Chapter 12: Time Flows Like Water

“Stop them!! Block them even if it kills you, please!!!”

Curry’s desperate scream fills the silent room.

If you were listening through earphones, the decibel level would be enough to damage your eardrums.

Maybe because there was two million won at stake, Curry was playing the game more earnestly than ever. But in the end, Curry couldn’t protect the Nexus, and with a dive, lost the two million won in an instant.

“Ahhh!!”

Crash!

Curry threw the mouse, toppled over along with the chair, and disappeared out of the camera frame.

For a moment, there was silence on the stream, and I worried that Curry might be hurt from the fall.

“Guh… my two million won…”

Before long, Curry’s voice, tinged with sobs, was heard, which allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief.

Seeing him lament over the money, it didn’t seem like he was seriously hurt.

‘How did things turn out this way…’

Curry had definitely played well.

Even when the opposing jungle came for a gank during lane phase, he turned it around and won a 2v1 fight.

Before the promotion series began, he engaged in a mental battle with stream snipers for over 30 minutes, driving them all off.

It was truly the ideal situation and conditions for the final promotion match.

But because of his horrible “team luck,” he had no choice but to lose.

“Aah… it really hurts.”

Curry reappeared on camera, grimacing as he set his fallen chair upright.

He had just lost his last promotion chance, which could have been his final opportunity in this post-apocalyptic era, and he also lost two million won. Even for someone like Curry, who maintained the highest energy throughout the stream, there was no avoiding the dip in mood.

His gloomy appearance, like a dog soaked in rain, made me chuckle.

Of course, feeling sorry for him didn’t mean I’d press the mission success button.

Anyway, the reason I loaded the two million won was all because of Curry.

{Flower Shop Owner donated 500,000 won.}

“Well done.”

“Ohhh, Flower Shop Owner, thank you for the 500,000 won donation, even though I failed the mission!! Thank you so much!!!”

Having partially soothed Curry’s mentality with money, I turned off the stream.

Curry, ready to respond with a full bow, but more than that, his body looked completely drained.

“Should I work out or something…”

Maybe because I hadn’t fully adapted to a woman’s body yet, even six hours of gaming a day left me exhausted.

When I was a man, I could endure playing for 18 hours a day without much trouble.

Are all women this low on stamina?

Or is this body particularly weak?

I hated troublesome things, but I hated not being able to do what I wanted even more.

Since I had plenty of time and money anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to look into a gym later.

While lost in thought, my eyes started to close.

Sleep quickly overtook me, and my vision went completely dark.

***

Time flowed swiftly, and the end of LoL’s season was approaching.

Solo queue players, all without exception, were grinding their ranked games harder than ever.

Most players took the game seriously, hoping to finish the season at a tier higher than their current one.

However, there were players who didn’t care as much—those who had already secured their ranks.

These were the true “gatekeepers,” who swarmed in as the season’s end drew near.

The peak of their presence was the day before the season’s end.

Two hours before the season ended, Curry’s stream was live.

“Seriously, don’t stream snipe me, alright? Got it?”

Curry, who had become a veteran at dealing with gatekeepers, gritted his teeth while staring at the camera.

And for good reason—Curry hadn’t secured a spot in Master yet.

It was only natural for Curry, who had shed figurative tears of blood to get into promotion matches, to issue such a stern warning.

It was the moment to decide whether the color of his final tier marking one year’s end would be blue or purple.

As lenient as Curry usually was about stream sniping, he couldn’t forgive anyone sniping him in a Master promotion match two hours before the season ended. But who were Curry’s viewers? Like contrarian children who did exactly what you told them not to, they would go out of their way to stream snipe him even more aggressively if told not to.

Both Curry and his viewers knew this well, and so an invisible mental battle began.

‘Come to think of it, why hasn’t that sniper shown up?’

In the midst of his psychological war with snipers, Curry suddenly remembered a particular sniper who hadn’t been around for a while. Thanks to that sniper, he had produced some legendary content videos back-to-back, which generated substantial income. But oddly enough, that sniper hadn’t shown up since the day Curry lost his last promotion match.

‘Did something happen to them?’

Considering how tenaciously they used to snipe him, it couldn’t have been mere boredom that made them stop.

Could it be that something happened that kept them from playing?

‘…Not that I care at all!’

After all the times they had tormented him, why should he care?

If he were to calculate the mental damages they’d caused in monetary terms, it would easily exceed hundreds of millions.

And so, at the right moment, Curry silently queued up without making a sound.

With the season’s end just around the corner, he needed to win three games in a row to finally secure Master.

This was one of the top moments of focus in Curry’s 26 years of life.

Amidst suffocating tension, the match was found, and Curry steadied his trembling hands as he clicked the accept button.

“LoneGourmet has entered the lobby.”

“NayeonQueen has entered the lobby.”

“Tararian has entered the lobby.”

“ConnieCoppie has entered the lobby.”

“KillYou has entered the lobby.”

The nicknames of his teammates began appearing in the chat.

Among them was a familiar yet dreadful name.

This was not the type of reunion he had wanted in a promotion match.

NayeonQueen: Are you really desperate?

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

As memories of that nightmare day resurfaced, Curry involuntarily let out a curse.

Meeting NayeonQueen again after a week was, without a doubt, the worst-case scenario.

***

Since that day, I stopped sniping Curry.

When I woke up, my whole body was aching, and I realized that my physical condition was worse than I’d thought, so I decided to focus on taking care of myself. At first, I considered joining a gym, but given the situation, it was difficult to find one that was open.

So, I bought a few pieces of exercise equipment and set them up at home.

After that, I steadily exercised to build up my stamina.

At first, it was gruelingly exhausting.

But they say people are creatures of adaptation, right?

As I kept pushing myself, my body eventually adapted to the rigorous workout schedule.

As a result, my body, which could only handle six hours of gaming before, was now capable of handling twelve.

“Ugh…”

The morning sunlight streaming through the curtains woke me up.

Having exercised late into the night, my body was not in good shape.

I got out of bed and went down to the living room.

I opened the fridge, threw together some chicken breast and salad, and stuffed it into my mouth.

After dealing with my hunger, I turned my head and noticed the mess in the living room.

Recyclable trash from delivery orders piled up, and dust was gathering here and there due to neglect.

Even though I usually lived a bit carelessly, this level of filth was too much for me, so I called for a cleaning service yesterday.

“When did they say they’d be here…?”

I couldn’t quite remember when they were supposed to arrive.

What time had I set their working hours for?

I had posted an ad for a daytime cleaning job and hired the first applicant.

I think I was in the middle of a workout and too exhausted to think clearly at the time.

I couldn’t remember at all what time the cleaner was supposed to come.

As I was pondering this, it suddenly came to me.

Ding-dong—

At the sound of the doorbell, I checked the time.

9 a.m.

This was the time they were supposed to arrive.

I got up and headed to the front door.

***

Jihye Kim was an ordinary college student.

Coming from a family that wasn’t well-off, she was one of those common college students who had to work part-time to cover her tuition fees, even in these times.

That was the single sentence that summed up Jihye Kim’s life.

“Wow…”

Living such an ordinary life, Jihye couldn’t help but marvel at the neat and stylish country house in front of her.

Growing up in a shabby family home, she rarely had a chance to see a spacious country house like this.

Above all, she never imagined she’d be working in a house like this, so she stood there, continuously expressing her amazement.

After spending a long time admiring it, she quickly reminded herself of her purpose.

“Okay, okay…”

Clearing her throat, Jihye nervously pressed the doorbell with trembling hands.

*Ding-dong*

The doorbell rang once.

*Step, step*

Not long after, she heard footsteps from the other side.

Feeling nervous for no reason, she swallowed, and slowly, the door began to open.

The person who came out of the house was a woman.

Without realizing it, Jihye took in the woman’s appearance.

She had a pair of faint yet intense red eyes.

Her long, light red hair reached down to her waist.

It was sticking out in all directions, as if she’d just woken up.

The woman, who seemed to be the homeowner, had flawless, clear skin.

Despite her white complexion, her dark circles cast a decadent aura.

She looked like something out of a legend, reminiscent of a vampire.

And above all, her figure was unbelievable.

Even as a woman herself, Jihye was left speechless by her perfect body.

“She’s, she’s even… big…”

Feeling an unnecessary sense of inferiority, Jihye quickly regained her senses and bowed her head.

“I’m Jihye Kim, the new cleaning assistant starting today!”

“Come in.”

Following the homeowner inside, Jihye looked around curiously as she entered.

The house had seemed spacious from the outside, but being inside, she could fully sense just how large it really was.

“The cleaning tools are in the storage room over there. Call me if you need anything.”

“Oh, yes! Got it.”

Jihye moved toward the storage room in the direction indicated by the homeowner, Nayeon.

Inside, she found all the basic cleaning supplies and grabbed the vacuum first.

While looking around earlier, she’d also checked the condition of the house, and it was quite dirty.

Of course, it was only natural for the house to be messy.

If it were clean, there would’ve been no reason to hire someone.

And so, Jihye began a thorough cleaning.

***

The season for LoL had come to an end.

A major new patch had been applied, and there were so many changes to the items that it was practically a revolution.

Some people were excited about the new patch, but others who weren’t fond of the changes didn’t welcome it.

Thus began the preseason with the large-scale patch, and many people started to adapt to the new changes.

“What? Platform battles?”

As LoL experienced a wave of changes, a similar trend was sweeping across the streaming world.