I Gave Up Being Stronger

In his previous life, Jin-Hyeok and his party members, as Players affiliated with the government, were surrounded by much criticism and were involved in quite a few incidents. Whenever that happened, KingGodGeneral Yumi led the so-called Future Strategy Team to carry out various operations.

‘I had completely forgotten about this woman.’

Her real name was Wang Yu-Mi, and she was a master of image-making and story planning.

Jin-Hyeok was never afraid of dangerous monsters or villains, but Yu-Mi was a little frightening to him.

To Jin-Hyeok, Yu-Mi was like an unavoidable disaster.

‘Did I intentionally forget about her, or did I just completely forget she existed?’

After the regression, Jin-Hyeok never once thought of Wang Yu-Mi. It felt as though someone had carved away his memories related to Yu-Mi with a knife. Either consciously or unconsciously, it seemed Jin-Hyeok refused to remember her at all.

‘Whenever I think about that time…’

Jin-Hyeok shivered. He tried to push the memories related to Wang Yu-Mi to the back of his mind, but it was too late. Now that he remembered her, the memories came flooding back,

“Seven civilians died. Criticism will surely boil over again,” Yu-Mi said to Jin-Hyeok.

It was only natural for Jin-Hyeok’s party to receive criticism. If they did well, no one noticed, but if not, they were scolded by the public. The person who changed that kind of situation was Yu-Mi.

“We need to create our own universe.”

Then at some point, a hypothetical universe was implemented to Jin-Hyeok’s party. When he first heard of this universe, he nearly threw up.

“The basic point of creating our own universe is to empathize through hope and become one through Play.”

If it was just this much, Jin-Hyeok could\'ve understood and accepted it, but she didn\'t stop and kept going.

“Let’s set it up so that we are Players that are not humans. New divine beings who have flown in a spaceship from an unknown world.”

Yu-Mi suddenly set the members up as new divine beings from an unknown world. She said something about this Great Will that had existed since the beginning of time… It was a story that began along those lines, and it was quite an intricately woven narrative.

To be honest, Jin-Hyeok didn’t remember it well.

‘By the way, what was I again? Ah, yes. I was in charge of eclipses or something. A divine being that became a legend… or something.’

“Jin-Hyeok is the most handsome, and his skills are beyond words. He is perfect for generating numerous fans, but it can also be a bit exhausting and dangerous.”

Yu-Mi’s mouth watered every time she looked at Jin-Hyeok.

“So sensual and sexy…”

There was always madness in her eyes.

Through her work, Jin-Hyeok became a part of the universe she had created. He was a sacred someone who occasionally gifted darkness, or an eclipse, to the world.

‘Ah, now I remember the exact name. I was the Moon King of the Ashen World.’

“I’ve never seen anyone who looks good in red lipstick like you, Jin-Hyeok. Trust me, you look beautiful!”

That was the most terrifying thing for Jin-Hyeok. He still could not understand why a Player wielding a sword had to apply lipstick. However, he was also a Player affiliated with the National Intelligence Service at that time, and he had to comply when ordered from above.

“Do you feel your popularity now, Jin-Hyeok?”

Jin-Hyeok, who was considerably tormented by Yu-Mi, just accepted it as his fate. She also said something about his fan clubs spreading all over the world.

Jin-Hyeok was the Moon King of the Ashen World, and his fans were called something else.

‘Ah, I remember this too.’

They were called the Moon Army, or Marmy, for short. Jin-Hyeok remembered there were many incidents because he had so many extreme fans.

‘The makeup… the scripts… I had to do all of that because the higher-ups told me to…’

Yu-Mi had said that these things were necessary for the party. She said something about how communication with the public was essential in these times.

For reference, Kim Jeong-Hyeon was the lyrical poet who sang Songs of the Grass, and Choi Gang-Byeok was the chief of the sturdy Rock Giants. For some reason, Kang Mi-Na was the Girl of Flames from the Planet of Fire, and Han Sae-Rin was remembered as a goddess or something lost in narcissism.

It was so cringy that Jin-Hyeok couldn’t stand it.

‘I eventually declared that I wanted out of this shenanigans.’

After some time, Jin-Hyeok said he would no longer cooperate with Yu-Mi. When he said that, Yu-Mi craftily modified his character.

He later learned that he was no longer the Moon King of the Ashen World and had transformed into a haughty and aloof Moon Emperor who didn’t care about anything other than Play.

“Hehe. The Marmy fans love this concept even more!”

She would even raise her hands and shout things in a dark room.

“The Moon Emperor has commanded silence! People entranced by the beauty of darkness, obey the lunar decree! HAHAHAHA!”

After that day, Jin-Hyeok avoided Yu-Mi.

Anyway, seeing the name KingGodGeneral Yumi, the bad memories started to bubble up inside Jin-Hyeok.

‘I must never get involved with her.’

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

‘I wonder what Mystery Box is up to these days.’

As Play became more popular, and the SSP and Eltube integration took off, countless Streamer channels were launched. In Korea, BonjourTV was ranked first, with MiNaTV close on its heels.

‘Buy why isn’t Mystery Box on the Ranking Board?’

As far as Jin-Hyeok could recall, Mystery Box consistently maintained a position around third place. However, his name was missing from the Ranking Board.

‘Let’s see…’

Upon searching on Eltube, he found that Mystery Box had uploaded several first-person perspective videos in May. Jin-Hyeok had pressed the subscription and the notification button, but Mystery Box’s channel had been quiet since then.

‘Is he not Playing anymore?’

That seemed unlikely. Just then, Mystery Box’s videos were uploaded.

‘Huh?’

The concept was strange. Even the name of the video category was Stalking Kim Chul-Soo.

‘What is he trying to do?’

A few days later, Jin-Hyeok could see what kind of livestream Mystery Box was doing.

He was livestreaming about Jin-Hyeok.

It seemed like he had gained some permission to post Jin-Hyeok’s Play on Eltube.

‘A livestream about my Play?’

Previously, Mystery Box had been a first-person Streamer producing on-foot content, but now he was just sitting in his studio, talking.

Jin-Hyeok soon figured out Mystery Box’s tactics.

‘The viewer numbers are higher than I thought.’

Watching a few videos, Jin-Hyeok noticed how active Mystery Box’s chat was. During the scene where Jin-Hyeok was confronting the Bodiless One and committed suicide, a torrent of chat messages poured in.

-LOL. He committed suicide right there! Haha!

-WTF! Lol. This is amazing!

-? This is so easy. I tried the Tutorial Field after watching this.

Mystery Box cleverly pinned some of the chat messages. This enabled a comment feature on the selected chats, similar to a forum. It was a system Jin-Hyeok had not seen with other Streamers.

[*Feel free to leave your comments. *Excessive attacks/profanity may be deleted without notice. * Please refrain from political/hate speech. *Excessive hate comments may lead to being blacklisted.]

[ Anonymous:? This is so easy. I tried the Tutorial Field after watching this.]

┗AKA, just tried.

┗AKA, just shouting in pain after stabbing himself.

┗AKA, can’t even commit suicide.

┗AKA, just being invincible. LOL!

There were many comments mocking Real Man.

After Jin-Hyeok showed himself committing suicide on his livestream, a few Streamers tried to do the same thing.

‘Strangely, they all seemed to have a hard time dying.’

No one was stopping them, and there were no monsters hindering them either. Even the resurrection setting was blatantly activated. If they properly stabbed themselves, they could die easily, but everyone failed. Jin-Hyeok could not understand why.

They just needed to stab themselves well in one blow for instant death. If they half-assed it, it only hurt, and they wouldn’t die, but most of the Streamers Jin-Hyeok saw didn’t instantly die.

[Real Man: I’m serious! I can show you my video as evidence!]

In his livestream, Mystery Box received a video from the viewer and shared it on the screen. The video seemed a bit odd and the other viewers knew what was wrong with it.

┗Hahahahaha! Did he really put 1.8x speed on the video? LOL

┗Even with the increased speed, he’s slower than Kim Chul-Soo! What a fail! Haha!

┗Getting stabbed at 1.8x speed but still lost to Chul-Soo. LOL

Some even broke down the video frame by frame to create a meme to compare with Jin-Hyeok’s video.

┗ I just made a comparison meme of Kim Chul-Soo and Real Man’s suicide.

┗ LOL! LOL! LOL!

‘They made a meme so quickly and uploaded it!’

Compared to Jin-Hyeok\'s, Real Man’s act of committing suicide looked quite clumsy.

┗Please bring out the next loser! LOL

┗Stop teasing, hahaha! He might cry!

Jin-Hyeok also smiled at the comments. It wasn’t that funny, but the viewers were having fun teasing Real Man.

‘This is… sort of fun.’

It felt like the viewers were kids visiting an amusement park called Mystery Box. Somehow, watching that was entertaining for Jin-Hyeok too.

Suddenly, during the livestream, there was a sound of coins jingling. It was the sound effect for a donation.

[_Roundy has donated 1,000 won.]

An electronic voice read out _Roundy\'s message.

[_Roundy: I want to see Kim Chul-Soo’s eyes in the third person perspective. He seems like a real madman.]

Reading that comment, Mystery Box responded.

⌜Hey, Roundy, do you really think we can describe that as madness? It is more than that. His madness is something beyond dimensions of insanity, something miraculous and sacred from a realm beyond. Let’s not blaspheme Kim Chul-Soo’s divine status.⌟

‘What the heck is he trying to say? Wait a minute, there’s something strangely off about his livestream.’

Jin-Hyeok continued to watch Mystery Box’s livestream as if he was mesmerized by something.

‘I wonder if this works.’

Jin-Hyeok used Broadcaster’s Clairvoyance on Mystery Box’s livestream. His livestream was within the realm of Play, so Jin-Hyeok’s Broadcaster’s Clairvoyance should be able to see what was going on.

‘He’s using something like the Deceiver’s Mask.’

Mystery Box was hiding his real face too. It was difficult for Jin-Hyeok to find out about Mystery Box’s real face, and he spent hours watching Mystery Box’s livestream, trying to grasp his true form. As Jin-Hyeok continued to look, something caught his eye.

‘Wait a minute. Why does he seem so familiar?’

It seemed Jin-Hyeok was on the verge of finding out.

After a few more hours, Jin-Hyeok was finally able to see Mystery Box’s true face.

‘KingGodGeneral… I mean, Wang Yu-Mi?’

Jin-Hyeok could faintly see Yu-Mi’s face from Mystery Box, who was hosting the livestream.

‘But wait… Why is she…’

But then, thinking back, there were some hints that suddenly fit together like a puzzle. In Jin-Hyeok\'s past life, Mystery Box had retired relatively early, and around the same time, Wang Yu-Mi had joined the team that supported Jin-Hyeok’s party.

‘So Mystery Box was actually Wang Yu-Mi?’

In his previous life, Jin-Hyeok had done some digging into Mystery Box during his United Nations Security Council days, but back then, Mystery Box\'s supposedly real identity was under a different name, and was even a male.

‘Could it be…?’

A theory formed in his mind.

‘Mystery Box must have had a Mystery like Multiple Lives or Second Identity. Perhaps it was a higher-grade Mystery, one at the level of Multiple Lives!’

That was why Mystery Box concealed her identity so thoroughly while she was active, and only after becoming an owner of a building did she join Jin-Hyeok’s support team in her true form.

‘No wonder she knew the Players so well.’

So it seemed Yu-Mi retired from being a Streamer and enjoyed what she loved doing, playing with Jin-Hyeok and other members like dolls.

Then something else occurred to Jin-Hyeok.

‘The Lonely Moon Emperor souvenir series…’

In Jin-Hyeok’s previous life, Yu-Mi had made T-shirts with his face on them, and even pillowcases and blankets. There were even life-sized dolls of Jin-Hyeok that were sold out in seconds.

Thanks to this, Yu-Mi was said to be really rich. Jin-Hyeok also made a lot of money but never paid attention since his only concern then was becoming stronger. Even in this timeline, it seemed Yu-Mi was still making money by selling Jin-Hyeok.

The sound of coins jingling continued as donations were still coming in.

‘Selling me again and becoming rich, are you? Hm… Hold on… This is starting to irk me. But I can just activate my chat settings and be done with it, right?’

The reason Yu-Mi’s livestream could thrive was that Jin-Hyeok had not communicated at all on his livestream. Jin-Hyeok realized he should activate his chat window on his livestream

‘But Playing and communicating with viewers at the same time, like her, is impossible for me.’

Jin-Hyeok felt he was still lacking as a Streamer when he met the Masked Sage.

‘Should I just open the chat window and not talk to the viewers?’

That would mean the viewers would have no reason to watch Yu-Mi’s livestream.

‘If the viewers can chat in my livestream, Yu-Mi will naturally have to give up content related to me. Then I can get rid of her once and for all!’

The next day, Jin-Hyeok started his livestream.

[Would you like enable your 「Chat ON」 setting?]

[「Chat ON」 setting will be enabled.]

For the first time, Jin-Hyeok opened the chat window.

-Devils: Huh? What’s going on?

-MyTails: Why is the chat working?

-Anonymous: ???

-HelloWorld: This is really happening?

-AngelinaJelly: THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING!

It seemed that the viewers marked in bold were those who had given donations to Jin-Hyeok’s channel.

-FeelsGood: Hmm? What’s with the chat window?

-PigRun: ?????

-BangBang: ???????

As the chat window became chaotic, Jin-Hyeok felt something prick in his head. An indescribable ominous feeling washed over him. Reflexively, he froze the chat window again.

‘What is this feeling?’

It felt like he had opened Pandora’s box that shouldn’t have been opened. As he briefly examined the chat window that had gone wild, he discovered something unbelievable.

‘What… is this?’