Chapter 32 : Only Girl

Thanks to Jericho actively embracing my suggestion, the team name became “Curry Breakers.”

After the team name was decided, we waited until the last team member arrived.

To be honest, I didn’t really know who the streamer Latte was, so while waiting, I did some research about him.

Streamer Latte.

Unlike other LoL-related streamers, Latte was 34 years old this year.

Normally, physical abilities decline rapidly as one gets older, but streamer Latte seemed to shatter that stereotype.

He was the living legend of LoL, maintaining his Grand Master rank with overwhelming physical abilities, compensating for his lack of strategic thinking.

‘He’s married and has a steady job…’

What was surprising was that Latte, despite being a Grand Master, was also a typical family man with a stable job and a home.

Balancing work and family, yet maintaining Grand Master status purely through physical prowess?

It was almost hard to believe someone like him existed, as he was far from ordinary.

“Oh, I got a message from Latte. He said it’s going to be hard today.”

“Really? I wanted to greet him, but I guess that’s a shame.”

“Yeah, it seems like we should meet tomorrow evening to properly introduce ourselves and go over the schedule. Is tomorrow evening okay for you?”
I couldn’t immediately answer Jericho’s question.

If it were evening, it would be the time when Curry would be streaming solo queue, which meant it was prime time to target him.

After a brief moment of hesitation, I decided to take a step back for the sake of moving forward, and finally spoke up.

“Yeah. That’s fine.”

“Ah, then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Ding-

With Jericho leaving, I was left alone in the call room.

Since there was no reason for me to stay alone, I quickly left the call room as well.

“I’m so tired…”

Lately, I had been sacrificing my workout time to stream, and it was wearing me out.

Today, even after the stream ended, I stayed in front of my computer for over 30 minutes, so the exhaustion I was feeling was on another level.

I turned off the computer and threw myself into bed, and it wasn’t long before I fell asleep.

The news of streamer Ain, who was responsible for the mid-lane role in Jericho’s team, getting injured shocked many people.

Of all times, why did it have to happen right before such an important platform match?

When Jericho, who was close to Ain, revealed the details of the incident, many fans couldn’t help but worry. There was concern not just for Ain’s injury, but also that Jericho’s team might disband because of it.

However, with Jericho’s announcement today, those worries were completely dispelled.

The announcement revealed that they had found a replacement for Ain, who couldn’t participate due to the injury.

When it was revealed that the replacement was none other than the recently rising female challenger, ‘Barcode’, many fans went wild with excitement and anticipation for the upcoming joint stream.

And now, I was preparing for a joint stream that wasn’t originally planned.

Before Jericho posted the announcement, I had suggested, “How about we all do a joint stream together?”

Antenna and Cooldog readily agreed with no issue.

With more than half of the team, including Jericho, agreeing to the joint stream, I couldn’t really refuse.

Besides, I had been thinking positively about the joint stream from the start, so I had no reason to decline.

There was only one hour left until the scheduled time.

I could have waited to start the stream closer to the time, but since I didn’t have anything else to do, I went ahead and started the broadcast.

[Live]
After starting the stream, I played some music and briefly went to the bathroom.

By the time I came back, the viewer count had already risen to 3,000.

I glanced to the side and noticed the word “Baha” repeatedly popping up in the chat.

It seemed like people were shortening “Barcode Hi” to “Baha,” and every time I saw these kinds of abbreviations, it felt strange, almost like I had truly become a streamer.

Well, it’s pretty funny to think I wouldn’t feel like a streamer after putting in this much effort.

[Baha~]

[Is it true that you joined Jericho’s team?]

[Barcode, please say hi 1st try]

[Why didn’t you take Barcode with you, Curry?]

[You got roasted so badly during the joint stream that you’d get trauma, why would you take her?]

[Barcode, please say hi 2nd try]

[Honestly, if I were Curry, I’d have taken Ronin Swordsman]

[Barcode is just a Yone one-trick, right?]

[Fact: Ronin Swordsman is also a Yassuo one-trick]

[Info: Barcode is good at Yassuo too]

[Heh… he knows how to handle her brothers well…]

Scrolling up the chat, I picked a particularly provocative message to read aloud.

“Barcode, please say hi 3rd try. Hello.”

I then checked the chat history of the user who was spamming such messages.

[qyer1723’s chat log]
07:53:20: Barcode, please say hi 59th try
07:53:22: Barcode, please say hi 60th try
07:53:24: Barcode, please say hi 61st try
00:01:12: Barcode, please say hi 1st try
00:01:14: Barcode, please say hi 2nd try
00:01:16: Barcode, please say hi 3rd try

Was this person the embodiment of trolling?

The viewer with the ID qyer1723 only ever typed the message, “Barcode, please say hi n-th try.”

Even when I scrolled to the very top, the first chat was yet another attempt to provoke by asking for a greeting.

“Well, congratulations on finally getting a response. As a reward, I’ll gift you a ban.”

I moved my mouse and swiftly executed the troll’s punishment, then distanced myself from the microphone to clear my throat so it wouldn’t be picked up on stream.

“Now, for everyone who already knows, let me briefly explain for those who don’t. I’ll be playing mid-lane for Jericho’s team.”

[Wasn’t that Jericho-style trolling?]
[What’s going on here?]
[Ain’s injury is why it’s happening, so it’s not weird.]
[Then why ditch Curry and join Jericho’s team?]

I couldn’t ignore the chat any longer, so I quickly spoke up.

“It’s not that I ditched Curry, it’s that Curry ditched me.”

[Eh?]

[What does that even mean?]

[Ahhh, I get it now.]

“No wonder Curry’s mid was Ronin Swordsman.”

[If Curry’s a hater, it makes sense.]

Watching the chat’s atmosphere shift, I couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly.

With a poker face, I continued.

“Since the joint stream, he hasn’t contacted me… no recruitment offers either… Ah, but please don’t go blaming him in his stream or anything.”

[Wow, didn’t expect that from Curry.]

[He lured you in with the joint stream, then cut you off.]

[This is totally Curry’s fault]

[??? : I will destroy Curry for ditching me… That’s all I’ve thought about from the start.]

[Let’s teach him a lesson when we meet in the tournament.]

[This is the biggest mistake of his life .]

As I chatted with the viewers, the time flew by quickly.

Before I knew it, there were only about 20 minutes left until the joint stream.

Ding-

I checked Discord after hearing a sudden notification sound.

It was a message from Jericho, saying that Latte wanted to say hello in advance.

Though we’d all greet each other during the joint stream, there was no harm in greeting early, so I joined the call with Jericho and Latte.

“Ah, you’ve arrived. Latte, this is Barcode, who’s going to be taking over mid for Ain.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m streamer Latte.”
“Th-This is streamer Barcode. Nice to meet you.”

Even though I had done this yesterday, introducing myself as a streamer still felt awkward.

“If I ever do anything rude because of my awkwardness, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”

“Well, how about we skip the formalities and just speak casually?”

“Ugh, if it feels that awkward, I’ll just speak casually.”

[-Awkward-]

[Latte’s reaction to casual speech is hilarious ]

[Awkward]

[Spit it out, Barcode!]

[Ah… feels so refreshing.]

[Nothing beats Latte’s awkward formal speech]

[Forbes ranked him #1 streamer who’s most natural when speaking casually.]

It seemed like the viewers, too, were struggling to get past Latte’s awkward use of formal speech.

Honestly, I had been wondering if maybe it was just me who thought it was weird, but thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who found it awkward.

“Wait… is my formal speech that weird?”

“Latte , should I just tell you honestly?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s really weird.”

“You stay after this.”

“…You know I’m just joking, right?”

Even as I mumbled it with a sheepish voice, it only made my words sound less convincing.

I had no idea what Latte’s “stay” meant, but it was clear from Jericho’s reaction that he was afraid of whatever “stay” was.

Ding-

Ding-

“Hi~”

“Hello.”
As the time for the collaborative stream approached, Antenna and Cooldog also joined the call.

“Now that everyone’s here, let’s quickly discuss today’s collaboration. Is anyone not streaming yet?”

No one responded to Jericho’s question. This meant everyone had started their streams, and after confirming there were no issues, Jericho continued.

“The schedule’s tighter than expected, so we were supposed to do some greetings and stuff, but the most important thing right now is the Platform Battle. The key thing here is to sync up for that, right? We’ve already done the introductions, so let’s skip that and jump straight into the scrims. That’s the end of today’s collaboration, folks.”

“I heard you were preparing a lot, Jericho, but is that really it?”

“What, you got a problem with that?”

At Jericho’s counterquestion, Cooldog immediately closed his mouth.

Jericho, having wrapped up the opening statement swiftly and concisely, sent out the invites. As soon as I accepted, I was moved to a private room, where the opposing team for today’s practice session appeared.

Two Challengers, two Grand Masters, and one Master.

This was in line with the rules of the Platform Battle, which stated that no more than three Challengers could be on the same team at the end of a season.

“Aren’t the practice opponents a bit too strong?”

“We’ve got two Challengers and three Grand Masters, so what’s too high?”

Cooldog joked, while Antenna responded seriously.

As Antenna had pointed out, our team consisted of Jericho and me as Challengers, and the rest were all Grand Masters.

In truth, both Cooldog and Antenna were also streamers who had the skills to be Challengers, but for some reason, both had ended up finishing last season as Grand Masters.

Once all the preparations were complete, we were moved from the waiting room to the pick phase.

The banning process started, and as expected, the opposing team banned my main champion, Yone.

I briefly shifted my gaze to the chat, where many viewers seemed to be worried about me.

It was kind of funny—due to the “mysterious Yone master” image, “Barcode” had been branded as someone who could only play Yone.

To change that image, I had tried playing Yasuo on stream a few times, but it hadn’t really made much of a difference.

But here’s the interesting part: I had been maintaining a Challenger rank even before Yone was released.

Of course, I hadn’t achieved this on the current “Barcode” account. It was on another account I used to play on when I got bored.

The account I was using now was one I had accepted friend requests from various BJ (broadcasting jockey) and streamers , and I used it “for hunting” in a way. This was the account I had maintained my Challenger rank on consistently since Season 6.

For someone like me, being asked if I could play champions other than Yone was almost laughable.

“Barcode, what are you picking?”

As the pick phase approached, Jericho asked me with an almost expectant tone. The enemy mid-lane had already picked ‘Gilius’, a champion advantageous in team fight situations. Gilius was a champion that excelled against AP champions, though not necessarily weak against AD champions.

Our jungle pick, Elise, was solid, a reliable pick that wouldn’t raise any alarms.

Taking everything into account, there was only one champion I would pick. In fact, this was the perfect situation to pick this champion.

“I’ll go with Talon.”

“Alright,” Jericho responded.

Once I locked in Talon, the ban-pick phase proceeded swiftly, and the first practice match began. The invade phase passed without incident, and the laning phase kicked off.

“I’ll do the 3-level camp and then hit top,” Jericho called out.

“Got it. I’ll play it safe for now,” came Latte’s response as he set up for a gank-friendly lane.

“If we pull him, we can catch him.”

“Oh, I missed the pull. But at least other one used his flash.”

As Cooldog and Antenna were dominating their lanes, suddenly—

**[First Blood!]**

A victory announcement echoed from the mid-lane, the only lane that had remained silent up until then, signaling a completely unexpected first blood.