Chapter 39 : D – Day 10

Maybe it was because I went to bed earlier than usual?

I woke up early and dragged my drowsy body to the bathroom, half-closed eyes making me nearly lose my balance a few times, but I managed to get there.

After a quick face wash, I came out of the bathroom.

As I became more awake, hunger hit me.

Come to think of it, I skipped dinner last night.

‘Should’ve ordered some late-night snacks.’

Swallowing my regret, I went downstairs to satisfy my hunger.

Heading towards the kitchen, I heard someone humming a tune.

Since Ji-hye was the only other person in the house, I knew who the humming was from.

Arriving in the kitchen, I found Ji-hye cooking, wearing an apron and listening to music through AirPods.

“Hmm~ Oh?”

I made my presence known on purpose, and Ji-hye, happily cooking, turned her head.

She was momentarily startled when our eyes met, but then she bloomed into a beautiful smile and removed her AirPods.

“Good morning!”

“Morning.”

Perhaps because she went to bed early, Ji-hye seemed full of energy, unlike me.

A delicious smell wafted from inside, making my mouth water, perhaps because I was hungry.

Growl~

“Ah.”

Was that the smell of pork stir-fry? It smelled really good. I couldn’t wait to eat. Thinking about it, my stomach growled loudly.

“Um, if you wait at the table, I’ll bring it to you soon!”

Although her words were meant to spare me embarrassment, the embarrassment didn’t fade.

In the end, it was all Ji-hye’s fault.

If she had just prepared dinner last night, this wouldn’t have happened.

If this morning’s breakfast wasn’t satisfactory, I could become a terrible employer.

What just happened was beyond embarrassing—it was humiliating.

I moved to the dining table and sat down to wait for breakfast.

Ji-hye’s promise to bring it quickly wasn’t an empty one, as she busily moved around preparing the food.

‘How much did she make?’

Just the visible side dishes exceeded seven kinds, and more kept coming.

Bracken salad, pork stir-fry, seaweed soup, meatballs, napa cabbage kimchi…

…egg rolls, shishito peppers, sweet potato sticks, and seasoned squid.

Even with just these, it was a feast.

Would all of that fit in my stomach?

There were so many side dishes it made me question it.

‘She did say she was confident in cooking.’

I thought she had dexterous hands when she sliced the apple in a checkered pattern, but

I never imagined she would cook this well.

I hadn’t tasted the food yet, but just seeing it was satisfying enough.

“All done!”

Ji-hye, having moved the last dish, sat across from me.

She looked at me with eager eyes.

I took a spoonful of seaweed soup first.

“Hmm…”

With my dull taste buds, I’m not great at describing flavors. To put it simply, this seaweed soup was the best I’d ever had.

“Tasty.”

“Really? Thank goodness…”

Maybe she was worried I would say it wasn’t good.

Seeing Ji-hye sigh in relief made me smile.

With that, I started my breakfast in a good mood.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

There are 10 days left until the ‘Representative Selection’ that marks the beginning of the Platform Battle.

Most high-tier LoL streamers and BJs were conducting scrim broadcasts.

Among the many scrim broadcasts, the most popular was, of course, Team ‘Curry Breakers’ scrim broadcast.

The streamer had previously captured both fun and skill, and the new streamer ‘Barcode’, who joined in place of an injured member, brought immense buzz.

Before streaming, Barcode was famous as the ‘Mysterious Yone Master’, forming an image of being good only at Yone.

However, Barcode had never used Yone in the scrim broadcasts.

No, it wasn’t that Barcode didn’t use Yone, but couldn’t.

As the ‘Mysterious Yone Master’ was famous, Yone was always banned.

Barcode had to use other champions in every scrim.

Even with other champions, Barcode perfectly dominated the game flow and carried.

This repeated not once, not twice, but over ten scrims.

As results different from the established image kept coming out, the perception of Barcode had to change. From a player exceptionally good at Yone to a player with excellent game sense who could handle all champions.

Great at games, wealthy, goddess-level beauty, current challenger.

Such topics kept circulating, and they never cooled down.

As Barcode continued to rise in popularity…

An announcement was uploaded to Curry’s fan cafe.

[Tonight’s scrim opponent: ‘Curry Breakers’]

Curry’s sudden announcement without any prior notice

quickly spread, drawing tremendous attention.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After eating the lunch Ji-hye prepared, I was about to warm up with a quick solo queue game before streaming.

Jericho called on Discord, and I canceled the matchmaking to answer the call.

“What’s up?”

“Tomorrow evening, we have a scrim scheduled with ‘Ohapjijon’.”

As usual, Jericho called to inform me of the scrim schedule.

“Ohapjijon…”

The team name Jericho mentioned sounded familiar.

Who was the captain of that team?

After some thought, I remembered which streamer had formed ‘Ohapjijon’.

Just thinking of that streamer’s nickname brought a smile to my face.

“That’s Curry’s team, right?”

“Yes, it’s a team we absolutely must beat.”

Currently, there were two teams considered the strongest contenders for the Twitch championship.

One was ‘Curry Breakers’, led by Jericho.

The other was ‘Ohapjijon’, led by Curry.

Although these two championship contenders had not met in a tournament yet,

with scrims scheduled between Curry Breakers and Ohapjijon, there was bound to be a lot of attention.

Another incident like the previous one could occur, but

this time, we had managers and chatbots to manage the chatroom.

I wasn’t worried. In fact, I was looking forward to tomorrow’s scrim.

“It’ll be fun.”

“Assuming we win, of course.”

“Losing with a name like that could be amusing in its own way, don’t you think?”

“No. It wouldn’t be fun. Seriously.”

I half-jokingly said, but Jericho seriously denied my joke.

“I’ll go inform the other team members about tomorrow’s schedule.”

Beep-

Jericho ended the call.

Did he not like my joke?

Usually, he would chat a bit more before leaving.

After Jericho left, I sent a message to Ji-hye.

Originally, I planned to warm up with a solo queue game before streaming, but the anticipation for the special scrim was too strong, and I didn’t want to play a regular solo queue.

I messaged Ji-hye that I was going to start streaming now.

Soon after, I received a message from Ji-hye, full of determination, saying she was ready.

All that was left was to start the stream, but I felt a bit worried.

‘Will she do well?’

But since she had been trained by the expert managers from Curry Room, I believed Ji-hye would handle the manager role well and started the stream.

[Live]

[Follow-only mode (7 days)]

As soon as the stream started, follow-only mode was activated.

Ji-hye, who had been given manager privileges in advance, must have activated it.

Shortly after the stream started,

[Let’s go~ Let’s go~ Let’s go~ Let’s go~ Let’s go~ Let’s go~ Let’s go~ Let’s go~]

[Evil streamer Barcode, explain yourself! Evil streamer Barcode, explain yourself! Evil streamer Barcode, explain yourself!]

[Why are you late? Why are you late? Why are you late? Why are you late? Why are you late? Why are you late?]

[Is this the stream of the streamer who ghosted without explaining?]

[Explain why you didn’t stream yesterday!!!!]

[You crossed the line this time]

[Act cute and win back the audience]

[One cute act and no explanation needed]

Viewers who received the stream notification started flooding in.

It was hard to believe follow-only mode was activated.