Chapter 21 : PvP
Chapter 21: PVP
‘Should I ask one more time while I’m at it?’
After pondering briefly, Kang Soyul soon shook her head.
She realized that thinking his mind might have changed now that he’d properly participated in a broadcast— was an excessively optimistic judgment.
Especially since the broadcast content itself had been clarification about the hack controversy, and he’d even seen the chat window full of all kinds of curses, all the more so.
She should rather worry that his affection had completely dropped!
Having quickly abandoned her lingering attachment, she bowed her waist toward Baek Woohyun.
“You really worked so hard!”
“Thank you for your work.”
“Ah, right! I’m planning to settle the revenue from the last broadcast and this broadcast, so may I contact you again then?”
“Revenue···you mean? There’s no need to—”
“No! I definitely want to give it to you!”
Blocking Baek Woohyun’s attempt to refuse, Kang Soyul shook her head.
She was absolutely planning to settle accounts with him.
Without him, that level of revenue wouldn’t have come in, and moreover, seeing the settlement money might change his mind.
“I wouldn’t have earned that much alone. So it’s right to settle with Woohyun-nim too.”
“···Understood. Then I’ll see you again then.”
“Yes! And just in case I’m telling you! If you change your mind about appearing, feel free to contact me anytime!”
Kang Soyul’s body, which had added a few more words to the end, gradually faded and disappeared. As it typically does when ending a game.
“······.”
Baek Woohyun, left alone, stood quietly, then moved his hand to summon the system window.
In the window labeled [Friends List], only two names—’Kang Soyul’ and ‘Jeong Nayeon’—were written alone, and naturally, the one he chose was the latter.
There was no reason to send a message to someone he’d just parted with.
To the question [‘Would you like to send a message to ‘Jeong Nayeon’?], he pressed [Accept] and briefly transmitted two characters: ‘Done.’
—Jeong Nayeon: All finished?
Jeong Nayeon’s answer came back quickly.
At a speed as if she’d been waiting, and that was indeed the case.
Having made plans in advance, she’d been waiting for contact to come after the broadcast ended.
While watching the clarification broadcast incidentally.
—Baek Woohyun: ㅇㅇ
—Jeong Nayeon: ㅇㅋ coming right away
Jeong Nayeon appeared through the bushes about a minute after that.
Given how short the time from sending the message to arrival was, she seemed to have been waiting nearby in advance.
Unlike in reality, she was dressed in neat formal wear and immediately gave a thumbs up upon spotting Baek Woohyun.
“I watched the broadcast well! It was awesome, right? I also watched the community side, and the reactions there were no joke too.”
“Really?”
Baek Woohyun answered with an indifferent attitude.
Because whether the community reactions were good or bad had little relation to him.
The reason he’d decided to appear on the clarification broadcast was only one thing—to avoid damage to Kang Soyul from needless false accusations.
Having satisfied that, he didn’t care what responses others made afterward.
“She definitely asked you to appear on broadcasts next time too, did you accept?”
“No.”
As Baek Woohyun’s head shook left and right, Jeong Nayeon asked back in surprise.
“You refused? Why on earth? It’s a good opportunity!”
There had been quite many broadcasters who gained recognition by appearing as guests on major corporation broadcasts early on, then started their own broadcasts and rose big.
Just the names that came to mind immediately exceeded five, and if she looked, even more would come up.
Of course, Kang Soyul’s broadcast wasn’t large scale, and there was no guarantee Baek Woohyun would rise big through personal broadcasts.
But even so, just broadcast appearances would be decent pocket money, so why had he flatly refused it?
“Well—”
Of course, that was only the story from Jeong Nayeon’s and others’ perspectives.
Baek Woohyun had been thinking of the clarification broadcast as the last from the beginning, and through this appearance, he’d rather completely given up interest in broadcasts.
If he were his past self who’d been an ordinary college student, perhaps not, but he judged that his current self, who’d become stingy with emotional expression after fighting through that hell, would find even participating as a guest difficult.
With his sense of humor dried up to the point he couldn’t even properly manage light banter, if he participated in broadcasts, he’d thoroughly depend on Kang Soyul.
That was something that didn’t sit well with him. All the more so since even in ‘that place,’ he’d disliked situations where he became a burden to his comrades.
‘But I can’t tell her this straightforwardly.’
To explain the difference existing between his past and present self would inevitably require mentioning ‘that place.’
He couldn’t bring up the past he’d tried hard to bury just to clarify such a trivial matter, and even if he spoke, would she even believe it?
Thus, the answer he uttered contained completely different content.
“Right now people came to watch because of noise marketing from the hack controversy, but eventually everyone will fall away anyway.”
In short, it meant he was reluctant to appear on broadcasts since it was just momentary interest anyway.
It was also an answer Kang Soyul would have waved off saying it was nonsense if she’d known.
“······?”
Jeong Nayeon also seemed not to quite understand Baek Woohyun’s answer. She tilted her head with an expression wondering if she’d heard correctly.
Having looked at communities right up until coming here, she knew well that interest in Baek Woohyun wasn’t the kind that would easily die down.
Not only had the paused challenge restarted, but discussions about the combat he’d shown were also actively taking place.
For at least a few more days, all the communities would be noisy with talk about him.
And in her view, this wasn’t simply because public opinion had reversed and the backlash had blown fiercely.
If that had been the case, it would have just ended with summoning and publicly shaming the few users who’d been at the forefront claiming it was a hack.
It didn’t stop there—it meant this was a reaction that appeared because the existence ‘Baek Woohyun’ itself had mercilessly captured users’ interest.
It could be said that Baek Woohyun’s talent that Kang Soyul had also discovered was blooming without fail and captivating people.
If he started broadcasting in this situation, topics would naturally arise.
Viewers would absolutely not end the broadcast even if he just talked about how he’d compose his build going forward while progressing through the main missions.
In other words, there was a high probability what he was thinking wouldn’t happen under most circumstances. Conversely, unless the buzz continued, perhaps.
“I won’t deny it became noise marketing, but— there’s no way this is just momentary interest.”
“Is that so? Well— I suppose it could be.”
Baek Woohyun shrugged his shoulders and added calmly.
“Actually, the most important point is that broadcasting didn’t suit me well.”
“Doesn’t suit you?”
“Having to pay attention to the chat window and having to keep talking while playing the game didn’t appeal to me at all.”
For Jeong Nayeon, who knew Baek Woohyun whose talkativeness had drastically decreased recently, it was an answer she couldn’t really refute.
Though in fact, considering that, he’d fulfilled the broadcast guest role reasonably well, but what more could be said when he himself said it didn’t appeal to him?
‘—Ah?’
It was exactly that moment when a flash suddenly crossed Jeong Nayeon’s mind as she was about to move on saying she understood.
“Wait! What if!”
“Uh.”
“What if you could broadcast just doing your own thing without seeing the chat window or needing to talk? Would you still not want to appear on broadcasts?”
Baek Woohyun blinked.
“Broadcasting while not looking at the chat window, not talking, and just doing my own thing?”
“Yeah!”
“Can that even be called broadcasting?”
“Whether it’s broadcasting or not isn’t very important. More importantly, how about it? Could you appear as a guest?”
“If it’s like that, well, I’ll think about it.”
“You’re not going to just think about it and refuse, right?! I’ll really cry if you do?!”
“Who knows, I wonder.”
Baek Woohyun chuckled at Jeong Nayeon’s words saying it’s all being recorded so don’t back out later.
If there was a broadcast like she said, he had the intention to appear once even out of curiosity— only the intention. It didn’t mean he’d actually appear—. A personal broadcast that threw away all the most important things.
Could that really be called a personal broadcast?
“Anyway, shall we go do PVP soon?”
“Sure.”
At the main topic finally beginning, Baek Woohyun’s eyes narrowed.
Since his last play, he’d looked into Reverse Planet quite a bit to find out about its relationship with ‘that place.’
Naturally, PVE and PVP, which could be called the two pillars among Reverse Planet’s content, were also mixed into the information he’d looked up.
Especially when what he was interested in wasn’t PVE but PVP, and the reason was simple.
In ‘that place,’ not only did PVP not exist, but nothing even similar existed.
PVE was repelling invaders who appeared by opening dimensional gates in the Reverse World, so he’d already done it countless times, but with PVP, it was almost all things he was seeing for the first time.
That’s why he was determined to try PVP.
There was also the possibility of discovering something he hadn’t discovered there.
That’s why he hadn’t refused Jeong Nayeon’s suggestion to try PVP together once the clarification broadcast ended.
‘I don’t expect to solve the mystery between Reverse Planet and ‘that place’ in one go.’
But as long as even a small possibility existed, he couldn’t just leave it alone, right?
“What do you want to do? Duel? Struggle? Or Survival?”
Jeong Nayeon listed the PVP content existing in Reverse Planet and asked Baek Woohyun’s opinion.
Raising his hand to stop her, Baek Woohyun briefly recalled the PVP content.
The first content, ‘Duel,’ was literally a duel.
Meaning it was a very simple yet fundamental PVP content where you fight and win against an opponent who appears.
Solo (1v1) duels and duo (2v2) duels existed, and whichever side won two out of three rounds first took the victory points.
On the other hand, the second content, ‘Struggle,’ unlike Duel which was divided into solo and duo, had a fixed 5v5 number of people, but instead the battle methods became diverse.
Conquest battles fighting over a single strongpoint, escort battles transporting cargo, capture battles stealing flags, and annihilation battles killing all enemies.
The common point was likewise that whichever side won two out of three rounds first took the victory points.
The last content, ‘Survival,’ could be called the most exceptional among PVP content.
Because unlike Duel and Struggle which were 1v1 structures anyway—whether individual vs individual or team vs team—Survival was a struggle of all against all.
Survival was exactly a survival battle royale where a hundred people were scattered across multiple zones and the last surviving person or team won.
“I don’t care about anything.”
“Really? Then let’s go with Survival. It’s similar to ‘Black Infinity’ we played together before.”
Having gathered their opinions that way, the two immediately formed a party, and Jeong Nayeon, who took on the party leader role, quickly pressed PVP matching···or tried to, before looking at Baek Woohyun.
Come to think of it, there was something that needed to be finished beforehand before enjoying PVP content.
“Come to think of it, did you compose your build? No, no. There’s no way you composed it.”
Jeong Nayeon, who recalled that Baek Woohyun had just finished the tutorial, smacked her lips.
To get all the supernatural ability points for composing a build required reaching maximum level, which was only possible in the latter half of the main story.
That meant asking whether Baek Woohyun, who’d just escaped the tutorial at level 2, had composed a proper build was a foolish thing to do.
‘At most he’d only have one Core Element, what build.’
Jeong Nayeon, blaming her own foolishness, kindly laid out an explanation.
“PVP basically proceeds with builds based on max level standards. Though the power is greatly weakened. Anyway, so to do PVP, you first need to compose a suitable build—”
“Ah, if it’s that, it’s fine.”
Baek Woohyun chuckled.
“I happen to know one suitable build.”
Why would there be a need to find a new build?
When he had a build he’d used in reality for about ten years.
Moreover, it was a build that had earned Baek Woohyun the nickname ‘Superhuman’ early on and ultimately reached the realm of ‘transcendence.’
“Oh, really?”
Jeong Nayeon, who couldn’t even guess what Baek Woohyun’s build would be, grinned.
Finding a build you want usually takes a long time, but if he’d already found one, she wouldn’t have to wait for that time.
She said “Then let’s go to the battle preparation room first,” then immediately manipulated the system window.
[Moving to battle preparation room]
Right after the system message appeared before Baek Woohyun, the surroundings changed in an instant as if melting. It was the same scene as the movement Team Leader Park Geumhyeon had shown during the broadcast.
What appeared to replace the forest scenery was a place that looked like a command and control room you’d see in movies.
Hologram monitors displaying various numerical values filled one wall, and in the center of the room existed a hologram map with an entire island drawn on it.