Martial Arts Returnee’s Game Broadcast

Chapter 147

1.  

The Changwon Guild was grinding its teeth.

“Why are you going out to compete during your break? You should be at home resting, not getting knocked out one after another!”
“Ah, Chairman Jang, we still got 4th, 5th, and 6th place!”
“The Olympics only gives medals for gold, silver, and bronze, you idiots. Who cares about 4th, 5th, and 6th?”

The Changwon Guild's trouble trio.
C-Class Awakened Kim Gil-tae, Ahn Chang-yun, and Lee Jung.
The three of them participated together in the Silent Swordsman Martial Arts Tournament, only to be knocked out one by one, bringing shame upon themselves.

Tournament records:
6th place, Participant #93, Kim Gil-tae.
5th place, Participant #92, Ahn Chang-yun.
4th place, Participant #94, Lee Jung.

In the later half of the tournament, they gained explosive popularity due to some brutal interviews, but despite their satisfaction, the stubborn guild board couldn’t accept their results. The tournament champion was C-Class Awakened Rex from the Ocean World Guild.

“You know how badly the Guild Master got torn apart in the meeting because of you guys? Even with all three of you combined, you were still less than that one Ocean World guy!”

There was nothing to say, even if he had ten mouths.

“Anyway, it’s not my fault. I was betrayed by those guys.”
“…Kim Gil-tae, do a handstand.”
“Got it!”

There were fools who willingly accepted their punishment.
Regardless, the guild board, even after docking the trio's pay for three months, realized something very important because of this situation.

“So, Ocean World Guild won the Jirisan Gate blockade bid thanks to that Rex guy, right? His image made it look like he’d be good at mountain climbing?”
“The advertising effect is enormous.”
“If we want to create a good image for our guild, we also need to have our skilled members appear on streamers' competitions or broadcasts.”

The idea was seriously discussed and passed by the PR team.

“Seize the opportunity. When that woman’s broadcast opens up for a competitive match, we’ll send in all the high-ranking forces the guild can spare.”

The top priority of the Changwon Guild: Silent Swordsman.

“Did Silent Swordsman turn on her broadcast?”
“She usually streams late at night.”

A day passed.

“Did she stream today?”
“Yesterday was definitely a break. I’ll keep standby for today.”

Two days passed.

“…Today?”
“There’s no notice.”

One week.

“Where the hell is she?”
“She’s training at the guild.”
“Is she a streamer who doesn’t even turn on her broadcast for a whole week?!”

Two weeks.

“Did she quit broadcasting?”
“I just found out. Silent Swordsman only broadcasts once every three weeks on average.”
“Shit.”

One month.

“She’s streaming!”
“Finally!!”

Finally, the long-awaited opportunity arrived.
Even without a tournament, there was a chance for redemption and publicity.
Sensory Link.
To prove the viewers' exceptional abilities.
In a broadcast where regular people could never endure.
To make a name in a Sensory Link Survival, where the goal is to survive as long as possible, or at least last a bit longer!

“U-uh… This seems really difficult. Directors, are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“Forget about it! Hurry up and set up the sensory link or whatever with remote control!”
“Sigh. We did warn you.”

The top talents of the Changwon Guild, all aboard their capsules, joined the streamer sensory link.

• "I’m Changwon Guild B-Class Awakened Jang Si-cheong, Senior Executive Director!"
• "I’m Changwon Guild B-Class Awakened Choi Jun, Executive Director!"
• "I’m Changwon Guild A-Class Awakened Lee Chang-won!"
• "Hahahahahaha?"
• "Who are these guys? Are they real?"
• "So bold, it’s ridiculous."
• "If you’re Changwon Guild, then I’m Um Gil-dong from Anyang, Gyeonggi-do!"

Ahn Chang-yun thought to himself,
‘This is so embarrassing, I should just stay quiet.’
And that turned out to be a very wise thought.

• "Hoh, nice moves. But why are you swinging your sword at incoming fireballs—"

[The pain value for Jang Si-cheong exceeds the threshold. Forced logout will activate.]

• "What’s the conversion rate! What is that! How do you control it—Ahhh!"

[Choi Jun's pain value exceeds the threshold. Forced logout will activate.]

• "Hahahahahaha"
• "Changwon Guild execs getting wrecked!"
• "Breaking news > Um Gil-dong from Anyang, Gyeonggi-do, now ranks in the top 20% of Changwon Guild."
• "You little bastard, you think you’re so great? Come to Changwon Guild, let’s throw down."
• "Awakened my ass. Can't even distinguish reality from virtual reality!"
• "In real life, I’m B-Class Awakened, but in the virtual world, I’m less than Um Gil-dong, 1-minute sensory link loser?"
• "Crazy bastard, what did Um Gil-dong ever do to deserve that?"
• "Hahahaha, impersonating Um Gil-dong, what a joke."

Ahn Chang-yun sighed deeply as he watched the execs fail in the sensory link.

• "The execs are trash."
• "Hey, idiot, the Guild Master hasn’t been eliminated yet!"
• "Kim Gil-tae, we’ll have a meeting after this."
• "Ahh."
• "Serves you right."
• "Tch. I told you."
• "Bring up the other two from the trio as well."
• "Ah."
• "Ah."
• "Hahahaha"
• "Changwon Guild execs were bad at tournaments, now they’re bad at sensory links too."
• "But are the trouble trio all still alive?"
• "Hahahaha."
• "That’s even worse."
• "Old folks don't know about virtual reality games, hah."
• "Are they here for the 'escort link' then?"
• "Oh, god… Imagining them escorting people in a game is so pathetic."

Unlike the execs, who had no talent in the virtual world, the Guild Master of Changwon Guild, Lee Chang-won, was one of the top talents.

‘Hah. This is really something. I can feel all the combat sensations in real-time and experience full-body sensations.’

Sensory link training was incredibly useful for combat training.
The pain value would trigger a forced logout if the pain exceeded a certain threshold.
On the other hand, if the assimilation rate was too low and the player didn’t feel the pain, they’d miss too many assimilation links and would get logged out due to sensory discrepancy.
It was a training content that required precise control, with minimal assimilation rate adjustments, managing pain and discrepancy values at the right timing.

Lee Chang-won recognized the subtle nature of sensory discrepancy.

‘Lowering the assimilation rate to reduce pain is easy. But to follow the streamer’s reflexes and attacks in real-time, aligning the senses while consciously controlling it—that’s how the discrepancy value lowers.’
‘The higher the assimilation rate, the more stable the discrepancy value is.’

‘Maintaining a delicate balance between pain and discrepancy requires training at the level of pain tolerance.’
‘Or understanding the logic behind the opponent’s movements and following it with a low assimilation rate.’

Even sensory discrepancy changed based on the shock of each attack, defense, and every action.
The greater the force behind the attack,
The more powerful the attack,
The discrepancy value would spike if you missed the action.
Smaller movements were fine to miss, but larger movements with heavy force could be dangerous even after a few seconds, and major techniques could trigger forced logout after one mistake.

A single mistake in a decisive attack could cause a dramatic jump in the discrepancy value and trigger a forced logout.

• "Is the Guild Master still alive? Hahaha."
• "I’m Lee Chang-won, Guild Master of Changwon Guild. This is nothing!"
• "Ohh~ as expected, the Guild Master is different."
• "How about Um Gil-dong?"
• "Judging by the silence, he’s probably out."
• "Good job, Um Gil-dong."
• "Wow, only 100 left."
• "The real survival game begins!"

Lee Chang-won secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
He’d lasted longer than that Um Gil-dong who gave Changwon Guild so much trouble, so he’d already had his revenge on the execs who were eliminated first.

‘Let’s just last until the top 10. Only the top 10.’

Lee Chang-won silently resolved to himself.
But he still didn’t know how ruthless the top competitors in the sensory link survival game were.
And how many Awakened players had entered this survival event.

2.  

The battle against the Flame Demon King.
The brute strength of the massive Flame Giant alone was enough to drastically increase the pain value threshold.
Even if Silent Swordsman joined the sensory link,
the players’ pain values were calculated based on the real-life durability of their bodies, and no one could be as tough as Silent Swordsman.
Maintaining sensory assimilation while leaving the control of attacks and rhythm to Silent Swordsman mentally exhausted and overloaded the players.

• "The punch from the Flame Giant hurts more than being hit by a car!"
• "Does the damage even make sense?"
• "I got forced logged out after just one hit."
• "Anyone get forced logged out by the shockwave during the melee?"
• "I got forced logged out after a rock hit me in the forehead from the ground. T_T"
• "You won."
• "Congratulations, you’re the winner of the ugliest forced logout competition."
• "What? I’ve never entered such a competition!"
• "You’re the winner! No objections!"

The general viewers died off one by one in the sensory link.
While the difficulty skyrocketed, many of the viewers remained.
Half were viewers who had read some of Silent Swordsman’s attack techniques, and the other half were reckless Awakened players who had no clue how terrifying sensory link could be and were relying solely on their physical abilities to endure.

• "Punches don’t hurt that much."
• "I can take it."
• "It’s nothing."

The Awakened’s unrelenting endurance!
But the skilled viewers noticed their true nature and just laughed.

• "Real beasts don’t need training to be strong, but… Agh! It’s hot!"
• "Ouch! It’s so hot!!!"
• "Crazy, those guys aren’t lowering their assimilation rate, what are they doing?"
• "How do you even do that?!"
• "What a joke, how can you last here without adjusting your assimilation rate?"

No matter how tough their bodies were, they had no resistance to fire.

• "Even beasts die when they’re burned…"
• "In no time, 75 people are done."
• "I’m Ma Dong-tak, a B-Class Awakened from Changwon Guild. Our two directors just got eliminated, but I’m different."
• "Why are the directors doing sensory link in the middle of the day on weekdays?"
• "This is what a guild is?"
• "But how is Flame Demon King such a fire show expert? This is insane!"
• "When I cleared it, the true name was the Salamander of Fire, but now I don’t know."
• "Why don’t you know? You said it was Salamander."
• "It changes depending on the difficulty level, hehe;"
• "Right now, that’s a 10-second Ifrit's flame breath coming at us."

But not all Awakened were weak.

• "It must be tough for the young vampire."

With the vampire species trait,
The Day Walker, a special vampire who could walk around during the day.

• "The power you gather easily decreases, but the power you gather with effort increases... How is this divine magic logic packed into one sword?"

One of the heroes of the 21st century Gate Wars,
The saint from Eastern Europe.

• "This guy. He uses strange tactics. Now I see why the god-purifier, who erased all traces, vanished."

A leader of the Ten Guilds,
Taebaek Guild Master Kang Taebaek.

• "Beyond imagination, beyond the scenic view. The great monk who re-created the illusions from the Yeogyeok Po-seo right here in this tiny kingdom."

Beyond imagination, beyond the scenic view.
Recreating what humanity could never achieve,
A new dimension of void.
This was the realm of the great monk,
Zhang Noya, a great figure in the Chinese Awakened industry.

Even Speed Master and other famous individuals participated in this sensory link.

• "Pretty good."
• "It was impressive."
• "It must be hard for the kids."

Skilled players acknowledged Silent Swordsman.
They acknowledged her, but...

• "Still, at this level."
• "It's nothing."

However, their pride was evident.
Chat messages filled with calm and assurance flowed in the sensory link-specific chat room, and Speed Master chuckled.

“These humans still don’t know what’s coming.”

Silent Swordsman, this woman.
She’s only getting started.