Chapter 33
There are so many advantages to VTuber Wayo.
Well, his intelligence, looks, personality, and so on—it hurts my mouth just listing them all.
Among them, the things most viewers acknowledge are his Rell skills and his FPS skills.
That makes sense, since the game VTuber Wayo has played the most on stream is fucking Rell.
And fucking PUBG comes next, right?
Wayo has enough highlight footage from the battle royale FPS where one hundred players kill one another as the safe zone gradually closes in to fill a whole truck.
It also makes up about thirty percent of Wayo's clip compilations.
For reference, most of the rest is just chatting.
I don't know why he doesn't make Rell clips.
Anyway.
The reason I'm bringing up FPS games now is….
“Last Exit is finally officially releasing?”
-Yeahㅋㅋㅋ
-They say it's launching this time
The reason is that one of the shooting games I've been waiting for is finally about to officially launch.
[Last Exit]
It's a game about escaping Russia after a city is sealed off for some reason.
The game itself is simple.
You get matched into a map with a set number of random users.
You clear quests or grab valuable items inside, then make it out alive.
I'd been interested in it for a while since it was fairly famous and looked fun.
And now it seems to finally be getting an official release.
“When does it open?”
-It opens tomorrow
-In 25 hours
-You didn't know this??
“Why didn't you tell me sooner? This is a game I've been waiting for.”
I didn't know it was literally tomorrow, though.
If I had, I wouldn't have scheduled anything.
When I asked why they hadn't told me, disappointed, the chat started flying by.
-Because you didn't turn on your stream for two days straightㅋㅋ
-Why should we care???
-Did you ever say you were waiting for it??
…Was I only waiting for it in my head?
Well, anyway.
At least I found out ahead of time.
I do have a schedule, but I'm starting early in the afternoon, so I should be able to hustle through it, right?
“This is happening with the season reset too, right? You have to grind these games at the start of a season.”
Last Exit, or LEx for short, is a seasonal game.
Even if you're a veteran, every new season means picking up a starter pistol and playing alongside newbies.
-Yeahㅇㅇ
-True
-But have you played it??
“I've watched a lot of it on YouTube.”
I'd watched a lot of it on YouTube while waiting for the official release so I could play it.
I already knew plenty about the game.
I was basically no different from a veteran, wasn't I?
Well, it was an unfriendly game without a minimap, so I might have trouble finding my way around.
-So are you playing it?
-Seems like a lot of people will flock to it tomorrow
“Damn straight, fuck yeah.”
I hadn't had any games to play lately anyway, so this worked out perfectly.
“I'm doing a launch-day rush tomorrow, so everyone be ready.”
-Why us??
-Yes, have fun
“You guys should do a launch-day rush too.”
-??
-Us??
For reference, LEx is famous for being brutal to newcomers.
So what? I can't be the only one suffering.
It's more fun when everyone charges in together.
**
The next afternoon.
According to plan, I should have finished work quickly and been waiting for LEx to open by now.
But the wall of reality wasn't so easy to get past.
“Blaaah….”
I sat blankly on a bench and stared up at the sky.
The slowly setting sun was nothing but frustrating.
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing….”
The shoot won't end. It just won't end.
It wasn't my fault; there had been an accident on the staff's end.
Specifically, the youngest staffer had thoroughly smashed the main camera.
The moment I thought, Oh, fuck, this is bad, I evacuated outside the set.
If it had been a minor mistake, I could have said, “Let's scold them later and just get on with the shoot,” but.
Since the scale of the accident was on another level, I had no choice but to quietly leave the scene.
I'm pretty good at reading the room, aren't I?
Besides, without the model there, they could let loose with a proper string of curses, find another camera, and start reshooting.
“How's the atmosphere in there?”
“Looks like they're about to tear one of the kids apart.”
“The director's a good person, though, so it'll be over soon.”
There was another reason I had tactfully come outside like this.
I was also close with the director.
The director for this shoot had been filming advertisements in the industry for a long time, and he was quite the gentleman.
I'd known him since I was about ten, too.
“A gentleman?”
However, Roselia, who had stayed inside for a while to observe the situation, tilted her head.
It was an understandable reaction.
“It's relative.”
After knowing him for a long time, I'd learned that he was only gentle with children or people who were good at their jobs.
Maybe that's why young, capable baby Ahyeon had been the director's number-one pick and received so much affection back then.
“It's getting dark....”
“It's still early for it to get dark.”
Of course, good person or no, I wished the shoot would end quickly.
The set was near home, so getting back would be quick, but at this rate, making the launch-day rush would be a close call.
“Do you have something more urgent to do?”
“No….”
LEx is what's commonly called a scrap-picking game.
You sell scrap to upgrade your weapons, then use those upgraded weapons to enter the map.
That's exactly why the launch-day rush matters so much.
The moment someone gets ahead and starts bringing back better equipment, everyone else is forced into unfair fights.
Anyway, I was watching the passing time from the bench outside with nothing but resentment when.
“Um….”
A young female staffer who looked about my age cautiously approached me.
“I-I'm sorry!”
Her eyes were swollen and the tip of her nose was red, so it seemed she'd had a tremendous cry.
Well, she'd been the one who broke the camera and got chewed out over it, so it was understandable.
“The shoot was delayed because of me….”
Still, seeing her come to apologize meant that everything inside must have been sorted out.
She'd come to apologize and, while she was at it, call me back in.
‘That ended sooner than I expected.’
I'd been deeply troubled a moment ago, but.
My mood lifted at the faster-than-expected end to that phase.
“Were you crying?”
“Y-yes?”
I stood up from the bench and pulled a handkerchief from my breast pocket.
People like me tended to carry a handkerchief in their pocket.
“Wipe your tears with this.”
“Y-yes?”
The staffer looked flustered by the handkerchief, which had an obvious luxury-brand logo on it.
“People make mistakes.”
“Uh, uh….”
Maybe she hadn't expected the cold city model Kim Ahyeon to know how to comfort someone; she accepted the handkerchief blankly.
Honestly, I knew how to comfort people too.
Looking at her, she seemed to be around my age.
People just starting out in society were supposed to make mistakes and grow from them.
“I'm fine, so pull yourself together and come back in.”
I had every right to be annoyed, considering how much longer the shoot had become.
Model Ahyeon might be taciturn, but she wasn't hysterical.
Well… I did blow things up in certain special situations, like when a director tried to establish dominance.
“Thank you…!!”
At least, not here.
And above all….
“Roselia, let's go in right away.”
If we wanted to make the launch-day rush, there was no time to waste getting annoyed.
Now, shall we see if we can hustle through this?
*
I'd shown them exactly what a time-starved veteran looked like at the shoot and come back.
But in the end, all that effort of mine was practically wasted.
“FUCK !!”
[Error]
I had just barely arrived in time for the launch-day rush.
But the server crashed, so I couldn't even connect to the game.
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋ
-So you bought the game, but you can't play it??ㅋㅋ
“Ha, this is fun?”
-Fun?? (deadpan)
-It is fun to watch if you didn't buy the gameㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-So how much does this game cost again??
For reference, I paid for the most expensive package.
It was the 200,000-won Royal Package, which guaranteed various conveniences in-game….
“Don't users like me with the Royal Package deserve a free pass?”
If I couldn't log in, there was no point in having bought it.
-For realㅋㅋㅋ
-Wow, you actually bought that package
-What a fucking suckerㅋㅋ
For reference, the Royal Package was famous as the sucker edition that even existing users refused to buy.
And yet this cold-hearted consumer Wayo had bought it despite the stigma... only to be turned away at the door like this.
-Shouldn't you just ask for a refund??
-How many Rell skins would that buy?
-We welcome the idiot sucker Wayo-hwang..
“Still, isn't it proof of the game's popularity?”
Since things had turned out this way, I decided to look on the bright side.
I hadn't expected to be unable even to connect, but didn't that mean that many people had crowded in?
It was also comforting to know that so many people had been waiting for this game like I had.
-Now that's the right mindsetbb
-Why doesn't this good mindset apply when you play Rell??
-Why don't you try closing and reopening the launcher?
-I saw someone say restarting the launcher worked
“Oh, really?”
Just as I was desperately trying to spin things positively.
The chat came up with at least one alternative.
Turn it off and on again—wasn't that a solution with a long and glorious tradition?
Since the policy was to reboot first whenever a computer or a person broke down.
I immediately closed the launcher and logged in again.
[Error]
“It's the same?”
-It is?ㅋㅋ
-If not, never mind~
-Want to play a game of Rell and come back?
-That Haega bastard got inㅋㅋ
“Haega got in?”
-Yeahㅋㅋㅋ
-He's going on his first raid now
-You're the only one who can't get in
“Oh, for fuck's sake.”
I sighed at the chat's crowing.
I was really the only one getting stopped at the entrance?
This Wayo??
-Can't be helpedㅋㅋ
-Should we just do it tomorrow?
-Let's play Rellㅋㅋ
As much as I wanted to keep closing and reopening the launcher until it worked.
I couldn't do that while streaming.
I really wanted to do a launch-day rush, but it looked like that was out of the question.
With a sigh, I launched Rell for now.
“I'll be able to get in sometime today, right?”
-No wayㅋㅋ
-If not, should we just play Rell?
Still, it was a relief that I had Rell.
Wasn't it the GOAT when it came to killing time?
“All right, I'll try reconnecting once after every game.”
-Yeah
-It should work after a few games
“Right?”
The server would probably get itself sorted out if I played for a while.
Believing that, I queued up a game.
Five hours later.
After going L-L-W-L-L-W-L-L, I tried launching it again.
“Kyaa.”
[Error]
By then, I was admiring the screen displaying the error.
-The season's 141st error is hereㅋㅋ
-Error King, you're something elseㅋㅋ
-Error King is definitely top-tier
“God-tier game.”
This game.
Fun, huh? Yeah, it's fun.
I finally connected to the game.
Two hours after that.