Chapter 59

My first-place run left a lot of waves.

First off, various communities.

Since there’s still about a month left until the <Eternal World> Pro League playoffs, my first-place run caught the attention of countless players, especially Pro League viewers.

It went something like this:

<Has a girl ever hit Challenger rank 1 before?>

Challenger players pop up often, but has anyone ever hit rank 1?

Han Yoorim’s mechanics are insane, right? Isn’t she about to hit it?

– Does rank 1 really look that easy? Lol

– People say pros can hit rank 1 easily, but even now, if you’re a rank 1 player, Chinese teams will pay millions to recruit you as a trainee. It’s not easy.

<Han Yoorim’s win rate is suspicious, isn’t it?>

Is it a bug?

– She’s good at smurfing.

– Players like her always exist. They usually crumble when they reach the highest level of play.

Like any sport, the more you watch, the more knowledge you gain.

And <Eternal World> made it easier to apply that knowledge compared to regular sports. If you knew the game well, your tier was usually high.

It was a structure where unnecessary chaos rarely happened.

In such an environment, the <Eternal World> community kept up with everything about the game.

They’d already dedicated their lives to <Eternal World> and couldn’t focus on anything else.

<Will Han Yoorim’s Noah Weber strategy work in the pro scene?>

Scouting enemy base locations, infinite kills, and using secret paths—it’s too OP, right?

– Pros can counter it. It’ll never work.

– Solo queue and pro games are completely different.

This was the reaction when I hit Grand Master tier 1.

Well, even if the <Eternal World> community’s tier is high, it’s mostly Diamond to Master level.

Typical of casual players.

They think watching the game well means they’re good at it.

Tsk.

<Han Yoorim’s mechanics are insane, right?>

(A clip of her insane teamfight positioning from when she was on the same team as Rozon.)

Even if I had time manipulation, I don’t think I could pull that off.

– The players she was with back then are all low-tier now, lol.

– Low-tier players can win the World Cup if they reach Diamond, you know?

┗Of course, the opponents weren’t that good, but focus on Han Yoorim’s play. The difficulty of her moves is high regardless of the opponent’s skill.

Someone who understood why I posted the video showed up.

I said <Eternal World> community members are good at analyzing the game, right?

Among all the reactions flooding various communities, the most memorable post was this:

<Han Yoorim’s Noah Weber is only for smurfing, lol>

It won’t work in Master tier.

<Han Yoorim’s Noah Weber is only for smurfing, lol>

It won’t work in Grand Master tier.

<Han Yoorim’s Noah Weber is only for smurfing, lol>

It won’t work in Challenger tier.

<Han Yoorim’s Noah Weber is only for smurfing, lol>

It won’t work in high Challenger tier.

– At this point, just admit it’s OP.

– Next thing you know, she’ll hit rank 1, and you’ll say it won’t work in pro play, lol.

That guy actually wrote that my Noah Weber strategy wouldn’t work in pro play after I hit rank 1 with it.

But it was quickly debunked.

[The Noah Weber play you saw today? I referenced a famous streamer’s play.]

It was an interview with Bbangbbang’s teammate.

From the moment I met him in-game, he seemed sharp and well-mannered.

Unlike someone else.

Han Yoorim: *Sigh*

Rumen: I was about to shout you out first.

Han Yoorim: Anyone can talk. That’s why you should’ve taken MVP.

The ‘Ormal’ play Bbangbbang showed yesterday also clearly referenced me, but unfortunately, Bbangbbang couldn’t do an interview.

Because Noah Weber’s play was so impactful, it monopolized the MVP.

Bbangbbang’s Ormal also almost single-handedly destroyed the game, but MVP also considers impact.

If you’re upset, you should’ve played a little better. Then you would’ve won MVP by one vote instead of losing it by one.

Rumen: By the way, aren’t you using your wish ticket?

Han Yoorim: Wait for it.

I still hadn’t thought of a wish worth making.

The wish could wait.

I stretched as hard as I could.

Maybe because I enjoyed the sauna so much yesterday, my whole body felt soft.

Especially my skin.

It was always like that, but the placebo effect is real. Admit it.

I logged into V-TV and switched the category to <Eternal World>. At the top, I saw this title:

[Thierry Laboratory]

Unless the world’s common sense had changed overnight or the game developers had reverted Thierry to her glory days (when her lightning elemental ultimate was cheat-level), this title made no sense.

But this was the current reality.

A trend of running labs with the characters I used had spread.

It all started with a community post.

<Are all the characters Han Yoorim picks OP?>

(A clip of a character unexpectedly performing well in a pro match about 2 weeks ago.)

I thought they were crazy for pulling out a character that’s awkward to use as a scout and only good for smurfing in City Core, but Han Yoorim used it first?

– Overreaction.

– They use it sometimes.

┗No, it’s just one example. All the characters that are now meta picks in City Core were used by Han Yoorim first.

┗┗Does that even make sense?

<It’s true, lol>

(A comparison of Han Yoorim’s character pool and the characters that appeared in the recent Summer League.)

This Summer League had extreme meta shifts, making it super fun, but all these characters were used by Han Yoorim first?

– Too many coincidences?

– Honestly, I’ve never seen anyone else use those characters in high-tier play.

Someone pointed out the overlap between the pro league meta picks and my character pool.

Bbangbbang had already been bugging me about this.

He asked me to share OP picks only with him and not use them on stream.

Money is…

I offered as much as I wanted, but they refused.

Even among friends, taking money felt awkward, and I couldn’t take away the viewers’ fun.

Instead, since they seemed disappointed, I shared a few secret picks and combos I hadn’t used on stream yet.

I’ll use them on stream someday, but this way, Bbangbbang can practice in advance, so it’s still helpful in its own way.

Anyway.

So, how is this related to the Thierry research trend? That’s what it was.

Someone thought, “Han Yoorim isn’t a romanticist but a performance chaser. Seeing that Thierry is her main, isn’t this the most broken character in history?” That was the cause.

I went into the [Thierry Research Lab] stream.

“Damn. Thierry, this character was definitely made for humans—.”

I left immediately.

Don’t the people who’ve played <Eternal World> enough still not know?

Thierry isn’t a character.

Of course, Thierry’s performance was good.

The biggest reason I used Thierry was because she looked similar to me, but if her performance had been unusable, I wouldn’t have made her my main.

But there’s a trap in the word “performance.”

When talking about a character’s performance in a game, the difficulty isn’t usually considered.

In games, even characters only a few can handle are often labeled as broken if they can dominate.

That’s the vibe I got when I said Thierry’s performance was good.

Honestly. If you consider the difficulty, this is actually a bad character.

The character was designed so that you had to pull off impossible plays to see her performance.

It’s my body that’s weird for actually succeeding, not Thierry being good, right?

You can tell just by how gamers who love labeling broken characters see Thierry as trash.

So please buff her quickly.

I also want to taste Thierry’s glory days just once.

I turned off V-TV and logged into the VR store this time.

Clicking on ‘Manage My Works,’ a list of registered games appeared.

<Excel Busters>, <Fantasy Life>, <Resurrected Students Also Need Love>

It’s been just over half a year since I gained this ability, and I’ve already made three games.

This cheat ability is insane. No solo developer has ever made games at this pace, and no one ever will.

This is also because I limited the ability severely since I can’t compromise on game concepts. If I unlocked the 5th seal, three games would be nothing. The game rankings would be flooded with my games.

How much fun did I have with <Infinity Zero> that they gave me this ability and disappeared?

I wondered sometimes.

I clicked on game management to check the sales.

Thanks to various factors, my game sales have been increasing day by day.

All of them sold well, but the best-selling one was, of course, <Fantasy Life>.

The sales speed has slowed now, but it broke personal sales records immediately after the VR re-release, and the last time I checked, 800,000 copies were sold, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s now at 850,000….

Title: Fantasy Life (VR Version)

Release: 2 months and 21 days ago

Price: 29,800 won

Reviews: 75,812

Downloads: 4.37 million

……?

I blinked.

Is this a bug?

I refreshed.

Then the download number changed.

Right. Going from 800,000 to 4.3 million in a week? It’s definitely a bug.

I calmly checked the download number again.

[Downloads: 4.38 million]

In that short time, 4.37 million changed to 4.38 million.

It wasn’t a bug on the site; it was a bug in my eyes.

Understood.

…Just in case, I checked <Excel Busters> and <Resurrected Students Also Need Love>, but they were the same. Not at <Fantasy Life> levels, but their sales had also increased abnormally.

Looking at the detailed sales metrics made it even scarier.

As it approached 4.38 million downloads, the daily sales weren’t gradually decreasing but increasing.

In fact, it was increasing by larger margins, as if it hadn’t even started yet.

Most of the recent downloads were from overseas. Whose conspiracy is this?

CERN?

People fear what they don’t understand.

That’s why I was more scared than happy about the current situation.

I don’t know who the mastermind is, but if their intention is to lift people up and then drop them, I’ll have no choice but to unlock the forbidden 6th seal—.

Title: Hello, Han Yoorim. This is Novel Live. We’re contacting you regarding a collaboration request.

Ding. I squinted at the sudden email.

First, I checked the content.

Title: Hello, Han Yoorim. This is Novel Live. We’re contacting you regarding a collaboration request.

Content: Thanks to your game, our company’s Yukimura Akane had a truly enjoyable experience.

Getting to the point, since you’re also a VTuber, what do you think about maintaining this collaboration?

The collaboration was requested by Yukimura Akane herself.

No wonder. I thought the sales bug was weird.

If it’s VTubers playing the game, I’ll accept it.

I quickly sent a reply.

Title: I’ll take the gift.