Chapter 69

[Well, sorry for beating around the bush saying that so far, only people who play games well and have never lost are ranked high.]

Navigator continued speaking.

[But those skilled people aren’t just Heavenly Demon-nim and Heavenly Killing Star-nim here, right?]

[That’s right.]

[Well, Tangso-nim, who’s famous for trolling, was eliminated from the race early on, but there are still many other users with tremendous skill, right?]

Navigator began listing several of those users.

Starting with Heavenly Killing Star.

Not a Master.

Backseat Driver.

Hidden Strength Expert.

Fresh Seaweed State.

Heaven Beyond Heaven.

Martial World Alliance Leader.

And so on.

Looking at their rare nicknames, you could tell they’d been playing since the early days.

‘Some people probably bought their nicknames, right?’

He wasn’t thinking of buying a nickname himself, but he suddenly became curious about what the user with the Heavenly Demon nickname was doing.

[Well yeah. Unless they meet each other, it’s hard for those people to lose to anyone. Plus they try to avoid meeting each other when possible.]

The reason people didn’t criticize them for this was because they knew that from now on, they would naturally start checking and fighting each other intensely.

[Anyway, so wouldn’t the differences between them all be minimal?]

[Certainly, it wouldn’t be strange at all if someone other than Heavenly Killing Star-nim or Heavenly Demon-nim took first place.]

Heavenly Killing Star was listening to their conversation from the side, and Navigator clapped his hands as if remembering something.

[Ah, and there was this incident too.]

[What?]

[Since Tangso-nim switched factions from the beginning, the burden of defeat disappeared for him.]

[Yes.]

[So it seems like he went completely wild because of that.]

[Ah. I know. The orthodox faction people were complaining about it tremendously too. They kept running into him. There was even someone who said they wouldn’t fight the demonic cult because they were afraid of meeting Tangso.]

[Why did Tangso get eliminated? I think it’d be good if you could check the community post I uploaded about that. Videos will be uploaded gradually.]

Someone with nothing to lose has nothing to fear.

That’s why Tangso had told Seo-jun,

‘I’ll interfere with all the rankers. Just trust me.’

So that’s what he meant. Impressive.

[Now, anyway, shall we compare their performances? OnlyOneWon-nim also ranked Heavenly Killing Star-nim as second place, right?]

[Yes, that’s right.]

[Why second place instead of first? Could you explain your detailed reasoning?]

[As I mentioned earlier, Seo-jun-nim earned 600 fame points on the first day. That’s a high number, right? Usually people collect around 500.]

[Yes. But didn’t Heavenly Killing Star-nim also get authenticated for earning 600 fame points like Seo-jun-nim on the second day?]

[He didn’t authenticate after that day. This guy’s a scammer.]

[……]

[And I think the raid is significant.]

-Is it though?

-The 3-minute raid record is truly godlike

-Used up all his internal energy to climb up and just defeat the guy lol

-Another demonic cult guy tried to copy the same thing but couldn’t catch it fast enough due to insufficient damage and went into qi deviation

-Really need to compress the damage

The 3-minute raid record.

Reducing from 7 minutes to 5 minutes is much harder than reducing from 5 minutes to 3 minutes.

Then wouldn’t this record naturally be reflected and create a fame difference?

This was OnlyOneWon’s argument.

[Haha. I’ve heard enough. Now it’s Heavenly Killing Star-nim’s turn. Why do you think you’re in first place!]

Navigator turned his body toward where Heavenly Killing Star was.

[First. The reason I didn’t authenticate after the second day is because there was no need to.]

[Is that so?]

[Yes. While I did need some cooperation from my teammates, I achieved similar numbers to him.]

Ignoring teammates and just catching enemies as they came out in front of the entrance was something only Absorption Technique, which could recover through combat, could do.

So to secure that level of contribution, he would have needed his teammates’ cooperation.

[And the raid. I came in at 4 minutes 30 seconds.]

[Ah, is that so? That’s incredibly fast, but unfortunately it’s slower than Heavenly Demon-nim.]

[Yes. So the gap probably widened a bit there. But I think I made up for it sufficiently in other areas.]

[What areas?]

[Attacks, of course. There are attack bonuses, aren’t there.]

[That’s contribution though?]

[Mid-term rankings are calculated by contribution.]

[Ah, that’s right! We were so focused on fame points that we forgot the orthodox faction succeeded in attacks. In contrast, Seo-jun-nim kept defending, right?]

[Yes. I succeeded in attacks twice—during the conquest of unorthodox faction territory and the recapture of conquered territory.]

That was his judgment that the resulting bonuses couldn’t be ignored.

Viewer opinion was also being swayed.

The main reason was that Seo-jun ultimately wasn’t providing exact numbers.

Everyone knew he set an unprecedented record in raids, but they couldn’t get a sense of how many points he earned.

1 minute 30 seconds.

Since the fame earned from 5 minutes and 6 minutes 30 seconds didn’t show a big difference, no matter how much of a 3-minute record it was, couldn’t Heavenly Killing Star make up for it? That’s what people were thinking.

[It seems inevitable that Heavenly Killing Star-nim’s opinion carries weight since he’s also the world champion. Shall we take a vote at this point? 1 for Heavenly Killing Star-nim. 2 for Heavenly Demon-nim. 3 for someone else. Like this.]

-Going to vote and coming back.

-Charge!

-Streamer, it’s okay if you can’t get first place since this is your first game…

-Should we vote too?

-What meaning does public opinion have…

There’s one wise person among the comments.

“Those who want to support me can go vote, and I’ll just watch.”

Navigator’s chat window got flooded with voting.

From a rough eye count, it seemed like option 1 had more, and the results were the same.

Seeing this, Heavenly Killing Star said triumphantly.

[Look at this.]

[What?]

[How can someone who loses even in a poll like this be the Heavenly Demon?]

[No, here we go again……]

-Sigh. The streamer just needs to get into the top 16, but those guys don’t know that

-For real lol

-Lmao

-Actually, no matter who gets first place, the streamer probably doesn’t care

-Still, I hope he wins

Time passed quickly while they were chatting.

2 minutes before 10 o’clock.

OnlyOneWon spoke.

[Hehe. Seeing Heavenly Killing Star-nim checking Heavenly Demon-nim like this, are you pretty nervous?]

[……No.]

[Seems like you are though?]

[Well, I can tell he’s incredibly skilled for a newbie, but when he faces off against real experts, his true skills will be revealed quickly.]

Navigator jumped in.

[But he beat Baekho too. Isn’t Baekho a real expert?]

[Yes.]

[……I see.]

Comments acknowledging this came up in Navigator’s stream.

“Do you think I’ll beat Heavenly Killing Star?”

Seeing this, his viewers seemed somewhat angry.

It’s annoying when not only you’re being disrespected, but also something you like is being disrespected.

-Getting a bit pissed off now lol

-So is sniping Heavenly Killing Star’s Training Hall possible?

-Streamer, let’s just target that guy

-Why are you being so well-behaved today

Just when he was thinking he should step up(?).

[Huh?]

[……]

After Heavenly Killing Star’s questioning word, the chatter disappeared and it became quiet.

Seo-jun checked Navigator’s broadcast wondering what was happening.

Three faces.

But all three of them were staring at the screen with wide eyes.

“What? Ah.”

It was 10 o’clock.

“Why aren’t you showing it?”

Seo-jun entered the homepage to check for himself.

Since his broadcast screen was fixed to the internet window, he hadn’t checked through the interface.

-?????

-??

-What is this?

-Why did you come in

The viewer count began rising at a frightening speed.

Could it be.

The loading finished and Seo-jun’s eyes widened as he confirmed the rankings displayed on the homepage.

* * *

# 1 / Heavenly Demon14 / 115,254

# 2 / Heavenly Killing Star / 86,075

# 3 / Backseat Driver / 85,498

# 4 / Fresh Seaweed State / 85,432

# 5 / Unorthodox Faction’s Dignity / 84,789

# 6 / This Isn’t Murim / 83,376

* * *

[??? Why is the ranking that just came out like this? Are my eyes playing tricks on me?]

[Is this a calculation error?]

[It is strange lol]

[What, why is there such a big gap???]

10 o’clock arrived and the rankings were revealed.

And the countless people interested in this all checked these rankings at once.

The 70,000 viewers also joined that group after Navigator, who had barely regained his composure, revealed the rankings.

[Is a 30,000 point difference normal?]

==

Current ranker fame points are 5-6 thousand, but with this fame level, you’d need to play 6 more games solo to get those numbers.

Isn’t this a bug?

==

First place was Heavenly Demon14.

It was the ID of a streamer who could practically be called a newbie.

He’d stirred up several controversies and had some recognition, so it wasn’t strange for him to take first place.

But.

[Even OneWon-hyungnim, who said the gap was caught too excessively, was wrong lmao]

[If Heavenly Demon turned off his broadcast, discovered a bug alone, and played 6 more games, that’s legendary lol]

[He really played several more games by himself, didn’t he!]

[Summon the 3-minute raid team!]

The gap with second place was way too large.

As you can see from the rankings, most rankers have similar contribution levels.

It really starts to differentiate when they clash, snipe, and interfere with each other, causing defeats to accumulate.

But such a gap opening up from what could practically be called the beginning naturally had to become a hot topic.

“……”

Lee Ji-ho.

For the Murim nickname Unorthodox Faction’s Dignity.

He was a user who placed second last season and appeared ordinary on the surface, but did many underhanded things behind the scenes.

Not many people knew this.

You could tell by looking at the unknown player chatting with him so familiarly now.

“Wow, that’s crazy. Don’t you think so?”

Lee Ji-ho responded.

“I know, right.”

“That’s probably because of the raid, right?”

How long had they been playing battlefields?

They saw it at a glance.

Navigator, OnlyOneWon, and probably Heavenly Killing Star would quickly realize it too once they got over their momentary shocked emotions.

“I saw that person during the raid before. I thought he was amazing then, but I never imagined it would be this high. There’s never been anything like this before.”

“That’s right.”

“Still, he’ll get a lot of interference from now on, so it should be interesting.”

“……”

His friend was right that this was just the beginning.

Having created such a gap, the interference from other rankers would be focused on Seo-jun going forward.

The difference would naturally narrow.

However.

Just sitting still wasn’t his style.

“I’m logging off now. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, you must have a headache too. I don’t care since I’m not aiming for first place.”

Lee Ji-ho said goodbye to the anonymous player and quit the game.

Coming out of the capsule, he immediately sat in front of his computer and muttered.

“I’m glad I investigated that streamer in advance.”

He was the type to find out everything about his competitors.

The reason was for times like this.

He entered the community with a sub-account, pasted a post he’d written beforehand, and began quickly polishing it.

“I never thought I’d use it right when the rankings were revealed, but this should be enough to start a fire, right? Hehe.”

Create controversy.

Forced reasoning was fine too. As long as he could shake things up even slightly, that was enough.

Lee Ji-ho thought this was also skill.