Chapter 44 : Doubt

“Thank you for your hard work.”

Today, we won the scrim once again without fail.

The participants in the preliminary round were certainly of high caliber. However, perhaps because current pros couldn’t participate in this platform tournament, there was no one on the opposing team who felt difficult or challenging to deal with.

On days when there were no broadcasts, the schedule consisted solely of a few scrims. Since it was still the preseason, there was no point in climbing the ranks.

In the past, there was so much to do that time was scarce, but these days, there was an overflow of time.

“How’s the channel doing…”

Ji-hye was such a versatile person that it was hard to believe someone like her existed.

Thanks to her diligent and neat personality, the house was always clean.

To the extent that the house felt like a ruin before hiring Ji-hye.

Ji-hye’s presence was that special to me, no, it had become special.

She followed my words well, worked hard, and kept trying to do things for me on her own.

It would be strange if I didn’t grow fond of her, and now it had become a daily routine to fill my stomach with the food Ji-hye prepared.

Even from an objective perspective, Ji-hye’s appearance was outstanding.

In my heart, I wanted to keep her happily confined, no, working in our house forever.

As I pondered over various thoughts, I logged into Youtube and searched for ‘Barcode’ in the search bar.

I wanted to check if the videos that had been uploaded without my permission were taken down.

Since I gave a warning yesterday, most of the videos should have been taken down.

When I searched ‘Barcode’ on Youtube, many videos came up.

Not only videos of streamer ‘Barcode,’ but also videos about actual barcodes appeared.

There were even strange videos that seemed unrelated to the search term ‘Barcode.’

It felt as if yesterday, when dozens of videos related to me were uploaded, was just a dream.

All those videos had disappeared, and only one video related to me remained.

[Highlight / Hot Clips of ‘Streamer Barcode’ with Heavenly Looks and Skills]

It was a title that seemed very familiar.

It was a collection of highlights and hot clips that had been uploaded at least once on most Youtube channels.

I moved my mouse, as if possessed, and watched the video Ji-hye had uploaded.

– Since pets can’t chat, I’ve made it so they can’t. If you’re satisfied, type ‘woof woof’.

– Do you know that I was once called the master of Yone? I frequent the community enough to know a post titled ‘Barcode’s Mid is Freaking Huge.’

Of course, I would know, right?

– Honestly, there’s a question asking if I think I’m pretty. Well, I don’t really know if I am.

– I’ll try to handle it alone. As long as I cut off Samara first, I have the confidence to win even 4 vs 1.

When did she gather so many scenes?

There was background music suitable for the situation, and subtitles that made it easy to watch without being overly done. It wasn’t an extremely well-edited video, but it was definitely decently done.

I heard she had some experience in video editing, but only ‘for a while.’ This level of editing skill wasn’t something that could be achieved with just a ‘short’ effort.

I thought she’d just cut and upload the good parts from the full video. But looking at it, the quality of the video Ji-hye produced completely exceeded my expectations.

Maybe I’m still underestimating ‘Kim Ji-hye’ as a person? The quality of the video Ji-hye made was excellent enough to make me think so.

Knowing that Ji-hye was also good at editing, I pressed the back button.

No matter how good the quality of the video was, I didn’t want to watch a video of myself.

Back on the main page of Youtube, I looked for other videos to pass the time.

There was a customized recommendation video system commonly known as the ‘algorithm.’

Thanks to this system, I could watch entertaining videos without the hassle of searching.

But something had felt off since earlier.

Starting with the fact that there weren’t any interesting videos to watch.

No matter how many times I refreshed, my channel’s video was at the top.

More importantly, every time I refreshed, the view count of the highlight video increased significantly.

Feeling that something was off, I went back into the highlight video.

I scrolled down to check the number of comments.

[2328 comments] [Sort by]

Content: (Add public comment)

The number of comments was around 1,000 when I checked earlier.

But in that short time, the number of comments had increased by about 1,300.

I scrolled down a bit more to check the comments.

-28CircleGrandWizard (5 hours ago) [Let’s give a thumbs up if you think Barcode is cute.] (Likes 11K) (Comments 300)

-Flower of Fire (37 seconds ago) [Open the door, master! Open the door, master! Open the door, master!] (Likes 0)

-MarkDotaPPAPJamminSands (1 minute ago) [When are you coming? I’m cold… When are you coming? I’m cold… When are you coming? I’m cold…] (Likes 0)

-MetroPregnancySeatGuardianUmJungsik (2 minutes ago) [Streamer Barcode, start your broadcast! Streamer Barcode, start your broadcast! Streamer Barcode, start your broadcast!] (Likes 0)

The comment section was a chaotic mess.

Amidst it all, one comment caught my eye.

“Sigh…”

A comment that had received 11K likes.

I blocked the word ‘cute’ in the live broadcast, so now they left comments saying ‘cute’ on Youtube.

These troublemakers always do more of what they’re told not to do. Just like me.

The important thing right now wasn’t the comments.

After refreshing, the view count jumped from 250,000 to 300,000.

This rapid increase in views wasn’t possible with just my broadcast viewers.

It meant that my video was chosen by Youtube’s strange algorithm.

Contrary to my expectation that the Youtube channel wouldn’t gain much popularity.

It had only been 5 hours since the upload, and with this level of engagement, what would happen in a day?

“Ugh…”

Anyone would be troubled if things didn’t go as expected.

I could vividly feel a headache coming on from the unexpected situation.

It was fine to do live broadcasts with an average of 20,000 viewers.

But thinking that more viewers would come through Youtube videos made my head spin.

I planned to stop broadcasting after targeting Curry in this platform battle.

But with things like this, it was impossible to quit broadcasting as I pleased.

Running away after causing such a big fuss? Then annoying things would keep happening in the future.

It was too late to clean up the mess, and sniping was more fun than broadcasting so far.

Sniping or broadcasting.

It would be easy to think of doing both.

But as the saying goes, the longer the tail, the more likely it is to be caught. Eventually, the fact that streamer ‘Barcode’ was the notorious sniper ‘Nayeon Queen’ would be revealed.

Then suddenly, I had this thought.

If it was revealed that Barcode and Nayeon Queen were the same person, and Curry found out about it.

I wonder how Curry will react to me.

Thump-!

The sound of my heartbeat echoes in my ears.

The sound doesn’t easily dissipate and echoes multiple times.

In my mind, I picture Curry in shock and disbelief.

…Maybe getting caught isn’t so bad after all?

Yesterday, Curry, who was thoroughly defeated by ‘Curry Breaker,’ was lying in bed, seeking peace of mind.

The scene of Barcode’s Akali hurriedly fleeing and splitting his Maokai in half was still swirling in his mind. Curry, still unable to shake off the shock from yesterday, turned his body away from the vibration he felt next to him.

[Manager(1) Oh Seung-hwan]

Seeing that the call was from his manager, Curry sat up and leaned against the wall to answer the call.

“Did you find out?”

-Yes. I looked into it as you asked, and it was definitely strange.

The manager cleared his throat and continued slowly.

-There was no overlap between Nayeon Queen and Barcode’s records. When you first mentioned this, I honestly thought you were crazy. But as I looked into it, I got chills.

“You checked all the accounts, right? Including Barcode’s alternate accounts and Nayeon Queen’s alternate accounts?”

The manager chuckled and confidently continued.

• I’m not a slacker, I checked everything. Even the main account ‘Nayeon Princess,’ which is thought to be Nayeon Queen’s main account, almost matches the most used alternate account of Barcode from the previous co-stream. Talon, Yasuo, Yone, LeBlanc, even the less popular picks like Azir. And I checked the replays of the last co-stream as well. While there were matches with Nayeon Queen, they all dodged. It’s like trying to imply that ‘Barcode’ and ‘Nayeon Queen’ are different people. Of course, this could just be my conjecture.

“…Thanks for checking. I’ll give you a hefty bonus this month.”

• As expected of the boss! Well, I’ll be off to date my girlfriend…

Click-

As soon as the manager started bragging, Curry hung up the phone.

Normally, he would have gotten angry at the manager for bragging about his girlfriend.

But his mind was too unsettled to be angry, even at the manager’s bragging.

“How…”

How could Nayeon Queen be Barcode?

There was no definitive proof yet, but based on intuition alone, it was 100%.

Why did Barcode readily agree to join his co-stream?

Because she was the notorious sniper who had been targeting him all along.

Why did Barcode pretend to know Nayeon Queen during the co-stream?

To subtly imply that Barcode and Nayeon Queen were different people.

His mind was complicated.

His head was spinning.

Nayeon Queen, Barcode.

Both were double-edged swords for him.

Nayeon Queen was a notorious sniper, but videos related to Nayeon Queen always got a lot of views.

Barcode tormented him to the point of losing his mind during the co-stream.

But that co-stream video also went viral, greatly benefiting the long-stagnant growth of his Youtube channel.

The channel, which had been stuck at 500,000 subscribers for a while, steadily grew to 700,000 after the co-stream video was uploaded.

It was ambiguous to call them bad ties.

And it felt uncomfortable to call them connections.

Or should I say, entities?

“Sigh… This is driving me crazy.”

Once, at the fact that Nayeon Queen was actually a woman.

Twice, at the fact that she, a former sniper, debuted as a streamer.

And lastly, at the complete defeat in yesterday’s scrim.

Curry, who had been hit with three shocks in a row, swallowed three headache pills.

In a way, it was a golden opportunity to finally be completely free from ‘Nayeon Queen.’ But the problem was that there was no definitive proof that Nayeon Queen and Barcode were the same person.

“Evidence, evidence…”

As Curry pondered how to find evidence, a good idea suddenly came to mind.

The problem was that ‘Barcode’ had to snipe him while not broadcasting.

Coincidentally, Barcode had posted a notice of a one-week break, and now all that was left was for ‘Nayeon Queen’ to snipe him.

Curry, who canceled all his plans for the day to catch the big fish, started preparing for the broadcast.

Will Nayeon get caught by Curry like this..!!!?