Chapter 56: The Race to the Top

After waking up, PaePae went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face.

In an instant, his brain was awake.

It wasn’t the healthiest way for his heart, but he couldn’t resist the sensation—it felt too good.

He wiped the water from his body and changed into casual clothes.

Then, he brewed some black tea, poured it into a thermos, and headed to the broadcast room.

The broadcast room wasn’t anything special.

It just had a computer and a treadmill.

In the past, he had to install soundproof booths and other things, which was inconvenient, but nowadays, technology had progressed so much that with just a small renovation, perfect noise insulation could be achieved.

Though it was several times more expensive than a soundproof booth, so unless you were a broadcaster from a major company, it wasn’t common.

Anyway.

Once everything was set up, PaePae started the broadcast.

In less than 5 minutes, the viewer count exceeded 30,000.

PaePae’s live streams were usually weaker, with an average viewership of 10,000 to 20,000, meaning this was already surpassing his usual peak viewers.

There was a reason for this.

1st Place Run.

He was doing content that could only be done once during the Eternal World season.

PaePae turned on the camera and took a sip of his black tea.

< viewer donated 10,000 KRW>

• Breaking News: Han Yurim is ranked 60th in Challenger.

Immediately, a donation came in.

Normally, mentioning another broadcaster randomly could get you banned, but, like all rules, there were exceptions.

For example, collaborative streams.

If another broadcaster appeared on screen, it would be awkward not to mention them, so it was allowed.

Or if they were close friends, broadcasters also referred to them as part of their “crew.”

In PaePae’s case, there were no crew members, but he could talk freely about his old friend, Lumen, on stream (though he would restrain himself if it got too excessive).

Nowadays, Han Yurim was also included in that circle.

Moreover, Han Yurim was practically in a state of a collaborative stream.

Although they never bet on who would get 1st place first, it naturally went in that direction.

Thanks to this, the current V-TV viewers were hopping between Han Yurim’s and PaePae’s broadcasts, munching on popcorn.

PaePae set the thermos down and fell into thought.

His current rank was 38th.

It was 22 places higher than 60th, but thinking about how Han Yurim was ranked 1st in Challenger while PaePae was still at Master 1, it wasn’t exactly a great situation.

Han Yurim had been consistently tormenting the opponent, forcing surrender after surrender every 10 minutes—definitely something Han Yurim would do.

Still, from now on, the level of the game would rise, and he wouldn’t be able to force those precise surrenders anymore.

After reaching Challenger, Han Yurim’s rank climb had started to normalize.

…Though, thinking about it, it wasn’t quite normalized yet.

He had misunderstood it as being lightning-fast before. It was still going at supersonic speed.

There was no time to waste.

He quickly queued up for a Quick Match.

PaePae was a well-known skilled player in Eternal World.

He was a top-tier amateur, and because of his close relationship with the pro-level player, Lumen, his recognition spread even to people who didn’t watch internet streams.

This was the advantage of being a broadcaster who focused on popular games.

If someone played that game, even if they didn’t watch internet broadcasts, they could still be attracted.

The inflow channels were always open.

Anyway, to get back to the point, what I want to say is this:

Even the devils who were obsessed with Eternal World recognized PaePae’s exceptional skill.

His main character was powerless.

Enemy scouts harassed him, and guardians lurked, waiting for a chance to strike.

In team fights, he was always the primary target for elimination.

AOS games were generally easier for the player who set traps or initiated plays compared to the one who had to react.

If the roles were reversed, the game would become sluggish.

To react to instant CC abilities, which were maintained under the game developer’s oppressive demands, you had to be one of two things:

Either you had insane reaction speed, or you had excellent prediction skills.

For the record, PaePae had both.

From level 4, enemy scouts began to circle around PaePae’s character.

PaePae’s main character, “Metatron,” had a stacking mechanic, and it ascended in proportion to the number of stacks.

This meant that it was weak before fully stacking. All stacking characters were like that.

The enemy scout was measuring distance when, in an instant, they used a CC ability, crossing through space.

If PaePae had taken this hit, Metatron, being paper-thin, would have been instantly killed.

But in that brief moment, PaePae used his second normal skill, [Holy Spirit Armor].

Kieeng.

The armor blocked the skill and reduced all incoming damage to 1 for 1 second.

The core of Metatron’s power lay in its first normal skill, [Sword of the Covenant].

This skill had additional effects based on the ascension level, and the more it was strengthened, the greater Metatron’s carrying potential.

However, when people asked where Metatron’s skill cap lay, everyone would agree—it’s all about the timing of [Holy Spirit Armor].

The effectiveness of [Holy Spirit Armor] determined Metatron’s early-game fighting potential.

PaePae, who had flipped a losing engagement with just one skill, defeated the enemy scout and began a destructive run of operations.

As he went around racking up kills, his ascension timing accelerated unnaturally fast.

At this point, no one could stop Metatron.

Having easily won the game, PaePae drank some black tea and searched for Han Yurim’s rank.

Han Yurim: 58th

What did she do to jump to 2nd place so quickly?

In a 25-minute game, I thought I was playing really fast…

Curious, PaePae checked her match history, and the answer appeared.

[Victory in 10 minutes 07 seconds]
[Victory in 10 minutes 15 seconds]

He was speechless.

Wasn’t this impossible now?

What did she do to make opponents surrender so quickly in Challenger?

He didn’t even want to look into the game details out of fear.

PaePae took another sip of his tea to calm his nerves.

Eternal World is a mental game.

To win, you had to play mechanically, without letting emotions interfere.

PaePae quickly queued up for another Quick Match and destroyed the game once more. 15-minute surrender.

This would be impressive, even for Han Yurim…

[Victory in 7 minutes 01 second]

“???????”

Has anyone ever flipped a pot of ramen over right after starting to cook it?

That’s exactly how PaePae felt.

He was completely baffled.

“What the heck did she do?”

Eternal World is never supposed to end in under 10 minutes.

If you find a game that ends in 10 minutes, you should immediately run away—Rule 1.

If you spot Han Yurim, make sure to lock the door—Rule 1.

PaePae couldn’t resist watching the replay.

And quickly turned it off.

It was too gruesome to watch.

Crazy girl, haha, she’s tormenting until someone quits.

If I get the open, the game ends in 7 minutes.

Note that.

Destroying a Challenger’s mental stability is something else.

I never thought Noa Weber could be used like that.

PaePae muttered to himself.

This is going to need an emergency patch.

The way Han Yurim just used Noa Weber wasn’t only effective in Challenger, but also in tournaments.

Even Nobel, who had been slacking off in solo ranks, was still very careful about tournaments.

Maybe one of the pro players just shattered the game using Noa Weber, and they’ll probably hotfix it right away.

This kind of thing had been very familiar to PaePae, who had known Han Yurim for a long time.

This is bad.

Challengers get information quickly.

So, most strategies get countered fast…

But what does it mean for it to work even at the pro level?

It means that even if you know about it, you can’t stop it.

The only way to stop that is to ban it.

Seeing Han Yurim’s climbing speed accelerate again, PaePae quickly queued for another Quick Match.

Honestly, whether PaePae or Han Yurim gets to 1st place first wasn’t a big deal to him.

While Han Yurim had gotten fixated on reaching 1st place first for some reason, PaePae didn’t mind either way. He would just go along with it.

It didn’t matter.

That was the truth.

But that didn’t mean he was okay with losing.

Even though it was just a friendly bet, he still didn’t want to lose.

Normally, men didn’t like losing in situations like this.

PaePae checked his win rate and calculated how many more games were needed to reach 1st place.

His current win rate was 74%, and considering the difficulty increases as you climb, it would probably be in the upper 60% range soon.

Even if he won every game, he’d still need over 30 matches, so realistically, he needed at least 50 more games.

Could he do it?

PaePae’s daily game limit was 10 matches.

This was the max, and he usually played much less.

Each match required a lot of focus, so it couldn’t be helped.

Calculating the numbers, it would take at least 5 more days to reach 1st place, but considering Han Yurim’s climbing speed, she would definitely surpass him within that time.

Let’s try to make it in 4 days.

If he maintained his win rate with the max number of games each day, it wouldn’t be impossible.

After a while, a game was found, and PaePae chose Metatron.

There was still a long way to go.

Several days passed.

Maybe it was because he had a new sense of purpose, or maybe his skills had finally improved a level.

PaePae achieved an incredible winning streak, reaching 10th place in Challenger.

It was faster than expected.

However, PaePae didn’t let his guard down.

Han Yurim: 11th

Han Yurim was catching up with him at an even faster pace.

But Han Yurim has more games over 30 minutes now.

I’m still in the lead for now.

Thud. The game was found.

The opposing team made their pick.

Thierry.

PaePae didn’t even need to look at the chat to know.

He had finally matched with Han Yurim.