Chapter 13

 -Alha!

-The stream's on!

-Gold 2

-0!

Alpaca looked at the chat window flooding in at incredible speed.

He couldn't calculate the exact numbers, but compared to other days, it definitely felt much faster.

Whenever there was a collab stream, it naturally attracted more attention and more viewers.

Plus, there had been the promotional video uploaded the day before, and the viewers of Seojun—led by "Joseon's Assassin"—had also been spreading the word.

But more than anything, the biggest factor was that the twenty thousand people who had watched Seojun's gameplay on Alpaca's stream had now come to see him play live.

All those people had become curious about Seojun, and discussions about the collab kept spreading endlessly through Alpaca's fan café.

[Viewers: 4,327]

It hadn't even been a few seconds since the stream started, yet it already hit 4,000 viewers.

And the number showed no sign of stopping as it continued climbing rapidly.

Alpaca watched with a satisfied smile before timing it perfectly and diving into virtual reality.

"Tr-ha!"

The dark stream screen brightened, and Alpaca appeared in the lobby.

-Alha!

-Came to see the Nameless King

-Tr-ha

-- 人-

[Viewers: 10,000]

The viewer count had already passed ten thousand and was heading toward twenty.

"Nice to see you all. You know what today is, right?"

-Whatever, get lost old man

-As if we wouldn't know

- move Alpaca's face already

"Yeah, yeah. But seriously, this is my stream and it feels like nobody came to see me. Sigh."

Alpaca showed a disappointed expression, but the viewers reacted the same as always.

-Yeah, that's right.

-You suck, though.

-No? I came to watch Alpaca.

"Oh? Daebangeo, you came to see me?"

After years of streaming, Alpaca had developed the ability to instantly pick out a specific user's chat among countless messages.

It was an essential skill if he wanted to smoothly communicate with viewers while the chat scrolled by at lightning speed.

And then.

'The best defense is winter yellowtail Daebangeo' typed another message.

-Gotta watch the All-Nighter Challenge lol

"The All-Nighter Challenge isn't today, you bastard. Banned."

-What a damn villainkkkkkkkk

-??? Why not today?

"Why not today? Great question. Because today I need to learn how to dominate mobs. Learn from who? Alright! Let me introduce the professor who'll be teaching me today!"

Alpaca naturally continued interacting with the viewers while running the stream, then signaled toward Seojun, who was watching from outside, and shouted:

"It's streamer Jin Seojun!"

-Clap clap

-Wow lol

-Why isn't he coming?

Alpaca pointed the camera toward the lobby spawn point and waited.

An awkward silence followed, and when the wait started exceeding normal loading times, Alpaca—unable to leave dead air on stream—started blurting out random things.

"Huh? Why isn't he here? Seojun-nim, if you're watching the stream, please hurry up and get in. I'm getting awkward here. Hey! Manager, what are you doing?!"

-Phone collab? kkkkk

-What if the collab isn't even today?

"It's not a phone collab. We're even doing an offline after-party later."

At that moment—

A notification appeared on Alpaca's friend window.

He had received a whisper.

"Oh? A message came in. Wait—did something happen?"

Worried that there was some kind of problem, Alpaca quickly opened the whisper.

And the content was something he had never expected.

[Um, I don't know how to get to Alpaca-nim's lobby. Could you send me an invite? Haha...]

This time, Alpaca genuinely looked awkward.

Was he serious?

Or was this some kind of stream bit?

Either way, he had to salvage the situation first.

"Uh… well, Seojun-nim hasn't even been playing Capsule for a full week yet, so please understand, everyone."

-KKKKKKKKKKKK

-The "haha" is what kills me lol

-And this guy's the professor? kkkkk

Bwaaaahhh! Bwaah!

Daebaki, Alpaca's permanent lobby companion, cried toward the sky, announcing the arrival of a new person.

"Hello. Sorry I'm late. I'm streamer Jin Seojun."

The center of the lobby lit up brightly as a character was generated and Seojun appeared.

Because things had gotten slightly tangled right from the start, Seojun greeted them with an awkward expression.

"Hahaha! It happens. I mean, technically speaking, you're still a beginner."

Seojun recalled the situation inside Capsule just moments ago—the most flustered he'd been in recent days.

Seeing that the chat didn't seem to care much, he felt relieved.

-Not knowing how to enter the lobby is a bit much though kkk

-<<<<<< trying to learn from that beginner

-It's Alpaca's fault for not preparing beforehand lol

The chatroom, packed with nearly twenty thousand people, was on a completely different level.

Messages poured in so quickly it was almost dizzying.

And Seojun had felt this before, but the atmosphere in this stream was a little savage.

Making fun of the streamer had basically become part of the content.

Every streamer's chatroom reflected their personality.

Some streamers tied their viewers up and beat them metaphorically, and the viewers actually enjoyed it. Others pursued completely clean and wholesome streams.

Out of all those styles, Seojun liked this kind of free atmosphere best.

'At least they won't roast my skills… probably…'

Surely not.

Alpaca began explaining why this collab had started in the first place.

"Alright! As everyone knows, because Seojun-nim killed the Drake, I ended up having to do the All-Nighter Challenge."

['Some Idiot' donated 1,000 won with a big donation!]

[???: If he actually succeeds, I'll take him as my master, learn from him, and do an All-Nighter Challenge until I beat the Drake solo!]

The donation timing was perfect, and Seojun burst out laughing as he remembered the events of the previous day.

"You really wanna get banned? And Seojun-nim, you shouldn't be laughing either. Sure, maybe it was my fault for saying it, but if you hadn't killed the Drake, I never would've had to do the challenge in the first place!"

"That's true. I do feel at least a little responsible toward Alpaca-nim."

"Right?"

"My mistake was not realizing that on my second day playing the game, there would be someone boldly claiming it was impossible to solo the Drake… so I just went ahead and killed it."

-"Indirect roasting" mode on!

-Translation: "Sorry, but this is your fault."

-Translation: "So what?"

-Translation: "Alpaca was the idiot."

How far were these people going to take it?

They were using his excuse to roast Alpaca instead.

Seojun and Alpaca looked at each other and laughed.

And Alpaca couldn't shake the feeling that Seojun was incredibly bold. In front of so many viewers, he didn't look nervous at all.

If anything, he looked like he was enjoying himself while casually firing back.

"Yeah. It was my fault. So please save me, Professor."

"I'll do my best, Alpaca-nim."

Everyone there—Seojun, Alpaca, and even the viewers—already knew he was beyond saving.

"Alright, alright! Anyway, today we're doing two things. First, we'll go into my game so Seojun-nim can show us how he killed the Drake while—"

-???

-Stop freeloading

-He's scheming again lol

Hooks(?) instantly filled the chat.

Seojun watched Alpaca hurriedly change the subject while making a regretful expression.

"Yeah, okay, just kidding. We're going into Professor-nim's game, and I'll learn by watching his gameplay."

In Dawn of the Assassins, there was a feature called Joint Assassination.

It was a multiplayer system that allowed players to invite others into their game. The invited player could either help with assassination missions or interfere with the host.

"Oh! But I'm doing a naked assassin run too, and it looked like Seojun-nim was also playing naked assassin. Is there a special reason for that? And what basic skills did you take?"

"Hmm… I don't really have any reason, and I didn't take any skills either."

"You're saying you haven't used skills at all until now? Like the basic passive skills that increase attack speed or movement speed, or damage boosts."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Didn't really need them?"

The truth was, he simply hadn't known about them while playing.

But admitting that would make him look clueless.

So Seojun chose to package it nicely.

-Daaaamn!

-We're screwed!!! Can anyone even imitate this?

-This is what a real naked run looks like

-If Alpaca wants to act tough about naked assassin runs, he should at least be this good lol

-He really killed it without skills?

-Alpaca should reset all his skill points and replay the game immediately!

Ever since Seojun appeared, Alpaca felt like every situation was somehow turning against him.

Still, when he saw the viewer count had already reached twenty-five thousand, he felt better.

"And the skill window didn't even exist in the game interface for me."

That was why Seojun hadn't known skills even existed. Though after preparing for the collab, he had at least learned they were a thing.

"When you go to the tavern for your first request, Christina noona unlocks the skill window for you."

"Ah. I greeted her right after the tutorial ended, but I never went back to the tavern afterward. That must be why."

Now it made sense.

Suddenly, while talking, Alpaca realized something strange.

"Wait a second. Then why exactly did you kill the Drake? It's not like the Assassin Guild gave you the quest."

"I got dragged in by a gang member while pickpocketing at the market."

"Ah…?"

Seojun said it casually, but Alpaca's expression changed by the second.

"Ah…"

They had discussed things yesterday, but even then he hadn't heard details like this.

-wwwww This guy's becoming an all-nighter victim because of a pickpocket wwwww

-What kind of master is a pickpocket criminal lol

-Is he really a pro? kkkkk

"Haha. Well, that happens. You protected the peace of the marketplace, haha… anyway. The second thing today is related to those skills."

That was why Alpaca had brought up skills earlier.

Alpaca opened up a window.

"This is a screenshot of my skill window."

An enlarged image of a locked skill description appeared.

[Weakness Detection]

[Unlock Condition: Destroy 10 weapons by striking their weak point (2/10)]

-lol you're actually trying this?

-No way.

-What even is that?

People interested in the game immediately recognized what the image meant, while casual players asked for an explanation.

"Alright, let me explain. Everyone, have you ever seen a video like this?"

The newly played video showed the following:

A player attacked a specific point on an enemy's rapier, causing it to shatter into pieces.

The same result happened with identical rapiers held by other NPCs, and even with different attacking weapons—as long as the correct point was struck.

Then a notification appeared afterward.

[Unlock Condition: Destroy 10 weapons by striking their weak point (2/10)]

The video ended there.

"You know how fantasy novels have the concept of a 'weak point' in objects, right? A vulnerable spot where something can easily be split apart! If we find ten of those, we can obtain the skill called Weakness Detection!"

So far, only two weak points had been discovered.

One was the rapier from the video, which had spread online after being accidentally broken.

The other was for a longsword, discovered through an NPC encountered during a side quest who explained the concept of weak points.

-So how are we supposed to find them lol

-What's the pattern?

-Nobody knows.

-But what kind of skill is Weakness Detection?

"We don't know what kind of skill it is. It's the last locked skill remaining. So yesterday, just in case, I asked Seojun-nim whether he might be able to find the weak points since he's so skilled."

-Why are you fulfilling your personal desires during a collab stream?

"Why? You guys aren't bothered by an un-unlocked skill sitting there forever?!"

-Then why invite the professor to solve it for you lol

"Because I'm not skilled enough!"

-So confident! Alpaca!

-So what's the conclusion?

"Yep. The conclusion is that after watching the video, Seojun-nim said he thinks he understands the pattern behind the weak points. Right?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Seojun shrugged.

As always, with a relaxed expression.

-??? Tone down the bluffing

-He's forcing it too hard lol

-How could anyone know that?

-Is Boss Alpaca's business closing today? lol

"So! Today's challenge is whether or not we can discover it during the stream!"

This was, in truth, the main content of the broadcast.

Weak points? Ruler? Lessons? All of it had just been buildup for this.

[Channel Point Predictions have begun]

The infamous thing that drove viewers insane.

-Let's gooo!

-Boss Alpaca! Take all my points!

-This bet's easy today hehe

At that moment, nobody knew.

That the biggest upset in the history of Travel was about to happen.