Chapter 42: Guardian’s Gamble: Turning Boredom into Entertainment

This effort aims to refresh veteran players and bring new energy to the game.

However, immediately after the first half of the season, major changes were rare, with only minor balance patches being applied.

Yet, Thierry remained untouched.

This sparked plenty of discussion among players.

Thierry currently holds the lowest pick rate in the game.

While romanticized characters can be fun, they still need occasional victories to maintain appeal.

But with Thierry’s win rate practically nonexistent, even casual players avoided him.

Naturally, players expected Thierry to receive buffs in this mid-season patch—maybe increased skill damage or improved health and defense.

Instead, the result was complete neglect.

If he were an unpopular character with low profitability, that might make sense.

But Thierry had high skin sales despite his low pick rate, making him an oddity.

Considering the game developer’s usual approach, adjustments seemed inevitable.

The lack of changes was so baffling that conspiracy theories began circulating among the player base:

“Isn’t this all Han Yurim’s fault?”

From my perspective, this theory was absurd.

The game company isn’t some notebook RPG where a single player dictates updates.

They wouldn’t adjust patches just because of one user…

Wait, they have done that before.

Still, I’d been behaving this time, playing quietly without stirring up trouble.

The company wasn’t buffing or ignoring Thierry to spite me, right?

Honestly, Thierry wasn’t even that bad. He was perfectly usable.

I continued reviewing the patch notes, carefully examining changes to other characters.

It seemed the developers were trying to shift the gameplay toward earlier stages of the game, buffing early-game champions to encourage a snowballing meta.

Curious about how impactful these changes were, I entered practice mode and selected one of the newly buffed characters.

I tested objectives, engaged in combat with AI, and experimented with skill combos.

After about ten minutes of testing, a question popped into my mind: If this character is this strong, how are the others?

I switched to another character and repeated the same testing routine.

Ten minutes passed.

Another thought struck me: If this one is this good, then what about the rest…?

This process repeated as I diligently examined each patched character, one by one. To gauge the impact of the updated objects, I even used unpatched characters to interact with them.

Then, unexpectedly:

<User ᄋᄋ has donated 1,000 KRW.>
— Turn on the stream, you piece of sht.*

Startled, I checked my setup and realized donations were still enabled. It must have been set to auto-enable. I immediately switched it to manual mode. Privacy is essential, after all.

<User ᄋᄋ has donated 1,000 KRW.>
— Please turn on the stream and play the game.

After adjusting the settings but not disabling donations, the alerts continued to chime.

But how did they know I was gaming without streaming?

The tone of the messages gave away their origin. To confirm, I opened the community page.

As soon as I clicked on the trending posts in the VR Broadcast Gallery, I saw this:

<Han Yurim Update LOL>
(A screenshot showing Han Yurim in practice mode via their friend list)

“Currently in practice mode 😂”
— Why isn’t she streaming?
└ Looks like she’s checking out the patched characters.

The first post was relatively tame.

The real trouble began with the next one:

<Is Han Yurim New to Eternal World? LOL>
(Another screenshot of me practicing with an unpatched character this time)

“Why’d she switch to practicing with old characters midway through checking the patched ones?”
— How should we know, jeez?
└ The objects were updated this patch. Maybe she’s checking that out?
┗ The movement speed increased by 1. How much could it really change?

So that’s what it was—my loyal fans were feeding each other real-time updates about me. For a moment, I thought someone had installed CCTV in my house.

At least this made resolving the issue straightforward.

I set my game status to “offline” and continued practicing in peace.

<User ᄋᄋ has donated 1,000 KRW.>
— Open the door.

I also disabled donations. Finally, I could enjoy my gaming life uninterrupted.

Time passed.

As the day faded into evening and my friends in Paris began their day, I finally turned on the stream.

The chat exploded instantly.

“Stream while you play, you dumbass!”
“Abandoned us again? Again? Again? AGAIN?”
“Why even stream at this point? Just quit streaming already!”

The repetitive complaints flooded the screen, a typical day with my audience.

Ignoring the chaos, I queued up the never-before-heard Han Yurim Route True Ending BGM. I let the song play out, silently watching the chat rage, and turned on my mic just as the music ended.

“Hello, everyone.”

<User ᄋᄋ has donated 1,000 KRW.>
— Feels good playing games all day without streaming, huh?

“It wasn’t a game; it was practice mode.”

But forget the minor details—it was time to show off.

I opened the VR Store and highlighted the rankings for Even Repeaters Need Love.

Weekly domestic sales: #1.

I’d finally reached a level where I could confidently call myself a game developer.

“This game took a third of my strength to create. Please enjoy it to your heart’s content.”

If that’s just a third, what happens if you use all your strength?

“I have no idea.”

And I genuinely didn’t, since I’d never tried. Maybe I’d give it a shot someday before retiring.

<User ‘CatLeaf’ donated 100,000 KRW.>
— Are you playing Even Repeaters Need Love today?

“Thank you for the 100,000 won. Am I playing Even Repeaters Need Love? No, why would I stream my own game? I already know everything about it, so it’s hard to react naturally.”

It was such an obvious point that I hadn’t bothered mentioning it before. Still, the misunderstanding was amusing.

The chat shared my incredulity:

“Makes sense. You’ve never streamed your own games before, have you?”
“Is your memory suddenly cured or what?”
“Two-faced much? Get a clue.”

I laughed. “Let’s add this to the lore. My RP is that I can temporarily forget my own game’s content whenever I want.”

One cheeky viewer added, “My RP is cursing out anyone who pisses me off.”

Ah, another day of struggling to convey sincerity.

<User ᄋᄋ donated 1,000 KRW.>
— How about playing Eternal World today?

“I was just about to.”

I launched Eternal World. A shimmer of light revealed the Challenger emblem on my screen, accompanied by a short message:

[Congratulations! You’ve achieved Challenger rank for the first half of Season 7. Maintain your rank in the second half to enter the prize lottery.]

Curious about the prize, I asked aloud, “What’s the reward this time?”

The chat quickly informed me:

“It varies. Last time, it was a 5-night, 6-day trip to Hawaii.”

A vacation like that? Color me surprised.

How much money do they have lying around to throw out rewards like this?

“How many prizes are given out?”

The response:

“For the top-seeded 4 countries in the World Championship, they give 10 prizes each to Challenger rank players. Players below Challenger rank also get 10 each.”

So, about 20 prizes per country, totaling 80 globally. Calculating the cost, it didn’t seem that extravagant. Honestly, I could afford something similar annually if I wanted. Whoever planned this was pretty sharp—it’s cost-effective yet enticing.

“Well, I guess I’ll aim for Challenger again this season.”

I already planned to hit Challenger, but this gave me extra motivation. Excitement bubbled up as I picked my role and queued for a game.

<User ᄋᄋ donated 1,000 KRW.>
— No face cam today?

“It’s not a (‘wooden plank’), it’s a  (‘cam’).”

Here we go again.

The chat began their usual banter:

“Wooden plank, cam, wooden plank, cam—pick one already!”

Contradictory? Not at all. I always speak from the heart.

<User ‘CatLeaf’ donated 100,000 KRW.>
— I want to see your avatar.

“One moment.”

Why wasn’t my avatar on? Normally, it’s set to auto-enable. I must’ve messed with the settings while testing things yesterday.

I turned it back on and said, “There we go.”

“Can you see me?”

“Look at her responding just because someone sent 100,000 won.”

“Stage 5 entrance gal lol Stage 5 entrance gal lol”

“Looks like you can see me. The queue is up, so let’s get into the game.”

The positions in Eternal World ranked in popularity as follows: Solo Outskirts, Main Carry, Urban Core, Scout, Support, and lastly, Guardian.

As the popularity of Solo Outskirts—known for its minimal game impact—suggests, preference for positions was closely tied to their fun factor, typically following this order.

This is why Guardians were often called “point-obsessed monsters.” And honestly, it wasn’t far from the truth.

Anyway.

When matchmaking took too long, players inevitably felt bored.

Game developers often came up with solutions for this issue.

They introduced mini-games to play while waiting for matches or adjusted the mechanics to make matchmaking faster.

Ideally, matches would start instantly due to a high player base, but that was easier said than done.

So, the developers of Eternal World implemented a unique strategy:

If matchmaking times exceeded the average, the game would begin with less-selected roles assigned.

[You have been assigned the Guardian role.]

Looking at the message, I muttered softly,
“Guardian, huh.”

Ah…

Why did it have to be Guardian?

“Should I dodge?”

The Guardian role was like serving detention, staring at walls for half the game.

It wasn’t fun to play, nor was it fun to watch, which is why streamers usually dodged these matches.

But me? I’m no ordinary player. I’m a super game developer.

Of course, I had prepared for this situation long ago.

“Hold on a moment, I have an urgent matter to attend to.”

Click. I turned off the avatar.

“Classic bullsh* incoming*”

“You’re not planning to end the stream like this, are you?”

“We were wrong! We’ll even watch Guardian gameplay, so just keep the stream on!”

I locked in my pick.

[“I am the last descendant of the Dragon Clan, Chun Hye-eun.”]

The character wore a hanbok, but Eternal World had skins.

I scrolled through the options: hanbok, suit, gym uniform…

A black Gothic Lolita dress.

When I selected it, the character transformed into a black-haired, black-eyed little girl clad in Gothic Lolita attire.

I turned my avatar back on.

Suddenly, the stream displayed my avatar as a fifth-grader ‘Han Yurim’ wearing a black Gothic Lolita outfit.

With a flourish, I covered my mouth with a fan (my avatar’s) and spoke.

“‘Was it you who summoned me?’”

I even switched my voice to match ‘Han Yurim.’

If the game got boring, I could bring entertainment elsewhere.

For a super game developer, that was a simple task.

“She’s completely insane.”

That’s the charm of a VTuber.

“Mods, come watch this and reflect on your nonsense about why I wasn’t using a cam.”