The Veteran Swordmaster’s Stream (Novel) - Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Thud!

A blue boxing glove slammed into Lee Dong-soo’s face.

Thud, thud!

Punches slammed into his abdomen in rapid succession.

“Keuh.”

Lee Dong-soo briefly clutched his waist and staggered before regaining his senses and raising his guard.

Although the people around them were watching him get beaten with great interest, to him, only the enemy before his eyes mattered.

“Director, is this guy really preparing to be a professional fighter? Why is he so weak?”

An opening!

Seo-jun, who was standing in front of him, turned his head to the side toward the director.

Normally, attacking at this timing would be bad manners, but—

Lee Dong-soo had already been influenced by Seo-jun after getting thoroughly beaten the previous day.

Practice like it is a real battle!

“Hyaaah!”

A straight.

Although he had not learned much, Lee Dong-soo’s fist, which had properly mastered the form, shot forward.

Accurate timing, precise posture, and a careless opponent.

It was an attack that would have worked at least once against a careless opponent, but—

Unfortunately, his opponent was Seo-jun.

Even while looking away, he lightly dodged and delivered a one-two punch.

Ohhh!

Exclamations of admiration burst from the surroundings.

“Argh! Dammit.”

In the end, Lee Dong-soo collapsed while clutching his stomach.

“Hey! You stinging nettle of a bastard! I told you to go easy! And he is not preparing to be a fighter! Come here, you.”

The director shouted and approached the ring.

To catch Seo-jun, he grabbed the ropes and swung his leg over.

Seo-jun, sensing murderous intent, headed to the opposite side of the director and prepared to step down from the ring.

“Ah, really? He had talent, though.”

Seeing that Seo-jun was ready to climb down while he was only halfway over the ropes, the director gave up on the idea of catching him.

“Ah, damn it. I should just…! Ow, my back.”

“Well, then is he just someone who is like the best fighter in his school?”

Seo-jun downgraded his assessment of Lee Dong-soo from a prospective professional athlete to a high schooler who could fight a bit.

Despite this misunderstanding, the director did not reveal Lee Dong-soo’s true identity.

This was because Lee Dong-soo had requested him not to say anything.

Lee Dong-soo felt embarrassed about revealing his identity to Seo-jun.

‘If I had at least won in the game, I would have proudly revealed my identity.’

After being thoroughly schooled by Seo-jun the previous day, he had returned to the team house and launched Dawn of the Assassins with his stream turned off.

And he was shocked when he finally managed to defeat Ettore in the tutorial after more than fifteen attempts.

While losing in reality was somewhat understandable, losing in a game was not.

Who was he?

He was a player of the second strongest team in the world!

“Hey. Instead of fighting, just study at school.”

“Oh, please. Are you good at studying, hyung?”

“Yeah.”

“With what kind of confidence does he answer so instantly like that?”

Lee Dong-soo grumbled, stood up, and stretched his back fully by placing his hands behind his back.

“Dong-soo. He is a Korea University student.”

“Ah, damn! Stop lying. The world is really unfair.”

“Well, since I worked hard.”

Seo-jun shrugged his shoulders.

“Tch. I’m good at games, so I don’t need to study.”

Lee Dong-soo shook his hands, finished speaking, and quickly raised his guard.

“Oh, really?”

At the same time, Seo-jun’s fist approached at rapid speed.

Lee Dong-soo, who had now grown accustomed to this bullying, had been prepared well in advance.

It was indeed a professional-like adaptability.

“Yes. Following your lead, hyung, I also defeated Ettore, Drake, and even Richard yesterday.”

Of course, he had died six times to Drake after attempting it with a pipe under the pretext of imitating Seo-jun.

And four times for Richard Neville.

As a result, Lee Dong-soo came to acknowledge Seo-jun’s skill.

That this person was somehow different.

However, the moment he acknowledged that fact, his competitive spirit did not break. Rather, it grew even stronger.

Woosh!

He narrowly dodged again.

“Oh? Then why don’t you try becoming a professional gamer?”

Seo-jun spoke without much thought, and Lee Dong-soo let out a sigh.

‘I’m already a pro.’

Today, he planned to challenge the Magic Tower Master.

Although he did not have the slightest clue how the lightning was sliced or how the sound play was done, he planned to just clash head-on for now.

This was because he could feel his own skill improving as he kept imitating the person named Jin Seo-jun.

The sparring was the same.

‘Is this why Ha-yeon nuna keeps challenging the unknown in the Training Ground?’

His desire for improvement was stimulated.

“Hyung.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you going to defeat the Queen on today’s stream?”

Queen was the name used to refer to the last remaining Ruler of Dawn of the Assassins.

“Why?”

“Just because.”

“Probably?”

After that, there was no small talk.

Lee Dong-soo concentrated to land at least a single blow somehow.

While chatting with the people nearby, Seo-jun humored him.

Thud!

But Lee Dong-soo could not stop imagining that Seo-jun overlapped with a certain existence.

A certain existence that fought while leisurely conversing with the person next to them.

One that was rumored to be a new type of AI created by Surface.

‘No way… This hyung wouldn’t be the level 10 unknown, right? No, that’s going too far.’

Even that Shin Ha-yeon kept challenging it.

***

Seo-jun sat in a cafe waiting for Team Leader Kim Yoon-chan, with Alpaca’s stream playing.

[Ha. Please, I don’t want to see Drake anymore. Blegh!]

-Lolololol

-It’s only been 22 hours since you turned on the stream, Paca. No whining, no no.

– ㅡㅅㅡ

-Hang in there!

[You guys find this boring too, don’t you? It must be hard to watch, right?]

-I came back after sleeping, so it’s not hard at all for me? Lolololol

-This is a New Year’s waiting room.

-Wasn’t it a World Cup waiting room?

-You can’t end the stream until the end of the world, what is everyone talking about lol

-Don’t look for an excuse to end the stream. This is the beat-the-boss challenge you chose. Grit your teeth and endure it.

[What do you mean, grit and endure? I never chose this.]

[‘Some Idiot’ donated a generous 1,000 won!]

[???: If they succeed at that, I will serve that person as my master, receive teachings, and go peerless…]

Alpaca quickly closed the donation and kicked out the viewer who sent it.

[I told you if you make that donation one more time, you’ll be banned, right?]

-Lolololol

-He just insta-banned him.

-For just a moment, his speed was at the level of Unnamed. Shiver shiver.

-Defeat Drake with this reaction speed, Pacaya.

[Oh! Since it exceeded nine hours, the capsule connection restriction popped up. Hehehe.]

The capsule had a connection time limit.

This was a measure by Surface to prevent users from overworking their physical bodies in reality by getting too immersed in the game.

If their play time exceeded three hours, users were unable to reconnect for half of the time they had been logged in, forcing them to take a rest.

And if the connection time exceeded nine hours, the capsule would be forcibly shut down.

Excluding the four and a half hours of rest in between, Alpaca had been fighting Drake for a total of eighteen hours, starting from noon the previous day.

‘I’m starting to feel a bit sorry.’

Seo-jun looked at his watch.

The current time was 10:30.

It was almost time for the appointment.

[I’m going to log out now, so I’ll play an ad in the meantime. You know this is the first time I’m playing one in nine hours, right?]

An ad popped up on Seo-jun’s Travel screen.

‘An ad, huh.’

Streamers partnered with Travel gained several additional sources of income, and one of them was indeed advertisements.

This advertisement was different from ads received from game companies.

It was a system where income was generated based on the number of viewers who watched the advertisement when they first entered the stream or when it appeared in the middle of streaming from within Travel.

Streamers could play this advertisement at will.

However, if they inserted advertisements too frequently, the number of viewers would decrease.

Therefore, streamers usually preferred the method of briefly playing them during transitions in the situation or during break times when going to the restroom, like Alpaca did.

“The requirements for a partner streamer are lower than I thought, but…”

To become a partner streamer, one had to satisfy a total live broadcast time of 700 minutes, 7 live broadcast days, an average of 10 concurrent viewers, and 30 or more followers over the past 30 days.

The other three conditions had been satisfied long ago, but only one held him back.

Namely, the days.

“It’s not a problem that can be resolved immediately.”

Since hiring an editor in the future would incur expenses, he could not help but be more concerned about each source of income.

[I’ll sleep… and then do a beat-the-boss assassination challenge. I must be getting old now. I feel so sleepy after coming out. *Yawn*. Just once. Please let me off just this once.]

Alpaca was speaking with his eyes half-closed.

Soon after, the stream turned off.

The viewers also seemed understanding.

***

A moment later.

“Hello. I am Kim Yoon-chan, the one who contacted you, Streamer-nim.”

“I am Streamer Jin Seo-jun.”

Seo-jun stood up and shook hands with Kim Yoon-chan.

Kim Yoon-chan wore comfortable yet neat clothing that was not disheveled.

It seemed to be because Movie Soft was a foreign company.

“First of all, I apologize for contacting you so suddenly. This is an urgent matter.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Still, I apologize once again. If you hadn’t seen it, Seo-jun-nim, we would have been in quite a bind, so it was a situation where we had to reach you somehow. We sent quite a lot of messages, didn’t we? Hehe.”

He certainly knew.

Since they had literally mobilized every single method of contact imaginable.

“Well, I was just a little taken aback. But what on earth is the problem that…”

An ominous thought occurred to Seo-jun.

‘A situation where I have to pay damages because I did something wrong won’t unfold, right?’

‘Let’s see, among my father’s acquaintances, there’s a lawyer…’

“Hahaha, you see, I came to visit you because of the Fragment of Order you are currently progressing with, Seo-jun-nim.”

“The Fragment of Order?”

“Yes. If you collect all the Fragments of Order, an Easter egg related to our next project will appear, but the teaser video that needs to be released in tandem with it… is not prepared yet.”

Ah.

So, in other words.

“You are asking me to delay the timing of defeating the Ruler a little bit, right?”

Seo-jun wore a leisurely smile.

In this, he held the absolute advantage.

“Yes, that’s correct. Of course, we also plan to compensate you generously. It seems like it will be completed in about six days.”

Kim Yoon-chan smiled slyly.

‘Geez, calling it “sincerity” makes it sound like we’re committing some sort of crime, mister.’

“Hmm…”

In any case, the game company was in no position to force him.

Seo-jun began to think carefully.

‘Usually, a teaser video…’

Refers to a video that intentionally hides information to arouse curiosity for promotional purposes.

‘It wouldn’t be to the extent that my cooperation is absolutely necessary.’

With only about 3,000 viewers, even if a few hints were leaked in Korea, it probably would not have much of an impact on Movie Soft, which operated in the global market.

Rather, even if Seo-jun did not cooperate, they could turn misfortune into a blessing and create an effect greater than a teaser video.

Because they were a corporation, not an individual.

However, since it might be unexpectedly important, he felt he would be able to gauge it only after hearing their proposal first.

If it was neither more nor less but just right.

Seo-jun was willing to cooperate gladly.

“So, may I hear what that sincerity entails?”

“Ahem, well, you see. If you delay defeating the Queen for about six days, we will specially grant you beta testing rights for our next project, Seo-jun-nim. The beta won’t take more than a year to release.”

“And we plan to create an event item bundle related to you, Seo-jun-nim, in the DLC and the next project.”

‘Are they pushovers?’

‘Why are they giving so much?’

If it were before, it might have been different, but for Seo-jun, who intended to be a proper streamer, it was an exceptionally good condition.

“And the price?”

“Only delaying defeating the Ruler by six days. That is all.”

Seo-jun stared at Kim Yoon-chan with a dumbfounded expression.

‘Is this guy a scammer?’

“Uh…”

Although the conditions proposed by Kim Yoon-chan were not immediately necessary, there was no loss on his part, and it would be strange to reject them.

“You will accept the proposal, right?”

Seo-jun could not answer right away.

His paranoia had flared up.

“Hahaha. Did I not tell you so? The terms were wrong.”

Just then, slightly awkward Korean was heard.

A middle-aged foreigner, who had entered the cafe at the same time as Kim Yoon-chan but had sat at a slightly separated table next to them, approached them and offered a warm handshake to Seo-jun.

“Nice to meet you, Seo-jun. I am Yves Paimo of Movie Soft Korea.”

He was Kim Yoon-chan’s boss.

Of course.

He seemed to be planning to negotiate the terms.

He would probably add some counter-requirements.

As long as it was not too unreasonable a request, Seo-jun intended to accept the proposal.

Rather, thinking that the opponent was demanding something brought him a sense of relief.

“We will also give you an advertisement.”

And at the subsequent words of Yves Paimo, Seo-jun’s eyes were colored with dumbfoundment once again.

“Pardon?”

Uh.

He had never expected this kind of advertisement.

“You mean a game advertisement, right?”

“That is correct. Is there any game you want among our company’s games? We will accommodate whatever it is. You just need to play the game, Seo-jun.”

A sheet of paper was pushed forward in front of Seo-jun.

Yves Paimo smiled broadly and said.

“Ah. For the rate, we are thinking of at least ten million.”

‘So, did the pushovers just multiply?’

‘Seriously, what is this?’