At the end of last year, it was a story from less than two months ago.

"Ah! In the end, all the Korean clubs in the quarterfinals failed to get past the quarterfinals. This is so frustrating!"

Korea’s performance in the LIL Cup turned out disastrously. Every club from the Korean league lost in the quarterfinals.

"It's an unprecedented situation, isn't it?! The year before last was the first year without a Korean team in the finals! And this year, it became the first year without a Korean team even in the semifinals!?"

"Even last year, we didn't win. This is really going to disappoint the local fans..."

"It's shocking not just domestically, but internationally too. I'm quite shocked myself."

The shock among domestic fans was indescribable. Internationally, the situation was referred to as LAK Bottom because the results were so shocking.

The Korean league had truly hit rock bottom. Being criticized for losing was typical for the Korean league, but not making it even to the semifinals made public sentiment utterly dismal.

[China finally caught up... Can't we compete with their capital?]

[Huang~ money~ Huang~ mo~ney!]

[Look at what the Chinese are doing and learn! Are you going to keep avoiding fights and expect to succeed??]

[It wasn't that Korea was strong. It was JeonJaPa who was strong...]

[Why the heck have our top laners turned out like this??]

At the time, experts commented that the current public opinion was perhaps the worst ever for the

LIL

esports community. Was it because of harsh criticism toward the players, insults to the coaching staff, or because of the calls to completely overturn the industry with protests?

It would have been better if all those reasons were the case. Criticism and insults only existed because of a desire for change when there was interest. When people truly disliked something, they simply stopped watching and the views on LIL Pro plummeted drastically.

[Wow, community views have really dropped.]

[Is it true that upvoting still leads to a big? lol]

[Get rid of the ad-bots. Do they even quit??]

The phenomena when viewership dropped significantly were all manifesting. Notably, the camaraderie between advertisers and users grew strained.

[The LIL Cup flopped, so did the board]

[Just full of cliques now…]

[Has LIL Pro flopped? Just filled with cliques, geez;;]

People called each other by nicknames, knowing each other's histories, and filled entire forum pages with their personal stories. It was turning into more of a group chat than a community.

As this happened, viewership declined even faster.

[Wow... to see cliques in LIL Pro.]

— Yep, this place is ours now~ get lost~

— lol lol

— It's your fault for coming to a failed community

Cliques in a community that used to be heavily frequented were something one would never see, but now that was a thing of the past. Over half of the forum was filled with people calling each other by nicknames and just chatting. ř

[Who wants to see Kim Cheong-Soon's face?]

[WrongLaneVictory <<< this guy is why he's a gimmick]

[ChangedLaneNuella where do you live?]

All this happened in a flash after the LIL Cup. Posts were filled with complaints about how the community had become saturated with ads and cliques.

[SorrowTV Legends lol those who haven't seen it are really missing out lol]

[I want to kill these clique bastards]

[$$$$ Safe playground for dirty play $$$$ << Enter and immediately get 300,000 won $$$]

[Damn, what is this?]

[~ Looking for post-apocalyptic LIL Pro fiction recommendations. Roughly after LIL has gone downhill for 30 years]

It felt like witnessing a world that had utterly collapsed. That was just until yesterday.

***

The shift began when news circulated that the national competition was about to start.

[LIL flopped, just go watch Civil Empire.]

[Sanctuary for the sane >>>> Embul]

[Anyone watching the national competition? 'Clique out']

[Wow, starts in 1 hour!!]

[Anyone want to see a national team trainee fumbling the trophy? lol]

[Why are we talking about some random game on LIL Pro?]

[Honestly, discussing Civil Empire is better than becoming a cliquey chat room~]

They decided that discussing another game like

Civil Empire

on LIL Pro was better than being plastered with cliquey talk.

[Is it true you can't even reach big now? :(]

[Wow... the clique bugs are terrible.]

[The cancerous ones]

However, most discussions about

Civil Empire

didn't make it to big. Clique users still dominated the big board.

Eventually, most people just took refuge and moved to Embul.

[Why even do this on LIL Pro, go to Embul.]

[Let's go to Embul.]

[I've taken refuge~]

Embul's traffic skyrocketed with the influx of refugees from LIL Pro. It soon became overwhelming by the time the Korean team won and Almond’s interview came along.

[ERROR]

[404! Sorry, the server cannot be found.]

Embul suddenly crashed.

[We’re back!]

[Just arrived and it crashed lolol]

[Did Embul really crash? lolol]

[Wow, legendary game]

[Almond's interview lolol]

Subsequently, the refugees who fled to Embul naturally gathered again on LIL Pro. They still hadn't gotten over the victory and had much to discuss. This energy translated directly into likes and views.

Big) Esports’ damn revival

Finally, a normal big post emerged amid all the cliques and ad spam. It was, in a way, a historic moment.

[We declare that LIL Pro has been liberated from the era of cliques and spam ad gambling sites!]

— Wow~

— Long live the independence of Korea!!!

— Phew, the cliquey guys are dead lol

— Let's get to normalization again~

— JesusSports damn revival!

└ lol JesusSports

— It's good that we've come back to life... but I heard we were revived through a contract with the devil of interviews. Is this really the right kind of revival?

└ Why bother with that?

└ Being alive is enough…

└ lol mc

└ Truly devilish talent

└ lol

With this post receiving an enormous amount of likes, the recommendation threshold on Big began to rise. Posts with just forty to fifty likes, typically filled with cliques, gradually disappeared and were replaced by posts about the national competition.

By the time Sang-Hyeon finished the interview and wrapped up the strategy meeting with his teammates and logged onto LIL Pro...

"Oh. Wait. Isn't there also talk about this on LIL Pro?"

"No, hey. Why are you looking for

Civil Empire

discussions on LIL Pro?"

"Huh? No, it's all about

Civil Empire

."

LIL Pro had changed significantly.

"Even Big is all about

Civil Empire

...?"

Of course, everything was all about

Civil Empire

. Many reacted to the interview just as Sang-Hyeon wanted.

Ju-Hyeok's face was painted with astonishment, but Sang-Hyeon chuckled as he browsed the titles.

Big) First time French and Spanish local reactions to the devil of interviews lolololol

Big) Interview Devil "Contract Complete"

Big) Invincible (Not) Fleet TMI

Big) Today's Korean strategy points for Civil Empire newbies

Big) Ball possession. Not a single zero missing. Invincible (Not) Fleet

"Wow..."

These posts couldn't be more intriguing to Sang-Hyeon, who wanted to see reactions to the interview. He decided to click on each one from the bottom up. At this time, he was grinning ear to ear.

Big) Ball possession. Not a single zero missing. Invincible (Not) Fleet...

[Upvote if this guy is the GOAT of interviews, upvote lol]

— All this from one guy's mouth? lol

— NUT, you say?

└ Nuts... seriously crazy lol

— lol

— Stop Almond from getting interviewed lol

— MVP gets so many interviews, and yet he nails them every time...

After reading this far, Sang-Hyeon wore a puzzled expression.

"Hmm..."

Was this praise or criticism? That couldn't be it. He read further.

— Haven't seen ball possession like this in a while lol

— The ten million won was truly legendary. If you don't know the context, he just seems crazy lol

└ For real lol

— No, the ten million won was just a misunderstanding lol

Right. The ten million won misunderstanding was because of the viewers. Holding back such comments, Sang-Hyeon moved on to another post.

"

Ahem.

This is fabricated. Fabricated."

"...?"

The next post talked about the so-called interview devil. They probably meant his interview skills were devilishly talented. Sang-Hyeon smiled in content.

Big) Interview Devil "Contract Complete"

[???: LIL Pro will be saved. In return, watch all my interviews.

(video)]

The attached video contained Sang-Hyeon's "A zero is missing" interview.

— If you can feel shame and be resurrected...

— Didn't know making a deal with the devil was this hard

— lol

— "Archduke of Hell"

— Oh... Nut! Now I realize! Why the shame was our fault! All this to save LIL Pro!

└ lol this is hilarious

└ crazy lol

└ So that was it lol

‘No, these guys… they act like watching my interviews is some kind of ordeal to endure?’

Sang-Hyeon's cheeks began to puff up with mischief.

'When were you all so excited?'

Above all, he felt shocked that the chat reactions during his stream were almost identical to the community. Wait, it was exactly the same.

'The same reactions mean...'

Sang-Hyeon's mind raced as he tried to rationalize it.

"How about that?" Ju-Hyeok casually asked.

"In my opinion, this and everything here seems staged."

"!?"

Sang-Hyeon concluded that these people were no different from his viewers.

Ju-Hyeok's face displayed utter disbelief.

"What? Are you serious?"

Was the interview that important? Even at the archery competition, it seemed that the only remaining footage was interviews!

"Can we only trust foreign media then..."

The domestic media was corrupt. They needed to look at the international reaction.

"Foreign media?"

It sounded a bit ominous.

Ju-Hyeok swallowed his remark without saying it because Sang-Hyeon was seriously clicking on the first Big post.

Big) Spicy Warning! First time reactions from France and Spain to the Interview Devil lololololol

Unlike the previous ones, this post was quite lengthy.

[Translation of French Reactions]

— There's still one game left!

— Who is this gentleman? His mouth is spicy, but his face is sweet.

— They say Koreans eat dogs, sounds like dog barking from his mouth

└ There are Nazis in France too :D

— He is a talent who has virtually killed two royal knights; give him the respect he deserves

— France deserved to lose, his words were not wrong at all, past victories are just like the fame of the Invincible Fleet

— Send that guy to Squid Game

└ He seems like he'd come back a winner

└ Agree

— He's handsome. Is this the country of BTS?

The French reactions contained a mix of aggressive and self-reflective tones. It seemed they had become more humbled after the loss.

The story was different in Spain.

[Translation of Spanish Reactions]

𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

— Who is this Chinese discussing the Invincible Fleet?

— If Korea were near our country, it would have shared the same fate as the Aztecs.

— Be humble before we turn you into a well cured jamón

— Compared to your slow turtle headed ships, we are indeed invincible

— Give guns and gunpowder to these barbaric archers!

— Spain's rival: The British Empire /// Korea's rival: North Korea

└ Factos!

└ I'm dying of laughter!

— That's a provocation for the next match. Interesting. It's things like this that make it fun.

└ But it will soon become uninteresting because it’s just Korea.

— He’s cute enough to be forgiven.

— Please give me his RuneStar. I want to become friends.

"Wow..."

Apart from a few traitors simply enchanted by Sang-Hyeon's looks, Spain seemed to have taken the bite on Almond's provocation.

Unintentionally, the excitement for the match between Spain and Korea gradually heated up.