Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 66

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

Episode 66

War, Day 8.
The Unorthodox Sect lost one of their territories to the Orthodox Sect’s assault, but as if they’d known it was coming, they immediately captured one of the Orthodox Sect’s territories in return.
Day 9.
Both the Unorthodox and Orthodox Sects recovered their lost territories respectively.
They were just trading light jabs.
The prelude to a full-scale battlefield was becoming visible.
And meanwhile, in the Demon Sect, there was.
No change whatsoever.
As before—those meant to defend were defending, those meant to attack were attacking.
Of course, nothing had changed.
In the At Least Second Place group chat, the Demon Sect’s Rankers told Seo Jun they were conserving their strength. It wasn’t credible.
The Orthodox and Unorthodox Sects didn’t seem to pay much attention to the Demon Sect either.
“Hey, wait. You’re saying that Capsule you’re using is borrowed?”
Tae Woo’s eyes widened as he ran on the treadmill.
“And you’re going after it by trying to win the Lios Championship?”
“Yeah.”
“Right. Now that I think about it, that thing you’re using is the newest premium Capsule that just came out, right?”
“Yep.”
“Wow. That’s insane. Can they really just lend out something that expensive to some random streamer? There’s no rental service! How is a company allowed to do that? What, is that special treatment?”
“It’s the company’s call. If you’re unhappy about it, stop entering virtual reality and go protest instead.”
Try boycotting them.
“……Well, I’m not that upset. They can lend it out if they want, I guess.”
I figured as much.
If he was going to back down that quickly, he shouldn’t have complained in the first place.
“But why, exactly?”
Hm. Had I not mentioned it?
“I have an unusual constitution.”
Seo Jun stopped the treadmill.
“Yeah? What kind of unusual constitution?”
I see.
It had been a while since he became a streamer—I guess he didn’t know.
Seo Jun explained the situation to Tae Woo.
“Ah, so that happened. Wait, then that thing about using a Capsule back then was real? I thought you were just making up stories this whole time.”
Tae Woo stopped running and gulped down some water.
“When did I ever make things up?”
“You do it all the time. So what was your old account name?”
“Why do you need to know that?”
“I’m curious. You were insanely good back then, weren’t you?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“No way. You’ve always been the same since middle school, even back in elementary school.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by “always the same,” but something about it irked me.
“Anyway, so if you don’t win the Lios Championship, you have to buy the Capsule yourself, right? Are you going to quit streaming then?”
“No.”
“Oh, that’s surprising. You said you wouldn’t use anything but the new model. Are you really going to pay for it and buy it?”
It’s already decided.
“I’ll have to buy it. What else can I do.”
Seo Jun said it casually.
“Hah. Is this the dignity of an 8,000-viewer streamer? You’ve already almost caught up to me.”
The standard for an established streamer is a minimum of 10,000 regular viewers.
And Tae Woo was among the better-performing established streamers.
So saying he’d almost caught up was an overstatement.
Moreover, in terms of regular viewers, Seo Jun still hadn’t reached even halfway there.
“Stop talking nonsense. Anyway, there’s going to be a limit going forward, and I’m not sure how to handle it.”
The War will end, and two weeks later, Lios will begin.
Until then, I want to increase viewers as much as possible.
“I think you could probably get into Lios as is, though?”
“Still, I’m not at ten thousand yet.”
Usually, established streamers with ten thousand viewers are accepted if they apply.
Though they’re called “established,” the actual number isn’t that large.
“Even for me, if I had to participate in the tournament but then got stuck buying a Capsule worth over 100 million, I’d feel pretty bad about it.”
Trying and failing is fine.
But being denied the chance to try at all is intolerable.
“I need to minimize the chance of getting rejected.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
Seo Jun leaned his back against the front of the treadmill and looked around the Gym interior.
One person stood out, exercising with exaggerated motions and loud shouts.
“By the way, how did that happen?”
Tae Woo also leaned against the wall beside him, watching.
“Yeah. When that person first came here, didn’t he hate this place?”
“He did.”
“That was because of you, wasn’t it? You kept calling him up to the ring.”
“That’s true too.”
His true identity—the greatest swordsman he’d met in reality.
At some point, the man had become obsessed with weight training, and now he was earnestly lifting heavy weights alongside other muscular guys around him.
“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!”
“That’s it! That’s how you do it! This young friend has great form!”
Seo Jun watched the scene and clicked his tongue.
Martial arts are not obtained through training like this.
“Martial arts, you see, are……”
“Shut it, you old man. I’ve been hearing that since high school.”
“……Right.”
Had I said that before too?
Seo Jun didn’t remember, but he went along with it.
“So. How are you going to handle the viewers? The War buff has its limits too, right?”
“Well, I mean……”
It was vague to call it a limit.
The viewers I’d gained through the War far exceeded expectations.
And more will likely come.
It’s just that with ten thousand viewers now in sight, I’ve gotten greedy about safely participating in Lios.
Well, who knows how it’ll go.
If someone had told me a year ago I’d be streaming like this now, and that I was actually enjoying it, would he have believed it then?
“Ah! I think I know a sure-fire method.”
“What?”
“Deliberately stir up controversy. Target some famous streamers and trash them.”
“?”
“Then you could even hit 30,000 viewers. For real.”
Just as I thought. This friend wasn’t in his right mind.
Seo Jun sighed.
“Or else just drop the War right now and do the punishment stream. That’d probably hit 50,000 live viewers. Think about it—what are you even worried about? Right, brother? Or sister?”
Did this guy not understand how much worse that would be?

* * *

Seo Jun moved away to escape Tae Woo’s nonsense.
Lee Dong Soo was sparring with another fighter in the ring.
“Why’d you come over here? Whoa, whoa.”
The Gym Manager approached Seo Jun with a wary gesture.
“That friend you brought here and harassed for a while is working out over there—go home quick.”
How desperate to chase him away.
Seo Jun’s expression turned incredulous.
“I just came to watch.”
“Really? You’re truly just going to observe, right? Huh?”
“Well, what else would I do besides watching?”
At that remark, the Manager’s face changed to match Seo Jun’s.
And he let out words tinged with slight grievance and regret.
“Beat up the athletes.”
“?”
“Punch the walls again.”
“….”
“Call the guy you beat up before and beat him again.”
“No……”
“Give commentary from the sidelines, get him riled up, then beat him.”
Did that happen?
“I don’t think it went that far.”
I don’t think there’s a need to be entirely serious about this.
“Are you even human?”
“Where would you find an ordinary person like me? When was I ever that violent?”
“Wow……. Wow. Really. You!”
The Manager grabbed at his collar.
And just then, Lee Dong Soo finished sparring and came down.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing. And Jun, whatever you’re planning to do, please be reasonable. Got it?”
The sound of sniffling is heard.
Hmm. He seems to have something hard going on recently.
“You’re getting on in years—I should try to be understanding.”
Seo Jun let it slide, assuming the Manager had his reasons, and Lee Dong Soo removed his headgear and approached Seo Jun.
“Do you know something?”
Seo Jun stepped back a little, worried about sweat flying.
“What?”
“I’m doing the War too.”
“Really? Which faction?”
“I was originally with the Greenwood Bandits, but I followed you to the Demon Sect.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“……”
Was that not the reaction he was hoping for?
“What’s your username?”
“Bandit King.”
“Then you should’ve just stayed with the Unorthodox Sect.”
“No……”
Why did he choose the Demon Sect?
Wasn’t it because of his username?
After all, a username and concept have to match.
“Well, the Demon Sect guys do have a bit of a bandit-like quality. It could work out fine?”
That’s right.
Now that I think about it, in the previous life, the Demon Sect wasn’t different from bandits at all.
They were stronger because of martial arts and more tightly organized because of their cult leader, but at their core, they were no different from thieves.
“Haha, I see……. Oh. Please keep my identity secret. It’s a Secondary Account.”
“Secondary Account?”
I’d heard about it.
Pros are exceptionally given one extra Capsule account.
I’ve heard they’ll even make up to three if you request it.
“That’s interesting. Got it.”
“With a second account, you can play without pressure or do practice. By the way, how many Prestige Points have you accumulated?”
“I haven’t checked, so I don’t know.”
“Really? The Ranker I know was predicting that you’d have accumulated the most.”
“Well, I don’t know.”
Seo Jun’s every action had been exposed, so many people inferred that he’d accumulated an unusually large amount of Prestige Points.
So far, he’d completed most games at a level far higher than brute force, and had set an unprecedented record in raids.
That was more than enough to make him a target of vigilance among the Rankers.
“Still, they said not to let your guard down.”
“Hm?”
“After today’s War ends, your Contribution gets fully revealed, right?”
“That’s right.”
It’s a system designed to provoke checks among the highest-ranking Rankers.
Having something like this does make it fun.
“And then the next day the game mode is the Martial Tournament, and apparently things can flip around then.”
“Oh. I know that too.”
“Oh, you do? I was worried you might not know, but I’m relieved.”
So far, I’ve been playing the game somewhat recklessly.
Still, I’m not the type to dive in completely blind without investigation.
It felt a bit unfair.
“Tomorrow in the game mode, even if Contribution only gets built up a maximum of 4 matches, you can continue playing games and keep building Prestige Points, right?”
“Yes.”
Vicious.
Show people how far behind they are, how far ahead others have gotten, then give them a chance to flip it the next day.
But it’s hard to fully capitalize on the ability to keep playing games.
Since you’ll be facing opponents of similar level.
“I’m looking into all of it too.”
“I suppose.”
Lee Dong Soo nodded in understanding.
“Are you upset?”
“No, I’m not.”
“By the way, where did you meet that senior?”
“Oh. There are some people I got close to while playing games. Why?”
“Nothing, it’s just that you don’t seem to be in the faction group chat.”
Just mentioning the faction group chat made Seo Jun feel a twinge of pity.
At Least Second Place.
Anyway, there didn’t seem to be a user named Bandit King in that chat.
“There was something like that?”
So he just didn’t know?
“Wait, let me invite you to the Demon Sect faction.”
“Okay.”
Seo Jun invited Lee Dong Soo to the faction group chat.
“Huh, but why is the group name like this? Isn’t this where the Rankers gather?”
Unfortunately, it was.

[At Least Second Place]

-Newcomer
-A Ranker? Welcome.
-You were Unorthodox Sect? Welcome.
-Never done the War before? Welcome.
-In any case, welcome. Even if you’re a spy, you’re welcome.

I’d barely even participated in the conversation, but I wasn’t sure why it felt so embarrassing.
“Hm……. Maybe I should just leave.”
Lee Dong Soo muttered seriously.
His affection had dropped in an instant.
“Why. They’re welcoming you, that’s nice.”
“Really?”
“No.”
Seo Jun said it bluntly. Honestly, it does look lame.
Still, despite all the complaints, Lee Dong Soo quickly adapted to the atmosphere.
True to the nature of a friendly male high school student.

-I, Bandit King, bow my head to the Demon Sect seniors!
-Welcome, Bandit King!
-Bandit King, but anyway, nice to have you
-Why did you come so late?
-Since I’ve never done the War before, I didn’t know such a group chat existed. Anyway, I’ve been accumulating Prestige Points from the start of this War, so don’t worry.
-No one was worried. We’re simply satisfied as long as you enjoy the game as a member of the Demon Sect.
-Okay.

His mental preparation seemed inadequate.

-By the way, how many Prestige Points and Contribution have you accumulated, Demon Lord?
-I am curious about that too
-Could there be someone with more than them?
-It comes out today. Let’s wait.

From all corners of the chat, there seemed to be a lot of interest in his Contribution.
Seo Jun typed a message to change the subject.

-Are we not attacking today either?
-No.
-We should defend
-What if the enemy attacks?
-We can’t exactly go on the offensive because of that……
-Well, we’re conserving our strength.
-Everything for second place!
-…

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