Free Web NovelThe incident started with a post uploaded to the Legend of Valley community.
[I figured out Lee Sion’s League ID]
At a glance, just from the title, it looked like the kind of blatant bait trash post that gets uploaded by the thousands every day, but it’s human instinct to click even those bait posts because of that “what if.”
「I was playing ranked last weekend and somebody rage-quit on me. I was pissed as hell, so the moment we hit a 15-minute surrender, I reported them and went straight into the match history site to do an autopsy.
But the rage-quitter’s match history was kind of weird.
They didn’t log in at all on weekdays, and then played on weekends, and even that, every two weeks.
(screenshot of match history site)
And they’d been playing in exactly that pattern for like three months.
Before that, they were just living that League-addict life.
But here’s the thing—what was the rage-quitter’s ID?
It was ‘zizonSion.’
For some reason, when I saw that ID, Lee Sion came to mind.
So I hurried up and searched online, and the period when the Agbaek contestants were out on break from the dorm exactly overlapped with the game dates for zizonSion.
Especially this time, the week-long stretch is completely undeniable.
zizonSion was Lee Sion.」
↳1,284 games? Don’t lie! There’s no way our Sion is a League addict···
↳If you force it, anyone can make something look convincing
↳No, but this is honestly kind of super suspicious?
↳If it’s real, Lee Sion is actually evil as hellㅋㅋ Dropping points in top and then climbing back up as ADC
↳Isn’t it a boyfriend boosting her?
↳Just from spell placement and items, it does look like the same person
Lee Sion was unlucky.
Normally, it would’ve just been a random trash post that got buried under other posts and forgotten, but it happened to catch people’s eyes, get upvoted in an instant, and climb into the featured posts.
Of course, one big reason it got upvoted was that the post investigated the connection between Lee Sion and zizonSion in fairly detailed fashion.
Especially since Lee Sion’s break dates overlapping with the game dates looked extremely suspicious, people started fighting in the comments over whether it was true or not, and it ended up with thousands of comments.
Unfortunately, a post that delivered the finishing blow to the Lee Sion = zizonSion theory appeared.
[I’m releasing evidence on Lee Sion]
「The guy was so nasty I even saved screenshots.
Some people are saying it’s just a troll who changed their name to impersonate Lee Sion.
(2014 game screenshot: 1/9/2 Yasuo)
Shit, the moment I saw that, I remembered everything from back then.
That’s a psychopath with no human emotions.
Anyway, zizonSion is a nickname that’s existed since at least 2014. It’s not something that just popped up recently.」
↳Grrrr!! I can’t hold back anymore, it’s okay if I bite, right?
↳This looks like Lee Sion for sure?
↳Sorry, Sion, I really can’t shield this one
↳I can tolerate family controversy and school violence controversy, but this is a little···
↳Why does this ID smell exactly like my League-addict friend?
As Lee Sion’s past remarks started getting dug up—how she’d always said on broadcasts that she didn’t treat anyone outside top lane as human—online, the situation was basically already decided: Lee Sion was zizonSion.
She was paying, hard, for the karma she’d built up running around Summoner’s Rift.
[This bastard! Why the hell are you playing top Yasuo?]
[Crazy bitch top Ez? Look at the match history, it’s plastered with top Xerath at the end, what is that?]
[What pisses me off is she played like shit in top, but the moment she goes bot lane she massacres the enemy team]
[She even rage-quit recently. At this point she’s straight-up malicious]
The people digging into Lee Sion’s account couldn’t hide their shock at the nasty behavior that kept coming out the deeper they dug.
[So our Sion was a girl who cried a lot··· You only need to buy one Tear though]
[She’s a demon··· This isn’t something a human does···]
[How is this any different from streamers who intentionally dropped tier to slaughter newbies and then went back to trolling again?]
Legend of Valley.
Since it was a game most young Korean men had played at least once, and even people who didn’t play had heard the name, what Lee Sion had done in-game was more than enough to ignite public outrage.
And thanks to that, Lee Sion’s misdeeds spread beyond the Legend of Valley community, circulating as condensed summaries across the internet.
“Sion. No, Sion··· did I do something wrong to you?”
“···No.”
Hyungsoo really wanted to cry as he watched the online reaction.
Family controversy. School violence controversy.
Why did Lee Sion come back from every break carrying one controversy after another?
Hyungsoo was seriously considering that starting next season, they should keep contestants in the dorm for three months straight with no breaks.
“Whew··· Okay. I have to hear it from you. Is zizonSion actually your game ID?”
Thinking that he’d seen this exact situation just last week, Hyungsoo mustered one last burst of transcendent patience and asked Lee Sion, who was sitting across from him.
“Ah··· I mean, so, it’s like···.”
“Yes or no.”
“···Yes.”
After hesitating for a long time, Lee Sion finally admitted with her own mouth that zizonSion was her, and Hyungsoo felt the back of his head start to throb.
‘What am I supposed to do about this?’
Because no proper countermeasure came to mind.
The earlier controversies involving Lee Sion needed explanations, and even if it was hard, he at least had a sense of how to push through.
‘It’s not like I can hold a press conference because she trolled in a game!’
This situation, unlike those, honestly wasn’t even enough to become a real “problem.”
A game.
Hyungsoo played games too.
Of course he’d tried Legend of Valley, and even now, when he had time, it was a game he played occasionally.
The reason he didn’t play often was that there were too many insane people on the Rift, so the older he got, the more he drifted away from it because it was exhausting.
“So it was you···.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.”
Seeing one of the main culprits sitting right in front of him was ridiculous.
-If you don’t come top after taking 3 camps, handle what happens next yourself
↳This is an idol?
↳I’m getting PTSD. Why are top laners all like this?
↳I’m a top laner, and I agree with Lee Sion’s statement
Even the old chat logs were coming out in detail, and judging by that, over the course of playing more than a thousand games, Lee Sion seemed to have made a truly impressive number of enemies.
“What should I do?”
“Hm···.”
Maybe she did recognize she’d done something wrong, because unlike usual, Lee Sion fidgeted with an apologetic expression.
Watching her, Hyungsoo’s worries deepened.
‘Honestly, pretending we don’t know might be a method.’
Unlike the previous controversies, this incident wasn’t something the public would condemn.
Even online, the atmosphere was more focused on making fun of Lee Sion, not demanding she drop out of the program.
So if they just pretended they didn’t know and passed over it, interest would probably fade before long and it might get forgotten naturally.
However—
‘Once a label like this sticks, antis use it later.’
Looking ahead, Hyungsoo judged that letting it slide wasn’t a purely good option.
-Lee Sion’s game alone shows her personality, honestly
-You can tell how she probably lives day to day
-I actually lost all affection for Lee Sion back then
Antis were the kind of species that latched onto even trivial things like this, focusing on dragging down the target’s image.
Recently, opinion inside KJ itself had been gathering around debuting the Idol Ground 100 debut group in-house, and Hyungsoo worried that this could become ammunition later.
“Should I apologize?”
“That is one option, but···.”
At Sion’s suggestion, Hyungsoo did think that was a way.
If they just cleanly framed it as immature mistakes from when she was younger and moved on, the number of people who tried to make it an issue afterward would drop a lot.
After all, there probably wasn’t a single person who’d played Legend of Valley without ever doing something like that even once.
It’s just that for Lee Sion, the frequency wasn’t a little—it was very, very high, so just apologizing for past behavior had a good chance of resolving this incident.
“But··· I didn’t actually troll, though···.”
“Huh?”
“I tried my best in every game. I’m telling you, I didn’t throw a single match on purpose.”
Just as Hyungsoo was about to wrap this up cleanly by having Lee Sion record an apology video and post it on YouTube or SNS—
Maybe because she had too many sins on her conscience, the Lee Sion who’d been sitting quietly suddenly started making excuses in an indignant voice.
‘Is she a person?’
Hearing that protest, Park Hyungsoo couldn’t hide his shock.
“I think the reason my KDA isn’t good is mostly because of my teammates. If you look objectively, my skill is at least high Plat, and if you’re generous, it’s Diamond, and···.”
Hyungsoo had already checked Lee Sion’s disastrous match history, so he thought the Lee Sion protesting in front of him was shameless to a degree that was hard to find a rival for.
‘If this is “unfair,” then there’s no such thing as trolling in Legend of Valley.’
But either way, she was the precious number-one contributor who made the program a hit, so he couldn’t openly make a rotten face. He just nodded along like she was right, and stared at the laptop screen with her match history open.
‘Hm?’
And Hyungsoo suddenly felt something off.
‘Ezreal win rate 92% across 32 games, Caitlyn win rate 100%? What is this?’
Most of the match history window was marked in red, but sometimes, when blue results popped up in a row, it was when she’d picked ADC champions.
“Sion, you haven’t ever had someone boost you, or had a boyfriend play for you, right?”
“Huh? I don’t do filthy tricks like that! And I’ve never had a boyfriend even once.”
They weren’t even champions she’d only picked a few times—she’d picked them quite a lot, and yet the win rates were so high they looked suspicious, like boosting.
“Sion, want to play Legend of Valley for a bit?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah.”
Hyungsoo had something he wanted to confirm, so he launched Legend of Valley on the laptop and handed it to Lee Sion.
“Mm··· This kind of thing really depends on the equipment, though.”
“I just need to check something, so just play comfortably.”
Even while complaining, Lee Sion followed Hyungsoo’s instruction and started playing Legend of Valley like she was used to it.
‘As expected···!’
After watching her play for about two games, Hyungsoo came up with a plan.
***
“Is Lee Sion doing this because we’re bored?”
“I seriously never imagined it. A trolling controversy this time.”
Lee Gahyeon nodded like she agreed with Yunkyung.
In the middle of practice, Lee Sion had been called into the meeting room again by the main PD.
They asked the staff what was going on, and the reason was absurd.
A shocking reason: she’d been caught for trolling—meaning malicious behavior—in Legend of Valley, the very game she always had on her tongue, and they were in the middle of cleaning it up.
“But what do you even do in a game for it to become a controversy?”
“I don’t really know, but when I watch my younger sibling play, they’re cursing the whole time.”
In truth, Gahyeon and the other contestants only knew there was a game called Legend of Valley and that it was popular.
They didn’t know what you even did in the game, or how you could cause a controversy through playing it, so it was just frustrating.
“It’s not going to be a huge problem, right?”
“I don’t think so. During the school violence controversy last time, even the filming staff looked like they were about to cry and it was chaos, but this time everyone was just smiling.”
“That’s a relief.”
“You get messed with by Lee Sion all the time, and you’re still worried?”
At Ryujin’s words, Gahyeon flinched.
“No! Why would I worry about her! Even if she got dropped on a deserted island, she’d survive and come back!”
Maybe because she got caught worrying about Lee Sion without meaning to, Gahyeon’s voice grew louder.
“If not, then whatever. Why are you getting so mad? Feels like something’s poking you.”
“Seo Ryujin, you’re really enjoying this, huh? Want me to spill all your middle school Seo Ryujin stories?”
“You’re so petty, attacking me with old stories?!”
Bringing up things from when they were together at Logic, Gahyeon finally managed to shut Ryujin up, and she let out a sigh of relief inside.
‘Lee Sion always has to cause an incident and fluster people.’
To Lee Gahyeon, Lee Sion was a truly unique younger teammate.
Usually she was annoyingly obnoxious, but then at other times, she looked more mature than Gahyeon and led the people around her.
Thanks to that, Gahyeon could throw off the heavy sense of responsibility in Idol Ground 100 and focus on just her own work.
-Gahyeon, you’re the older one, you should take initiative and do something.
Twenty-two.
Because it was an older age for a trainee, both at her agency and in Idol Ground 100, Gahyeon often ended up taking on a leader role one way or another.
But honestly, Gahyeon didn’t think she had what it took to be a leader.
Because Gahyeon just looked a little tough—she couldn’t really say harsh things to anyone, and she didn’t have that kind of friendliness that let her easily get close with people.
But she couldn’t disappoint people’s expectations, so as she forced herself into those roles, at some point she forgot what she was really like and got busy showing people the version they wanted.
Even in this Idol Ground 100, the F-class contestants naturally shoved the leader position onto Gahyeon.
And when Gahyeon almost forced herself into a reckless move because she thought the entire F-class could suffer if she failed, the one who saved her—though she hated to admit it—was Lee Sion.
Maybe because of that, Gahyeon always felt like she owed Lee Sion a debt in her heart.
“Looks like it’s starting now.”
“Why did they gather us in the auditorium just to show this?”
“Well, we’ll see.”
Even though the production staff had gathered the contestants in the auditorium through the broadcast, Gahyeon’s head was still full of whether Lee Sion would be okay.
‘Anyway, what did they really gather us all for?’
The production team had gathered the contestants in the auditorium in the middle of missions before, too, to run some kind of event.
But those were usually after about a week had passed.
This time they gathered them unusually fast, which felt strange. freeweɓnøvel.com
More than anything, if it was for filming, Lee Sion couldn’t be missing, but it was strange that they gathered them even though Lee Sion wasn’t there.
But Gahyeon’s question didn’t last long.
“Oh! It’s Lee Sion!”
As if it had read Gahyeon’s thoughts, Lee Sion appeared on the screen installed in the auditorium.
A white background, a desk, and Lee Sion sitting there with a resolute expression.
Around her were lights you’d expect streamers to use, and even a microphone.
As the contestants stared at it, bewildered about what was going on—
“Hello, I’m main PD Park Hyungsoo.”
Main PD Park Hyungsoo appeared on the podium and greeted the contestants.
“What you’re watching right now is the live broadcast you’ll be doing going forward.”
“A live broadcast?”
“We have to do that too?”
“So that was a live broadcast right now!”
The auditorium full of contestants started to murmur at Park Hyungsoo’s words.
“Before the Final Round, we prepared this as an opportunity for contestants to do one last bit of personal promotion to the viewers.”
Only then did the contestants understand why Lee Sion was on the screen.
“The time limit is up to thirty minutes. Starting tomorrow, five contestants a day will do live broadcasts through the portal site. Lee Sion is the first-place contestant from the ranking announcement, so she went first today alone and did hers first.”
When Park Hyungsoo finished explaining, one of the contestants shot a hand up and asked.
“What are we supposed to do on the broadcast?”
“It’s free. Anything is fine, as long as it’s something that can show your charm. You can also watch Lee Sion’s live broadcast from earlier today and use it as a reference.”
Thirty minutes of self-PR time, freely given.
Park Hyungsoo said they’d already announced earlier through the homepage and SNS that there would be a first live broadcast, and that going forward they would also post notices before contestants went live.
At Park Hyungsoo’s words, contestants chattered among themselves about what kind of broadcast they should do, eyes fixed on the screen.
[Hello, I’m Lee Sion, an independent trainee participating in Idol Ground 100.]
-Crazy, that’s really Lee Sion?
-What? It popped up on the NeXver screen so I clicked, and it’s a live broadcast?
-Wow, she’s really pretty
-Sion, debut!!! I love you!!!
-What is this emergency live? MPLAY was seriously so good!
Because the very first broadcast—Lee Sion’s—had just started.
The moment Lee ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ Sion greeted them lightly, the chat started flying upward at an instant, and the real-time viewer count at the top began to rise.
“Lee Sion’s insane. She’s already past a thousand viewers.”
“The chat is flying so fast!”
“There’s no way she’s going to talk about Three Kingdoms stuff even on a live broadcast, right?”
As all the contestants, including Gahyeon, held their breath and watched Lee Sion’s live—
-Lee Sion, you’re Lee Sion, right?
Starting with that one message, the mood of the live chat suddenly changed.
-Lee Sion, did you really troll?
-Lee Sion, explain yourself right now!
-You’re bored today? You got caught. We’re going to stir shit until you explain
-Aren’t you afraid of heaven, Lee Sion?
Maybe because of the earlier controversy, a crowd poured in like a swarm of locusts and instantly occupied the chat.
[Ah··· Today I was originally going to communicate with my fans, but I guess I have to explain first.]
Watching the chat while doing the live broadcast, Lee Sion must’ve noticed, because her expression stiffened.
[I’m seeing a lot of messages asking if Lee Sion is me···]
As she started answering, Lee Sion hesitated for a moment, then continued with a face like she’d made up her mind.
[Yes. I’m Lee Sion.]
And in the end, she set off the bomb.
