Chapter 7
A rising supernova in the streamer world, and
a super-rookie VTuber with 200 average viewers, Wayo mostly streams alone.
I’m more of a solitary wolf who streams with only the viewers as my friends, without many collaborations.
That’s not to say I have absolutely no acquaintances in the streaming world.
Back when I had only just started streaming,
when my average viewership hovered around twenty to thirty at most, there were people I happened to connect with and play games alongside.
They were the streamers Haebin and Seong Hayeon.
These days, I call them Haega-nom and Yeonguk-no.
For good reason….
-The bastard Haega from the neighborhood next door is entering a tournament…
-Wayo, did you see Hayeon’s ad?
Both of them used to be just as tiny as I was, but after joining a few large-scale servers and streamer tournaments, they became mid-tier streamers pulling 1,500 and 2,000 average viewers, respectively.
“Do you want to get banned for mentioning other streamers??”
-No, we swore an oath of brotherhood back then.
-Living tip) Haega-nom and Yeonguk-no aren’t other streamers, so it’s okay to mention them.
Tremble, tremble.
You traitors.
I trembled at the feeling that the friends who used to study for civil service exams together in a semi-basement had become Grade 7 civil servants.
Of course, I’m the one who isn’t particularly ambitious about growing as a streamer and turned down the large-scale servers and streamer tournaments those two occasionally invited me to.
But the viewers keep comparing us.
For someone like me, who’s had no equal among my peers since the age of six, this kind of humiliation was hard to endure, so naturally their names became Haega-nom and Yeonguk-no.
Anyway, the reason I was thinking about these two right now was….
[Haega-nom: Pingping, what are you doing for New Year’s? If you don’t have anything to do….]
[Yeonguk-no: Is it okay if I Discord you when you stream later??]
Before turning on my stream, I checked my messenger and found messages from both of them.
“Hmm.”
I pondered it while checking the time.
[December 31]
Today was a momentous day marking the end of the year.
And anniversaries are even more special for VTubers.
That’s because the more special the anniversary, the less we can afford to skip a stream.
Anniversary = the day you go to a motel with your boyfriend.
Could I leave viewers who firmly believed in that formula trembling with anxiety?
That’s why many VTubers run all-night endurance streams from the 31st through the morning of January 1.
Since endurance streams require preparing all kinds of content, selling out fellow VTubers makes excellent content and clip material, so they must have contacted me in advance to use me then.
“Hmm….”
Seeing those messages made me ponder it even more deeply.
For the record, I wasn’t agonizing over how to reply, but over the stream.
Because….
‘I haven’t prepared anything at all?’
Come to think of it, I hadn’t prepared a thing for an endurance stream.
I mean, I’d just gotten back from an overseas business trip, hadn’t I?
On top of that, things had been a little hectic since my younger brother came home, so I hadn’t had time to think about preparing stream content.
So after thinking it over a little longer,
I eventually just turned on the stream.
Ugh, when have I ever worked that hard to prepare a stream?
I’m a variety-game VTuber to begin with.
All I have to do is play a game that fits my usual content.
What, a twenty-four-hour all-nighter?
Then I’ll approach it with the mindset that I’m going to play twenty-four games.
[Year-End Diamond-Push Stream]
With that admirable mindset firmly in place, I started the stream.
If there’s a game with 172 champions, where ten random players create an entirely different set of possibilities every time they play,
wouldn’t each match be like playing a new game?
Besides, Jotrel was once a game that attracted nationwide attention, so most viewers could understand it without much trouble, and it was familiar to everyone….
-Fuck you, Jotrel.
-Is the stream title for real??
-All right, let’s go watch Haega-nom’s facecamㅋㅋ
“...I’ll only play two games. It’s my promotion series.”
-Okay, okay.
-Just two games.
-Even if you lose, just bring out another game.
-Open the racetrack too, yeah.
“Yep.”
Saying that, I quickly queued up a ranked game before the viewers could change their tune.
Naturally, I took top.
For a solitary-wolf VTuber like me, top lane is the correct answer.
-Are we hitting Emerald 3 today??
-When the hell are you reaching Diamond??
“....”
For the record, I’d been demoted a few days ago, so I was currently Emerald 4 with 75 points.
Two games were all I needed to return to Emerald 3, my former glory and a tier within sight of Diamond.
So I focused as hard as I could and played two games.
“Ah.”
[Defeat]
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-But damn, your team luck is legendary.
-Everyone except top got destroyedㅋㅋ
I took two straight losses.
“...One more?”
-ㅗㅗㅗ
-You think that’ll work???
-Let’s move on to the next game now.
-Ah, fuck my points;;
-Getting a taste of reverse boosting?ㅋㅋ
“Okay, I’ll switch to another game.”
I asked the viewers just in case, but their response was sharper than a knife, so I immediately gave in.
Yeah, well, I can raise my score later….
No, but I really could’ve won that last one.
Wistful….
I gazed at the League of Legends icon with misty eyes for a moment, then launched a game I had installed in advance.
“All right, this is the new game I brought. It’s popular these days, right?”
When I launched it, a crude yet highly distinctive pixel-art waiting screen appeared.
It was Teamfight Manager 2.
It’s a game where you take over as the coach of a professional team in an AOS game and gradually build it up from the third division,
with the ultimate goal of winning the world championship and turning it into the best team….
-Hey, you Jotrel-addict bastard.
-This really is Jotrel Addict Girlㅋㅋ
-You really want to spend New Year’s Eve like this??
“...Then what am I supposed to do?”
I said that with my lower lip stuck out.
Seriously, they complain even when I bring a game.
For the record, yesterday I’d found and brought an actually new game instead of Jotrel.
It was a Korean RPG Maker game, but after two hours of playing, I got cursed out for bringing such a piece of shit.
That’s why I play Jotrel all the time.
At least Jotrel gets me called a Jotrel addict; I don’t get called tasteless for bringing a boring game.
-Let’s play a horror gameㅇㅇ
-How about Project Zomboid?
-Ideal Type World Cup, let’s go
-Yeonguk-no is doing a facecam, but aren’t we going to do one too…?
“Hayeon is doing a facecam?”
While I was carefully scanning the chat for something we could do,
a former fellow VTuber’s facecam news caught my eye.
Haebin was originally a facecam streamer who became a VTuber, so that was understandable.
But Hayeon had only ever done handcam streams—had that changed now?
“...Should we just take a quick look?”
Feeling a strange bitterness, I went onto Chzzk.
-ㄱㄱㄱ
-You’ve gotta see what there is to seeㅋㅋ
Honestly, I was curious.
Even though we’d played games together back when we were tiny streamers, we were ultimately just internet friends who didn’t even have each other’s phone numbers.
It was a chance to see what that friend really looked like—though she had no neck—so I stealthily searched for Seong Hayeon.
-?? This bastard isn’t following herㅋㅋ
-This asshole didn’t even follow her because she’s a competitor..
-Searching her up and entering like that is so patheticㅋㅋ
“No, I just don’t follow people in general.”
I halfheartedly let the viewers’ pointless observations flow past me, and the moment I pressed Enter in the search box,
“Uh….”
My jaw dropped.
“N-no.”
The first thing that surprised me was the viewer count.
A whopping 5,000 people were watching—twenty times my audience.
The second thing was….
-Wowㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Damnㅋㅋㅋ
-Ohhh
-Hayeon up!!
-Sorry, old man…
-Fuck, there’s a reason she’s a big streamer.
“The outfit….”
In a shockingly bold move, my internet friend was wearing something resembling a bunny-girl outfit.
“You can’t do this. You mustn’t.”
After my initial surprise, I pressed a hand to my forehead at the sight of my friend’s depraved state.
-???
-What’s not allowed?
-There’s nothing wrong with it.
-You too, please.
Good grief.
I’d assumed that “facecam” meant only showing a little of the upper body, but she had prepared a whole outfit and was doing a proper cam stream.
“If VTubers all start turning on their cameras like this… there’ll be no end to it. This is an arms race.”
As someone in the industry, I couldn’t help but lament.
First it’s just the hands, then both arms, and then the upper and lower body.
At this point, how is this even being a VTuber?
If you stream with everything but your face exposed, you’re just a young man who doesn’t show his face.
Of course, I’d started as a VTuber because I didn’t want to show my face either, but….
As I kept doing it, I realized that VTubers had a history, and RP wasn’t merely playing pretend.
That was why I’d come to feel satisfied with VTubing as a profession, but everyone was trying to turn it into an arms race.
If turning on a camera for anniversaries became the VTubers’ ultimate weapon,
VTubers would no longer be able to exist as VTubers.
And more than anything….
-Why don’t you do a facecam too??
-Please do it
“...I can’t. I’m Princess Koopa.”
-Ah…
-Don’t lie, fuck, we’ve already seen everything
-Princess Koopa, please bring out Wayo already
The important thing was that it was a method I couldn’t use.
...If you’re a VTuber, reveal a new skin on your anniversary.
Don’t turn on a camera and inflate your viewership like this.
“Haa.”
-ㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Wayo must be jealous, Wayo-chuㅋㅋ
“...Let’s stop here.”
For now, I hurriedly turned off the stream screen I had been restreaming.
-??
-Ah
-Please
-Can we watch a little longer??
-What was that stream called??
The reason was that I couldn’t let them siphon off my viewers.
I couldn’t let a VTuber who used such dark arts steal the viewers I’d gathered little by little, could I?
…It seemed a few dozen had already been enchanted and vanished, but a number like that was an acceptable price for satisfying my curiosity.
-They caught you restreamingㅋㅋ
-Hayeon asks if she can Discord you??
“...It’s already nighttime.”
I said that as I turned my gaze toward the window.
I’d started streaming in the evening and played two games, and now it was gradually getting dark outside.
Then again, winter nights came quickly.
Winter mornings came late, since they were slow to wake up, so the year-end night and New Year’s dawn would last quite a while.
-What do you mean, running awayㅋㅋ
-The big streamer is calling you and you’re ignoring her??
-Wayo, her viewership is twenty times yours—is this really okay??
And so I ignored the ringing Discord call and gazed out at the darkening view.
…Next year, I should get my average viewership up to around 400 too.
**
The next day.
As planned, I signed an official fashion-brand contract with Andel.