"So this is the atmosphere..."
After an online meeting with the coach a week ago, Gabi had been advised to browse through the community forums to better understand the League of Champions environment. She was now reflecting on what she'd found.
Despite efforts from both the game company and professional teams to promote positive communication through various campaigns, the language used by most users remained quite harsh. Perhaps it was due to the competitive nature of the game that heightened people's aggression.
Among the rough posts and comments, there were some innocent ones too, though there were certainly those who acted maliciously with pure ill intent.
Gabi had prepared herself before checking the community, but...
"Nothing special. It's just another place where people live."
She continued browsing through posts without feeling shocked at all. Though Gabi wasn't particularly interested in games or online communities, she already understood how ugly human malice could become.
When she was younger, she might have been shocked by how people could say such things. But Gabi was now a proper adult.
The world sometimes had people who would take lost children to safety centers and entertain them until their parents arrived, or those who would extend helping hands to others during disasters despite their own difficult situations. Yet there were also those who betrayed family bonds for money.
Though she hadn't experienced such things directly, Gabi had reached a state where she could accept almost anything with a "that's just how it can be" attitude, perhaps due to her high empathy.
Of course, she still felt moved by good deeds and angered by bad ones. But Gabi was the type who had already decided early on, after seeing others' experiences, "Ah, dating and marriage aren't such a big deal. I should date and marry Noel."
If there was anything memorable from her browsing, it was seeing users who normally used rough language suddenly panicking at the sight of a photo showing an elderly woman lying down. Though the community manager quickly deleted it, seeing those users' reactions made Gabi think they weren't so different from the boys in middle and high school—cursing constantly but not truly malicious people.
She was then immediately assigned to manage Noel's broadcast chat. The advantage of internet broadcast chats was that she only needed to manage text.
The coach had suggested browsing the community first because if she couldn't handle that, she wouldn't be able to handle broadcast chats. But for Gabi, the chat actually felt worse.
In the community forums, people openly displayed their malice. They would fight it out in the comments and part ways with their own sense of victory.
But in broadcasts, there were many who would subtly provoke others in ways that made it hard to determine whether they were being offensive or not. Already tired of political games from her university life, seeing people skillfully crafting insults that just barely avoided platform violations made Gabi feel worse.
The oblivious Noel would accept any seemingly nice comment as praise and thank them profusely, which was even more frustrating. Since Noel reacted that way, Gabi couldn't really make an issue of it either.
Not wanting to bring up things Noel had missed and make her feel bad, Gabi could only swallow her frustration alone.
Instead, she hoped those malicious commenters would disappear once Noel achieved good results. Gabi cheered for Noel to teach them a lesson with her skills.
- Ju Gabi: Noel, let's definitely win the tournament 😢
- Noel♡: Win? That might be difficult
- Ju Gabi: Win!!!
- Noel♡: I'll do my best haha
- Noel♡: You didn't bet on something, did you...? Don't tell me you bet on our team?
- Ju Gabi: I don't know what that is, but is it like gambling on match results?
- Ju Gabi: Should I give all my allowance to Noel? Even this month's salary?
- Noel♡: Nononono
- Ju Gabi: Just kidding lol. My dad would kill me if I gambled
Though it was a bit annoying that Noel wouldn't even boast about winning, Gabi figured Noel was doing her best in her own way. She just had to believe in her.
After closing her messages with Noel, Gabi opened her family group chat. At first, she had found her parents' request to write brief daily reflections about work annoying, but now she was starting to understand.
- Ju Gabi: Mom, Dad... I understand now why you said I should try working part-time...
- Ju Gabi: We've really only met good people in our lives
- Ju Gabi: There are so many terrible people out there, seriously...
- Mom♡: What happened... Did someone cause trouble?
- Dad♡: Even the bottom has a bottom!!!
- Mom♡: Ji-seong, you're talking nonsense again...
- Mom♡: Anyway, I was worried when I heard you were managing your friend's broadcast chat... but our Gabi is learning properly
- Dad♡: Gabi needs to know how harsh the world can be...
- Dad♡: But after learning that, it'll be much easier when you start working at a company
- Dad♡: There are many people who nitpick over nothing, and it's hard if you get stressed over each instance
- Dad♡: Getting used to it through these small matters will help you later
- Ju Gabi: I absolutely won't get stressed
- Ju Gabi: It's too wasteful of my time and energy to get stressed over such people
- Ju Gabi: Noel will win the tournament and put them all in their place, so I'm not worried!!!
- Dad♡: That's the mindset, honey
- Mom♡: But Noel? Tournament? Is she doing something like the Olympics? Noel does broadcasts...?
- Ju Gabi: Um... well...
In the middle of this warm family conversation, Gabi had gotten too excited and revealed information about Noel. Seeing her parents' questioning messages, she began to struggle with whether to tell them or not.