Chapter 13

-Alpaca!

-Stream’s on!

-Hey there!

-Let’s go!

Alpaca looked at the chat window rapidly scrolling upward.

He couldn’t calculate the exact numbers, but it seemed to be moving much faster than usual.

Joint broadcasts normally drew more aggro than usual and brought in more viewers.

And there had been the promotional video uploaded the day before, plus promotion from Seo-jun’s viewers led by I Am Joseon’s Assassin.

But most importantly, the 20,000 people who had been watching Alpaca’s broadcast had seen Seo-jun’s gameplay live.

All those people had become curious about Seo-jun, and talk about the joint broadcast kept spreading endlessly on Alpaca’s fan cafe.

[4,327 viewers]

They hit 4,000 just seconds after turning on the stream.

And the numbers showed no signs of stopping as they kept climbing.

Alpaca watched with a pleased smile before diving into virtual reality at the right timing.

“Hey everyone!”

The dark broadcast screen brightened as Alpaca entered the lobby.

-Alpaca!

-Hey

-Came to see Nameless

-Let’s go

-ㅡㅅㅡ

[10,000 viewers]

The viewer count had already surpassed 10,000 and was heading toward 20,000.

“Welcome, everyone. You all know what day it is today, right?”

-Whatever, just get him out

-Did you think we wouldn’t know that?

-For real, hurry up and get Alpaca’s face out of here

“Yes, yes. Even though it’s my broadcast it seems like no one came to see me. Sigh.”

Alpaca showed signs of feeling hurt, but the viewers responded consistently.

-Yeah

-That’s right.

-You suck at the game.

-Not true though? I came to see Alpaca.

“Oh? Best Defense says they came to see me?”

Alpaca had developed the ability to quickly find specific users’ chats among thousands of messages while broadcasting for a long time.

It was an essential skill for smoothly conversing with viewers through the rapidly scrolling chat window.

And then.

‘Best Defense is Winter Yellowtail Defense’ chatted again.

-Gotta watch the stream marathon lol

“The stream marathon isn’t today, you bastard. You’re banned.”

-LMAO

-Such a villain lol

-??? Why aren’t you doing it today?

“Why not today? Good question. Because I need to learn hack-and-slash today. From who? Well! Let me introduce the professor who will teach me today!”

Alpaca naturally conversed with viewers while running the broadcast, then signaled to Seo-jun watching from outside and shouted.

“Streamer Jin Seo-jun!”

-Clap clap clap

-Wooooow

-….

-Why isn’t he coming?

Alpaca focused on the spawn point in the lobby and waited.

An awkward silence continued, and when the time exceeded normal loading time, Alpaca couldn’t leave dead air in the broadcast so he said whatever came to mind.

“Huh? Why isn’t he coming? Seo-jun, if you’re watching the stream, please come in quickly. I’m, uh, feeling awkward right now. Hey! Manager, what are you doing!”

-Call only collaboration? Lol

-Maybe the joint broadcast isn’t today?

“We’re not having a call only collaboration. We’re even having an offline afterparty later.”

Then.

A notification popped up in Alpaca’s friend window.

A whisper message had arrived.

“Oh? A message came. Huh. Did something go wrong?”

Alpaca worried that some problem had occurred and quickly opened the whisper.

And the content was something he never could have expected.

[Um, I don’t know how to get to your lobby. Could you send me an invite? Hehe…]

This time Alpaca showed a genuinely awkward expression.

Was this serious?

Was it a broadcast concept?

First he dealt with the situation.

“Uh… Well, Seo-jun hasn’t even been using capsules for a week, so please understand.”

-LMAO

-So embarrassing lol

-The “hehe” is so annoying lol

-This is the professor? LOL

* * *

Bleaaaaat! Bleat!

Daebak, the alpaca residing in the lobby, looked up at the sky and cried while announcing the arrival of a new person.

“Hello. Sorry I’m late. I’m streamer Jin Seo-jun.”

The center of the lobby shone brightly as a character was generated and Seo-jun appeared.

Seo-jun greeted them with an awkward expression since things had gotten twisted from the start.

“Hahaha! That can happen. Strictly speaking, you’re still a beginner.”

Seo-jun recalled the most flustered he’d been recently—the situation inside the capsule just moments ago.

And looking at the chat window’s reaction without particularly caring, he thought it was fortunate.

-Still, not being able to come to the lobby is too much lol

-<<<<<< The guy trying to learn from that beginner

-Alpaca should have prepared beforehand lol

The chat window with nearly 20,000 people had a completely different level of firepower.

It scrolled up fast enough to be slightly dizzying.

And as he’d felt before, this room felt a bit spicy in content.

Making fun of the streamer seemed to have become a form of content.

Each room’s chat window splits according to the streamer’s tendencies.

Some streamers tie up viewers and beat them while those viewers actually enjoy it, while other streamers pursue completely clean broadcasts.

Among them, Seo-jun liked this kind of free atmosphere.

‘At least I won’t get criticized for my skills… probably…’

That should be the case.

Alpaca began explaining why the joint broadcast started.

“Now! As everyone knows, thanks to Seo-jun killing Drake, I have to do a stream marathon.”

[‘Some Idiot’ made a big 1,000 won donation!]

[???: If someone succeeds at that, I’ll serve that person as my master, learn from them, and do a stream marathon until I clear Drake with hack-and-slash!]

The donation rang at perfect timing, and Seo-jun burst into laughter as yesterday’s scene came to mind.

“Should I really ban you? And Seo-jun, you shouldn’t be laughing. No matter how much it’s my fault for saying it, if you hadn’t killed Drake, I wouldn’t have to do a stream marathon!”

“You’re right. I also feel some responsibility toward you.”

“Right?”

“Unfortunately, on my second day of gaming, I didn’t think there would be someone who would boldly claim they couldn’t kill Drake with hack-and-slash, so I just kill him carelessly. My mistake.”

-LMAO

-Passive-aggressive mode on!

-Translation: Sorry. But it’s your fault.

-Translation: So what?

-Translation: Alpaca was stupid

How far are these people going? They were cutting down Alpaca while making excuses for him.

Seo-jun and Alpaca looked at each other and laughed.

And Alpaca couldn’t shake the thought that Seo-jun was bold. He showed no signs of nervousness at all in front of so many viewers.

Rather, he seemed to be enjoying it while landing a good hit.

“Yes. It was my fault. So please save me, professor.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Everyone present—Seo-jun, Alpaca, and even the viewers—knew he couldn’t be saved.

“Alright! Anyway. We’re doing two things today. First, you’ll come into my game and show us how you kill Drake…”

-???

-Don’t try to freeload

-Nice try lol

Instant hooks from the viewers.

Seo-jun witnessed Alpaca quickly changing his words while making a disappointed expression.

“Well, that was a joke. I plan to enter the professor’s game and receive teachings while watching his gameplay.”

Assassin’s Dawn had a function called cooperative assassination.

This was a multiplayer feature that invited other users into your game, where invited users could either help with assassination missions or interfere with the host.

“Ah! But I’m also doing bare-handed assassination, and it seems like Seo-jun also plays the game bare-handed. Is there a special reason? And what basic skills did you pick?”

“Hmm… I don’t really have skills or reasons?”

“You haven’t been using skills this whole time? Like basic passive skills that increase attack speed or damage buffs?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t really need them?”

Actually, he hadn’t known about them until he played.

But revealing that fact would make him look bad.

So Seo-jun chose to embellish.

-Wow!

-Screwed!!! Is copying this possible?

-This is real bare-handed

-If Alpaca wants to show off doing bare-handed assassination, he needs to do at least this much lol

-He really killed Drake without skills?

-Yeah

-Alpaca should reset skill points immediately and play!

Alpaca felt like somehow everything had been turning against him since Seo-jun appeared.

Still, seeing the viewer count that had reached 25,000 cheered him up.

“And the skill window wasn’t in the game interface at all.”

This was why Seo-jun hadn’t known about the existence of skills. He learned about their existence while preparing for the joint broadcast.

“Christina unlocks the skill window when you go to the tavern for your first request.”

“Ah. I greeted her right after the tutorial ended, but I haven’t visited the tavern since then.”

Now he gets it.

Suddenly, Alpaca felt puzzled during their conversation.

“Wait, hold on. Then why did you kill Drake? You didn’t receive a request from the Assassins.”

“I got called by gang members while pickpocketing at the market.”

“Ah…?”

Seo-jun said it casually, but Alpaca’s expression was changing by the moment.

“Ah…”

They had held a meeting yesterday, but he hadn’t known these detailed circumstances.

-LOL

-LOL This guy’s about to do a stream marathon because of a guy who pickpockets lmao

-The culprit was a pickpocket lol

-Are you really a master? Lol

“Haha. That can happen. You protected the peace of the market, hahaha… Tsk. Well then, the second thing is related to those skills.”

This was why Alpaca had mentioned skills earlier.

Alpaca opened a window.

“This is a screenshot of my skill window.”

A photo showing the description of an unlocked skill appeared.

[Weakness Detection]

[Unlock Condition: Destroy 10 weapons through weak point (2/10)]

-Lol you’re going to do this?

-That’s impossible.

-What is that?

People interested in the game caught on to what the photo was, while those casually enjoying demanded explanations.

“Now let me explain. Everyone, have you ever seen a video like this?”

The content of the video Alpaca newly played was this,

When the user in the video attacked a specific part of a rapier held by an enemy, the rapier shattered into pieces.

Whether it was the same type of rapier held by other NPCs or attacks with different weapons, as long as you properly attacked the specific point, the result was the same.

The notification that appeared afterward was

[Unlock Condition: Destroy 10 weapons through weak point (2/10)]

The video ended there.

“Everyone, in fantasy novels there’s this concept called weak point. A weakness that can easily cut through objects! If we find just 10 of them, we can get the skill called Weakness Detection!”

So far, two weak points had been found.

One was the rapier that broke as a product of coincidence in the video and spread among people.

The other was the weak point of a longsword found through an NPC who tells you about weak point during sub-quests.

-So how do we find them lol

-What’s the rule?

-Nobody knows.

-But what kind of skill is Weakness Detection?

“We don’t know what skill it is. It’s the last remaining unlocked skill. So yesterday I asked Seo-jun with some hope whether he could find weak point since he’s skilled.”

-Why are you pursuing personal interests in a joint broadcast?

“What personal interests? Aren’t you all uncomfortable with unlocked skills!”

-That’s why you invite the professor to figure it out lol

“Because I lack the skills!”

-So confident! I like it, Alpaca!

-Lmao

-So what’s the conclusion?

“Yes. The conclusion is that Seo-jun said he thought he might know the rules of weak point after watching the video. Isn’t that right?”

“Well, yeah.”

Seo-jun shrugged. With his usual relaxed expression.

-??? Showing off has limits

-That’s pushing it lol

-How would you know that?

-Is the know-it-all shop open today? Lol

“So! Let’s bet whether he can find it or not during today’s broadcast!”

This was essentially the main content of the broadcast.

Weak point? Rulers? Teachings? It was all buildup for this.

[Channel point prediction begins]

Channel point prediction.

The thing that drives viewers crazy.

-Let’s go!

-Know-it-all shop! Hurry up and take my points!

-Today’s betting seems easy hehe

People didn’t know at this time.

That the biggest upset in Alpaca’s—no, Travel’s—history was about to happen.