Monster Rookie?
Choi Pinam, a streamer in his third year on Ppajijik, was twenty-seven years old.
He drew anywhere from two to three thousand viewers on average—not a giant by industry standards, but big enough to count as a solid mid-tier name.
He was mostly a variety-game streamer who leaned hard on skill-based content, and his channel concept revolved around taking on brutal challenges other people avoided.
His face was a little rough, his speaking style wasn’t exactly polished, and that had kept him from really breaking out.
Still, when it came to pure physical control, he was considered top-tier even among broadcasters, and he had in fact received regular offers to join the pro scene.
“Seriously, what is it now? Some random clip of a no-name player trying to make a scene?”
He was making small talk with his viewers as the day’s content wrapped up and the stream drifted toward its end when one of them sent in a video donation.
I’ll watch this one, toss out a few comments, and call it a day.
He waited casually for the short clip to start.
Then a girl who looked barely old enough to be called an adult appeared on screen, shouldering a rifle and taking aim at a zombie.
- Oh, she’s cute.
- Is she a streamer? How old is she?
- That’s Pinam’s rival? Looks like clickbait to me.
- I smell something familiar. What game is this?
Watching the video with his chat, Choi Pinam soon caught on and snapped his fingers.
“What? Oh, this is East City, isn’t it? Looks like the very first starting zone.”
It was a game he’d spent a fair amount of time playing about a year ago, so he recognized it immediately.
Then came the gunfire from the video.
- lol she’s screwed.
- So it really was just some newbie clip.
- Damn, there’s a sexy vibe to this.
“Hey, watch your mouths. She looks underage.”
He chuckled at the disappointment in his expression and warned the viewers to be careful.
In the starting area, firing a weapon and surviving was basically impossible for ordinary people.
That made it easy to assume the so-called rival video was just bait.
But that misunderstanding didn’t last long.
“Huh? It was a two-person run.”
- Die, couple, diiiiiie
- Couple? They look pretty far apart in age.
- Isn’t that just a dad and daughter?
- Not that far, I don’t think. Though I guess they do kind of look alike?
- Oh, wait, what? That was a really clean decapitation.
A man swung the lowest-tier starting weapon, a field shovel, and neatly took a zombie’s head off in one blow.
Choi Pinam straightened up in his chair and focused on the video again.
“Okay, now that’s something. Is he a veteran in East City? Guys, remember that Swordmaster Challenge I did back when I was playing East City?”
- That was pretty thrilling, lol.
- You cut down the zombies with just a katana, man~
- You couldn’t beat the boss, though.
- Nah, I did beat it with a sword up through Chapter 2’s boss.
“Yeah, yeah. Those of you who’ve watched my stream for a while remember. Anyway, the katana was a rare weapon, so its decapitation rate was pretty good. But beheading one in a single strike with a field shovel like that? That’s a pretty high-difficulty move.”
- You’re suddenly talking a lot.
- So you’re admitting he’s a rival?
“Eh, not exactly a rival. More like he’s the kind of guy who’s clearly done a lot of close-combat challenge runs like me. At first his footwork—well, his movement—looked a little awkward, but the moment he actually collided with the zombie, he moved incredibly cleanly and smoothly.”
- Doesn’t matter if zombies swarm him, though. He’s dead either way lol
- If the guy acts as a meat shield and cuts down a few while the girl shoots the rest, maybe it won’t end in a restart?
- Probably not. That rifle loot has random ammo, but if I remember right the max is 20 rounds.
- And when you held that spot, the zombies coming at you were capped at forty, right?
- Yeah, give or take a little, but the maximum was twenty from the front and twenty from behind, so forty total.
“All right, let’s keep watching. The guy’s got some feel for it, but if he can kill more than ten zombies with a shovel, I’ll recognize him as a candidate rival.”
And then came the fight in the video.
Like a farmer harvesting crops with a sickle, every swing of his arm sent zombie heads flying as though they were nothing more than weeds being cut down.
- ??????? What the hell?
- Is he hacking?
- What did I just watch?
While everyone else was still staring at the screen in disbelief, question marks floating above their heads, Choi Pinam’s eyes had widened so far they looked ready to pop out, and he could barely force out words.
“No, what? Wait, how—what even is that??”
Massacring a horde of zombies with a melee weapon?
A gamer with strong physical skill could do it.
But only if they used the terrain carefully and made sure they weren’t attacked from multiple directions.
Charging straight into the zombies and letting himself get surrounded like that was suicide, plain and simple.
And yet he’d done it without taking a single hit, cutting them all down.
If he told me to try that...
Choi Pinam wasn’t confident he could pull it off in one shot.
Sure, maybe with repeated tries he could manage it eventually?
But that was only if the katana he was most comfortable with showed up.
With a shovel—short reach, narrow attack range—it was impossible no matter how he looked at it.
- How is that even possible?
- That’s insane, seriously.
- A veteran is giving the newbie a carry.
- Best veteran I’ve ever seen, maybe?
- Could Pinam do that too?
As the chat exploded, Choi Pinam hid his real reaction and fixed his expression.
Honestly, he was a little rattled, but he didn’t want to show it in front of his viewers.
“Ahhh—so you guys still doubt my physical skill? Who do you think I am?”
- The man with the best physical skill!!
- Choi Pinam~
- A man with ridiculous physical talent and an even more ridiculous face.
“Hey, my face is just manly-looking! Anyway, I could do that much too. I’ll give him rival status, though. Probably some veteran who’s practiced close combat like crazy?”
At his words, the viewer who had first donated the video posted another message.
- His first time playing VR?
- No way, you’re lying lol
- Ohhh, so he really is her dad.
- First time on a VR game? That’s a hundred percent fake lol
- He was actually playing on a temporary account back then.
- Hm. Is that true?
- Massacring them on a temp account? Whoa.
- Wow, but then he’d be what, in his forties? Was that kind of physical ability even possible at that age?
- Is this that thing they call old-man strength?
- A man in his forties isn’t old yet;;;
- In gaming, that counts as old. Basically great-grandpa level.
As the chat got louder, Choi Pinam banged the desk a few times to get everyone’s attention.
“Hold up, hold up! A temporary account? Then he wouldn’t have any information stored, which means you can’t know his playtime, right? Only a synced verified account lets you check the recorded play time.”
- Yeah, that does make sense.
- So the veteran is hiding his identity.
- And there’s no proof he’s actually her father either.
- Could just be some older brother who’s good at games.
- Come to think of it, Pinam’s twenty-seven and looks like that. Maybe that guy’s actually in his twenties too.
- He faked his age and career just to stir up attention.
“No, guys. Don’t jump to conclusions like that. Whatever the case, his skill is definitely real.”
Startled that the mood was tilting in a strange direction, Choi Pinam hurried to speak.
He had only casually pushed back against the idea that a clearly amazing player was some total newbie, but if this went on, it might turn into a witch hunt.
“If an older guy is good at games, that’s even more impressive, sure, but even if he isn’t, with that level of skill I can still slap a physical-skill certification stamp on him as far as Pinam is concerned.”
- He is good, but it’s annoying if he’s hiding the truth lol
- Seriously, if he’s good enough that he doesn’t need to cosplay as a newbie, he should just compete with pure skill.
- Why doesn’t Pinam verify him once?
“Verify him how? You mean do a collab and make him prove his actual age and playtime or something?”
Now that he’d said it, the idea didn’t seem bad at all.
These days, his viewer count felt like it had stalled, and there weren’t any really good new games to cover, so content itself was starting to run thin.
At the very least, the man in the video seemed to have physical skill that was astonishing on its own, and if they played together, they might be able to produce some genuinely good content.
If that wasn’t just a lucky moment, and it was his actual level all the time.
Just as he was thinking that through, another video donation came in.
- What the hell? What now?
- ??????????????? I thought this game was in real mode?
- Isn’t this a bug? How did he not get hit a single time there?
- Either it’s a disgusting bug or it’s a hack.
- I heard you absolutely can’t run hacks in Korea.
- It’s not just Korea—unless a few countries basically team up to become a terrorist organization, you can’t touch full-dive data.
- The NPCs probably just happened to fire at one point, so he got lucky and dodged everything?
- If that had been crossfire, he’d have been shredded to bits lol. He probably used up all his lifetime luck right there.
A scene from a game supposedly running in real mode—an image so unbelievable it was hard to accept.
Staring blankly at the man dodging every bullet fired by the NPCs, Choi Pinam spoke in a strangled voice.
“Th-this guy. What was his name again? You said he was a streamer, right?”
- It’s Ddalrori. More precisely, the girl is the streamer and the dad is just a one-day guest lol
“Hang on, I’m looking him up.”
Having seen a video like that, there was no way he could just sit still.
If it was a bug, tampering, or some other nonstandard method, then he could dig it up and expose it.
And if it was truly possible through raw physical skill alone, then...
That would be a massive jackpot. A monster beyond reason had just appeared.
Sure, it was a little mercenary, but if that was the case, then hooking up with him before the story blew up and getting a foot in the door was the natural thing to do as a broadcaster.
The thought that he’d end the stream soon was tossed far into the back of his mind.
Opening the search bar, Choi Pinam’s fingers began moving busily.
* * *
“Thank you! Thank you!”
With his daughter thanking the viewers who donated behind him, Yeongho let out a relieved sigh as the system message appeared.
Relationship with the “Shelter B Group” improves.
Current Relationship: Wary
Good thing I didn’t go out of my way to attack the other survivors.
You could almost call it a blessing in disguise.
The survivor that Seonhui had accidentally shot hadn’t been wounded so badly that death was certain, and thanks to Yeongho’s actions—he’d focused only on the boss, even while taking a shower of bullets in return—his relationship with the NPCs didn’t remain hostile to the very end.
“Paul! Are you okay?”
“Ugh... my shoulder feels like it’s on fire.”
“Let me see. It doesn’t look life-threatening, at least.”
“Somebody get me a painkiller!”
“What about those guys?”
“Hmm. Maybe they aren’t bandits after all.”
Yeongho lowered his weapon and slowly approached them, trying to start a conversation.
“I’m sorry. My teammate isn’t great at shooting and made a mistake, but we absolutely had no intention of harming you.”
“Hm! Doesn’t seem like he’s lying.”
“From the way they fought, they look like extraordinary players...”
Maybe the fact that they’d taken down the boss counted in their favor, because after a little more conversation, the NPCs began to let their guard down.
Relationship with the “Shelter B Group” improves.
Current Relationship: Neutral
It’s a relief nobody died. If the person who got shot had died, things would have been very different.
“W-what? Eh!?”
“Hm?”
Then a loud cry rang out, and when he hurriedly turned to see what was happening, he found his daughter covering her mouth with both hands, looking completely at a loss.
“What’s wrong?”
“A-ah, the viewers suddenly...”
At Seonhui’s answer, Yeongho looked down at the broadcast information displayed beneath the chat window.
Streaming time: 01:23:14
Viewer count: 527
At the explosively increasing number of viewers, the eyes of both father and daughter went wide in exactly the same way.