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Chapter 63: Advertisement (1)

‘There are talks of running a promotion with Punk and Almond. We will propose it to them after a couple of meetings.’?

A collaboration with Almond for a promotion was already in the works.

\'We\'re fucked if we mess this up again.\'

Lee Dae-Su squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again and headed toward the director\'s office.

Knock knock.

He carefully knocked on the door and entered.

"Uh... We received this email."

"?"?The director raised his glasses and frowned. His expression said, \'Why are you bringing this to me?\'?

Lee Dae-Su expected this and further explained, "It\'s related to our planned collaboration with Almond. I thought it would be best to bring it to you right away."

"Almond? They sent an email to us?" The director finally showed interest. He must\'ve thought it was good news judging from his expression.

\'The email isn\'t good news...\' Lee Dae-Su worriedly scratched his head and handed him the tablet.

"Hmmm."

The director raised his glasses and read the email. Dae-Su thought the director\'s expression would darken, but...

"Uhh... hahaha? They\'re quite funny. Are they trying to put all the blame on us?" The director actually laughed at it.

Dae-Su wasn\'t sure if it was a happy laugh, but it wasn\'t the worst reaction.

"What should we do?"

The director waved off his question.

"Almond\'s manager? Who is this guy? I like him."

\'What do you like about him?\' Lee Dae-Su couldn\'t understand.

He liked him?

"What\'s with that face?"

"Ah... It\'s just, I don\'t know what you like about that email..."

"It\'s neatly written like an official business report, Assistant Lee. Try comparing it to your own."

Wow, his feelings only got hurt by asking.

\'He thinks that person is a good worker?’ Lee Dae-Su regretted asking and just nodded, "I-I see."

"Anyway, this is a good opportunity."

Good opportunity? Again, he couldn\'t understand the director. Almond tried to put the blame on them, but it was a good opportunity?

"Hey, Assistant Lee. I just got a fantastic idea."

"Is that so?"

Lee Dae-Su thought there would be nothing to gain from asking any more questions, so he simply went with the flow.

"They\'re saying the rating they got is too high, but it\'s all calculated by AI. Is there a chance there was an error?"

"Of course not. He deserved it if he got Platinum III," Lee Dae-Su confidently replied because there was no chance of an error.

"Then why is there so much backlash?"

"That\'s... because it\'s a very rare occurrence."

"Rare? Has it happened before?"

"Yes, a player from Denmark once placed into Platinum IV after his placement matches."

"Oho..." The director nodded and firmly held his glasses. "Alright, then we just need to put out a statement to clear our names. Do you think that\'ll be enough?"

"Sorry?"

What would they do if the backlash continued? Was putting out a statement enough?

"Ads! Man, ads!" the director suddenly shouted.

"Ah!"?Lee Dae-Su wasn\'t sure what he was talking about, but he pretended to understand and acted surprised. "I-it didn\'t cross my mind!"

He wasn\'t sure what didn\'t cross his mind.

The director must\'ve known because his expression said, \'That\'s exactly what I\'m saying.\'

"We can probably collaborate with Almond even earlier. We can invite him, prove why he placed in Platinum III, and run some promotions at the same time. We can run our normal ads and simultaneously say we\'re helping him prove his innocence!"

\'Ah!\' This time, Lee Dae-Su exclaimed in his head. He finally realized what the director was thinking. \'He was looking at this as an opportunity to naturally collaborate and advertise!\'?

It was much better to suggest a collaboration based on this incident than the previous one because they were helping Almond this time. They could show him their facility and run some tests, which would help raise the admin team’s credibility.

Lee Dae-Su aggressively nodded, "Alright!"

"Uh, let Manager Shin know as well."

"Yes!"

"And put out a good statement too!"

"Yes!"

***

Almond played four more rounds until 8 P.M. that day. He won first in all of them.

[Almond, all first! Let\'s celebrate!!]

[Is Almond really going to beat JeonJaPa?]

[A new generation might rise!]

[9 win streak...]

[Almond has crazy skills...]

The news reached the community sites and began to trend. There were rare occurrences of winning first in all placement matches, but winning four games in a row in Platinum III was another story.

Placement matches were typically against beginners, but platinum rank was full of players who were quite good. Emerging victorious in every match among hundreds of players on that level proved that Almond was something different.

— Wow, he\'s next level...

— He\'s on a different scale.

— He\'s playing a different game by himself.

Many admitted that his play was on another level. Almond still refused to use guns and only won with the bow.

— I didn\'t think he would still use the bow when he reached this point.?

— Damn...

— He got the bow mission reward again.

— How much is he making today?!

It no longer surprised anyone that he was different from the other platinum three players.

Almond also profited from only using the bow.

"Dororo, thank you for the mission. I\'ll win this round using only the bow… WeatherBoy, thank you for the mission. I achieved ten kills with the bow… EveryoneBow, thank you for the win three times in a row using the bow mission. I\'m going to claim it."

All the missions naturally became related to the bow. The viewers grew curious at how far he could reach with just the bow since the game was based on shooting guns.

Almond unintentionally did his own bow challenge in Battle Large.

\'One more round left?\'

He had one more match before reaching Platinum II. He already won one of his promotion matches to reach Platinum II and only needed another win.

Finishing in the top ten would also count as a victory. A player only had to place in the top ten twice out of the three matches to advance to the next tier. Promoting to the next tier was still quite a challenge though.

"I\'ll play the next match another time."

Almond decided to postpone the game. It was already past 8 P.M. when he checked the time and he had used up all his strength.

— Ahh, it\'s unlucky to leave games hanging like this!?

— Aren\'t you a man!?

— It\'s already 8?!

— I\'m curious to see if he\'ll get promoted.

— I think he will for sure judging from his pace.

— Strike while the iron is hot, Almond...

— You’ll lose ten in a row next time if you stop playing and leave after one promo game!

Everyone tried to threaten Almond by jinxing him, but he came from a line of work where jinxing was the norm. This was child\'s play compared to his past experiences.

He ended the stream as planned.

"Bye, Treevy."

The outro music played as Almond\'s face faded away.

— Noooo

— Bye, Almond...

— Bye Almond!

— Goodbye!

— Bye!

— When are you coming on tomorrow???

However, the Treevy viewers let him go easier today because he streamed three to four times longer than usual.

***

Chiik...

The capsule lid opened with the sound of pressure releasing.

Almond, no, Sang-Hyeon was more exhausted than usual and dragged his body out.

Sweat wasn\'t just trickling down. He was drenched in it.

"Damn, are you okay? What is..."

"Ah, was I in there too long?" Sang-Hyeon shook his head with a hand on his forehead. Sweat dripped off of him every time he moved.

"You have to stream tomorrow and the day after. Aren\'t you overworking yourself?" Ju-Hyeok looked worried and made a rare expression despite being cold-blooded himself.

That meant Sang-Hyeon\'s condition was that bad.

Sang-Hyeon shook his head, "It\'s not that. I\'m just dehydrated. Can you get me a sports drink?"

"Sports drink?"

"Yeah, I bought some and put it in the fridge."

Ju-Hyeok opened the fridge that he used daily.

"Not that one. The fridge with only drinks."

"We have something like that?"

He had never used the other fridge on the side before. It looked like an ordinary cabinet.

Creak.

His eyes widened when he opened the fridge.

\'Do you really have to stock up this much?\'

It was full of sports drinks and seemed to be around three to four boxes worth.

"Here."

Ju-Hyeok handed Sang-Hyeon a drink without saying anything.

Tak.

Sang-Hyeon opened it and gulped down the can.

"Kya. Hey, you should be a model for that sports drink." Ju-Hyeok attempted to make a joke and worried that the situation would become serious.

\'Something is wrong.\'

Ju-Hyeok suspected something was off. Not just now, but in the past as well. The capsule didn\'t use the body, but only the brain. Was it possible to sweat this much from brain activity alone?

"I\'m going to wash up."

Sang-Hyeon got up to shower while Ju-Hyeok stared at the capsule machine.

He thought it would be wet, but the ventilation dried up all the condensation. He stuck his hand in the machine.

\'It\'s not hot...\'

The capsule likely didn’t have any temperature control issues since it was a modern invention.

"Hmm... I wonder what\'s the problem."

It was hard to diagnose any capsule related problems on his own. Not many people could repair the machine too, which made it expensive.

"But I should still find out."

Ju-Hyeok wasn\'t the type to let a problem like this slide. He felt iffy about it at first, but determined that it would be a good opportunity to properly assess the machine with professional eyes. He thought of it as an investment since they would both profit from it.

"Huh?"

He sat back at his computer and read the announcement from Fantasia.

[A statement on Almond\'s rank calculation...]

The title read as such and stated that the AI used wins, losses, and gameplay to determine which players ranked up faster. The AI likely factored in Almond only using the bow and the fact that he hardly ever farmed for items. Then it determined him to be a dominant player and propelled him up the rankings.

"Kumph, the controversy should be over now."

Ju-Hyeok made a satisfied expression and the comments reacted the same.

— Those losers wanted to eat up Almond at first.?

— Fantasia\'s official explanation!

— Well, he is destroying everyone with a bow. Who would want him in gold?

— You guys would hate it the most if he placed in gold.

— They probably didn\'t want to see him breaking records.

— Officially from AI: Almond is a smurf.

— Kya! Congratulations, boss!

Almond had won judging from the comments on the community pages.

"Good thing I sent that email."

Ju-Hyeok checked his inbox again and received a couple of new emails. One of them came from the Battle Large?developers, Fantasia.

[There is no problem with the AI, but the public still has doubts. We imagine it is also a nuisance for Almond, so we would like to invite you to do a couple of tests (skill tests, medical check, etc.) to properly and officially prove it. On Fantasia\'s official channel...]

"Isn\'t this a proposal for an advertisement?!"

The email didn\'t specifically state it was an ad, but they invited Almond to stream at their headquarters. The official channel for Fantasia, the Battle Large?developers, also had a huge viewership. They basically wanted Almond to appear on their channel.