The Weight of Regret
Why had this even turned into a hacking controversy? Name: Jeong Geon-woo. Username used across New Dimension and the community: Saint. He had once publicly targeted an innocent New Dimension player, branding them a hacker. Yet the developers had firmly denied every claim in that accusation. Even after he pressed the issue several more times, the only answer that ever came back was that the player nicknamed Inquisitor had not been using hacks. The backlash had been enormous, of course. He became the most notorious target of ridicule in the entire game, and the people he knew in-game kept their distance while offering hollow words of comfort. That was the punishment handed down to the man who had tried to ruin an innocent person. And the feeling Geon-woo experienced beneath that punishment was…
“How stupid…”
It was a violent wave of self-reproach.
He had been killed in an inexplicable PK and lost his temper. Losing his temper had been the natural reaction. That was why he and his high-school friends had tried to retaliate with the same kind of PK. The result had been a defeat so crushing that no excuse could soften it. And the Geon-woo of that moment had been unable to accept the loss. He had refused to admit that he had been beaten by a cowardly PK player. Even though the opponent, Inquisitor, had simply been far better at the game than he was, Geon-woo had accused them of hacking and stirred up others to do the same. He should have criticized the PK itself instead. …Of course, even if he had done that, nothing would have changed. PK had never been against the rules in New Dimension to begin with. From the moment the game launched, countless inquiries about PK had been met with the same reply: the developers saw no problem with it. Looking back, the idea that PK itself was cowardly now felt laughable. He deserved every bit of the criticism he had received. …Though he still could not understand why it had felt so wrong at the time.
Anyway, that was why he wanted to apologize. He wanted to apologize for the pettiness of trying to brand the other player a hacker. Right after it was proven they were not hacking, he had still been too heated to write anything but a clumsy, excuse-filled post that could barely be called an apology. But the current Geon-woo was different. He had seriously reflected on everything that had happened, examined why it had occurred, and acknowledged his own mistakes.
“I want to apologize…”
Geon-woo’s words were completely sincere. The problem was that he had no way to contact them even if he wanted to. He had no idea when or where the elusive player might appear again. Time passed, and his guilt only grew heavier.
Then one day he heard from an acquaintance that Inquisitor was streaming on the internet. The moment he learned that, he found the channel. Contrary to his expectations, the stream was not of New Dimension at all. It was just the streamer talking about something else. Geon-woo knew almost nothing about internet broadcasting, so he understood less than half of what was being said, but none of that mattered. What mattered was the apology. The atmosphere clearly was not right for one at the moment, so he simply watched Lene’s stream in silence without typing a single message.
‘Come to think of it, she was a girl.’
That had been the biggest shock. He had unconsciously assumed the opponent was male, yet the person was female. Her voice was also shockingly pleasant to listen to.
[Ask Lene anything…. Whoaaa….]
While he was watching, an opportunity finally presented itself. A plan formed in an instant. The mental simulation looked perfect.
‘…It might end on a warm note.’
In his mind, she was already smiling and accepting his apology, then sending a friend request in New Dimension. Of course, there was a high chance she had been hurt too deeply to accept any apology, but he firmly believed that donating around a hundred thousand won would at least make her willing to listen.
[Ah, um… First of all, thank you for the 200,000-won donation…. I’ve been thinking that maybe something like this could happen too. Uh, I’m not sure how to put this…]
Contrary to his expectations, Geon-woo ended up donating 200,000 won, but Lene did seem willing to accept the apology. The real problem was the chat. Even someone as ignorant of streaming culture as Geon-woo could tell that her fans were furious.
‘…Well, from their perspective, I’m the guy who tried to bury the streamer they like.’
He could understand that easily enough. So he decided he would donate another 100,000 won and then leave the stream.
[Saint-nim. You really do feel sorry toward me, don’t you?]
Her next words were:
[In that case, could I ask you for one favor…?]
And then:
[…Would it be all right if I reviewed the video you recorded back then?]
Before he even heard the rest, the words sounded so obviously sarcastic that the exclamation slipped out of Geon-woo’s mouth.
“…Is she crazy?”
“…Would it be all right if I reviewed the video you recorded back then?”
The moment those words left her mouth, Lene felt a surge of self-admiration. It was an objectively brilliant idea. Honestly, she no longer held any particular grudge against Saint, so the current mood in chat was starting to bother her. She would have preferred that people ask her questions instead of pouring malice on him. She wanted to change the topic and the atmosphere quickly. But no matter how many times she said it was fine, her viewers—the “Lebungi”—showed no sign of forgiving him. So how could she redirect their attention? After a moment’s thought, the solution was simple. More than half her viewers were obsessed with New Dimension, so she just had to talk about New Dimension. She had nothing to do in the game right now, but wasn’t there a perfect person present in her stream to serve as the topic? She could do the kind of New Dimension content her viewers loved most while also clearing the uncomfortable atmosphere. A perfect two birds with one stone. No—considering Saint’s position as well, she would be giving him both a chance to improve and a form of absolution. That made it four birds with one stone. Her viewers would probably think she was amazing.
Somehow the Lebungi had suddenly started insulting her while defending Saint. She had only wanted to change the mood because she disliked the hostility toward him, and as a result he was no longer being attacked, but… she had never asked to be insulted herself. This was strange…
“Um… So, would that be all right, Saint-nim?”
She couldn’t just sit there in awkward silence. When she asked again, he gave a positive reply. Well, since they had already decided to do it, they might as well proceed. Everyone would definitely change their tune once they saw her review anyway. She had been expecting a day like this might come again, so she had been practicing hard lately. As proof, the chat was no longer complaining about her voice being too quiet.
“Then… Ah, found it. I’ll start now.”
Saint’s old accusatory post had been deleted, but searching online turned up nearly ten videos from that time. She picked one, played it on stream, and began her commentary.
[Die!]
“Okay, here you can see he’s ambushing from behind while shouting, right? From this point on, the ambush completely loses its meaning. Once you know someone’s attacking from behind, dodging becomes simple…”
[Dodging is simple, so of course judging the situation afterward becomes easy too, right?]
[There are three opponents. I’m alone. What do you all think is the most important thing here?]
[Correct, Lynel-nim. As expected, since you’ve been watching my stream almost from the beginning, you understand well. More precisely, you have to prevent the opponents from getting behind you. Attacks from the front or sides are easy to block or dodge, but attacks from behind are impossible to avoid.]
[Thinking about it that way, the terrain here was actually good. There’s a cliff right in front, so just leaning against it can completely block attacks from behind.]
[Next, you need to identify the opponents’ weapons. One spear, two knuckles, right? The spear has longer reach than me, and the knuckles have shorter reach. So what I need to do here is keep the spearman in front of me. If the spear, which has longer reach than my warhammer, creates distance, it becomes troublesome.]
[Honestly, I was wondering how to create that positioning… but fortunately they all charged in together. The spearman naturally restricted the attack range of the other two.]
[To be honest, from this point on it was already over. If this was the plan, why did three people come? They should have just attacked one at a time…]
[And here, you can see the spearman’s shoulder pull back slightly, right?]
[Ah, I’ll show it in slow motion. …Can you see it? When the spearman’s shoulder pulls back slightly, it almost always means a thrust is coming. Thrusts are fast, but once you know they’re coming, they’re also easy to predict. That’s why this parry scene follows.]
[On the forums and galleries people were saying things like “That’s impossible,” but if you just pay a little attention to your opponent’s movements, anyone can do this…]
…
[But after finishing this review… no matter how I look at it, it wasn’t that I played well. The opponents made far too many mistakes.]
[Honestly, this level is about intermediate PVP AI…]
[Why did this even become a hacking controversy? Does everyone play the game without thinking? If it were me, I’d be embarrassed to call something like that hacking…]
[Ah, Saint-nim and the other two might be different. You were angry and charged in, so of course you couldn’t judge properly. So this wouldn’t be your real skill, obviously. I’m talking about the third-party people who watched and judged. Still, if anyone felt offended, I’m sorry…]
[But the hacking controversy in the community… Hmm, I still don’t really understand it.]
[Maybe there aren’t actually any New Dimension players on the New Dimension free board?]