Chapter 56: Surprise Announcement (1)

Park Sung-Tae stroked his fine beard and pondered. He had worked as Bubblegum’s manager for five years, but this incident still surprised him.

'It usually doesn't become anything big with just one interaction...'

Park Sung-Tae had been in the industry for five years and Bubblegum had streamed for over ten years.

Bubblegum never skipped a day other than holidays in those ten years. Once he started, he always streamed for around eight hours and frequently ran into other streamers. He ran into so many different streamers that it became stale.

'But why this guy...'

However, this one interaction with Almond began to trend. Was there something special?

“Well, I like this job because of unpredictable things like this."

Park Sung-Tae began searching for Almond in different communities and had no trouble finding his profile.

'Thirties... good looking, good at games. And...'

“Hm?”

One particular detail caught Park Sung-Tae’s attention.

'It's only been three weeks since he started playing virtual reality games?'

And that was only his second round of

Battle Large

?

'Wait, but this guy... didn't he bounce bullets away with arrows?'

Park Sung-Tae replayed the footage of Almond and Bubblegum's interaction. Thankfully, it had just been uploaded to YouTube. The video was well-edited and got to the point.

"The cinematography is crazy."

The production level made Almond stand out even more, but nothing regarding what happened had been faked.

Kang.

The arrow and bullet collided in the air. Park Sung-Tae correctly saw what he recalled.

Hitting a bullet with an arrow… That took a surprising level of precision and intuition. Who could make such a play with victory so close?

The comments thought the same.

— ???

— What was that?

— Is that possible?

— This must be staged. How does that make sense? LOL

— Staged? But it's Bubblegum.

— Do you think Bubblegum would stage this?

— Bubble wouldn't do that... he's just bad...

— Is it not staged? Then it must be CG or something. This is an edited video.

— That's crazy.

— Three times in a row? That won't happen even in movies.

Everyone assumed it was either staged or used special effects.

'Not a chance.'

Park Sung-Tae shook his head because that wasn't the case.

Bubblegum would never stage something like this. He streamed for over ten years without a single controversy.

Then was it special effects? Wrong again.

The editor had no reason to enhance the gameplay with CG because anyone could rewatch the stream on Treevy and immediately find out the truth.

It still seemed unbelievable despite knowing it hadn’t been staged and special effects hadn’t been used.

'That's... his second round?'

Finding out that it was only Almond's second round made it even more so.

"Wow..."

Park Sung-Tae wanted to deny the reality. The skill difference between Almond and Bubblegum was so unfathomable that it made him dizzy. The fact that this type of person existed among mortals was the exact definition of the heavens being unfair.

"He’s something else."

Tak. Tak.

Sung-Tae began tapping his expensive pen on his head. It was a habit when he was deep in thought.

'I can think of some content.'

He didn't want to lose this opportunity and could already picture the format.

'Who is the bowman?'?

That would be a good natural way to start.

However, something was missing. It felt too serious and lacked…

"Impact. There's no impact."

Park Sung-Tae aggressively brushed his beard.

"Ah!"

He thought of something and quickly began jotting notes.

***

[Bubblegum is so funny.]

[The face he made when all three bullets were deflected.]

[Bubblegum is hilarious even when he's not doing anything.]

[Bubblegum's assassination.gif]

[Bubblegum vs. Almond, the skill difference...]

Sang-Hyeon smiled as he scrolled through the community comments.

'There are reactions now!'

Not just on Bubblegum's fan page, but other communities picked up the news too.

'I can't believe I'm being mentioned with Bubblegum.'

The ten-year streamer, Bubblegum. He was one of the top streamers on Treevy and earned some of the highest ad revenues in the country.

He hadn’t been big at first like everyone else. He was worse off than the average streamer because he needed to improve at everything. He wasn't good at any games despite there being so many.

His only good traits were a friendly image and a sense of humor, which could commonly be found. However, not even those attributes were anything noteworthy.

Bubblegum's greatest strength was his perseverance. The only way he could survive in the industry with his lack of skills and personality was consistency and responsibility. He became the friendly neighborhood friend who would never disappoint you. He seemed foolish sometimes, but always had your back.

That became Bubblegum's best and strongest trait. Who cared if he sucked at games? He was the neighborhood friend who would always be there for you at the playground after school. The friend who made you reminisce about the good old days. Laughing and smiling with such a friend could be called happiness and that was enough. To some, it was the only pure happiness they had in their lives.

That was why Sang-Hyeon respected Bubblegum so much. (Of course, he didn't respect his skills.) And he loved watching his streams.

It was a big moment for Sang-Hyeon to have his name mentioned with Bubblegum.

"It’s interesting that there's even a celebrity you like," Ju-Hyeok told him while eating.

"He's not really... a celebrity."

"He's a celebrity if he's that big. Fifty thousand viewers watching him live? That's crazy. I wonder how much he makes?"

"He lives a surprisingly frugal life. He has two kids. I think he invests in them a lot."

"..."

The amount of information Sang-Hyeon knew about Bubblegum startled Ju-Hyeok.

"Anyways, the video was excellent. No wonder it's trending again."

Sang-Hyeon seemed to enjoy Seo Ji-Ah's editing because he kept replaying his interaction with Bubblegum.

"Ji-Ah's skills are great! She's one of the best!"

Ju-Hyeok aggressively nodded. Then he brought up the topic of views because he couldn't find a better time to do so.

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"It already has 80,000 views and it's only been around 5 hours. I think this will be a new record."

"What's the record?"

"We got over 200,000 views in the first 24 hours before. At this rate, this one will reach 300,000."

"You think so?"

Sang-Hyeon gave a half-ass response as he reread the community comments. However, his expression soon darkened and his smile slowly disappeared.

Like always, some of the comments weren’t too friendly.

[He gets called a genius just because he beat Bubblegum? Then all 4 million people in this country are geniuses!]

[Almond? A genius? Stop overreacting after only two rounds!]

[Jesus Christ, the day has come when we suck up to bronze players.]

[These losers love sucking up to people.]

[It's not even like he's playing against JeonJaPa.]

[Stop making posts about him, you losers. Almond is only a bronze rank.]

[JeonJaPa reached diamond in the first month he started. Do you think Almond can do that?]

Whiff—?

Ju-Hyeok's hand covered the screen.

"Hey, what's the point of reading all that? These guys are just trying to put you down."

Ju-Hyeok already looked at all the comments mentioning Almond. He knew what was being said.

"I know."

"Then why are you reading them?"

"This is my power."

"...?"

"Maybe it's because I don't have any family left. Talking shit about my family doesn't affect me."

Just then, Ju-Hyeok realized how scary Sang-Hyeon's professional mentality was. He could somewhat understand why Manager Park hated Sang-Hyeon so much. Simple insults and criticism didn’t affect him. Most likely, Manager Park feared Sang-Hyeon.

"Anyways, the problem seems to be that I'm unranked."

"Of course, you're unranked. You’ve only played two rounds."

"I think I need to stream longer. Even if my character is like this."

"How many rounds will you play each day?"

Virtual reality games were particularly exhausting for Sang-Hyeon. Ju-Hyeok even researched hospitals to find a solution. He wanted to encourage Sang-Hyeon to only stream for short periods.

"Aren't you overworking yourself?"

"The problem is that I’m a genius player in bronze."

"

Hmm...

I guess you're right."

Sang-Hyeon finished his kimchi soup and stood up. Then he went to go watch strategy videos on his computer.

"Let's play some more until I reach diamond at least."

It didn't seem like it, but Sang-Hyeon was currently on fire. He quietly burned with competition and a certain incident fueled him even more.

"

Huh?

Hey, I got a new email!" Ju-Hyeok shouted while doing his daily email check.

"What is it?"

"It's from Bubblegum's manager."

"!"

Dul-kung!

Sang-Hyeon quickly turned around in his chair.

"Wh-what did he say?"

"He's proposing some kind of content collaboration."

[Hello. This is streamer Bubblegum's manager, Park Sung-Tae.]

"A battle of opposing skills... Bubblegum's salvation project..."

A collaboration between someone blessed by the heavens and someone blessed with nothing. The content revolved around one person teaching the other, a tutoring concept.

"Yeah, it seems like content where you teach Bubblegum."

"Really?"

Sang-Hyeon's face immediately brightened.

However, Ju-Hyeok wanted to let him know that it was too early to be happy.

"

Ah

, but there’s a catch. He wants to do it after you reach diamond."

"Diamond?"

Sang-Hyeon paused for a moment because reaching diamond was no easy feat.

"If you don't want to..."

"No! I'll do it!"

Sang-Hyeon made up his mind on the spot. He didn't think it would be easy, but he hadn’t burned with passion like this in a long time.

"I'm going to reach diamond anyways. Why refuse?"

***

The video Ji-Ah uploaded reached 130,000 views.

Suddenly, a Treevy notification popped up at 3 P.M.

[Almond is now streaming!]

Ding—?

Anyone following Almond received the notification.

— ???

— It's 3 PM?!

— It's been a while since he streamed at this time.

— Is something up?

Most viewers came on and wondered what was going on. Around a thousand viewers arrived. Most of them were his day one viewers who were either students or salarymen.

[Current Viewers: 891]

Despite the timing, reaching around a thousand viewers meant Almond was beginning to build a loyal fanbase.

— Did he turn it on by accident?

— It's entirely possible if it's Almond we're talking about.?

— Please get a new capsule.

— Donate then!

Everyone wondered if he turned on the stream by accident.

Bzzt.

The intro video came on followed by the usual intro music.

— Huh? Is it real?

— So exciting!

— What an unexpected timing!

— This is why I didn't find a job! Haha...

Ping!

Almond appeared on the bottom right of the screen and smiled.

"Hi, Treevy!"

The chat went wild as he greeted them.

— Hihi

— AlHa!

— Why are you here so early today?!

— Hi oppa!

— I'm skipping class to watch him hehe.

— What the? AlHa for now!

— Wow, what a treat.

— No regrets.

— The best way to spend your time, rated by Forbes.?

— Why are you here so early today, sir? I wonder what the occasion is? Hehe.

Questions mixed in with the greetings. Viewers felt curious as to why he began streaming so early.

He answered them straight away with a surprise announcement.

"I'm going to reach dia. Starting today."

— ????

— Sorry?

— Surprise announcement!

— :o A surprising statement!

— Almond's going to die?

— Is he finally going to die?

"Not die. Dia-mond. I'm going to reach diamond. I think it's going to take around... two weeks?"

Two weeks?

.

The greatest player of all time, JeonJaPa, took a month to reach diamond.

A small-time streamer, who only played two rounds, declared that he would reach it twice as fast.