Do I Have a Talent for Aggro?
Karayang the streamer.
With three hundred thousand subscribers, she was popular for her bright, lively appearance and the exceptional physical reflexes that seemed completely at odds with it.
Turning on her stream brought an average of around two thousand viewers.
In this golden age of broadcasting that arrived with virtual reality games, it was hard to call her a true top-tier streamer, but she was easily one of the most prominent mid-tier creators.
The content she had been pouring the most effort into lately was none other than the training simulation.
“Thank you for the one-thousand-won donation, RamenStirfry! Yep~ Guess we’re running it again today~!”
Karayang smiled as she skimmed through the chat.
“You all know how it goes. I only run hard at the beginning then switch to different content right away. Just wait a little~.”
“Spamming is… a ban!”
“It’s a ten-minute ban, so calm down and come back later.”
The spam was stopped, but the sentiment remained.
The mood wasn’t terrible, but the desire for “other content” still flowed clearly through the chat.
Karayang, who had been quietly scanning the messages, lightly stroked her chin and assessed the situation.
Her instincts as a streamer were screaming.
If I leave it like this, the viewers are all going to leave.
In the end, she had no choice but to take special measures.
“Hmm… I have been running it a lot lately. Then how about we keep it light today and only do thirty minutes?”
“Then I’ll warm up first.”
Seeing the chat reactions melt into relief, Karayang let out a sigh and rolled her shoulders.
This much should have recovered most of the goodwill.
She lightly shook out her wrists and glanced at the leaderboard hanging on the wall.
The absolute monarch still sitting in first place was Ganghan.
Then, as her eyes traveled downward, she found her own name at 457th.
It was an ambiguous rank—neither particularly high nor low.
457th out of millions.
In reality, it was a figure within the top 0.01 percent.
Of course, since the rankings reset every quarter it was hard to call it an exact position, but still.
Everyone already knew that Karayang’s physical ability was far from ordinary.
So why was someone with this kind of ranking working harder than anyone else on the training simulation right now?
There was one reason.
The second quarter is ending soon. Before that, I want to get inside the top 400 if possible.
457th was the highest she had ever climbed.
The feeling that just a little more would push her into the top 400 was exactly why she squeezed in training simulation runs even during broadcast hours.
“Then I’ll run hard for thirty minutes.”
Karayang pressed the start button beside her and ducked under the incoming ball.
“Here we go!!”
***
“Hehe.”
Karayang—no, Lee Semin—let out a silly laugh as she rolled around on the bed, wrapped in pure happiness.
“399th…”
The time she had originally set for today was thirty minutes.
At best she could only run the simulation twice.
She hadn’t expected her rank to rise at all.
But from the very first run she felt lighter than usual and her reactions were perfectly in sync. In the end she had achieved an unexpected “personal best.”
399th.
It was the highest record she had ever set.
Thanks to that she had also completed the mission of entering the top 400 and received a lot of donations, but for someone confident in her own physical ability, what pleased her most was still setting a new personal record.
Now that the quarter is almost over, the top ranks will start slacking off. Maybe this position will stay the same?
And even if someone new started playing…
Getting into the top 400 isn’t easy.
Her rank probably wouldn’t drop.
“Uhehe.”
She buried her face in the pillow and kept rolling around, letting out that stupid laugh with satisfied eyes before slowly closing them.
Tomorrow I should switch to a different game right away.
The viewers were getting tired of the repeated training simulations.
Today felt like the perfect time to wrap it up.
Planning tomorrow’s stream like that, Lee Semin gradually fell asleep.
“Phew~”
Karayang turned on her stream right on time again and stretched refreshingly.
Thanks to sleeping deeply, her condition was at its peak.
“I hit 399th yesterday~ So today we’re jumping straight into a brand-new game!”
The viewers were delighted that she was jumping straight into a game today.
Seeing their reactions, Karayang deliberately paused.
This was the perfect moment to build up anticipation.
“Well? What could it be?”
Good. This was enough.
She smiled brightly and raised one finger.
“There’s one famous new game that just came out, right? It’s called Wilds Hunter. Today I was thinking of—”
The sudden donation cut her off mid-sentence.
“Thank you for the one-thousand-won donation, RamenStirfry. The training simulation ranking? I haven’t checked it yet?”
Why was he suddenly talking about the rankings?
When she checked the name of the viewer who sent the donation, it was a familiar one.
RamenStirfry.
He was the same viewer who had complained just yesterday about her doing training simulation again.
So when that same viewer suddenly brought up the rankings, she felt puzzled.
The viewers’ incomprehensible reaction.
Karayang tilted her head.
The chat suddenly exploded as if everyone knew something.
“Huh…? What’s going on? Why is the mood like this?”
Karayang scratched the back of her neck awkwardly.
Even the manager who usually banned anything unrelated to the stream like a guillotine was silently watching the chat fly by.
That meant there was something important she didn’t know about.
“Why are you all talking without me? I feel left out. Don’t just keep it among yourselves—tell me too.”
She couldn’t ignore reactions like this.
Normally she would have brushed it off and started the new game as planned, but the atmosphere right now was clearly different.
If she ignored it and continued the stream, the chat would keep spamming the same topic.
That would ruin the flow even for the viewers who had come to focus on the game.
The whole broadcast would turn chaotic.
“Hmm…”
She rested a finger on her lips and thought for a moment.
Unable to withstand the flood of encouragement from the viewers, she finally nodded.
“Since everyone seems to really want me to check, shall we look right now?”
She moved her fingers and clicked the training simulation icon on the interface. The familiar white room greeted her as usual.
“Then shall we check the leaderboard that everyone is most curious about first?”
The leaderboard was easy to see.
The developers had embedded it prominently on one wall precisely so players would always feel the sense of competition.
What exactly am I supposed to be checking?
The viewers were making such a fuss, so there had to be something, but she had no idea what it could be.
Her rank should still be at 399th anyway.
Still full of questions, Karayang turned her head to look at the leaderboard.
That was when she finally understood why the viewers had been losing their minds.
Her own rank, which had fallen to 400th.
And the person who had pushed her down from the hard-earned position in less than a day was sitting at the very top of the board.
Reflex — Agility — Accuracy — Evasion — Concentration — Total Score
1st — Haerang — 100 / 100 / 100 / 100 / 100 / 500
400th — ILikeCheonhyehyang — — — — — —
With an impossible score, at that.
Karayang’s brain short-circuited. Her mouth fell open and she could only let out a dumb sound.
“Uweh…?”
The fact that this moment would be clipped and haunt her for a long time was still something she didn’t know.
And the reason her dazed eyes caught that particular chat message at that exact moment was definitely not a coincidence.
“Haerang went live? Where?”
She felt like she would go crazy if she didn’t check right now.
And it wasn’t just this stream that was on fire.
(Link)
Meanwhile.
Kim Yeonu had expected the number of viewers to be low since it was her first stream.
It would be nice if people came, but it didn’t matter if they didn’t.
Viewers would naturally gather as time passed anyway.
So today she had planned to treat it like a light warm-up, just to get a feel for things.
5 viewers.
49 viewers.
700 viewers.
The number kept climbing.
And finally, only five minutes after starting the stream.
2,458 viewers.
Seeing that absurd number, Kim Yeonu could only tilt her head.
“...Do I have a talent for aggro more than I thought?”
In this ridiculous situation, all she could do was let out a hollow laugh.