"Ugh!"
I stretched as I pushed myself up. I had clearly slept for a long time, yet the stiffness in my body had not gone away. I had not moved violently or exercised, so the fact that my whole body felt sore was simply strange.
After wriggling around on the bed for a bit to loosen up, I finally got up.
What time is it?
I had gone to bed early yesterday, so I had no idea what time it was. When I checked, it was 7 a.m. People who worked at companies would already be awake by now.
"I slept a ridiculously long time..."
It felt like I had slept almost twelve hours. That was probably why my body felt even more sluggish. After checking the time, I changed clothes and headed outside.
Recently, I had been feeling my physical limits more and more, so I decided to go to a nearby park for some light exercise.
After starting the morning refreshingly with a workout, I returned home and immediately ordered food. Koreans live on the power of rice, so if you do not eat, you simply have no energy.
After eating a hearty meal, I began tackling the housework I had put off.
It was still only 9 a.m. The auction started at 3 p.m., so I still had six hours to spare. After finishing my chores and eating once more, I entered the capsule.
As soon as I got inside, I prepared for the broadcast. Compared to my PC days, there was not much to set up.
Once I was ready, I started the stream right away.
"Ah, ah. Is the mic working?"
Yeah
Phil hi
You turned on the stream ten minutes before the auction
You should have come earlier
This is early though, isn't it?
The viewers seemed to think I was late, but I did not bother responding. I had never said I would start earlier yesterday. It was basically just them whining because they wanted to watch longer, so I let it slide.
I waited for more viewers to come in.
But the rate at which the viewer count is increasing is strange.
The number of viewers was rising so fast that even I, the owner of the stream, started suspecting viewbots.
"Guys, is this a viewbot attack?"
Why is the viewer count rising so fast?
That is suspicious enough
What is going on?
Whoa
Is it really a viewbot attack?
Sometimes random viewbot attacks happened, and if you streamed like that for too long, your account could get suspended. Usually, people would restart the stream.
The viewers also seemed to think it was a viewbot attack. Then a donation came in.
VoiceGoddessPonia donated 1,000 won.
Came from Ponia's stream. You worked hard yesterday. Please take care of things until the tournament starting today.
A viewer who said they had come from Ponia's stream, a UR rank player I had scrimmed with yesterday, had donated. After that, I saw occasional chat messages saying they had come from other streams as well.
It seemed like the trickle-down effect had properly kicked in. Most of them appeared to have come after watching my one-man show during yesterday's practice scrim.
Some viewers said they had seen clips of my one-man show in the community and joined because of that.
The scale of my stream just increased massively.
Back when I played with GG, the scale of my stream had grown too, but once the broadcast ended, most of them left. They had been GG's fans, not mine.
Since I had not shown anything special, they had not been interested in me as a streamer.
But this time, the viewers had come because they were interested in me.
Even if I do not show a lot, showing just enough can draw plenty of interest.
My heart pounded as if I were experiencing the excitement of my very first stream again. I carefully opened my mouth.
"We have quite a lot of new viewers. Haha. I'm Pilgong, a streamer on Kwazizik. I'm originally a PC streamer."
After finishing my awkward introduction, I immediately turned on the official Kwasdae broadcast to ease the tension. Since it had not started yet, nothing was being said.
I needed to get rid of this awkwardness somehow before it began.
"Guys, how many points do you think I'll go for?"
To ease the tension, I brought up the topic the viewers would most want to talk about.
1000
500
800?
After what you showed yesterday, you are definitely over 500
It probably will not be low
The viewers casually threw out terrifying numbers that honestly scared me just hearing them. I was already nervous, but they seemed completely unfazed. If I actually got auctioned for those kinds of points, the stress would be insane.
"Still, 1,000 points is too much. Around 500 seems possible."
You have to admit what deserves admitting.
After what I did yesterday, it was only natural that my points would be high. The real question was how high. In my opinion, 1,000 was too much, but 500 seemed possible.
"If it goes higher than that, the team is doomed. They will not be able to draft the other ranks properly."
They might just make you do a one-man show like in the scrim
There is a high chance they drop 2,000 points on you and demand a one-man show. I think it is very likely
I vote for one-man show
You do have a point though
No way, it is 1000 for sure
It is not the first time someone dumps points and then ruins the team and gets bad results
I could relate even more because that had happened to my team before. In the midst of all that, a few people kept stubbornly insisting on 1,000 points like some kind of curse, so I quietly muted them. We kept chatting about the points.
When the time came, the standby screen switched to the commentators.
"Hello everyone. I'm Sung Jinyu, your host for the 2046 Kwasdae."
"I'm Yujinhyo, the commentator."
"I'm Kim Jaehyuk, a pro gamer in GG under the name Margus."
The official broadcast began with the same greetings as yesterday and followed a similar flow. Then yesterday's scrim was brought up.
"Yesterday, a team formed through a mock auction held a scrim, and I heard the results were quite surprising."
"Yes. Even as a pro gamer, I doubted my ears."
"Oh? Was it that impressive?"
As Margus spoke, Yujinhyo piled on, and the story suddenly started getting inflated.
"I heard he wiped out an entire party by himself."
"Wasn't it an SSR rank team?"
"Yes. But he single-handedly wiped a team that even included a UR rank."
"Wow. His value must be absurdly high?"
I could only hold my head listening to this. If they cut out all the context and mentioned it like that on the official broadcast, my points were bound to skyrocket exponentially.
"What is wrong with them all of a sudden? Are they trying to ruin a team on purpose?"
For real
Margus is going crazy
They just want to hype it up for laughs
Hahaha
The viewers were just laughing because they found the situation funny.
Meanwhile, my insides were burning up. The commentators kept rambling for a while, and only after five minutes did it finally end.
"Now then, let us move on to the order you have all been waiting for. Please reveal the auction order!"
At Sung Jinyu's words, sixteen face-down cards appeared. They began flipping over in auction order.
Most of the early cards were low-tier.
There were a few SR ranks mixed in, but even so, many low-tiers were revealed at the start.
"The positions are worse than I expected."
Yeah
That means all the high ranks are stacked at the back
The UR ranks auctioning are going to have a headache
This is bad
There are already a lot of unbalanced players this time, and now all the high tiers are pushed to the back
If this continued, the early low-tiers would likely all go unsold. Then at the end, there would be intense bidding wars for the high-tiers, and teams might run out of points for the unsold players.
Now what matters is where I am.
Even within the latter half, there was a difference between being earlier or later.
There was no perfect scenario, but the better outcome would be appearing earlier in the latter half and either going unsold or being picked up for fewer points.
"Please let me appear early. Not at the very end."
I prayed to appear earlier as the later cards started flipping.
One by one, the cards turned over. But among the cards that kept flipping, my name was nowhere to be seen.
"This is screwed."
Hahaha
When is he coming out?
Since he is a point monster, he has to come at the right timing
So close
The auction is doomed
When the final card flipped, my name finally appeared.
SSR Pilgong
That alone told me everything.
My auction was screwed.
The commentators knew it too.
"The player we mentioned as the hottest yesterday appears last."
"In that case, we can expect many unsold low-tiers earlier."
"Not only Pilgong, but high-ceiling players like Furia are also at the back."
"This auction just became extremely important."
Even though we knew the early auction was doomed, there was no changing the order now. The auction went exactly as expected.
"Myomyo goes unsold!"
"Dokgram goes unsold!"
"Pyodok joins Team Pilip for 55 points!"
Unsold announcements continued without end. A few players managed to avoid it in between.
Amid the parade of unsold players, the first SSR finally appeared.
"At least as an SSR, he probably will not go unsold... How many points will he get?"
Unsold
Definitely unsold
No one is wasting points there
Yeah
Definitely unsold
Unlike my expectation that the first SSR would not go unsold, the viewers predicted otherwise.
It seemed they thought that since the highest-ceiling SSRs were still left, no one would bid.
If that really happens, his pride is going to take a huge hit...
As I thought that, the auction started, and the result was exactly what the viewers predicted.
"Daenamu goes unsold!"
The auction continued, and finally it was Furia's turn. After yesterday's scrim, he was a highly anticipated prospect, just like me.
"Now, we will begin Furia's auction."
Pilip - 50 points
Yuruba - 70 points
Ponia - 100 points
Chilchaek - 200 points
As expected of a promising player, Furia's auction began at 50 points.
The bidding war was fierce, and in the end, Furia closed at a much higher point than expected.
"Furia joins Yuruba for 700 points!"
Seven hundred points.
If that had been me, I would have been seriously frowning. The auction continued, and the team leaders began drafting their teams by picking up SR ranks.
Finally, it was my turn, the last one. So far, only one SSR had been successfully bid on. That meant the remaining three would compete for me.
"How many points will it be?"
I had speculated endlessly, but speculation was only speculation. You could never know until the bidding actually began.
"Now, we begin Pilgong's auction."
As soon as the bidding message appeared, I doubted my eyes.
Ponia - 1,800 points
"Are you insane?"