Chapter 52
I'd participated in the tournament and attended the gatherings I'd been putting off.
My fairly productive break was gradually coming to an end.
It was time to get back to work… but.
I still hadn't finished all my break homework.
“We have to go, we have to go.”
-We have to go~
-Finally goingㅋㅋㅋ
Shouldn't we do the postponed LEx collab?
“Some of you might not know them, right? This is Bunny Girl and Haeganom.”
I'd announced ages ago that we would form a party and go to the Lab.
Finally, today, I'd invited Haeganom and Yeongukno.
“I'm not Bunny Girl.”
“Hello~”
-Kyaaㅋㅋㅋ
-They're all together?
-The Peach Garden Oath is hereㅋㅋ
The legendary first team of small streamers.
The success story of an independent streamer, the pure-fun collab, and so on.
The members of the Peach Garden Oath, each bearing all sorts of names, had gathered.
“Everyone, please watch what you say today. This is a big-name streamer, after all.”
-For real
-How did you get big-name streamers to come??
-<<Wasn't this the person who said something about Bunny Girl??
“Right, let's not get carried away.”
“The precious me has graced this lowly stream~”
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-For real, it really is lowly..
-It's the same stream anyway, so I'm going over there to watchㅇㅇ
“Ahem, ‘lowly,’ you say? This is a respectable mid-tier stream.”
-??
-It's not mid-tier, thoughㅋㅋ
-Seems a little overinflated;
For reference.
The number of viewers boosted by our runner-up finish at the tournament was holding steady.
I hadn't taken a complete break, and I'd been streaming often because it was my break.
It was an average of 400 concurrent viewers, twice as many as at the beginning of the year.
Today, the day of the collab I'd announced, we'd reached as many as 500 viewers.
-Were these people friends originally?
-I expected Haebin, but Hayeon is here too
So there were already plenty of newcomers.
It was a bit much to explain everything to all of them.
“If you don't know, go read the wiki.”
Whenever they asked me something, I had no choice but to send them to the wiki.
These days, everything was written there in great detail, so if you came in through my stream, it wouldn't hurt to read through it once.
-Gasp;;
-You can skip the controversy category~
-Newcomers, lurk for three monthsㅋㅋㅋ
-Are newcomers even allowed to chat these days?
“If you gatekeep newcomers, you'll get banned. Banned.”
With so many newcomers, the old-timers' territorial behavior was getting pretty bad too.
I was warning those people one by one.
How dare they gatekeep newcomers.
It wasn't enough that I should be blowing raspberries on my precious baby newcomers' bellies.
-Please blow raspberries on my belly too
-I just took my shirt off in the living room;
-Those damn newcomers, I'm so jealous;;;
Anyway.
Now that everyone had gathered, we should probably get started….
But before that, there was one announcement to make.
“Ah, everyone, just so you know, we can't go to the Lab today.”
-??
-?
-What are you talking about?
Actually, we'd planned to go to the Lab as scheduled, but a problem had come up.
A new event had recently opened at the Lab.
-What event?
-If there's an event, shouldn't you go even more?
“That place has become hell.”
Apparently.
The most notorious special-forces units in LEx had been deployed all over the Lab, and even veterans were getting wiped out.
“Tch, why did it have to be now?”
-Is it that hard??
-That place is insanely hardㅋㅋ
-You get a million won if you clear itㅋㅋ
“Obviously, it's hard when you're carrying deadweight.”
Of course, I could probably clear it if I went alone.
But the Lab wasn't somewhere to take Haeganom and Yeongukno.
“Whaaat?”
“I'm a Lab veteran, so what is this unfair treatment?”
Ah, for reference.
Both of them have played LEx for longer than I have.
Apparently, they'd played it as streaming content even before the official release.
Still, having more playtime didn't necessarily make them better than me.
Anyway.
For that reason, we couldn't go to the Lab….
-Then where are we going??
-Are we just farming?
“No, we're going to the tanker.”
As a consolation, we could at least go to the new tanker map.
It was just as infamous, but it looked easier to tackle.
-ㅋㅋCan you do it?
-You guys are going there?
-Why don't we just farm quietly?
“Ahem, what are you talking about? None of you are confident?”
“I said let's go to the Lab!”
“The tanker looks a little too easy.”
-What is with these guys??
-You'd think this was a veteran party;
-Today is a point-farming dayㅋㅋㅋ
-Let's go to the casinoㅋㅋㅋ
“You heard me, right? Let's go to the tanker.”
With that, I immediately pressed the button to start the game.
Our party's skill level was unknown, but our confidence was overflowing.
A tanker was easy enough to clear if you just rammed your head against it, is what I'm saying.
[Loading-]
[Entering the raid.]
After waiting through a brief loading screen, we entered the map.
They said the servers had been restored, and they really had improved.
I almost wanted a refund on the paid VPN I'd subscribed to for a year just to lurk.
Anyway….
“Oh….”
“The atmosphere is pretty great.”
After entering the map, we leisurely looked around at the surroundings.
It was a gloomy night locked in place.
Snow resembling faint ash fell to the ground from a black sky thick with storm clouds.
-Look at the atmosphere
-This is fucking scaryㅋㅋ
“Do we just go inside the ship now?”
“Apparently.”
For reference, we had spawned on top of the tanker.
The real game began once we infiltrated the inside of the ship.
“Has anyone watched a guide?”
“I watched a video! It said there were enemies right inside when you opened the door.”
As we headed toward the entrance, Yeongukno, who clearly hadn't watched a guide, asked the question.
Haebin confidently took the lead.
“Here?”
“Yeah.”
The entrance from the deck into the ship's interior was made of a solid iron door.
Clank!!
When Haebin interacted with it, the heavy iron door opened with a deep metallic sound.
“I feel like zombies are going to come out.”
Just as Yeongukno, who was 80 percent MBTI N (the delusional type), had said,
it felt like we were opening a door that should never be opened.
When we opened the outer door, there was another door inside.
“I'll open it!”
Having only skimmed the guide—
Haeganom, who loved stepping up, quickly ran over and opened the door.
And then.
[YOU KILL ME!]
[FUCKING!]
In the dark interior of the tanker, we came face-to-face with a room packed with soldiers.
“Oh.”
“Huh?”
Wait, there are a lot of them.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!!!
Still, it was fortunate that I had been aiming in advance.
Bullets spat flames bright enough to flash before my eyes and emptied the drum magazine in an instant.
Sssss-!
The muzzle, glowing red-hot, smoked on the snow-covered deck.
-Kyaaㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-The great Wayo
-The camping is brutal;
“Are they normally gathered like this?”
Why were there so many?
Even though I'd mentally prepared myself, I almost died.
“Huh? There were more than in the video.”
-It's because you're in a party queue
-There are a fuckton more enemies in a three-man queueㅋㅋㅋ
“Oh, really?”
I had watched a guide too, actually, but it had been based on a one-man queue.
Tsk, this could get complicated now that we were in a three-man queue.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
“Huh? No, I was a little broke.”
Once we entered the ship's interior,
Yeongukno, who had gone in first, was waiting for us.
This bastard was already burying his face in a corpse and looting it.
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-That guy got wiped out big time last time..
-Yeongukroach has enteredㅋㅋㅋ
“There are more, so be careful.”
“After we killed this many?”
“That's what I heard.”
Click.
I changed magazines and looked around.
“Good grief, it really is a spectacle in person.”
I'd felt it from the moment we entered through the entrance,
but the inside of the ship was truly a sight to behold.
Dark, narrow corridors, numerous rooms, and paths that constantly forced players into awkward angles.
You could feel the game developers' malice… no, their philosophy.
Most LEx maps were open spaces.
Was the game trying to make us appreciate all the firefights we'd had by cramming us into this cramped place?
“There are special forces here too, right?”
-Yeah
-A fucktonㅋㅋㅋ
For reference, the special forces that had occupied the Lab, the White Reapers, were here too.
Apparently, they were insanely tough units that had assassinated enemies in the Russian snowfields.
Thankfully, the tanker was a PvE map with no other players.
What would we have done if the campers had been here too?
“It already looks tough.”
“I hear the loot is good.”
Yeah, of course it had to be good.
Step, step—
“Enemies coming.”
“Everyone, get ready.”
We heard footsteps and prepared for battle again.
If the loot wasn't good here, that would be a crime. A crime.
**
[Death]
“Aah!”
“No, this—”
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Fucking~~ scrubs
-<<Carrying a fucking logㅋㅋㅋㅋ
"Argh!"
I smacked my forehead when I saw the death message for the fourth time already.
Why was this place so hard?
Enemies swarmed us from every direction, and the ship's interior made it difficult to rely on sound.
And the biggest problem was the special forces mixed in among the regular units.
Our first encounter with the White Reapers was truly the worst possible experience.
Was eye-contact murder even possible in a place this cramped?
For reference, eye-contact murder was short for killing someone the moment you made eye contact.
When an enemy White Reaper split in two and said, “Die—,” it meant a hyper-penetrating bullet would tear straight through my chest.
“This won't do. Let's use CQC.”
Above all else,
our coordination with these guys was absolutely awful too.
‘Why are you shooting me, you %@#’
‘I'm streaming!’
‘Hey! Wake up!’
I remembered the time I'd accidentally killed Yeongukno earlier.
It was nice to reminisce about the old days.
Anyway, in my opinion, this wouldn't work even if we went a hundred or a thousand times.
We needed to plan a proper tactical operation.
“…CQC? What's that?”
“Isn't that a chicken brand?”
…Tsk, more importantly, could these guys actually carry out a tactical operation?
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Do these guys even know what that is??ㅋㅋ
-<<<This guy doesn't know much eitherㅋㅋ
“Damn civilians.”
For reference, I hadn't served in the military either.
Seongwon became an orphan later in life, so he was exempt.
“More importantly, how did you all clear this?”
And while playing, I'd started to wonder.
Wasn't the Lab better? The difficulty here was bizarre no matter how I looked at it.
-Cover the place in smoke and clear it
-Lay down smoke and goㅋㅋ
-It really is fucking hardㅋㅋㅋ
“Tsk.”
Should we really use smoke?
Even the guide I'd watched had turned the whole thing into a chemical warfare zone to play it.
Honestly, it hurt my pride, but by this point, smoke grenades were part of the game's philosophy.
-Go go
-This is your fourth wipeㅋㅋㅋ
-I've never seen this guy do nothing but wipeㅋㅋㅋ
“Getting wiped is fine.”
At least one thing was comforting.
Since the tanker was a PvE map, there was no chance of another player picking up the items.
It hurt to think of my loot ending up in another player's pocket,
but wasn't it still better than having it fall to the bottom of the sea?
-?
-??
-No it isn't;
-What a heartless bitchㅋㅋㅋ
It isn't?
Tch, none of them could be honest.
Anyway….
“Anyone want to be the first to pull aggro?”
“Huh? Isn't it just starting?”
I'd drawn my sword, so I had to see it through until I cut off the enemy commander's head.
It was harder than I'd expected, but not impossible to clear.
-Kyaaㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Order chicken, you bastardㅋㅋ
“No one should even think about going to work tomorrow.”
How about we go all night for once, just like old times?
[Me: Coffee]
[Aseong: ? It's 1 a.m.]
After texting Aseong on my phone, I pressed the button to start the raid again.