Chapter 34

EP.34 The Saint's Madness in Reforming Trolls

The man was not born to play as a troll, nor to provoke others' emotions and ugliness to relieve his own stress.

By a series of lucky breaks, he had reached Red, having been more dedicated to the game Rainbow Tales than anyone else.

By then, he had long surpassed the stage of enjoying the game as mere entertainment, and he literally staked his life on scores and ranks.

It seemed as if his rise to Red was purely by luck,

the moment he reached Red, he plummeted back to Orange with a string of losses.

Enveloped in stress so intense it felt like his hair was falling out in clumps, he became twisted in an instant.

A game where emotional expenditure in each match is intensely severe.

When you put all your effort into a game and still lose, anger surges.

If you think the loss is not your fault, no matter how well you played, you can't help but feel your blood boil.

This can also evolve into self-defense, leading you to question why your teammates couldn't carry you, or why they couldn't just play a little better.

The man knew this all too well.

And he felt that others should understand the sorrow he felt.

Because,

it was simply,

too unjust for him to be the only one feeling this way.

The trolling began from that point.

In a truly despicable move, he kept his main account, which had reached a relatively high rank, to avoid losing points and instead used a secondary account he had occasionally played.

This game was one where if one person had a flaw, the rest had to bear it.

Otherwise, you would lose.

If a teammate was bad, winning became that much harder.

When he tried it, wasn't it more fun than he thought?

Why did he have to carry a bad teammate while being cursed and insulted,

and if he ever played poorly, he had to endure the blame and curses directed at him?

I realized.

After all, this is a game where luck in team matching greatly affects the outcome.

The match is already decided before it even starts.

I'll tell you.

It's only natural that you lose when you have me on your team.

Feel free to get angry.

It will only prove that I'm giving you the right lesson.

The man didn't hear the insults that he was trolling because he was so bad.

He had once reached Red.

In this game, it was all about the score.

One of the small pleasures of trolling was when he asked the few people who clung to him, "What's your top rank?" and they all became speechless, like bees that had eaten honey.

Top rating refers to the highest rank you've ever reached.

There was no way any of the users he met on his secondary account had reached Red.

It was an unbeatable logic.

This behavior, which spread like wildfire, gave him a sense of pleasure from provoking others' emotions,

and long before now, he had long deviated from his original purpose of showing others that team luck was the beginning and end of the game.

He just found it amusing to see others get angry.

Since it all happened within the world of the monitor, no matter how heated they got, they couldn't actually meet and fight, which made it even more amusing and ridiculous.

The man's target naturally turned to new streamers who had a large audience but couldn't control their emotions.

There were many victims,

and the Saint was just one of them.

However...

The reaction was different.

The Saint had already played six matches with the man after inviting him to a duo game following her stream.

Of course, the man continued to sabotage the team in every match.

Anyone could see that the fault was his.

But the teammates cursed the Saint as well.

"Because of you, someone like him ended up on our team. Why don't you just use the build you were supposed to? How are you going to take responsibility for the falling score?" That kind of tone.

The man found the situation so absurd that he couldn't help but continue the game with all his might.

Show your anger. Reveal more of your emotions.

Everyone is cursing you, who did nothing wrong.

Get angry, get angry!

The Saint did not show the expected reaction.

If only the Saint had,

if she had added him as a friend to play duo games because,

she was confident in her skills, and she believed she could play better than the man who was throwing the game,

or if she had intentionally led to a loss to see who could endure the futile defeat longer,

the man would have been fired up.

But it wasn't like that.

She put all her effort into leading the team to victory in every match.

Of course, winning was almost impossible,

and at this point, anyone would be tired and ready to give up, but she didn't.

Wasn't it futile?

Thanks to her brilliant skills and unbreakable mental fortitude, there were even matches where they almost won.

The man's pride was hurt, but,

he had to ask.

His curiosity about the principle behind her actions had reached its peak.

[Haribo2: Sir]

[The Saint: Yes?]

[Haribo2: Why are you]

[Haribo2: so dedicated?]

[The Saint: It's fun, isn't it?]

What's fun about it?

You've lost ten matches in a row.

What's fun about losing?

In a game where defeat is certain,

why do you put all your effort into every match,

when you should be tired by now?

Don't enjoy it!

He didn't think it was a lie she made up to beat him.

Because he could hear her laughter through the in-game voice chat, which automatically connected when a duo party was formed.

Of course, she didn't enjoy losing.

She was one of the many users who craved victory and a high rank.

What she truly enjoyed was,

the process of uprooting the rotten ideology of this troll.

As the saying goes, there's always someone better,

and there's always someone worse than the worst.

She made him feel that there was a real madness behind her fake madness.

The operation had progressed to the point where the man was the one to initiate a chat and try to talk to her.

To the man, who couldn't know this, the Saint seemed like a crazy woman.

The man couldn't help but shudder at the madness.

There was no way she could enjoy such a futile defeat.

And it was best to avoid a mad dog.

The man's mouse cursor unconsciously moved towards the exit button of the client.

The Saint, as if she could see through him,

posted a chat message.

[The Saint: Are you running away?]

The man's arms were covered in goosebumps.

Perhaps it had started when the Saint first sent him a friend request.

[The Saint: Let's play one more match.]

[Haribo2: No way.]

[The Saint: Aww.]

Aww, my ass.

The man's expression crumpled at the soulless coquettishness.

But in the end, he didn't end the game and started another match.

His pride was incredibly stubborn.

Of course, the trolling started as usual.

And the match was already in its final stages.

From what the man could tell, his teammates were decent.

Their mental fortitude was good enough that no one gave up the game despite the unfair trolling,

but their skills were nothing to write home about.

In contrast, the opponents were all formidable.

Two of them looked like alts.

Their IDs matched.

They must be a duo.

So the situation was the worst it could be.

Losing was a foregone conclusion.

But the Saint, as always, was fighting hard and not giving up.

That's why a match that should have ended in surrender was dragging on.

And then, suddenly,

the man thought.

If you play games and build your skills,

you can intuitively know which fight, which objective, which team fight will decide the game.

To the man, this was that moment.

The most decisive moment in the game.

So the man, forgetting to sabotage the enemy base, watched the Saint's battle.

It was magnificent.

The longsword, with its unique characteristics,

a weapon that combines attack and defense through the manipulation of a blade,

the continuous onslaught of sword strikes without a moment's rest was a different kind of brilliance from the flashy magic effects.

The two warriors the man thought were alts were struggling against the Saint alone.

At first, she couldn't handle them like this.

When did she get so good?

The consecutive sword dances were making the two warriors struggle,

but the opposing team had a plan.

The Saint, out of breath, seemingly out of stamina.

The magic rapidly approaching her.

A massive fireball, flickering with flames, was plummeting like a meteor.

It seemed the situation was about to end.

The game was in a dire state,

and the death of the Saint, who had been the team's focal point, would lead directly to defeat.

...

At that very moment,

the blade flashed.

The extended blade, as its name suggests, split the world.

The ultimate skill of the Eastern Sword Art, the essence of the game.

The skill called "World Slash,"

which the man had once mocked as childish,

appeared before his eyes.

The effect was so intense it made him feel like the screen was breaking.

The health bar, mana bar, and all the interfaces in the game were momentarily split and distorted by the Saint's single sword stroke,

and after a brief silence, the broken world restored itself as if nothing had happened.

After all that,

the fireball heading towards the Saint and the two warriors were all destroyed.

The team, finding a foothold for a comeback, surged forward,

without stopping their assault,

and eventually destroyed the core.

...

The man, staring blankly at the victory message,

suddenly heard a voice.

For a man who lived in a small room, almost locked away from the world, the only voice he could hear was the in-game voice chat.

And there was only one person connected to the in-game voice chat with him.

The Saint spoke to the man.

"I know why you're doing this."

"..."

"It's fun, isn't it? Making others lose and getting them angry."

"..."

"But if you get too absorbed in it, you'll forget what's really fun."

"..."

"I wanted to show you that winning is much more fun."

"..."

"You've worked hard."

The Saint ended the voice chat with those words.

She probably ended the game right then.

The man turned on the lights in the dark room,

and muttered to himself,

"Damn, yeah. I lost."

Contrary to his initial expectations,

the game with the Saint was not fun at all.

He knew better than anyone why it wasn't fun.

Hadn't the Saint told him herself?

Yeah, well...

Since it wasn't fun,

and since he learned there was something more fun,

maybe he should stop this.

He was starting to want to climb back to Red.

The man thought this and,

pressed the confirm button on the victory screen.

In the client that entered the result screen,

a red message appeared before the man's eyes.

"100-day game ban.

Your account has been banned from the game due to behavior that disrupts the game and harms your teammates in your recent matches."

"Damn it."

...

...

...

[World1stBang: Stop tormenting the troll.]

[The Saint: What are you talking about?]

[World1stBang: I watched every match.]

[The Saint: Stalker.]

[World1stBang: O]

[The Saint: Wasn't I cool?]

[World1stBang: No.]

[World1stBang: I still think you're wasting your effort in the wrong place.]

[The Saint: Why?]

[The Saint: Nostalgia?]

[The Saint: Were you embarrassed to see your old self?]

[World1stBang: .]

[The Saint: Hahaha.]

[World1stBang: I feel like I want to throw up everything I've eaten.]

[The Saint: .]

[The Saint: I'm sorry.]

Author's Note

Thank you, Lyun, for the 30 coins!

Thank you, Hyaang, for the 500 coins!

Thank you, digsh****, for the 100 coins!

I'm here as promised ㅜㅜ

Personally, I think it would be more plausible to invest about 10 episodes in the process of reforming a troll,

but I thought that would be too much, so I condensed it into 2 episodes.

In reality, true trolls wouldn't be reformed by the protagonist's level of persuasion; it would be a miracle if they didn't just sneer.

I decided to make Haribo a somewhat milder troll to move the story along quickly!

I don't think there will be many more stories from other perspectives,

except maybe when a character is amazed by the protagonist's beauty or when they are endlessly hugged (though it's actually the opposite).

I don't know when it will happen... (distant mountains)

Anyway, thank you for reading!