Genius Archer’s Streaming - Chapter 321

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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 2 Episode 41
14. The Prelude to Counterattack (2)
A certain Department Manager from a major corporation was finally let go.
It’s an all-too-common story in today’s world.
Working at a major corporation for a long time isn’t easy. If he made it to Department Manager, he must have done quite well for himself.
Such was the general sentiment around him.
However, Department Manager Park was different.
He was the kind of person who could have climbed all the way to executive level.
I’d only worked there about five years at most, so I didn’t know the exact reasons.
But based on the atmosphere in the company, that’s what people said—Department Manager Park was on the track to reach executive level.
“…So he left after all.”
Yet in the end, he chose to resign.
-Still, after more than 20 years of service, he wasn’t fired. Even though all sorts of issues came out at once.
└Firing a department manager over some distorted personnel information is overkill. Even from the company’s perspective.
└Personnel information isn’t as big a deal as you’d think. It’s all the bad reputation he had in the company, sexual harassment, verbal abuse—all of it came out.
That’s right.
It was resignation, not termination.
It seemed like the company’s final mercy toward him for twenty years of service.
If he’d been fired through disciplinary action, his next job would’ve been impossible to find.
Deliberately distorting and relaying my personnel information wasn’t actually that big of an incident.
Disabled or nepotism hire.
They’re the same thorny path, just with different shapes of thorns.
This was merely an incident that received a lot of attention.
The real problem was his accumulated karma that began pouring out in the gap created by that attention.
Objectively speaking, Department Manager Park wasn’t a particularly good person.
But he was someone you could tolerate.
He was the type who squeezed people right up to that line.
However, that line had now been crossed.
Things that had previously been overlooked as “a somewhat bothersome manager” were now redefined with words like “workplace sexual harassment, violence, verbal abuse, assault…”
Or rather, properly defined would be the right way to put it.
-Honestly, everything Department Manager Park did was sexual harassment, verbal abuse, assault lol
└Technically correct
└Honestly it feels sudden? lol but the guy’s such a bastard, I wish he’d just gone under
-Ah so damn annoying. Piece of shit
-That asshole throwing papers around all the time, he’s clearly lacking in character
└For real, I was so worried about what would happen if that guy made executive. Now I can finally sleep easy lol
Empowered by anonymity, the company employees were venting their delighted emotions unfiltered in the comments.
“I should just get some sleep.”
I set down my blurry phone screen and closed my eyes.
The people in that phone world were incredibly excited.
To him, it was already a story from another world.
‘If I had stayed at the Company until now….’
What would it have been like?
Department Manager Park’s dismissal would have been breaking news worthy of the front page.
Employees would have gossiped about the incident all day long, and there would have been subtle power plays over who would be promoted to the next department manager position.
Now such exhausting matters were far removed from Sanghyeon’s life.
He felt grateful that he was where he was now.
“Haaah.”
After a quiet yawn, he exhaled slowly and fell into a deep sleep.
Tonight, he didn’t even have strange dreams.

* * *
The next day.
During breakfast, there was special news waiting for him.
“Hey. We’ve hit 500,000 subscribers now.”
Juhyeok crunched Almond Flakes into his mouth as he spoke.
Today’s schedule was packed.
It was the day of a hospital appointment.
So Juhyeok didn’t insist on having a proper breakfast either.
“Wow. 500,000….”
Sanghyeon nodded while eating Almond Flakes. He seemed satisfied with the result.
It wasn’t just that they had 500,000 subscribers—their average view count was nearly approaching one million.
With this level of revenue, even if Juhyeok, Jia, and Sanghyeon split it equally, it would match Department Manager Park’s monthly salary.
“I think we should do some kind of event. We didn’t do anything special at 100,000 or 200,000 subscribers.”
Since this was all thanks to the viewers, it was only proper to hold a celebration event.
But Sanghyeon had nothing planned.
“Jia would know about this sort of thing, wouldn’t she?”
He casually tossed the decision to Jia.
She was quite knowledgeable when it came to fan service. She was the only one among the three of them who had been an idol fan.
The idol industry had a well-developed fan service culture, so it would be good to reference and adapt some of those ideas.
“Jia would probably love a fan meeting the most.”
“…A fan meeting?”
It was content he hadn’t even considered.
Meeting fans in person.
Memories of the fans he’d met so far flashed through his mind.
‘Jansen!’
That Battle Large player named Jansen who had persistently chased after Almond in a tight power suit.
‘King~ you can’t beat me! ~double!’
The Kingdom villain who had suddenly acted up on the subway.
Besides these, there were no fans he’d met directly.
‘Ah, Jia was a fan too.’
Jia was the only fan of mine who seemed remotely normal.
‘No, wait. Actually….’
No, truthfully, she wasn’t normal either.
She was a woman with peculiar spending habits—constantly broke yet perpetually donating to someone or other.
On top of that, she had a tendency to view the world with a rather cynical slant.
Though lately, both her financial situation and that sardonic outlook had improved considerably.
“A fan meeting… will it be okay?”
Sanghyeon asked with concern.
“Oh. Yeah. It’ll be fine. People will love it, right?”
Juhyeok gave an innocent reply.
He’d asked whether people would be fine with it, not whether I would be—but Sanghyeon just smacked his lips and ate more Almond. He needed nutrients to think.
That’s what thinking required, after all.
‘It’s not like there are only those kinds of people… and even if there were… they’re not causing anyone harm.’
They were strange people, certainly, but they weren’t the type to harm anyone.
They didn’t seem likely to cause problems.
Even if they did cause problems, that was something I had to handle as a streamer.
After all, they were my fans.
“Oh, and the Balloon Stars members are doing a photo shoot, apparently? They’re using it for the awards ceremony. But it seems pretty rushed. They contacted me last night asking when I could do it. I told them tomorrow since I have a hospital appointment today.”
“Tomorrow?”
That was quite urgent for scheduling a photo shoot.
“Oh, it’s not an offline shoot—it’s being done in Disworld.”
“Ah….”
For a Disworld shoot, it was common to schedule things last-minute like this. Since there was no special preparation needed and you could shoot from any angle once the program settings were configured inside, it was routine.
“But we haven’t even confirmed whether we’re winning an award. Is that okay?”
There were quite a few teams nominated for the awards ceremony.
“Oh. It’s not just Balloon Stars—quite a few teams from the Nantae Tournament are coming too.”
“Ah. I see.”
It sounded like a group photo shoot.
“They sent a message saying, ‘How about all the teams that competed in the Nantae Tournament take a friendly photo together…'”
“I see.”
“Since it’s an end-of-year awards ceremony, they seem to be going for a kind of unity image. Anyway, did you see it?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know what it is?”
Just from looking at Juhyeok’s expression, Sanghyeon could already tell roughly what news was coming.
“Department Manager Park?”
“Oh! Yeah.”
Juhyeok had heard the news from the group chat rather than the community.
“Man. You really do see everything if you live long enough, huh? Sang-hyun Yu actually fired Department Manager Park.”
“Right? Usually people would’ve predicted the opposite.”
Juhyeok chuckles at Sanghyeon’s joke, clearly amused.
This kind of cynical humor was exactly Juhyeok’s style.
“Finish up and let’s head out. I need to leave early today.”
“Yeah, alright.”
They gathered their things and left the house.

* * *
Cold weather with white breath misting in the air.
Fortunately, it hadn’t snowed, but patches of frozen water dotted the ground.
I had to descend the stairs carefully.
“Ugh. These stairs really are….”
Juhyeok descended one step at a time, sweat beading on his forehead.
“…impossible to get used to.”
With his long legs and rather large frame, maintaining his balance while going down was even more difficult.
And if he happened to step on ice, he’d land flat on his backside.
As the two of them made their way down, they paused in one section.
Whoosh!
An old gate in front of them swung open.
“Oh. Juhyeok. You dodged it?”
A girl with a red scarf wrapped tightly around her neck giggled.
It was Seojia.
She was also supposed to ride in the car with them today.
“Hey. That thing could actually kill someone~”
“I’ve hit him several times before. He didn’t die though. Maybe it’s because he’s a bear.”
“…? Wait, did you do that on purpose?!”
Juhyeok had been knocked over by that gate countless times.
“No way.”
Jia left an ambiguous remark and sidled up next to me.
“Almond! Good morning!”
She seemed to be in a good mood.
“It’s been a while, Jia.”
“Yeah. It’s been forever~”
The reason for her good mood was simple.
It was the same as why Jia had joined us today.
Jia and Juhyeok were going out to play together.
The official excuse was that since I was getting medical treatment, Juhyeok had nothing to do, so they’d go to a nearby park together.
It was obviously a date, but Juhyeok had covered it up by calling it an “efficient teamwork improvement project.”
I played along, saying “Oh, that’s a good idea,” without pressing further.
Since I genuinely had no idea what an “efficient teamwork improvement project” even meant, pretending wasn’t difficult.
“Let’s go quickly~!”
Jia bounded up the stairs with an unusually radiant expression that was completely unlike her.
Juhyeok chased after her, insisting it was dangerous, but the sight of him looking far more precarious than she did made Sanghyeon burst out laughing.

* * *
It took roughly two hours to reach the hospital.
Located in a suburban area with pristine water and fresh air, the journey itself consumed considerable time.
“We’ll grab some coffee nearby while we wait.”
“Sure. Sounds good.”
Jia and Juhyeok disappeared into the car, and I crossed the garden alone.
In truth, this place was less a hospital and more accurately described as Hana Song’s research facility.
Walking through the garden, the atmosphere felt less like a medical institution and more like stepping into an upscale exhibition hall.
Upon entering the building that rose modestly as part of the garden, the receptionist recognized me.
“Ah, you’ve arrived. You’re Sang-hyun Yu, correct?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I’ll show you the way.”
When I arrived at the location the receptionist indicated, Hana Song was in conversation with someone.
“…that’s why. I went and discussed it separately.”
“It’s unfortunate. If that person had been a bit more cooperative….”
She appeared quite heated, as if engaged in an important discussion.
“Director. Sang-hyun Yu is here.”
Knock, knock.
Only after the knock did both of them turn to look at me.
“Ah, Sanghyeon!”
Hana Song sprang up and offered me her chair.
“Please, sit.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ve been well, I hope?”
“Yes.”
My gaze naturally drifted to the woman seated beside her.
It was Choi Sa-rang.
Before I could speak, she beat me to it.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
She smiled softly and bowed her head.
Every gesture she made exuded an unmistakable elegance.
She already carried an air of formidability.
Now that I knew her true identity, I found her even more difficult to approach.
“Yes, I hope you’ve been well.”
“Very much so. Quite intriguing, actually.”
“Intriguing?”
It wasn’t the typical response to a casual greeting about well-being, and this woman wasn’t the type to add unnecessary embellishments to her words.
That’s why I was curious. What could possibly be so fascinating?
“Ah. Let me show you what’s so fascinating.”
Hana Song smirked and pulled up some data on the screen.
Naturally, I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
“I’m sure you’ll like it.”
Her words, and the subtle smile playing across Choi Sa-rang’s face.
Judging by the atmosphere.
‘What is this?’
It seemed like something hopeful was about to be revealed.
My right hand could be healed.
I’d never said such a thing, but my mind had already leaped to that conclusion.
‘Could it be…?’
Boom.
An enormous surge of dopamine flooded through my mind.
From just a fleeting imagination, my entire body trembled and tingled with electricity.
It was similar to the reaction of unexpectedly encountering your first love on the street.
A breathless, heart-stopping thrill.
My heart raced, and my mind went white.
Not a pale, lifeless white, but a brilliant, opalescent radiance.
But then, as if waiting for this moment, black ink came pouring down.
‘Wait.’
In my mind, like a defense mechanism—like white blood cells—certain thoughts erupted and drew a curtain across the light.
The brightness faded quickly.
‘Don’t get your hopes up.’
Don’t harbor false hope.
Do you have the strength to endure another disappointment? Can you handle it? Just be satisfied with where you are now.
What if they’re not talking about what you’re imagining?
Falling from a great height hurts.
Don’t climb in the first place.
My expression, which had briefly brightened, returned to its usual composure.
Cold and measured eyes fixed on Hana Song.
Let’s hear what you have to say.

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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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