Chapter 27

“What do you mean? Don’t stimulate the kids?”

I had to ask. Just in case.

What if he meant it in a good way and I was just misunderstanding?

But the more I heard from the Coach’s mouth, the more my expression hardened.

“Dami, I know you’re trying various things with the kids.”

“And?”

“That discussion thing… from my perspective, it seems a bit… I feel like you’re getting too far ahead of your current level.”

“Are you saying it doesn’t suit the level of a Second Division League team?”

Coach Bae Yungi didn’t answer.

Instead, his silence was an affirmation.

“I’m doing it because I think we can.”

“If it were just about tactics, maybe. But the intensity of the Skill, and even the Stamina Training, has suddenly gone up.”

That part was true.

Because I was the one who made it that way.

For a pro team living in a Team House, the coach spends a lot of time with the players, but that doesn’t mean they’re attached at the hip 24/7.

There was plenty of time for the players to talk amongst themselves, and I used every opportunity to steel my teammates’ resolve for the next Season.

If even one of them had said, “Do we really have to go that far?”

Or, “Isn’t it enough to just get good results in the Second Division League?” my motivation might have flagged a bit, but thankfully, there was no one like that.

The Super Sylph players had a desire for self-improvement.

And that was a truly important asset for a pro player.

Having been a Pro Gamer for a considerable time, I had seen on several occasions players with brilliant Talent who disappeared without a sound because they didn’t properly hone it.

A player without the desire to improve doesn’t put in the effort.

A player who doesn’t put in the effort can never survive for long.

Of course, even with an abundance of desire for improvement, it’s hard to climb to the top without Talent, but the kids on this team had good Talent, too.

Then isn’t the answer obvious?

If they have the will to work hard and the Talent, this team had to move up.

Meaning, there was no reason to stay in the Second Division forever.

I conveyed this determination to the Coach.

That we would absolutely make it to the First Division and become a team worthy of it.

But what was this?

His reaction was a bit strange.

“Dami. Someday, you all might have the skills to go to the First Division. But you can’t get there as quickly as you think.”

“Why not?”

“This might sound a little strange, but the amount of training a male player can handle and the amount female players can handle are definitely different.”

“……?”

“You just don’t know much about this part because you don’t have the experience yet.”

What the hell is this guy saying right now?

The reason he’s telling us not to work hard is not something else, but because we’re girls?

Coach Bae Yungi launched into a long-winded speech about Super Sylph’s management style.

It was incredibly long, but to summarize, it was this:

Since you’re women, there’s a limit to the growth you can achieve each year.

Anything more than that is an Overpace, a clear overexertion.

Because women are easily swayed by their surroundings, a male coach like himself needs to set clear standards.

You all just trust and follow me.

Then you will overcome the weakness of your gender and achieve the results you want—that was Bae Yungi’s current argument.

He didn’t say it this directly, but that was clearly the interpretation.

<Something’s weird… I’m not the only one who heard that strangely, right?>

‘You heard it right. It’s bullshit.’

I hadn’t known either.

That Bae Yungi was this kind of person.

Of course, the leagues were divided by gender because male and female stats were different.

But there was no need to draw a line on how hard one could try.

Besides, in sports where physical factors played a smaller role, there were many cases where women surpassed men.

Never mind the shooting category, which was closely related to UA, but even in sports like archery, it wasn’t uncommon for female and male scores to be reversed.

And yet, he makes such a discriminatory remark.

It was enough to make me wonder how a person like this was coaching a women’s team without any issues.

‘Could it be that the reason for Super Sylph’s poor performance this year was also…?’

The period Bae Yungi had been with this team was one year, the same as Jung Yunseul.

It seemed entirely possible.

The possibility that this man had arbitrarily crushed the methods the players had put their heads together to come up with to escape their slump.

“Dami, you’re a smart kid, so I trust you know what I mean.”

With that, Bae Yungi patted my shoulder.

Watching the back of the man who left after saying only what he wanted to say, I thought.

That a person could be disgusting in this way, too.

This was a different flavor of unlikability from Kim Yujeong’s clique.

‘No matter how I think about it, this isn’t right. Is it?’

<Of course it isn’t.>

I thought about it one more time.

Was there any room to reconsider the Coach’s words?

After putting my head together with Dami and mulling it over.

The answer was that it was, without a doubt, a trash statement.

The problem was that the one who made such a statement was this team’s Coach.

Usually, the one responsible for all the major and minor affairs of the Team House is the Director.

But UA was still a game with a short history.

On most pro teams, the coaches didn’t know the game better than the players.

Just as it was with other games in their early days, most UA coaches were people with experience in other fields.

Even Coach Lee Gangseon was the type who had been involved with Gaia.

Even if it was the same VR Game, it was a distinctly different game.

When a coach’s understanding of the game is lower than the players’, the things a coach can do are bound to be limited.

Instilling discipline, player Mental care, managing the team to avoid friction with the outside world?

Of course, those were big roles, but still, you couldn’t exclude In-Game elements like tactical commands.

That’s why Super Sylph recruited Bae Yungi to act as a bridge between the Coach and the players.

The idea must have been to use him, who had shown decent skill in the men’s First Division League, to bring professionalism to player Development and tactical planning.

The problem was that this guy, the Coach, was arbitrarily judging the players’ capabilities and limiting their growth.

‘The team can’t grow like this.’

Having made my judgment, I quietly met with the players and gathered information about the Coach.

To find out what kind of attitude Bae Yungi had taken with this team over the past year.

The result was a little surprising.

No one on the team knew this guy’s true nature.

“Coach Bae? He’s a good person. He meticulously checked how we could grow without overdoing it.”

“If it weren’t for our Coach, we might not have even defended 8th place this year.”

“He’s someone who never once showed he was in a bad mood, even when the team’s results were poor. But why are you suddenly asking about the Coach?”

This is serious…?

The entire team was deeply gaslighted.

You’re all being deceived right now.

You could have gone in a more progressive direction if you didn’t have a coach.

Even if the ranking had been lower than it is now, the direction at least could have been the right one.

After all, Shin Aram alone had gone to the Coach several times when the team was in a slump to discuss what they should do.

It was the Coach who had pushed for changing Shin Aram’s perfectly fine Orders.

But why?

Because he couldn’t stand the sight of girls trying to emulate the First Division League?

Or because he wanted to wield the team as he pleased?

Whatever the reason, it was certain that this was wrong.

I wracked my brain to figure out how to fix this.

It was not an easy problem.

I was just an 18-year-old player who had only been here for a month after a Transfer.

On the other hand, Bae Yungi had already completed a year with this team, and his career was much more distinguished than mine.

The player Han Youngin would not lose to Bae Yungi, and could even be said to be a player of a higher Class, but the current Seo Dami had nothing to show for herself against Bae Yungi.

‘If we have a power struggle, I feel like I’ll be the one to get crushed.’

If I, with no foundation, raised my voice, it would be difficult for Coach Lee Gangseon or the Front Office to take my side.

‘Should I just complete the year and move again?’

My contract with Super Sylph was for one year.

After a successful run in the Second Division League, there was a high possibility that First Division League teams would show interest with much better conditions than this year.

But I didn’t want to do that.

This case was different from my time at Universe Cat.

The Super Sylph players had the will to do it and a strong passion to move up.

I didn’t want to leave all these kids behind and move teams because of one weird coach.

‘Alright, let’s face it head-on.’

I’ll do what I can.

If it fails, it won’t be too late to think about my own survival then.

Even if I lose this fight, it’s not like my gaming skills are going anywhere.

As I steeled my resolve for a direct confrontation with the Coach, Dami asked what I was going to do.

‘You have to use your head in times like these.’

It was the same in the game.

When the opponent has the advantageous position, just charging in headfirst won’t yield good results.

A pro should know how to turn such conditions to their advantage.

‘Fortunately, there’s one thing I have over the Coach.’

<What is it? Age…?>

Well, I am younger than Bae Yungi.

Even more so from Dami’s perspective.

But the weapon I was thinking of wasn’t age.

‘Recognition.’

Somehow, by a stroke of luck, I had far greater recognition for a Second Division League player.

I planned to actively use this.

“Coach, I’d like to try streaming. Maybe an hour or two a day?”

“Streaming?”

“A lot of players do personal streams during the Off-Season, don’t they?”

“That’s true.”

Players’ personal streams.

Usually, during the Off-Season, you could often see players streaming with tired faces after finishing their training.

During the Season, they had opportunities to meet fans through matches, but during the Off-Season, there was no channel to communicate unless they wrote posts or did a stream.

And if done well, such streams were a great help in boosting the team’s popularity.

It wasn’t very applicable to teams in the Second Division League or below, but there were cases where players gained popularity through skill-concept streams, or where a player’s wit went viral.

That’s why there were more Front Offices than one might think that encouraged players to stream.

If anything, it was the players who found it bothersome.

Think about it.

After rolling around and training all day, would it be fun to stream on top of that?

If you end up taking out your exhaustion on the fans, it becomes a stream better left undone, so the player’s motivation was extremely important for this kind of Content.

“If you want to do it, you should try it.”

I easily got permission to proceed with the stream.

I also got an okay when I asked if it was alright to sometimes release training videos or stream with my teammates.

And so, on a weekday evening when all preparations were complete.

I returned to my room and created a streaming account.

The account I used during my Magnus days was still perfectly fine, but I couldn’t use it.

If I streamed with Han Youngin’s account, it would become a massive incident.

All sorts of speculation would fly, like what the relationship between the two was and how she got her hands on the account.

Creating the account was quick.

If Dami had had an account, I could have used that, but she had never done a live stream before.

Considering her time at Universe Cat before meeting me was filled with nothing but depressing memories, it was completely understandable.

‘Alright, account creation is done.’

<Oppa. Have you streamed often, too?>

‘Of course. You have no idea how many people waited for my streams.’

It feels embarrassing to toot my own horn, but I used to think that my streams were not bad among Pro Gamers.

Because I had the skills and the wit!

But think about it.

What if Seo Dami’s face was added to that now?

Honestly, from my perspective of living with her, it wouldn’t be strange at all if Seo Dami became much more famous than she is now.

Even if she hadn’t become a Pro Gamer, someone would have wanted to put this kid in front of the public.

Things like being a model or an actress.

With a face like this, wouldn’t she have gotten roles even with terrible acting…?

With that thought, I started my first stream.

<I’m nervous…>

‘I’m the one doing all the streaming, why are you nervous?’

<It’s my stream too…>

‘That’s true. But don’t be too nervous. I’m a streaming veteran.’

<I can trust you, right?>

‘Of course, of course.’

For the first stream, I planned to lightly showcase some gameplay using the In-Game integration feature.

When I turned on the stream, a live indicator with the current Viewer count appeared in the top right corner.

Just in case the disaster of no one showing up happened, I had left a post on the Super Sylph message board saying I would be streaming.

‘I’d be happy if I could just stream with about 50 people.’

In my Magnus days, there were times when I could stream to at least 3,000 fans no matter when I turned it on.

When I did a year-end challenge stream to aim for Legendary, it even surpassed 10,000.

But what if not even 50 people watched?

It might become a stream where I pathetically muttered to myself while looking at an empty Chat.

Just a few seconds after I, a veteran, began to wait with a hint of nervousness, the first Chat message appeared.

• Seo-ha

Seo Dami hi.

Starting with that, the Viewers began to fill up quite quickly.

I was quite surprised by the speed, which surpassed my expectations.

‘Look at that speed.’

Just one minute.

That was the time it took to break 500 Viewers.

• Whatcha doin?

• Is this a face-cam stream?

• She must be super nervous for her first stream lol

• Say hi!

• What’s with the Fan Service here!

• So different from when she’s in a game.

• The kid’s just frozen?

Only then did I realize I had been staring blankly at the numbers.

This won’t do.

The first stream has to be fun, no matter what.

I announced the start of the stream with my prepared greeting.

“Hello! It’s Super Sylph’s fairy! Seo Dami! Oh my gosh! I really didn’t know so many of you would show up! I love you, Unnis and Oppas! Dami is so happy!”

I made a big heart over my head with both hands as I greeted them.

At that, the chat window burst into flames.

• ????

• Excuse me, General Seo?

• LMAO holy shit hahahahahaha

• Forced hype from the very start;;

• This is absurd lol

• hahaha

• Is she usually like this?

• Why are you doing this to us;

• This is tough…

With Seo Dami’s bizarre scream, the smooth stream began.

The effect I was trying to achieve with the stream was simple and clear.

Attract a lot of people with an entertaining stream.

Once the Viewer count is high, casually drop some stories about the team’s situation or training.

Then, start laying the groundwork by saying we want to work harder, but we’re anxious because it feels like someone keeps putting on the brakes.

Then the fans will get angry and ask who on earth is stopping them from training hard, right?

To the fans who have entered detective mode, I’ll give them clues one by one.

Like training videos, or various other things.

If there isn’t a single player slacking off in those clues, the fans’ attention will naturally shift elsewhere.

What’s this? There are no players on this team who aren’t working hard?

Then isn’t the Director or the Coach the culprit? They could easily come to that conclusion.

No matter how I thought about it, there were no fans who would dislike it when players wanted to work hard.

So this plan was bound to succeed.

As long as I had the fans’ Momentum at my back, it wouldn’t matter how much more well-established Bae Yungi’s foundation was than mine.

However, for this plan to succeed, one condition had to be met.

Making my stream widely known to Super Sylph fans.

I had to create a foundation for many people to recognize our kids’ passion and effort.

To this end, I poured all my Energy into the first stream.

Embarrassment? Worried about creating a cringey past?

The ‘Han Youngin’ on stream was a person who didn’t know such things in the first place.

Was it thanks to that?

With a “Hieeek!” from Dami, the Viewer count changed digits.

Five digits for the Viewer count on the first stream.

This was just the beginning.

There was still quite a bit of time left before the night was over.