Chapter 132
Name's bath stream ended with the call, but the viewers showed no sign of letting go of the age-related bait that had surfaced.
Since Name had neither confirmed nor denied what Waresoft's head of the business division had said, the discussion only continued to grow.
[NoName) Today's Significant Remarks from Waresoft's Head of Business Division]
The friendly user ‘Meowster Call’ caused another incident ^^
Putting aside how the hell this bastard knew the Waresoft head of the business division's personal number, it seemed like something huge had just happened.
According to someone familiar with the situation, the implication was that NoName had illicitly accessed Nightmare with a guest account, causing WoA to bug out—and then the head of the division had asked NoName if she was under fifteen.
What do you guys think?
[Comments]
-Enough with the bait ^^
-(OP): She really said this: “Ms. NoName, you aren't fifteen or older, are you?”
└ She must have misunderstood.
└ Did that sound like a misunderstanding? It obviously didn't.
-You'd better not type recklessly in there, or you're screwedㅋㅋㅋ
-Military mage -> assistant professor -> college student -> high school girl -> middle school girlㅋㅋㅋ Is she Benjamin Button? Is time running backward?
└ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ Is she going to be an elementary schooler next?ㅋㅋㅋ
-Some lower-level employee must have passed along weird information. If she's a division head, would she even be interested in the game itself?
[Why It's Impossible for NoName to Be a Middle Schooler]
Even if we assume NoName is exactly fifteen, Nightmare's minimum age, there's no explaining her record of playing LoL for over seven years.
(Legacy of Legends screenshot.jpg)
Looking at it, she played 3,900 games starting in Season 44, then kept playing 8,000 games a season. If NoName were fifteen now, as you guys claim, she would have been only eight years old in 2044ㅋㅋ
[Comments]
-What the hell ㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷ
-I thought she only played WoA, but was LoL her main game?
-She's a complete lunatic, seriously;;
-Quite a lot of people don't know this ㅇㅇ
-Common sense says anyone who knows NoName properly from LoL wouldn't fall for this baitㅋㅋ
-The most credible theory is that paid boosting somehow got through, or that someone illegally stole her account.
└ Paid boosting makes no sense, but account theft could happen.
└ Login is based on biometric information. If account theft is true, the capsule company will be the one getting destroyed next week ㅇㅇ
└ She's basically Thanosㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-If the purpose was illicit, surely it wasn't a hack?
└ Hack, my assㅋㅋㅋㅋ Do you think a VR game is a computer game? Even the operators can't use hacks in an open world.
The side that had actually taken on a ticking time bomb was Waresoft.
A stock-price crash that could have been wrapped up as a mere ‘incident’ was now in danger of growing into a massive problem because of the head of the business division's careless ‘advice’, setting off red alerts at headquarters.
If they failed to resolve the issue immediately, it was only a matter of time before they lost the trust of not only their shareholders but the general public as well.
They were planning to issue massive amounts of debt to launch a new game, while a subsidiary was pushing for an IPO. If they failed to recover the stock price above a certain level during this crucial period, their long-term business goals would obviously collapse completely from the outset.
The head of the business division, who had confessed to her wrongdoing, was immediately removed from her duties, and the staff beneath her worked with all their might to come up with a solution, allowing them to sit down at the negotiating table with Name.
[I'm sorry. But if we want Adella and Mephisto to appear simultaneously, this really is the only way...]
“I understand. I'll accept it.”
[However, we can't guarantee that you'll be able to clear it. That will be entirely up to your own abilities—]
“That's my responsibility to handle. I just hope you'll keep your promise.”
Name's confident request.
[We'd really appreciate it if you could make sure to mention that we did our absolute best...]
Even the hologram couldn't hide the dark circles beneath her eyes.
But that was none of Name's concern.
“Just in case, I'd like you to leave my administrator privileges for the open world intact until the very end... It probably won't happen, but if something goes wrong with me, we'd be in serious trouble, wouldn't we?”
[I'll discuss it right away and get back to you.]
“Hurry. Hurry. I don't have much time.”
And the day of the final boss battle quickly arrived.
* * *
[NoName]
[World of Arseria – Ending]
[Stream Time - 0:03:29]
[Viewers – 4957]
It was late Sunday evening, bringing the week to its grand finale.
No one had expected NoName of all people to post a stream announcement.
That was why even those who joined the rapidly rising viewer count when she went live could only stare in bewilderment.
However, the camera merely showed the private room. Not a single note of the classical music Name enjoyed, nor any of Kariri's songs that usually assaulted the viewers' ears whenever she started a stream, could be heard.
The unfamiliarity soon brought anxiety with it.
It manifested in the form of chat, but only for a moment. All five managers appeared and shut the viewers down one after another.
The managers had anticipated this as well.
They knew Name's age would become a bigger issue than ever and were prepared to do everything they could to keep the resulting current from becoming a harpoon aimed at her.
The lights in the private room came on, brightly illuminating the interior.
Amid the familiar arrangement of furniture, a shadow crept up the wallpaper.
Before long, even footsteps could be heard. The figure seated in the armchair turned the camera toward herself and smiled nonchalantly.
“Hi.”
-Hi
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋ?
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Hii
-What is this?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-She's so damn cuteㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-You're not NoName! Give us our streamer back!
-Why was that funny when she only said hello?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Where did that calm ‘hello’ go? Did you sell it somewhere?ㅋㅋㅋ
-Did you decide to commit to the kid concept?
-Are you really a middle schooler?
Her unusually high-pitched voice sent a huge ripple through the chat.
Considering that Name deliberately lowered her voice whenever she streamed, the voice they were hearing now was no different from elementary school students screaming on a playground.
However, that lasted only a moment.
Once Name finished adjusting the stream settings, she returned to her usual calm tone.
“I don't know how many days I've been stuck on a mode that supposedly takes six hours to play.”
Countless viewers sympathized with Name's sigh.
Some of those who had tuned in were even hoping she would hurry up and finish the story so they could play multiplayer.
The substats were an incredible 10/10/10.
The combat power formula was complicated, and it still hadn't been determined whether certain parts used addition or multiplication, but her combat power could be estimated at a minimum of 120,000 and a maximum of 150,000.
If this character were used in a normal game, it could produce the bizarre matchup of all her allies being placed in Bronze while all her opponents had Diamond MMR.
However, the chat's mood drifted toward asking about Name's age instead.
-Boss, how old are you really?
-It'd be legendary if you were a middle schooler.
-If you can freely use three-circle magic in your early teens, then you're definitely a prodigy.
-That's beyond being a prodigy. Wouldn't that make you a world-class genius?
-There's absolutely no way you're a teenager based on the way you talk.
-This isn't just a matter of being gifted. You wouldn't be inferior to anyone currently working in magical academia either ㅇㅇ
-Have you ever appeared on a gifted-child discovery show?
-Is it a hack or paid boosting?
└ Hack parrots, scram.
Because magic was an academic field whose difficulty varied wildly from person to person, viewers showed reactions with enormous differences between them.
[‘CoolYongYong’ donated 5,000 won!]
-Sometimes your skills hit without even using assists. Have you ever formally studied swordsmanship?
“I learned it a long time ago.”
-It's impossible to tell how many years ago you mean by ‘a long time’ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ It could have been last month.
-Our scales are completely differentㅋㅋㅋ
-Managers, deal with this middle-schooler bait already.
-How old are you really, though? Even roughly...
-I like you whether you're ten or a hundred, NoName!
└ You shouldn't like her if she's ten.
└ Seriously, what a dangerous guyㅋㅋㅋ
“Oh, my age. How old do I look to you all?”
[‘LemonNyang’ donated 1,000 won!]
-There it is! The top three most difficult questions to answer when a woman asks them!
[‘verank’ donated 1,000 won!]
-The moment you bring up something like this, it confirms you're an old fart, in my opinionㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Gasp
-Gasp...!
-That is trueㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-That's a wise answerㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Is this a case of the student surpassing the master? No, just like teacher, like student?
-Permanent ban, teacher.
-Twenty?
-You do look like you're in your twenties, at least, teacher.
└ People who say twenties: they actually think you're in your thirties, but generously lowered it as much as they could.
└ How did you know?
-Would I get banned if I said forty?
-(This chat has been blocked)
└ ㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷ
└ Not even a ten-minute timeout—it's a thirty-minute oneㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ Everyone, think carefully before you speakㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
Even fleeting comments that flashed by were caught by Name's eyes and failed to escape a ban.
Once someone brought up a topic, the bait kept rolling without pause like a snowball down a slope. That was simply the natural law of internet streams.
The viewers' behavior made Name lose any desire to reveal her age, and her hand began to stealthily move toward freezing the chat.
-Not here!
-NoName, stop that hand!
-We're sorryㅠㅠㅠ Please forgive us just this onceㅠㅠㅠ
[‘Meowster Call’s New Mission!]
[Clear with Adella / Prize 1,000,000 won]
-Please save our Adella, teacher! We really, really need you to!
Amid the bustle and chaos, it was Meowster Call's mission-window donation that restored order in an instant.
The moment NoName declared that she would clear the game today, his heart began beating again.
And his wish was fully expressed in the amount of his donation.
The behavior of a crowd is collective. As though swept up in that current, people began stacking towers in the mission window one by one.
[‘Gitmutdit’s Prize +10,000 won!]
[‘niagra’s Prize +5,000 won!]
The amount kept piling up with enough momentum to reach the sky if no one stopped it.
[‘Save the Grad Student’ donated 1,000 won!]
-Do you have a plan?
With Adella all but certain to become the sacrifice for summoning Mephistopheles, what strategy could Name possibly have brought that made her confident she could clear it?
Save the Grad Student asked her casually just before the donation window closed.
Given the nature of the open world, duplicating a character wasn't possible.
The other ASI personnel also unanimously said that if a ‘break’ statement had been set for Adella, there was no way to find another solution, just as Waresoft had said.
Name calmly rose and pressed her index finger firmly against the World Tree icon.
Name slowly faded away, turning into particles of light.
[Would you like to connect to World of Arseria?]
[The current stream has been in progress for 0:10:18. Would you like to continue?]
[May the blessing of the World Tree be with you.]
Calmly and without a trace of agitation, she said goodbye to the viewers.
“I'm going to give my body to Adella.”