HBWnovel Chapter 7
Chapter 7
After tidying up Yeram and sending her off to school, I made up my mind to keep doing this for her at least until college entrance exams. With all the distractions out there, it’s easy to lose focus.
Still, there was one thing nagging at me.@@@@
“...Maybe I can squeeze in one more game?”
After getting Yeram ready, I realized that there was only an hour left before work. It would take about ten minutes to walk to the cafe, leaving me with roughly fifty minutes. After playing Leore all night, I’d figured out that fifty minutes was enough for one game. If time got tight, I could just quit mid-match if needed.
“Alright then.”
With that thought, I opened Leore and started queuing up for another game.
A week passed. Nothing much had happened. Occasionally, I’d play Leore with Yeram’s friends, and in between, I’d go to work. Today was no different, as I gamed in my free time, occasionally browsing the gallery.
[Victory]
Gazing at the glorious “Victory” screen, I logged into the Ifrit Gallery to see what today’s hot topic was.
Click.
Today’s topic was “internet streaming.” I knew a bit about this stuff since I occasionally watched streamers.
I knew some basics—who was friendly with whom, who was affiliated with which company. Though, the deeper connections were beyond me.
[ “Mangming <<< just GOAT-level streamer..” ][4]
[ “Who’s the biggest idiot among streamers?” ][22]
[ “Honestly, block those involved in the current Gold Cup.” ][1]
[ “Which streamer is actually funny these days?” ][7]
A flood of posts appeared. It seemed that the community was full of people who paid close attention to internet streams. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen a topic like this.
Thinking it over, I clicked the post at the bottom. It was easier to start from the bottom and scroll up.
[Author: Kukurella]
[Title: So, which streamer is funny these days?]
[Content: I haven’t watched since the fat woman with the mask. Any recommendations?]
L: “How long ago was that? LOL”
ᄂ: “For real, the only fat masked streamer I remember is Paru.”
ᄂ: “Paru is a classic.”
ᄂ: “Gotta respect the originals.”
L: “It depends on what kind of streams you like. If you’re into gaming, there are popular streamers for that. For talk shows, there are others.”
ᄂKukurella: “Just tell me someone popular now, so I can check them out.”
ᄂ: “Mangming is alright. Been around a while, but their growth lately has been crazy.”
“Who’s that?”
I considered myself decently informed, but I didn’t know the rising stars. The YouTubers I watched were all old-timers who’d been streaming for ages.
‘I only watch variety game streamers.’
Recently, I’d been considering branching out into Leore streams. It’d probably be fun. Mangming, huh? I stored the name in my memory and moved on to the next post.
Skipping the one ranting about the Gold Cup, I clicked on the following post.
[Author: BuffPlease]
[Title: Who’s the biggest idiot among streamers?]
[Content: I don’t know much about streaming, but who’s genuinely the biggest idiot?]
“It’s pretty clean.”
Noticing the sleek, simple UI, I typed “Mangming” into the search bar. A stream popped up right away at the top.
[Viewer count: 3,413]
I didn’t know much about viewership numbers, but it seemed like a lot. The main screen earlier had ranked streams by viewer count, and I remembered that anything over 3,000 was high up.
‘Wonder what kind of stream this is.’
If it was a variety gaming stream, it’d probably be interesting.
Click.
I clicked on the stream and waited through a short ad. After the 15 seconds passed, I skipped it, and the broadcast filled the screen.
“-Ugh, damn it!”
It was a Leore stream. The streamer’s small face cam was in the bottom-right corner, showing a girl with messy bedhead, likely just out of bed. Yet, she didn’t look bad—probably because she had a tiny face.
As I continued watching—
“Why is our jungler playing like this? It’s so frustrating.”
[LOL]
[The jungler’s just playing like that because top lane has no control.]
[If you were winning lane, it’d be different.]
[The game’s tough because the top laner sucks.]
ᄂUser temporarily removed.
[Can we get a sick play here?]
[If the enemy keeps harassing us like this, we’re screwed.]
[Getting wrecked by Renek and Santay, LOL.]
“Like I keep saying, Renek is secretly at a disadvantage! What if the enemy jungler shows up?”
[But they didn’t.]
[Just admit it already... It’s pathetic.]
[The enemy jungler didn’t even show up.]
[We’ll forgive you if you admit it now.]
“All of you blaming me, get out. Ugh. Wanna die?”
She was getting frustrated at the constant “top lane gap” spam in chat, and it seemed like she was taking it out on the commenters. But there wasn’t anything particularly special. Why was she so famous?
At that moment—
[You have been slain!]
“Aaagh!!!”
The screen turned gray, and I could see her face cam shaking violently.
“...Is this what’s popular nowadays?”
It was a bit of a shock.