Season 5: Chapter 58: Nationalist Popcorn (2) |
Bubblegum’s grin stretched ear to ear as he teamed up with Almond. Honestly, it wasn’t all sunshine.
‘This is bad. If I mess up, I’m gonna get flamed hard.’
He’d barely managed to force his way onto Almond’s team. It would be a real problem if they still lost this time. Almond’s viewers would swarm over and unload their abuse. Even Bubblegum’s own viewers wouldn’t hold back. Just because it was his stream didn’t mean they would praise him for playing badly.
In fact, most viewers tuned in to mock him when he messed up. The real problem was those who took it seriously and crossed the line.
‘It’s always worse when I play with other streamers.’
When Bubblegum played solo, things were at least manageable. The moment other streamers got involved, the level of abuse spiked. That was just how things went. Even so, Bubblegum kept trying to team up with Almond for a reason.
“I want to… prove myself too,” he muttered after contracting with Iron Ball.
— ?
— ??
— LMAOOOO prove what
— Why are you trying to prove it next to Almond of all people LOL
The viewers laughed it off, but Bubblegum was serious.
“I had a few really good moments when I played with Almond in the LIL tournament, you know? That’s still burned into my brain…”
He looked down at his hands as Iron Ball and reminisced. The cheers from a game where he’d hard-carried. The chat had exploded then. That tingling feeling still felt vivid. For the first time, he truly felt recognized through a game.
“Maybe… I’m still playing Iron Ball because of that memory.”
— Holy shit LMAOOOO
— HAHAHAHAHAHA
— Isn’t this a bit much? LOL
— Ahahahaha
— You sound like a pro player or something LOL
No one empathized with him. That was simply how the world worked. If he didn’t produce results, nothing about the process mattered.
Ding.
[Loyal has donated 10,000 won!]
[Bro, Almond is forcing Iron Ball on you with a knife because he remembers that time too!]
— HAHAHAHAHAHA
— LOL
— LMAOOOO
— Honestly Almond probably remembers you not being Iron Ball more vividly LOL
— Holy shit LOL
— That’s actually true
— ??? It’s still burned into my brain…
“Anyway, it’s weird. When I play with Almond, the game just goes well. This time, I’ll prove it. Earlier, most of you said climbing the ice wall was impossible, right? I did it in the end.”
BornToB, now a tank, chimed in, “That’s right, Gum. I also play weirdly well when I’m with Almond. I never dreamed I’d hit A-rank. Turns out the Archer Rush wasn’t the problem. The archer was.”
“Come on. That’s just Almond carrying you.”
“Huh?”
— ?
— ??
— Holy shit LOL
— Where’s your shame?
— Apply that logic to yourself please
— Gum mirror match LOL
“It’s true though. The Fast Archer Rush is basically just picking Almond, isn’t it?”
BornToB shot back without backing down. “Then, what about LIL?”
It wasn’t easy to talk back to a big-name streamer like Bubblegum. If BornToB were the type to shy away from that, he wouldn’t have hard-grinded his way into eternal B-rank in the first place.
— The guts though
— Mirror therapy goes crazy
— HAHAHAHAHAHA
— LOL
— I’m not even a LIL streamer anyway~
— BornToB says what he has to say!
— A duel with only scars…
Honestly, BornToB was almost guaranteed to win this fight.
“Then, what about the Archer Rush…”
BornToB also worked at Almond’s company. He knew all of Bubblegum’s past incidents by heart.
“What about Ghostwo Busters?!”
Bubblegum only had one rebuttal. “And what about the Archer Rush!?”
— HAHAHAHAHAHA
— LOL Archer Rush one-trick
— Are you a parrot? LOL
— That’s the only thing he can attack with LOL
“Then what about Battle Large? No hits with three mags?!”
“T-that, no, that three-mag thing has nothing to do with Almond!”
— HAHAHAHAHAHA
— LOL
— Oh…
— A battle with no winner…
Watching them tear into each other, LetMeTank couldn’t help but be impressed.
‘Amazing…’
She was impressed at how this world worked.
‘How do the two trolls have the loudest voices?’
***
No matter how many trolls there were, the team kept racking up wins under the Smart Young Man’s command. After Level 6, Flashy Blade could output the damage and playmaking of three or more players depending on the user. In Survival mode, with no turret concepts at all, encountering Flashy Blade was pure disaster.
“Wooo!”
“This is insane… Isn’t Flashy Blade better than Raina?”
“W-well… Raina can’t really be compared to Flashy Blade after level 6…”
LetMeTank’s scattered nails combined with Almond’s precise Flashy Blade strikes while blinking all over the place.
Bzzzt!
Every time Almond used Flash, an enemy dropped.
[LazySoldier is legendary!]
He undoubtedly deserved the legendary title.
Bubblegum, still a rune spirit, shouted excitedly at his viewers, “Told you! When I play with Almond, I play well too!”
— HAHAHAHAHAHA
— LOL wow
— This is something else
— He’s relentless…
“No, as a tank, your job is to die like that. I go in, burn all their skills, die, and then Flashy Blade goes wild!”
— Isn’t Flashy Blade required to go wild when you die though?
— Fact: It’s placement matches so Almond is just smurfing…
— Bro, please stop… you’re bad at games… you were born this way…
Objectively speaking, Bubblegum hadn’t actually played poorly in that last fight. Just as he said, he went in first, drew attention, and died while doing a tank’s job. After that, LetMeTank filled the tank role, Choco Shroom disrupted with bombs from her own angles, and Almond blinked in from behind to delete the enemies first.
“Just throw Iron Ball!”
“Go, Iron Ball!!”
Just throw Bubblegum, then they’d win.
‘Tako’s advice still applies.’
Takoyaki once taught Almond a foolproof method to use Bubblegum. Almond executed it without hesitation.
[An ally has been slain!]
[FlowerTea → BubbleGum]
[Enemy Double Kill!]
[FlowerTea → BornToB]
Only now, he needed to throw one more Bubblegum. That was all.
‘That’s all. Just one more step in the process.’
Almond repeated it to calm himself. He pushed his focus even further and kept blinking.
Chwaaaak!
The enemies fell to their knees before his precise blinks and strikes.
[LazySoldier is legendary!]
[LazySoldier! Triple Kill!]
— The always preceding “An ally has been slain” LOL
— Damn
— Didn’t we see this scene earlier?
— The lord again!?
— BornToB and Bubblegum die, then Almond and the Paladin clean up LOL how is it always the same
— But this is kinda busted??
— The key is that throwing BornToB and Bubblegum works because they’re tanks and last forever
— Bubblegum might actually be good, unexpectedly? lol
Some viewers even began to wonder if Bubblegum was secretly good. LIL was the kind of game where, once the holes got patched, it became hard to tell who was lacking. And layered on top of that…
— My money…
— You said it was a safe asset!
— The mission fund isn’t actually getting taken, right???
— Safe asset? Flashy Trump’s tariff bomb, let’s gooo!
— I put in my first mission today. Can I get a refund?
The viewers who had tossed in money as a joke to tease others began to realize something. The moment money got involved, it stopped being a joke. The longtime Almond viewers felt it too.
[The Shadow of the Abyss will descend shortly!]
A massive shadow fell over the era of Almond’s streaming.
“Orders?”
“Smart Young Man!”
It was the shadow of the Smart Young Man’s Hegemony.
— The Smart Young Man era… is this really happening?
— No way they actually get first, right?
— If they win this, the Smart Young Man era can’t be stopped
— Someone please help!
— Seriously, nothing short of a nuke can stop this
It was well known that Almond always wanted recognition for his intelligence. That moment of recognition no longer seemed far away.
[Teams Remaining: 3/10]
[Players Remaining: 15/50]
Almond had taken on a huge share of the shotcalling this match. Whether those calls were optimal or not didn’t matter. In games and competition, results spoke louder than anything. If he took first place with this lineup, the Smart Young Man would truly become smart.
Truth and falsehood would invert. Cause and effect would flip. The universe’s entropy itself would reverse.
— Anything but that…
— Stop the Smart Young Man, please…
— Damn it, is there really no one left!?
Almond’s viewers no longer cheered for him.
— I wanted him to do well, but not like this!
— Someone please help us!!
— My money!!!
Almond was no longer a hero, but a villain.
Chwaaaak!
[Abyss Shark has been defeated!]
They even took down the Abyss Shark, essentially hammering the nail into the coffin of the first-place race.
— Damn
— Second place locked, shit
— How is this even possible???
— Bubblegum, BornToB, step it up!
— No matter how much they die, it’s still not trolling LOL
“Woooo!”
“Damn! This is huge!”
Out of the three remaining teams, only two could claim an Abyss Shark. Almond’s team had taken one. That meant one team was already out of contention. Everyone knew it, which was why the despair cut even deeper.
— So this is how strong placement matches are now
— Fuck, I should’ve sniped
— It’s over…
— Has anyone ever failed to get first after taking an Abyss Shark?
Meanwhile, Almond’s team was euphoric.
“Orders?!”
Whenever Almond raised his hand and called out, everyone lit up and shouted back, “Smart young man!”
“Smart yooooung maaaan!”
BornToB, Bubblegum, and Choco Shroom were especially fervent.
‘I can do this too.’
‘I have value too.’
‘We can… shine as well!’
The ones always treated as useless in LIL were now all shining under the Smart Young Man. Of course, they shouted at the top of their lungs.
“Smart young man!!!”
— HAHAHAHAHAHA
— LOL Smart Young Man!
— The return of Cheese Village
— Smart young man! Smart young man!
— Holy shit LOL
— ??? Rude… this is a dictatorship.
— The birth of a lord, damn
— Smart young man! Smart young man! Smart young man!
Most of the viewers looked like they’d already surrendered themselves to the Smart Young Man’s blessing.
“Alright, then we’ll go back and split up to harass the enemies.”
“Yes!”
“A fast split rush sounds great!”
A few intellectuals resisted the dictatorship, but it didn’t matter.
— Isn’t this insane? LOL
— Ultra late game split
— This won’t work…
— Did your brain split too?
Their words never reached the dictator’s ears. They only drifted among the masses.
— It’s doomed…
— Everyone’s lost it…
— The end of times are here
The end of times meant that the end of the old world was approaching, but didn’t heroes always appear in chaos, no, in the end of times?
Kwaaang!
Something suddenly crashed in.
‘A bird?’
It looked like a bird.
“Uh…?”
Bubblegum tried to counter, but the follow-up combo left him no chance to do anything.
Crash!
A monster instantly lunged in, its long snout tearing into him.
‘A w-wolf?’
It had looked like a bird flying in at high speed. When it tore into him, it looked like a wolf.
“Grrr…!”
In the blink of an eye, it became a bear.
“A druid!”
It was already too late by the time they realized it. As the bear’s massive forepaw swung down, enemy ranged fire converged onto a single point.
Kwang!
[An ally has been slain!]
[Popcorn → Bubblegum]
Bubblegum immediately turned into a rune spirit. The enemy shifted back into bird form, soared away leisurely, then landed and returned to human form.
LetMeTank couldn’t believe her eyes. “Popcorn?”
Popcorn met her gaze and grinned. “Long time no see?”
[The enemy is legendary!]
— ?
— Gasp
— Damn damn damn
— Whoa
— Popcorn?!
— Holy shit LOL
— ??? I’ve come to end this era…!
— He picked his main champion LOL
— Is that really Popcorn???
— An actual living legend, damn