Ranker’s Return

Hyeonu’s words were like a tsunami that broke the mentality of the viewers. Yet Hyeonu maintained a completely indifferent attitude. He resumed the ranking battle like nothing had happened.

‘Now I am ranked 1,200th.’

In his own way, Hyeonu was struggling. He raised his rankings easily, but strangely, the matching speed was too slow.

‘It is weird that it is slower.’

The average waiting time to be matched in the platinum and diamond ranks was 30 minutes. However, Hyeonu didn’t play a match until 40 minutes later.

‘What should I do? It is too long...’

Just then, an idea struck Hyeonu’s mind.

“Everyone, shall we take a look at Tang-E?”

-I’ve been waiting for him!!

-If you don’t show him today, I won’t watch your streams in the future.

-I even wanted to unsubscribe from the channel.

-I was going to buy a plane ticket to South Korea.

‘Ouch.’

Hyeonu was perplexed by the cheers of the audience.

‘I would’ve been in trouble if I hadn’t talked about Tang-E.’

He had forgotten how Tang-E affected the viewers.

‘I have to reflect.’

Hyeonu thought deeply about what he had been doing. He had killer content yet he didn’t use it. No, this wasn’t at the level of just being a killer content. It was a cheat in console games. This was a strength that others could never get.

“Tang-E.” At Hyeonu’s call, a golden bear appeared.

“Master dude!!” Tang-E rushed to greet Hyeonu. Hyeonu hugged such a Tang-E. The viewers who saw this scene all grabbed at their chests.

-Ugh... My heart...

-No matter how many times I see him, I can’t adapt.

-That cuteness is a murder weapon. I want to lock him up in my house.

-My heart is really beating hard...

Hyeonu lifted Tang-E and started to spin him around. Then Hyeonu felt a sense of strangeness. It felt like there was something different about Tang-E. He couldn’t put it into words, but his past experiences with Tang-E were telling him this. Something was different about Tang-E.

‘What is it?’

Eventually, Hyeonu had to ask Tang-E because he didn’t find any changes.

“Tang-E, have you changed a little bit?” Hyeonu queried.

Tang-E smiled brightly. The corners of his mouth kept curving up like he was in a good mood. “As expected of Master dude. I thought you would recognize it. I have developed further. I can transform now.”

Hyeonu rejoiced over Tang-E’s words. “Really? What happened?”

“I couldn’t do it, so I ate the essences. Now I can transform.”

-Transform? Can’t he already become bigger?

-It isn’t that?

-Then what? Will he become even bigger this time?

-Or will he get smaller?

-What is it? Don’t just talk between the two of you. Tell us.

The viewers were curious about Hyeonu and Tang-E’s conversation. Yet Hyeonu had already forgotten about the stream. He was too focused on his conversation with Tang-E. 

“So? Can you show it now?” Hyeonu asked.

“Of course. Have you seen anything that I can’t do?” Tang-E answered, pounding on his chest.

Hyeonu smiled lightly behind the mask at the sight of Tang-E.

‘Ah! Aren’t I streaming?’ 

Suddenly remembering that he was streaming, Hyeonu used his natural senses to lead the situation in a way that was beneficial to him.

“Viewers, do you want to see Tang-E’s new look?” Hyeonu uttered casually. However, the viewers did not take his words lightly.

-I want to see it!

-Show it to me quickly!

-Do you need gold coins? Why didn’t you say it earlier? This guy...

-Leader Groupie has gifted you 999 gold coins.

-I Love Tang-E has gifted you 1,000 gold coins.

-Tang-E is Cute has gifted you 777 gold coins.

The viewers started throwing out gold coins. They knew from experience what Hyeonu’s words meant.

‘I’m raking in the gold coins today… Really raking them in.’

“Oh, I didn’t intend to receive them. But I’m not the type to refuse, so thank you very much. Thank you Leader Group for the 999 gold coins. Thank you I Love Tang-E for the 1,000 gold coins. Thank you Tang-E is cute for the 777 gold coins.” Hyeonu collected the gold coins and turned his head toward Tang-E. “Tang-E, shall we show it once?”

“Understood,” Tang-E responded.

Hyeonu watched Tang-E with a nervous expression. It was the first time Hyeonu was seeing it, and he was excited about what Tang-E would look like. Of course, it was possible to know what Tang-E might look like based on his parents, but the specifics weren’t known.

‘First, shouldn’t his hair be blond? His fur is golden after all. He’s young, so his height might be short...’ 

As Hyeonu imagined Tang-E in human form, Tang-E had already started to transform.

[Your pet ‘Tang-E’ has used Transform.]

A dark blue light that resembled Hyeonu’s magic power surrounded Tang-E. After a while, the dark blue light faded away and revealed Tang-E’s figure.

-Ohhhhh!

-Tang-E, bring him to me!!! 

-Crazy crazy.

The viewers were excited by the sight of Tang-E, who was revealed little by little. Everyone was excited. Tang-E’s fully revealed appearance was the climax. He had fluffy and curly blond hair that matched really well with his skin that was as pale as white jade. His cheeks, that hadn’t lost their baby fat, were as plump as balloons which were about to explode. The finishing touch was Tang-E’s eyes. They were of different colors. One side was red while the other was blue. This was something that seemed like it would never be seen in reality.

An angel...

Yes, Tang-E’s current appearance was like that of a young angel without wings. Hyeonu marveled at Tang-E’s transformation. It was better than he had expected.

“Wow... Tang-E, aren’t you really cute?” Hyeonu offered a heartfelt compliment to Tang-E.

“Is that so? I haven’t even shown it to my parents yet. They prefer my normal appearance,” Tang-E whispered in Hyeonu’s ears.

Hyeonu also whispered back in a very low voice so that the viewers couldn’t hear his words. “No, I’m sure the two of them will really like your current appearance. Go back and show it to them.”

“Understood.” Tang-E seemed moved by Hyeonu’s words and closed his eyes. It went without saying that the viewers who saw this scene were upset.

-I want to keep that look.

-Come and screenshot it. Screenshot it. The highlight of today is this.

-The number of viewers has exploded.

-Uh? It’s 8 million viewers now. ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-Tang-E alone is the reason for 3 million of them. ㅋ ㅋ ㅋ

The number of Hyeonu’s streaming viewers had been stagnant for some time. Now thanks to Tang-E’s human transformation, it surged. The number of viewers that typically hovered around five million had increased to eight million.

‘Wow... Should I really show Tang-E in the stream?’

Hyeonu reached the point where he was fantasizing like a fool.

***

“By the way, why is it so hard to get matched to a ranking battle? Isn’t this a bug? Viewers, do you know anything?”

Before, Hyeonu was already annoyed by the ranking battle matching. Now, he was extremely annoyed. During the stream that lasted nearly four hours, he had played exactly four ranking battles. That meant it was one battle per hour. It was half the number of battles of other streamers.

At this time, viewers who answered Hyeonu’s question appeared.

-All the streamers have currently left the ranking battles. ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-They ran away. All of a sudden, those increasing their rankings went to hunt.

-Some streamers are streaming grinding right now. Why aren’t they taking part in the ranking competition? It seems they aren’t feeling well ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-So they’re scared of Alley Leader and all ran away?

-They are jerks with no other answer as to how they can face Alley Leader. Now who will our Alley Leader fight to improve the ranking? Doesn’t this mean he can’t rise to the first rank?

‘Run away?’

It was an unprecedented event in the three years since Arena opened. Hyeonu forgot he was wearing a mask and raised a hand to his eyes. This was outrageous. It was said that the rankers of the arena had really high self-esteem.

‘Should I rejoice about this or feel annoyed?’

Such rankers stopped doing the ranking battles to avoid him. Hyeonu couldn’t help wondering if he should be happy that they found him undefeatable or be angry that they ruined his stream.

‘Then today’s streaming should end here.’

Eventually, Hyeonu took extraordinary measures.

“I’m going to stop playing the ranking battles today. I can’t play like this. Instead, let’s watch Tang-E’s cute actions for an hour.”

He finished the ranking battles. It couldn’t be helped. If Hyeonu didn’t have an opponent to face, he couldn’t raise his ranking.

“The next stream will be at random times. I won’t show the streaming time. However, you’ll know about it from the notification, right? This will last until the day I’m ranked first in the arena. It will be random streaming. Let’s see how long they can get away with it.” Hyeonu gritted his teeth.

This was a declaration of war. It was also a cruel sentence for those whose only content was the ranking battle.

“Come at me.”

How long could Hyeonu be avoided?

***

After Hyeonu’s stream, there were two hot issues in the community.

[Sharing the screenshot of Tang-E.]

[Based on Tang-E’s looks, can’t he be an advertising model?]

[I am a fan of Tang-E starting from today.]

[Can’t Tang-E do a stream? Or sell something. Damn Quency.]

The first was the human form of Tang-E that was revealed by Hyeonu. Tang-E’s appearance was extremely cute. His appearance stimulated maternal love in everyone’s hearts, regardless of whether they were men, women, old, or young.

The second topic was Alley Leader’s words. They were words that drew sighs from some people and cheers from most people.

-He will stream until the day he is first in the arena.

Hyeonu didn’t exactly say this, but it had this meaning.

Some viewers even wrote in the community.

[He was avoided on purpose. ㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

-Honestly, when I was watching Alley Leader’s stream, I was looking at the stream of another diamond ranker. Suddenly, that jerk stopped the ranking battle. At that time, I hadn’t known why. Now that I see it, he was probably afraid his ranking would decline, so he stopped the ranking battles. However, this is his only content. If he doesn’t do the ranking battles, his number of viewers and income will drop sharply. What can he do? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ It is scary. ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-Milk Drinking Yuljae: I heard there were more than one or two streamers who did that.

-Power Muscle King: Even the first ranked person will fall. I would be afraid to play the ranking battle. 

-Pro Dreamer: Why would you play the ranking battle? You would feel stuffy for the rest of your life if you were robbed of your ranking.

-Incheon Dirt Cutlery: We don’t need anything, just popcorn or fries. When can I see those Celestial World jerks being robbed?

It didn’t take long for the words of a community member to come true. This was because it became a reality the very next day.