Chapter 25 : 10 - consecutive wins
Chapter 25: 10 consecutive wins
That Baek Woohyun and Jeong Nayeon ultimately claimed victory in the first game was an all too natural result.
Since they went around massacring every enemy they met and no one could stop them, victory was practically already decided.
However, the surprising point was the kill count racked up in the process.
A whopping 32 kills total team kills!
It meant the two had killed essentially a third of the game’s participants.
They’d claimed victory while achieving results rarely seen even in games where high tiers were smurfing on sub-accounts.
Additionally, this was also an indicator of how much they’d focused on fighting. Because it was a kill count that couldn’t come out without fighting like crazy.
“To think it was this much···.”
Standing before the result of overwhelming victory, Jeong Nayeon muttered with a rather flustered expression.
Though she’d attempted Lu Bu play believing in Baek Woohyun’s strength, the air clearly showed she hadn’t thought it would go this far.
Starting from ‘seems possible, shall we try?’, passing through ‘Wow, this works.’, going past ‘Just how far does this go?’, to arriving at ‘······Wait, this works too.’
Anyone would have been the same seeing the scene of leisurely eliminating one team at a time while under three-sided assault beyond merely being cornered.
This wasn’t a level that could be explained with the simple words ‘strong.’ Something that couldn’t be expressed with just that alone existed in the current Baek Woohyun.
Frankly speaking, from her perspective, Baek Woohyun seemed monstrous beyond pro players. Enough that it couldn’t be disparaged as merely a regular game.
‘I think I understand why he was accused of hacking.’
Perhaps Jeong Nayeon herself might have thought it was a hack if she’d seen Baek Woohyun without knowing anything.
Of course, she knew from watching right beside him that would absolutely never happen. Because there was none of the unnatural combat style characteristic of hacks.
Just hours ago, even Planet Earth Korea’s Operations Manager had come and firmly nailed down that it wasn’t a hack before leaving.
‘—Huh?’
“Wait, hold on.”
At information that suddenly crossed her mind, Jeong Nayeon’s eyes widened.
“···?”
“You’re on no buffs right now, right?”
“Right, no buffs. But why that expression?”
“···Why else. I’m shocked that the friend I thought was an ordinary college student is actually a crazy human weapon.”
No buffs meant, in short, if given the same physical ability in reality, he could show the same divine skill as in the game.
Even if physical ability was lacking, thinking of how Baek Woohyun fought during combat, it would be threatening all the same.
Jeong Nayeon, who’d belatedly realized that fact, felt chills rising along her spine.
‘I’m definitely going to drag him onto broadcasts no matter what.’
Not simply for her own broadcast to flourish.
Jeong Nayeon was even feeling a sense of duty. The duty that she shouldn’t know about this kind of monster alone.
She thought more people needed to know about the existence called Baek Woohyun. Not just viewers, but even the pro industry.
‘Well, that’s that.’
But what’s important right now isn’t that.
Jeong Nayeon looked at Baek Woohyun with shining eyes.
“One more round!”
“···Huh?”
“Let’s do one more! No, keep going! Until we lose!”
Getting Baek Woohyun onto broadcasts was a secondary issue.
Now was the time to fully savor the feeling of acting like a fox exploiting a tiger’s might behind the monster called Baek Woohyun.
Why else would the saying ‘what are friends good for’ exist?
Wouldn’t it mean exactly for times like this to become the best bus passenger and benefit from a best bus driver friend?
‘It’s so regrettable we can’t do ranked games!’
Unfortunately, as soon as the new season started, Jeong Nayeon had not only taken placement matches but had also enjoyed many games afterward, currently having climbed to Diamond tier.
This was a reasonably high rank, fourth from the top among Reverse Planet’s PVP tiers that rose in order of Bronze-Silver-Gold-Platinum-Diamond-Master-Grand Master-Challenger.
No, since the highest tier Challenger was actually a ranking with a thousand-person limit, strictly speaking it was no different from third. Meaning she was considerably skilled among amateurs.
The problem started right from there.
Reverse Planet’s PVP had a restriction preventing playing ranked together if too much tier difference existed, and she’d gotten caught in this restriction because she’d achieved Diamond tier first.
Because of that, she at Diamond tier and Baek Woohyun at unranked tier who hadn’t even taken placement matches yet couldn’t play ranked games together.
At least not until Baek Woohyun reached Platinum rank.
‘We can do it together later, right?’
“Hmm—”
However, unlike Jeong Nayeon who wanted to start the next game right away, Baek Woohyun’s reaction was quite indifferent.
He was merely scratching his cheek with an expression showing no motivation.
The reason was simple.
Having played once, he’d lost interest in PVP content.
Though he’d been interested because it was content that didn’t exist in that other world, he’d ultimately realized it was no different from experiments the research facility occasionally conducted.
Unless there were more elements worth investigating separately, which there weren’t.
So he’d thought about refusing but soon changed his mind.
‘If I think of it as adaptation training, it’s not impossible.’
As a method of fitting himself to reality, ‘enjoying games with a friend’ would be reasonably appropriate.
Additionally, he needed to kill the excessively sharpened senses since encountering Reverse Planet.
Baek Woohyun lightly nodded.
“Okay. Fine. Let’s keep going.”
“Okay! Then I’ll grab the next match right away!”
[Successfully matched to PVP ‘Survival’ mode game]
[Please select starting point]
[Game has ended]
[Game Mode: Survival – Duo]
[Final Result: 1st / 50th place]
[Baek Woohyun – 30 K / 9 A / 0 D]
[Jeong Nayeon – 11 K / 26 A / 1 D]
The next game that immediately followed.
The result was victory, needless to say.
Not only Baek Woohyun but Jeong Nayeon, who’d grown accustomed to him, also rampaged more than before while sweeping up kills, and they exploded the game as is.
With a whopping 41 total team kills, nearly half, one could guess how crazily they rampaged.
If there was one flaw, it was that Jeong Nayeon got killed once by enemies in the middle of the game?
However, it didn’t have much impact on the game result.
Because Baek Woohyun quickly found a transporter and revived Jeong Nayeon, it was treated as just an accidental incident.
“Phew— Alright, keep going! Won’t stop. Right now I’m an 8-ton truck with a broken steering wheel!”
“Okay, okay.”
Third game also 37 kills victory.
Fourth game also 27 kills victory.
And the continuing fifth game also 31 kills victory.
Victory, victory, victory, victory—
Baek Woohyun and Jeong Nayeon won all ten consecutive games they played.
Moreover, recording at least 20 kills or more in every single game.
Even the game with the fewest kills among the ten was 24 kills, a bit short of a quarter of total participants!
It was no exaggeration to say they’d overwhelmingly claimed victory every single game.
“So a 10-win streak was really possible···.”
Even after that, the two’s rush didn’t stop.
Despite MMR (Match Making Rating) sharply rising due to repeated victories and insane kill scores, and participant levels rising accordingly.
No matter how high the level rose, ultimately ordinary players in regular games couldn’t possibly stop them.
Having continued games through the deep night until late dawn, they succeeded in engraving dozens of victory records on their match history.
Even that was only because Jeong Nayeon had to go due to an appointment in the next day’s afternoon—accurately this day’s afternoon, but anyway—so they forcibly stopped, not because they failed to win.
If it hadn’t been for the schedule, they might have really played games literally ‘until losing.’
Then they probably would have stayed up all night at high probability.
“Ah—! Really if it wasn’t for the appointment—!”
“We can do it again later. I’m fine anytime when I have time.”
“···Uh uh, that’s true, but···.”
Seeing Baek Woohyun calmly consoling her, Jeong Nayeon tilted her head.
It had been like this since they met to eat dinner a while ago, but she’d once again felt he’d really changed greatly somehow.
If it were the Baek Woohyun she knew, a completely different reaction would have come back.
He would have said something like “Cancel the appointment if you’re frustrated,” or “Was the bus ride sweet?”
Yet such a mild reaction.
It was like he’d suddenly become much kinder as a person.
‘There’s really nothing wrong, right?’
After pondering briefly, Jeong Nayeon soon smacked her lips.
She knew very well that prying into everything at times like this brought nothing good.
Because if it were truly a story she needed to know, Baek Woohyun would have told her first.
“Anyway, let’s stop here for today.”
“Okay. Good work.”
“Oh yeah! You worked hard too. —Ah, right!”
Jeong Nayeon, who’d given a farewell greeting, turned to look at Baek Woohyun as if suddenly remembering.
“Could you possibly wait about two days without pushing main missions? I’ll bring a proper broadcast proposal within that time.”
“I can wait about two days.”
Baek Woohyun, who was answering, went “Hmm—” and crossed his arms.
He’d thought she’d give up when he attached the condition of a broadcast where he didn’t need to look at chat, didn’t need to talk, and just needed to play the game, but Jeong Nayeon seemed to have no such intention.
So he decided to speak more bluntly.
“I’m saying again, I have no intention of broadcasting. Even if you, Nayeon bring a proposal meeting all the conditions I mentioned, I’ll only think about it at most, and the probability of not doing it is higher.”
“That’s fine! Because I’ll persuade you!”
At Jeong Nayeon’s infinite positive energy, Baek Woohyun bobbed his head reluctantly.
Because there wasn’t much more to say when she insisted she’d persuade him.
“Anyway, I’m going. See you later!”
The grinning Jeong Nayeon’s figure gradually faded.
Leaving behind only one word to look forward to it.
“······.”
After Jeong Nayeon ended the game that way.
Expression disappeared from the face of Baek Woohyun left alone.
As if the faint smiles occasionally shown while together with Jeong Nayeon were merely manufactured smiles.
Having become an expressionless face even bleak, he quietly looked up at the sky.
For quite a while, continuously.
***
“Ehehe.”
On a bed neatly laid with pink blankets.
Kang Soyul in pajamas let out a stupid laugh while flailing her feet. It was struggling that oozed with joy she absolutely couldn’t contain.
Though it was a sight that seemed not quite sane at a glance, she didn’t care at all.
Because she was alone in her room anyway, and any personal broadcaster would have shown the same reaction as herself in the current situation.
What personal broadcaster could be calm when their broadcast content was being mentioned across all of Hypernet and recognition was rising in real-time?
“Jackpot, jackpot—!”
As Jeong Nayeon said, jackpot, no, super-jackpot.
Looking at posts about her broadcast that had climbed to the top of hot topic boards in all Reverse Planet-related communities, she couldn’t help but think so.
Not music chart all-kills but community hot topic post all-kills. What kind of personal broadcaster had ever enjoyed such glory?
In a situation where even reasonably major corporation personal broadcasters weren’t mentioned in places other than broadcast communities unless they caused some big incident.
Moreover, the terrifying point was that not even a full day had passed since the broadcast ended!
There were still plenty who would continue chewing, tearing, tasting, and enjoying this topic while widely spreading the names of ‘Kang Soyul’ and ‘Baek Woohyun.’
The reason she, who didn’t usually look at communities closely, had been staring at her smartphone for hours was exactly that.
Because every time she changed the community she was checking, stories about her broadcast were newly discovered one by one, so she couldn’t put it down at all.
‘As expected, befitting the world’s national game, the ripple effect itself is on another level.’
Kang Soyul thought the biggest reason this broadcast became a huge hit was because the game serving as background was Reverse Planet.
What if a similar controversy had erupted in the hipster pick games she usually enjoyed?
She’d guarantee that even using means more extreme than summoning the operator, it wouldn’t have been mentioned anywhere, not even in communities. It would have been quietly buried in indifference.
But indeed, Reverse Planet, which was not only popular worldwide but also called the national game in Korea, was greatly different.
Even casually floating a rumor had people overflowing with curiosity about what was happening, and naturally stories spread to all kinds of communities.
Of course, even so, if the controversy itself hadn’t been noteworthy, the situation of becoming tremendously topical like now wouldn’t have occurred, but······.
‘Not something else but a hack controversy summoning the operator—there’s no way it’d be buried!’
How could one not be interested when a scene of surprisingly using hacks appeared on a personal broadcast—something normal gamers couldn’t help but detest?
Moreover, it didn’t simply end there—a personal broadcaster summoned an operator, moreover the Team 1 Operations Manager directly, to clarify the hack controversy?
Even without interest in Reverse Planet, wouldn’t wanting to watch at least this much be universal psychology?
‘The conclusion is perfect too!’