Bubblegum's twenty Shorts punishment was a significant inspiration to many. Not just streamers, but for editors too. Mixed Nuts' editors, which meant just Ji-Ah and Macaron, were no exception.
"He... went that far...?"
"... Wow."
Macaron, in particular, looked like his soul had left his body. He stopped editing and took in the beautiful compositions Bubblegum was creating. Then, he worked up the courage.
"Team leader... shouldn't we also do something..."
"... Hm?" Ji-Ah tilted her head. "What... kind of thing?"
"Well, we can't have Bubblegum end up being the final winner of this game..."
Macaron had a strange competitive streak. It was, perhaps, a naturally hot-blooded thing particular to young men. What puzzled Ji-Ah was that Macaron had it.
'He really doesn't look the type.'
Every line of his face was round. Macaron looked perfectly harmless. This was beyond Macaron. He was a meringue, yet he had an unexpected competitive spirit. Enough for him to say this despite his own embarrassment.
"Th-these days... these days YouTube is changing. It’s about pumping out Shorts fast to hit the algorithm as much as possible..."
The trend was to confirm responses with instant Shorts and then upload the full video. The first video out was as short as possible, then a medium edit and the full video followed afterward.
"So... what?" Ji-Ah already knew this.
Why was he saying it?
"So, making twenty Shorts from that one scene...!"
"Making twenty, you mean?"
Macaron shouted as if this was extremely important, "The authorship of this full video will shift over to Bubblegum!"
Ji-Ah denied it again. "Is it really that serious? I don't think so. If anything, it helps us."
"Th-that's right! It d-does help... but still, we p-planned this! And BornToB is on our side... Orange King was invited by us... and most importantly..."
Macaron seemed to have something he wanted to establish clearly.
"?"
"Bu-Bubblegum is on the same side as Zelo, right? Zelo is Almond's strongest rival! Big collab events like streamer tournaments are... actually a kind of invisible w-war..."
Ji-Ah had been quite deep into internet streaming too, but not to Macaron's level.
Streaming was Macaron’s life. He'd watched the rise and fall of countless streamers from his room. He knew what was being said behind the scenes, what wars the editing teams and managers were waging because he'd witnessed every kind of incident and accident. The larger the event, the higher the probability of streamers being caught in incidents.
Falling behind in momentum was absolutely unacceptable. When an incident broke out, it wasn't a matter of who did the right or wrong thing. It was a battle of who had more authority. Things that needed to be secured had to be secured. Even being a major player didn't mean one could be complacent.
Almond was just big in size, but was still essentially a newcomer. He had a big body, but a child's head like an adolescent.
Macaron was trembling, yet looked up with wide eyes to say all this.
"Pf-pfft!" Ji-Ah couldn't suppress a laugh.
Macaron's face went bright red. "I'm s-sorry... I got too excited..."
He seemed to think he'd made some mistake.
Ji-Ah patted his shoulder. "No. Sorry for laughing. It wasn't what you said. Your expression was just funny."
‘Wasn't that ruder...’
"Actually, what you said is correct. Hearing you say it out loud was funny... pf-pfft. You l-looked like someone going off to war..."
He was turning the color of a raspberry macaron.
Ji-Ah kept chuckling. "Anyway, Ji-Hu, the enthusiasm is good, but make sure that kind of talk doesn't leak outside."
"Hm...? What kind..."
"What you just said about competition and war. We have a close relationship with Bubblegum and owe each other a lot. It's not a relationship where we should be expressing competitive feelings publicly."
"Th-that..."
Macaron's face burned even redder.
'That's true.'
He knew, but had just been anxious. From his perspective, the production was too good. He didn't want it to go to waste.
Ji-Ah suggested, "Then we just do something similar, right? That's what you're saying? Make several Shorts from one thing. We can do that too."
"Yes. Th-that's true... but... h-how?"
"Here, look." Ji-Ah showed Macaron the video Ju-Hyeok had found funny and sent it over.
"The director filmed this and said to use it as behind-the-scenes."
"Oh...?"
"This way, we make two things from one incident, behind-the-scenes included. One Short, one medium edit, and one behind-the-scenes. That's three?"
"Oh... three."
"Three is a bit disappointing?"
"No."
"Right? Three is enough..."
"It's not three."
"?"
"We can do a few more."
Something flashed through Macaron's head at that moment.
Scribble scribble.
He sketched something and showed it.
"If you put twists in the story, it becomes a lot more."
"...!"
A little while later, this storyboard was passed directly to BornToB.
"Hmm." He nodded at Macaron and seemed to like it. "Since we're doing it, let's do it properly."
"... Pardon?"
BornToB pulled out a gun from the drawer.
"I heard everything, Kim Ji-Hu. You said it's war? Then we need to pick up a gun."
"!?"
What was he even doing with something like that?
Bang!
BornToB kicked the door open and called out, "Freeze!"
***
That was how they made the original Orange King closing-remarks video.
"Behind the camera, he's smart..."
The AI parody video claimed this was secretly happening because Almond was pointing a gun at him.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!
"Ahhhhhh!"
Shockingly, the behind-the-scenes video proved it wasn’t AI.
[Shorts: The behind-the-scenes of the fourth lesson finally revealed]
Almond pretended to shoot Orange King with a toy gun.
"Dumb! YOUNG MAAAANN!" Orange King fell and collapsed dramatically all on his own.
He was moving exactly like squid sashimi doused in soy sauce.
"Ahhhhhh!!"
BornToB made sound effects with his mouth from the side.
"BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!"
Even the gun sound effects were analog. The only digital effects were the muzzle flash and smoke.
Thud.
Orange King collapsed to the floor and left a final will. "Even so... his head still works!"
"Bang!"
After BornToB's sound effect, everyone clapped.
Clap clap clap...!
"Wow, Orange King, your acting is incredible."
"Ahaha..."
Almond added one more thing excitedly. It was a compliment about Orange King's voice.
"Orange King's screaming is really loud."
"Not my head this time?"
Orange King had been repeatedly told, during a previous interview with Almond, that his head was too big.
"..."
The camera zoomed in on Almond's blinking face. The screen gradually darkened. At the very end, the corner of Almond's mouth slightly lifted.
[Dedicated to the Anti-Smart Young Man movement activists.]
The video ended with this caption. The response was quite good.
— Insane LOL
— Dedicating this to the anti-faction is basically a threat video hahahaha
— The Young Man Who Doesn't Know AI
— Looks more AI than anything else but it was totally handmade
— That last lip curl is so aggravating
└ Acting like there's lingering emotion lmaooo
└ fr
└ He was just actually thinking about the big head comment and smiling
└└ LOL
└└ That's the worst one...
— His head isn't big!
— Smart Young Man faction people are genuinely vile ㅡㅡ
└ lmaooooo
└ fr... leaving it recorded like this means they're not human
└ This is why we do the anti movement...
└ Fact: Almond never once said his head was big.
— ??? His head! Is actually! Not as big as you'd think!
— lmaooooo
— BornToB what is that?!
— He said his head wasn't big LOL
— Why is BornToB making gun sounds from his mouth??
— lmaooooo
— The fact that this was handmade...
These were the twists Macaron had created.
Bubblegum's twenty deaths of BubbleSniper were high in number, but didn't connect as individual stories. They lacked continuity.
The goodbye Short series produced by Mixed Nuts connected as a story. The viewer thought Orange King was a Smart Young Man ally, but he was being threatened with a gun behind the scenes.
The viewers naturally assumed the video was AI-generated, but it turned out there was also a behind-the-scenes. Videos like this had a special advantage. People who watched them in order would naturally want to see the next one.
— What on earth is this even??
People who saw them in a different order would inevitably be curious about the previous ones.
└ It takes a while to explain...
└ Ugh... don't touch this one (link)
└└ Thank you! Thank you!
People gathered to cheerfully discuss a shared universe with the Smart Young Man faction and anti-faction. Outsiders couldn't help but grow curious to avoid being left out. That drove people to visit various places and watch all the Shorts. The more they did, the better the algorithm naturally pushed related Shorts as the next recommendation.
"Wow...!"
Ji-Ah clapped her hands.
"Amazing. The response is incredible! It’s already 200~300 thousand each."
The response was explosive. Above all, Bubblegum's Shorts were also doing well, which further increased interest in the original video.
— Does anyone actually believe the fourth lesson and killing BubbleSniper twenty times both came from a single game?
└ Is that real?
└ Yes
└ Insane lmaooo
└ The efficiency is basically fossil fuel level
└ This is diesel-grade lmaooo
└ Though the original edit hasn't even been uploaded yet lmaooo
"Ju... ah, Director! Look at this~!" Ji-Ah went to the director's office and chatted excitedly.
Macaron blankly watched the Shorts he'd made one by one. No matter how many times he watched them, he couldn't get tired of them.
'... Wow.'
It had turned out exactly as he'd imagined. First of all, BornToB was more cooperative than Macaron had expected. He thought he'd be told to just hold the camera. That seemed like a joke.
BornToB's slightly clumsy movements matched Macaron's concept well. Strangely, BornToB could also beatbox as a hobby. He said the B in BornToB stood for beatbox. It was hard to fully believe, but watching him produce gun sounds was clearly something special.
“BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!”
Watching the video again, it definitely sounded impressive. The fact that it was coming from a human mouth couldn't help but be funny.
***
Meanwhile, Sang-Hyeon and BornToB were at a restaurant with Orange King and his manager. The editing team had already eaten while the gaming was in session. Now, the filming team was eating.
"Your acting today was really a lot of work, Orange King." Sang-Hyeon placed utensils in front of everyone and greeted him again.
"Oh, hahaha! It was nothing. I do that level of overacting in my solo streams all the time. Don't worry."
"...?"
He did that all the time? Sang-Hyeon momentarily felt like pushing himself harder too.
"By the way, Almond, have you found a scrimmage team?" Orange King asked casually, almost in passing.
He dealt with so many professional gamers that it was practically a greeting.
Beside him, his manager hit the nail on the head. "Oh, but this actually requires finding nine scrimmage teams, doesn't it?"
"Hm?"
"Survival mode has ten teams."
"!?"
Orange King hadn't thought about that variable in Survival mode. Sang-Hyeon and BornToB hadn't thought about it either. A momentary silence fell over the table.
Orange King asked, "Wait, that means practically every participating team in Cheese needs to come out and scrimmage? How, how is that going?"
"Somehow, there's been no mention of scrimmages yet."
There really hadn't been any word about when scrimmages would happen. Finding teams would be incredibly difficult.
"The coach should be finding them quickly...? Finding nine teams must be really hard."
"..."
No matter how Sang-Hyeon thought about it, the image of Choi Sa-Rang calling around everywhere asking teams to scrimmage simply wouldn’t form in his head.
'Come crawl to me. Then maybe I'll scrimmage against you.'
That was roughly the image forming in Sang-Hyeon's head.
"Hmm..."
Would they end up not scrimmaging at all?
***
Meanwhile, Choi Sa-Rang had finished her rehabilitation exercises and returned to her room. She naturally picked up the phone sitting on her desk, then set it back down.
"Haah... Damn..."
She'd forgotten that finding scrimmages was the coach's job.
"Who do I even ask?"
Sa-Rang really hated asking people for favors, and she'd have to do it nine times. That was genuinely impossible, but taking on a team and not doing scrimmages was also out of the question.
Hiss.
She lit a cigarette and thought for a while.
"Haah."
She kept exhaling smoke and finally called someone.
[Police Korea HQ Director]
Nobody else would know the direct line to this number. Even if they had it, they couldn't just freely call. For her, it was actually easier.
"Yes, it's me."
"Oh, goodness, JeonJaPa? Long time, what can I do?"
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