heavy, dull ache still weighed deep in my lower abdomen, radiating with an incessant, throbbing soreness. It took a remarkably long debate with myself just to drag my body out of bed.
"Still..."
Bed to desk. Even across that pitifully short distance, a sharp, unpleasant twinge jolted through my pelvis with every step. Does it always hurt this damn much? Having never lived through something like this before, how on earth was I supposed to know?
"Sigh..."
Physical misery aside, my stream was completely ruined. I had taken three straight days off immediately after my debut broadcast, which meant my reliability had been blown to smithereens from day one.
Sighing heavily with every breath, I slumped into the chair at my computer desk. I reached down and tapped the power button with my big toe. The monitor flickered to life, but for once, I didn't launch Path of Knight right away. Today, there was something else I had to do. Or more accurately, something I had to watch.
"Gotta catch the matches, at least..."
This was the first tournament broadcast I would be watching since waking up in this body. I was still hurting, but my curiosity won out. What would the competitive meta of this era look like through my current eyes? I already knew who took the championship back then, yet that strange, nostalgic curiosity kept tugging at me.
"Whew..."
Cradling my sore lower belly with one hand, I navigated to the streaming platform, KiKik. Perhaps I had spent too much time agonizing over whether to just stay in bed, because by the time the front page loaded, the thumbnails plastering the directory were already deep into pick-and-ban. There was the official broadcast with the lion's share of viewers, flanked by a swarm of streamers hosting their own watch parties.
"Hmm."
Without hesitation, I clicked into a co-stream boasting an audience of over ten thousand viewers.
"Ah..."
While the stream buffered on the loading screen, a clear, high-pitched voice trickled through my speakers.
Back when I was debating whether to start streaming, didn't I predict my own success? A high-ranked female streamer juggling both webcam and high-level gameplay. I had made that confident prediction because there was already someone sitting on an absolute monopoly in that blue ocean—a market where demand was boundless and supply practically nonexistent.
Nayu.
She also happened to be one of my favorite streamers.
"...Why is this taking so long?"
Heavy traffic must have choked the servers; the loading cog in the center of the video player spun endlessly.
"Pick-and-ban is gonna be over at this rate."
Half the fun of competitive play was watching the draft to dissect the psychological warfare between the coaching staffs. Frowning, I glanced over at the chat, which was scrolling past at breakneck speed.
What in the world had happened to unleash such an avalanche of question marks? I tapped my feet in frustration, dying to know what was happening on stage.
Flash.
The black screen illuminated, revealing the draft phase for both teams. TG held the Siege side, while ATG defended on the Castle side. Having claimed the trophy at the inaugural Path of Knight World Championship, TG was widely considered the overwhelming favorite to win the entire event.
In fact, they actually went on to win this tournament, too.
My gaze drifted toward the corner of the screen. Nayu had her head buried in her hands, looking as though she had just been struck by a violent migraine.
"Wait... why is that here...?" she whimpered.
It didn't take long to figure out why.
"Wait? What on earth is this?!!" the shoutcaster bellowed, his voice cracking with sheer disbelief. "European powerhouse ATG! Double Priest?! They've locked in the Watchtower Priest!!"
ATG had slammed in the second Priest without a second thought, and right on cue, the stream chat erupted into pure chaos.
The messages whipped past so quickly that it was impossible to read a single full sentence. An unexpected joker pick in a pro match would always set chat alight, but Nayu's channel in particular was burning hotter than any other broadcast. Her concurrent viewer count was skyrocketing by the second.
"Guys, wait, our team hasn't won yet," Nayu protested weakly, her voice trembling. "I know because I've taken a beating from it... that thing is seriously legit."
Just as Nayu said, she was the primary reason my Watchtower Priest had gained any notoriety in the first place.
A brand-new body. Playing on my old account—the one tethered to my shattered professional dreams—felt uncomfortable, so I had rolled a fresh account. Starting from level one, taking it one step at a time, I hit level thirty in a single day and immediately dove into ranked play. Right around the time I clawed my way back up to Master tier, it happened.
Oh?
I ran into Nayu playing in the Plaza on the opposing team, right on the cusp of her Grandmaster promotional series. I matched against her once. Then twice. Then three times in a row. Three consecutive games, back-to-back. Naturally, I swept all three.
Now, I admit I tend to lie pretty often, but back then, I really wasn't stream-sniping her. Yet by sheer, cruel coincidence, it looked as though I had deliberately stalked and gatekept her promotion series... so the misunderstanding was basically inevitable.
"Agh, seriously...!! What even is that thing?!!"
The clip of Nayu—who usually prided herself on a soft, gentle streaming persona—flying into a full-blown, screaming rage for the first time spread like wildfire across every gaming community. And along with the title of Nayu's 'human counter', I earned my very first taste of fame in Path of Knight.
"That's faster than I expected," I mumbled.
Unlike Nayu and her hysterical viewers, the pick didn't shock me at all. It had arrived slightly later in my previous timeline, but my Watchtower Priest had gone on to define an entire competitive era.
"Fascinating."
Where did they even find the time to practice it? That was the only thing that genuinely surprised me. Scuttling over to the fridge, I grabbed an ice-cold beer and settled back in, waiting eagerly for the match to begin.
"It seems ATG came into this match with daggers sharpened," one commentator observed. "'Can't beat them the orthodox way? Then we'll make them play our game!' That certainly seems to be the philosophy behind this draft."
"I couldn't agree more," the second caster chimed in. "TG is the undisputed titan of the competitive scene! For ATG, meeting a powerhouse like that head-on with a standard composition carries immense pressure. The final tournament of the year, kicking off with an absolute wildcard right from the opening match! We'll have to see how this unfolds on the battlefield."
The commentary filled the downtime as the draft concluded. They clearly treated TG as the overwhelming favorites. Which, to be fair, they were.
"Hmm."
TG fielded the textbook meta of this era. A Knight holding the Watchtower. A Paladin and Priest anchoring the Plaza. A Rogue prowling the subterranean Waterway.
ATG's structure was nearly identical... save for one glaring difference. A Priest in the Watchtower, and another Priest in the Plaza. A Double Priest composition.
After a short wait, the screen transitioned to the in-game spectator camera.
"And here we go! Game one is underway!"
The camera panned back and forth between ATG's Priest making the long trek up to the outer ramparts and TG's Knight doing the exact same.
"No, guys, you have to watch to understand...?" Nayu fretted, wringing her hands on cam. "I'm trembling over here..."
"...TG, obviously," Nayu answered after a beat.
Oh, dear. What a terrible choice.
A tragedy of epic proportions had just been set in stone. My favorite streamer was about to die.
The Path of Knight community—along with the handful of viewers who had watched my debut broadcast—had stubbornly insisted that my absurd win rate was purely because I was able to 'dodge literally every attack'. But they were missing the point entirely.
"Ah, AHHH!! What was that?!!" the caster screamed. "First Blood! Mulbi and Grape of ATG! With support raining down from the Watchtower Priest, they secure the opening kill!"
"W-Wait, what?!!!"
"TG, TG is in CRISIS—!!!"
My build... the Watchtower Priest was viable in solo queue, of course.
"TG needs to run!!! You have to survive if you want any chance of turning this around!"
But in tournament play, where teammates could coordinate in real time over voice communications, its strategic value operated on an entirely different dimension. ATG's player clearly hadn't mastered the intricate mechanics yet, showing awkward pauses and sloppy timing throughout the game... yet like seasoned pros, they never surrendered the tempo and rode that momentum all the way to the finish line.
"Ah... and with that, Game 1 comes to a close."
"GG...!"
Well, obviously. You can't fight modern firearms with stone-age spears.
Watching the stronghold of TG, the reigning world champions, crumble into burning rubble, my hands flew across my keyboard and mouse.
Nayu's bomb collar had just detonated.
"Ah."
Right. Forgot to log out.
My embarrassing blunder aside, Game 2 followed the exact same script. TG spent the entire match on the back foot, dragged around by the nose until their core shattered once more.
Zero to two. Knocked out in the Round of 16.
That was the brutal report card handed to the most popular team in the world on the very opening day of the tournament.
"Hmm."
I didn't have a specific horse in the race, but deep down, I had still quietly rooted for the Korean team, TG. Yet thanks to me introducing the build far earlier than its historical timeline, the team destined to hoist the championship trophy had just tasted a shocking, unceremonious elimination.
"...They'll be fine, right?"
The butterfly effect was a little concerning, leaving a faintly bitter aftertaste, but honestly? It didn't feel half bad.
Though if there was one other minor concern on my plate...
My stream wasn't even live yet, but my offline chat was already ablaze. Glancing at the lobby count, over five hundred people were camped out, waiting for me to go live.
Total refugees. Naturally, only a tiny fraction of them were actually curious about me as a creator. The overwhelming majority were TG fans seething with rage over the loss, desperate for a scapegoat to vent their frustration on, while the rest were trolls looking to fan the flames or kill some time.
"...Should I turn it on or not?"
My cursor hovered over the 'Start Stream' button as I deliberated. Only for a fraction of a second, of course.
I mean... honestly speaking, what did I have to lose? If I could use this momentum to grow my channel, that was an obvious win. And even if a horde of furious fans showed up just to treat me like their personal verbal punching bag...
"Heh."
Wasn't that even better?
I had simply played the game using my own build. ATG had merely copied it to secure their victory. There was no universe in which any of this was my fault. And that was the crucial detail. Catching completely unwarranted blame and getting showered with authentic, burning toxicity when I had done nothing wrong?
"Ehehehe."
All hesitation evaporated. I clicked the mouse, hitting 'Start Stream'.
『Hello.』
Stream live. I tapped out a warm, polite greeting on the keyboard. At that exact moment, a crisp chime rang through my headphones.
A grin spread across my lips as I reread the bizarre donation and the donor's handle.
A player who had been standing on the tournament stage just minutes ago. An active pro from TG, freshly dismantled by ATG.
In response to that breathless chat message, I bestowed upon him the highest honor: appointing him as the very first channel moderator of my stream.
『Welcome.』
Yep. Looks like you forgot to log out, too.