5.

When the stream came on, viewers entered with questions and worries, but they didn’t expect much.

As always, Han Simin’s streams were far more fun if you went in with low expectations.

The Demon World episodes had been a nonstop string of tension where you couldn’t look away for a second, and during enhancement streams, he would sometimes fail deliberately for the sake of content. Even though everyone knew the end result would be +15, he still managed to keep them on the edge of their seats. But aside from those moments, the content itself had rarely been particularly entertaining.

It was mostly small talk about everyday life.

The daily routine of Fantastic World addicts—hardcore players who were logged in for more than twenty hours a day. Their lives were unlike anything you could find in the real world. As Fantastic World exploded in popularity, more and more users began making a serious living through the game, giving rise to a new class of degenerates who, unlike the usual shut-ins, had both looks and money.

People were curious.

The daily lives of these individuals were compelling enough that you could leave the stream on for hours, even without any special “content.”

And so it was with this leveling stream featuring Han Yeori.

Just having it on was good enough.

Viewers didn’t expect much from Han Simin. They were less interested in how he could possibly make a leveling series entertaining and more focused on questions like: ’What’s his relationship with this woman? Is she rich, too?’

You could kill a lot of time just pondering things like that.

That was how it had been, at least up until twenty minutes ago.

Back when everyone still thought this was just a high-level donation stream disguised as a girl-cam leveling series.

No, even when Han Yeori, showing off her flashy buffs, charged alone toward the monsters, they had still thought that way.

They were too stunned to speak.

But now, not a single person still thought that.

There were now more viewers marveling at the speed at which monsters were dying than there were focusing on Han Yeori’s looks—which shone as brightly as her buffs—or on her figure, accentuated by the tight-fitting school uniform.

—What is this? What is happening?

—How is this even possible?

—I’m pretty sure those monsters are level 45. Am I wrong?

—Isn’t she only level 30?

—Is it just because Simin geared her up?

Viewers who had only been curious about Han Yeori’s face and figure began to look past her appearance and question her very existence.

They began debating the game mechanics that could make such a thing possible, calculating the odds. The sharper viewers immediately started trying to deduce her class from what they were seeing.

That was the moment.

The moment Han Simin’s stream, which already had more viewers than usual, truly blew up.

Thirty thousand.

Forty thousand.

Fifty thousand.

The paid viewer count climbed steadily as time went on. Even the people already watching were shocked by how high the numbers were getting.

The amazing part was that, even though she was just repeating the same hunts with similar patterns, the viewer count wasn’t dropping. That was the true power of leveling content, but more importantly, it was because Han Yeori possessed the single most crucial trait a streamer needed to keep viewers hooked during a long grind.

It was her first broadcast.

She had used the cheat code named “Han Simin,” but for a first-timer, it was a spectacular debut that etched her name deep into the viewers’ minds.

“Alright, everyone, you’re curious, right? I’ll slowly reveal more about my sister as we go along.”

And Han Simin was there to give her debut his full support.

—What? Sister?

—His actual sister?

—No way, come on.

—But her looks...

—I mean, it’s not like Simin’s ugly, but she’s on a whole other level.

In every way, it was a flashy spectacle.

*

Han Simin never revealed detailed information about his own class on stream.

That wasn’t unique to him; it was standard practice for every streamer with a Unique-grade class or higher. A few did reveal their class, but they were mostly in production-type roles rather than combat, and even then, there were plenty of aspects that other users simply couldn’t replicate.

For combat classes, whose greatest strengths lay in their unique traits and special mechanics, revealing every little detail could turn those very traits into weaknesses. In Fantastic World—a game where you grew by beating the crap out of each other—that was no different from digging your own grave.

This was true for non-combat classes as well, but Han Simin was especially sensitive about it. He was reluctant to expose the limits of the Legendary Tamer or the Legendary Enhancer. One could argue those limits no longer really existed, but if he went around loudly declaring that, wouldn’t it make a class whose only redeeming feature was the word “Legendary” look cheap and pathetic?

It was, by name, a Legendary-grade class. Dino, for instance, exuded the full majesty of a true Legendary, flinging spectacular spells like fireworks even without his master’s heirlooms.

For reasons as petty as that, he was reluctant to reveal anything. In Fantastic World, the value of information was treated with absolute seriousness.

Yet when it came to Han Yeori’s information, Han Simin spared nothing.

Why?

There was no particular reason.

“She’s a Legendary-grade Buffer, and as she levels up, she gets a passive EXP buff. The number of buffs she has is basically uncountable. She needs to level up to unlock and use them all... but even the buffs she has from level one are completely broken, and they only get stronger as she levels.”

“I mean, seriously, that damned BetaGo bastard, if he’s watching this, shouldn’t he be slapping a nerf on this ASAP? It’s already hard enough to make a living lugging around two useless Legendary classes, so why the hell did all the overpowered classes skip over me? I honestly can’t understand it.”

The reason for keeping information secret is simple: once it’s in someone else’s hands, it becomes a liability. They can study it, figure out counters. If they ever become your enemy, nothing is more troublesome. No matter how perfect something is, it can’t be without weaknesses. The moment your greatest strength becomes your weakness, that class loses its value, Legendary or not.

However, in Han Simin’s view, a Buffer’s advantages wouldn’t become a liability even if they were public knowledge.

Of course, a Buffer wasn’t a perfect class. When he had heard the details from Han Yeori, there were a few weaknesses he decided he would absolutely not mention, and he left those out. But even without those details, his explanation was so thorough that he had basically laid everything bare. The viewers didn’t even realize anything had been omitted.

Above all, he was confident.

Whether he revealed it or not, this class was so hopelessly overpowered that anyone trying to figure out how to deal with it would probably just clutch their head, agonize over it, and then jump off a cliff.

Even Han Simin himself, the moment he saw it, had felt his vision go dark just trying to figure out how to counter it.

He had his Legendary-grade Enhancer.

A Legendary-grade Tamer that could tame dragons... well, that part was his personal ability, but in any case, as long as the level requirement was met, it could tame any monster.

A Legendary-grade Pope whose full potential had yet to be revealed.

A Legendary-grade Mage, dazzling and overwhelmingly powerful.

He had always thought those four were good enough, but this one was exactly his type. It felt as if, in a past life, he must have ruled the world as a Buffer. He genuinely wanted to try a class like this. His desire was fueled by the crushing weight of his own EXP penalty.

He could at least take comfort in the fact that Han Yeori was on his side.

There was also a strategic reason he had deliberately revealed some of this. If, in the future, someone tried to build a counter specifically to snipe her based on what he had just revealed, users would have only one option.

They would have to gear themselves up so well—covering their entire body in +15 equipment—that even at a low level, they would have better specs than Han Simin and Han Yeori, who were buffing a girl with almost no combat knowledge to the point where she could defeat monsters more than ten levels above her.

Or they would have to prepare an army with enough firepower to punch through those specs.

In other words, there was basically no answer.

Of course, it wasn’t that there was absolutely no way. They could try to block her growth right now. But that was one of the most impossible things to do at the moment.

—This is terrifying.

—Why is she leveling up so fast?

—You know what’s even scarier? It’s been 48 hours since this stream started, and she still hasn’t taken a break from hunting.

—So the little sister is a gaming addict too. Figures.

“The gifted can’t beat the hard-working, and the hard-working can’t beat the ones who enjoy it.” 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

But what if someone is born gifted, works hard, and enjoys it?

From the viewers’ perspective, Han Yeori—no, the Han siblings—were exactly that.

—They’re a pair of ruthless freaks.

That was the final verdict from the viewers who had stayed up with them, keeping the stream on through the night.

6.

As time passed after Kenji vanished into the Celestial Realm, his guild and kingdom naturally faded from people’s minds.

He had dominated an era of Fantastic World and left his name alongside Specialist’s, but as always, the loser is quickly forgotten.

There was no shortage of people to replace him. Especially in Fantastic World, where you could succeed at just about anything if you put your mind to it. You wouldn’t easily find someone with Kenji’s level of wealth and willingness to burn it, but there were now plenty of tycoons for whom playing Fantastic World had become the trendy thing to do.

Moreover, no matter how groundbreaking Kenji’s path had been, and no matter how much vicarious satisfaction it had given viewers, they weren’t the type of people willing to wait more than a month.

And he had left without a word.

Even so, the members of Kenji’s guild, who had been forgotten along with him, did not feel resentful.

They simply kept doing their jobs.

They hunted, quietly seized territories from the shadows without putting their names on anything, and prepared to welcome Kenji back someday. Their desire for anonymity was largely because the Kenji Kingdom had been branded a traitor to the continent and was currently being confiscated by the Empire.

Watching a kingdom that had seen at least tens of millions of dollars in investment get absorbed into the Empire made their hearts ache, even though it wasn’t their money, but they didn’t let it bother them.

In the end, games are all about that one big shot.

Reality is the same, but games are even easier.

And those who were still in contact with Kenji in the Celestial Realm believed that even more strongly. The news they heard was hopeful enough to justify their expectations.

So they moved even more diligently.

Fantastic World had always been their everyday life and their livelihood, even when Kenji was around. If anything, the process of carving out a chance for a counterattack now injected a new kind of energy into their lives, like working while playing a game.

“It won’t be long now.”

At the center of it all was Dino.

He continued his Awakenings. He leveled up, raided Named Monsters in hidden hunting grounds, and burned through Kenji’s funds without hesitation.

Dino was confident.

When that day came—

Things would be different.