Chapter 32

Chapter 32: [Knight Soul] You’re Not Human......! (3)

For a streamer, it was no exaggeration to say that attention was indispensable when it came to establishing a foothold.

That was because most streamers built their foundation through Personal Broadcasts that received attention from a viewer base.

Therefore- when the real-time viewer count of a stream rose higher than usual or increased rapidly, it could only be an ‘opportunity.’

It was a chance to increase one’s fixed viewer base and greatly raise one’s recognition.

However───

An increase in real-time viewers was both an opportunity and a field of chaos.

An event hosted under the streamer’s lead, or a topic equivalent to one.

Without something like that, the factor that had drawn ‘aggro’ was usually far from good.

In other words.

…To put it simply, there was a high chance that the sudden surge in viewers had been drawn not by favorable attention, but by malicious attention.

Just like now.

[Dustnet(=Category: {Game / Streamer}]

*Post Title: [Knight Soul] Controversy over the first streamer to enter the ‘Nightmare’ Mode Hidden Route...real

└Author: Anonymous (Original Poster)

━{ Video }

━They got a [Knight Soul] Speedrun Quest and said they’d clear it based on the Death-Spirit Tower Lord’s best record if people gave them money lololololololol

━Black Moon, Kenshin, what does any of that matter? They’re saying they’ll just clear it?? What kind of guts is this lolol??

‘Aggro.’

Earlier, Ju Seo-jin had said that if a reasonable amount of Mission Funds were gathered based on the current record, he would clear it. 

Someone had clipped that as a video and posted it.

Since the video clip showed only one scene without any context for what came before and after, it was inevitable that quality firewood would catch fire.

-〔Anonymous〕: I thought this was bait, but it’s real?? What is this?????????????;

-〔Anonymous〕: I was wondering what was going on because the Mission Funds were piling up like crazy, but fuck, that’s savings-account money.

-〔Anonymous〕: These crazy bastards lololololol. They gave him money to break a record packed down like a heaping bowl of rice, even among pro-gamers? Are they insane?

-〔Anonymous〕: How badly did those demon bastards want to tease him that they stacked the Mission Funds that high? lololololololol

And.

-〔Anonymous〕: Don’t tell me they’re telling him to speedrun KniSoul’s Death-Spirit Tower Lord based on Black Moon and Kenshin’s records..? That’s unfair as hell??;

└[Anonymous]: Watch the video to the end lol. The streamer himself said he’d clear it faster than Black Moon and Kenshin lol.

└[Anonymous]: ↳ Ahem, look at this bastard.. He said he’ll clear it if you give him ‘money,’ ‘money’! Get it right...!

└[Anonymous]: ↳ Why is this real?;

└[Anonymous]: ↳ Does he see pro-gamers as just some neighborhood guy who’s good at games? What kind of bullshit is this..? I really don’t get it.

└[Anonymous]: ↳ He did cross the line a bit. It’s not like pro-gamers are pushovers. Seriously.. Does he think he’s some once-in-a-generation genius or something?

While there were people who did not take the video clip seriously, there were also people who were immediately swept up in the aggro.

-〔Anonymous〕: Chilling fact) Crack, an active pro-gamer, was overwhelmed 2:0 in pure combat arts by that streamer in [Limitless War].

└[Anonymous]: ? What kind of bullshit is this? Could you provide some evidence?

└[Anonymous]: ↳ It comes up if you just search for it. Are your fingers decoration?

└[Anonymous]: ↳ Are you seriously talking nonsense and comparing him to Crack just because Crack lost while casually doing a 1:1 during an event in [Limitless War]?

└[Anonymous]: ↳ Do you not know that the only proper Skill Streams are Skill Streams from ex-pros? lol

Posts that had successfully drawn aggro began popping up here and there, and all sorts of people started flowing into the stream.

-〔Anonymous〕: This is fucking ridiculous, seriously lol. Let’s see how fucking good he is lolololololol

-〔Anonymous〕: You called him pro-gamer level on a Skill Stream, so if he’s overhyped foam, he’s seriously dead, okay?

-〔Anonymous〕: If he’s just someone pretending to run a Skill Stream, then yeah, we’re going straight into a no-mercy dissection analysis show.

………

……

…

They came with tinted glasses, seeing him as a streamer who dared to use pro-gamers as a hurdle, while bringing out the prejudice of, ‘No matter how good he is, isn’t he just ordinary-person level?’

And.

────.

The next moment.

-Huh?

-??????????????

-............!?

Most of the viewers who had entered the stream stared at the same scene simultaneously and were shocked.

-This is fucking crazy..?

It was a wondrous sight, on a level where it was only natural to ‘forget completely’ about prejudice or tinted glasses.

Because what they saw was none other than—

SPURT───!

‘1 vs. 17.’

In the early stage of [Knight Soul], it was an irreversible gap in combat power caused by a ‘numerical advantage’ that absolutely could not be overcome.

They had seen one person crush multiple enemies with pure force, something that could not happen without an overwhelming difference in skill.

-Is this real...?

***

Raiders.

Hostile NPCs who were also one of the greatest entry barriers in [Knight Soul]. 

There was no need to explain their first encounter in any special way.

As they walked out along the path leading beyond the huge cave, signs of people could be felt, and human figures revealed themselves at the same time.

Swish-.

“Hah-. I thought I heard rats crawling around somewhere, so this must’ve been it. Did you lose your way or something?”

The moment the passage of the huge cave gradually widened, rough-looking faces appeared from the blind spots of their vision.

They were filthy like beggars. On top of that, they wore leather armor caked in bloodstains and carried mismatched weapons.

The largest man standing at the very front, with a gaunt impression, snickered and placed his hand on the grip of his weapon.

As he leaned his upper body forward, as though he might step out at any moment.

The large, gaunt-looking man who gave off the air of a leader opened his mouth.

“Now, if you don’t want to die, you know, right? Hand over everything you’ve got…….”

“You’re raiders, right?”

“……What? Huh. This bastard’s unbelievable, isn’t he? Then what, do we look like refined knights to you? Stop talking bullshit and hand over everything you’ve got-”

“Then die.”

However─── before the raider who seemed to be the leader could even finish speaking, an abnormality occurred.

At that moment, a cold streak of light was thrust out with a BANG─! sound that tore through the air.

The gap in reaction speed was such that even half a beat—no, even a full beat later, they still could not respond ‘at all.’

The result had already been decided.

SLASH───!

“A, aaagh, agh───!”

First strike wins.

Having one’s upper body leaned forward meant, in other words, that one could be attacked at any time.

The leader-class raider had approached without knowing anything. 

The instant Ju Seo-jin perfectly cut off one of his arms, the next sword strike followed.

SHRIP───!!

In an instant. 

In the blink of an eye, a long sword wound was carved into the upper body of the leader-class raider standing at the front, and he died.

“!?”

“Shit. Wh, what the hell! The, the boss is dead-”

“You son of a bitch, have you lost your damn mind───”

Confusion, agitation, then anger. 

Their instinctive excitement at the leader-class raider dying in a single blow lasted only a moment.

Vmmm-.

Then. 

The moment Ju Seo-jin immediately lowered his center of gravity and tilted his body diagonally, an abnormality occurred.

───.

At the same time as the Power of Foresight activated, the flow of time slowed relatively, and his sixth sense was released.

Kiiing.

‘Reaction speed.’

The transmission speed of electrical signals within the nervous system, the action potentials between nerve cells.

There was no other reason why, inside Full Dive content, innate reflexes were called an absolute wall and an inborn talent.

Because in a death struggle in a superhuman domain where offense and defense were decided in milliseconds, reaction speed controlled the initiative of attack and defense.

Just like now.

BOOOM───.

A blast.

A rough and brief vibration that shook the skin of the earth. 

At the same time, Ju Seo-jin’s form, which had been tilted sideways, shot out as if rebounding─── and accelerated.

It was the dynamic movement method of the Larkranz Style, established by ‘watching’ Crack and ‘testing’ it with Halkenburg.

Accompanied by a roar, that movement stretched out as if tearing the air apart.

WHOOSH───!

Roll, roll, thud-.

The next moment, Ju Seo-jin’s form came to a sudden stop at a slightly distant location, and with a slight delay, one raider’s head dropped to the ground.

Ju Seo-jin’s form had merely blurred for a moment, then appeared once again, yet one person had died helplessly.

Unlike their initial confusion, agitation, and then anger, fear began to spread.

Considering the difference in numerical advantage, reactions that should not have appeared burst out.

“Huh? Huh, huh?”

“W, wait. What, what the hell is-”

“What the hell! I, impossible. How is he so fast-”

Well. 

Even so, it was not on a meaningful level. 

Unfortunately.

SWISH───.

Acceleration, then a perfect sudden stop. 

A movement that ignored the general laws of physical motion. 

As if staggering, that rough charge continued in a zigzag.

“Guh, gukhp-!? G, gghlk-?”

Vital points.

Or he simply carved sword wounds perfectly near their heads or hearts and continued killing them quickly.

Control over the use of force that was perfectly regulated without an inch of waste.

Before that, numerical advantage was nothing more than ‘the number of prey.’

Like a flock of rabbits placed before a lion.

“Uah, aaaaaaaaaaaagh! Hah, haaaagh-!”

“Don’t come, don’t come! U, uah, uaaaagh! I said don’t come, you crazy monster bast─── guh, gak-!”

“Im, impossible!! A real knight in a place like this……!? That’s a lie- Guh, gghrrk!?”

Death cries. 

Then, even as terrified raiders who chose to flee appeared one after another, the ending did not change.

Whiiing.

Only when he bestowed death upon an enemy did he repeatedly appear for a moment and vanish, like a paused frame in a video.

A bloodless, pale impression. Mechanical eyes. 

No emotion whatsoever could be felt within them.

As though he were not human.

“A k, k-knight? There’s no way something like that is a knight!!”

“He’s a monster. A monster! Th, that thing isn’t human!”

“A ghost. It’s a ghost, a ghost— a ghost appeared───………!”

However───.

That, too, lasted only for a moment.

SPURT───!

A fountain of blood. 

An eerie sword light flashed, and within the blurred afterimages scattered like phantoms, the sound of air tearing rang out again and again.

The sounds that had been echoing inside the huge cave were swallowed by the sound of air being ripped apart, perished together, and silence arrived.

Within the silence, heavy enough that even the sound of breathing felt weighty, one thing remained.

Drip, drop-.

Above a pool of blood. 

Ju Seo-jin lowered his Longsword without a single bloodstain on his clothes and slowly raised his head.

The moment he let most of the blood run down from the tip of his sword while giving off an alien atmosphere, as if he were detached from the world, Ju Seo-jin frowned and bluntly let out a ‘Hmm-.’

“Calling a living person a ghost…… As expected of raiders, their words are too harsh.”

-?

-??

-???;

As if he had been hurt by what the raiders had said.

“As expected. Raiders are rough, just as raiders should be. They have quite the talent for making people feel bad.”

-Pardon?

-Wait, what... The person who was excitedly putting on a raider decapitation show until just now.. said what?

-??.. No, what are you saying? You massacred them like some horror-story boss.. and your feelings are hurt..?

Even the chat window had briefly slowed during the stream because of the overwhelming massacre, yet the words that came at the end were completely mismatched lines.

The viewers were bewildered by that sudden expression of sullen emotion, but only for a moment.

The remarks packed with aggro potential did not stop and continued.

“Isn’t calling me a ghost just because I moved a little fast too much?”

Because what he had done was none other than—

“It definitely wasn’t enough for me to be told I’m not human……”

He had cast wide-area aggro.

“Hmm. Wasn’t it just, exactly, basic movement… something like that?”

He looked purely unable to understand, as if to say, ‘Honestly, isn’t that true?’

In other words.

He had ended up drawing aggro not ‘once,’ but ‘twice.’

《 [Knight Soul] : Clearing All Boss Battles in ‘Nightmare’ Mode With No Deaths! (※with Ju Seo-jin) 》

━Myangbangwool(wntjdbsdlqslek1231)

*Viewer Count : 11,927 (※SUPER HOT!!!)

-Uh.. I don’t know if he’s a ghost, but I think it’s right that he’s not human..?

-A nonhuman-level physical-skill monster got hurt because people said he wasn’t human, fuck lololololol

-He does look ghost-worthy? For starters, I’m sure he doesn’t have a human heart, yeah;

-Now that he’s even shamelessly humblebragging in real time, it’s just fucking hilarious, fuck lololololololololol

-Peak Hilarity Mountain ON lololololololololol

‘11,927 viewers.’

Before the newly inflowing viewers, drawn in by aggro and far exceeding the average viewer count of the stream, the calmness of his comment reversed the tide.

Because from his speech and actions, it felt as though he had no intention of showing off at all and was purely puzzled.

-...No, you really don’t seem human, though?

He had succeeded in changing aggro from a crisis into an opportunity.

***

At the same time.

…

……

………

[Dustnet(=Category: {Game / Streamer}]

*Post Title: [Knight Soul] Skill Stream streamer who said he’d set a new speedrun record puts on an all-time physical-skill feat show today...clip

[Darkside(※Official Gallery: Space Stream)]

*Title: Hey, you fucking bastards, you said the hype over that Skill Stream streamer was overblown, but Ju Seo-jin <<< is a fucking absurd martial arts master lolololololol

[Green Tea Cafe(※Daily: Game / Streamer)]

*Title: Looks like JSJ’s clip from today’s broadcast broke his all-time record..? It’s completely insane;;

Public opinion, which had been backlash like a giant typhoon, began miraculously changing into a favorable wind.