Chapter 18

Sizzle!

Beef was placed on the hot grill.

Garlic, mushrooms, onions, and kimchi also found their spots on the empty spaces of the grill.

Crackle crackle.

The meat juices thickened and bubbled, making delicious sounds as they cooked.

“I’m hungry. That looks delicious.”

Tae-woo sat down next to Seo-jun as he spoke.

Seo-jun nodded in agreement with Tae-woo’s words.

Seo-jun was especially hungry after accessing virtual reality.

‘Usually people gain weight during their senior year in high school.’

The reason was that mental activities like studying surprisingly consumed relatively little energy.

No matter how hard you used your brain, it only consumed about 1.5kcal per minute, while just walking lightly burned 4kcal per minute.

Intense exercise could burn up to 10kcal, but students constantly studying felt like they were consuming high amounts of energy, causing them to eat more than they actually used.

‘Virtual reality is the opposite.’

It was mental activity, but unlike studying, the perceived calorie consumption wasn’t high either, so most people didn’t experience the severe hunger that Seo-jun felt.

Seo-jun thought the cause was probably his low synchronization rate.

People with high synchronization rates didn’t feel fatigue even after staying in virtual reality all day.

It meant their brains were well-suited to virtual reality, allowing energy to be used efficiently.

In that case, Seo-jun would inevitably use a lot of energy.

The fact that he felt much more comfortable streaming in reality like this said it all.

“Hello everyone.”

Tae-woo waved at the streaming camera set up at the end of the table.

-Hello hello

-Looks really delicious.

-Drooling

-Give me some meat too

They looked at the chat window on their respective phones.

The current viewer count was in the mid-20,000s.

During peak time, it had momentarily exceeded 30,000, as Alpaca had told them.

That meant it was a huge success.

Currently, they had changed the Travel broadcast category from gaming to mukbang.

All that remained was to chat comfortably while eating and then wrap up.

-Is this why you’re taking the day off?

-Tae-woo, eat all that and then turn on your stream. Broadcasting comes before health.

-Hii~

-Why are you butting in there?

Chats from people presumed to be Tae-woo’s viewers appeared.

Since he was also a mid-tier streamer, many of his viewers were probably among the 20,000 currently watching.

Alpaca flipped the meat as he spoke.

“Why is Tae-woo here? I also thought it was amazing how fate works, but Seo-jun and Tae-woo are close friends. The collaboration offer also came through Tae-woo.”

-Oh?

-Tae-woo should have brought such an awesome friend on stream ages ago lol

-For real lol

“That’s right. I’m the one who led him onto the path of broadcasting.”

Tae-woo tried to put his hand on Seo-jun’s shoulder, but Seo-jun swatted it away.

-Parrying even here lol

-Got stunned lol

-Really curious. How did you guys meet?

Seo-jun answered.

“We met in high school and became friends. And after graduation I’m living together with this guy…”

But the reaction was strange.

-LOL

-Crazy, that roommate was Seo-jun? lol

-‘This guy’ lol

Viewers who knew Tae-woo were busy laughing, while those who didn’t were curious why they were laughing.

The other three also turned their heads toward Tae-woo.

-?? What is it

-Why are only you guys laughing

Tae-woo looked flustered for a moment.

“No, it’s not really that funny. Right? Haha. Hey. My viewers need to read the room.”

[‘No Way’ made a big 1,000 won donation! – Travel clip]

A video donation played.

Called a video donation or “video dono” for short, it was a donation format that showed Travel clips or copyright-free iTube videos.

The clip the viewer sent was of Tae-woo.

The video played and Tae-woo began speaking.

[Guys, I told you I have a friend I live with, right? He’s usually really calm and mature, but sometimes he does such weird things that I wonder if it’s the same person.]

The Tae-woo on screen looked like he had just started his broadcast.

[Yes yes. That’s the same guy who scrubbed his phone with soap last time. No, what he did yesterday was, sigh, I streamed for a long time yesterday.]

Alpaca and Lee Su-han now looked at Seo-jun. Had such a thing happened?

[So when I finished streaming and came out, the capsule was so hot that we’d need to keep running the cooler, so I asked him to cool down the capsule while I showered.]

[Then when I came out after showering, he was squatting next to the capsule fanning it. With a serious expression. Ugh. No guys, this isn’t fake, it really happened. At least turn on a fan, you know? I’ll give you that.]

-Is that really true? lol

-Is he mentally ill?

-This completely cleared up any suspicions about faking donations earlier lol

-Just don’t touch anything lol

-Breaking news) Su-han went to check if his capsule was broken lol

-There are many other legendary stories lol

Seo-jun stepped hard on Tae-woo’s foot under the table while calmly picking up well-cooked meat.

“Tsk. Hurry up and eat.”

* * *

Seo-jun was able to hear various stories about the hardships of being a streamer from Tae-woo and Alpaca.

He also heard about Alpaca and Lee Su-han’s success story.

Lee Su-han had originally been one of Alpaca’s early viewers.

And Alpaca was in a situation where he couldn’t afford to hire an editor, so he had just created a channel but left it neglected.

A small-time streamer with only hundreds of live viewers. That was Alpaca in the past.

Lee Su-han saw potential in such an Alpaca and proposed to grow a YouTube channel together.

At the time, Lee Su-han was an editor receiving high treatment at his company.

Due to the nature of capsule games, the viewer’s perspective was free but also dizzying, and editors who could cleanly showcase this were rare.

Since the YouTube revenue was split in half with Alpaca, Lee Su-han now made much more money than when he worked at the company.

But at the time, he said it was a choice that involved great risk.

Fortunately, with the editor’s joining, Alpaca’s YouTube grew, and thanks to that, his live stream viewers also increased.

“An editor, huh.”

Su-han specifically told Seo-jun that if he couldn’t find an editor, he would edit Seo-jun’s videos too.

After returning home, Seo-jun went out to the balcony with a beer can to clear his complicated thoughts.

Beyond the balcony, he could see the plum tree he had planted.

Seo-jun swept the cold balcony floor with his hand while imagining the red flowers that plum tree would bloom magnificently.

It was like the day he first met his master.

It wasn’t exactly a great memory, but somehow it made him feel calm.

“Hmm. What should I do.”

The subject Seo-jun was currently pondering was iTube.

The people he met today naturally assumed Seo-jun would start YouTube.

If he wanted to succeed as a streamer, iTube was definitely the right thing to do.

But.

Seo-jun’s plan was to somehow enter the LOS tournament, win, get the capsule, and then quit being a streamer.

He had started with that intention from the beginning.

The problem was.

Streaming was fun.

Playing games with people was fun.

Watching his play, reacting in various ways, teasing each other, and being together.

It was fun.

Hiss.

Pop.

Seo-jun opened the beer can and gulped it down.

Then he looked outside calmly and said.

“Was I… lonely?”

Maybe that was it.

Remembering a past life meant.

Having a hometown you’d long for your entire life but could never return to.

“What should I do.”

It was a day of deep thoughts.

At times like this, simply.

“I should go to the gym after a long time.”

He needed to move his body.

* * *

Lee Dong-soo was a main player for a famous professional gaming team.

He got up early in the morning and arrived at a gym that many celebrities frequented.

The team Lee Dong-soo belonged to had achieved a respectable—no, in some ways outstanding—result of runner-up in this world championship.

However, in the world of sports, anything other than first place had no meaning.

While preparing for next year, the coach ordered each player to undergo drastic special training tailored to their needs.

The special training assigned to Lee Dong-soo was to learn real-world fighting.

‘Might as well build physical strength too.’

The team’s front office made inquiries and found a gym that guaranteed privacy to the extent that many famous entertainers attended, while also teaching fighting sports athletes.

Of course, that didn’t mean there was anything particularly special about it.

People who worked out just quietly did their own thing and left, and the athletes were noisy but warm-hearted.

“Dong-soo’s here? Go run on the treadmill.”

The gym owner looked down at Dong-soo.

He was disgustingly tall and bulky, with a fierce-looking face.

“Come on, boss. Again today?”

“Yeah. This isn’t virtual reality, so your stamina needs to be supported first.”

Lee Dong-soo was dissatisfied with those words.

Even though he had only been coming here for two weeks.

“Still, just doing basics and physical training is too much.”

He couldn’t tolerate this treatment any longer.

He was a pro.

A pro from the world’s second-strongest gaming team.

Even with differences between virtual reality and reality, someone of his skill level could be said to have mastered handling the body.

Frankly speaking, wasn’t it the pros who recognized and adapted to all the changing physical specs in games?

“I want to learn proper combat. Okay?”

The owner snorted.

Then, as if appeasing an annoying kid, he gestured and said.

“Alright, alright. You can spar once today. So hurry up and run.”

“Yes! Then I can choose my sparring partner, right?”

“Whatever. You can’t beat any of them anyway.”

Whoosh whoosh.

Lee Dong-soo began running more enthusiastically than usual in his excitement.

He was 18 years old.

Though he was living as an outstanding professional player after dropping out of school, he was fundamentally a hot-blooded high school student.

‘Bring it on, everyone.’

His opponent today would probably be a martial arts athlete too, but he was seriously confident he could win.

Recently, it seemed like his body had gotten much better from working out.

While running, he began scanning people. Who would be good to fight first.

‘As long as the weight class difference isn’t too much…’

Then.

The entrance door opened and someone who looked like the streamer he saw yesterday walked in.

That annoyingly handsome face.

It wasn’t just similar—it was that person.

The streamer whose play he had briefly watched in clips because his teammate had made such a fuss about how good he was.

‘He wasn’t that good though.’

Thanks to his colleague and close friend, he knew unwanted details about the streamer named Seo-jun.

‘His face really is exactly like his avatar. But wasn’t he a small-time streamer on his third day? How did he get here?’

Anyway, it didn’t matter.

From the way he was greeting the owner, they seemed close.

His muscles didn’t look particularly bulky either.

‘Perfect.’

As his first sparring partner, that is.