Chapter 118
“Hello, NoName. I heard you're an authority on LoL, so I'd like to ask you something I've always been curious about. Lillia is half human and half deer, so when she gets pregnant, which side of her belly grows? Um...”
I drizzled some cooking oil around a frying pan, then cracked an egg into it with a sharp tap.
Sizzle-
I listened to the pleasant sound of the egg browning. After adding a little salt, I quickly took it off while the yolk was still springy and slid it onto the rice I'd prepared beforehand.
-You said you'd communicate with us, not read every single chat messageㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋYou still haven't come to your senses after seeing someone get sued earlierㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-A communication stream with no middle groundㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Dizzy yet?
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋAre you seriously insane?
-Don't ask stuff like that! Ask how he actually defeated the final boss!!!!!!!
└ Yeah, I answered that one~
└ No, seriously!
└ Apparently he tapped it once and it died with a thud~
└ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-That sound ㅗㅜㅑ
-What are you having for dinner, sir?
“Lillia was born from a tree, so she doesn't get pregnant. I think you need to reread Puberty and Sex, questioner. That's why I blacklisted you—to give you time to read the book.”
-He actually answered that?
-Fucking ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Then what is her belly button?
-Probably a knot hole.
-I agree about Puberty and Sexㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ Even that book doesn't have anything like this!
I poured an appropriate amount of soy sauce onto a spoon to gauge it, then shook it over the rice.
Of course, I didn't forget the sesame seeds and sesame oil either.
“I'm eating soy sauce egg rice. I don't particularly like it, but maybe because it's my first meal today, it looks delicious.”
-Please take better care of yourselfㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-You only eat one meal a day, and it's soy sauce egg rice...
-What kind of life are you living, exactly?
-You can't say no to King Soy Sauce Egg Rice.
[‘elloa’ donated 150,000 won!]
-It's not much, but here's some pocket money. Go out front and have an omakase or something.
-?????
-Not snacks, but omakaseㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Neither the streamer nor the viewers have any middle ground.
“Thank you for the donation, elloa. Soy sauce egg rice is tasty too. Would you like me to take a picture and show you?”
The detachable remote control for the capsule had both recording and microphone functions.
It was practically no different from a phone, but I supposed a remote was a remote.
I used its screen-capture function to take a picture of the half-empty plate from directly above and uploaded it. It looked a little pathetic just as it was, so should I add a filter?
A bright picture of soy sauce egg rice appeared on the broadcast screen that had previously looked nothing but black.
-Kyaaa
-My mouth is watering.
-You almost finished it, though?
-Why do you eat so little?
-I thought you took it this morning because of the filterㅋㅋㅋㅋ It's so soft and bright.
-That looks freaking delicious.
-Have you ever considered revealing your voice?
└ A kid's voice gets nice to listen to once you get used to it, though. Why?
-The streamer already seems to have a pretty young voice. When it was altered, it didn't sound strange at all.
-Hand cam, go go go go go go go
-NoName is good at cooking too!
[‘Yakong-i’ donated 10,000 won!]
-I skipped dinner too, so I'll contribute the money I saved!
“You don't have to push yourselves to donate. I'm not living as poorly as you think.”
-Kid, don't donate. Go to the convenience store and buy yourself some Buldak-bokkeum-myeon.
-He's doing it on purpose to see the reactionㅋㅋㅋ
-What a kind heart.
The feast called soy sauce egg rice was surprisingly satisfying.
The yolk that had spread through its thin membrane made the grains of rice in their brown coating even softer.
I took a bite against the sunset visible through the living-room window, then another while watching the reactions of the curious viewers on the hologram.
After nibbling away at the rice a little at a time, I suddenly found the bottom of the plate showing.
“Thank you for the meal.”
-Already?
-You eat freaking fast.
-Looking at the picture from earlier, it seemed like there was more egg than riceㅋㅋ
-Are you going straight back to WOA?
I didn't drink any water separately.
Since I had to keep chugging potions from now on, I couldn't allow myself to fill my stomach with water beforehand.
I lined up the flasks I'd taken from the refrigerator on the table, and a sigh escaped me.
Still, I had to drink them. What else could I do?
“Shall we take a short break and continue?”
-Yes
-ㅔ
-Sounds good.
-I'm so happy todayㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-How many hours has NoName been streaming, anyway!
-Please do this as much every day as you did today.
“It looks like today's video will probably be uploaded to VTube soon, since some of you have been asking. More people came over from VTube than I expected.”
-Aside from VTube or hosting from acquaintances, it seems hard to expect new viewers.
-NoName got both of those, though ㄷㄷ
-The old VODs are gone, right...?
-Those were legendary.
-Could you open a community board first?
“The VODs... I'll think about that a little later. What is a community board?”
[‘SaveTheGradStudent’ donated 1,000 won!]
-It's a community run by Twish! You can share announcements like streaming hours, hot clips, and talk about the stream. If you'd like, I'll open one right now.
“Oh, Manager, then I'll leave it to you.”
[‘SaveTheGradStudent’ donated 1,000 won!]
-I actually just made it because I knew you'd approve. ^^7
“...?”
-Waaaaah
-Now that's a managerㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-That was incredibly slick.
-Someone's already written the first post. Damn it.
-I have to go check that first.
-You can't resist ‘that’ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-NoName, let's go check the ‘Hall of Fame’!
The viewers kept hounding me, so I eventually brought the hologram board over and set it on the table.
Just as the manager had said, a somewhat austere website had appeared, with the name ‘NoName’ planted prominently in the center.
I clicked through the tabs—Announcements, General... and finally the Hall of Fame.
[Hall of Fame]
[Please select a category.]
When I clicked the category button, a list of options appeared, including total watch time, total donations, chat popularity, and more, each with a box I could check.
Many of them were things I didn't even know, so I clicked only the top three for now and pressed refresh.
[Total Watch Time]
[1st. HoyaMuYaHo 407.5 hours]
[2nd. SaveTheGradStudent 369.1 hours]
[3rd. ringmabell 135.9 hours]
-What the hell, numbers one and twoㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-The difference from third place is huge.
-Have you really streamed that long? Is it possible to watch for over 300 hours?
-The unknown period lasted longer than I thought.
-Look at the manager, the OG through and through.
As you'd expect from a people who love lining everyone up in ranks, the reaction was intense.
Seeing it all laid out like this, I felt a little moved too.
I suppose all the streams I did bit by bit last year added up to about 300 hours.
[Total Donations]
[1. SaveTheGradStudent ₩1,815,000]
[2. OVERDOSE ₩1,630,000]
[3. NyangsterCall ₩1,429,000]
[‘SaveTheGradStudent’ donated 1,000 won!]
-Why am I in first place! When did I donate this much?
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-A graduate student donating money?
-If you hadn't become a manager after this, how unfair would you have feltㅋㅋ
-Even Master NyangsterCall is in third... Nyang the genius lives forever.
The three of them had donated nearly five million won in total.
SaveTheGradStudent in particular had been a consistent viewer since last year, so the donations they'd accumulated over that time were considerable.
[Most Upvoted Chat]
[1. Cat Mating Is the Best 4,385 pt]
[2. NoName Is a Baby, We Must Protect Him 3,958 pt]
[3. Super High-Performance Multi-Calculation Bishoujo AI 3,826 pt]
“What is this? Most Upvoted Chat?”
-I think when you chat, you can agree with or reply to someone else's comment, so it probably means that activity history.
-Is this an awards ceremony for the best chat messages?
-Wa!
-I still can't get used to those vicious usernames no matter how many times I see themㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Seriously, it's not even a competition to see who's nastierㅋㅋㅋ
What a strange world.
They knew me, but most of the time, I didn't know them.
Even so, they were people who could feel satisfied in a one-sided relationship.
Love without reciprocation, devotion without reciprocation.
Perhaps they were the true saints of this world.
Twish viewers each found the streamer who suited them and set off on their own adventure.
It must be harsh to wander from place to place, only to find no oasis where you finally settle down.
“I'll remember all of your usernames.”
-In words only?
-How about one grand bow?
-Ah, he only said he'd rememberㅋㅋ
I had been speaking seriously, but I guess it didn't sound that way.
“Then if I get the chance later, I'll at least buy the people in first place a meal or something.”
-?????
-???
-Gasp!
-Seriously?
-(Manager 5) W-what... are you serious?
-(Manager 4) No spamming. Manager, please watch your own chatting too.
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Wait, is this for real?
“I don't know when it'll be. So don't get your hopes up. You know how nice it feels to find money in your pocket by chance after forgetting about it? Think of this as something like that...”
-NoName's bullshit mode ON
-The managers who got their hopes up are sobbingㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Is anything harsher than a promise that won't be kept?
-I am kind of curious about NoName's identity.
[‘atlanta’ donated 1,000 won!]
-Boss, there's a big problem! You need to clear the WOA story right now, as fast as possible!
-??
-?
-?
-Why?
“Is something wrong?”
[‘atlanta’ donated 1,000 won!]
-A friend of mine works at Waresoft and just told me. They're doing some kind of hotfix, so they're coming in early Sunday morning and closing the servers.
-They're closing the servers?
-At this hour?
-Is this a lie?
-Nope, I just checked, and there's an announcement on the WOA website too.
-It's evening here.
-It's morning in America, idiotㅋㅋㅋ
-What kind of mindset makes them close the servers without even telling us why?
-There really must have been a bug.
-If they perform emergency maintenance on Nightmare, the data will disappear, won't it?
└ Why?
└ Dunno, it's just always been that way. Normal is fine, but Nightmare's data gets wiped every time and it returns to the episode where you select the difficulty.
-What kind of game is thisㅋㅋ
-It's a mode with a recommended playtime of under six hours in the first place, so whatever. NoName's the amazing one for milking it this much.
└ On the lowest difficulty, there's even a speedrun that finishes in under an hour.
└ One hour? That's seriously monstrousㅋㅋ
-This is a god-tier game?
“The data will disappear...?”
[‘Hiraeono’ donated 1,000 won!]
-This company should've gone under ten years agoㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Seriouslyㅋㅋ
-Seriouslyㅋㅋ
-What about Adela? What about Adela? What about Adela?
-What are we going to do about our Adela?
-Why are game companies all so completely brokenㅋㅋㅋ
-Fact: Compared to Riot Games, Waresoft is an angel.
[Video Share - ‘NyangsterCall’ shared this for 10,000 won!]
[“You son of a bitch!!!!!”] - ‘The Queen of Games—High-Definition Version’
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-But seriously, are we supposed to laugh or cry at this?
-ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-Cry. Cry without end.
[‘NyangsterCall’ donated 1,000 won!]
-Did you really have to take everything away for your conscience to feel better?
-NoName is the first person ever to save Adela in Act 1.
-They said it turned out to be a bug after all.
-They're removing this? That's too cruel.
-ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-Protect Adela!
-I feel so bad for NyangsterCall too. He seemed to genuinely like Adela.
[‘Gitak-i’ donated 1,000 won!]
-You have 3 hours and 45 minutes left until the end.
I hurriedly checked the clock. It was currently 19:15.
Even emergency maintenance was different from computer or smartphone games; you couldn't play a virtual-reality game at just any time.
By their standards, the window when the staff could access the open world was from 7 to 8 a.m., which meant 11 p.m. to midnight in Korea.
-Shouldn't you at least ask about backing up the data now?
-They used to do it, but it's been a long time since the last emergency maintenance, so I don't know if they'll do it anymore.
-NyangsterCall, emergency!!!!
[‘NyangsterCall’ donated 1,000 won!]
-Just try deleting Adela... I'll blow up the data center myself!
Some viewers had even gone so far as to declare that they would become terrorists.
“What happens if I clear it? Will the data be preserved?”
-Yeah.
-Clearing it is fine.
-But the timing is so tight.
-The cutoff is when the combat-power tally finishes. Can you clear it in three hours with these stats?
-We'll help you. Let's try it, just don't die even once.
-Adela's gotten strong enough too, so it's worth a shot.
-Coaching to save the world ㄷㄷ
[‘SaveTheGradStudent’ donated 1,000 won!]
-I'm ranked 100th in the arena. I've played Nightmare several hundred times.
[‘Veixel’ donated 3,000 won!]
-I'm an ACK second-team candidate. I'll help NoName as much as I can too.
[‘LG Chaos’ donated 10,000 won!]
-Could you open a Discord? It might be easier to explain things in real time than through donations or comments.
-?????
-An actual pro showed up too, holy shitㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Chaos was watching the stream too?
-From LoL pros to WOA pros, NoName's stream gets watched by them all.
└ It feels like the roles have somehow been reversed.
└ Like our dad's nutritional snack or our kid's drinking snack?
└ What are you talking aboutㅋㅋ
-So it really was true that he's unemployed because his team got blown upㅠㅠㅠㅠ
└ Why???
└ Shh!
└ A teammate match-fixed, so LG was automatically eliminated from the spring split and banned from competing in summer.
└ Aㅏ......
-What a legendary lineupㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Let's go for the three hours of destiny.
I was in the position of having to race through the final three hours of the broadcast, on which Adela's life or death depended.
“Ugh... cough... This tastes so awful I'm going to die.”
While the managers were resetting the stream settings, I frantically poured the remaining potions down my throat in one gulp.
Then I turned on my phone for a moment and sent a text to Professor Cheon, who must have arrived by now and be nodding off.
[Professor Cheon, please come back quickly. I can't drink any more potions.]
[It's so disgusting... :( ]
[No, it tastes awful. <- That was a typo]