Someone once said something like this.
-All the best things in history happen while I'm asleep.
While you can't control what happens when you're sleeping, it's not uncommon to wake up and find the world has changed.
Of course, if it's something truly major, someone might wake you up to say, "Hey, something big is happening." But there are also times you wake up in the morning to find the entire country in an uproar.
Though the scale might be different, that was the situation right now.
"You really got first place?"
"Yes."
Lashian, number one.
Showing me the screen where her name was proudly emblazoned in the top rank, Lashian held her head high, looking proud without a hint of fatigue.
"Fifty, as promised. If you please."
"...Should I order them right now?"
"Yes. Two at a time."
"Two?"
"Please order two every day for the next twenty-five days."
Lashian held up two fingers and wiggled them.
"...And here I thought you were going to attempt some kind of hamburger eating show."
"Even for an eating show, wouldn't ordering fifty at once from a private residence like this raise suspicion?"
"These days, if you order fifty and add a little note in the requests like, 'I'm filming a video, so please make sure they don't fall apart,' people will just assume you're a streamer."
Fifty is certainly a lot, but it's not enough to make someone suspect you're from another world.
"The age of YouTube has made all kinds of bizarre behavior seem plausible."
Take horror movies, for example. The premise often starts with people visiting abandoned houses or mental asylums that others wouldn't dare enter. In the past, the excuse was usually a test of courage among friends.
But now?
-What's up, everyone! Today, we're at...!
YouTube.
That one word, combined with some raw-looking camera footage, is all you need to create a plausible reason for anything.
"I see. It's similar to how adventurers visit dungeons."
"I guess the feeling is similar, right? The difference is that one group goes in to film videos, while the other goes into dungeons for... what was it? Treasure or monster materials?"
"That's right. They go in to harvest materials from the monsters in the dungeon or to claim the gold and jewels the creatures have hoarded as loot. They risk danger for money. Of course, I have no intention of doing such things."
"Have you never been to a dungeon?"
"It's not that I've never been, but rather that I've rarely had to experience the dangers within a dungeon myself."
"...If I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds like what was a threat to others wasn't a threat to you."
"Correct."
Lashian placed a hand on her chest, and a surge of magical energy caused a faint light to shimmer over her body.
"Can you see this?"
"Is that mana?"
"Yes. It's mana. And also a protective barrier. If I enter a dungeon with this active, even poisoned arrows from a trap pose no significant problem."
"I see."
I could tell it was something incredible, but being a layman when it came to magic, I couldn't grasp just how amazing it was.
"That's impressive. So you could just walk into a dungeon, and as long as you have that spell, all the traps are nullified?"
"Essentially."
But since Lashian was so proud of her ability, it wouldn't be right for me to say something like, "Yeah, I don't believe you."
A viewer might do that.
But I was Lashian's producer.
"Later on, when you're chatting with viewers about dungeon crawling, you could bring that up. When in-game dungeons show characters having to dodge everything, you could say something like, 'Well, that's not how I did it.'"
"I have plenty of stories like that. I've experienced a wide variety of things through magic."
"Including hitting number one?"
"That, too."
Back to the topic of her first-place rank.
"Let me see the records for a moment... These guys are pros I recognize. You fought them?"
As I examined Lashian's match history log, I noticed something quite peculiar about her winning streak.
"Yes. I won. Though it wasn't a perfect victory, unfortunately."
3:1, 3:0, 3:2.
Although she had won several matches against professional players, as she climbed higher in the ranks, her losses within those matches started to accumulate.
Of course, she ultimately won each match, resulting in an unbelievable record of 79 wins and 0 losses, but not all of those 79 victories were clean 3-0 sweeps.
Looking at the details...
"Wow. You got counter-picked."
"They came at me with team compositions made up of characters that were difficult to deal with. Is this what they call 'sniping'?"
"That's exactly what it is."
Her opponents' team compositions were vicious.
There were countless players who had formed parties of three using only characters like Master Kim, Lightning Man, and The Giant—Korean team characters who were either extremely tricky to fight or had a direct advantage over her picks.
The fact that Lashian still managed to claim the top spot against such odds was truly remarkable, but her occasional losses in the middle of those matches gave me a glimpse of the potential of us earthlings.
'She'd win in the end, but I guess it's a good thing I got to see the fighting spirit of humanity.'
If she had won every single match with a 3-0 shutout, she probably would have been accused of using some kind of cheat program.
...No, wait.
"Hold on, Lashian. Let me check the community forums for a second."
"The community?"
"Yeah. I doubt it would happen, but I want to see if anyone is stirring up trouble about that."
After getting Lashian's okay, I immediately started browsing the relevant fighting game community forums.
To put it bluntly, the atmosphere of the posts I saw right away was pure chaos.
"Just as I thought."
"...Honestly, I thought she was a hacker too. A hacker?"
The very first post read like something you'd see from clueless bystanders before the truth comes out. The abyss-like forums were flooded with all sorts of comments about Lashian.
It wasn't praise for her skill or grudging acknowledgments like, "She plays like a demon."
— Anonymous [Upvote if you think this bitch is a hacker lol]
"A hacker..."
A complete denial of Lashian's skill.
It was just like with *Puzzle & Pop 1* before, a torrent of condemnation and ridicule aimed at a number-one player, accusing them of reaching the top through dishonest means.
The crucial difference was that the other person was actually cheating, while this was pure skill.
"Should I really become a hacker?"
"If you're thinking of casting Meteor, please don't."
I scanned the community's reactions.
The initial atmosphere was startling enough, but I soon discerned their underlying scheme in the flow of the conversation.
"These people are trying to stir up drama around you to farm aggro, views, and get you to reveal your real identity."
"Pardon?"
"They want you to verify yourself in some way. It's a common demand in genres like fighting games or rhythm games."
Because these genres required superhuman, computer-like physical precision, it was a label that always followed master-level players in both fields.
"They want to see if you're human or a bot."
"...Should I film my hands while I play the game?"
Lashian's eyes sparkled as she pointed at the controller.
As if ready to crush those who dared to slander her skills with that very controller, her face burned with a mixture of displeasure and anger, her fighting spirit ignited.
"Very well. My hands, then—"
"That's the problem."
"Pardon?"
"These guys are kicking up this whole fuss because they want to see your hands."
"...Pardon?"
Lashian paused, her hand, which had been moving toward the controller, freezing in mid-air with a blank expression.
"My hands...?"
"Because if they see your hands, they can tell whether you're a woman or not. It makes sense, because..."
Her name.
Lashian.
"They're making such a big deal out of this just because your username sounds feminine."
"Hmm... Well, I suppose that's how men are."
Lashian cupped her chin with her hands, making a flower pose.
"And if the person behind the avatar turned out to be a beauty like me, it would cause an even bigger uproar. Hehehe."
"Are you going to reveal yourself?"
"What the public will see is the VTuber's face, of course."
"That's not really a reveal... Hmm."
While I was browsing the forums.
"Whoa, while the WWE-style rumor about her being a woman was going on, a UFC-level accusation just dropped."
"UFC...? Did someone seriously question my gender?"
"No. It's a topic that makes the gender debate seem tame by comparison."
"??"
She had been sniped.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
A Korean fighting game community forum.
"So, is Lashian a girl?"
Kim Jang-hyun, a streamer who loved fighting games, posted under the anonymous username ㅇㅇ (218.44).
He couldn't resist riding the wave while the topic was hot, but he couldn't reveal his identity as a streamer or his account name.
"If she's a girl, she's my king."
Whether you called it sexual harassment or a dirty joke, the forum was flooded with comments that seemed to have been written with their brains turned off. Most of them seemed to share Kim Jang-hyun's sentiment.
-Honestly, I think Lashian needs to do a handcam verification. It's definitely not because I'm curious if she's a girl or not.
Is Lashian really a woman?
Her gameplay was simply that of a very skilled player, but all the pros who had faced her had one thing in common to say.
-Why does she only pick the three Korean team members?
-Does this person not play female characters? I bet she'd be great with Athena, not just Master Kim...
-If she's going for a Korean team concept, there's no reason not to use 35 Jinju this time. Is she under some kind of mission?
She doesn't play female characters.
Is she a woman?
One might wonder how not playing female characters could lead to speculation about her gender, but the users had already dived headfirst into the madness.
The number one ranked player.
A rising star who had already proven her skills in other games, was actually a woman?
"Is the fighting game community getting its own female Faker? She must be beautiful. Damn. Should I start a fan cafe?"
Kim Jang-hyun licked his lips.
It wasn't time for his regular broadcast yet, but his mouth watered as he mentally rehearsed what he would say, pretending to see the posts in his fan cafe for the first time.
"Just fueling the 'is she a girl?' debate will bring in so many viewers... Huh?"
As he glanced away from his streamer fan cafe and back to the community forum, his eyes fell upon a strange new topic.
"...Sniped?"
🔴 LIVE NOW Streamer Park Gi-nam has started broadcasting.
"What, has this guy lost his mind?"