The Saintess's Drunken Aegyo Catastrophe
Seriously, don't hate on me. After all the twists and turns, we finally made our way to Shanghai Stadium with the rest of the team, where the round of sixteen and the Swiss Stage were well underway. Jaehyun noticed the stares locking onto me and my sister in our suspicious outfits and quickly urged us to hurry, so we reached the VIP room without further incident.
"But Sera, we're in a private space now. Why aren't you taking it off?"
Ah. This. "There's a reason I absolutely cannot take it off." As I spoke, I glanced sideways at my sister. The reminder of her past mistake must have hit her hard; her face fell instantly and she shuffled into the corner to sit down.
"Coach...?" Kim Yohan fidgeted awkwardly beside her, clearly flustered by my sister's sudden gloom. Jaehyun paused, thinking, then let out a soft "Ah."
"Is it because of the broadcast cameras?" But he still looked unconvinced and pressed further. "Still, the odds of us actually getting caught on one of those cameras are pretty low, aren't they...?"
His question made sense. Under normal circumstances, I would have agreed with him. "...There's precedent." Even during the massive ZX versus V4 matchup, the VIP room direct-viewing crowd had been completely overshadowed by the eye-candy incident, so I couldn't relax so easily.
At least back then I changed my hair color and overall vibe a little. Now I'm the Saintess herself.
Unlike that time when I could divert attention, my current look was pure pink-haired Saintess. Besides, this wasn't Korea—Crescent couldn't tamper with the security and CCTV here. Changing my hair color on the spot was impossible.
If this blows up in China, the ripple effect could be tens of times—no, thousands of times—worse. That wouldn't be aggro anymore. That would be a straight-up disaster.
The Saintess's existence was still mostly famous within the Korean streaming scene, and even that fame was something I deliberately dialed back by reducing my broadcasts. But if I showed my face here? One slip and I might debut as a Chinese streamer before I even turned pro in Korea.
"It's awkward saying this myself, but my face is ridiculously good at attracting attention. Better safe than sorry, I figure."
Jaehyun seemed to accept that. "Yeah, that's true," he muttered, then settled into the seat beside me.
With that, our full-scale viewing of the 2039 Worlds Swiss Stage officially began.
The Swiss Stage split teams into brackets based on their group stage seeding—first and second place—then kicked off with a round of sixteen. From there, teams with identical win-loss records faced each other each round. Three wins meant advancement to the quarterfinals. Three losses meant elimination.
But even this seemingly fair format had one glaring issue: the quarterfinal bracket itself. The two teams that advanced with a perfect 3-0 record would face teams that had scraped through with 3-2. The remaining three teams with 3-1 records and the 3-2 teams would be drawn in such a way that one lucky 3-2 team avoided the 3-0 squads and filled the final slot.
The advantage a 3-0 team carried was practically a guaranteed ticket to the semifinals. That made the first round of the Swiss Stage the most volatile and important one of all.
The opening round pitted group stage first-place teams against second-place teams. In one case, a smoothly qualified first seed was matched against a second seed that had drawn the literal hell group. That matchup turned out to be Power Ranking number one and domestic league champions ZX versus Power Ranking number three and German league champions GC.
This should be fun.
I leaned back comfortably and began scanning both teams' lineups, but behind me my sister and Park Seongjun were already making a racket.
"Aren't you watching the match?"
They answered that it was fine to start paying attention from the quarterfinals, so for now they were just going to enjoy themselves. Meanwhile Kim Yohan was already taking furious notes. These two really...
Maybe it was because she had personally recruited him, but my sister and Park Seongjun seemed to get along surprisingly well. Weren't you the one who called him a disposable tool? Guess even you aren't that consistent.
I shook my head at her contradictory behavior and turned my attention back to the game.
Blue side ZX had picked swordsman, illusionist, outlaw, and ninja. Red side GC had chosen wraith knight, necromancer, starlight archer, and commander. The game was proceeding at a blistering pace.
Both teams clearly value early-game control and tempo.
In a best-of-three with quarterfinals or elimination on the line, things might have been different. But this was Swiss Stage round one—a single game that decided everything. Both teams' drafts had therefore skewed heavily toward early dominance.
GC wanted to seize the initiative before ZX could execute their mid-to-late game plans and simply end the match early. ZX, who also obsessed over early control in their league games, had confidently matched the tempo in what amounted to a spear-versus-spear brawl. The current Worlds meta did favor early-game focus over late-game scaling, so this wasn't exactly rare. Still, seeing such a pure clash of blades come out of a Power Ranking 1 versus 3 matchup was undeniably exciting.
Both compositions lacked meaningful late-game value and were built to break the enemy from the very beginning. Ironically, that meant the game could still swing wildly even after both sides ran out of steam in the later stages.
The draft is genuinely interesting.
I was absorbed in the intense early-game mind games and tactical maneuvering when—
"Hey! Get out of that seat right now!"
Park Seongjun's face was beet red as he staggered over, trying to steal the seat next to me where Jaehyun was sitting. On the table behind us, my sister had already collapsed beside an expensive-looking bottle of baijiu. It looked like they'd both been drawn to the high-end liquor and had enthusiastically drunk themselves into this state.
Well... it can happen, but did neither of them have any self-control?
I stared in disbelief at how quickly they'd reached this point, then gently pried my sister's fingers off the baijiu bottle she'd been clutching even in unconsciousness.
"What... seventy percent?"
The absurd 70% ABV baijiu greeted me, and their glasses still carried a lingering sweet aroma.
"Ha... Coach. These guys—no, these people. Can you do something about them?"
Meanwhile, Kim Yohan had apparently been focused on the match the entire time. Only after I called him did he look up from his notes and move to peel the drunk Park Seongjun away from a very uncomfortable-looking Jaehyun.
I turned my attention back to the ZX versus GC showdown for a moment when I suddenly felt eyes on me. Someone snatched my mask away.
I whipped around in alarm. My sister was grinning from ear to ear. "This stuff is seriously delicious," she declared, and promptly poured the contents of a glass straight into my mouth.
"Mmph—?!"
The moment the baijiu went down, a burning sensation flared in my throat, followed by that same sweet fragrance.
"What the hell are you—!"
...A sudden wave of heat surged through me. The world tilted, and I collapsed right where I sat.
When the film reel in my brain finally restarted and my eyes opened again, I was greeted by empty bottles of hangover cure and the private atmosphere of a high-end Chinese restaurant. Everyone seemed to be talking with serious expressions.
"...What happened?"
"Oh... you're awake?"
Among them, my sister in particular was fidgeting like a criminal awaiting sentencing. The sight triggered a whirlwind of no way and it can't be emotions, and I had to ask.
"...It's not what I'm thinking, right?"
"Um... if what you're thinking is anything like the VKC Stadium incident, then yeah, it's probably exactly what you suspect."
They say when someone gets too angry too suddenly, no words come out at all.
"Ah..."
I sat there, mind shattered, wondering if it had been a hidden camera prank or if there was even the slightest chance it wasn't completely terrible—when one question rose above the rest.
Whatever. In my previous life I drank plenty, and in the fantasy world I tortured the Hero's party members so brutally that the whole "minor" category is ancient history for me. But...
Jaehyun is genuinely a minor, isn't he?
I immediately asked my sister. Fortunately, she and the others all confirmed that both Jaehyun and Kim Yohan had been too busy managing the rest of us to drink anything themselves.
That's a relief, at least...
Even the footage my sister replayed on the screen showed me looking only slightly more energetic than usual, acting a bit cute. I wasn't completely wasted or slurring, but still...
I... acted cute?
The version of me on the screen—smiling with a cool expression and even throwing in a wink—was impossible to reconcile with reality.
Come to think of it, back in the Hero's party and even in the Abyss Society, whenever I asked what I'd done after blacking out, everyone would just laugh and say nothing happened.
So that's why...
And of all places, I'd shown that cutesy behavior at the very first World Championship after the league's official opening—right here in China, a country with a massive population.
Haha... thinking about it again, this really is hopeless.
Bang!
The stress finally became too much. I slammed my forehead onto the table.
"Huh?!"
The others' startled voices were the last thing I heard before I lost consciousness again.