Chapter 91

If they lost this fight, the game would definitely be over.

Even if they employed guerrilla tactics or came up with some other brilliant strategy, that gap seemed impossible to overcome.

It would have been one thing if it truly were 3 vs 1 against just Seo-jun alone, but the fact that the game itself was 4 vs 4 was also disheartening.

-You guys can win this time! Let’s go!

One of their teammates who wasn’t a ranker sent that chat message, and OnlyOneWon thought to himself.

At least he’s kind.

If it had been him, he probably would have cursed and asked why they lost.

‘Can’t even beat that?’

But you learn when you actually fight.

When an unfavorable situation seemed imminent due to his own speed, he’d break the momentum with sword energy at incredible timing.

He blocked most attacks as long as they were within a certain distance.

Heavenly Killing Star thrust his sword forward and shouted.

“Just get hit once!”

Regular attacks never landed.

Ah.

OnlyOneWon regretted not just skipping this game entirely.

‘I want a formation against absolute masters.’

Some kind of sword formation specifically for fighting absolute masters.

He desperately wanted one.

Clang!

An exchange where every attack was nullified.

He wished the enemy would just take some hits, but the opponent was deliberately avoiding attacks and not engaging in trash talk, keeping his mouth mostly shut as he dodged.

“OneWon, how much berserk state time left?”

“Probably…”

Experience built up over time returned as incredible intuition.

Like when a skilled gamer sometimes gets a sudden feeling of ‘Huh? It feels like an enemy might be hiding here?’ and checks their radar.

“Soon.”

“I see.”

The game was lost.

“Want to do another round?”

At OnlyOneWon’s question, NamgungFamilyWaitress watched Heavenly Demon14 approaching straight ahead with an unchanged expression, swinging his sword, and captured that movement in his eyes.

His judgment was quick.

“No, let’s tell the others to block him instead.”

* * *

Viewers watching Seo-jun’s stream could clearly hear the Orthodox rankers’ conversation.

They hadn’t whispered quietly or chatted privately.

[Of Course Orthodox]

-Ah… suddenly I want to fight the Unorthodox faction today?

One ranker said this.

He just felt that way all of a sudden.

No one asked for a reason.

Just suddenly, similar thoughts began appearing from people one after another.

-Me too

-Lol today Tang Household bastards all got wrecked. Blocked all their throwing knives

-Actually yesterday I ran into Green Forest while hiking and it pissed me off

-Wait, you too?

-Me too!

-Honestly the Demonic Cult got beaten too much lol

Navigator watching this giggled.

“Mmm. They did get beaten pretty hard.”

If you checked the current viewing channels of those who posted those chats, one streamer would obviously appear.

“Oh. Is berserk state starting soon?”

Seo-jun’s movements on the stream began to sharpen and his sword started getting faster.

The second reason 3 vs 1 wasn’t quite that advantageous.

Berserk state.

Since the system was designed from the planning stage to allow reversals in outnumbered fights, the outcome was pretty much decided.

“Nothing more to see here. Today’s battlefield is this.”

Of course, the phrase ‘not quite that advantageous’ only applied when you were far more skilled than your opponents, which shouldn’t be forgotten.

“No one wouldn’t know this, right?”

[Anti-Hypocrite Unorthodox Faction]

-I’m probably gonna do it too? If I hold out, I can win and it looks easy

-Ok, if that looks easy to you, you handle the Demonic Cult and Heavenly Demon from now on

-Ah. Unfortunately I swore an oath to educate those Orthodox bastards in this particular battlefield, so I have no choice. Too bad

Navigator burst out laughing again.

“They’re all the same anyway.”

He wasn’t a ranker, but he was invited to Of Course Orthodox, Anti-Hypocrite Unorthodox Faction, and Oh Demonic Cult (formerly At Least 2nd Place).

This was the result of users being considerate so he could grasp situations more easily.

It was nice when the game was stagnant and everyone roughly knew each other.

And it was also the result of him not betraying their trust.

“By the way, he really is good.”

A streamer lacking nothing in physicality, control skill, or trash talking.

The battlefield had officially begun and Navigator should have been busier than anyone else since he needed to grasp and record the movements of all factions.

But right now, this moment felt leisurely since all the rankers’ attention was focused on one place.

“Wow.”

He opened the battlefield map and was surprised to see there wasn’t a single red dot.

It had been 30 minutes since the start, and one or two people, or rankers who operated independently, should have slowly started moving, but no one was playing games.

The reason was obviously to watch someone.

He suddenly became curious.

“How many viewers are there?”

The 18,000 viewers from when they did the joint stream the previous day was definitely thanks to Navigator’s help.

He had drawn tremendous aggro and directed many viewers to watch Seo-jun’s stream, creating a wave that flowed in that direction.

But conversely, thinking about it, 140,000 people still chose Navigator.

The reason was that viewers prefer sticking with what they’re already watching.

Not just viewers, but humans naturally like familiar things and have trouble easily accepting new things.

That’s why growing your viewer base is difficult.

If you want to grow, you need to continuously build recognition, show your face, and get exposed to other people.

So now.

When he wasn’t around, how many viewers would there be?

“Did he break 10,000?”

The mid-tier milestone of 10,000.

The mid-tier range was broad.

But still, if you surpassed 10,000 viewers, you could proudly earn the title of mid-tier streamer with some influence on Travel.

Though it wasn’t an official title.

“Oh?”

Navigator, who checked the viewer count, was happy as if it were his own achievement.

[Viewer Count: 13,000]

“Easily surpassing 10,000.”

Was it temporary due to the battlefield?

Or was it thanks to yesterday’s joint stream?

That was probably the case.

However.

Navigator scratched his cheek while entering the Demonic Cult chat room to observe their strategy.

This.

“By the time the battlefield ends.”

Isn’t he going to hit 20,000?

* * *

[Victory]

Seo-jun looked at the message that appeared before his eyes, then looked away.

The 3 vs 1 game against rankers had ended overwhelmingly.

He was curious what kind of reaction this result would cause.

-Holy shit, victory is insane

-Strategy-wise it’s strategy, force-wise it’s force, nothing’s lacking at all

-Why did you have to go to the Demonic Cult T_T

Seo-jun chuckled softly as he exited the map. His vision flipped and the original background appeared.

If it had been a public channel, who knows what the waiting viewers would have done.

While switching channels was as simple as just changing the channel if someone did something outrageous, and he was moving his body directly, so there weren’t many trolls.

Still, there were always those born without any shame who came out of their mother’s womb.

-Orthodox got completely wrecked, right? Orthodox got completely wrecked, right? Orthodox got completely wrecked, right? Orthodox got completely wrecked, right?

-Three people charge in and lose lol Three people charge in and lose lol

-Heavenly Killing Star is basically a point vending machine lol

Many excited chats were spamming due to the excitement.

Seo-jun opened the map to start his last game.

“Now. Let’s see who comes this time.”

The viewer count was 13,000.

‘Lots of rankers watching right now, probably?’

He was curious how they’d respond after seeing defeat.

As Seo-jun started matchmaking, an indicator appeared again in the same region he’d been consistently playing.

-Try to block this lol

-Strategic Heavenly Demon deployment!

-Those Demonic Cult bastards are really excited, truly disgusting

-For real, those cult bastards

-At least it’s cult bastards, not disgusting cult bastards

-This time is really different, ah it’s so annoying if you can block it then try lol

The Demonic Cult and Orthodox factions were fighting in the chat. And the Orthodox faction was losing in terms of firepower.

Originally, losers don’t have much to say.

[‘Orthodox Spokesperson’ donated 10,000 won!]

[This round will be different.]

But a donation came in.

“Thank you for the donation. Well, we don’t know how it’ll turn out.”

Seo-jun said with a smile.

“Shouldn’t we start with finding a game first?”

The map continued showing only a single nickname.

[Heavenly Demon14]

-Ah

-No one’s coming!

-No one

-No one’s coming! LOL

-Did they really get scared? LMAO

-Everyone gather around. What? The players ran away?

* * *

[Of Course Orthodox]

-Anyone want to go?

It was a pride-damaging single sentence.

And OnlyOneWon, who posted that chat, awkwardly looked around.

Everyone seemed to have nothing particular to say.

Good thing. At least they’re not asking why they lost.

Anyway, to restore the balance that had tilted due to Seo-jun’s victory, they’d ultimately need to deploy 14 additional rankers.

Even that assumed all 14 of them would win, which was problematic, but anyway.

The battlefield was a team game.

-The Demonic Cult will be important going forward

‘That’s right.’

What exactly was Seo-jun’s intention in moving?

What was he looking at?

That streamer’s last game was found.

There were no rankers.

And simultaneously, red indicators appeared across the map.

‘The real start.’

OnlyOneWon focused on the battlefield map and shared opinions as much as possible.

-The Unorthodox bastards and Demonic Cult are attacking each other. Different regions

-Let’s lightly poke the Demonic Cult side too

The Orthodox faction’s strategy was always the same.

Righteousness.

A method of waiting for enemies to move first, then responding.

Since the Orthodox faction had the strongest forces among the three factions, it was the most efficient righteous path they could choose.

-Some Demonic Cult members are attacking the same region as Heavenly Demon

-Should we defend?

OnlyOneWon watched the situation and posted a chat.

-Let’s give it up and use those resources to take somewhere else instead

-The Unorthodox faction is also messing with us

-Let’s defend there

‘No special movements.’

Just poking here and there and giving up what needed to be given up.

That’s how the 12th day battlefield concluded with everyone feeling each other out.

The results would come out tomorrow.

‘Those MovieSoft bastards.’

If the results came out immediately, they could prepare for tomorrow in advance, but that would make the game boring, so they just announced them when starting the next day.

To test adaptability.

And they had to do it that way for mistakes to occur frequently.

In fact, there had been quite a few cases of losing battlefields absurdly, so it was successful in terms of entertainment.

The next day.

OnlyOneWon waited for 7 o’clock to arrive.

While watching Seo-jun’s stream that had started at 6:30.

[The Demonic Cult Will Win Anyway]

That was Seo-jun’s stream title.

‘Win my ass.’

OnlyOneWon smiled at the stream title and entered the private channel he’d been invited to.

Users gathered.

“You here?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you see today’s hot fix?”

Hot fix meant emergency patch.

Originally they did regular patches once a week, but if bugs or other errors appeared, they had no choice but to patch even on non-regular days to fix them.

That was a hot fix.

“Yeah.”

“They tweaked the fame point matching system, but isn’t that obviously targeting Heavenly Demon?”

“Probably.”

The problem was they didn’t give detailed explanations.

“Will it become 4 vs 1? So we can somehow block it.”

OnlyOneWon shook his head at his colleague’s words.

Most people talked like that colleague, but OnlyOneWon thought differently.

3 vs 1 in territorial battles was balance-breaking nonsense from the start.

Many people were confused because of Seo-jun’s victory.

In terms of game mechanics, 3 vs 1 clearly favored the 3 in non-combat territorial battles.

Yesterday, they made mistakes and the enemy responded well.

‘MovieSoft couldn’t not know this.’

So if the matching system had been changed to favor Heavenly Demon.

“Hmm.”

This would be troublesome.

[Today we’re going straight to it too. Where are we going? The Orthodox faction, of course. I was Orthodox in my previous life.]

The sound from the stream reached his ears and OnlyOneWon grabbed the back of his neck.

‘What does that even matter.’

By the way.

[I’m going straight ahead. Orthodox faction, try blocking me once.]

He had a strong feeling that how to block Heavenly Demon would be the decisive factor determining this battlefield’s outcome, and OnlyOneWon frowned.

The real battlefield was beginning.