The Saintess's Broadcast Purge

Setting aside the dizzying contract negotiations with Park Seongjun after his retirement announcement, I turned my attention back to Virtual Arena. The Challenger+ ranked games I’d experienced over the past few weeks were brutal. Every single match felt like walking a tightrope over a pit of knives.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Partly because the player pool was so small, games often failed to find matches at all. It was as if the system itself was screaming that the real ranking wars had begun. Both allies and enemies were almost exclusively pros or players on their level. From the TOP 100 onward, not only did the tier display change to show your exact rank, but the emblem color shifted from white and gold to black and gold. That alone was enough to tickle anyone’s collector’s instinct.

The TOP 100 system was the very core of this overheated competition. Players inside the top hundred fought desperately to protect their positions until the season ended, while those outside clawed just as viciously to steal a spot. The 90th to 100th ranks, where a single win or loss could flip your position at any moment, were practically a gladiatorial arena.

Even the pro gamers from the early days of the league would no doubt spend their entire breaks glued to the game out of habit. And with Koreans being the way they are, if there was a ranking war, they’d obsess over first place like madmen. The result was a surreal sight: an ordinary rank slowly climbing into a realm that ordinary people could never touch.

“It really has gotten more fun.”

In that environment, being able to practice with all sorts of different classes let me properly learn the interplay between roles, the fine details of each class, and their synergy effects. It was the perfect chance to turn vague knowledge into real skill, and my personal growth had skyrocketed.

With that thought in mind, I logged back into VA, hoping to meet even stronger opponents this time.

“Oh, right. The stream.”

It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t streamed at all since revealing my face. It had been quite a while.

“Hmm… but I really don’t want to deal with the flood of new viewers going crazy again.”

The reason I’d taken a break from streaming for several weeks was simple. Almost every VA-related gallery—from the Saintess Knights gallery to the main VA gallery—was now 70 percent discussions about my face and 20 percent about my skill. The moment I turned the stream on, the chaos that would unfold was already set in stone.

More than anything, I had zero interest in sitting there while a bunch of men hurled sexual harassment at me.

“Or maybe I should just do a full ant purge.”

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The “ant purge”—a method streamers commonly used to shake off new viewers and troublemakers. Since I wasn’t planning to quit streaming forever anyway, I figured this was the perfect time to recruit dedicated chat moderators for the Saintess channel and clean house properly.

As soon as I started the broadcast, viewers began pouring in at a speed that made previous streams look like child’s play.

Since I was currently the hottest topic, the 170,000 viewers who flooded in the moment the stream started immediately set the chat on fire. I would’ve loved to lock it behind something like “subscribers of three months or more only,” but I wasn’t exactly a normal streamer who took subscriptions. In the end, I had to enable slow mode before things calmed down even a little.

When I slowly scrolled through the rising messages, it was a chaotic mix of the usual fanatics throwing tantrums about being neglected for weeks, and the new viewers who’d only come to beg for the camera. Or rather, the “water buffaloes.”

“It’s been a while, everyone. Nice to see you again. Since we seem to have a lot of new faces today, I’m thinking of recruiting chat moderators for the Saintess channel.”

“I’ll pick a few people based on some criteria. If you don’t want to be a mod, please say so in advance.”

The chat exploded again at the sudden moderator recruitment. I quickly reviewed the chat history, activity periods, and overall tone of the more polite-looking candidates, then selected exactly seven people as official moderators for the Saintess channel.

“Alright. Shall we start culling the heretics now?”

The carefully chosen loyal and well-mannered moderators immediately began mass-banning new viewers for a week at a time on my orders. Of course, the newcomers who still didn’t understand the atmosphere of the Saintess stream had no intention of backing down quietly. If anything, they only grew more rowdy.

As the situation grew more heated, some of the long-time fanatics seemed to sense that the atmosphere had turned dangerous thanks to months of painful learning. But the half-crazed Saintess had already made her declaration.

“Ahaha… So this is how you want to play it… right?”

“You should all think very carefully about who stands to lose more if I stop streaming forever and never show my face again. And about who exactly should be bowing to whom.”

“Honestly, I really don’t care if I just end the stream right now.”

“Oh, and moderators? I’m giving you permanent IP ban privileges, so if you see any problematic chat, please remove them without mercy, okay?”

By pulling out the ultimate weapon of permanent IP bans, I made it clear I was ready to rip out the roots of every single new viewer who dared try to challenge me. The ant purge was in full swing.

Thankfully, the combination of threats and declarations seemed to work. The new viewers gradually began to quiet down. But stopping here wouldn’t be a perfect finish. I delivered one final confirmation kill to eliminate any remaining hope before finally queuing for a VA match.

“I’ll decide how we’ll handle things going forward in the next stream, so I trust you’ll all manage the chat well until then?”

Judging from the fanatics’ reactions, it didn’t look like I’d be retiring anytime soon. Time to give them a little carrot, then.

“Thank you all for understanding so well. As a reward, I’ll turn the camera on.”

When I linked the camera inside the capsule, my face appeared in the corner of the VA screen.

Hmm… I wasn’t sure if they were deliberately hyping me up to stop me from retiring, or if they were genuinely moved. Either way, it still felt pretty good.

“I’ll graciously accept the compliments.”

The broadcast continued for a while longer as I chatted with the fanatics in a now much softer atmosphere.

The long-awaited match was finally found… but this time, I got stuck with the long-range damage dealer role.