After tidying up Yeram and sending her off to school, I made up my mind to keep doing this for her at least until college entrance exams. With all the distractions out there, it’s easy to lose focus.

Still, there was one thing nagging at me.

“…Maybe I can squeeze in one more game?”

After getting Yeram ready, I realized that there was only an hour left before work. It would take about ten minutes to walk to the cafe, leaving me with roughly fifty minutes. After playing Leore all night, I’d figured out that fifty minutes was enough for one game. If time got tight, I could just quit mid-match if needed.

“Alright then.”

With that thought, I opened Leore and started queuing up for another game.

A week passed. Nothing much had happened. Occasionally, I’d play Leore with Yeram’s friends, and in between, I’d go to work. Today was no different, as I gamed in my free time, occasionally browsing the gallery.

[Victory]

Gazing at the glorious “Victory” screen, I logged into the Ifrit Gallery to see what today’s hot topic was.

Click.

Today’s topic was “internet streaming.” I knew a bit about this stuff since I occasionally watched streamers.

I knew some basics—who was friendly with whom, who was affiliated with which company. Though, the deeper connections were beyond me.

[ “Mangming <<< just GOAT-level streamer..” ][4]
[ “Who’s the biggest idiot among streamers?” ][22]
[ “Honestly, block those involved in the current Gold Cup.” ][1]
[ “Which streamer is actually funny these days?” ][7]

A flood of posts appeared. It seemed that the community was full of people who paid close attention to internet streams. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen a topic like this.

Thinking it over, I clicked the post at the bottom. It was easier to start from the bottom and scroll up.

[Author: Kukurella]
[Title: So, which streamer is funny these days?]
[Content: I haven’t watched since the fat woman with the mask. Any recommendations?]

L: “How long ago was that? LOL”
ㄴ: “For real, the only fat masked streamer I remember is Paru.”
ㄴ: “Paru is a classic.”
ㄴ: “Gotta respect the originals.”
L: “It depends on what kind of streams you like. If you’re into gaming, there are popular streamers for that. For talk shows, there are others.”
ㄴKukurella: “Just tell me someone popular now, so I can check them out.”
ㄴ: “Mangming is alright. Been around a while, but their growth lately has been crazy.”

“Who’s that?”

I considered myself decently informed, but I didn’t know the rising stars. The YouTubers I watched were all old-timers who’d been streaming for ages.

‘I only watch variety game streamers.’

Recently, I’d been considering branching out into Leore streams. It’d probably be fun. Mangming, huh? I stored the name in my memory and moved on to the next post.

Skipping the one ranting about the Gold Cup, I clicked on the following post.

[Author: BuffPlease]
[Title: Who’s the biggest idiot among streamers?]
[Content: I don’t know much about streaming, but who’s genuinely the biggest idiot?]

A controversial topic. Who was the biggest idiot streamer?

Anyone who’d been in communities long enough would know that there were generally three types of “legendary idiots” in these spaces.

First, the ones who get overly invested in internet streams and bash others for no reason.

Second, the ones who treat sports like a life-or-death matter, whether it’s baseball, Leore, or soccer, fighting each other like mortal enemies.

Third, the people who relate everything to politics, demanding, “Which side are you on?!”

All three types were troublesome. The second type was slightly more understandable, given the competitive nature, but the first and third… there was no clear “winner” in terms of sheer ridiculousness.

‘They sometimes invade Ifrit Gallery too.’

Thinking back on it still annoyed me. Why disrupt a perfectly fine gallery?

With that thought, I glanced at the comments.

L: “Mangming is honestly trash.”
ㄴ: “Screenshot taken.”
ㄴ: “What are you gonna do, Mangming-dog?”
ㄴ: “Mangming-dog, catchy term.”
ㄴ: “Their fans hop around like locusts, tearing up every place they go.”
ㄴ: “Yeah, that’s Mangming fans for you.”
ㄴ: “Mangming isn’t the problem; it’s the fans who are idiots.”
ㄴ: “All this will be on PPT, sending to PPAP. Later.”
L: “Does anyone know Lil Hyun? That guy’s like an orphan on these platforms.”
ㄴ: “How can you not if you’re on Pro Gallery?”
ㄴ: “If you don’t know Lil Hyun, just quit Pro Gallery.”
ㄴ: “Oh, you know Lil Hyun?!”
ㄴ: “He’s just… kinda pathetic.”
L: “BuffPlease bringing up the Gold Cup again, LOL.”
ㄴ: “King of Gold Cup~”
ㄴ: “Hail General BuffPlease for taking down the unemployed masses!”

A variety of streamers’ names were thrown around. Clearly, everyone had their least favorite streamer. What was curious, though, was the contrasting opinions.

‘The post above praised Mangming…’

Yet here, Mangming was trashed. They must be a polarizing streamer for fans to have such mixed reactions.

‘Maybe I’ll check them out.’

Since I’d already finished my part-time job for today, and Yeram was probably staying late at school, it seemed like a good time to look them up. Might as well use the free time.

But first, I needed some intel from the gallery, as I didn’t know where Mangming streamed.

[Author: LondonSecrets]
[Title: Where does this Mangming stream?]
[Content: I’d like to check them out.]

Almost immediately, comments started popping up.

L: “Try Twyst.”
L: “Why Mangming of all people?”
ㄴ: “LOL for real.”

Their reactions only heightened my curiosity. What kind of person were they? Hopefully, not too strange. I’d seen my fair share of odd content on Ifrit Gallery—like that infamous image of a woman with a horse—so I had some immunity to weirdness, but still.

With that in mind, I opened Twyst.

“Hm.”

I’d watched internet streams before, but it had been a while—back when Twyst wasn’t even a thing. The platform felt a bit foreign to me.

“It’s pretty clean.”

Noticing the sleek, simple UI, I typed “Mangming” into the search bar. A stream popped up right away at the top.

[Viewer count: 3,413]

I didn’t know much about viewership numbers, but it seemed like a lot. The main screen earlier had ranked streams by viewer count, and I remembered that anything over 3,000 was high up.

‘Wonder what kind of stream this is.’

If it was a variety gaming stream, it’d probably be interesting.

Click.

I clicked on the stream and waited through a short ad. After the 15 seconds passed, I skipped it, and the broadcast filled the screen.

“-Ugh, damn it!”

It was a Leore stream. The streamer’s small face cam was in the bottom-right corner, showing a girl with messy bedhead, likely just out of bed. Yet, she didn’t look bad—probably because she had a tiny face.

As I continued watching—

“Why is our jungler playing like this? It’s so frustrating.”

[LOL]
[The jungler’s just playing like that because top lane has no control.]
[If you were winning lane, it’d be different.]
[The game’s tough because the top laner sucks.]
ㄴUser temporarily removed.
[Can we get a sick play here?]
[If the enemy keeps harassing us like this, we’re screwed.]
[Getting wrecked by Renek and Santay, LOL.]

“Like I keep saying, Renek is secretly at a disadvantage! What if the enemy jungler shows up?”

[But they didn’t.]
[Just admit it already... It’s pathetic.]
[The enemy jungler didn’t even show up.]
[We’ll forgive you if you admit it now.]

“All of you blaming me, get out. Ugh. Wanna die?”

She was getting frustrated at the constant “top lane gap” spam in chat, and it seemed like she was taking it out on the commenters. But there wasn’t anything particularly special. Why was she so famous?

At that moment—

[You have been slain!]

“Aaagh!!!”

The screen turned gray, and I could see her face cam shaking violently.

“…Is this what’s popular nowadays?”

It was a bit of a shock.