An Invitation to Join
Shindaeryuk TV was hosting a Legend of League Ladies Tournament.
Calling it a serious competition would have been generous. Thirty percent of it, easily, carried the flavor of a variety show — and it might have been closer to fifty. What the platform wanted, above everything else, was a hit, and the viewer count a hit would drag in with it. The same way the networks live and die by ratings.
So the company wanted famous female streamers in the Ladies Tournament, as many as it could get. Popularity over skill. Only then would those streamers' fans actually tune in to watch. That was why the event came with a tier cap: each rank was assigned a point value, and when a team was built, the members' combined score was not allowed to break twenty.
Classic Top-Lane Syndrome. She didn't care whether the bottom lane lived or died. So long as her own lane was popping off, the rest of the map could burn.
That was why she had meant to skip a Ladies Tournament where a proper female jungler was almost impossible to find.
Mia flashed through my head. If I asked her to join, she would say yes without a second thought.
Mia had climbed to Platinum as a support, and then spent her days being branded a Hyeji and scolded from every direction. At first she practiced carry supports just to shake that image. Eventually she abandoned the role altogether and moved to mid.
Early on she struggled hard enough to drop all the way to Gold 3, but after more than two months she was slowly finding her footing again, built around Xerath — the champion she had been playing since her support days.
I closed the chat with 19Sonyeo and called Mia first. She agreed to the Ladies Tournament without a moment's hesitation. Nice — one more teammate secured. 19Sonyeo already had an acquaintance lined up, so I only needed a single person more.
"Ah. I should put up a notice, too."
I went onto the channel board and posted that I was taking the day off. Shameless as I could be, my face still wasn't thick enough to go live the very same day I'd just been chewed out over the noise between floors. Once the notice was up, I told Mia that what we needed was a Gold-level marksman. Her circle of streamers wasn't especially wide, but she had years in the business on me. She would do better than I could.
Ding—!
How long had it been since I'd handed the job to Mia? I was combing through other women who streamed games, hunting for candidates, when Discord suddenly rang. A call request, from Yerin.
"Unniiii!"
"Wh— huh? What's wrong."
"Did something happen? You just vanished from the chat earlier, and I saw the notice. It says you're off today."
"Ah…… no. It's nothing that serious."
I walked her through it, piece by piece. I was entering the Ladies Tournament that Shindaeryuk TV was hosting.
"So all that's left is finding a Gold-tier marksman?"
"Yeah. I filled the roster faster than I expected. Got lucky."
"Then I'll do it."
"Huh?"
I asked again, certain I had misheard. The voice coming through Discord stayed perfectly calm, without a tremor in it.
"I'm saying I'll take the last spot."
"Uh? The thing is…… only Shindaeryuk TV streamers are allowed to enter."
"I used to broadcast on Shindaeryuk TV. Simple art lessons. I quit once the freelance work really picked up."
"Y-you did?"
"Yes. And I'm Gold. Jungle is my main, but marksman is the role I've played the most after that."
A coincidence — and a lucky one. If we were entering anyway, the more of us who already knew each other, the easier the teamwork would be, and the smoother everything would run.
I locked Yerin in and contacted 19Sonyeo. I already had her Discord ID from when I'd decided to enter. The moment I told her Mia and Yerin were joining, she said she would bring the Iron acquaintance she had mentioned. Someone who used to stream, never found an audience, more or less gave up, and these days was unemployed and killing time. Her Legend of League rank was Iron. Mid was her main role, but Iron players don't get human rights. The plan was to force her onto support, sit her on Soraka, Yuumi, and Lulu, and drill her until she could pull at least half a person's weight.
"Then I'll submit the entry like this."
"Yep."
"And tomorrow, let's all meet on Discord. We're going into a tournament as a team, so we ought to talk a lot. A conversation with our bodies works too."
"Wh-what?"
"That last part was a joke! Sorryyy~"
"……."
After all those twists, the team was complete. Win the whole thing, pocket the MVP prize, and if I cleared the deposit and the stocks on top of that, I would more or less have what I needed for the move and the soundproofing.
I remembered the Blame Tournament, and how close we had come only to finish as runners-up. One memory of losing was enough. The hunger for a championship — read that as hunger for the prize money — was only sinking deeper.
"……."
"……."
In the joy of filling the roster, I had forgotten something. What happens when you put Mia and Yerin in the same channel. Today, same as ever, they had their claws out for each other.
Mia struck first. All leisure and smugness, she asked whether Yerin had ever seen my real face with the mask off — not just the version from the cam room. What was there even to brag about? That was my first thought. Yerin's reaction, though, was no joke. I could almost imagine the angry hiss of her breath right there beside me.
Furious, Yerin finally drew her secret weapon.
"……!"
"W-what? A w-wish ticket?"
I startled. Mia was horrified. And 19Sonyeo and Dogu-neun-sirheoyo, reduced to spectators, were having the time of their lives.
"Unni! A wish ticket?! What is that supposed to mean!"
"Uh…… no, that's — I mean……."
I had never expected Yerin to bring the wish ticket up in front of everyone, and it threw me completely. The positions flipped. Yerin turned toward the snorting Mia and put on the generous voice of a winner.
"I was a really, really enormous help to Hani-unni. The kind of help nooo-body else could have given. And then Unni said thank you, and gave me a wish ticket."
"……Is that true?"
"It— it is true, but."
"Unni, you idiot! Sea cucumber! Sea anemone!"
"Huh? No, Mia!"
Thoroughly sulking, Mia rage-quit the channel. I was dumbfounded. This wasn't a game. She had deserted in real life. Yerin snorted that she had won, and Dogu-neun-sirheoyo carefully read the room. And 19Sonyeo…….
"Must be rough, being this popular. So which one's the main wife?"
"It is not like that!"
Storm clouds were rolling in over a sky that had looked so hopeful.
"What are you doing? Both of you, apologize. Now!"
"I'm sorry."
"I won't do it again."
I asked 19Sonyeo and Dogu-neun-sirheoyo to give us a minute, pulled the two of them into a separate call, and gave them a proper scolding. I wasn't a kindergarten teacher. What was I even doing at this age? Still, I played my trump card: if they kept this up, I was cutting them off. Only then did I drag a forced reconciliation out of them. Whatever they still felt underneath, on the surface it looked patched together.
This won't do.
Legend of League is a team game, and Mia and Yerin were supposed to take mid and marksman — crucial roles. What I needed was cooperation that was real, not just for show.
"If we win this tournament…… not because of any wish ticket. All of us, let's just go on a trip. But if we don't win, it's canceled."
"Unni, you mean it, right? We're really going together, right?"
"Then with the wish ticket, Unni and I, on a double bed…… hk!"
Both of their voices shot up, bright with excitement. Carrot after the stick. Of course.
A little later, we were all together again.
"You two done talking?"
"Yes. It should be fine now."
19Sonyeo and Dogu-neun-sirheoyo were twenty-five, our seniors, so it was settled that they would speak to us casually. From there, we talked about the tournament. The rest of us were rookies, but 19Sonyeo had competed in a Ladies Tournament once before — and won — so she tried to unpack everything she remembered as clearly as she could.
"The group draw is what matters. No — honestly, the draw is everything. There are only sixteen teams, and the ones you can actually call strong? One, maybe two. Everybody else is a variety-show squad or a bunch of pretty-face mascots."
Even among female streamers, people at a fairly high tier did turn up now and then. The problem was that most of them were supports. They could shine while propping someone else up, but they weren't built to be the star, or to carry a team. And far too many female streamers mained support. Someone would have to give up her main role and move somewhere her hands didn't know as well. Could she really play at the level of her actual rank?
"That's where our team is solid. Two Masters, and the roles are top and jungle. Every one of us can play to our tier without forcing it."
"You're right. It really is like that."
"Nail the group draw and the floor is the finals. That's how I see it. As long as we don't run into a halfway-decent team in game one and eat dirt slipping on one of their coinflips……."
It was an analysis I could fully buy. We finished the rest — our schedules, the things we still needed to coordinate — and left the channel.
Nothing here should turn into a real problem.
19Sonyeo had the leadership, so the fiddly little jobs could go to her. Dogu-neun-sirheoyo seemed a little timid; a bit of care, and she wouldn't end up drifting on the outside.
And for the length of the tournament, Mia and Yerin looked like they would actually cooperate.
Sunday's group draw already had me looking forward to it.