I May Be a Virtual Youtuber, but I Still Go to Work

When Magia chose Apolla, Cheon Do-hee had one immediate thought.

‘She’s seriously obsessed with shotguns…’

Unlike other Siege class characters, which at least maintained some balance for team fights, Apolla was a pure base-destruction unit.

Her body was as fragile as glass—just a few hits, and she was dead.

But once she started shooting properly, buildings exploded like fireworks, earning her the nickname Glass Cannon.

To be fair, she was satisfying to play.

That demolition special animation?
Once you saw it, you could never look away.

The problem was that actually getting to fire that one big shot was ridiculously difficult.

A major factor behind this was Apolla’s combat skill, ‘Delayed Explosives.’

It was a toggle ability—while active, attacking buildings lowered Apolla’s defense but stacked up charges on the structure.

Once enough stacks were accumulated, she could use her Ultimate, ‘Total Demolition,’ to trigger a massive explosion.

With 10 stacks, she could one-shot Outer and Inner Turrets.
At 12 and 16 stacks, she could outright destroy Core Turrets and the Enemy Nexus.

That’s when the demolition special animation Magia had been dying to see would play.

Other Siege characters had to grind away at buildings to destroy them.

Other classes had to group up and focus fire to break towers.

Naturally, in the early days, players raged about how broken Apolla was.
"Isn’t Apolla just completely OP?" they had complained.

…But then came the double-barrel reload time.

It took two seconds to reload one shotgun.
Which meant it took twenty whole seconds to reach 10 stacks.

But if you attacked a turret in the top or bottom lanes, it only took 15 seconds for enemies to arrive, even from the farthest point.

Since Apolla was such a unique champion, even enemy players knew she couldn’t be left alone.

Most of the time, she got shattered before she could even hit 10 stacks.

This was why Apolla was classified as Extreme Difficulty.

You had to predict when enemies would show up.
You had to periodically attack just to refresh your stacks (which expired in 10 seconds).
You had to constantly run and hide while managing vision and terrain.

Only a Naore expert—someone with the reflexes of a ghost—could play her effectively.

Yet despite her difficulty, the combination of cute anime girl, fallen angel, and dual shotguns gave her a cult-like popularity, tricking countless newbies into getting obliterated trying to play her.

This was the champion Magia had chosen.

So when she confidently declared:

“I’ll keep practicing until I win. That’s fine, right, Boss?”

Cheon Do-hee’s expression darkened.

“…Are you planning to live in the PC café today?”

“Come on, it’s not like I won’t win one game before we head home, right?”

Do-hee had had certain expectations for today.

She had planned to:

• Play at the PC café for two or three hours.
• Enjoy a nice dinner.
• Get dessert—maybe coffee or a drink.
• Go shopping or stop by a photo booth for cute four-cut photos.

A fun girls’ day out.

Instead?

They were stuck in a PC café.
For an unknown amount of time.
Eating instant ramen the entire day.

To be fair, Do-hee didn’t hate PC cafés.

She loved gaming—before she started streaming, she had spent entire days at PC cafés in college, ignoring her parents’ scoldings.

But now?

Cheon Do-hee was no longer someone who could play games all day.

Her brain was constantly thinking about work, so her limit was about four hours at best.

‘I have to win…’

If they won quickly, she could at least suggest doing something else afterward.

The problem was…

Do-hee didn’t know much about Naore either.

And skill-wise, she wasn’t that much better than Magia.

There was zero chance of her carrying the game and handing Magia an easy victory.

In fact, even if she played separately, she wouldn’t exactly help in team fights.

‘…Maybe this is the best answer?’

Character selection.

She hovered over the Support class.

A champion that could attach to an ally and follow them around while healing, shielding, and harassing enemies.

A champion hated for eating up XP while doing nothing in fights.

A champion constantly insulted for existing.

The "Mascot."

She locked it in.

Magia would handle the attacking.

Do-hee would handle the support and defense.

The birth of Modatouille.

***

For Lee, a graduate student, Naore was life.

Not in some deep, philosophical way.

It was just that out of all the games he had played since childhood, Naore was the only one he was still hooked on.

But just because he had played it for years didn’t mean he had gotten any better.

And to make matters worse, his team luck was absolute garbage.

Every year, his friends who hit Gold would constantly mock him, calling him trash.

This year was no different.

With only a month left until Season 24 ended, his rank was still Bronze 1.

So close to Silver—just one promotion match away—but he had already lost several attempts in a row.

He had been holding on, grinding, until the stress and pressure finally broke him.

That was why he had escaped to normal games instead.

Bronze. Again. I’m fucking Bronze AGAIN!

But maybe today was just cursed.

Even normal games were going terribly.

Five consecutive losses.

His match history was so red that he could probably rage-punch his monitor within the next few games.

"Fuck. Maybe I really should quit this shitty game..."

With a chime, random matchmaking began.

He locked in his pick, and the loading screen popped up.

Staring at the champion lineup, Lee’s expression suddenly brightened.

{{Siege :: Apolla :: Scars On My Back Are Shameful For A Shotgunner}}
{{Support :: Mascot :: DodoSaeHeeHee}}

A literal newbie—only two games played.

And their champion?@@novelbin@@

Fucking Apolla.

A disaster pick in ranked games.

A character that newbies choose because she looks pretty, then quit because her mechanics are garbage.

To make matters worse, their duo partner was playing Mascot, the infamous support that did absolutely nothing in team fights.

And they only had 15 games played.

A newbie among newbies.

“This comp is legendary. If I lose this, I’m uninstalling.”

Lee could already see how the game would play out in his head.

• Newbie Apolla would wander into lane, thinking she could siege.
• She’d get picked off, starting a team fight.
• Mascot would detach and immediately die.
• The enemy team would snowball, securing all major objectives.
• Rinse and repeat.

A glorious red carpet of free LP had just been laid out in front of him.

For the first time in ages, Lee felt hope.

He sprinted toward his lane.

"This game is already won."

And by sheer luck—

His lane opponents were Apolla and Mascot.

What were the chances?

It was 1v2, but in Naore, skill trumps numbers.

No matter how many bad players you had, they couldn’t beat one good player—
(Or so he believed, despite being stuck in Bronze.)

And thanks to Naore’s MMR system, smurfs were unlikely.

This lane was his domain.

"Time for first blood."

His champion, Kirine, Blade Master, dashed toward Apolla, who was idly standing in the middle of the lane.

In his head, an entire montage clip was already playing.

Dancing past turret minions with elegant footwork—
Parrying incoming attacks with perfect timing—
Dismantling Apolla, then cutting down Mascot in one clean sequence—
Ending with a flawless 2/0/0 start.

"Wait, she backed off?"

But Apolla didn’t fight back.

Instead, she casually backed up and disappeared behind her turret.

A cowardly newbie.

This was going to be the most boring lane ever.

"Tch. Guess I’ve got no choice."

If she wasn’t going to come out, he’d just keep pushing the turret.

Even the most cowardly players would react when their turret started taking damage.

"Goddamn... this is annoying."

Minutes passed.

Apolla refused to step forward.

Instead, she just stayed under her turret, last-hitting minions and collecting XP.

Whenever she took a bit of poke damage, Mascot healed her back up.

For a newbie, she was playing way too clean.

But it was over now.

Lee had reached level 6.

He unlocked his Adaptive Skill: Thunderbolt Strike.

A long-range dashing attack that pulled enemies to the landing point.

"If I hit level 6, she has to step up."

Even in passive lanes, fights always break out at level 6.

That’s when champions get their ultimates.

So the moment Apolla moved forward, Lee would ambush her, drag her into his Blade Dance, and shred her to pieces.

Apolla was a glass cannon.

She’d pop instantly.

Thanks to constant pressure, her turret was already at half HP.

"She has to defend it before it breaks."

Finally, Apolla hit level 6.

Lee hovered his finger over the F key, ready to activate Thunderbolt Strike the moment she stepped out.

Suddenly—

Apolla bolted forward.

Charging straight toward Lee’s turret.

"What the fuck?"

He had expected her to inch forward cautiously—not sprint in blindly.

The unexpected play threw him off, making him miss his Thunderbolt Strike window.

But Apolla was weak against champions.

He could just aim again and finish her off—

BANG.
HISSSSSSSSHHHHH.

"Wait, is that— A SMOKE SCREEN?!"

Apolla reached the turret Lee had been defending and suddenly unleashed a black cloud.

Lee, who had been following closely behind, came to a stop at the edge of the smoke and muttered,

“Oh, come on. This guy is a complete newbie.”

Apolla’s Adaptive Skills were all about survival and efficiency.

Type I allowed Apolla to convert her siege stacks into champion combat stacks.
This turned her from a structure specialist into a pseudo-DPS, letting her duel and sometimes even clutch team fights.

Type II was even more powerful.
It reduced reload time from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds, boosting demolition speed to absurd levels.
With this, Apolla could delete turrets before the enemy had time to react.

But Type III? The Smoke Screen?

No one knew why it even existed.

The game already had tons of AoE attacks.
Apolla was already fragile.

Hiding in smoke wasn’t exactly useful when enemies could just spam attacks and kill you anyway.

Some even called it the dumbest skill choice possible.

So picking Smoke Screen meant one of two things:

1. The player was completely clueless.
2. They had absolutely no idea what they were doing.

Lee couldn’t help but chuckle as he lined up Thunderbolt Strike into the smoke.

A newbie like this would probably be panicking inside, wondering if they picked the wrong skill.

As his champion Kirine readied the attack, she murmured in her elegant, refined voice—

—“Hekireki… Sen.”

A deafening BOOM.
Like a bolt of lightning, Kirine sliced through the darkness.

“…Huh?”

But there was nothing there.

Lee blinked. Maybe he had miscalculated Apolla’s position?

Just then—

Clang! Clang!

The sharp, metallic sound of bullets slamming into metal.

Apolla’s demolition stacks had landed on his turret.

“Wait, what? When did she get out?”

Moving in and out of the smoke gave Apolla a brief stealth effect.

Apparently, as Apolla rushed out, Lee had unknowingly dashed in the opposite direction.

“Fuck. I wasted my skill.”

Still, it wasn’t a big deal.

If Apolla was greedy enough to stack demolition charges, then all Lee had to do was wait out the smoke and punish her.

The cloud wouldn’t last forever.

And against AoE attacks?

It was as good as useless.

Apolla reloaded and slipped back into the smoke.

Lee stepped into the fog, swinging his sword aggressively—

Auto attacks.
Combat Skill "Fan Slash."

Any second now, he would hear the impact.

…But nothing.

No sound.

It felt like he was slicing through actual mist.

And then—

Clang! Clang!

Now there were four slugs stacked on the turret.

“The fuck is going on?”

Panicked, Lee dashed out of the smoke.

By the time he reemerged—

Apolla was already back at the turret.

Lee frantically attacked, landing auto hits and skill damage—

But Mascot healed half the damage back immediately.

Then—
Apolla vanished into the smoke again.

“No, no, no. This is fucking annoying. How long does this smoke last?!”

Every time Lee circled the cloud, Apolla would slip out from a blind spot.

He chased—
She healed.
He chased—
She stacked more demolition charges.

In no time, she had reached eight stacks.

“For fuck’s sake, when does this goddamn smoke disappear?!”

Right as the thirty-second duration ended—

Apolla stepped out at the very last moment, maximizing her stealth window.

“...?”

Lee had been staring into the middle of the cloud, expecting her to emerge there.

It took him two seconds to finally spot her.

By then—

She was already behind him.

Right in front of his turret.

"Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me."

Apolla was low HP.

If he could just land a hit, he could kill her instantly with a full skill combo.

But—

He had already wasted Thunderbolt Strike.

There was no way to close the distance fast enough.

Clang. Clang.

Ten stacks.

The slug shell icons turned from red to green.

Her Ultimate was now fully charged.

Apolla raised her dual double-barrels, aiming them at the turret.

Her black wings expanded, scattering feathers in the wind.

A blinding glow erupted from her broken halo, illuminating her shotguns.

———— Pew.

BOOM.

A thunderous explosion.

Like fireworks lighting up the sky.

A massive chain reaction of detonations shook the battlefield.

[FIRST DESTROY!]
{{Scars On My Back Are Shameful For A Shotgunner >> Outer Turret (Top Lane)}}

As the turret collapsed behind her, Apolla slowly turned toward Lee.

Walking forward, she coolly typed in all-chat:

[ALL] Scars On My Back Are Shameful For A Shotgunner: This is so boring I wanna die.

Lee finally arrived, slicing her down with a full skill combo.

But.

A free kill like this?

It didn’t erase the humiliation.

[FIRST BLOOD!]
{{I Hate Being Bronze >> Scars On My Back Are Shameful For A Shotgunner}}

Lee spammed the crying emote.

And with shaking hands, he typed—

[ALL] I Hate Being Bronze: ffs… I lost.

His teammates, who had been watching top lane from the minimap, were completely baffled.

[ALL] Kill ‘Em All Assassin: What the actual fuck are you guys doing?