Talking about VTubers reminded me of something.
It was something I learned while browsing the gallery. Apparently, the newbie who had summoned me on the tutorial map had actually been a streamer.
That alone was interesting, but it wasn’t anything to make a huge fuss over.
Because, truth be told, it wasn’t my first time showing up in something like that.
I’d often seen WTube videos editing together my highlights and the like.
Sometimes people would even take them without saying a word, edit them, and upload them. It annoyed me, but I usually let it slide.
After all, uploading videos of a dead game like this wasn’t profitable anyway…and the view counts were in the gutter too….
If even that got a few more newbies to join, then I figured it benefited me as well.
In any case, simply appearing on a broadcast wasn’t a first.
It wasn’t, but appearing live in front of thousands of people was.
“…”
Good thing I hadn’t known. Who knew? What if I’d gotten nervous and made some stupid mistake?
As the former head mod of Omagal and ex-rank 1 player, I could have suffered a great humiliation.
Though now I wasn’t the head mod or anything anymore, so maybe it didn’t matter, but I still had my pride.
[Title: Yesterday’s Florence bet match.clip]
: Anon
Luca and Nami bailed ages ago
In the end only the boss stayed and kept grinding until 4 a.m.
She tried co-op for about 2 hours in the middle, but it was just a waste of time lol
In the end she bashed her head against it solo for 2 more hours and cleared it
└ Anon: A newbie soloing Refund Guy by headbutting it? Kinda sexy?
└ Anon: Oh? I’m starting to like her?
└ Anon: Gallery’s done for; why bring this stuff here
I’d never heard of a group called Florence.
I did watch a lot of internet broadcasts myself, but I was the type who only watched edited clips on WTube. As for live broadcasts, I only got swept along and watched when some really big topic was going around.
Still, since VTubers had been pouring out in droves, there were a few I’d subscribed to and watched too.
When streamers I often watched did things like VTuber song World Cups, I found myself gradually getting drawn in.
I subscribed to some because they were good at streaming, some because they were good singers, and some because their concepts were fresh.
Whenever there was a VTuber who’d tried a bite of Odinson, I’d also hover around wondering if they might give it another go.
When I searched up Florence, it turned out they still only had three members.
Among them, the channel owner of the stream I appeared on, Hanami, was a veteran with a pretty large following. Her WTube channel had gotten the Silver Button long ago, and her live streams had quite a lot of weight too.
In other words, my gameplay had been broadcast to thousands of people.
…I still hadn’t fully adjusted yet, so it was a little embarrassing.
Even so, it didn’t feel bad.
Back when it was a shitty game, showing up on WTube for something like this was just kind of curious and that was it, but now that it had become a god-tier game, I even ended up appearing in front of thousands of people like this.
Would the edited version get some views if it came out?
└ Anon: If she was struggling that hard, you should’ve helped her
└└ Anon: Actually, I got summoned midway…but got hit by a back kick and died in 10 seconds.
└└ Anon: Wow…you’re a disgrace to Omagal lolol
└└ Anon: Went to help a newbie and died instantly lolol I’m embarrassed for you lol
└└ Anon: No-rune level 1 was brutal hehe;;;
└ Anon: Stop bringing this shit here, damn it
Seeing the atmosphere made the memories come flooding back.
In about five years, people would get used to it, but right now there were still plenty of people who broke into fits just from seeing the V in VTuber.
Right. Around this time, even otakus used to ask each other, “You watch that kind of stuff?”
Later on, once foreign VTubers became hugely successful, there would be a mood of jumping on the bandwagon, and as more and more appeared domestically, people would start accepting it…but for now, it would be treated like some unheard-of foreign culture.
It would still take time before they blended into the mainstream and appeared normally in major content.
Those people didn’t seem to have debuted as full-fledged VTubers either. It felt more like streamers who had already built up their size dipping their toes into VTubing.
[Title: What the hell, that’s us]
: Anon
Isn’t she basically one of the top commanders among Dullahans?
Is that really that hot?
└ Anon: Call her VTuber Yuuri from now on.
└ Anon: Did she change her name?
└ Anon: Lolol “change her name” lolol
└ Anon: Once your brain adjusts, it’s actually pretty okay. There’s also the fun of them bantering while switching avatars.
└ Anon: Don’t have fun with it!!
Though it still seemed like they had a long way to go.
I cheered them on inwardly as I clicked the game icon.
***
When I entered the character selection screen, a character holding a broken straight sword greeted me.
Basically, Odinson allowed you to freely create alternate characters.
Because of that, back during Tyr: Odinson, you could see a selection screen filled with endgame characters that had gone through ten or twenty playthroughs.
By contrast, right now there was only one main character, and even that was just a character that had barely gotten past the early stages.
I’m not saying that was disappointing.
On the contrary, my heart was pounding.
Just thinking about filling those empty character slots one by one and parking them in Grandmaster or Valhalla made me smile on its own.
Come to think of it, I wondered how ranks had changed in Odindoti.
Up until the previous game, it followed the popular rank system—Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and so on—but only Challenger was called Valhalla.
I liked that, along with the Valkyrie achievement for reaching it, because the names carried that Norse mythology flavor.
Now that ranked had apparently changed to 5v5, I didn’t know what it would be like, but they said ranked games were unlocked only after finishing the first playthrough, so it would take some time.
I clicked the character proudly showing off his physique and logged into the game.
The game’s optimization wasn’t particularly bad, but the initial loading was a bit long. Well, since it was open world, that couldn’t be helped.
Once the loading finished, an underground cavern appeared on the screen.
The gloomy cave relied on a single bonfire for illumination.
This was the game’s checkpoint and recovery method. I’d reached this place late at night and finally turned the game off.
Even taking into account that it was an underground cavern map, the lighting was seriously dark.
At least near the bonfire, you could still make things out. Once you left the room, even outlines became blurry.
Thanks to this gimmick, a lot of fun things happened yesterday.
Generally, there were two ways to deal with the darkness.
The proper method was to give up your shield and hold a torch.
In truth, the torch gimmick was basically telling you not to use a shield.
It meant, “We worked hard decorating this place with traps, so put down that shield and enjoy it.”
If you really didn’t want to give up your shield, there was another way: messing with the gamma setting.
Though if you brought that up in the gallery, you’d get mocked to death for being petty.
Of course, for users like me who used one-handed weapons without a shield, the story was a little different.
To begin with, I strongly believed that you shouldn’t use shields in PvE.
Because I thought that if you held a shield, you couldn’t understand 100% of the developer’s intent.
Doing something cowardly like raising the settings was out of the question from the start.
For users like me who didn’t use shields, the standard approach would usually be to switch the weapon to a one-handed grip and pull out a torch, but...
…Wouldn’t that be a bit of a waste?
Even this map, where darkness had fallen and hidden most things, must have the developers’ blood, sweat, and deliberation buried in every corner—wouldn’t passing through without savoring it be something a fan shouldn’t do?
The developers must have worked so hard preparing it, thinking, “You dare not hold a torch? Then you’ll have to suffer.”
Therefore, yesterday, for several hours until late at night, I wandered this maze with my eyes wide open, relying on audio cues.
If there was a metallic click from a dark floor tile, arrows came flying. If I pulled a cord, axe blades dropped. If I simply stood there breathing, a boulder came rolling in.
Enemies lying prone in ambush before pouncing from behind were the appetizer, and fake traps shaped like bonfires were dessert.
From time to time, when I thought, This is a little too much, curses burst out of my mouth, but however rough my words were, the corners of my lips were honest.
I was smiling from beginning to end.
This was happiness.
This was life.
My progress got reset because I died? So what?
My playtime increased, so if anything, wasn’t that a good thing?
There were people who commonly misunderstood, thinking that old-timers would barely die and clear everything easily, but the truth was actually closer to the opposite.
Old-timers die an unbelievable amount.
Because once content starts running out, doing all sorts of useless nonsense in the name of discovering content becomes part of daily life.
It wasn’t like I was half-naked and holding a broken straight sword because I especially wanted to die. I simply hadn’t found the familiar straight sword setup yet, so I’d equipped something similar for now.
For reference, in this game, weapons obtained in the latter half weren’t necessarily stronger.
It was a game where the Straight Sword: Wild Dog’s Tooth was rated better in practical performance than the Straight Sword: Fenrir’s Fang.
In any case, an old-timer becoming unable to die even if they wanted to was a phenomenon that happened only after they’d licked clean all the content and had nothing left to squeeze out.
Once you’ve gone through twenty or thirty playthroughs, you know where everything is in your head, so dying becomes harder.
On the other hand, when new content like this comes out, we die normally too.
In fact, because we wear light equipment, we might die even more than newbies.
For example, there was something like this.
I left the bonfire room and walked straight down a lonely path.
When I reached a fork in the road, a coffin was lying toppled over.
Just looking at it, it seemed ordinary. It was an object placed here and there throughout the underground cavern as decoration.
The first time I passed by it, I couldn’t sense anything suspicious either. I’d seen dozens of identical coffins on the way here.
But what happened about thirty seconds after the player passed by?
“Kieeek!!”
The coffin rattled, and a skeleton soldier popped out.
As shabby as it looked, it was a small fry that collapsed quickly if you smacked it a few times even with a broken straight sword.
For a small fry, its damage was high, but its movements were sluggish, so there was almost no chance of getting hit.
However, last night, when I was exploring the underground cavern and reached the bonfire, the situation was different.
I’d been hit by floor traps, breathed in poison gas, and arrived there with my health in tatters. I’d been delighted at seeing the light and thinking I’d finally found a bonfire.
So I passed by without noticing the coffin hidden in the darkness.
The door was blocked by iron bars, but there was a lever right next to it, and when I activated it, the bars obediently began to rise.
While I was quietly waiting for the door to open, I heard the sound of wind being cut behind my back.
—YOU DIED
“…”
How should I explain this feeling?
That’s right. It was longing.
For a long time, deep down in my heart, I had been longing for this.
This…this unmistakable stench of shit.
Thrilling.
Always new.
“As expected, Odinson is the best…”