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n

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"Fuck.

"

nWhy is this game so damn hard?

nThis was one of the only thoughts going through Grace's mind this past week.

nIt had been a week since Noah had invited

/ challenged Grace into playing this game, and it seemed like it was indeed true, Grace too was unable to break free from Noah's path.

nThis game was too sadistic!

nGrace had lost what remained of her composure as she too kept losing at this trashy game.

nNoah: You had composure before? How come I couldn't tell?

nFollowing Noah, she too had been playing Mobba all day, every day.

nThe only thing keeping her going was her unwillingness to lose to Noah, though to be fair, even if she were to lose another 100 rounds, she wouldn't be

"losing

" against him.

n

"What's keeping you going?

" Grace suddenly asked.

nNoah, who sat next to Grace on the same long couch, didn't even flinch anymore at Grace's deliberate use of misleading and frustrating words that would lead one down the route of hair loss.

nStill, why did she have to make it sound like he was terminally ill?

nSeeing as Noah wasn't going to react, Grace wasn't flustered, simply and naturally elaborating as if that was what she was going to do all along.

n

"How did you get so addicted to this game? It's making me seriously question whether you are a masochist.

"

nNoah almost wanted to shout out loud.

nCan't you just finish your sentences all at once?

nHe was thankful that Grace wasn't an author of any kind as she would surely be the type to leave cliffhangers at every chance she had.

nActually, even if she was indeed an author, he would never read her writings for this very same reason.

n

"Look.

"

nNoah just about finished his own round before going to another screen to show Grace, and Emilin, who sat behind her on a stool, a clip.

nIt was easy since it was one of the latest ones in his liked videos.

nIn the clip, it was the hands of someone playing a very high-quality electric piano.

nQuestion marks instantly floated on Grace's head and Emilin too was confused as to why Noah was showing this clip right now.

nThis clip... she had watched it before too.

nThe tune was a really catchy one, a remix of the current number 1 song, but a piano version whose melody was a little more complex, elegant, and enjoyable from a subjective point of view.

nNot long after, the video ended, and without explaining, Noah directly displayed another clip, this one was the one following the piano clip on the liked list.

nThis time, Grace sighed as this clip was finally about Mobba.

nThese hands look familiar. That was Grace's first thought.

nShe would have to be a dumbass if she couldn't understand that these two were the same person.

nBut that was nothing.

nSo what if someone played both Mobba and piano?

nThen, 10 minutes in, the girl was thoroughly convinced.

nGrace was enlightened.

nIt was clear that the reason that Noah had shown the first clip to her was for comparison!

nNow, now.

nOkay, one may be questioning, what is there even to compare?

nBut damn.

nGenerally, wouldn't playing the piano makes one seem more refined?

nThen tell me, tell me why this guy playing video games looked so elegant? Even more so than when playing the piano!

nAnd I can only see a hand cam for god sake!

nWhen playing the game, it was as if he were using his intricate advanced piano skills.

nGrace questioned internally.

nGrace felt like just having Doorii's hands play this game, the whole value of the phone, the video, the game, and even the platform increased.

nAnother 8 minutes later she was even more convinced as the streamer had won the game flawlessly along with his other teammates.

nAfter the game displayed on the screen ended, Grace was completely stunned.

nHave we even been playing the same game?

nWhy do our controls look the same when they clearly have different functions?

nWhy does this support kill more people and hunt more than me as a jungler?

nThis is unscientific!

n

"Who is this person?!

"

nGrace could clearly feel the difference in their leagues as she questioned whether the guy in the video was still playing a video game.

nHis maneuvering was clearly faster than when he was playing the piano earlier.

n

"Ah, this guy goes by the name of Doorii online, that being his username both in-game as well as in various social media platforms.

"

nNoah thought about this matter for a bit before continuing.

n

"He hasn't started streaming and uploading videos for long, but he does it very frequently. His account was only started around a month ago, but with his kind of... unique and memorable skill set, I think you can see why he has come to fame so quickly, having already around 2 million subscribers.

"

nAN: This has been a total of 3 weeks since the hacking incident.

n

"I can see how that can sound strangely explosive, but actually, it's not really if you look at his home page.

"

nNoah did as he said to show Doorri's homepage.

nHe scrolled, and then he scrolled, and then he scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled.

nGrace's eyes widened with every passing second.

nWas this even an account that was started just a few weeks ago?

nThough some of the videos were only a few minutes long, mostly the ones on musical instruments, there were still dozens of them.

nNot to mention the much longer gaming videos!

nAll kinds of games including standalone and other major games were being played.

n

"I'm telling you, this guy is no joke. I was looking for adaptations of BTS's songs when I stumbled upon one of his guitar videos.

"

n

"Then, it was just a spiral from there,

" Noah calmly reiterated the experiences of the majority of teenagers on entertainment platforms.

n

"I spent hours tracing back all his videos. They started from musical instruments to cooking and then to gaming. It was as if the guy was just trying things out to see what worked out better, which finally ended in gaming. I think he still occasionally uploads some new instrumental covers, but no more cooking. You can tell pretty easily since he uploads around 3-5 videos a day, even more at times, but never really less than those 3.

"

n

"Crazy,

" was the only thing Grace could muster.

nIt was no wonder this content created was being recommended. Just based on the number of uploads a day, one would reckon they should be recommended at some point.

nWhat kind of dedication was this?

nIt still made sense to have this much dedication if this was something that you had always wanted to do, but just from how random these videos were, it was clearly not planned out.

nThe time and effort put into such a project could by no means be small.

nNot to mention, it wasn't as if the editing of these videos were bad, in fact, they were quite good.

nThe music, transitions, cuts.

nThey were all added and implemented very cleanly.

nIt clearly wasn't half-assed.

n

"So...

"

nGrace's word dragged on.

n

"I got hooked on Mobba because out of all the other games Doorii plays, this one is the one he plays most of all. I mean, if you just watch enough of it, surely you can tell that this game is just something else. The only issue is that the other players are too good at it,

" Noah's face got sour at this point.

nHe wouldn't admit that he was no good.

nIt was clearly just because everyone else was better… eh, that doesn't sound right either.

nEven so, he didn't show any signs of wanting to stop playing.

nNow, this was the point that Emilin didn't understand.

nNot the playing part.

nBut logically, there was an algorithm that would let lousy players play with other lousy players.

nAnd just from hearing Noah and Grace's frustrated grunts, Emilin could tell that they weren't particularly good at the game, if you were to put it nicely.

nNow if you keep getting put together with even lousier players every time you lose... shouldn't you start winning at some point???

nThis was what Emilin didn't understand.

nIt felt like there was something wrong here.

nWhile Emilin thought of that, Noah was already showing Grace some of the videos he liked better while Grace watched and observed attentively.

nEven the gaming part only showed a hand cam and the resulting effects on the screen, but Grace felt like that was more than enough to catch everyone's full attention.

nIn this video, Doorii was playing on the online computer version of Mobba, and this scene only made Grace even more convinced.

nConvinced that even if she were considered trash at this game, the other party could only be considered a god.

nThe guy was clearly at a level when he didn't need people of a worse caliber to show off his own strength.

nAnd just like that, Noah had dragged Grace into one more of his

"bad

" hobbies as Grace too fell into the stream spiral.

nShe was so immersed and as was Noah that they both hadn't realized how little of a presence Emilin currently had.

nShe was trying to make herself scarce so that she wouldn't have to express her opinion on the matters they were speaking about today, and it was working.

nThis was because they were all somewhat related to her!

nEven if no one else knew it, she did!

nJust hearing about these matters made her want to lower her head to calm herself down, much less talking about it.

nEmilin didn't even know why.

n