Genius Archer’s Streaming - Chapter 1248

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Genius Archer’s Streaming Season 5 Episode 133
41. The Red Pill (3)
The rooftop of the Mixnuts office.
“Hey there, CEO Kim. How are you doing?”
Someone calling out in a familiar tone greets me with the same tired wave as always.
“Oh, Department Manager Jang.”
Since we’re in the same building, we run into each other like this.
“So, how’s it going? Is it working out?”
Department Manager Jang chuckles while making a gesture near his mouth.
It’s a gesture meaning to talk someone into something.
He’s talking about persuading people to join.
When it comes to bringing people in for me, he means Streamers.
It’s actually the core of the business I’m running.
“Well… I’ve been doing my best, but…”
Bringing in Streamers wasn’t as easy as I’d thought.
I expected Danmuji Goguma to reply right away.
But there’s been no word.
Miho, who used to approach me first back then, has renewed her contract, so I can’t contact her for a while.
‘Back then I couldn’t accept because I didn’t have the capacity… and now I regret it.’
I scratch my head, wondering if I came across as too stiff.
“Maybe it’s because the Almond one-team vibe is too strong?”
*Ssshhh.*
Department Manager Jang comes over and lights a cigarette, muttering.
Actually, he was just trying to agree without much thought.
“…One-team?”
“Huh?”
“Oh…! Team…!”
“?”
But it seems I’ve remembered something.
“Now that you mention team, I just remembered. They said we need to make posters for the platform championship team and all that.”
“Huh? That’s not something you have to do—they do that among themselves, right?”
“Uh… how do you know that?”
Department Manager Jang, who used to know nothing about games, somehow knows about the platform championship situation now.
“No, seriously. What do you take me for? What is our company most famous for? The fake national team, isn’t it?”
That was right.
After that, Department Manager Jang started taking on a lot of work in that field.
He didn’t particularly refuse it either, and instead he’s been studying this industry.
“Ah… right. The fake national team… that was good.”
“Good doesn’t even begin to cover it. Ahem.”
Department Manager Jang proudly strokes his beard.
Something swirled in Juhyeok’s mind.
“One team… Should we create a platform championship match?”
“Pardon?”
“A fake national team.”
“…Who would even make that?”
“Department Manager Jang.”
…
Department Manager Jang found himself uncertain whether to laugh or cry at moments like these.
‘Do I really have to tell the employees about overtime again?’
This was the reality of talent agencies—some companies struggled to find work and fell behind on salaries.
Normally, if the CEO brought in a job, it would naturally be good news.
But this wasn’t always the case.
Yet Juhyeok was already excited, muttering to himself.
“That’s it. Let’s form a platform championship team! The Knight Order! Damn! Why didn’t I think of this sooner!? Forget posters. We’ll crush it with videos!”
“Wait, hold on…”
“Hahahaha! This is it!”
Tap!
Juhyeok laughed heartily, tapping Department Manager Jang on the shoulder.
“This is the answer!”
Department Manager Jang watched the CEO bouncing around without even getting his approval yet, thinking he was indeed a difficult man to deal with.
‘Shouldn’t they at least agree to do it first?’

* * *
According to the newly arranged scrim schedule, team practice happened once every two days, so today was a day off from training.
On top of that, Hong-cha and Lemon both happened to have the day off from streaming.
Hong-cha had called Lemon out to a nearby café.
Since Lemon had even moved to live near Hong-cha’s place, it didn’t take long for her to come out.
Above all, meeting up and chatting whenever they had days off was something of a routine for them.
It was something they always did without even needing to make plans.
So Hong-cha was already waiting in front of Lemon’s place.
“Hey. Gyu-ri. Why do you look like that?”
Lemon’s expression as she came out wasn’t good.
Her shoulders seemed to droop somehow.
“Huh…? No, what’s wrong with my expression~”
Though her speech had always been somewhat drawling by nature, now it wasn’t just drawling but more like drooping.
Anyone else might not notice, but Chayeong could immediately tell the difference.
Tap─
“Hey. Cheer up. Don’t tell me you practiced again today?”
“…Yeah.”
“I told you to take it easy. Ugh. It’s Goguma who should be the one practicing─”
Chayeong suddenly closed her mouth.
‘Oops.’
She’d realized how that would sound.
Goguma practiced without even trying and improved just fine, while Gyu-ri practiced but wasn’t improving much.
“….”
For a moment, they both walked in silence.
Gyu-ri didn’t particularly comment on what Chayeong had just said.
It was too awkward to even address.
Lacking talent despite your efforts—that’s what it was.
A flaw you couldn’t even be comforted about, something so dangerous that the moment someone tries to console you, it becomes reality, something you couldn’t dare speak of.
“Ehyu.”
Gyu-ri simply let out a shallow sigh.
Chayeong didn’t know what to say and stared at the ground awkwardly, then laughed a bit louder than necessary and asked.
“Oh. Gyu-ri. Did you see that? Like… a business proposal? I’ve never seen anyone send something like that before. It seriously smelled like a major corporation.”
“Oh.”
Gyu-ri realized what she was talking about and burst out laughing.
“The one Hodu sent was totally funny, the lettering even looks so sharp~”
Chayeong laughed and patted Gyu-ri’s shoulder at the comment about the lettering being sharp.
“I thought I wouldn’t understand what it said, but it was written pretty simply actually.”
Ding~
Chayeong opened the café door and walked in as she spoke.
“Huh?”
Gyu-ri’s already large eyes widened in astonishment.

* * *
Fake’s eyes snapped open.
“P… Pollis Official?”
[Police KR Official]
[Enjoyed the video. Fake. Would it be alright if we used this video as reference material for our content?]
How in the world had this happened?
Pollis, the company that owned the world’s most successful games, had commented directly.
Though it was technically the Korean branch, their power in the streaming industry was formidable.
Nearly every streamer gained popularity through Pollis games, so if the company issued a broadcast ban, their livelihood crumbled.
In that industry, they were essentially a corporation holding the power of life and death over countless people.
Even players earning tens or hundreds of billions in annual salaries would lose their yearly earnings if Pollis suspended them for any reason.
And now this giant had come to an obscure issue channel and left a comment.
Fake’s trembling hands typed out a reply.
-Oh wow! What an honor! Of course! Haha… Is this the legendary Pol-official I’ve only heard about!?(laughing)
Pol-official.
That’s what streamers called it among themselves.
Whenever controversy erupted and disputes arose, they’d argue about what Pollis Official claimed.
Since Pollis was actually the game developer, they were essentially gods when it came to in-game situations, so their word carried tremendous weight.
But now a real Pol-official had appeared.
‘What is this.’
A chill ran down his spine.
Sweat dripped from his fingers.
‘What’s their intention? A warning?’
All sorts of thoughts flooded his mind.
Was it an indirect message to stop touching this subject?
Or was there something wrong with the video?
Until Pollis’s official channel uploaded a short, he had to hold his breath.
Fortunately, technology had improved these days, making editing much faster, which shortened his period of anxiety.
It was about half a day.
Then a short appeared on the Pollis channel.
[Platform Tournament) The Clever Youth in Question? Not Fabricated—Judgment Confirmed!]
Only then did he understand.
“Ah… phew.”
They had simply wanted to use his video.
And Pollis was already creating a series to generate buzz around the Platform Tournament.
But as expected, a major channel was indeed a major channel.
‘Wow!?’
Views began pouring into Fake’s video in torrents.
The fact that the video clearly showed its source seemed to be the major factor.
‘Well, you learn something new every day.’
The view count for the video skyrocketed far beyond what Fake had anticipated.
And then something rather amusing happened.
‘Ah… if this continues…’
-Rilpro bastards should all be locked up sometime
└For real
Just gotta spray some pesticide lol
└They really stir up controversy over everything
I feel bad for that female coach. It’s obvious they’re just dissing her as some hack.
That’s so obvious lol
.
.
.
Watching the flood of comments, Fake recalled an old saying.
‘The belly button has become bigger than the belly itself.’
Now the number of people criticizing those who started the fabrication controversy far exceeded the number of people who had actually started it.
In other words, most people here had never actually known about the controversy in the first place, and they’d only encountered a controversy that was already invalidated from the start.
And based on that, they began fiercely condemning those who created the controversy.
The entity that should have received this criticism wasn’t any individual—it was the community of ‘Rilpro’ itself.
Big) How Kingban members currently view Rilpro
Big) Current state of public sentiment on AllTube…
Even the salty real one I trusted ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
Big) Just a den of demons
.
.
.
Rilpro eventually became flooded with self-deprecating posts on the Big board.
And this traffic translated directly into views.
As a result, Fake’s video began climbing the rankings in an oddly disproportionate manner.
#Society and Politics Category
#Trending Video 15th Place
It had reached 15th place in the trending videos for the society category.
For reference, places 1 through 10 were all major political news.
In other words, it was essentially 5th place.
This was what happened when Pollis picked up on this trivial incident.
Related derivative videos kept being created, effectively giving Fake’s video free promotional coverage.
[Pollis Official Has Stepped In!?]
[An Absurd Fabrication Controversy During the Platform Tournament, and Now Pollis Has Joined In…!]
[The Platform Tournament Remains Turbulent Once Again]
This is how the ecosystem of issue-driven content creators works.
When someone monopolizes a topic and makes it blow up, derivative videos scramble underneath to catch the trickle-down effect.
And that benefit flows back to whoever created it first.
Even Fake hasn’t experienced anything like this before.
But this level of phenomenon only happened when someone was dealing with a serious crime.
Yet here it was, triggered by nothing more than a trivial debate about whether someone’s clever or not.
“I… wow….”
Is Almond’s popularity really this massive?
No, it can’t be.
It shouldn’t be at this level.
Gauging one’s weight class is an essential skill for issue-driven content creators.
His popularity was decent, but his tenure was too short to generate this kind of phenomenon.
‘Wait, didn’t Pollis essentially provide a proxy explanation for him?’
I was too panicked earlier to think straight. Now that I reconsider it, Pollis basically uploaded a video defending him.
They just attached Fake’s video to make it humorous since it would be awkward to say it directly themselves.
‘What’s going on…?’
Fake’s scrolling stopped at the photo in the ‘Daegam Almond’ section of the wiki page he’d opened to learn more about Almond.
‘This person has something special. That’s for sure.’
Ding.
A creator notification popped up.
[Ranking Surging!]
[Check it out right away!]
“…Again?”
#Society and Politics Category
#Trending Video 5th Place
He clasped his hands together involuntarily.
“This… this must also be the grace of Daegam….”
He gazed at Daegam’s photo in the wiki and resolved never to be cheeky again.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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