One Man Army

Chapter 65. Provocation (1)

Monitoring Center at the main headquarters of LGN.

Chief Producer Kim WoonHo was looking at the main status bar with a nervous expression.

“The real-time viewer numbers are increasing rapidly.”

30 minutes had passed since the 30 Live Channels had just begun their first broadcast. The reaction Kim WoonHo dearly wished for finally arrived.

“Which channels are exploding? Is it Rising? DD? Terriculum?”

“Uh…… the thing, is, sir…… the other channels are just doing pretty well, but there’s this one channel that are attracting views at insane rates.”

“Is that…… One guild?

“Yes, it is, sir.”

“Wow…… Mirae’s words were right.”

As the viewership numbers were being updated real time, the number of viewers for the ‘One channel’, was increasing at an insane rate.

“Did they really reveal the Heroic Lands? Put One channel on the sub monitor.”

Kim WoonHo spoke while looking at the monitor to the right of him. The number of viewers was increasing at a rapid rate even now.

At this rate, they would record the highest number of simultaneous viewers in LGN history.

“At this rate……. No, it’s already…… a surefire jackpot?”

Channel One was already beyond a ‘jackpot’ and was now heading for LGN records, and the rest of the channels were doing pretty good as well.

Honestly, Kim WoonHo did believe that his Live Channels project would succeed, but he didn’t know that it would do so good just from the first show.

He smiled in joy and watched the channel that was attracting insane amounts of viewers.

Then…… he got absorbed into it.

***

Sanghyuk created a map for this broadcast and filmed the various areas of the Heroic Lands. Then, he released some of the footage onto the channel and disclosed a few simple facts about them.

They were the information that would be fine even if they were known by other users. The kind of facts that they would naturally learn upon coming to the Heroic Lands……. But the thing was, there were zero users in the Heroic Lands right now other than him, and as such, the information provided by him were all ‘great’ pieces of information.

The Heroic Lands was a completely different place to the desolate Hellfire Desert, so it came as a shock to the others. The contents that everyone wished for was waiting for them in the Heroic Lands.

Every time Sanghyuk, no, ‘Gale’, introduced those elements to the public, the audience exploded in the chat with passion.

The chatting server almost went down a few times as well because of the load.

However, LGN had considerably good technology regarding this field, so they could barely handle the crisis, and right now, over 5 million viewers were watching channel ‘One’.

Of course, only 2,000 people were allowed to join the main server and speak with Sanghyuk directly, but the users that watched through sub-servers reached over 5 million and was still increasing.

‘Are we really going to hit 10 million?’

Lee Mirae, who was monitoring right in front of Sanghyuk, saw the number of viewers.

It had been just an hour since the broadcast started, but it was already reaching over 5 million.

10 million viewers was a dream-like number. The highest number of viewers related to internet video game streaming was around 7.11 million.

But at this rate, breaching that record seemed so easy. The various communities online were in an uproar anyway. This was regardless of in or outside the country.

The posts and comments that appeared there could be summed up in to one sentence.

‘Watch LGN Live Channel’s channel [One]! You must see it! You absolutely must!’

Everyone was recommending channel ‘One’. Thanks to that, the other channels lost their steady influx of people, and some even lost their viewers.

With channel ‘One’ becoming such a hit, all the viewers flocked there and Sanghyuk ended up ‘stealing’ the viewers from other channels.

The guild that received the most damage among the 30 Live Channels was channel ‘Crusader’.

Originally, they were going to broadcast a guild war today, but information seemed to have leaked from somewhere, as their opponent guild got the information and registered for ‘guild protection’ for a single day. ‘Guild protection’ was very costly at 100,000 gold per day, but they boldly registered for it in thoughts of giving Crusader a blow, and as a result, Crusaders were now like lost puppies.

They prepared for a guild war, but was unable to do so, so there was no way their broadcast would go properly.

Thanks to that, the viewers that came to watch Crusader’s guild war all went over to channel One. The viewers even left messages that they would go over to channel One, so all the viewers started leaving.

In the end, Crusader recorded a pitiful 329 viewers that day, and was the overwhelming last out of the 30 channels.

Crusader was completely screwed while One soared into the skies.

The difference between the two was like night and day.

‘Gale’, who finished introducing the Heroic Lands through parts 1 and 2, started clearing the public dungeon that the users would meet first upon coming to the Heroic Lands, namely the ‘Red Swamplands’, and started clearing it in real time.

The Red Swamplands wasn’t that difficult, and the length was just sufficient. This area was split into three mini-dungeons, and Gale chose to go to the third and final mini-dungeon as well as the place where the boss monster of the swamp, Blood Anaconda, would appear.

For Gale, one hour was a long time. He already tried going through the top regions of the Red Swamps prior to the broadcast, and 40 minutes was enough if he took his time.

So, Gale progressed even slower in the broadcast and even explained some things on the way.

There were no hindrances. This place had neither monsters nor traps that were strong enough to threaten Gale.

Though, this was all in Gale’s point of view. For the normal users, the top regions of the Red Swamplands was definitely not a place they could easily pass through.

However, it was as though Gale became Bob Ross as he kept saying ‘that easy’ to put the audience into shock.

He performed feats like 1-second timed evasion like nothing, and even struck back with gapstrikes one time out of two or three. This…… was literally a freak for the normal users.

However, if they knew that this wasn’t Gale’s, no, Sanghyuk’s 100% full strength, that Sanghyuk could actually perform 0.1-second timed evasion, and use gapstrikes like it’s breathing, then they might look at Sanghyuk not like a freak but like a God.

In any case, Sanghyuk was going easy, but that was more than enough to captivate the viewers.

[Hey hey hey, is that even possible? How can he dodge at the last second like that? Just how high is his dodge rate?]

[That doesn’t happen just with a high dodge rate. Unless he could react in a split second like it’s reflex, it would be hard to dodge no matter how high his dodge rate is.]

[Wow, he’s using timed evasion like it’s a passive skill. He ain’t human, I say.]

[I also know how to use timed evasion, but doing it so quickly and naturally like that…. Even the highest-ranking users wouldn’t be able to do that.]

[This is legendary.]

[He doesn’t look all that strong in terms of attack, but his dodge timings and gapstrikes are like cheats. Like that, there’s no way monsters can do anything to him. Gapstrikes are OP against monsters.]

[Wow, now I wanna learn.]

[You can’t learn that just because you want to. How high is your VRA? Those moves require at least 250 VRA to imitate.]

[Is 250 VRA even possible?]

[I heard that the average for pro gamers is 250.]

[Mine’s 180…… Dammit, I’m quite high amongst my friends, but now I feel like I’m tiny.]

……

……

The audience kept chatting away. They could chat on the sub-servers and not on the main server where Gale would see, so they enjoyed their chat without distracting Gale.

Gale’s channel One recorded a whopping 8.97 million views and easily replaced the existing record by a large margin. Although they didn’t achieve 10 million like Lee Mirae had hoped for, but this was already a great feat.

‘You can’t get full on the first mouthful’ didn’t seem to be right here.

Channel One became a super big hit.

However, its legend had just begun.

***

“Wow, how does this make sense? Just where did the information leak?…… I’m really annoyed now.”

Guild master Iwashima Mutou of Crusader expressed his vexation and looked at the guild management members that stood next to him.

“Just where did it leak from…….”

Crusader guild was a guild that Iwashima Mutou, who was a real-estate agent in real life, had created with his acquaintances.

Iwashima Mutou was a bone-deep gamer from early childhood, as well as someone who earned a lot of money and used them in games, so there were naturally a lot of capable gamers around him.

Perhaps due to that, his Crusader guild had become one of the top guilds of Japan.

“Only the management, that is, the members standing here know about the target, right? I went my way to pick a guild that had nothing to do with us, but still looked easy to provoke…… just where did it leak?”

“I’m sorry.”

When Mutou got angry, the 7 members of the management team could only lower their heads. To them, Mutou was their president of a company as well as being their guild master.

They were actually receiving monthly wages from Mutou while they played.

“Ehem…… I want to trust the people here. No, I believe in you. So, I won’t try to find who did it. However! Our guild’s Live Channel…… I want to bring it back. Honestly, I’m too embarrassed to just leave it like this.”

Channel Crusader recorded the lowest number of viewers in the first broadcast.

116 (at the end of the broadcast).

This was worse than even some 3rd rate internet streaming on Pu TV.

Mutou, who had a bigger pride than anyone, could not accept this.

“I told you guys yesterday to think about how to attract viewers from the next broadcast, right? Everyone, go ahead.”

Mutou suppressed his anger to his best, and started discussing about how to revive the channel.

“Why don’t we go with a large-scale guild war again? This time, we’ll pick a proper opponent and show our might as a PvP-specialized guild.”

“That’s not a bad way…… but the problem is the target. To attract the disappointed viewers, we need a strong blow.”

“These days, Dark Dragon guild of Korea was famous for PvP……. Should we try touching them? They are very hot-headed so they should react if we provoke them.”

“Dark Dragon is too dangerous. They have their own live channel, and the guild master, DD is a lunatic and we don’t know what he may do.”

“Then which one?”

The management members of Crusader voiced out their opinions and burned in passion to revive their channel from the next broadcast.

“Uh…… what do you think about…… One guild?”

“One guild? Do you mean the One guild that hit a huge jackpot this time around?”

“Yes. If it’s that One guild, then it will definitely become an issue.”

“Hmm…… but if they just refuse, then there’s practically nothing we can do. This is especially the case since the members of One aren’t revealed to the public. So actually, it’s practically impossible to pick a fight with them.”

“If they refuse, then there’s a profit for us as well. Crusader, the guild that even One guild avoids! Isn’t that a good thing?”

Certainly, it made sense.

“That doesn’t sound bad. We’re just trying so…… we have nothing to lose, right?”

Mutou also nodded his head and gave positive feedback.

“And I found out that One guild is a small-elite force so if we push them with numbers, then we will win no problem. No matter how great they are, numbers are important for guild wars.”

“He’s right. If they don’t avoid it, then we will crush them, and if they do, that’s good for us. This is definitely a good idea.”

Everyone’s opinions became one.

“Good! Then our next broadcast will be this one!”

In the end, Mutou came to a decision.

One vs Crusader.

This would definitely become a hot issue and attract viewers to his side, that’s what he thought.