An Ecosystem Disturber
“So, the members are me and Choi Pinam. And I heard the team captain is Dokgo Jun.”
The partner streamer, Dokgo Jun, specialized in variety games and had a style all his own.
Given that most male gaming streamers at the top tier were former pros, he was one of the very few big-name streamers who’d come from an ordinary background.
Because he was just an average guy, he wasn’t known for outrageous game skill so much as for the kind of variety-show charisma that kept viewers entertained.
Still, he wasn’t so bad that people would call him a brutally incompetent streamer.
So the audience mostly reacted with the sense that a decent team had been assembled.
“All right, then. That’s the announcement done, so let’s start rank matches.”
All they knew was that she was popular and not very good at games.
Choi Pinam had recommended her, so Yeongho accepted the invitation without much suspicion. Honestly, he only knew the team captain, the partner streamer, by name anyway.
He just figured some famous broadcaster was involved.
“Hyung-nim! I’m ready!”
“Yes. I’m going in.”
While he chatted a bit with the viewers, four o’clock came and went in the blink of an eye.
The promised waiting time had passed, so there was no reason not to queue for ranked.
Once he was ready, Yeongho slipped into the capsule and launched the game.
[‘22.2 Degrees’ has registered a 1,000-coin mission.]
Stay alive until Crown with zero deaths!
The moment he logged into Battle Island, the viewers began tossing missions at him.
Crown tier was the upper tier of Diamond.
The rank emblem was, true to its name, shaped like a golden crown, and it looked pretty striking.
It was only the starting point of what people called the heavenly realm, but even so, that put it within the top 0.3 percent of all players—a genuine mark of skill.
“No-death until Crown. I’ll do it.”
In Battle Island, no deaths essentially meant victory, so the mission was really a demand that he keep winning until he reached Crown.
It was a difficult request, but Yeongho accepted it without a second thought, and then he clicked to accept one mission after another that followed.
There were missions for a minimum number of kills.
Missions to reach each tier from Diamond 5 all the way to Crown.
Missions to win using a designated weapon.
Before long, the list had grown past ten.
Still, while he accepted most of them, he filtered out the ones like winning with a light machine gun or a submachine gun.
This kind of thing might actually get in the way of the game.
Weapons that suppressed enemies by spraying a storm of bullets in a brief burst simply didn’t seem to mesh all that well with his abilities.
He could use them, sure, but compared with single-shot weapons, the synergy felt lacking.
He wasn’t fond of them personally, either, so unless a serious amount of money was on the line, the answer was: why bother?
Besides, as the viewers said, from Diamond onward the field would be full of pretty skilled players, so forcing himself to use unfamiliar weapons could easily backfire.
“Hey! The rest of us ordinary folks are the ones who can only sit around whining that it’s impossible! Hyung-nim can do it all!”
Choi Pinam shouted and fanned the flames, drawing the viewers in.
They’d actually discussed the squad issue beforehand.
But since the current arrangement still seemed workable, they decided to lean a little harder into the duo concept.
If they failed to take first even once, the situation would change.
But while the winning streak held, Yeongho wanted to leave the viewers with the strongest possible impression.
And so the game began.
In the first match, they took first place with ease, and Yeongho was promoted to Diamond 5.
In the games that followed, too.
Victory, then victory again.
They won three straight matches, ate dinner like they had before, and took a brief rest.
For the first time in the fourth match, Choi Pinam recorded a death.
The no-death mission was based on Yeongho, so it didn’t matter.
Still, even the viewers could feel how punishing the difficulty had become—one tiny mistake, and you were dead.
“Argh! Sorry, Hyung-nim! I really, seriously just showed a tiny bit of my shoulder, and they still landed the shot on it.”
“It’s fine. We won anyway, didn’t we?”
Normally, when someone won a match, they’d gain at least 40 points, with an extra 10 to 20 percent added depending on how much influence they’d shown in that game.
But in Yeongho’s case, he was already increasing the difficulty by playing duo squad.
And because he spent the entire game overwhelming other players in what could only be described as a massacre, the bonus points just kept piling up.
As the matches piled up, his concentration was drained more and more, and by the fifth game he finally had to end the broadcast.
The shape of combat itself hasn’t really changed from before, but there are more moments each match where I have to stay locked in.
The Diamond players were definitely different from the tiers before him in terms of accuracy, reflexes, and mind games.
But even so, from Yeongho’s point of view, who could always pinpoint his enemies’ positions and put bullets into vital spots every single time he fired, the flow of the game itself hadn’t changed much.
He simply had to stay immersed more often, and the amount of time he could maintain that level of form was a little shorter.
Whereas before he’d thought he could probably stretch to six games if he took breaks in between, now it felt as though five games was the limit, even though he’d grown even more accustomed to using his abilities.
And so, by the end of the day, his final ranked points were 3,304.
He’d added 305 points in just five matches, which meant he’d averaged 61 points per win.
In ranked games, where even hitting 50 points was enough to make people say you’d hard-carried, it was only natural to wonder how results like this kept happening.
No one would have believed it if they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes.
“Yes. Hoo... I’m getting tired. The game level has definitely gone up, so it feels like my concentration is being drained a lot faster.”
There were people sending donations, telling him to keep going, or putting up missions asking him to hit Crown today.
But most of them didn’t try to cling too hard to Yeongho when he said he was getting tired and would rest.
He’d already given them more than enough delicious material to chew on and tear apart for entertainment.
And viewers who knew the score understood all too well that if you pushed a streamer into overwork, the ending would be the sad one known as a day off.
So the stream ended, and the next day came.
With three ranked matches on the daytime broadcast and then the continuation at night, he reached Diamond 1 with 3,482 RP.
After resting and returning for the first match of the evening stream, he won again and finally reached Crown tier.
“But aren’t streamer tournaments capped at Diamond for entry?”
“Then let’s race for Ace too!”
“Huh? Does that mean he can’t compete?”
“No, no, no. Once the teams are fixed, any points gained afterward don’t matter. I saw earlier today that the member confirmation notice was already up.”
Checking the tournament-related chatter in chat, Yeongho nodded and spoke.
“That’s right. Based on the team formation cutoff at 4 p.m. yesterday, Choi Pinam and I will be entering as Platinum tier.”
“The tournament is four days away, right? By then, won’t he be going out there as an Ace?”
“Looking at the members, Dokgo Jun is Gold 1, Boss Dad is Platinum 1, Choi Pinam is Platinum 2, and Kumonyong’s joining as Bronze 4.”
“By points, that’s lower than the other teams, lol. Didn’t one person used to be allowed in up to Diamond?”
“Ah, so the last member is Kumonyong.”
“Guys. Please don’t go around yelling this from the rooftops. Honestly, even we’re a little ashamed and wondering if this is really okay.”
At Choi Pinam’s comment, made as the tournament came up, the viewers gleefully mashed the keyboard with laughter.
As the tournament talk died down and the room settled a bit, Yeongho queued up again and declared to the viewers, “For the remaining four days, I’ll go for Ace.”
“If I keep following Hyung-nim around, I could probably reach Crown too, so somebody toss me a few more missions. Hey! Don’t curse at me! I’m still doing my fair share, you know?”
Since he’d already reached Crown and cleaned out the mission window, the viewers, hearing Yeongho’s declaration, hurriedly bought coins and started registering new missions one after another.
And time passed.
At last, the day of the tournament arrived.
[Choi Pinam] [SJ DAD]
[Crown] [Ace]
[RP: 3682] [RP: 4116]
“Hyung-nim! How’re you feeling?”
“At my best.”
“Okay~ Then let’s go!”
What had been meant as a modest little streamer friendly tournament was about to be visited by catastrophe.
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