Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Mysterious Custom Room Expert
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Clicked, and entered the room.
Kim Sung-jin, though not actually one, emphasized his good manners by greeting first.
Disguising himself like this and then revealing his true nature in-game brought out especially fun reactions from opponents.
"Oh. This player's record is pretty impressive."
6 wins, 0 losses—that was enough to call themselves a decent expert.
Playing six games meant some builds would work, some searches would fail, yet they turned unfavorable situations around and won. That spoke to solid fundamentals.
A player with real skill.
Kim Sung-jin thought he couldn't afford to get careless as he checked the map.
Some nasty high-win-rate players opened rooms on cheat maps loaded with resources only in their main base.
"Map looks normal."
.
.
"Well, well, what a nasty piece of work. Does tormenting one person over and over even work?"
A voice laced with amusement.
Relentlessly targeting one player to rack up consecutive losses—that was Kim Sung-jin's usual stream schtick.
Even the nicest person would boil over after four or five games of garbage builds and unleash a torrent of praise.
Yet he said it with a specific intent.
Laying the groundwork for viewer engagement and immersion.
"I can get away with that, but others can't."
Sure enough, the chat flooded with laughs and question marks.
Kim Sung-jin held back a grin as he checked the reactions.
All this was to infuse 'narrative' into the game.
Blindly farming noobs wasn't great for the stream or his image.
So he slotted in an entertaining story between him and the opponent to build drama.
.
.
.
.
"Chat's lagging a lot. Senior citizen?"
Of course, both opponent and viewers knew Kim Sung-jin was talking nonsense.
Still, injecting 'revenge' into the setup justified the farming to the audience.
If he pulled off a weird build to toy with them now?
Experience told him it'd spark a hot reaction.
.
.
The opponent didn't know he was streaming, but they had great on-stream vibes.
The reactions from across the screen were delicious.
And apparently not just for Kim Sung-jin—expectant comments filled the chat.
5 seconds passed, and the game began.
Kim Sung-jin's race: Undead.
The one he sucked at most out of the three, but no big deal against an amateur.
Kim Sung-jin racked his brain, assessing his advantages.
He'd picked random, not fixed. Opponent didn't know his race.
Plus, the opponent's pick was early-game weak Humanity.
Psychologically, they'd focus on defense early.
So, he'd go greedy.
"Undead. Let's grab two quick multis to start?"
And before 10 minutes were up.
Kim Sung-jin had no choice but to politely clasp his hands and beg for a rematch.
*
Playing with five fingers brought a whole new level of comfort.
It wasn't the keyboard.
The mouse. The stability in controlling it had skyrocketed unbelievably.
"So this is what people took for granted...?"
I could only mutter dumbly.
With thumb and pinky supporting the mouse, precise control felt effortless.
Even not fully used to it yet, the difference was stark.
How much easier would it get once mastered?
My smaller hands now reached more keys, and picking a specific unit from a clump with the cursor felt natural.
It hit me how much dead weight I'd carried on my shoulders.
Like a bird born without wings finally getting them—the awe was that profound.
The world looked different.
The more I played, the less awkward it felt; I couldn't stop.
Already the sixth game.
This one was in the endgame.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
"How'd he know it doesn't get hard...?"
I glanced down, but felt no heavy presence.
Too scared to check inside yet...
Guess I'd never see my trusty buddy again.
Searched custom lobbies, but 'Wanna Date'—that oddly relatable nick—made no new rooms.
Toy broken, in the end.
"No GG and dips. Manners."
So this time, I opened a room.
Titled it for good-mannered folks, hoping.
Someone entered soon.
Nickname: emoticon of special chars.
"Fresh account? Hmm..."
Fresh meant 0-0 new account.
After leveling up via last victim, mid-tier wouldn't satisfy.
Still, scratched the lottery ticket without kicking.
But the newbie's chat was off.
Some weird concept, and random race too?
Most players main one race, so even sub-race, it was a taunt: I can beat you.
My lips twitched.
Still clumsy on keys, I slowly typed with all five fingers.
Three-finger habit was faster, but rehab first.
Misread as slow old-timer? Fine, stick to goal.
"Fun..."
Start button hit.
Beep-beep. 5-second countdown.
Fired up, focus peaked.
In-game.
My position: 11 o'clock on minimap.
First, queue dwarf workers from Humanity's main: Supreme Court.
Split 4 basic dwarf workers to ether mines.
The gruff-voiced dwarf grabbed his pickaxe and rushed the exposed ether veins, mining away.
At start, split the 4 basic workers without overlap.
One per vein for efficiency.
'Yep. Splitting workers is a breeze.'
No more misclick spam from before.
Perfectly split all four, gathering clean.
Ether: Triachia's basic resource.
One of two for units/buildings.
Midgame needs illumium from extractors, but too early.
Supreme Court pumping dwarves nonstop; at 8th dwarf, built food store.
Pop cap opened right on time, no stall.
Standard so far.
Now builds diverge.
.
.
"Elder my ass..."
Unknown opponent race, so no safe front-multi double.
At 150 ether, built basic barracks.
Mindset: survive early, won't lose.
'Illurium extractor too...'
Bit early, but sent one dwarf scout.
Scout. Or search.
Essential to scout position, race, build.
Close info gap ASAP for clear build; scouted earlier than standard.
'Center first.'
Minimap center—just in case.
Customs often all-in with center barracks early for cheese.
But center empty.
No cheese.
Turned dwarf to 1 o'clock.
Worker heading back up.
Then, something peeked over my front multi.
A tattered, broken ship gliding high.
Undead's ghost ship.
Oddly, Undead don't build pop structures—instead, produce these non-attacking ghost ships for pop.
Usually scout with the starting one.
Slow, but flying means hard to catch.
"Undead."
Direction pinpointed enemy at 1 o'clock.
Straight across horizontally.
Lucky first-scout success.
Opponent first-scouted me too, even match.
Dwarf pushed to enemy main at 1.
Front multi: bizarre magic circle ritual amid skeleton corpses.
Standard Undead 12-front build?
But entering main shattered that.
Over 2 minutes in, no army production in enemy main.
Even late, 12-front should've teched by now.
One meaning:
Fast 3-multi.
Opponent lay spread-eagled, begging me to cut their belly.