READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 16
After a long shopping spree, I finally arrived home.
“Yujin, before you wash up, organize the clothes you bought and put them outside. The lady will come tomorrow to take them for cleaning.”
“Wha… what about your clothes, Oppa?”
Fortunately, the nickname that shook my identity seemed to return to normal as soon as I got home. Technically, I should be called Unnie now, but… I still needed some time.
“Do you think your Oppa can do something like that? You do it.”
“Got it.”
I don’t know what they’re talking about, but that’s a pretty wise choice.
“Yujin, pack your things too.”
“Yeah.”
Even though I bought more than one or two keyboards and mice, they felt as light as feathers.
“Are you that happy?”
“Of course!”
“Sigh… Well, if you’re happy, that’s what matters.”
My mother chuckled lightly, as if nothing else mattered now.
‘Alright, then…’
Returning to my room, I neatly arranged the keyboard and mouse before heading straight to the bathroom.
“Phew.”
After soaking my body in warm water for a long while, it finally felt like the biting cold wind from outside was gone.
“Oh man.”
I think I just walked the longest I ever have in my life. Maybe that’s why I felt like an old person.
Wearing the blue polka dot pajamas I bought earlier, I simply flopped down onto the bed. It felt like the ceiling was beckoning me, almost like sleep would take me any moment now.
‘I should sleep.’
If I sleep early, tomorrow morning will come early too.
‘…’
I slowly closed my eyes, but for some reason, sleep just wouldn’t come. I was in a hellish situation where I was tired but couldn’t fall asleep. The fact that I didn’t have the same mundane schedule as others was a small consolation.
“Agh, damn…”
After rolling around in bed for about thirty minutes, I thought, “This isn’t working.”
Ultimately, I kicked off the blankets and got up. Maybe it was because of the pretty faces lingering at the corner of my vision, but my heart was fluttering, and I just couldn’t sleep.
‘Just one game, let’s do it.’
The unopened keyboard and mouse stacked up like they were seducing me. Despite my best efforts to ignore them, it felt like I couldn’t escape my destiny.
I got out of bed and performed my routine movements to turn on the computer, then sat down in the chair.
“Ugh.”
Getting out of bed made me feel even more tired, but since I was already up, I figured I might as well try at least one of the new gadgets.
“Let’s see…”
I carefully opened the boxes of the new keyboard and mouse. I needed to unpack them as neatly as possible because I had to think about putting them back afterward.
“First, let’s take this one…”
I pulled out the keyboard with the smoothest keystrokes and the mouse that required the least pressure.
“Yeah, it really is different.”
My old keyboard and mouse weren’t bad. Actually, considering how long I had used them, they felt much better right now because I was so familiar with them.
But no matter how good something familiar is, sometimes you need to challenge yourself boldly.
“Done.”
As I examined the wires connected to the back of the CPU, I swiftly swapped out the keyboard and mouse. Back in the day, I would have needed help with this, but it was simple for me now.
Click, click—
The grip of the mouse felt quite awkward in my hand. The keyboard felt the same way, and I suddenly had a strong desire to return to my old equipment.
“Well, I’ll get used to it eventually.”
Sure enough, after a few minutes of browsing the internet, I began to feel a bit more accustomed to the strange new hardware.
“It barely registers a touch.”
Low keystroke and click pressure meant it was slightly faster to respond than my previous setup.
Of course, with advantages come some drawbacks, and this sensitive equipment seemed like it would require quite a bit of caution while using.
“It’s probably suited for champions that require quick reflexes instead of precision.”
Realizing I was already thinking about which champions to use with different equipment showed I might not be entirely normal, but… whatever.
“Let’s just give it a shot.”
Seeing is believing. The best way to figure things out is to just try them.
[Logging In]
I logged into Legends of League and immediately booted up the practice mode. I felt the need to familiarize myself with the equipment, even if it meant hitting some dummies first.
[Lee Sin]
There’s really no better champion for loosening up than him.
He used to be a champion you wouldn’t pick unless your tier was pretty high, but I had started getting into Lee Sin recently. After loading finished, I summoned a dummy and continuously attacked it for several minutes.
I would Q first, then W to engage after placing a ward, mixing in an auto-attack to prevent the target from retaliating, immediately following up with Q again after R, E auto, E.
Q, Q, then Q while activating my ultimate followed by a W Flash.
Q, Ward, W, Q, R.
From standard combo foundations to the flashy combos I had only recently learned to use with finesse.
After running through almost all the combos Lee Sin could do, I wrapped up the practice mode. Simply beating the dummy wasn’t going to cut it for effective practice.
Back in the lobby, I pondered for a moment.
‘Guess I need to go for normals, right?’
Even though I had battered that dummy to death in practice mode, there was no way I was about to test out my new equipment in a ranked game, especially since I had long surpassed my quota for the day.
I didn’t have a smurf account or anything, so my choices boiled down to norm games or free rank games.
‘Free rank wouldn’t be bad but… not really feeling it.’
I have great respect for ranked games. Being fundamentally a solo queue warrior, I considered every match as precious as life itself.
And that also extended to free rank games.
Sure, people generally see free rank as just normals with points attached, but there surely are some who are desperate to earn those points.
I didn’t want to be the reason they suffered just because I didn’t care.
[Searching for a game…]
Since it was a normal game, the queue filled up pretty quickly.
[Game Found!]
[Accept / Decline]
+
────────────────
Prisoner has joined the lobby.
DiaSooMoonJang11 has joined the lobby.
JaeHyukMaster123 has joined the lobby.
Triangle Mid Laner has joined the lobby.
DaHyeIsAmazing has joined the lobby.
────────────────
[Triangle Mid Laner: Mid]
[DiaSooMoonJang11: MidMidMid]
[Triangle Mid Laner: Mid Lane, please]
[DiaSooMoonJang11: TopTopTopTop]
[JaeHyukMaster123: I’ll go Bot with a 3-5 pick]
So in the end, it’s the jungler left, huh?
It had been so long since I played normals that I wasn’t quite sure how to handle the position chat culture.
Honestly, I was a little taken aback.
‘What to do?’
I thought about picking Lee Sin again, but with the way I was feeling, I just wasn’t down for it.
Thinkin’ for a bit, I picked Sylas.
[Sylas]
He used to be a pretty decent jungler until he got nerfed over time into a champion that could barely jungle anymore.
Still, he retained enough of his unique strengths that if I could get past the early game, he had the potential to be quite impactful.
‘If this were ranked, I’d probably dodge right now.’
But this was a normal game.
Not too many people put their foot down on team members’ picks in this type of match.
And then…
In a twist that wasn’t quite “instead,” another reaction popped up.
[Triangle Mid Laner: But is he the real deal?]
Prisoner, who hit the number one spot since the beginning of Legends of League.
Of course, he was fairly recognizable among regular folks, so it wasn’t surprising that someone would pick up on it.
[DiaSooMoonJang11: Probably a fake]
[Triangle Mid Laner: Huh]
Given the nature of Legends of League, people assumed the real Prisoner wouldn’t show up in normal games, so their reaction was pretty chill.
That’s how many imposters there were running around.
But as they say, a gem stands out amid the rubble.
It didn’t take long for people to start recognizing me.
[DiaSooMoonJang11: ? No way, what the hell]
[Triangle Mid Laner: Really?]
[DiaSooMoonJang11: Typed the name and found out he’s got 1600 points? Ranked 2nd lol]
[Triangle Mid Laner: Damn, it’s real]