Booking DuelKingChaechae had seemed like it would be a hassle, but it turned out to be surprisingly simple.
All she wanted was Arena Coins……
*Wh—what, that's so, so adorably pathetic!*
Momoji shivered from head to toe at the unexpected cuteness.
Was this really the same person who'd been cackling while torturing her viewers with a vacuum cleaner just moments ago?
Right now she looked exactly like a little cousin who'd just been handed a game console at a family holiday gathering.
Momoji decided not to mention that if Chaechae just asked her viewers for coins, there'd be plenty of people happy to shower her with them.
"Ahem."
Before the actual lesson could begin—
[Momoji — ₩1,000: Do you have VoiceOn installed, by any chance? Talking while we play is way better than just chatting, right?]
This was a stream, after all. They needed to banter back and forth in real time.
It was such an obvious thing that Momoji only asked to confirm, but—
[Oh, uh, like~ isn't chatting enough~? Or would you prefer a phone call?]
An awkward, evasive tone, like she was dancing around something.
*A phone call? Oh, I'd love her number.*
But that was a separate matter entirely.
You couldn't game and talk on a regular phone call at the same time.
Momoji told her again to get on VoiceOn.
Then, watching the chat on Chaechae's stream, she quietly figured out why Chaechae had hesitated.
- She's probably scared the setup will be too complicated
- Nah, you literally just install it
- Everyone at the top of Dead Zone uses VoiceOn
- fr it's dead simple, nothing to configure
- just download and go
- Is your computer just a giant game console to you or what
[No, it's not like that, okay. You just install it. Just install it.]
*Oh. She's not great with computers, is she?*
Goaded by the chat, Chaechae opened her browser.
[You just search it up and download it, that's literally it. Honestly.]
Since her screen was fully visible for the stream, everything she did was on full display.
She searched VoiceOn on the portal site and successfully downloaded it without incident.
The mouse movements were awkward in a way that radiated visible deliberation at every step, but up to that point, there were no real problems.
Then came the installation.
[Hmm. Oh.]
A mouse wandering aimlessly.
And viewers growing increasingly anxious.
Faced with a wall of checkboxes—
Chae-won, after much agonized deliberation—
[Agree?]
—checked every single box and clicked through.
"Huh?! What are you doing?!"
- nooooo don't click that
- LMAOOO ads are gonna pop up everywhere
- this streamer provides free advertising services
- I'm going to die of frustration
- Oh great spirit of PC setup……
Momoji and the viewers were horrified.
Berated from all sides, Chaechae ended up having to uninstall everything and start the download over from scratch.
Just getting the voice chat downloaded took well over ten minutes.
Then figuring out how to connect her mic and find the call room took another twenty on top of that.
And finally.
"……Hello?"
"Hi there."
"Teacher, do you want to die?"
"……Ahem."
Once the call connected, Momoji had a very strong urge to flick her on the forehead.
But separately—hearing Chaechae's voice made her feel a little… fluttery.
A clear, soft voice, shy and gentle at the same time.
The kind of voice that made you understand immediately why she was popular.
*I think I can forgive her.*
"Alright, enough of that. Teach me Dead Zone!"
"Sure~"
"Where do we start? The practice range? Sensitivity settings? Or do you want to spectate a ranked match?"
Momoji listed off the things she'd gone through with every teacher she'd had, the standard first-step tests.
Everyone always picked one of those three.
She waited with a little flutter of anticipation for Chaechae's answer.
"Let's head to the inventory first. Give me a sec to look at your stream."
"Okay!"
*She wants to pick a weapon first!*
Peering at Momoji's stream inventory, Chaechae murmured to herself.
"Wow, you have so much good stuff… I'm jealous… all that cash… why do you have so much."
"Hm? Ahaha, yeah, I guess."
"What guns do you like, Momoji?"
"I'll use whatever's good, honestly. Lately it's been the SKA?"
"Okay, let's go with the SKA then. Pull up the SKA-exclusive skins and see what you've got."
"Skins?"
"Yeah. Scroll all the way down."
Following Chaechae's instructions, Momoji scrolled through her SKA-exclusive skins and the cash shop listings.
*But what does this have to do with anything?*
The question nagged at her, but Chaechae kept going.
"Oh, that one's nice. Can you spend cash too?"
"Yeah, sure?"
"Then what about that one? Bottom right—the Santa Edition. Oh wait, that one's cute too. The sky-blue cloud shape. It has a little cat on it."
"Yep. I'll grab both."
She bought them because Chaechae said to, but Momoji was curious about the reasoning.
"What's different about these skins? Do they have special animations or something?"
"Hm?? No??"
"……Then why did you buy them?"
"Because they're the cutest ones. Weren't you agreeing with me?"
"What? I thought you needed them for something?"
A vague sense of wrongness crept in, followed by a slow bloom of unease.
[MomojiUnfairMoji — ₩1,000: Moji, it kind of looks like that person is shopping with your money, am I imagining things?]
Nah.
There must be a reason.
……Right?
"Hey, um—do we actually need to buy all of these?"
She casually asked Chaechae, who was busy scrutinizing more gun skins.
And then—
"My, my. Someone has no sense of the basics. Dressing up your loadout at least doubles your damage output."
"What? Really? That's actually a feature?"
She didn't know that. Well, in that case, she had to buy them.
"No, I mean it *feels* that way. Obviously it's not literally true."
"……?"
……What?
You're the one who said it.
"Okay, now click on character skins."
"……"
"Go on."
"……Yes."
Watching Chaechae cheerfully decking out her look with complete confidence—
Momoji's gaze wavered with growing unease.
*This is going to be fine……right?*
***
Lee Chae-won's stream had burst onto the scene like a comet, and every single day was a dopamine rollercoaster—low-key one moment, completely unhinged the next.
That clear, bright voice paired with a mischief that had absolutely no business coming out of it.
There was something about the unpredictable sweet-and-salty whiplash of her emotions that drove everyone who stumbled in absolutely crazy.
And since she didn't have a fixed streaming schedule—
A couple hours after school.
Another hour or two after dinner.
Short streams that left viewers perpetually hungry for more, and that one-sided communication style of hers on top of it all—Chae-won's viewers would pound their chests in frustration and pour their feelings out all over the Link gallery.
Thanks to all of that, whether for good reasons or bad, mentions of Lee Chae-won on the community boards showed no signs of dying down.
[Title: This makes no sense. To think our Chaechae has grown up like this……]
I've been a Chaechae fan for five years now……
Seeing her become a proper big-shot streamer guiding her juniors, I'm actually tearing up.
Are you going to keep watching going forward?
Chaechae fighting, happy 4th anniversary!
└She hasn't even been streaming for a week
└Must be living one year per day
└There's not a single accurate thing in this post, I don't even know where to start
└Has this guy ever actually watched Chaechae's stream
[Title: Trying to decode Chaechae's off-mic moment]
Let me be upfront: I have zero interest in the streamer called Chaechae.
For real.
But the reason I ended up transcribing this is basically a public service thing.
No matter how sweet someone seems, they could have something sketchy going on behind the scenes.
Anyway.
Starting from her mom's first appearance—I didn't catch that part clearly.
From what people are saying, her real name apparently has the character 'chae' in it.
I cranked the volume to max after that, so I'll go into detail from that point on.
And fair warning: this isn't 100% accurate.
Okay, so.
First—her mom came in to clean, and Chaechae seemed like she was trying to get out of it? Yeah, no chance, she got scolded immediately lmao
Second—her room sounds like it's decorated very princess-style. Apparently she likes pink. This one I'm pretty confident about. (Her Dead Zone character is literally a pink blob.)
The last part is stuff I caught in bits and pieces while the vacuum was running.
As you know, Chaechae was treating everyone to vacuum cleaner ASMR.
And in between, you could hear her giggling—whether she was holding back or doing it on purpose to make everyone more annoyed.
I was annoyed, but it was also kind of cute. Like—you know how in school there's always that one pretty, sweet girl who only bullies you? It felt like that.
Anyway.
Chaechae kept laughing, and her mom, who was vacuuming, must have found it weird, because she asked what was so funny.
And you know what Chaechae said?
.
.
.
My ears gave out and I couldn't catch it.
Does anyone know what she said? Given that she was smiling the whole time, it was probably something nice.
└You're the most interested person in the world, "zero interest" my foot
└There are some real weirdos out there
└Ugh I was reading along all warm and fuzzy and then WHY does it end like this
└└(OP) I'm serious, I think I need to see a doctor. Something's wrong with my ears.
└└└Isn't that obvious? I had it at volume 2 and it was still so loud I had to turn it down lmao
└lmao "princess-style" now I'm actually curious what her room looks like
└This whole post is disgusting. I feel gross.
└OP's friend here, Chaechae literally just laughed without saying anything……
└└(OP) Stop lying. She was smiling playfully and whispering something—something like "adorable" or "cute," something like that. Don't try to come between me and Chaechae O_O
└└└You're unwell. Moving on.
└└└└But how do YOU know Chaechae just laughed?
└└└└└I'm also on my way to the doctor right now because of my ears
└└└└└└Both of you need a psychiatrist, not an ENT
Most of the posts blowing up about Lee Chae-won were sparked by her antics, but a fair number were about her actual Dead Zone skills too.
A genuinely skilled female player appearing in the most popular game around right now.
And it wasn't just the female part—even before she'd made a name for herself through streaming, among the people who dug a little deeper into Dead Zone, highlight clips of Woniwoni>.< had been circulating for a while.
Her style was so aggressive and unorthodox that it was just fun to watch.
She pulled off tricks nobody had ever seen before, and that alone was enough to make people curious.
All the highlight clips had been from spectator view, which was a shame—but now they could watch her personal screen.
The moment word got out that Woniwoni>.< had started streaming, they came running, and more than a few were genuinely shocked to find out she was a girl.
[Title: I'm still skeptical about the Winchester as a weapon in general, but—]
(Clip of DuelKingChaechae winning a close-range firefight against an enemy rifle team using a Winchester.)
Watching Chaechae use it, it actually seems worth practicing?
In a messy brawl, something like an A-TAP is lucky to take one person down, but the Winchester overcomes that here.
Look at the style of spinning the gun after wiping them all out—this thing isn't the #1 drip weapon for nothing.
└Hmm, I mean. Isn't she just overcoming it with raw mechanics?
└Fair point. If it were an A-TAP she'd have one-shot someone and immediately pulled out a pistol to headshot the next
└Chaechae is such a drip addict. She's got that signature flair.
└She stomps lower-ranked players but I wonder if it'll hold up at the very top
└She already took out a Challenger sniper, so
└I mean, 1v1 is a different story though
[Title: So I was watching Chaechae teach Momoji and I'm LOSING IT lmaooo]
What is this, the military circa 1988?
This girl is making her grind achievement titles??
Is this not torture??
Weapon Master requires 100,000 kills with assault rifles alone.
But check Momoji's current stats—rifle kills: 4,000 lmaooooooo
└What titles do you need for Weapon Master anyway?
└Rifle, sniper, grenades, melee ㅇㅇ
└Per Chaechae: become a killing machine capable of eliminating enemies with any weapon
└Apparently you can't graduate until you hit Weapon Master, and I genuinely believe her
└I'd just quit
└Says who?
└Let go, let go, LET GO