The chat was literally going wild.
"Hnnng... a noona with many secrets... Hnnng... a noona with many secrets... Hnnng... a noona with many secrets... Hnnng... a noona with many secrets..."
"Sorry Ark, I found someone I love! Sorry Ark, I found someone I love! Sorry Ark, I found someone I love! Sorry Ark, I found someone I love!"
"What's with noona's laugh... I'm dying...! What's with noona's laugh... I'm dying...! What's with noona's laugh... I'm dying...! What's with noona's laugh... I'm dying...!"
"Goodbye Ark! Goodbye Ark! Goodbye Ark! Goodbye Ark! Goodbye Ark!"
"ASMR please ASMR please ASMR please ASMR please ASMR please ASMR please"
The chat had been flooding with messages since I started the voice call, causing lag, but just now it started pouring in so much that the stream was about to crash.
The spam was so bad that normal chat messages weren't even visible.
Maybe it's time to moderate this.
"Everyone, the spam is so severe that the stream might crash. I'm sorry, but I'll have to restrict chat to subscribers again."
After staring blankly for a while, Ark finally seemed to come to her senses and restricted chat privileges to subscribers of 6+ months.
"Please do the 'I'm uncomfortable' once more noona... Please do the 'I'm uncomfortable' once more noona... Please do the 'I'm uncomfortable' once more noona..."
"Oh"
"Hnnng... a noona with many secrets... Hnnng... a noona with many secrets... Hnnng... a noona with many secrets..."
"I'm sorry"
There was a minor incident where some long-term subscribers, who had lost their minds and joined the spam, accidentally continued spamming a few more times.
But finally, the chat quieted down dramatically.
"WBA?"
"Yes."
"First, thank you for appearing on the stream with your voice."
This treatment is so different from yesterday.
"This treatment is so different from yesterday."
"Yes, ye-? No, yes. I'm sorry. The situation is different, isn't it?"
She tried to act calm, but her composed expression crumbled again, her eyes trembling uncontrollably along with her vibrating voice.
-User has donated 5,000 won!-
[The price is so different from yesterday, teacher...]
-User has donated 5,000 won!-
[Is this 5x inflation correct?]
Seeing that she had already raised the minimum donation amount to 5,000 won, I realized that being a professional streamer isn't something just anyone can do.
And a moment later, Ark spoke with a determined voice.
"Um, I'm really sorry, but could I ask for one more thing? Could you possibly... do an interview? Even if just for a moment?"
The way she stared at the camera while typing on her keyboard made it look like she was about to change the stream title.
Current viewer count: 14,321.
Regardless of why they gathered, for a streamer, an opportunity to do something in front of this many people is rare.
Moreover, thanks to me, Ark's boyfriend rumors were cleanly resolved, and the hacking accusations against me had already faded from attention.
She could set "hack" as a banned word and temporarily block everyone mentioning it without much impact on her stream.
They say opportunity follows crisis. Is she planning to capitalize on this by setting a title like "Malicious stream sniper WBA caught, turns out to be a woman"?
I understand the intention.
I understand, but...
"Is the truly sorry thing?"
"Pardon?"
"Something you shouldn't do, right?"
"What? No, yes. No, uh... I guess... so... Yes, I'm sorry..."
Why should I?
* * * *
The moment the woman's voice came through the phone, Ark felt like fireworks were exploding in her head.
Overwhelming relief.
No thought crossed her mind except that she had survived.
As the tension left her body, she felt so weak she thought she might collapse at any moment.
If it weren't for the ongoing stream, she might have fainted right there.
So Ark, neither fully in control nor completely lost, was blankly listening to WBA's voice while mumbling whatever came to mind.
*Ah, her voice is pretty... The tone is low too, so no one can claim it's voice modulation... Definitely a woman's voice...*
"It's... a secret?"
*Wow... what... she could voice act as a gumiho right now. My heart and soul just...*
Ark, who had been in a half-entranced daze, finally came to her senses when she belatedly checked the viewer count in the bottom right corner.
The viewers had exceeded 14,000.
When this many viewers were spamming and causing chaos, she wanted to die.
But now, they were all focused on the stream.
Even though they couldn't properly type in chat.
When the tide comes in, you should row.
Even if the water is coming to flood your house, water is still water.
*As a streamer, when an opportunity like this comes, you have to do something, anything.*
She wasn't concerned at all about the hacking accusations against WBA, or the fact that some trolls were still trying to mention hacking.
From the beginning, having played countless games with WBA over the past few months despite not wanting to, Ark knew better than anyone.
Strange gameplay... should she call it that?
It was true that she would play like an impossibly skilled player one moment, then make beginner mistakes the next.
However,
Compared to the hackers she had encountered before, she never once felt that WBA was actually using hacks.
As a streamer accustomed to stream sniping, she was confident she knew the difference between position hacks and map reading better than anyone.
Betting everything on her instincts, she had made the difficult decision to propose an interview, but—
"Is the truly sorry thing?"
"Pardon?"
"Something you shouldn't do, right?"
She was brutally shut down.
It was such a perfect response that for a moment she forgot that her conversation partner had been a malicious stream sniper who had targeted her dozens of times over the past five months.
"I'm joking. But I have plans."
Battered wife syndrome, perhaps?
Listening to WBA's genuinely apologetic voice, Ark felt gratitude and guilt welling up again.
*She's already doing me a favor by talking. Right, don't be greedy. Avoiding rock bottom is enough.*
"Yes, of course. I was too sudden, wasn't I? I'm sorry. I'm already so grateful that you appeared with your voice so suddenly."
Just as she was apologizing and expressing gratitude, about to end the call—
"Alright then, I'll go watch Ark's stream now. Good luck."
"...Pardon? Who?"
"It's your promotion match broadcast today."
"But..."
"What?"
"I mean... in this situation..."
"Oh... you're not doing it? According to the announcement, it was today..."
"Crazy woman... crazy woman... crazy woman..."
"What are you disappointed about lolololololol"
"Honestly at first I thought she might be a hired actress but this really seems like WBA"
"For real, only she would demand a promotion match in this situation"
"Ark, our noona is disappointed! Queue up quickly!"
"Umm..."
While Ark was at a loss for words, staring blankly at the camera, WBA, who seemed to be contemplating for a moment, continued.
"Well, then... if you do the promotion match broadcast, I guess the interview would be... okay too."
"Wow"
"Something big is coming"
"TAKE YOUR SEATS"
"Whoa... viewer count just passed 15,000"
"Queue up! Queue up! Queue up! Queue up! Queue up!"
It was a completely unexpected condition, but acceptance was acceptance.
Feeling her heart racing, Ark checked the chat and saw that the viewers' mood was heating up as well.
WBA, who only read Rogue-related posts in the forum, wasn't fully aware, but she was actually quite famous in the N.O.K. community.
The game had been out for just a year.
It was still a time when the boundary between skilled amateurs and professional gamers was blurry.
In this period, the only user who reached Master rank as a Rogue one-trick,
Who sniped a mid-tier female streamer until her mental broke,
Who posted things like "Our Rogue is truly a god-tier character" ten times a day on the forum,
And even got a shoutout from DontDoThat, the only Challenger streamer who also played Rogue, saying "Is Rogue that WBA? person who's pretty good?"
It would be strange if she wasn't famous.
Meanwhile, just the suspicion that this WBA might be a hacker caused a sensation,
And now she turns out to be a woman with a strangely atmospheric voice?
Anyone in the N.O.K. community who followed internet broadcasts would inevitably be interested.
So less than an hour into the broadcast, Ark—who had gone from hell to heaven, heaven to hell, and back to heaven again—exclaimed with sparkling eyes:
"Yes, yes!! I'll queue up right away! I'll quickly reach Master rank and start the interview, everyone!"
However.
"That's not it."
"Pardon?"
"If you do the promotion match broadcast, the interview would be okay."
"Yes, so I'm going to do the promotion match now..."
"While you're doing it, the interview would be okay."
"???"
"??"
"???"
"??"
"Queue."