The Veteran Swordmaster’s Stream (Novel) - Chapter 13

Chapter 13

-Al-hi!

-The stream is on!

-hi

-o-hi!

Alpaca stared at the rapidly rising chat window.

Although he couldn’t calculate the exact numbers, it seemed to be rising exceptionally fast compared to other days.

Normally, collaboration streams attracted more attention than usual and drew in a lot of people.

And although there was the promotional video uploaded the day before and the promotion by Seo-jun’s viewers, led by Joseon’s Assassin.

Above all, the main factor was that the twenty thousand people who watched Alpaca’s stream had seen Seo-jun’s play live.

This was because those many people became curious about Seo-jun, and talks of the collaboration constantly respread in Alpaca’s cafe.

[Viewers: 4,327]

It hit four thousand viewers in less than a few seconds after turning it on.

And the numbers showed no signs of stopping as they climbed rapidly.

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

“Tra-hi!”

As the dark broadcast screen brightened, Alpaca entered the lobby.

-Al-hi!

-hi

-I came to see Mr. Unnamed

-Tra-hi

-ㅡㅅㅡ

[Viewers: 10,000]

The number of viewers had already surpassed ten thousand and was heading toward twenty thousand.

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

-Whatever, you get out

-Do you think we came here without knowing that?

-FR, let’s get Alpaca’s face out of here quickly

“Yes, yes. No, but this is my stream, yet it seems like no one came to see me. Ha.”

Alpaca showed a look of disappointment, but the viewers showed a consistent reaction.

-Yup

-Yes, that’s right.

-You suck so bad.

-Not true? I came to see Alpaca, though?

“Oh? Large Yellowtail, you came to see me?”

Having streamed for a long time, Alpaca possessed the ability to quickly find a specific user’s chat amidst the countless messages.

It was an essential skill for smoothly exchanging conversations with viewers through a chat window that scrolled in the blink of an eye.

And.

‘The Best Defense is Winter Large Yellowtail’ chatted again.

-Gotta watch the one-sitting clear challenge lol

“The one-sitting clear isn’t today, you punk. You’re banned.”

-Lololololol

-Super toxic lololol

-??? Why aren’t you doing it today?

“Why aren’t we doing it today? Glad you asked. Because today, I have to learn peerless play. From whom? Now! Let me introduce the professor who will teach me today!”

Alpaca naturally conducted the broadcast while talking to the viewers, and shouted as he gave a signal to Seo-jun, who was watching from the outside.

“It’s streamer Jin Seo-jun!”

-Clap clap clap clap

-Clap clap

-Wooooow

-….

-Why isn’t he coming?

Alpaca waited while showing the spawn area of the lobby.

An awkward silence followed, and as the delay exceeded the usual loading time, Alpaca blurted out whatever came to mind because he couldn’t leave dead air in the broadcast.

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

-Imaginary collaboration? lololol

-Could it be that the collaboration isn’t today?

“It’s not an imaginary collaboration. We’re even going to have an afterparty offline later.”

Right then.

An alarm popped up on Alpaca’s friends list.

A whisper had arrived.

“Huh? I got a message. Oh. Did something go wrong?”

Alpaca quickly opened the whisper, worried that some setback had occurred.

And the content was something he had not expected at all.

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

Alpaca showed a genuinely awkward expression this time.

Was he serious?

Was it a concept for the stream?

For now, he dealt with the situation first.

“Uh… Well, since Seo-jun is someone who hasn’t even been in the capsule for a week yet, please understand, everyone.”

-Lololololololol

-Lmao lolololol

-The ‘haha’ is so annoying lol

-This guy is the professor? lolololol

***

Bwaaaah! Bwaah!

The alpaca residing in the lobby, Daebak-ie, cried out toward the sky, announcing the arrival of a new figure.

“Hello. I’m sorry for being late. I’m streamer Jin Seo-jun.”

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

Seo-jun gave a greeting with an embarrassed look, having gotten slightly tangled up from the start.

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

Seo-jun recalled the situation inside the capsule just a moment ago, which had flustered him the most in recent times.

And looking at the reaction of the chat window, which did not particularly care, he thought it was a relief.

-Still, not knowing how to get to the lobby is a bit much lol

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

-It's Alpaca's fault for not preparing in advance lolol

The chat window with nearly twenty thousand people had a completely different level of firepower.

It rose so rapidly that it was slightly dizzying.

And he had felt it before, but this room felt a bit spicy in its content.

Teasing the streamer seemed to have become a piece of content in itself.

The chat window of each channel was divided depending on the streamer's personality.

Some streamers beat up their viewers after locking them down, and those viewers liked it even more, while other streamers pursued a completely clean broadcast.

Seo-jun liked this kind of free atmosphere among them.

'I won't be criticized for my skills… Probably…'

It would be so.

Alpaca began to explain from the reason they started the collaboration.

"Now! As everyone knows, thanks to Seo-jun defeating Drake, I ended up doing the one-sitting clear challenge."

['Some Idiot' generously donated 1,000 won!]

[???: If he succeeds in that, I'll take him as my master to receive his teachings and do a one-sitting clear challenge until I beat Drake with peerless play!]

The donation rang at just the right timing, and Seo-jun burst into laughter as he recalled the scene from the day before.

"I'm really banning you. No, and Seo-jun. You shouldn't be laughing. Even if I'm the one who made a mistake by saying that, if you hadn't defeated Drake, I wouldn't have had to do a one-sitting clear challenge in the first place!"

"That's true. I also feel a shred of responsibility toward you, Alpaca."

"Right?"

"It's my fault for just defeating him, not having anticipated that there would be someone boastfully declaring on my second day of the game that defeating Drake with peerless play was impossible."

-Lololololol

-Sarcastic roasting ON!

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

-Translation: So what?

-Translation: Alpaca was stupid

How far were these people going? They were tearing Alpaca down while using him as an excuse.

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

And Alpaca could not shake the thought that Seo-jun was bold. He did not show any signs of nervousness at all in front of so many viewers.

Rather, he had dealt a blow while showing a look of enjoyment.

"Yes. I was wrong. So please save me, Professor."

"I will do my best, Alpaca."

Seo-jun, Alpaca, and even the viewers present here knew that he could not be saved.

"Now, now! Anyway. There are a total of two things we will do today. One is having you come into my game and show me how you defeat Drake…"

-???

-Don't try to get a free ride

-He's playing tricks lol

Hooks (?) that were entered in an instant.

Seo-jun witnessed Alpaca quickly changing the subject with a look of regret.

"Yes, well. That was a joke. I plan to enter the Professor's game and receive teachings while watching his play."

In Dawn of the Assassins, there was a feature called Co-op Assassination.

This was a multiplayer feature that invited other users to one's game; the invited user could either help with the assassination mission or disrupt the host.

"Ah! By the way, I am also doing a bare-handed assassination, but it seems you are playing the game bare-handed as well, Seo-jun. Is there a special reason? And what basic skills did you learn?"

"Hmm… I don't really have any skills or reasons, though?"

"You haven't been using skills until now? Like a basic passive skill that increases attack and movement speed, or damage amplification."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because they weren't particularly necessary?"

In truth, he had not known until he actually played.

But since revealing that fact would make him look lame.

Seo-jun chose to dress it up.

-Kyah!

-Damn!!! Is it even possible to copy that?

-This is true bare-handed

-Alpaca, if you want to show off that you're doing bare-handed assassinations, you should do at least this much lol

-Is it really true that he defeated him without skills?

-Yup

-Alpaca, reset your skill points right now and play!

Alpaca felt that ever since Seo-jun appeared, everything had somehow been turning disadvantageous for him.

Still, seeing the viewer count that had reached twenty-five thousand before he knew it, his heart softened.

"And there wasn't even a skill window in the game interface?"

This was the reason Seo-jun had not known about the existence of skills. Although he had learned of their existence while preparing for the collaboration.

"If you go to the tavern to receive your first request, Christina-nuna unlocks the skill window for you."

"Ah. I said goodbye right after the tutorial ended, and I must not have stopped by the tavern since then, so that's why."

Now he knew.

Suddenly, a question occurred to Alpaca while they were talking.

"No, wait a minute. Then why on earth did you catch Drake? You weren't even commissioned by the Assassins."

"I was pickpocketing in the market, and then I got summoned by some gang members."

"Ah…?"

Seo-jun said it nonchalantly, but Alpaca's expression was changing by the second.

"Ah…"

They had held a meeting yesterday, but he had not known about such detailed inside stories.

-Lolololololol

-lmao this guy has to do a one-sitting clear challenge because of a pickpocketer lmao

-The culprit is a pickpocketer lolololol

-Is he really a master? lolololol

"Haha. That can happen. You preserved the peace of the market, hahaha… Well. Now then, the second thing is related to that very skill."

This was the reason Alpaca had mentioned the skill just now.

Alpaca popped up a window.

"This is a capture of my skill window."

An enlarged picture of the locked skill's description appeared.

[Spot Weakness]

[Unlock Condition: Destroy weapons 10 times through the grain (2/10)]

-Lol they're doing this?

-No way.

-What is that?

People interested in the game noticed the identity of the picture, while those who enjoyed it casually demanded an explanation.

"Now, I will explain it to you from here on out. Everyone, by any chance, have you seen a video like this?"

The content of the video Alpaca newly played was like this.

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

Even if it was the same type of rapier held by another NPC, or if the attack was made with a different weapon, the result was the same as long as the specific point was attacked properly.

The notification that appeared after that.

[Unlock Condition: Destroy weapons 10 times through the grain (2/10)]

The video ended there.

"Everyone, you know how the concept of 'grain' appears in fantasy novels. A weakness where an object can be easily split! If we find just ten of those, we can obtain the skill called Spot Weakness!"

So far, a total of two grains had been found.

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

The other was the grain of a longsword found through an NPC who tells you about the grain when you do subquests.

-So how are we supposed to find it lolol

-What is the rule?

-Nobody knows.

-But what kind of skill is Spot Weakness?

"We don't know what kind of skill it is. It's the last remaining locked skill. So yesterday, just in case, since Seo-jun has great skills, I asked if he could find the grain."

-Why are you satisfying your personal agenda on a joint stream?

"Why am I satisfying my personal agenda? Aren't you all uncomfortable with a skill that hasn't been unlocked!"

-That's why we're asking, why are you inviting the Professor to find out lolololol

"Because I lack the skill!"

-So shameless! Alpaca!

-Lololololol

-So the conclusion is?

"Yes. The conclusion is that after watching the video, Seo-jun said he thought he understood the rules of the grain. Right?"

"Yes, well."

Seo-jun shrugged. With a relaxed expression, as always.

-??? Bluffing should have limits

-He's overreaching lololol

-How could he know that?

-Is Boss Al opening his shop today? lolol

"So! The idea is to make a bet on whether we can find it within today's broadcast or not!"

In fact, this was the main content of the broadcast.

The grain? The Rulers? The teaching? It was all buildup for this.

[Channel point prediction begins]

It was none other than the channel point prediction.

The very thing that drove viewers crazy.

-Let's go!

-Boss Al! Hurry up and take my points!

-Today's betting will be easy, haha

People did not know at this time.

That the greatest upset in the history of Alpaca, no, Travel, would erupt.