Episode 1. A Lucky Day (2)
The massive explosion started at the fingertips of an anonymous user.
[Title: Guys, what is this?]
[Content: They say it’s a video of solo-killing the Inferno Imugi lolll]
At an hour when everyone else was asleep.
In some Face Chronicle game community with inverted day and night, such a post went up.
“What. Solo-killing the Inferno Imugi?”
“That’s ridiculous… Probably another clickbait video.”
At first, they ignored it.
Because such attention-grabbing titles were always common on YouTube.
Occasionally a few clicked to check the video, but upon confirming its length of 42 hours, they closed it.
“Looks like some bastard uploaded another prank video.”
“Anything else interesting?”
Just as they were about to scroll past without a thought, someone said.
“But hey. The player’s nick is Ted, apparently?”
“Eh, duplicate nicknames are possible. It’s probably a copycat.”
Ted.
A name within Korea’s top 100 rankings.
However, until now, he had never shown his face through external activities or guild affiliation.
He was rumored among rankers for his great manual dexterity, but he hadn’t been so exposed to the general public.
“Ted?”
But one user had heard Ted’s name on another famous ranker’s stream. The story that he might possess the best skills in Korea.
Centered around that user, curiosity arose and people began clicking the video.
Skipping all the boring beginning parts and watching from the middle, their mouths fell wide open.
A single human was taking down the Haeryong Samsin, ruler of the Jeokbuk Ocean, and the Inferno Imugi, overlord of the Hellfire Volcano, all alone.
“What level is the Inferno Imugi?”
“I heard it was around 650 the last time I saw….”
“Crazy, he caught that alone? Is it maybe CG or something?”
“Hey, does that make sense?”
It doesn’t make sense to forge a 42-hour video. The cost would run into the tens or hundreds of billions of won. Moreover, if experts had touched it, such a crude and sloppy result wouldn’t have come out.
“Hey, I gotta upvote this. It’s really cool.”
“How has this not blown up yet? I’ll upvote too for now.”
Soon the post linking the video within the community received upvotes and got pinned to the top of the recommended posts.
Then countless users belonging to the community read that post.
And it soon began spreading through social network services (SNS).
A commoner’s spine-chilling play
—Holy shit. Someone appeared who solo-killed a level 650 boss mob in Korea.
The video that started going up on some famous Facebook account was instantly shared and spread.
The Facebook account operator kindly edited and adapted the video himself, and despite it being the middle of the night, likes and shares rose enormously in an instant.
—Daniel Rikk shared this post.
Facebook star accounts from each country are friends with one another.
To increase followers by sharing good content, they constantly monitor star accounts from other countries in real time.
But today, a somewhat special video went up on a Korean star account. Daniel shared that post to his own account.
It was the moment Ted’s video spread overseas.
As it stretched overseas, the video’s ripple effect grew faster and faster.
Because while it was night in Korea, it was daytime in other countries.
“Ooh, who on earth is this man? Is this perhaps filmed on a set?”
“Good heavens… What damn incredible skill.”
Those who watched Ted’s video were astonished.
Movements that seemed choreographed. And combat skill where only the necessary amount of movement looked spectacular.
People commonly expressed good in-game combat skills as having good body control, but by that standard, Ted was the god of body control.
As one video began rising, past videos were also swept up in the spotlight.
Even videos Ted had recorded and uploaded at level 1, ten years ago, began receiving hundreds of likes each.
“That man’s past videos are amazing too. His skill level is truly incredible, desu.”
“Korean person… fought an Orc Warrior at level 1. He was born different.”
They edited the videos nicely among themselves and uploaded them as references on Ted’s YouTube.
The editing of all the videos was happening on its own.
Before long, Ted’s video achieved ten million views in just six hours and got pinned on YouTube’s main page.
And the view count began to burn even hotter.
Then a call came into an office.
“Hello?”
“Rudissa! It’s a scoop. Take a look at the video that’s on YouTube’s main page right now!”
“On YouTube’s main page, you say?”
In the office, a very attractive Black woman answered the phone.
A woman with striking features to whom an intellectual suit suited well.
Her name was Rudissa, the head of America’s famous gaming channel
The Rudissa Show was a famous show that anyone who liked gaming programs knew.
Many celebrity gamers wanted to be invited as guests because every broadcast recorded the highest viewership among gaming shows worldwide.
In the representative’s office of such a show program company.
Ted’s video began playing.
“Oh….”
Rudissa’s expression stiffened rigidly after checking the original video.
Throughout the video, the player focused solely on hunting without saying a word.
It was the same with past videos. They contained only scenes of him doing something silently. To the extent that it would be difficult to edit for entertainment or broadcast purposes.
—Are you watching? What do you think?
“This man has no wit at all.”
—Oh, i-is that so?
However, Rudissa’s following words were unexpected.
“But he is truly magnificent. This man has powerful charisma. Like a knight riding a white horse across the battlefield from a novel I read as a child. Moreover, his combat sense is the best among anyone I’ve ever seen; it would not be an exaggeration to say so. Who on earth is he, this handsome Oriental man in the video? I would love to sit this mysterious man before me and speak with him.”
Such high praise was not often heard from Rudissa, who had hosted countless guests.
The PD clenched his fist. With this, this week’s viewership was in the bag.
Thus fortune was snowballing, growing larger and larger.
‘…It’s damp. I feel this every time, but it’s disgusting.’
Cheon Gyeong-u, who had slept continuously for 24 hours and woken up, took off a large diaper in the bathroom.
Whenever necessary, he played games for days without sleeping.
Conversely, once he slept, he would sleep for one or two days; after wetting the blanket several times while sleeping like he had fainted, he had gained the wisdom to buy adult diapers.
But after washing with hot water, something strange caught Ted’s eyes.
‘Am I still half-asleep? I even took a shower.’
There were 999+ messages on Ted’s account.
The moment he checked the messages, Ted’s mouth fell open.
The messages were all from people he didn’t know.
[Mr. Ted?? I really enjoyed your YouTube video.]
[To the esteemed Mr. Ted….]
The most common messages among them were about enjoying the video.
Below that, there were also messages like this.
[Hello. This is TT Planning. We watched your video with great interest and are sending you this message.^^* As a management company that always puts players first….]
The message they sent was a request for a commercial shoot due to in-game advertising!
‘A commercial with me?’
Imagining dancing with a pen and an apple, embarrassment flooded over him.
Another message was from a publisher. They contacted him proposing to plan an autobiography and strategy guide by Cheon Gyeong-u.
‘My autobiography?’
He thought for a moment then shook his head. It probably wouldn’t have enough content. Because his life had been nothing but a repetition of games and failures.
There were also inquiries to appear on the Rudissa Show, requests for lectures, and such, but he deleted those immediately upon reading them.
Because Cheon Gyeong-u was good at speaking with his body, but was terrible at speaking with his mouth.
[Mr. Ted… I have become your fan. I want to see much more of your play in the future.]
But the last message he checked had slightly different content.
‘…So there was something like this.’
* * *
A week passed, and Ted’s potential began to explode.
Following the suggestion in the last message, Ted had started streaming on Paprika,
and while it was a broadcast, he started it because he was told he didn’t have to talk much. He had also heard it could bring money and recognition.
But it seemed the ripple effect of the YouTube video was tremendous.
Just one week after starting the broadcast, his fans had surpassed twenty thousand.
‘Wow, this feels really good.’
Gaining fans meant increasing profits.
Even Ted, who was insensitive to money games, could tell. The balloons viewers were sending were piling up more and more.
Did that mean Ted streamed diligently? That was not the case either.
Ted turned on the stream when he wanted to, conducting the broadcast without any special content.
“That one is an Ogre King. It’s level 450, but there are rarely three of them. There are fifteen surrounding mobs as well. I’ll try to appropriately disperse the small fry.”
He simply caught monsters. In his own way.
And he only added explanations.
There were no jokes trying to be funny or excessive reactions. Because he didn’t know how. However, viewers were captivated by his calm explanatory voice and his mechanical skill that bordered on artistry.
Thus Ted’s BJ ranking kept rising.
[Te Sa Mo]
Korea’s strongest cool-guy BJ! The group that loves Ted!
To the point that a fan cafe was even created!
YouTube was a huge hit too. If he recorded and uploaded the day’s filming, the daily average views were at least five million.
Every day, inquiries for casting and filming came in from various places.
Ted could tell.
That he had become a star!
‘I’ve made it. Now my life too is hitting 500 km/h on a paved highway. From now on, I’ll ruthlessly ravage the world ranking list within three years.’
Cheon Gyeong-u felt his heart pounding.
Now he could surely approach his goal of becoming world rank number one.
He had never dreamed there would be such a lucky day in his life. Whenever he played games, his luck had been terribly bad….
‘I must have been saving all my past luck for this moment.’
Faced with this unbelievable reality, Cheon Gyeong-u kept checking the numbers printed in the Ted account’s bankbook.
‘Huh? Wait. Yeah. Honestly, I can’t believe it…’
After thinking only brightly and positively, he thought the opposite for a moment.
Soon goosebumps rose on his body. His forgotten history came to mind.
‘No. It can’t be. There’s no way my life would work out this nicely… Just how big of a prank are you trying to play on me, you damnable fate!’
It was disbelief.
Having been unlucky his whole life, he couldn’t believe that he had seized good fortune.
Like a baby elephant that had been tied with chains, unable to even think of breaking them even after growing up.
‘What is it. What could blow up here, and how? If I block something in advance, can I avoid the misfortune that’s coming?’
Cheon Gyeong-u, as though strangling himself, stamped his feet anxiously.
Riiiing—
It was then.
That a voice call came flying in to Ted’s account.