Chapter 49: “Oh, that’s right.”

It was all very confusing at first.

Honestly, when I saw the name, I couldn’t figure out who it was.

It was hard to immediately associate the appealing name “Jeong Gyeoul” with “Omniscient Cthulhu,” after all.

So, without much thought, I replied.

[Me: Who is this?]

“Who could this be?”

It was a name I’d never seen before.

How did they get my contact info, and why were they reaching out?

I considered blocking them until:

[Jeong Gyeoul: ??]

[Jeong Gyeoul: Aren’t you Dama?]

[Jeong Gyeoul: If not, my apologies.]

“Oh.”

At that moment, I made the connection between the name and the person.

[Me: Oh, sorry.]

[Me: Your name and your image don’t match at all, so I got confused.]

Still, I couldn’t help but think how beautiful the name was.

A person named “Gyeoul” (Winter)?

I’d never heard a name like that in my life.

While marveling at the uniqueness of it, I looked at my phone.

[Jeong Gyeoul: You scared the hell out of me.]

[Jeong Gyeoul: I thought it wasn’t your contact info.]

[Jeong Gyeoul: Why are you acting clueless after giving me your number? LOL]

[Me: Sorry, sorry.]

[Me: By the way, is that your profile picture?]

The profile showed the face of a young woman.

Long black hair and a gentle expression resembling a golden retriever.

The kind of face that might make you stop and take a second glance if you saw her on the street.

[Jeong Gyeoul: Yeah.]

[Jeong Gyeoul: But why don’t you have a profile picture?]

[Jeong Gyeoul: Why am I the only one exposed here?]

Then came the unexpected question.

But I handled it smoothly.

[Me: (Photo)]

[Me: Here.]

I randomly sent one of the photos in my gallery.

Then—

[Jeong Gyeoul: Oh my God.]

[Jeong Gyeoul: I asked for a face picture.]

[Jeong Gyeoul: Why did you send a frog’s face?]

It seemed I’d accidentally sent a picture of a frog.

[Me: Just imagine that’s my face.]

[Me: LOL.]

I didn’t feel like revealing my face anyway.

After all, I never asked Jeong Gyeoul to reveal hers in the first place.

She should’ve thought to remove it from her profile if she didn’t want it seen.

With that thought, I continued the conversation.

[Jeong Gyeoul: Oh, come on, what’s with the frog?]

[Jeong Gyeoul: Just tell me later, then.]

[Me: Okay.]

It wasn’t wise to make an open-ended verbal promise, but it seemed Jeong Gyeoul didn’t have much social experience.

Feeling a bit sorry for her, I sent another message.

[Me: I’ll send you a message before tomorrow’s stream starts, so check it out if you’re free.]

[Me: If you’re not available, just have someone else handle it.]

[Jeong Gyeoul: Okay, sounds good.]

And so, the conversation with Jeong Gyeoul—also known as “Omniscient Cthulhu”—came to an end, and I put my phone down.

At that moment, a thought struck me.

“Everyone acts like complete lunatics online.”

But in reality, they turned out to be normal more often than not when you actually saw their faces.

Why people with perfectly decent appearances would spill their unfiltered desires onto the internet like that was beyond me.

Shaking my head in disbelief, I laid down on my bed.

“Whew.”

Though I had talked to guys plenty of times in my life, this was the first time I felt this tense.

It wasn’t like I wasn’t used to conversations or hadn’t spoken to this person before.

Still, I found myself unusually nervous.

Relieved that I hadn’t made any major mistakes, I looked at her name again.

[Lee Ji-hoo]

“What a nice name.”

The name Lee Ji-hoo had a certain charm.

I used to think she was a woman working a public service job, but now I knew most of what she said had been lies.

It made sense, though.

Being perceived as a “woman” on the Efreet Gallery must’ve made things easier for her.

“Lee Ji-hoo.”

Lee Ji-hoo.

It felt oddly familiar.

So I thought about it deeply.

I was sure I’d heard the name somewhere before.

But no matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn’t recall where.

“Ugh…”

Letting out a sigh at my inability to remember, I logged into the Efreet Gallery.

There, I posted a new thread.

[Author: Omniscient Cthulhu]

[Title: Sure, sure, your big sister here owns Dama’s number.]

[Content: Be jealous, everyone.]

Of course, it wasn’t like I had her actual number.

I could only contact her through a messaging app.

“Though if I really wanted to, I could probably figure out her number…”

But that would cross a line into invading her privacy.

After all, she hadn’t given me her number willingly.

Knowing her number could lead to complications I didn’t want to deal with.

With that in mind, I kept browsing the gallery.

And then, the next day.

As usual, I came home and was about to start my stream when—

“Ah, right.”

Before starting the stream, it was now a given to contact Jeong Gyeoul first.

This wasn’t like back when my streams were small.

Now, the scale had grown significantly.

Of course, compared to other streamers, it wasn’t all that large.

But still—

‘For me, this is an incredible achievement.’

It was a big accomplishment for me.

The number of viewers had grown tenfold from twenty to two hundred.

That might sound simple, but considering how many streamers remain stuck with twenty viewers for their entire careers, it was nothing to scoff at.

Thinking about that, I sent her a quick message.

[Me: Hey, hey]

[Me: I’m about to start the stream now.]

[Me: Hop in right away.]

[Me: It’s urgent.]

If she wasn’t available, I could always assign someone else as a temporary manager.

With that thought in mind, I immediately started the stream.

[The broadcast has begun!]

As the notification went out, viewers started joining.

At the same time, my phone vibrated.

[Jeong Gyeoul: Oh, hang on.]

[Jeong Gyeoul: I’m outside right now.]

[Jeong Gyeoul: I’ll join quickly.]

[Jeong Gyeoul: Hold on.]

Hmm, now I felt a bit bad.

I hadn’t meant for her to rush back home to manage the stream, just to help out if she had the time.

So, I quickly sent another message.

[Me: No need to rush.]

[Me: I just meant to join if you had time.]

[Me: I didn’t mean to drag you away from your plans.]

With that, I shifted my focus back to the stream and greeted the audience.

“Hello, everyone.”

[Viewers: 34]

In an instant, I had already broken my previous record for peak viewership at the start of a stream.

It felt a bit surreal as I glanced at the chat.

[Kang Hoomin: Give me the number, give me the number, give me the number, give me the number, give me the number, give me the number, give me the number!]

[Ah, damn it, Hoomin, do you want to die?]

[He starts begging for numbers as soon as he joins, lololol.]

[Such a desperate guy, lol.]

[Just ban people like him already.]

[Why isn’t there a manager today?]

[Hwanhee: Where’d the manager go?]

[Oh, here we go again, Hoomin acting up as usual.]

Kang Hoomin spamming the chat wasn’t exactly surprising.

He was known for pulling stunts like this.

Honestly, it was just something everyone had gotten used to.

“All right, Hoomin, knock it off.”

[Kang Hoomin: Nah, I don’t want to, lol]

Temporary ban applied!

[Ka]

[This is it, lol]

[Kang Hoomin immediately banned]

[Rest up, Hoomin. Rest up, Hoomin. Rest up, Hoomin. Rest up, Hoomin. Rest up, Hoomin.] Hoomin.

[It’s kind of amazing that he gets banned right after the stream starts.]

[What a remarkable friend.]

[Is this really okay?]

It wasn’t the first time Hoomin was causing trouble, after all.

At this point, I was used to it.

And seeing that he was active in the Efreet gallery, I didn’t think he was a bad person, so I just let him be temporarily banned.

If it was really disruptive, I would’ve just banned him outright.

Since it didn’t feel too disruptive, I handled it this way.

It was kind of like WWE.

When Kang Hoomin caused trouble, I responded with a temporary ban—that was the deal.

If he crossed the line, it would become more like UFC.

That’s what I was thinking when suddenly—

[Omniscient Cthulhu: Haha, what’s up with that?]

[Omniscient Cthulhu: Why is that person on the temporary ban list as soon as they join?]

[Manager surprised by Hoomin’s troublemaking abilities, lol]

[Really impressive troublemaking skills, lol]

[But it’s a bit annoying how he knows how to stir trouble without getting banned…]

[Hwanhee: Let’s play the game already]

[Hwanhee is bored]

The manager was back.

Actually, it was Jeong Gyeoul, to be precise.

After seeing Jeong Gyeoul’s face, it felt a bit awkward to see her chatting like this.

‘She looks like a pretty teacher from school.’

It didn’t quite match up, and I thought that as I opened my mouth.

“Okay, let’s not talk about the person who got temporarily banned. Let’s just play the game. We need to hit Diamond today.”

We had to reach Diamond today.

No one forced me, but that was the decision I made.

Let’s go for Diamond.

[Omniscient Cthulhu: Diamond sounds good]

[Let’s go for Diamond]

[Hwanhee: We suddenly went on a losing streak last time, lololol]

[If we hadn’t lost so much, we’d have hit Diamond by now]

[It’s because of the matchmaking rigging, right?]

[What’s matchmaking rigging?]

[Ugh]

[Please, short-term players, stick to your own regions…]

Just as I was about to start the game, I got a notification.

Ding-.

“Oppa, I’ll be there in a bit~”

Lee Yeram brought a friend.

Ah, right.

She had said she would bring a friend.