The Hecate-Limited Stream That Ended in Tears

Heretic was experiencing something in her life for the very first time.

Heretic had a serious problem with self-esteem.

The fundamental reason she had become so good at drawing that she could even make her own virtual avatar was something as simple as this: she couldn’t stand the idea of people saying she was bad at drawing.

Even the reason she started game streaming had been that, after studying hard so she wouldn’t have to hear people around her say she was bad at games, she’d discovered that her comprehension was actually better than she’d thought.

In the internet world, she got brushed off a lot as some “ge-man-shit” loser, but at least after debuting as a VTuber named Heretic, she had never been openly mocked and belittled like this before.

No—if she searched through her whole life, there had never been a day as miserable as today!!!

“G-get lost!! All of you, get lost!!! How many times do I have to kick you out before you stop coming back?! Why, why are there so many of you?!”

Heretic’s stream was, contrary to her wishes, burning bright.

Honestly, for anyone with even the slightest interest in Galaxy Train, this situation was bound to be hilarious.

Unlike clan wars, the glory of PVP belonged to only one person.

And the battle was so far beyond reach that people joked about it as a “war of the stars.”

If you played Galaxy Train, you could be curious about who would take first place in the Colosseum, but actually watching that scene unfold was another matter entirely.

But today was different!

“I did the math, and I’m telling you, this is absolutely breakable! Everyone, look! Labellehar doesn’t have Eines, right?! We’re both using the same Saren, so if my Saren’s speed is higher and she acts first, I can win for sure!”

Eines and Saren were different rarities.

Eines was a 5-star. Saren was a 4-star!

No matter how much Heretic optimized her setup, she couldn’t act first because of Eines’s passive.

But now? Since they were both using the same Saren, whether or not she could get the first turn came down to who had farmed Arcana harder.

“No, I mean... do you even know how much Arcana farming I’ve...”

Heretic was about to open Saren’s character window and show them her Arcana farming progress, but she stopped herself.

These people aren’t even going to play Galaxy Train anyway! There’s no need to explain anything!

Heretic snorted through her nose and fiddled with her attack party.

“If I switch the Light Cone to this one, the buffs get kind of garbage...”

Desperate to get the first turn by any means necessary, Heretic swapped out the Light Cone equipped on Saren for a different one.

“Seriously... Labellehar! You!! Don’t put Eines back in!”

Heretic cried pitifully and refreshed the screen.

Kwon Seah’s defense party was, of course, unchanged.

Heretic swallowed hard, then attacked Kwon Seah’s defense party once more.

If I can hit them even once, my party wins for sure! If HaeunRich just cuts the enemy’s energy below 50 percent, Hecate’s passive will activate and wipe out whoever’s left!

Heretic silently screamed and prayed for the loading screen to finish.

“Ah, yessssss!!!”

The moment battle began, Heretic’s Saren used her ultimate right away, unlike before.

HaeunRich’s ultimate gauge instantly hit 100 percent.

“See? I told you! Without Eines, she’s honestly nothing!”

Heretic sneered.

“Hey! Labellehar!!! Now that you’ve spent a million won and your defense party’s been broken through, go ahead and cringe yourself to death and put Eines back in!”

Since HaeunRich’s gauge was at 100 percent, she could use her ultimate whenever she wanted, regardless of her speed.

Colosseum battles ran on pure 100 percent auto, with not a single ounce of player intervention, so it was only natural that HaeunRich would use her ultimate.

Now, by Heretic’s calculations, Kwon Seah’s party would be left nearly dead even if it wasn’t wiped out entirely.

And if they were left hanging by a thread, the Hecate she had slotted in would trigger her passive and clean up the rest.

That was how it was supposed to go.

“Uh... what? Why did Irel use her ultimate first?”

Contrary to Heretic’s calculations, Kwon Seah’s Irel suddenly used her ultimate first.

A powerful shield wrapped around the entire party, and only then did Heretic’s HaeunRich unleash her ultimate.

Heretic’s calculations fell apart, and her HaeunRich failed to deal proper damage to Kwon Seah’s team.

“Ah, no... what. No way...”

Heretic rubbed her face with both hands.

“This crazy bitch actually full-refined Irel’s signature Light Cone?!”

Heretic let out a genuine scream and hurriedly checked the signature Light Cone for Irel, the one she herself owned only a single copy of.

Her Oath of Glory! was only one copy, so her ultimate gauge recovered by a measly 20 percent.

“If that’s fully refined... that’s a 100 percent recovery, isn’t it?”

Heretic stared blankly and opened Excel.

“This... is absolutely un-brea, unbreakable...!”

Heretic screamed in genuine anguish.

Irel was crippled when it came to attacking enemies, but as for shields, her scaling was so absurd it was almost insulting!

“Y-you...! Why the hell would you burn through the permanent banner so many times just to use a trash character who can’t do anything except shield in PVP?!”

The permanent banner was, if you had even one percent understanding of Galaxy Train’s business model, nothing but a trash can no sane person would ever spend money on.

The characters from the permanent banner appeared there in the first place because they would otherwise show up with a 50 percent chance on the character-limited banner, even when you didn’t want them.

The garbage that popped out at a 50 percent rate for people trying to pull Sere and HaeunRich was exactly who the permanent banner was made of!

Kwon Seah had stuck her hand into the trash can everyone else called madness.

“Why... why would you pull this?! Why would you pull this! What kind of idiot spends money here?! Even if you hit pity, the chance of getting what you want is under five percent!”

Kwon Seah just pulled it.

She spent money to pull it.

“Y-you... b-bastard...”

Heretic was drenched in cold sweat under her armpits, on her chest, on her forehead, and down her neck as she suffered.

I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate it!!!

But since she was even being offered Irel, there was no way she could refuse.

Heretic couldn’t answer, and with her inferiority complex blazing, she hit refresh.

“Th-this damn it! What do you take people for, idiots?! Hey! Labellehar!!! You!! I’m going to smash this right now, so switch back to that party from before, immediately!!”

With Irel gone, there was no way her attack party could lose.

Heretic burned with fury and hammered the attack button.

As soon as battle started, Heretic’s Saren used her ultimate right away.

Even the viewers were laughing at Heretic, which was how ridiculously awful Kwon Seah’s defense party looked on the surface.

“Huhhh...?”

But who was Kwon Seah?

Wasn’t she the monster who had jumped into the giant trash can called the permanent banner, shouted, “Hey, this is delicious?!”, and gleefully pulled until her fingers ached?

Kwon Seah’s Nanaka suddenly used her ultimate faster than Heretic’s HaeunRich.

Ice arrows swept through Heretic’s party in an instant.

Heretic watched blankly as her party got cleanly carved apart.

“Uh... this... no, wait...”

Heretic’s mind went completely white.

“Who... runs a defense party like this? Why would you take Irel’s signature Light Cone, give it to Nanaka on purpose, freeze the entire attack party, and then burn them to death with Lina...?”

Right now, that was the kind of insane thing only Kwon Seah could do in Galaxy Train.

Maybe a year from now most ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠players would be able to try it as a meme, but at present, it was impossible.

“Who! Who! Who! Who in the world runs a party like thattttttttt!!!”

Heretic was so wronged she burst into tears.

“Y-you... damn it... damn, damn it...! What the hell are you?! Why is this not shown?! From second place to tenth place—no, even to one hundredth place—the parties are all more or less the same, so why the hell are yours so different?!”

Kwon Seah’s absurd money-flinging was far removed from anything anyone would call “meta.”

So Heretic couldn’t calculate it.

In the first place, trying to predict someone who was running a circus all by herself with characters and Light Cones nobody else used was impossible.

“This is so unfair... so unfair...! W-waaahhh...!!!”

Kwon Seah really did, with genuine gratitude, donate a total of three million won today.

From her point of view, Heretic was an unbelievably, unbelievably, unbelievably valuable person.

Every time Heretic struggled and whined that she couldn’t break through the deck, Kwon Seah got a delightful chill down her spine.

And whenever she did the humiliating setup with Irel and Nanaka, the imagined reactions came surging out ten times stronger, enough that she’d stand up from her chair, clap, and laugh for no reason.

So, because she was truly grateful, she happily tossed out three million won.

“Y-you... baaaaaastard!!!”

Unfortunately for Heretic, Kwon Seah’s behavior didn’t feel kind in the slightest; it felt purely like humiliation.

“Take it! Take it all back! Take it back right now!! I’ll refund you, so get lost!! Don’t ever come to my stream again!! I’m banning you! Banned! BANNED!! You’re banned forever!!!”

Heretic, unable to contain her rage, flung her wireless mouse onto the floor.

* * *

“Damn it... she’s definitely some fat, greasy, creepy-looking guy in his forties...”

Growling under her breath, Heretic grabbed her tablet with both hands and threw herself onto the bed.

After suffering through Kwon Seah’s accidental humiliation, she’d flailed around trying to claw her way back to first place, but it was hopeless.

“The victory points are a whole thousand apart...”

Heretic hugged the tablet to her chest, sniffled, and touched the screen.

Because she wanted first place more than anyone else, Kwon Seah’s existence made her feel terrible just thinking about it.

“Huh...?”

“You little—seriously!!!”

The instant she saw Kwon Seah’s friend invite, sent with what must surely have been good intentions, Heretic spewed a string of curses.

And, snorting in anger, she was about to tap Kwon Seah’s ID and block her.

“...What? Why is this person’s FID like this?”

Heretic, who had touched the screen with the intent to block her, swallowed hard.

“Right... something felt off... so she wasn’t an ordinary player. Now, now I get it... so that’s why she could roll the permanent banner infinitely?”

FID was a sort of resident registration number given to players in Galaxy Train.

The leading “6” was the number that classified the country, and what mattered was the digits after that.

600000003 meant Kwon Seah’s account had been created as the third account on the Korean server.

By common sense, an account like that could only look like a test account to any normal player.