Chapter 89
‘Why do you guys watch my stream?’
After turning on my stream, I occasionally find myself wondering that.
At first, I simply started because I hated seeing time go to waste and wanted to earn a little money for potions.
But looking back, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my streams had been excessively self-centered.
At some point, turning off the chat and cutting off all communication had become a habit.
It wasn’t just in WoA. It had started much earlier...
A tiny, three-pyeong space in virtual reality. Back then, all it contained was a single bed, a table, and a chair.
Even now, its basic layout wasn’t much different.
However, when streaming alone, I often had to write down equations, so I bought blackboard-like items from the paid shop.
Through the gaps between my toes, I could see the carpet’s fluffy animal fur.
It was the same carpet Seola had sold before, which I had bought for a hundred times its market price under the pretext of server recovery costs.
It probably even had the exact same atomic structure as other carpets with the same product name.
I knew it meant nothing... but sometimes even reason cried out for surrender.
All this time, on stream, I had done little more than scribble and mutter various pieces of magical knowledge I knew.
Knowledge from my previous life wasn’t complete.
Like forgetting a long dream after waking if you don’t desperately think it through again, I was piecing together the puzzle of my previous life one piece at a time.
Once I awakened the magical knowledge sleeping in my unconscious, all that remained was regret.
Ah... if only I had used this magic back then.
If only I had known a way to conserve mana back then.
I researched and lectured to soothe the soul of my previous life, trapped in a swamp of regret.
Then whom, exactly, was the indignation bursting from my vocal cords directed at?
Maybe that was why I shut off the entire chat whenever I muttered to myself under the guise of giving a lecture.
Because I didn’t want to be criticized. Because I felt I wouldn’t be able to endure the moment someone other than me said my choice had been wrong.
I didn’t want to think about anything. Especially not on a day like today.
[Unmei no itazura demo~ (Even if it’s fate’s prank)]
Besides, today a somewhat distracting song was playing instead of the piano or violin classical pieces I usually played.
[Meguriaeta koto ga~ (The fact that we met)]
In the pitch-black darkness, the beautiful voice of a honey badger girl passionately singing a foreign song echoed like a reverberation.
[Shiawase nano~ (I’m happy)]
“...”
I intended to filter out the viewers, but the problem was that I was now forced to listen to the song, too.
At first, I thought it would be perfect to play because her voice resembled mine, but even I found it more unpleasant to listen to than I had imagined.
I guess singing was a trend among VTubers these days, too?
[Renai Circulation (Cover – Kariri)]
[2:41/4:15]
As virtual-reality-supporting capsules became widespread, the boundary between VTubers and non-VTubers was increasingly blurred.
There still seemed to be plenty of debate over how to define a VTuber, but several propositions were certain.
First and foremost, a VTuber must not reveal the ‘person inside’ themselves, and even if that person was revealed, it had to be through unofficial means. Of course, the reverse did not hold true.
Nor did everyone who hid the ‘person inside’ count as a VTuber.
Amid these ambiguous, tail-chasing definitions, VTubers nonetheless unquestionably existed and formed a vast ecosystem.
In that sense, the 900,000-subscriber VTuber Kariri was influential enough to appear in my completely unrelated VTube recommendations.
I was ignorant of this culture, but thanks to this girl wearing a honey badger costume, my viewers became somewhat more docile.
[Fuwafuwaru~♡ Fuwafuwari~♡ (ふわふわる ふわふわり)]
-Please stop!!!!!!!!! We’re all going to die at this rate!!!!!!!!
-She’s really laying down the law todayㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-You’re still not leaving? Still not leaving? Still not leaving? Still not leaving? Still not leaving? Still not leaving? Still not leaving?
-Endure through sheer spite and grit! She’s the streamer you chose!
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Kariring~ Welcome, badger~Kariring~ Welcome, badger~Kariring~ Welcome, badger~Kariring~ Welcome, badger~Kariring~ Welcome, badger~Kariring~ Welcome, badger~
-ㄴIt’s already turned into a Honeybee spawn pointㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-ㄴIf her concept is a honey badger, why is the fan name Honeybee?
-ㄴBecause in English it’s HONEY Badger.
-Fuck, I think I’m going to throw up my lunch!!!!!!
-Is it seriously already at 1,000 killsㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ?
-It’s a total panic! Run away~~~
“I’ll stop here.”
I shut off all the VTube windows and turned the camera back on.
Let’s start again with the original calm atmosphere.
Under soft lighting that wasn’t exactly bright, I settled into the armchair.
The chat’s heat remained, but I felt a little proud since the flames were now directed the opposite way.
I glanced at the viewer count.
[Viewers – 1480]
Compared with before, the viewers had been cut in half, but the sense of intimacy between them and me had grown.
As they say, one loach muddies the water, and one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel.
The room, with its trolls and hostile viewers cut away, wasn’t perfect, but I liked it quite a bit.
[‘Great Euphoric Mountain’ donated 1,000 won!]
-NoName, I really like you. I like Kariri too.
Along with the cheerful sound of a coin rolling across the floor, a voice identical to the girl who had just sung the song played through the donation message.
Had that Kariri person even entrusted her own voice to capitalist society?
“Thank you.”
My loyal viewers now demanded with one voice that I tell them what I would do next.
It was obvious that ending the stream right there would sour the mood, so I rocked the armchair back and forth and added thought upon thought.
There was too little time to give a lecture about the magical knowledge I knew, as usual.
Since I had never interacted with the viewers outside of donation messages, the situation was extremely awkward.
It was like class had ended, but everyone stayed in their seats and waited expectantly for the professor.
Still, I ought to give the kids who had waited so diligently at least one sweet marshmallow.
“I’ll end the stream in an hour. Until then, if there’s any content you’d like, I’ll consider it.”
-What the hell is this brat talking about?
-She hasn’t even started a proper stream, and she’s already announcing the endㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-So having no stream title really did mean there’d be no content!
-The first thing she does when the tide comes in is weed out the antsㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
"You don’t seem very interested. Then that’s all for today’s stream..."
-How about a Q&A, boss?
-How about reading Tree Wiki?
-How about watching VTube clips?
-You should be grateful the streamer even looked at the chat,,, geez,,, tsk tsk,,,
-MBTI test, let’s go
-Let’s do an Ideal Type World Cup, NoName!
“An Ideal Type World Cup?”
[‘jdfshsdfjdfs’ donated 5,000 won!]
-How about a Twish female streamer Ideal Type World Cup?
Was “ideal type” even a phrase that could coexist with “World Cup”?
An ideal type would, literally, be the most perfect archetype an individual could conceive, so comparing it with other people was contradictory from the outset.
-If the streamer’s a woman, why are we doing female streamers?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-So you want us to watch nothing but male cam streamers for an hour?
-ㄴWe might as well listen to Kariri’s song for an hour.
-ㄴFor realㅋㅋㅋㅋ
With half curiosity and half distrust, I clicked the link and found World Cups prepared in a variety of categories.
‘Ah, so it’s a World Cup for finding your ideal type.’
It was content in which, rather than deciding on an ideal type from the outset, you picked through various example choices until ultimately selecting one.
In fact, it was popular enough in the rankings to include not just people but also food, all-time favorite movies, and Po x mon World Cups, to the point that the term “ideal type” could be omitted.
It wasn’t much different from a simple VS game. It was probably called a World Cup because it used a tournament format.
Since the viewers each wanted different categories, the previously quiet chat began to run comparatively wild.
I skimmed through various World Cups sorted by popularity.
I don’t like judging people by their looks. If anything, I lean toward hating it.
[Pretty Female Idol World Cup]
[Anime Female Character World Cup]
[AV Actress World Cup]
[Po x mon Anthropomorphization World Cup]
When I felt scrolling any farther was pointless, one word caught my eye as if under a spell.
[Combat Magic World Cup]
[What if you could use only one spell in combat? / Includes the 128 most frequently used combat spells in the world, as announced by the World Magic Culture Forum / Excludes Circle 6 and above]
[Choose the total number of rounds: Round of 32]
[Randomly matches 32 out of 128 total candidates.]
An unpopular category no one seemed likely to want.
A good idea occurred to me just then.
“This content will involve viewer participation. I’ll give moderator privileges in my stream to the three people who make the exact same choices as me and survive until the end.”