Kwon Seah's Unusual Explanation Broadcast
“My, my? You prepared such a long record of purchases... It seems Lady Seah wouldn’t even need to go on stream at all, would she?”
Elodie toyed with the heavy stack of documents as she spoke.
“That’s just because Elodie unni doesn’t really understand internet communities.”
“But isn’t Heretic’s claim that you had a special account and enjoyed privileges, meaning you didn’t compete in a fair way?”
“That’s true. Logically speaking, that’s how it sounds. But public opinion in an internet community doesn’t run on clean, precise logic like a ruler on a drafting table.”
What mattered in a story like this was the shift in atmosphere.
“Even if I post these purchase records, there will still be plenty of people who dig in their heels and refuse to believe it. I’m already branded as the bad guy in the community, after all. They’ll look at this and say I borrowed the receipts from another game, or that I photoshopped everything, or that the stones I spent somehow look like more than I actually used. They’d keep nitpicking forever, trying to drag it out and insist it’s an operator account.”
“That really is a troublesome sort of person...”
“Exactly. That’s why I need hard proof and a complete reversal of the mood.”
There were still fourteen people left in the clan who believed in me.
They trusted me, but on the Gallery side, no one really spoke up for me.
Communities have something called atmosphere, and even if something is perfectly correct and logical, it’s common for a mob to turn and knife you the moment you fall outside that atmosphere.
Honestly, it isn’t just communities. The society we live in is like that all the time.
That’s why there are always troublemakers around, happily making public opinion worse with ridiculous, forced defenses.
“And I’m not planning to end this with some boring, logical ‘we were both wrong, so let’s call it even and move on,’ either. She stabbed first, so I’m going to take thorough revenge.”
I had no intention of accepting a simple apology and letting it end there.
This was the first time in my life I’d ever been pushed into such absurd depression and helplessness because of Heretic, to the point where I literally collapsed!
“But... thinking about it, something feels weird.”
“What is it, Lady Seah?”
Come to think of it, back when I worked at the administrative welfare center, there had been way worse things than this.
Even when an old man stormed in carrying a gas canister, screaming that if his basic livelihood stipend was cut he’d burn everyone alive, I hadn’t felt my mental state wobble like this.
...No, seriously, that’s strange. Is it because I became a woman?
“It’s nothing. I guess I was mistaken.”
Whatever it was, it wasn’t as important as this depression business right now, so I decided to think about it later.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Seah Kwon posted on the Star Rail Gallery that she would be doing an explanation broadcast at 8 p.m. on Saturday night.
The response, naturally, was awful.
Seah Kwon didn’t care one way or the other and sharpened her blade with all the patience of a butcher at dawn.
There was more a chaebol family’s youngest daughter could do than simply flex the fact that she had money.
Heretic was enjoying the whole thing like a festival.
She even turned on her own stream just to mock Seah Kwon, and a surprisingly large number of people piled into her chat.
The two streams were separated by more than a factor of ten in viewers.
Which, really, made sense.
The people who wanted to insult Seah Kwon found it safer—and more fun—to do it in Heretic’s stream than to enter Seah Kwon’s own chat and risk being permanently recorded there.
“A~h! I’m seriously so excited to see what kind of lies she’s going to tell!”
- lol seriously
- Right? The FID alone looked like an operator account to anyone with eyes lol
- Did you see what got posted in the popular thread? Someone said the amount she’d have to farm to get like Labellehar would be, what, 150 days?
- I heard she’s done trash like this with operator accounts elsewhere too
Heretic’s lips curled upward.
From the way things looked, there was no way Seah Kwon could possibly pull off a proper explanation broadcast.
“Ah! It’s starting!! It’s starting! Wow, they even set up a countdown?”
When 8 p.m. hit, Seah Kwon’s broadcast began counting down from five.
- Ugh, what a drama queen lol
- What is this, a world premiere or something, damn
- LOL this is too funny
And in the middle of all that mockery, the number finally dropped to one.
As the black screen changed, a man in a gray shirt appeared, seated with a serious expression.
“Greetings, Pioneers.”
The man who offered his greeting with surprisingly good pronunciation was someone nearly forty thousand people, Heretic included, did not recognize.
But no long explanation was needed.
Honkai Korea Branch Manager — Shin Jong-hak
- Branch manager???
- ??? Isn’t this the guy who gave a congratulatory speech at the Star Rail opening event?
- What is this? Is this an official broadcast?
- Huh???
“Pioneers! I’m terribly sorry. I sincerely apologize that you were unable to fully enjoy the joy of the 1.1 update, which you should have been able to celebrate, because of concerns that fair competition had been compromised.”
The same words can mean very different things depending on who says them.
Seah Kwon understood that better than anyone, so she gave the matter some thought.
With Chief of Staff Lee Eunbyul’s help, it had been very easy to get the branch manager on the line.
“I am Shin Jong-hak, the branch manager of Honkai Korea. Some of you Pioneers may recognize my face. Because rumors of fair competition being compromised are taken extremely seriously both at the branch and at headquarters, we have arranged this meeting in order to address the concerns and unease of Pioneers on the Korean server.”
From the branch manager’s point of view, this situation needed to be cleaned up neatly.
It was the same reason you wouldn’t deliberately let a thug into a gambling den. Star Rail could only continue if it maintained the image of a place where “fair competition” was possible. That image had to keep existing, or whale users would never stop pouring money in.
- Damn, they really set up a whole position for this? What’s going on?
- ???
- Isn’t Heretic screwed?
- Holy shit, if that’s the branch manager, isn’t he a really big deal?
- Hahahahahahaha
“First, I’ll briefly explain how this broadcast came to be. Pioneer Labellehar became aware of the issue and requested several pieces of evidence to calm the controversy. However, after our branch assessed the matter, we felt that if a single user conveyed that information to all of you, it might come across as minimizing the issue, so we decided that the company should explain the situation directly.”
“W-what... what is this old man saying?”
Heretic’s mouth went dry on instinct.
Her fingers stiffened, and she clicked the mouse for no reason at all.
- So it just means Labellehar isn’t an operator account, right?
- Dunno
- Feels like a forced defense lol
- Looks like an operator account, so of course the company’s stepping in to defend it lol
At that moment, the viewer count in her room began slipping away, little by little.
“First, let me explain a few misunderstandings regarding Pioneer Labellehar.”
With a press of a button, Branch Manager Shin Jong-hak changed the broadcast screen.
“Pioneer Labellehar is currently under suspicion of obtaining a large quantity of Flashing Dream through abnormal means or special treatment. However, after checking the logs, we confirmed that these were obtained purely through payment.”
Click.
On the left side of the stream screen, Seah Kwon’s purchase history was displayed in detail, while on the right, the ‘log’ for the ‘Labellehar’ account was laid out in meticulous detail.
“The material on the left should be easy for many Pioneers to understand, so I’ll explain the right side. In Star Rail, we record a great many of the Pioneers’ actions in real time. We call that a log. In the log you’re seeing now... yes, as you can see, at 5:34 p.m., a Visa card was used to purchase Flashing Dream... yes, that’s right. You’d call this a truck, wouldn’t you? The record shows that a full truckload was paid for.”
- Wait, so she just had a ton of money?
- No way, isn’t this fake??
- Why would the company fake it lol? A bunch of old dudes spend two thousand a month on grooming allowance just to play Thor games lol
- Lol, the monthly-pass parasites have never seen the way rich people spend money in their lives
- LOL saying she somehow had infinite free stones in the first place was already ridiculous
Heretic’s chat began to flip almost immediately.
Meanwhile, Seah Kwon’s stream was steadily gaining viewers.
“Ah, n-no... the company could manipulate something like that however they wanted, and ordinary users wouldn’t be able to tell—”
“With Pioneer Labellehar’s consent, we have uploaded the relevant purchase history and log file to the notices board, so Pioneers are free to inspect them at any time.”
- No way this could be fake, then.
- Why would the company bother faking this? Is your brain broken???
- Ah~~ how strange~~ why am I not number one? Ah, I see! Number one is the operator~!!
- Hahahahahahahahahahaha
- Heretic, yeah, your life is screwed lol
Heretic felt as if the floor had suddenly jolted beneath her hard enough to steal her breath.
“N-no! Hey! Fine! Maybe she spent a lot of money! But what about the other things I called out? The FID, the figures! Those haven’t been explained at all! And anyway! If she’s an operator, then of course the company would send out the branch manager and protect her!!!”
- A bit pathetic there, Heretic lol
- Hm... but she’s not entirely wrong, is she?
- lol if this is wrong too, are you going to jump off a building?
- Ah~~ how strange~~ why am I not number one? Ah, I see! Number one is the operator~!!
- Just apologize now, lol
- But what’s with the figures? Kinda curious, lol
Heretic gripped the mouse so tightly her hands began to tremble.
Tears poured down her cheeks in thin streams.
“Next, as many Pioneers have requested, I’ll give a brief explanation regarding Pioneer Labellehar’s FID.”
When Branch Manager Shin Jong-hak pressed the button, several profiles appeared.
“Contrary to what people commonly believe, an FID in the single digits or tens does not necessarily mean an operator account or test account. Accounts 01 and 02 here are indeed accounts we used for Korean server testing, yes...”
“See! Then that means she’s an operator! Labellehar is number 03!”
Heretic cried out in a mournful voice.
“Accounts 03, 05, 07, 08, 11, and 13 through 19 are all ordinary player accounts.”
The branch manager clicked through the remote a few times and displayed the relevant users’ accounts.
They were all wildly different in level, and some were people who hadn’t spent a single won, not even on the monthly pass.
“It is true that when we were testing the Korean server, we used accounts numbered below 20. However, we deleted those test accounts in bulk before the official launch. After that... the thing with algorithms is that they’re very simple, really. The issue did not arise because accounts were generated starting from 21; rather, the system checked numbers from 01 upward, found the first available number, and issued the FID there, which created the misunderstanding.”
That story was, in fact, a lie.
In reality, there had been users who were mistaken for operator accounts because of that algorithm, but Seah Kwon’s account was number 03 because Seah Kwon herself was a “related party.”
But that did not mean she was receiving special treatment.
There was no reason to explain that part!
“Ah... no... this is obviously a forced defense...”
Heretic hurriedly searched the FIDs shown on stream through her friends list.
There was no lie in the broadcast. 03, 05, 07, 08, 11, and 13 through 19 really were ordinary users.
“N-no... there’s no way I, I, I’d be wro—”
While Heretic pitifully denied reality, her viewers were draining away like a receding tide and flooding into Seah Kwon’s room.
“Yes, then for our final point, I’d like to address the matter of the Modreda figure that so many of you were interested in.”
Branch Manager Shin Jong-hak glanced somewhere for a moment.
“This part will probably be easier to understand if you hear the explanation directly from Pioneer Labellehar rather than from me.”
- Oh?
- What is it lol, is the high-tension middle-school-girl voice coming out?
- Hahahahaha
Seah Kwon had no intention of appearing directly on stream.
Showing her face was far too dangerous a move.
But if she wanted to give a “cute explanation,” she at least needed her voice.
That had been Elodie’s idea.
“Hello! I’m Pioneer Labellehar!”
- Whoa!
- What is that voice? She’s like an actual peppy young lady?
- Compared to Heretic, this is basically Snow White versus a witch lol
- Dude lol, you picked a fight with a pretty girl like that?
- Heretic, you idiot, seriously lol
- You went around crying about unfair treatment and now your life’s about to be ruined, Heretic lol
With the atmosphere completely turned into one that practically worshipped Seah Kwon, she let out a little lie.
“The Modreda figure so many of you mentioned was something I took when I worked at the Star Rail pop-up store. Its condition was so badly damaged that it was supposed to be thrown away, and I... this is really embarrassing, but I took it home.”
“Ah, what kind of excuse is that!!!”
Heretic screamed in outrage.
But as Elodie had predicted, with the mood already reversed and the arrival of “the ridiculously cute-voiced Seah Kwon” as the final blow, it was devastating in its own right.
It was perfect for building the emotional image of a pathetic Heretic unfairly tormenting the beautiful Seah Kwon.
“And then, um... this is really, really embarrassing, but the photo you all saw on the community was something I took without thinking it would actually come out like that. I’m truly sorry.”
“Y-you expect us to believe that excuse? Who would believe that! It doesn’t make any sense! She took it home early because she was an operator, obviously!”
Heretic shouted, but it was pointless.
- Looking at the photo on the website, it wasn’t even something you could just sell in the first place.
- Why would a girl trying to show off her underwear be uploading a proof shot to the internet?
- Seriously, she just took it like a dumbass without realizing it would be seen and got exposed
- Again with the ridiculous unfair treatment, again and again and again~~
“After reviewing Pioneer Labellehar’s explanation once more in greater detail, we confirmed that four Modreda figures were actually disposed of at the pop-up store in Gangnam Hanseong Department Store...”
Heretic could no longer hear Seah Kwon’s broadcast at all.
“No... there’s no way...”
She truly believed Seah Kwon was an operator and that she had been trolling everyone.
So she refunded every one of the three million won in donations she had sent to Seah Kwon to humiliate her.
If Seah Kwon was toying with her, then rather than be humiliated while handing over money like that, she’d make the bitch suffer. She had ground her teeth and sent the money in the first place with that certainty burning in her chest.
Heretic was that convinced.
If Seah Kwon was an operator and had crushed her with special treatment, then I wasn’t the one in the wrong.
It wouldn’t mean Heretic was worse at the game than Seah Kwon—just that she had lost to someone she couldn’t beat.
She had taken second place.
Not failed to get first.
“Our Honkai operations team places the utmost importance on ‘fair competition’ among countless values. I hope this broadcast has resolved the misunderstandings and anxieties of Pioneers, and—”
Heretic was sweating coldly, not even aware the broadcast was nearing its end.
“No, no, no... You guys, h-how could a normal user even make a broadcast like this... th-that doesn’t make sense! And did you not hear it? She said she worked at the pop-up store!”
- Hahahahahahaha
- Stop crying unfair treatment lol
- Ugh, just apologize like a grown woman already
- She’s so damn pathetic, honestly
- Did she really think we wouldn’t notice she was planning to use the Gallery as a fuel tank for her rage?
- All she ever does is say ‘do it for me,’ ‘rage for me,’ ‘snipe for me,’ ‘insult the pretty girl for me’~
Seah Kwon’s broadcast ended perfectly.
And naturally, the people cheering for Seah Kwon came flooding into Heretic’s stream to trash her for watching the broadcast while streaming at the same time.
“W-wait, what... the chat is too fa—”
- I knew this insane bitch was like this.
- Apologize! Apologize! Apologize! Apologize! Apologize! Apologize!
- Apologize to the flagship! Apologize to the flagship! Apologize to the flagship! Apologize to the flagship!
- Why not just dive straight off the Han River Bridge?
“U-uh, uuuugh... ngh...!”
Heretic’s thoughts stopped dead.
She couldn’t withstand this situation, with more than fifty thousand people flooding in at once and hurling insults like snapping punches.
“Sh-shit, what the hell...! Those bastards who never even watched my stream are talking nonsense about the clan and—huh?”
BlossomBlossom
Clan Lv. 3
Clan Members 4/30
“Uh... uh...? Wha...”
Heretic stared at the monitor with a blank expression.
“Ah...”
Only then did she finally understand.
Public opinion on the internet had completely turned against Seah Kwon.
And Heretic didn’t even have logic on her side.
She had simply become a pathetic little coward who couldn’t accept the fact that she’d come in second and had used internet communities as a fuel source for her rage.
Seah Kwon’s explanation broadcast was over.
But she had one more blade prepared.