The Top Lane Is Mine
After sending Jaemin off to the academy and returning to the studio, Yeongho started his evening broadcast.
Since he was back to his routine, he decided to stop thinking about anything else and focus on the stream.
“Good to see you again, everyone. I’m back.”
Because the counseling session at the academy had taken a fair amount of time, he’d already posted an announcement on the way back, but he still ended up running a little late.
So, to calm the irritated viewers down, he had to spend a little time chatting with them first.
“My son seemed to want to learn something, so I went to the academy to handle the enrollment consultation. That’s why I was late.”
“My son is in middle school, first year. It was DX Esports Academy? I heard that place has a good reputation, so I went to check it out.”
“I’m only going to raise one son well. Those academy fees are insane; I couldn’t send more than one even if I wanted to.”
The chat was on fire over the game academy topic.
Apparently a lot of people were interested in that sort of thing already, because there were so many questions that it was becoming hard to answer them all.
Did I mess up mentioning the academy’s name? Surely nobody’s going to go looking for it... right?
Yeongho answered the viewers at a comfortable pace while he looked for a chance to shift the conversation to a new topic.
He had brought up the matter of his son himself, but Jaemin was just an ordinary person unrelated to the broadcast.
If he talked about him too much, there was a chance his location could be identified for no good reason, and that could become a real nuisance.
Guess I’ll have to be more careful about mentioning the people around me when I stream. I didn’t think that through enough.
Yeongho reflected on it for a moment, then snapped his fingers toward the viewers as if telling them to pay attention.
He happened to have something worth bringing up, so he planned to use that to change the mood.
“All right, there’s something important I need to tell you.”
Since there had already been rumors that once he completed the Predator promotion mission, he might move on to another game, the viewers perked up the moment Yeongho looked as if he was about to make an announcement and started throwing out the games they liked one by one, all while staring at his mouth closely.
“As you all probably guessed, I’ve had my fill of Battle Island, so I’m thinking of trying other games too.”
He brought up a browser window and showed it to the chattering viewers.
The YouTube channel, SJ DAD.
Its subscriber count had already climbed quite a bit and now stood at around four hundred.
“You see this? The YouTube channel has been created. Our manager’s edited videos will be uploaded there, so please check it out and subscribe.”
“I looked into it, and it seems fine as long as I’m not simulcasting my live stream. The platform probably won’t be thrilled, of course, but I still have to make a living, don’t I?”
For a moment the YouTube channel announcement had stolen the spotlight, but the viewers’ attention quickly returned to the topic of the new game.
Yet Yeongho said nothing. He only quietly moved his mouse cursor around.
He drew a few circles over the current viewer count shown on the broadcast page, then went back to the YouTube channel to check the subscriber number again.
“Hmm...”
Then he tilted his head with a puzzled look, closed his eyes, crossed his arms, and sank deep into his chair.
When he made a gesture that the speed of the subscriber increase wasn’t to his liking, the viewers grumbled, but they still opened YouTube and diligently hit the subscribe button.
The number, which had been hovering around three thousand, shot up to five and then eight thousand in an instant.
Wanting every single viewer to subscribe was too greedy, and deciding that this was good enough for now, Yeongho unfolded his arms and straightened up.
“All right, the game we’re playing today is one everyone knows, right? I’ve prepared Legend of War.”
“Oh, Battle Island isn’t something I’m giving up completely. I’ll still play it from time to time when it comes to mind. Still, for the time being, I’m planning to focus on LoW as my main game.”
Some people sounded disappointed, but overall the atmosphere was one of welcome.
To put it a little exaggeratedly, Legend of War was so well-known that it would be fair to say the entire nation played it.
As the world’s most famous game, it was only natural that there wasn’t much room for strong love-it-or-hate-it reactions.
Once he logged in to LoW, that familiar guide window popped up again.
A warning that temporary accounts might have trouble enjoying the game smoothly.
Since a separate warning was popping up, people were saying it would probably be hard for him to keep the same form he’d shown in Battle Island.
From his own experience, after testing things while playing against his son, he hadn’t really felt any major burden.
But there was no reason to mention that, so he brushed it off with a vague, I’m not sure sort of answer.
“Hmm, I wonder. Is it going to be that hard? I guess I’ll know once I try.”
When he moved on to the game start menu, a mode-selection screen appeared.
Like Battle Island, it was divided into normal games and ranked games.
There were special modes that changed the map and basic rules entirely, too, but since this was his first start, he went into the core mode: a normal game.
“Ranked isn’t even selectable.”
“I’ve heard the basics. You get experience and game points as rewards when the match ends, right?”
The system gave experience to raise the player account level, and with the GP, or game points, that he’d collected, he could buy the champions he wanted.
In general, winning a match improved the rewards.
And even if you lost, if you finished with good results—like a higher kill count than everyone else or more damage dealt—the rewards increased even more.
“Choose preferred position. Hmm... what should I go with?”
Before the game started, there was a step where you chose your position.
LoW was a game where five people formed a team and fought enemies.
The positions were also divided into five types: top, jungle, mid, ADC, and support.
Top and mid, as the names suggested, fought on the top and mid lanes, while on bottom lane the ADC and the support who backed them up engaged the enemy in two-on-two fights.
The jungle position was the only one that didn’t go to a lane, instead hunting jungle monsters scattered all over the map to grow stronger.
It had to secure its own growth while constantly predicting the enemy jungler’s route, and because it had to support allies in every lane depending on the situation, it was considered the hardest role of all.
Reading the chat, Yeongho fell into thought for a moment.
He did plan to try all five roles eventually, but finding the role that fit his own style was important too.
I was thinking about ADC as a possibility, too.
Support was a role that assisted allies, after all, so it wasn’t a position that stood out within the team, and he didn’t think viewers would especially like that.
He’d heard that jungle required just as much brainpower as physical skill, and demanded a very deep understanding of the game, so it wasn’t suitable for a beginner.
That’s why he’d originally been narrowing his choices to top, mid, or maybe ADC.
“I kept hearing people say, ‘Men belong in top lane,’ while I was learning about this game. Well, then I guess there’s no helping it.”
In the end, he chose top as his main position and ADC as his secondary, then hit the start button.
ADC was the ranged role, using weapons like guns and bows, so naturally it specialized in long-distance combat.
That made it a good candidate for applying his Battle Island experience, which was why he’d put it on the list.
And since top was Jaemin’s preferred role, he’d chosen it as his main in hopes of learning more about what it felt like in detail.
The last comment caught his eye, and Yeongho nodded before speaking.
“Ah, then I’ll try one practice match first, and from the next one I’ll take viewer participation.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the chat exploded with excitement.
There were already so many people who enjoyed LoW on a regular basis that, with the news of viewer participation, the number of hands raised to join in was enormous.
And then, while that was happening, matchmaking completed and the space shifted.
“Ah, I got top.”
Champion select.
Since this account had only just started the game, the list of available champions was practically empty.
“Hmm...”
Now that he’d ended up in top lane, he’d planned to try Viola again—the champion he’d used while playing with his son—but for some reason Viola’s name wasn’t on the list.
Ah, so she was a rotation champion back then.
Rotation champions were a system that let players use unpurchased champions for free for a limited time.
Fifteen champions were rotated in every week, and apparently Viola had just happened to be in the pool back then, which was why he’d been able to choose her.
So what should he pick now?
He glanced at the chat, then looked back to champion select.
In truth, he had already watched a number of strategy videos in advance and studied the champions one by one.
But once the actual game began, he couldn’t quite remember what was what anymore.
As he stood there thinking, the pick timer entered its countdown, so he went ahead and chose one of the champions the viewers were talking about.
Raufang, the Savage Berserker
My axe hungers for blood!
Once he’d locked in without delay, the game asked him to set up the rune traits and summoner spells that would support combat.
He had studied those, too, in his own way, but nothing in his middle-aged brain was springing to mind quickly enough.
Still, fortunately, there was a recommended page showing the setup most players commonly used, so he picked something roughly from there and finished preparing completely.
After finally finishing every bit of setup and taking a breath, Yeongho saw someone’s message and answered.
“Ah, you asked whether I’m confident in close combat? That—”
In the middle of speaking, he was transported to the battlefield, and he finished the cut-off sentence.
“I’ll prove it now.”
And then he immediately sprinted toward the top lane.
When Yeongho reached the middle of top lane, the opposing top laner appeared on the minimap almost at the same time.
A champion named Garen, wielding a massive two-handed sword.
The minions hadn’t even spawned yet, but the two top laners charged each other and began swinging their weapons.
And a little later—
“You piece of shit! What the hell is that!”
Garen, whose life had been completely shredded to the bottom, even burned his Flash spell to teleport a short distance away and flee under the safety of his own tower while cursing up a storm.
Meanwhile, Yeongho’s champion, Raufang, hadn’t lost a single point of health.
Yeongho, lightly catching his breath as he watched the fleeing opponent, did the one thing that had stood out most in the material he’d studied.
“Top is mine.”
He’d been told in the strategy video, over and over, that if you won the lane, you absolutely had to say that line.