Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 70

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

Chapter 70

29,179.
The contribution score gap between first and second place.
It was an unprecedented figure, and Bang Ju fell silent for a moment.
“Haha. I was a bit taken aback. It deviated from expectations. A bit, you ask? Well.”
It wasn’t just “a bit.”
Bang Ju chuckled and steered the conversation in a new direction.
“Come to think of it, Han Pun Man’s prediction turned out to be wrong too, in a sense.”
“Still, the situation’s better than this guy’s whatever-concept nonsense, isn’t it? Hack.”
“Quit it.”

-Hahahaha
-Greatest Under Heaven what lol
-You embarrassed?
-He made a good call though lol
-So how did such a gap even open up

Bang Ju read the chat and cut off Han Pun Man.
“Alright, alright, Han Pun Man. Stop teasing and help us out. The viewers want to know how such a score gap happened in the first place. Shall we tackle that first? I’m sure you have some idea what’s going on?”
“Yes.”
Rather than explain themselves, they logged into No Hyup.
They figured there would be an organized post there.
Bang Ju pulled up a single post on screen.
“This person did a great job organizing it.”
Even though it had only been posted recently, it laid out the situation quickly and clearly.

[Situation Summary]
==
Figured there’d be a lot of curious people, so throwing together a rough breakdown.
Fame points and contribution scores from win streaks don’t really matter, but calculated them anyway.
If you win 4 in a row on day one, you get 250 fame points when day two starts, and if you win all of day two, the contribution score you earn is 1,000.
Then on day three’s start, total fame points from the streak hit 500, and you stack 2,000 contribution score that day.
You could calculate it separately, but doing it this way, total contribution score possible from streaks is 36,000.
Every high-ranker who kept their streak got this, so it’s meaningless.
And they didn’t necessarily widen the gap that much each game. The broadcast said second place was getting 500-600 per game.
So that means there had to be one moment where the gap exploded.
And it was early in the competition.
The only possibility is a Raid.
If we assume second place got 100 from the Raid and first place got 500,
then even if they earned the same fame points from every other game from day three onward, that difference would keep compounding.
400 per game, four games a day.
1,600 times seven days.
That’s 11,200, which doesn’t reach 29,000, so the gap had to be 400-plus per game.
Roughly assuming they were similar in other rounds, do the math yourself.
==

Looked like it was posted in a rush, no clean conclusion.
Bang Ju switched the screen back and spoke.
“If you just divide the contribution score gap by 28, the number of games, it’s probably around 1,000? 1,100 difference, I’d say.”
Just then, another donation chimed in.

[‘ㅇㅇ’ donated 200,000 won!]
[Brother. First place earned 1,500 fame points from the Raid. Current fame points are 6,600.]

His minimum donation amount was 200,000 won.
With so many people gathered, donations kept coming, disrupting the broadcast flow.
That was why he’d set that minimum threshold.
Even so, people were kind enough to donate anyway.
“Ah! Seo Jun revealed it. So Cheon Sal
Seong said 500, which makes it a 1,000 difference.”
If the difference was 1,000, then even if Cheon Sal Seong and Seo Jun earned the same fame points from the Raid, Seo Jun would still be first.
Bang Ju didn’t voice that thought, considering Cheon Sal Seong’s mental state, but inwardly he was startled.
“Hmm, anyway.”
Were people already starting to throw shade?
Bang Ju refreshed and scanned the overall posts flooding in, sensing something off.
Critical posts were beginning to trickle in one by one.

[Is there a balance problem?]
[How’d they calculate to give 3x?]
[This way people just go all-in on Raids and play like gambling lol]
[This isn’t skill.]

Reasonable questions, to be fair.
The problem was that people writing similar-toned posts were upvoting each other as they posted.
Coincidence?

-Those posts do seem weird
-For real, a gap that big from just one Raid doesn’t make sense
-It’s a bit much

The 70,000 viewers seemed to be nodding along too.
When moments like this came up, Bang Ju preferred to just share his thoughts.
“The post here says 3x seems weird, but I think trimming 4 minutes 30 seconds down to 1 minute 30 seconds is genuinely about 3x harder.”
Bang Ju continued his explanation.
“It’s such an unusual approach, and clearing it that way was possible only through that specific method — that’s why people are talking. But finding that method itself is part of the difficulty, and I’d say that’s skill. Even the other players who use demon-type builds knew about it but didn’t try that method. That shows the challenge was steep enough. That’s my take.”
Han Pun Man nodded along from the side.
“And now that we’re seeing one player dominating for the first time, won’t it be even more interesting to see how people try to take the Greatest Under Heaven spot?”
Many agreed.
Either way, even if fame points were a problem, that’s ultimately on the game company’s end.
Then another donation chimed.

[‘ㅇㅇ’ donated 200,000 won!]
[What do you think of this? (link)]

He clicked the link.
A fresh post, less than a minute old.
Bang Ju found it odd that the donor had somehow seen this in such a short window and sent a donation, but let it slide for now.
Already over 10 upvotes.

[Streamer’s track record. Am I the only one who finds this suspicious??]
==
1. The game before the one for No Hyup was Assassination Guild: Dawn, by the same game company.
2. Assassination Guild: Dawn has a system called “Knot,” which “no one could find” — but he found it in one try during a collaboration stream. No idea how he did it. (See video.)
3. Not only that, he was the first to unlock Ruler Unmatched and got a link in Mubi Soft’s official trailer.
4. Then starts the next game and gets a sponsorship deal.
5. Obtained the Great Master Item that “no one could get.” (Similar to the Knot situation.)
6. Finally, this contribution score is record-breaking. The score itself is believable on its own, but string coincidences together and what do you get?
==

Looking at who upvoted it, Bang Ju recognized those usernames.
Same IDs that had been upvoting each other earlier.
Bang Ju read the post and thought.
People who watched the stream directly wouldn’t think twice, but others?
“Hmm. It does raise suspicion.”
Cheon Sal Seong spoke with a cryptic expression.

-Mubi Soft’s golden child lol
-Damn, got chills
-Possible
-Guy’s got skill, but lol if that’s true it’s suspicious
-If it’s real, that’s even more unbelievable
-So what do you think?
-Needs clarification

* * *

Seo Jun’s channel had 12,000 viewers gathered.
They say a topic’s importance is proven by the viewer count, right?
These weren’t people who’d let a big event like this slide.
Though honestly, more people didn’t change much.
“How did I get first? Well, I guess I was lucky.”
Seo Jun’s brazen answer in front of 12,000 viewers made his longtime viewers happy.

-Lmao, you newbies don’t know our master! Haha
-Lucky indeed!
-Came to see first place
-A magician of time who earned days worth of contribution in one session lol
-Seo Jun, be my sect leader! Seo Jun, be my sect leader! Seo Jun, be my sect leader!

What’s with “be my sect leader”?
After the rankings went public and viewers flooded in, Seo Jun had stopped streaming other content.
Now he was browsing the community.
“Stop watching, you say? Hmm. It’s time to take a break anyway.”
He’d shown everything that needed showing, and there wasn’t much else to do.

-Stop browsing the community, master lol
-He’s looking for trouble again
-Who gave you permission?
-Not a chance

While his viewers criticized him, a donation came through.

[‘ㅇㅇ’ donated 10,000 won!]
[Did you see this? (link)]

Seo Jun clicked through and read the post alongside his viewers.
It was claiming he had some connection to Mubi Soft.
It didn’t name him directly, but in a situation like this, figuring out who the post was about was about as hard as him throwing a pairing.

-Connecting things that way?
-I’ve watched the stream from the start and never caught on lol
-If all this was an act, he should go pro as an actor
-So you’re saying this guy, a mid-level newbie, is behind-the-scenes with the game company pulling off every exploit while streaming? Lmao
-For real lol
-If it’s true, can’t trust anyone in this world lol

The viewers laughed and moved on.
But others might not.
Once an image like this spread, it became annoying.
No amount of explanation would let everyone hear it or accept it.
The post already had over 30 upvotes.
‘What should I do?’
He could ignore it, but he didn’t know what kind of ripple effect it’d have.
People believe what they want to believe, company or not.
‘There’s got to be a good way…’
Just as Seo Jun was searching for another angle,

[‘Breaking News’ donated 10,000 won!]
[Cheon Sal Seong just publicly challenged you to a duel in front of 70,000 viewers!]

A donation came in with the news.
A public duel challenge in front of 70,000?

[‘Duel Clip’ donated 10,000 won!]
[Travel clip video]

A video played in front of his confused face.

[It does raise suspicion.]

Cheon Sal Seong inside Bang Ju’s studio faces the camera.
While Han Pun Man and Bang Ju sit quietly beside him, only Cheon Sal Seong opens his mouth.

[So I want to ask you to prove it. Against me. One on one.]

One on one.
It was literally a duel challenge.
Was it because he’d never experienced anything like this in his past life?
A pleased smile spread across Seo Jun’s lips.
“That sounds fun.”
And as Cheon Sal Seong adds a brief parting line, the clip ends.

[If you really did it with pure skill, you won’t dodge the challenge, right?]

People’s attention shifts from conspiracy theories to the duel.
That post itself now falls away in the shadow of the match between first and second place.
Was it intentional, framed this way?

-It really was the duel clip haha
-How did such a perfect angle emerge the moment rankings dropped lol
-Loser gets their characters deleted!
-He’s not gonna run, right?
-Second place threw down against first place, how could he back out!

[‘Rigged Dice’ donated 600,000 won!]
[Go to Bang Ju’s channel and answer the duel challenge!!]

600,000 won.
Considering the minimum for Bang Ju’s channel, that was generous.
The donor clearly believed he’d answer, so he had to live up to that expectation.
“Thanks. Let’s go right now.”
But.
The duel itself would definitely help Seo Jun, but something felt incomplete.
There had to be a better angle.
“Oh.”

* * *

-Why’s the master hiding the screen?
-Let us see the donation too
-Something’s off lol, feels like he’s about to cause trouble again
-So who wins?
-Cheon Sal Seong was insane at one-on-one
-But our master’s pro-level
-Why’s writing the answer taking so long

Despite his viewers’ impatience, Seo Jun took his time crafting the donation message.
And finally, fanfare blared through Bang Ju’s channel and a donation message appeared.

[‘Heavenly Demon14’ donated 200,000 won!]
[From 7 PM to 10 PM tomorrow, I’ll run the game continuously without stopping for even a moment. If there’s anyone who finds my rank suspicious or thinks they’re better skilled than me, come on in. I’m confident I won’t lose even once. ㅎㅎ]

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