Genius Archer’s Streaming - Chapter 878
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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 4 Episode 9
3. The Final Episode (3)
When Hee-cheol’s illness was revealed, Juhyeok was taken aback.
‘He allowed this… to happen?’
I never expected Hee-cheol would make such a decision.
What could possibly be the reason?
Given his personality, this was something he absolutely should have kept private.
The thought of the entire world knowing his limited time left didn’t feel pleasant at all.
Yet he made this choice regardless.
Why would someone with nothing left to gain and everything to lose do this?
When his story first began to unfold, I couldn’t understand it. But then—
[Joseon may not win the championship next year. That’s fine. Please live through the process.]
Only after hearing those words could I understand.
He had something he wanted to leave behind through this massive attention.
When he said he was leaving a message for the players, it wasn’t simply about the players he’d worked with until now.
If that were the case, he would have met them in person and told them directly.
He wanted to leave this message for ‘future players’ as well.
Joseon may or may not win championships in the years to come.
But they will participate in the national tournament every year.
The players would never be the same each time.
They would keep changing.
Though many people had no connection to Civil M whatsoever, this national tournament inspired them to take an interest.
Someday, they too might compete in the national tournament.
When that happens, they will remember Hee-cheol’s words.
Everyone who competes in the national tournament under the name Joseon will engrave his message in their hearts.
This is the legacy Hee-cheol left behind.
[Failing to reach the rainbow doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful.]
With that, the fake national team broadcast came to an end.
The screen went black.
In the darkness, Juhyeok’s eyes trembled slightly as they reflected off the screen.
‘This….’
Click.
He immediately opened the community to check the reactions.
‘This will work.’
Whoosh.
As he scrolled down, posts came flooding up.
[Breaking News) Cookie was actually playing while terminally ill….]
[Cookie what? Something like this happened?]
[Wow Cookie is really something…]
[The national tournament was a legend;]
I could have died, so I was preparing for what comes next ㅠㅠㅠ
It didn’t matter which community you looked at.
The players already knew most of what happened with Cookie.
But for everyone else, this was news they were hearing for the first time.
All of Cookie’s plays, which they’d watched without much thought before, would now hit them differently.
“Huh?”
That’s when it happened.
Suddenly Sanghyeon’s head wedged itself between Juhyeok and the monitor.
“What’s wrong?”
Sanghyeon, who’d just returned after grabbing a beer, noticed that Juhyeok’s eyes were glistening.
“Whoa, you scared me!”
Startled by the head suddenly pushing in, Juhyeok jumps back in surprise.
“Who’s crying?!”
Juhyeok protests, but Sanghyeon just waves the beer can around.
“Here, drink.”
“…Man.”
Juhyeok feels like he’s been caught off guard, but he takes the beer Sanghyeon brought anyway.
“You suddenly went to get beer because you were worried I might cry too.”
“Ahem. Just open it.”
*Pop*
As the cap comes off, faint bubbles rise up gently.
“Here.”
Their beer cans clink together.
*Clink*
“You worked hard.”
“Yeah… you worked harder though. I’m not even a player.”
“That’s true.”
“…Sigh.”
*Gulp gulp*
Both of them drink their beer at the same time, then let out a synchronized “Ahhh~” of satisfaction.
“But… what’s going to happen to Cookie?”
Juhyeok asks carefully.
“I’m not sure… he said he’d get additional checkups after coming to Korea. I don’t know what the results will be.”
“I see…”
Since the last episode of the fake national team was titled “Miracle,” Juhyeok had hoped for something more.
‘But there wasn’t time for that.’
Looking at when it aired, there hadn’t been enough time for the miracle Hee-cheol needed to happen.
The miracle being spoken of here was probably either the Joseon team’s championship or a prayer for the future.
“Ah. But beer really does taste better when you drink it here.”
Sanghyeon looks up at the ceiling anew.
When he said “here,” he meant this house.
“That’s right.”
A humble-looking house wedged into a poor neighborhood, yet stepping inside revealed a warm, cozy atmosphere.
This place had been Sanghyeon’s home his entire life, and it had become Juhyeok’s second home as well.
“This place really does have its charm. What’ll we do if we feel lonely after moving?”
Sanghyeon had probably brought up this topic so suddenly because of the move.
“Then we’ll just cry again when we move.”
“…I won’t cry! Damn it! It’s not even my house! Why would I cry!?”
Juhyeok gulps down more beer while tearing into squid.
He tears into it roughly, as if displaying his masculinity.
Sanghyeon chuckles at this.
“Let’s eat like this sometimes at the new place too. It’s fun.”
Sitting together in front of a computer, drinking beer with simple snacks.
When Sanghyeon and Juhyeok first started all of this.
They’d drink beer like this in the evenings three or four times a week.
How the broadcast would flow from here, how many more viewers we’d gain, whether I’d start a company or not, blah blah blah…
It was a time when they’d spout all sorts of hopeful fantasies.
Though plausibility had evaporated from their delusions like alcohol.
Remarkably, the things they’d rambled about while clinking glasses were actually coming true.
This was why the two of them had planned this modest celebration party today.
It was a party celebrating the perfect conclusion of the international tournament, but also an attempt to recapture that original spirit from when they’d talked about their goals.
“What about Jia?”
“Oh. Jia’s naturally at a company dinner with Department Manager Jang today. That just ended for them.”
“I see.”
Sanghyeon nodded regretfully, then looked at the monitor.
“It’s over. Done.”
The dark screen displayed only this message.
[Thank you for loving the fake national team all this time!]
Sanghyeon’s gaze lingered on that message for a long while.
It was the kind of message that always appeared on the final episode of manga he’d enjoyed watching as a child.
“That’s right. But now it’s just beginning.”
Juhyeok also speaks while looking at the monitor.
“Look at this. Never thought it would get this big.”
What he pointed to was the video view count.
Now that the premiere had ended, the views were being tallied.
The numbers were enormous.
Comments were pouring in like crazy, needless to say.
-So what happened to Cookie? Why is it a miracle?? Huh???
That’s probably what they mean by winning the championship ㅠ
-Cookie, I hope you get better soon
-Cookie really is amazing for enduring illness and bringing us this far, and Daisunsin Choi is equally incredible for overcoming all the criticism and ultimately winning the championship.
-So the team’s transformation wasn’t solely because of Almond…
└It’s not a game that changes with just one person lol
└He’s been practicing changing his style since last year
└Joseon originally had a heavy style like Rome. This agility has been since last year…
-He really did stake his life on it. Truly.
Was that the reason?
#Trending Video 7th Place
Within minutes of being uploaded, it was already claiming a top spot on the trending video chart.
With 700,000 views at the initial release, it would surpass 1 million views in less than an hour.
It could set the highest record in fake national team history.
“Hey. We already have 1.2 million subscribers.”
“…Wow.”
Sanghyeon came closer to check and his eyes widened.
“Feels like we just broke 1 million not long ago.”
In fact, Almond’s AllTube channel had only surpassed 1 million subscribers during the international tournament.
It wasn’t a channel with high subscriber counts relative to views.
“Yeah. We did it. Let’s have a drink.”
The two raised their beers like they were making a toast and gulped them down.
“Ahhh~”
“That’s good!”
As the buzz began to set in, Juhyeok’s voice grew louder.
“Hey. The international tournament really is something. But seriously, my father suddenly showed up and gave me such a fright?”
“Oh, your father!?”
While Sanghyeon becomes quiet when drinking, Juhyeok becomes talkative.
They’re complete opposites, but that’s actually why they get along so well when drinking together.
“Yeah. My father suddenly came walking over and asked for the best-selling item. You know what that was?”
“???”
“The Almond suit!”
Puhahaha.
The two burst into uncontrollable laughter.
His father, who’s approaching sixty this year, wearing a suit to become Almond when he grows up.
Juhyeok’s face was turning red.
When drunk, patterns emerge.
Sanghyeon doesn’t get drunk as easily as Juhyeok, so he knows his patterns.
Namely, Juhyeok Kim’s three-stage drunk boxing.
Stage 1: He rambles on about how his father and he don’t get along.
But since his father visited last time, today the pattern was slightly different.
In truth, his father is a bigger figure to Juhyeok than anyone else.
Not someone to criticize, but simply a massive presence.
Knowing this, Sanghyeon wasn’t particularly surprised that Juhyeok hadn’t complained about his father this time.
He’d sensed this would happen eventually.
What was surprising, however, was that there was no next stage.
Stage 2: Insulting Aseng people
When he reached this stage, Juhyeok’s face would gradually turn red, and his voice would rise to a crescendo.
But strangely, that topic never came up today.
Crack—
A freshly torn beer can, and beside it, empty cans kept piling up.
Yet no mention of Aseng.
“…which is why they were actually only planned as merchandise for the international tournament, right? But Almond’s hat—that thing would sell even if we kept making it forever. If we play our cards right, we could even become a fashion brand.”
He’d moved straight into the precursor symptoms of stage 3.
Stage 3: Therefore, I’m exceptional.
The stage where all results stem from his own excellence.
This was when fantasies about Almond-related business ventures were most abundant.
“Huh? What fashion brand? I can’t even dress myself properly.”
Sanghyeon waved his hand dismissively.
Then Juhyeok held out his phone.
“Hey, hey. Look at this. How many fashion brand collaboration proposals do you think are in my email? You’d basically become a clothes hanger.”
“No, I mean… modeling and running a fashion brand are different things….”
“In the end, fashion is all about branding. We’re already halfway there, aren’t we? We just need to find someone who makes clothes well. Think people would line up to do that?”
“Hmm… I guess that makes sense.”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m saying….”
This was strange.
He’d expected the Aseng topic to come up eventually.
“The best-selling item from the international tournament was actually Almond’s baseball cap, not the regular hat….”
Juhyeok was the type who would always bring up Aseng people at least once.
He was the one who harbored so much lingering attachment and resentment toward that place.
‘He’s only talking about merchandise.’
Sanghyeon realized he was now only discussing merchandise-related matters.
He casually picked up his phone and checked the date.
‘Six months.’
Six months had passed since they left the company.
In that time, Juhyeok was no longer the elite Kim Juhyeok from Aseng, but had become Juhyeok Kim, CEO of Mix Nuts.
“Oh, speaking of which, there’s this platform. Paprika wants to meet up tomorrow if possible. What do you think?”
“Oh, yeah. But… I have that thing tomorrow.”
“…That thing?”
“Meeting with Pangeo and the guys.”
“Ah….”
Juhyeok nodded, then asked as if remembering something.
“But now that I think about it, we never properly had a team dinner after the international tournament.”
“Right… that’s why there are two hundred of them.”
“What if they all gathered together?”
“…?”
At first, I thought he was just rambling from the alcohol.
“Is that even possible?”
But after Almond couldn’t play games for a month.
“If we turn it into content, it’s definitely possible.”
Juhyeok had become a hunter who stalked content.
“It’s possible. Yesssss.”
However, Juhyeok was slowly reaching his alcohol limit.
* * *
Sproing!
Juhyeok suddenly jolted up from the sofa.
“Huh…?”
He checked the time on the wall clock.
“Damn.”
It was 10 AM.
Considering he wasn’t going to work, it wasn’t terribly late, but.
Juhyeok grabbed his phone hastily without even properly dressing.
[13 Missed Calls]
[153 Unread Messages]
The sheer number of contacts would give anyone chills.
He scrolled down once and then swiped past the screen.
‘This isn’t what matters.’
After the international tournament, getting bombarded with calls had become routine.
That wasn’t why Juhyeok had jumped up so frantically.
‘The news updates at 7 AM.’
All these contacts from various companies?
Advertisement offers?
Platform business proposals?
Ultimately, it all came down to the fame of the streamer Almond.
But yesterday, the fake national team video was uploaded. Just as interest in the international tournament was beginning to fade.
‘Once this explodes, the calls won’t stop coming.’
He pulled up his pants and sat down in front of his computer.
Then he opened the news from all the major portals simultaneously.
“!”
The mouse paused for a moment as if startled.
Smirk.
The corners of Juhyeok’s mouth curved upward.
[Trending News at This Moment]
1st Place) “Live for the journey” – Overcoming an incurable illness to lead Joseon to championship victory.
2nd Place) Massive renewed interest following the broadcast of the international tournament documentary.
3rd Place) Famous actor A: “This is a health tonic.” Was he actually a drug distributor?
4th Place) Three telecom companies: “If you don’t pay network usage fees, you’re a thief company.”
5th Place) Millions shed tears as the behind-the-scenes story of the international tournament championship is revealed.
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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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