“Now, to the new semester!”
“To the new semester!”
“To the new semester!”
With a light toast, soju glasses clinked together. My friends and I tossed the soju glasses into our mouths at the same time.
“Krr.”
“Ugh, seeing you again like this is nice.”
“I thought we’d at least be attending the semester together.”
“How were we supposed to know Woo-jin would screw up returning to school?”
“Shut up.”
I snapped that at my college friends who were teasing me.
Everyone I had met at this drinking party was a college classmate.
Originally, we were supposed to return to school together and attend classes together again, but.......
Since my return to school got tangled, I was the only one not attending school.
“Good grief. Our Woo-jin, what will you do if you only start school next year after your older sisters graduate?”
“What older sisters? Are you drunk already?”
“If we’re fourth-years, then we’re your older sisters.”
“Ah, damn it, then you girls should’ve enlisted with me.”
“But we played with you when you came out on leave.”
“Right, we fed you and gave you a place to sleep when you came out on leave.”
“What do you mean gave me a place to sleep?”
“Did you forget sleeping at my studio when you drank like crazy because you didn’t want to go back?”
“Uh, did I?”
“Ah, he’s already drunk.”
“He’s drunk, he’s drunk.”
We kept drinking soju while spouting nonsense.
Maybe because I had only just been discharged, the intoxication hit me hard, and laughter slipped out.
“So, is school fun?”
“It was so fun I did a shoulder dance.”
“Really?”
“No.”
The men who had returned to school first spoke with gloomy faces.
“The girls are too young, so I don’t really know them. There are older guys and younger guys all mixed in, but no one is really close. School’s kind of boring.”
“Ah, damn it, Kim Woo-jin! Why didn’t you come to school!”
“No, I told you, my course registration got completely screwed.......”
“It’s funny that you got a studio to return to school, but then didn’t return.”
“Didn’t I go around to real estate offices with him when he was on leave to help him find that studio?”
“Ugh, Woo-jin!!”
“Ah, I said shut up.”
If it got screwed badly enough that I could not even take my major classes, taking a break was the right answer. There were even classes where they did not open additional enrollment.
It was not that I wanted to rest. Really. Though I was so happy I could die because all I did was play games.
“Everything really is fun after coming back to society.”
“Right. Playing games again was so damn fun too.”
“Woo-jin, do you play games too?”
“Yeah, I started one the day before yesterday.”
“What is it?”
“You probably don’t know it. It’s an RPG.”
For a while, RPGs had not been the mainstream of the gaming world. Even though I had not continued Elysium after entering university.
“Come on, still tell us.”
“Elysium Online.”
“Ah, isn’t that a pretty old game?”
“I remember it. It was really popular when we were schoolkids.”
“What, you know it?”
I was a little surprised that not only my high school friends, but also my college friends knew about Elysium Online.
“Come to think of it, its ads have been showing up a lot these days.”
“Are you playing the old one again?”
“Yeah, they opened a new server recently and are doing a ton of events. I didn’t have anything to do for now.”
“Aha.”
“Ah! Come to think of it, Elysium has been really hot these days. Something came up on SunTube again today too.”
“SunTube?”
“A game-savvy YouTuber I subscribe to! Wait.”
My friend immediately took out his phone, found a video, and placed it on the table.
[Elysium streamer gets taught a lesson by an ordinary user?!] 350K
[There’s a gamer suspected of hacking because he’s too good at games??] 600K
[Elysium’s first Legend Movie! Who is the main character?] 210K
[Video of an insane expert that even active pro streamers said was definitely hacks] 410K
[Broadcast suspension alongside apology stream....... Elysium official creator controversy!] 610K
[Let’s learn about the hidden expert who suspended a ranker-level streamer’s activities!] 280K
There were a lot of controversies, Elysium.
‘Is this why people randomly picked fights about hacks yesterday?’
At any rate, there was no such thing as an online game with a game company that managed it well. If anything, they went into the negatives.
“Wow...... Even though the video’s from a day ago, the views are insane.”
“Is he famous?”
“You play games and don’t know about SunTube?”
“I got discharged a week ago, bastard.”
“But Elysium must be a pretty decent game. If she’s an official streamer, the game company probably gives her quite a bit of consideration, but they said she lost to an ordinary user.”
“Is that so?”
Seeing how they poured exclusive items onto me under the name Legendary Player, I was not so sure about that.
“This has been crazy since yesterday! An Elysium expert got totally wrecked by a beginner.”
“Ah, I saw that going up on other game communities too because it was hilarious.”
“What is it?”
What was so funny about an expert getting wrecked by a beginner that it became such a huge rumor?
“They say a hidden expert popped out in the early section and killed all sorts of players, rankers included.”
That was how my drunk friend summarized it briefly.
“In the beginner section, huh.”
“They said it happened the day before yesterday. Woo-jin, did you see it too?”
“Hm, well......?”
I had fought like crazy in the tutorial zone yesterday too, but.......
‘There wasn’t anyone special.’
I killed close to a hundred players before getting the [Massacrer] title, but among them, there was no one skilled enough to be called a ranker.
There was a streamer named Yang something, but these days there were so many people who made a show of broadcasting that she probably could not be compared to a real professional streamer.
If you judged the streamer average based on one person with terrible controls like that, it would be rude to real professional streamers, wouldn’t it?
“I don’t think I saw it. I’ve never been involved in anything serious enough to cause an apology stream either.”
There had been a minor PK incident, but was that something to bow your head and apologize over? It was probably a story unrelated to me.
Even the bastard who kept picking a fight and calling me a hack user ended up running away first.
At most, the only thing that came to mind was throwing potions at fools who believed they were hacks.
‘There wasn’t a title about a potion bottle controversy.’
Then well, it did not seem to be related to me.
“Hm, looking at it like this, it seems pretty hot, and I might play too. It looks fun.”
“Woo-jin, are you going to keep playing this?”
“Yeah, I’m planning to for a while. I’ll probably keep playing until I find a part-time job. I don’t know what’ll happen once I get busy later.”
“I’m pretty good at RPG games too. Just wait, Woo-jin. I’ll hard-carry you.”
“Ha.”
I let out a small laugh.
At least in Elysium, I was not skilled to the point where anyone would need to carry me. Well... since he was saying he would play with me, I would just laugh and let it pass.
“What have the guys been talking about all this time?”
After we had talked about Elysium for a while, the female classmates asked.
“Games.”
“Ah! That’s unfair! Why are only the guys talking about games?”
“What do you mean why.......”
“You girls don’t play games.”
“Let’s talk about something else~”
“I do.”
“What? Mobile games?”
“No, Elysium. I play that too.”
“Huh?”
“Eh?”
Everyone swallowed their breath at the bombshell statement from one of the female classmates.
The classmate who said she played Elysium, Han Ye-jin, did not usually give the impression of someone who would ever play games.
She was the kind of friend who was “serious about school,” maintaining grades near the top of the department every semester.
“Really? That’s surprising. Playing a VR game instead of a phone game.”
“Right.”
“My older brother is addicted to games, so I took his and played it.”
“Ah.”
It seemed she had been influenced by family.
“Woo-jin, if you’re starting Elysium now, is it classic?”
“Yeah.”
“If you’re going to go as far as raids, contact me later. I’ll find you a raid.”
The thing she brought up out of nowhere was raids.
That was a story for after reaching max level, wasn’t it? On top of that, she mentioned “raids” first and told me to contact her if I was going to do raids with her.
It meant that if I was not at the level where I could run raids, I should not bother contacting her.
“......You must be pretty good.”
“I played Elysium all through university.”
“......?”
Now that was a real bombshell.
“But you’re a third-year student, and you have to prepare for employment next year. Are you still going to keep playing?”
“Hey, are job seekers not allowed to relieve stress?”
It was a different matter for a job seeker to run raids, but anyway, Elysium stayed on the chopping block for a while as everyone bickered.
“Well, I played Elysium before too. I’ll try it again briefly this weekend.”
“Me too.”
“Is everyone doing it? Should I try it too?”
“It’s not a phone game. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“Ye-jin will teach me, probably.”
“......I’m not good at teaching beginners.”
“Heeey, love your classmates, love your country, right?”
The girls even said they would try it among themselves, and out of nowhere, it became an Elysium boom.
Since drinking parties were like that, it might end at words alone, but...... maybe I would end up spending a lot of time playing games with friends because of this.
‘I have a lot of events to do too.......’
There was an exclusive Legendary Player event too. There also seemed to be limited-time events, so having my playtime taken by friends was not entirely welcome, but.......
Still, playing with friends had its own fun.
‘I need to make a lot of progress in advance.’
In any case, even if my friends started the game, it would probably be around the weekend. So that I could play with them then, I should push event progress hard while I had the time.
***
The day after drinking with my classmates.
“Ughhhhh.......”
It was only around lunchtime that I slowly got out of bed and lightly cured my hangover.
This was the true taste of being unemployed. This freedom really had to be enjoyed while I could enjoy it.
“Hm.”
After my hangover cure was done and the fatigue had faded, I started getting bored, so I entered the VR capsule and connected to Elysium.
Then an unexpected message appeared.
[Connected in Legendary Player Mode.]
[Legendary Player achievement footage has been broadcast!]
[Broadcast Mode: Automatic]
[Check your broadcast achievement footage, your Legend Movie, now!]
[Check Video / Close]
“......Huh?”
Legend Movie? What was this?
‘Broadcast? I canceled it last time when it appeared, didn’t I?’
No, looking at the menu now, there was only check and close. Was it like that last time too? Was close not cancellation, but only making the popup disappear?
My head suddenly began to hurt. I was sober, though.
‘In the first place, my VR capsule doesn’t have the specs to record video.’
For now, since I could not allow some problem to occur, I used AI search to check the situation.
“Uh, what?”
Then a surprising fact was revealed.
“Video recording works even with my VR capsule?”
Apparently, a new codec or something had been developed, and now even entry-level VR capsules could record game footage.
It had been included in a software update, so my VR capsule was already in a state where it could record video.
‘No wonder the game felt heavier than in the old days.’
It seemed the lag had happened because video was being recorded.
Well, putting that aside.......
‘Just what got uploaded?’
Automatic video recording was a problem, but this was the first I had heard of the situation where it had even been uploaded. For now, I decided to check the video.
[Legend Movie: Kylo]
[Gameplay footage of Legendary Player Kylo, who has made a brilliant return to Elysium Classic.]
[Upload schedule changes according to the Legendary Player’s schedule.] 1 day ago · Elysium Classic · 1.01M views
“Uh, this is.......”
This was driving me crazy.
‘1.01 million views......?’
Not only had I been preserved in the Hall of Fame, but even my gameplay footage had been preserved exactly as is. And that had been viewed a million times?
‘There isn’t anything weird filmed, is there?’
What had been uploaded in connection with YouTube was about two hours of gameplay footage.
Fortunately, there was nothing majorly strange, and it was mostly me playing the game. The only difference was that it had been filmed with a third-person camera in filming mode, not from my perspective.
‘At least this shouldn’t be a big problem.’
There were also some safety measures for privacy, which I had been most anxious about.
Unlike NPCs, the voices of players were mostly muted.
Therefore, the parts where I clashed with other players were not greatly exposed. It only showed clearly that I cut them down through PVP.
‘Only that one stands out.’
Only the hectic pink scrub streamer, Yang something, had her face clearly preserved.
They said she was a streamer, so maybe she had something with official channels?
‘I don’t have to worry much about Ivelin either.’
The biggest relief was that Ivelin’s nickname or appearance was not particularly revealed either.
There was no risk of them being tracked through conversation, and since they were in full-body armor, there should be no concern of being strangely identified.
‘For now, what’s been uploaded can’t be helped, but can I not change the setting separately?’
Since the disaster of my entire gameplay footage leaking out had occurred, this time I needed to make sure I turned off this damn broadcast mode or whatever it was.
For a while, I began digging through this damn Legendary Player Mode or whatever.
[What is Legendary Player Mode?]
[This is a special broadcast mode available only to Legendary Players! Gameplay history is broadcast on the official channel as a [Legend Movie], either automatically or after editing.]
[If you broadcast at least 4 hours per month, monetization is available for [Legend Movies] broadcast on the official channel.]
[* Those with streaming channels can link them to this channel.]
[* Legendary Player Reincarnators without separate streaming channels will receive revenue through the official account.]
[* Minimum monthly broadcast time can be adjusted through the dedicated consultation channel.]
“Huh......?”
I saw an unbelievable word in the middle and rubbed my eyes.
‘Monetization?’
Did that mean I could receive the revenue from a video with one million views?
Without realizing it, I swallowed.
It was one million views. Although I had not intended it.......
If I could receive a share of revenue from this level of views, just how much money would come in?
However, when I actually searched it up, the results were rather bleak.
No matter how high the views were, one or two videos like that could not earn much. Especially if they were uploaded to a game’s official channel and ads or similar things were not involved.
Truly, not just anyone could earn money.
‘Would it be around a day’s wages from a part-time job?’
In a way, I had made a promotional video for a major game, so was this not a part-time job too? It should be fine to find a part-time job a little later.
[Reward Guide According to Legendary Player Cumulative Broadcast Time]
“Hm?”
As I continued reading the explanation page, another reward guide page caught my eye.
This was not revenue sharing according to views, but a reward based on “cumulative broadcast time.”
‘What are they trying to give me?’
[What is the Legend Movie cumulative broadcast reward?]
[Rewards will be given to Legendary Player Reincarnators according to the cumulative time of videos broadcast as Legend Movies.]
[4 Hours][Premium Shop Voucher: 1,000,000 El]
“......What the fuck?”
My mouth fell open without realizing it.
‘If it’s 1,000,000 El, that’s 1,000,000 won even in cash.’
El(EL) was the paid currency in [Elysium Online]. In other words, cash.
It was virtual currency that could only be used inside games from Joysoft, but it was still a fairly large amount. If converted into hourly pay, it was worth a full 250,000 won per hour.
‘Do they keep giving it every few hours?’
And it did not end there.
Even after 8 hours, 10 hours, and beyond, I kept seeing [Unrevealed Cumulative Broadcast Time Reward] menus.
‘What are they trying to give me?’
No matter that it was paid currency limited to the game, they were paying 1,000,000 from the start.
Did that not mean the rewards that followed would be at least 1,000,000 won or more, as measured by the game company?
I checked the remaining rewards.
[8 Hours][Revealed after previous reward unlocks!]
[10 Hours][Revealed after previous reward unlocks!]
[Unrevealed Cumulative Broadcast Time Reward]
[Unrevealed Cumulative Broadcast Time Reward]
.
.
.
[Other]
[Upon reaching 50 cumulative broadcast hours]
[In addition to limited rewards, ‘Elysium Collaboration Desktop PC’ additionally granted!]
[Upon reaching 100 cumulative broadcast hours]
[In addition to limited rewards, ‘Elysium Collaboration Applephone 25 ProXXX’ additionally granted!]
‘Hm.’
The rewards themselves were not revealed. It was a system where the next one was revealed after all previous rewards were opened.
But.
‘There’s no doubt the rewards themselves are huge.’
As proof, upon reaching 50 hours and 100 hours, they even gave physical products such as a desktop PC and a high-end phone. They were collaboration models, but both were the newest models.
‘The PC and Applephone are worth aiming for too, aren’t they?’
Since I had only just been discharged, I wanted a new PC, and I wanted to change my phone too. But they were saying they would give these to me for free just by playing games.
‘Doing this is more efficient than working, isn’t it......?’
The price of an ultra-high-spec Applephone and PC was not low.
Even if I spent all the part-time wages I earned for half a year, I would probably be completely broke after buying those two.
But they would give all of that as rewards just for playing a game. Even if I was an old ranker, this treatment was truly no joke.
However, the most important reward was separate.
[* Legend Points can be obtained through cumulative broadcast time rewards or in-game achievement rewards.]
[* Depending on the Legend Point rankings, seed slots for the ‘Elysium Classic Korea Open’ may be granted.]
‘Seed slots......?’
The reward guide was announcing an upcoming official tournament.