Chapter 259

└ Fuck yeah, every day has been fun lately. The moment a huge LOST event ends, they drop another in-house event like this? Thank you, seriously.

└ Holy shit. A lot of the streamers who applied are people I actually watch.

└ But how the hell are they going to balance this? Everyone has different levels and gear.

└ Read the damn announcement properly. They said they are filtering participants into tiers and trying to keep things at least somewhat fair.

└ That somewhat part is exactly the fucking problem. They never said the balance would be perfect.

└ Perfect balance is something even M?bius has given up on, you dumbass. The point is to have fun together, not obsess over wins and losses. It literally says that in the announcement.

└ Each tier’s first-place prize is three hundred million won, so yeah, balance MATTERS.

└ Even Tier 1 has an equipment cap at grade A, so everyone has to prepare separate gear, and if there is a level gap during matches, the allowed gear grade drops even more. That sounds like they are pushing balance as far as they possibly can, no?

The people stirring up drama about balance were afraid their favorite streamer might get completely obliterated. From their perspective, the reaction made sense. When someone they supported looked like they might take a hit, complaints about fairness were bound to explode.

That part was unavoidable. It was the kind of mess that simply had to be endured and pushed past. No matter what choices were made, it was impossible to satisfy every single person involved. Trying to appease everyone would only make the whole situation worse.

└ But this feels kinda bullshit, right? Everyone else has to apply, maybe go through preliminaries if too many people sign up, and then get sorted into tiers. Meanwhile, Do-Jin just walks in and fights the champion right away? He isn’t even an official participant. That sounds like special treatment.

└ Why does an exhibition match mean fighting the winner of each tier? What is this, challenge the king? That sounds arrogant as hell.

└ For someone like Do-Jin, that’s obvious. What do you want him to do, enter the tournament and wipe every poor bastard out? Do you want to watch a tournament where the winner is decided before it even starts?

└ Damn, now I get why people call you guys “Do-jerk fanboys.” The winner is already decided, my ass, lol. What the fuck has Do-Jin even shown in one-on-one PvP to deserve all this hype?

└ This guy is clearly a newbie, lol. Do-Jin literally fought an entire guild by himself.

└ Or maybe those idiots who got stomped were just a bunch of useless clowns. Have you seen the level of streamers who signed up? Some of them are former pros. If you strip away gear advantages and look at pure skill, can anyone really guarantee Do-Jin wins?

└ Yeah, there is a guarantee. Just look at everything Do-Jin has pulled off in LOST so far. Meanwhile, what the hell have those so-called pros actually shown in this game, whether they played professionally elsewhere or not?

There were complaints about the event matches between Do-Jin and the winners of each tier. From Rael Entertainment’s perspective, however, this format was intentionally planned to lure in the big fish. He was an extreme endgame veteran and an outlier even among veterans, so matching him against random participants would not have been a big hit with the public.

A one-on-one match against him was a big opportunity for any streamer to get their name and face out there. The event match against Do-Jin was practically an additional prize awarded to each tier’s champion. It was a bonus round disguised as a spectacle.

But if every decision could perfectly account for every other person’s position and emotions, then human history wouldn’t have been riddled with conflict.

└ If he is just entering as a participant, then whatever. No one would care. If Do-Jin says he wants in, of course he gets selected. But this is kind of... yeah, this feels off.

└ Fucking hell, this is just straight up disrespecting the other participants. If it is a tournament, then it should be about skill alone. How does it make sense to skip everything and go straight to a real finals spot just because he is famous?

└ Do you not see the part where it says event match? Dumbass.

└ The Do-Jin fanboys seriously have no brains. Slap the word event on it and suddenly it becomes fine. It is basically filtering out the best fodder from the other participants so Do-Jin can shine harder. That is all this is.

└ So what’s the alternative then? If he joins as a regular participant, is anyone even confident they can handle him?

└ Handle him, my ass. Acting cocky before the lid is even opened.

└ The moment Do-Jin enters a tournament, he’ll turn into a damn truck. The unlucky bastard who runs into him gets flattened and eliminated instantly.

└ Ladies and gentlemen, this is how antis are born from fans. This is the exact moment it happens.

The argument that started over a few toxic comments lit up fast and turned into a full-blown wildfire in minutes.

“Team Leader! People’s reactions right now... you really need to see this.”

Rael Entertainment reacted first, as expected. No one was more sensitive to public response than the company. Kim Young-Hee frowned deeply as she looked at the tablet one of the staff members shoved toward her, the employee practically panicking.

“How long has it been since the announcement went up? When did this start?”

The staff member quickly replied, “It has been exactly eighteen minutes since the event notice for Colosseum L was posted, and the first complaint about the exhibition match showed up ten minutes ago.”

“Ten minutes? What were you doing for the past ten minutes? Stuff like this needs an immediate response. No... forget it. This involves the event and Mr. Do-Jin, so monitor everything in real time and collect every single comment.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“And... check every community talking about this. I want to know where public opinion is leaning.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

A headache started creeping into Kim Young-Hee’s skull. Do-Jin’s position lately had been near untouchable. He had carved out a space in LOST’s PvE scene that nobody else could even approach, and his recognition and popularity were through the roof.

Now that he was being dragged into this kind of controversy over something the company itself had asked him to do, Kim Young-Hee was worried.

We need to fix this somehow...

Even if they canceled the exhibition match right now, there was no way to stop the damage to Do-Jin’s image. Kim Young-Hee’s mind, already packed to the brim with problems, began to feel even more tangled.

***

Once water overflowed somewhere, it always found a way to spill outward. Just like that, the clash of opinions that first exploded in the comment section of Rael Entertainment’s event announcement began spreading across the internet.

People started swarming into the streams of broadcasters who had announced they applied for the Rael Group PvP tournament, “Colosseum L.” The streamers who had been minding their own business suddenly found themselves bombarded with questions. Most of them looked completely thrown off.

└ So what do you think about Do-Jin fighting the winner one-on-one? Does that not basically mean he gets to skip straight to the real finals under the name of an exhibition match?

「Huh? What are you talking about... oh, Do-Jin? Why is that a big deal? I never even considered Tier 1 anyway. I would probably get knocked out early even in Tier 4, so I don’t really care.」

「Wait, Do-Jin is doing exhibition matches against the winners? Holy shit! I am a huge fan of his. That is insane! I have to win and get his autograph.」

「I honestly don’t care that much. It is just an exhibition match, not the main tournament or finals. If anything, that makes it easier to focus on the prize money, does it not?」

Whether they truly felt that way or just didn’t want to jump into a messy controversy, most streamers avoided giving direct opinions. That was the natural reaction. No matter which side they took, they would get hammered by people who disagreed. Still, not everyone stayed quiet.

「An exhibition match? I don’t really have any complaints. It is exactly what it sounds like, an exhibition. Still, it feels kinda funny that he is fighting the winners... Maybe it just looks a little too confident, you know?」

The streamer who made that comment was Hex, a former pro from the ill-fated PvP game Blood Soul. The game had crashed and burned because it was too hard for most players.

「I seriously respect Do-Jin as a player. When it comes to PvE, he pulls off shit I can’t even imagine, and it is impressive as hell. But PvP is a completely different beast. Sure, he fought the Blood-whatever Guild in a big group fight before, but one-on-one matches between real heavy hitters are a whole different story.」

The words of a former pro from a brutally difficult game drew viewers in from every side of the argument.

「Whoa, what the hell is going on? Why are there so many viewers suddenly? Guys, I am honestly kinda scared right now. Can we just shut up and go back to what we were doing?」

└ What kind of bullshit is that? You think we came here just to watch you stay quiet while we are pissed off?

└ Is this some kind of masterclass in how to annoy the fuck out of people?

└ Lol, Hex is saying he will watch his mouth. Yeah right. This bastard just wants an excuse to run his mouth while he can. Look at that grin twitching on his face.

「Oh... yeah, this is getting real now. Since I already started talking about it, I might as well say it. Honestly, from everything we have seen so far, Do-Jin’s PvP has not looked that different from PvE. He has never actually faced a truly proper opponent in a serious one-on-one.」

└ What about that time he fought those guys who were killing NPCs?

「Yeah, that included. If someone truly understands and has mastered real PvP, they never go into a one-versus-many fight. The whole fucking concept is different from PvE. The fact that he could fight multiple people at once just shows he was going up against players who only knew how to fight monsters. And no, I am not saying that about Do-Jin himself. I am talking about the people he fought.」

└ Lol, Hex is dead as fuck now. Look at him choosing his words so carefully so he doesn’t get canceled.

「I mean, that is obvious, is it not? My stream barely had five hundred viewers before, and look how many people are here right now. Seriously, why are all of you coming at me like this?」

└ Just answer this one thing. Do you think it’s right that Do-Jin fights the winners as an exhibition match? The biggest stage of a tournament is supposed to be the finals. Do you not think he is basically stealing that spotlight?

└ From your perspective, does Do-Jin look like someone who would automatically win Tier 1? His fanboys keep acting like he is a walking steamroller whenever he joins anything.

「There are way too many people saying they will ask just one thing. Every question is different too. Uh... first of all, I don’t really have a problem with the exhibition match itself. The organizers decided on it, so what can I do? And... guaranteed winner?」

Hex let out a dry, almost disbelieving laugh.

「Ah, sorry. That just caught me off guard. I am not even in a position to say I am guaranteed to win anything myself. I can’t even promise that I would win the tournament if I entered. But I will say this. If I fought Do-Jin one-on-one, I think my chances of winning are higher than fifty percent. I will stop right there.」

└ DAAAAAAAAAAAMN!!!

└ What the fuck kind of confidence is that?

└ What do you mean what kind of confidence, lol. The guy was a pro in a literal hell-difficulty game.

└ Because LOST focuses on PvE, people keep underestimating PvP. The real monsters of skill always gather on the PvP side anyway.

└ Lol, are we really splitting into PvE players versus PvP players now?

The same kind of thing started happening everywhere. PvP veterans who had never gotten much attention because PvE dominated the spotlight suddenly had their comments clipped into short highlight videos and spread all over the internet.

「I feel the same way. There are way too many monsters in the PvP scene, so I can’t say I will win for sure. But I also can’t say I will definitely lose to him.」

「PvP is a completely different concept. Fighting a person does not automatically make it real PvP. Every clip I have seen so far shows him fighting idiots. Those guys didn’t even understand the basics of PvP. Farming scrubs like that does not mean he is some unstoppable legend...」

「We will only know once it actually happens, right? The tournament rules even have gear caps, do they not? With that kind of setup, it might actually be worth trying.」

Anyone with a decent reputation in PvP jumped onto the controversy one way or another, hoping to get their name out there. Eventually, someone poured the biggest barrel of gasoline onto this dumpster fire.

「Huh? Do I think Do-Jin would win if he entered the tournament?」

Theresa had just finished a packed schedule and had started her stream when someone asked the question. She had no idea a controversy was already raging and answered without thinking.

「Of course he would. I fought right next to him before. When you watch him up close, it’s honestly hard to imagine him losing anywhere. Seeing it on video and seeing it in person is completely different, you know? But why are people suddenly asking about this? I thought Do-Jin wasn’t even entering the tournament?」

Theresa blinked innocently, completely unaware of the chaos she had just unleashed.