Chapter 19

Lee Dong-soo finished his 30-minute run and headed toward where the gym owner was.

“Dong-soo.”

“Yes.”

“Let me tell you what you need to watch out for during sparring. Sparring is meant to check your technique and improve your skills, not to knock down your opponent.”

Dong-soo looked up at the gym owner and thought.

If he’d been born in the old days, he’d definitely be a bandit chief.

“…So make sure to be polite and don’t get excited. Don’t go all out either. Got it? Are you listening?”

“Huh? Yes. Of course.”

Actually, he hadn’t heard a word.

‘Well, I guess I can just think of it as a practice match.’

Lee Dong-soo was still young, but as a pro player, he had proper sportsmanship.

Though he sometimes had childish thoughts.

“Alright then, let’s do it when those guys over there finish. In the meantime, it’d be good for you to think ahead about what techniques you want to practice in sparring. Though you haven’t learned much.”

“Yes, understood!”

“Good, that’s the spirit!”

The gym owner ruffled Dong-soo’s hair as he spoke.

“But have you decided who you’re going to spar with?”

The combat sports athletes who came to this gym also loved games.

After virtual reality games emerged, combat sports were initially predicted to be the first field to become obsolete, but as virtual reality’s popularity grew, combat sports’ popularity actually rose along with it.

The flashy skill-based fighting in games and the primal, blood-spilling fighting in reality weren’t substitutes but complements.

And most importantly, virtual reality games were just plain fun for combat athletes too.

That’s why Lee Dong-soo was inevitably popular within the gym.

Among men, someone who’s good at games is simply a god.

An 18-year-old pro gamer with good social skills who held second place in the world’s most popular game?

It would be harder not to become friends.

So the gym owner wasn’t particularly worried.

“Just choose freely. Everyone will take good care of you.”

The opponent is most important in sparring.

If the opponent doesn’t properly match your rhythm, you might gain nothing from sparring, and the risk of injury is also high.

And if the opponent happens to have superior skills and a nasty personality?

Thwack! Thwack!

Where they were looking, sparring was in full swing.

The gym owner watched with a pleased yet resigned smile.

Jin Seo-jun.

That crazy bastard came back after a long time and is now thoroughly trampling on a newcomer.

‘He came to relieve stress again. I keep telling people to just avoid that guy.’

The gym owner watched the scene of a rookie who had been full of confidence about debuting as a pro soon getting toyed with by Seo-jun, and recalled the past.

He should have noticed when that handsome high school student who looked just like his father came shuffling over and, despite his looks, spouted nonsense like ‘Please teach me some modern martial arts.’

That he was crazy.

If Lee Dong-soo was like a cute younger brother the fighters wanted to mess around with, that guy was, well.

A stinging nettle.

The gym owner thought he’d found a perfectly apt comparison and nodded to himself.

Touch it and you get stung. With natural talent from who knows where.

No, even if you just stay still, he’ll come over and sting you himself.

Even today, he came back after a long time and instead of doing his workout, he hung around the fighters giving advice until he inevitably got into a fight with a rookie who didn’t know any better.

‘The guys who know better should have stopped it. That bastard Seo-jun doesn’t know the meaning of moderation.’

The gym owner glared at the other fighters who hadn’t stopped the rookie.

They were watching the ring with fascinated eyes like they were watching a fire across the river.

‘I’ll have to comfort him today.’

The gym owner sighed and looked to the side.

Then he began feeling uneasy when he saw Lee Dong-soo’s gaze fixed on Seo-jun.

Not that one.

‘You won’t gain anything even if you get beaten by him.’

No matter how much Seo-jun gave advice and toyed around with his superior skills, the reason the gym owner didn’t kick him out was singular.

Strangely enough, the performance of fighters who accepted his advice improved.

‘Not because Seo-jun’s father is a sucker who registers the whole family at the gym, and not to eventually bring that bastard into this world either.’

Right. That’s correct.

Come to think of it, even stinging nettles have poisonous thorns on their stems and leaves, but once you remove the poisonous thorns, don’t they become nutritious plants with various uses?

To the fighters, Seo-jun was a useful presence.

But to Lee Dong-soo right now, Seo-jun was just a stinging nettle in its raw state. With the thorns still attached.

Though that bastard Seo-jun at least knew where to draw the line and had never bothered regular civilians first, that only applied when he didn’t touch them first.

“Can’t I fight that hyung?”

Eventually, what absolutely shouldn’t have come out of Lee Dong-soo’s mouth came out.

The gym owner deliberately looked away and pointed at someone else.

“Ah, that hyung?”

The gym owner spoke in a voice like an ant crawling.

“No. Where are you pointing? They’re completely different.”

Lee Dong-soo scratched his head awkwardly.

“Just that hyung sparring over there. I haven’t seen him before, so would it be rude to ask?”

“Oh! Right. That would be really rude and inconsiderate. Let’s ask a hyung you know. Or I could do it myself.”

It had been a while since he’d held mitts, and now he was about to spar too.

The gym owner still felt relieved inside and let out a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, Lee Dong-soo felt deep disappointment.

Because even Shin Ha-yeon had been impressed after watching that streamer Jin Seo-jun’s video.

‘Min-hyeon-hyung made such a big fuss, and even Ha-yeon-noona was impressed to that extent?’

Lee Dong-soo couldn’t accept this.

He had already planned to load up Assassin’s Dawn this afternoon and recreate Seo-jun’s play exactly.

Park Min-hyeon was a teammate he acknowledged, and Shin Ha-yeon was someone he looked up to.

The very fact that they acknowledged someone else was irritating.

But when he had a chance to directly dominate his opponent in reality without needing to play games, and he was going to miss it.

“Well, can’t be helped.”

Since it wasn’t proper etiquette.

“Then please spar with me, gym owner.”

Lee Dong-soo quickly shook off his feelings and stretched out the moves he’d learned over two weeks, preparing for sparring.

The gym owner smiled warmly and brought protective gear, then corrected his posture.

The warm atmosphere continued.

Until that bastard came over.

Someone approached them.

The gym owner confirmed the identity and let out a sigh while looking at the ring.

The rookie staring blankly into space with shocked, dazed eyes.

And the scary bastard taking off his headgear with a calm and indifferent face, as if he hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“Hey. I heard what you said earlier. Want to spar with me?”

The gym owner could hear the sound of his plan to secure pro gamer customers through Lee Dong-soo crumbling.

“Oh? I’d love to. You’re Seo-jun-hyung, right?”

“How did you know my name?”

“I watched your stream. Ah, is it okay if I call you hyung?”

Seo-jun hadn’t expected the collaboration’s influence to be this significant. Someone recognized him right away.

“Sure, whatever.”

“Are you resting?”

“Let’s do it right now.”

The two climbed into the ring.

“Hyung, you were good at games, weren’t you? Though not as good as me.”

“Yeah. But… who are you?”

Lee Dong-soo provoked Seo-jun.

However, it had no effect on Seo-jun. He hadn’t known who Lee Dong-soo was in the first place.

Even if he had known, he probably wouldn’t have cared.

Lee Dong-soo was momentarily shocked and wondered if Seo-jun was counter-provoking him, but remembering that it was only his third day of gaming, he burned with fighting spirit.

“I’ll tell you after I win. You’ll know it as an honor later.”

“Alright. Shall we start?”

Seo-jun threw a jab the moment he finished speaking, and as the punch landed on his face, Lee Dong-soo thought.

‘But he said sparring should be polite…’

Thwack!

That day.

Realizing that it was impossible in reality, Lee Dong-soo added Assassin’s Dawn to his game library.

* * *

Seo-jun and his father Jin Ha-jun were returning home together from the gym.

The two lived next to each other, or more precisely, together in Ha-jun’s building.

The reason was his wife who wanted to hold onto their son who had tried to become independent as soon as he became an adult.

The two found a compromise, and it was finally settled when Ha-jun agreed to provide the next-door place at half price.

Naturally, Ha-jun’s opinion as the landlord wasn’t reflected in this decision.

“Seo-jun, you should have gone easy on him earlier. Looking at his body, he seemed like a regular person.”

How many fighters had his son made quit so far?

He was really heartless.

“It’s fine. Judging by how he moved his steps, he has as much talent as any decent combat athlete, so he’s probably building up his body.”

Lee Dong-soo ended up not revealing to Seo-jun that he was a pro gamer.

“Is that so? How’s the streaming going?”

“Pretty good.”

“Well, this father of yours doesn’t oppose it like your mom since you say it’s safe now. But doesn’t that streaming thing not work out well?”

Ha-jun had heard from Tae-woo.

That streamers just starting out have difficulty securing even a single viewer.

“If father were to give you a tip, try Stellar Craft once. PC games are trending again these days, so you’d be hitting that blue ocean perfectly. How about it?”

For reference, Ha-jun was a hardcore PC gamer.

It wasn’t that he was recommending it because he was worried his son might be in danger using capsules.

And it definitely wasn’t true that PC games were trending.

“Is that really trending?”

“Ah, never mind. So how many people are watching?”

“Um, last time I checked it was 440. If I turn on the stream today, probably…”

Ha-jun was surprised that there were 440 viewers.

“I have 3,000 followers, so at least 1,500 should come in.”

“Cough.”

Ha-jun spat out the coffee he was drinking at the much higher number than expected.

“Why is it so high?”

“Well, I got lucky.”

Seo-jun’s follower count had grown to 1,000 right after the collaboration ended.

Considering it was originally in the 400s, it had doubled.

But then Lee Su-han extracted the key parts and uploaded them as iTube Shorts.

That Shorts video ranked 15th in gaming category trending videos, raising Seo-jun’s followers by another 2,000.

It was a clear demonstration of iTube’s influence.

“How lucky could you have been… You didn’t do something weird to get people’s attention, did you? If so, mom will confiscate your capsule immediately.”

Ha-jun shuddered.

“Do I seem like the type to do that?”

“Well, not really…”

Still, wasn’t 3,000 people too high a number for someone who just started?

* * *

1,000 people was actually the minimum estimate Seo-jun and Tae-woo had thought of.

Before starting his stream, Seo-jun briefly opened the community.

The community had been dominated all day by posts related to him and Alpaca due to yesterday’s collaboration aftermath.

Seo-jun started looking through posts timed to the beginning of the first collaboration.

[About Seo-jun who’s appearing now]

[About the weak points appearing on Alpaca’s stream right now]

[The greatest sucker in history who bet 250,000 points on 1% real-time LOL]

-Throwing away years worth of memories like this lol

-For real, heart of a beast

-What an idiot lol

-(best) If that hits, I’ll grill meat in the middle of Myeongdong on Christmas Eve

└Isn’t this an old best comment pledge? The person who said they’d sing next to you and the person who said they’d play tambourine, come out quickly.

└I’ll sing

└I’ll take the tambourine

Seo-jun scrolled down to check replies posted after time had passed.

└??????????????? Why did it actually hit? Why????

└Don’t delete comments

└Guys, I think we’re screwed.

└Someone earned 25 million points while someone else is about to do a humiliation play in Myeongdong LOL

[Richard Neville Hack-and-Slash Strategy Guide]

-(best) Oh? Lol. If you analyze the video and try a few times, you’ll probably quickly destroy the armor and catch Richard?

└+ Just came back from attempting and barely succeeded in destroying gauntlets on the 10th try, but right after that Richard split my head open. Give up on that

└So Seo-jun attempted it once and destroyed everything in one go?

└That’s why it doesn’t make sense like seriously. Wait, why am I the best comment?

└You got preserved

[What exactly are weak points that they even have a dedicated skill?]

[Someone who can catch Rulers instead to check for us?]

[How did Seo-jun find weak points? No, seriously, it doesn’t make sense]

[Show-off warning) Real-time owner of 25 million points (is me lol)]

[Weakness Detection Condition Prediction]

[Ah damn Seo-jun is fucking handsome. Unfollowing immediately.]

Every single one was a post that received over 30 upvotes.

Posts criticizing Seo-jun based on recognition no longer appeared.

At least within this community, people who knew Seo-jun had become the majority.

But then.

-LOL Seo-jun that, Seo-jun this, look at this first

Following the link Tae-woo sent, he saw a post that had been downvoted and blinded (content hidden).

When Seo-jun clicked “view content”,

[Reasons why streamer Seo-jun is a hacker]

It was written seriously and at length, but to summarize, because the reason for seeing weak points during the stream was unclear and no one else who could see them appeared.

The claim was that Seo-jun was at minimum a game development insider or a hacker.

Naturally, it got downvote bombed for being nonsense and the content was hidden, but checking the link Tae-woo sent, he could see several more posts with similar tones had been uploaded.

Seo-jun burst out laughing.

He remembered Tae-woo saying ‘Yeah, when you get famous you’ll get criticized for other things~.’

And thinking about it carefully, being a game insider seemed somewhat credible.

Seo-jun laughed as he went to the Assassin’s Dawn homepage, sent a report, and entered his capsule.

Then he wrote his stream title and started streaming.

[I. Have turned myself in.]

‘Does this mean I’ll be doing an explanation stream on my third day of streaming?’

It was a silly thought.

It wasn’t even a real explanation stream.

‘How many will come in?’

The corners of Seo-jun’s mouth rose slightly with anticipation.

[400 viewers]

400 people came in within seconds of starting.

[700 viewers]

[1,300 viewers]

[1,500 viewers]

About a minute had passed.

Seeing numbers that quickly surpassed the minimum estimate he and Tae-woo had made and the rapidly rising chat window, Seo-jun greeted them.

“Greetings. Hello everyone.”