Chapter 59: The Price of Glory: Thierry’s Legacy and Unseen Forces

My first-place run caused quite a stir.

First of all, various communities.

Maybe it’s because there was still a month left until the Eternal World Pro League playoffs, but my first-place run drew the attention of countless viewers, especially from the pro league fans.

It went something like this:

<Has there ever been a female player who reached Challenger rank #1?>

Challenger ranks are common, but has anyone actually reached #1?

Han Yurim’s physical skills were insane; isn’t she just farming it?

• Does #1 really look that easy?
• People always say that anyone can reach #1 if they’re pro players, but if you’re really from #1, they’d take you to China and pay you millions to train. It’s really hard, though. <Han Yurim’s win rate looks strange, doesn’t it?> Isn’t it a bug?
• She’s good at farming.
• There are always players like her. But when they enter the true top-tier level, they crumble. Like any sport, the more you watch, the more knowledge you gain. And in Eternal World, it’s easier to apply that knowledge in-game compared to traditional sports. Knowing the game usually correlates with higher ranks.

It’s the kind of system where it’s hard to “troll” or disrupt things if you’re skilled.

In such an environment, the fanbase of Eternal World devours anything related to it.

They’ve dedicated their lives to the game and can’t look at anything else.

<Does the Noah Weber technique Han Yurim showed work even in pro leagues?>

The strategy of finding enemy base locations and killing them endlessly, using secret passages—it’s too broken.

• Pros can counter that. It won’t work there.
• Solo queue and pro games are not the same thing. This was the response when I first reached Grandmaster rank.

Sure, even if the fanbase’s rank is high, Diamond to Master is nothing special. They are all just Diamond-ranked players.

Seeing a player who knows the game well doesn’t make them amazing.

<Han Yurim’s physical skills are insane, huh?>

(Showing a clip of a mind-blowing team fight strategy, just like when I played with Rojon.)

If I had the ability to rewind time, I wouldn’t be able to pull that off either.

• The players I played with back then were all Diamond-ranked.
• Don’t you know that if a Diamond-ranked player plays, they’ll win the World Cup? Of course, the opponents weren’t that skilled, but focus on Han Yurim’s play. The difficulty of that play is high regardless of the opponent’s skill. One person understood the purpose of the video.

I always say that those who watch the Eternal World community are game experts.

This kind of variety of reactions flooded the various communities, but the one that left the most impression on me was this post:

<Han Yurim’s Noah Weber is just for farming.>

It won’t work even if you’re Master.

<Han Yurim’s Noah Weber is just for farming.>

It won’t work even if you’re Grandmaster.

<Han Yurim’s Noah Weber is just for farming.>

It won’t work even if you’re Challenger.

<Han Yurim’s Noah Weber is just for farming.>

It won’t work even if you’re in the top ranks of Challenger.

• At this point, just admit it. It’s broken.
• Then when she gets first place, they’ll say it won’t work in pro leagues.

Actually, this person wrote that once I reached first place with the Noah Weber technique, it wouldn’t work in the pro league.

It was quickly rebutted though.

[The Noah Weber I showed today? I referenced a famous streamer’s gameplay.]

This was from an interview with my teammate, BbangBbang.

From the moment we met in the game, he looked promising and knew what manners were—unlike some others.

Han Yurim: Sigh Lumen: I was going to give you a shoutout first.

Han Yurim: Anyone can say words. You should’ve gotten the MVP.

BbangBbang’s “Ormal” from yesterday also clearly referenced me, but unfortunately, he couldn’t do an interview.

Noah Weber’s gameplay was so shocking that I monopolized the MVP.

BbangBbang’s Ormal also wrecked the game, but impact is also important for the MVP.

If you were a little better, you could’ve gotten the MVP by one vote instead of losing it by one vote.

Lumen: But aren’t you going to use your wish?

Han Yurim: Wait.

I still couldn’t think of the wish I wanted to make. I’ll do it later.

I stretched as much as I could.

Maybe it was because I had enjoyed the sauna so much yesterday, but my whole body felt relaxed.

Mostly, it was my skin.

This is how it usually is, but hey, placebo effect is still effective. Admit it.

I logged into V-TV and switched the category to Eternal World.

At the top of the list, I saw the following title:

[Thierry Research Lab]

If the common sense of the world had changed overnight, or if the game company had somehow reverted Thierry to his glory days (back when his lightning element ultimate was overpowered), it wouldn’t make sense.

But this was the current reality.

A trend had emerged where players were using the character I played to dominate the research labs.

The whole thing started with a post in a community.

<Han Yurim’s character picks are all broken, huh?>

(An unexpected character that appeared in a pro match two weeks ago, suddenly performing well in a video)

It was a character that seemed too niche for scout units but worked only in city core farming, and I thought she was crazy to use it.

But wait, Han Yurim used this character first, right?

• No way.
• She occasionally uses it. L No, that was just one example. Every time there’s a joker pick in the city core meta, Han Yurim is the first one to use it. Is that even possible?

<It’s true >

(A picture of Han Yurim’s character pool and the recent Summer League character picks) This Summer League had especially intense meta shifts, and it was fun, but all these characters were used by Han Yurim first?

• It’s too much of a coincidence.
• Honestly, I’ve never seen anyone else in the top tier use those characters except her.

Someone pointed out that my character picks were overlapping with the meta picks in the pro league.

BbangBbang had already been bugging me about this issue.

He wanted me to tell him all the good picks, but keep them off my streams.

He promised to pay me as much as I wanted, but I refused.

It felt awkward to take money from a friend, and I couldn’t steal the fun from the viewers either.

Instead, since he was disappointed, I told him about a few picks and combos I hadn’t used yet on stream.

He might end up using them on stream later, but at least he’d have time to practice first, so it would help him out.

Anyway.

So what does this have to do with the Thierry Research Lab trend?

It all started with someone thinking, “Han Yurim isn’t just a fan of romance; she’s all about performance, and since Thierry is her main character, doesn’t that make him the most broken character in history?”

I entered the [Thierry Research Lab] stream.

“Damn, Thierry… this is the kind of character people are supposed to play with.”

I immediately left the stream.

Don’t these seasoned <Eternal World> players know yet?

Thierry’s not even that great of a character.

Of course, Thierry’s performance was good, but the main reason I used him was because he looked like me.

If Thierry’s performance had been bad, I would never have used him as my main.

But there’s a trap in the word “performance.”

When people talk about character performance in games, they don’t usually consider the difficulty level.

In games, characters that only a few players can master often get labeled as overpowered when they can dominate.

When I say Thierry’s performance is good, it’s mostly from that perspective.

Honestly, when you factor in the difficulty, Thierry is actually not a good character.

He was designed to be a character whose full potential could only be unlocked through near-impossible plays.

The fact that my body actually succeeded in doing that just proves that Thierry isn’t really that great, right?

You can tell just by seeing how gamers who love broken characters view Thierry as a trash character.

So, please hurry up and buff him.

I just want to experience Thierry’s glory days at least once.

I closed V-TV and logged into the VR store.

When I clicked on ‘My Game Management,’ a list of my registered games appeared.

<Excel Busters>, <Fantasy Life>, <Even a Retaker Needs Love>

It had been just over half a year since I gained my abilities, and in that short time, I’d already developed three games.

This is the power of cheat abilities.

There’s never been a single person who could develop games at this pace, and there won’t be one in the future either.

But that’s only because I’ve been restricting myself to the extreme when it comes to using my powers—if I had unlocked the 5th level seal, it wouldn’t be just three games.

The entire game ranking would be filled with my games.

I sometimes wonder, what made <Infinity Zero> so enjoyable that I was granted such an ability and then disappeared?

I clicked on Game Management and checked the sales figures.

Thanks to multiple factors overlapping, the sales of my games had been steadily increasing.

All of them had sold well, but the highest-selling by far was <Fantasy Life>.

Although the sales rate had slowed down recently, when it was re-released on VR, it broke personal sales records.

The last time I checked, it had sold 800,000 copies, so it wouldn’t be strange if it had reached 850,000 by now…

Title: Fantasy Life (VR Version) Release: 2 months 21 days ago Price: 29,800 KRW Reviews: 75,812 Downloads: 4.37 million

…?

I blinked in disbelief.

Was it a bug?

I refreshed the page.

Okay, now it makes sense. Can the downloads jump from 800,000 to 4.3 million in just one week? It must be a bug.

I calmly checked the download numbers again.

[Downloads: 4.38 million]

In that brief moment, the downloads went from 4.37 million to 4.38 million.

It wasn’t a bug on the site; it was a bug in my eyes, wasn’t it?

Understood.

…Just in case, I checked <Excel Busters> and <Even a Retaker Needs Love>, and sure enough, their sales numbers were similarly increasing.

Although not as much as <Fantasy Life>, their sales had also spiked in a suspicious manner.

When I looked at the detailed sales data, I became even more worried.

As the downloads approached 4.38 million, the daily sales numbers weren’t slowing down—they were increasing.

In fact, they were growing at a rapidly increasing pace as if they hadn’t even started yet.

Most of the recent downloads were from overseas. Who was behind this?

CERN?

People are afraid of what they don’t understand.

That’s why I wasn’t feeling good about this situation; I was scared.

I didn’t know who the mastermind was, but if they were trying to bring me down, I’d have no choice but to unlock the forbidden 6th-level seal.

Title: Hello, Han Yurim. This is Novel Live. We’re contacting you regarding a collaboration request.

Ding!

I narrowed my eyes at the sudden email.

I first checked the contents of the email.

Title: Hello, Han Yurim. This is Novel Live. We’re contacting you regarding a collaboration request.

Content: Thanks to your game, Yukimura Akane from our company had a truly enjoyable experience.

Now, here’s the main point: since you are also a VTuber, what do you think about continuing this collaboration?

The request for a collaboration was made by Yukimura Akane.

So that’s why. It felt strange when the sales figures were bugged.

If it was Bukwang playing my game, I’d admit it.

I quickly sent a reply.

Title: I’ll bring a gift.