Chapter 11
July had already nearly passed.
A month into streaming—how had I done so far?
A few days ago, my report about viewbots was accepted, revealing my actual viewer count.
'Around sixty or seventy, I guess.'
Sixty or seventy viewers after a month—that was a respectable number.
Of course, apparently there were ways to get over a hundred viewers within two weeks on Twitch, but was I really the type to know how to attract a bunch of simps?
'If I had, I wouldn't have started my first stream by swearing at everyone.'
Sixty or seventy viewers. Sixty or seventy viewers after just one month of streaming.
My estimated income was one million won a month.
One million a month. I was streaming full-time, and my income for the first month was one million won a month.
That was nowhere near enough. At this rate, I’d only just be breaking even. I wasn’t making any profit at all.
'What should I do?'
Should I get a side job or something?
I’d just signed an MCN contract, and now imagine the news headline: A woman in her twenties found starved to death at home.
If a story like that came out, I felt like I really would want to kill myself.
"Fuuuck..."
I immediately opened Discord and sent Sahyang a message.
[I have something to ask you, ma'am.]
It wasn’t long before Sahyang replied.
[What is it?]
[Please turn on your stream.]
[LOL. Out of nowhere?]
[Please, Sahyang. I’m dying here.]
It had already been five days since she’d last played Eid Chronicle.
I’d tried to find content of my own, but I just couldn’t forget that rush.
Even if I had to dance the Zero Two or talk in that shitty cat-girl voice, I couldn’t forget the sweet dozens—or hundreds—of viewers and donations she’d brought me.
I’d only gotten fifty thousand won in donations over the past five days.
Of course, I’d also lost interest in streaming.
My channel had shot up in a short time, and I’d joined one of the Big Four MCNs within a month. It wasn’t easy to build that kind of following through streaming alone without doing YouTube.
But instead of boosting my self-esteem, it had left me burned out.
"Kiyeeeek..."
I was facing a wall right now. The wall called burnout!
I’d thought about it for minutes, for hours. Why was I living like this?
It was simple. I was like this because I had no competition.
I’m the kind of guy who can’t get anything done without some motivation.
If I don’t have a friend running beside me, I’ll run for a few minutes, take a break, run for a few minutes, and take another break.
I’d often put things off until the last minute, then throw myself into the work like a madman with only two hours left before the deadline.
But right now, I had nothing to worry about.
Whether my viewer count went down or not, I just wanted to stream however I felt comfortable.
Money? I’d saved up some beforehand, hadn’t I? Even if I was in trouble right now, I wasn’t going to starve to death today.
I wouldn’t starve to death until two or three months from now. So I had absolutely no sense of urgency.
At a time like this, what mattered was setting a goal or at least a minimum standard.
Tap-tap-tap—
For now, I turned on my stream and waited for people to show up.
#
"H-hello. It’s been a while..."
I put on some mellow background music and greeted them.
"I have something on my mind..."
I let out a deep sigh as I spoke. The so-called sweet simps started worrying about me, saying things like [Oh no ㅠㅠ Are you okay?] and [Don’t worry! You can tell us!].
"Oh, it’s nothing much. I’ve hit bu-burnout."
Burnout.
It’s when someone who’s been absorbed in one thing becomes extremely exhausted and falls into lethargy, anxiety, self-loathing, and so on.
"That’s exactly what’s happening to me. My heart isn’t on fire right now. Shouldn’t a person’s heart be pounding like crazy, driving them to get things done? But mine isn’t! I’ve turned into a robot!!!!"
I tried to force my energy up, but the mood turned gloomy again.
"Anyway, I was wondering what I could do to get my passion back, and I think Sahyang needs to turn on her stream."
The chat filled with question marks and messages like [? lol] that seemed to be mocking me.
Bam—
I propped my feet up on the desk and spoke in an annoyed tone.
"Hey, go raid Sahyang’s stream. Tell her to play Eid Chronicle today."
A few minutes later, I heard a Discord call ringing.
"Huh?"
Since it was Sahyang calling, I hurriedly answered.
'Fuck, did they actually go raid her? No, those crazy bastards. I joked that they should go raid her, but they didn’t send some shitty donation or start stirring up trouble under the pretense of cheering me up, did they?'
All kinds of thoughts raced through my head.
Those sweet little viewers were perfectly capable of it.
[This streamer is a hopeless virgin who’s never dated in their life but pretends they have. Apparently, they turn red and stammer whenever they see a man. They’ve got that legal-loli vibe too, wink.]
These are the kinds of things those viewer creeps say!!!!
My hand trembling, I clicked to accept the call.
"H-H-Hello...?"
"Jia."
Her voice was heavy. It was different from the light, cheerful voice she used when streaming—heavy, and full of menace.
PTSD incoming. I remembered a delinquent friend I’d been close with in elementary school. When I tried talking to that friend in middle school, they’d said, 'Don’t act like you know me.'
"K-Kiyeeek..."
"Jia, your viewers came to my stream and told me you were burned out and asked me to play Eid Chronicle."
"I-I’m sorry..."
Then I heard a sudden burst of laughter through my headset.
"Oh, come on, why are you acting like such a loser~ Why are you so scared, Jia? I was just joking around to set the mood a little. You don’t have to be so frightened~"
"Y-yes?"
"We heard you were having a hard time, so we came over. You said you wanted to play Eid Chronicle, right? Hurry up and turn it on. I’m turning mine on now, too!"
Click. As soon as the Discord call ended, a huge smile spread across my face.
"Hahaha. Thank goodness... Thank goodness..."
I thought I was going to die.
Just hearing her voice was so chilling that it could’ve given rise to rumors that she was a delinquent.
"L-Let’s turn it on, then."
I put on my VR headset, launched the game, and entered the world.
#
It had been five days since I’d last logged into the game. How many times had I logged into my account since then...?
Zero times.
I was an idiot.
I was such a dumbass that I’d bought stocks, watched them fall by 3%, and still hadn’t logged into the game.
'But why do I have to treat the game like a job just because I bought stock?'
By the time I had that thought, I think I understood why I’d burned out.
It wasn’t burnout. I was just being lazy.
Lazy bastard.
"Yaaawn..."
It was eleven thirty. Maybe it wasn’t usually time for Soran to wake up, because she yawned and covered her mouth.
"You look sleepy, Soran."
"Ah... I usually wake up in the afternoon... Uuuh, haaah. It’s nice in its own way to wake up in the morning for once."
Slurp.
"Mmm. And I get to have my mornin’ coffee, too."
"Looks like everyone’s here~"
For some reason, Sahyang showed up in front of us looking a little more grown-up.
"...Did you play off-stream?"
"Huh? No, the game was just fun, so I played a little more..."
I was level 7. She was level 15.
"Huh."
"I thought Jia would be the one playing a lot, so I leveled up... I didn’t expect you not to play at all."
That stung.
But this was exactly when my social skills shone.
"Underdog."
"Underdog?"
"I like fighting while feeling the thrill of being underleveled. How do I put it... It’s like going into a fight to the death with a knife against Mike Tyson wearing brass knuckles..."
"If Mike Tyson’s wearing brass knuckles, I think you’d die even if you had a knife."
Soran nodded, too.
"...Anyway, what are we doing today?"
Sahyang pulled a map from her inventory. There were several circles drawn on it.
"What are these?"
"The blue circles are towns, the green circles are fields, and the red circles are dungeons."
"Can’t we just travel? I’m too lazy to go to a dungeon."
Oops. I’d said what I was really thinking.
Pfft. Sahyang burst out laughing, then clapped her hands.
"Oh, should we do that? I like how honest you are, Jia."
"..."
Feeling awkward, I scratched my head.
"S-Shall we go?"
They nodded and headed out of the plaza with me.
~Trail~
A trail was basically the game’s tutorial area.
Most players’ first spawn location was near the plaza, but once the population got big enough, the first spawn location would sometimes change.
When that happened, the tried-and-true solution in the community was to get killed by a high-level monster nearby.
In low-level areas, there was no penalty to your items, experience, or gold, so dying wasn’t a problem.
But we pulled it off, and what about my video?
[Why Low-Level Ivan Is Broken ㄷㄷ]—Sam-ban had shared the video under that title.
Of course, I’d gotten permission, but within a week of being uploaded, it had become the third most-viewed video on Sam-ban’s entire channel.
'Maybe it’s thanks to the simps.'
Clap—
I slapped my own cheek.
When I’m streaming, thoughts like that slip out all the time. It’s a problem when I start thinking such trashy things.
"What’s wrong?"
"There was a bug on me."
Ding—
After I killed a monster, I reached level 10, and finally got another sword.
"By the way, I heard there’s a rumor about this trail. I wonder if any of the viewers know about it?"
"What rumor?"
"Isn’t it about a hidden boss?"
Soran searched the internet, found a post, and told us about it.
"Apparently, if you go to a certain spot on the trail, use a certain character, and do a certain action, a hidden boss appears."
"Well... if it’s a hidden boss, the developers probably intended for people to find it, so wouldn’t it be a popular character?"
I said to her, twirling the sword I had in my hand.
"There’s no way the conditions would require some obscure character like Ivan..."
Suddenly, I was transported somewhere.
"Oh, fuck."
Did I just jinx it?
A hidden boss stood right in front of me.
"Grrr..."
"......"
I looked at the chat.
When I stayed still and didn’t move, that thing stayed still, too.
My viewer count, which had been 60, shot up to 150, 610, and 1,157.
In an instant, it climbed to 4,000—half the number of people watching Eid Chronicle on Twitch.
"Wow."
The donations were pouring in.
Foreign viewers were spamming the chat, while Korean viewers filled it with question marks. Emotes covered the chat window.
The boss was level 40.
I was level 10.
Could I beat it as Ivan?
[Sam-ban donated 100,000 won: Holy shit]
Just facing the boss in front of me was worth 100,000 won.
Then what if I killed it?
At least 200,000 won.
"......"
I drew my sword and slowly took a step forward.
"GRAAAH—!"
A massive roar, an incredible gust of wind, and spit landed on my face.
"Fuck."
I immediately gripped my sword tightly and charged at it.
"I’ll kill you!! You million-won bastard of a boss!!"