I skimmed through the concept posts in the gallery.
They were all about me.
“…”
I roughly browsed the game community.
Stories about me were overflowing everywhere.
“…”
Something.
Something is happening.
It feels like I’m the victim of a malicious prank.
It didn’t feel real.
Was this how Truman felt?
“Dizzying.”
Had I been too naive to think I’d just appear as a guest and shoot my mouth off a bit?
Honestly, I had an attention-seeking streak.
If I weren’t an attention seeker, I wouldn’t have run losing ventures like Juttak.
I wouldn’t have held tournaments every weekend evening with hamburgers as prizes.
Before I knew it, even Dad and I had gotten auto-chat-banned and switched to being commentators.
But just because there was an inner child craving attention didn’t mean I wanted to be suddenly thrown in front of thousands of people.
I checked the voice chat channel that had been created.
The chat history contained a briefly summarized plan.
It was too flimsy to call a script—more like a rough outline of how things would proceed.
I’d found it strange that they’d scheduled everything in such a rush.
Maybe that was why they’d been so humble the whole time.
Just in case, I checked Wityube too.
Let’s see. The view count.
One. Ten. Hundred. Thousand… what is this?
“…So there was a reason?”
-Does the voice absolutely have to be there?
-Having it is unconditionally better if possible.
-Then…
-Great!! But!! If it’s too burdensome!! Text chat is perfectly sufficient!!
-No. Voice chat is possible.
-Then that’s wonderful!!
…Looking back, they had been really humble.
There had been a reason for that.
I got the feeling that even if I’d said I’d really only type in chat, they would have accepted it.
“Haa… what should I do?”
My worries about my voice hadn’t been resolved one bit.
My voice had to be so distinctive…
Even this muttering to myself was a pleasant, beautiful voice.
I wondered if I was making too much fuss over just my voice instead of my face, but…
I worried that people who didn’t even know I existed would call me up because of that voice.
It might have been slightly paranoid, but I couldn’t completely dismiss the possibility.
‘Jimin-ah! I was so worried!’
‘Are you okay now? Can you go outside?’
‘Yeah. The living must live on. You made a good decision. A good decision.’
Ah. Ugh. Gah.
Just imagining receiving calls like that made my chest feel tight.
They said the chances were slim, but even that slim possibility was suffocating.
But that didn’t mean I could keep living like this.
Moreover, that wasn’t the only problem.
Even if I got contacted, that would come later—for now, I was worried about whether I could even finish the stream properly.
One wrong word and I’d be immortalized in real-time before tens of thousands of people.
I might have an attention-seeking streak, but the difficulty was too high for a beginner.
The broadcast hadn’t even started, yet my body was already stiffening up.
What if I screwed up the broadcast stammering from nervousness?
My gaze drifted toward the cupboard.
There stood glass bottles lined up in a row.
That stuff right there.
If I just pour cola and ice into that rum, I’d have a Courage Potion instantly.
If you broke down the recipe, wouldn’t it be something like this?
[Courage Potion]
Ingredients: 30ml Rum + Ice + Cola to fill
Cauldron Temperature: Very cold
Ladle: Bar spoon
I pondered for a moment, then shook my head.
It wasn’t even my stream; I didn’t have the nerve to do something like that on someone else’s broadcast.
***
The character rising onto the screen welcomed Hanami and the fifteen thousand viewers.
Since she hadn’t expected to see it again, it wasn’t exactly a welcome sight.
Even now, the viewer count was continuing to rise.
It hadn’t been long since the stream started, so it would probably keep climbing for a while.
She checked the voice chat and found the moderators screaming.
[Miss Nami, we can’t handle this!!]
[Kuaaaack, chat is duplicating!!]
[We’re all gonna die at this rate!!]
She immediately adjusted the chat cooldown.
The rampaging chat window returned to a somewhat readable level.
If more viewers joined, even this might not be enough, but for now it would suffice.
“Alright, calm down now!! Since someone’s waiting, let’s get right to it!!”
-Kya
-Finally
-Squirming
-Did they show up?!
Having roughly settled the atmosphere, she clicked her character.
Returning to the place where she’d abandoned the game, bloodstains and rainbows filled the surroundings everywhere.
“What the heck is this now.”
-LOL
-Eww
-There are more people trying after Sensei’s video went up.
-Kya
-Corpses everywhere LOL
Communication wasn’t easy.
The chat window, leaving only afterimages as it vanished, induced dizziness.
It was a crucible of chaos.
The affiliated moderators had all mobilized and were fighting desperately, but it was beyond their capacity.
[First, ban the paragraph spammers and people fighting with each other!!]
[Give up on keeping it clean. It’ll scroll up in a second anyway, so it won’t make much difference.]
[Focus on filtering out the trolls rather than instant bans!!]
[AAAACK, concurrent viewers about to break 20k!! Emergency!!]
Promising bonuses internally, she headed toward the promised location.
First, she picked through some appropriate backseating and passed through the cave, after which the screen went dark.
That she managed to read the chat even in the midst of all that could only be described as a vibe born of experience.
“Is the loading taking a while?”
-Tutorial finished
-Kya
-This is it
-At long last!!
Since it was an open-world game, the initial loading time was quite long.
She considered filling the brief empty time with interaction, but it wasn’t easy.
‘…Still, it’s doable?’
A smooth stream like usual was impossible, but she worried less about being completely overwhelmed.
She’d worried that troublemakers might swarm in, but they were relatively gentlemanly.
Perhaps because they were unfamiliar not just with VTubers but with streaming itself, some people occasionally got banned despite breaking unwritten rules.
But that was an everyday occurrence.
When was the last time she’d passed 20k recently? The day she did a collab with a big company?
No. Was it that day when she burst into tears at an official tournament and all the rubberneckers in the world swarmed in?
Back then, amidst sobbing, she couldn’t get a grip and made all kinds of mistakes.
Since that day, she had refused all official tournaments.
“Oh, loading’s done!! I’m coming now, Sensei!!”
-DGJ!!!
-Gallju, come out!!
On the other hand, since she was somehow managing to hold the stream together now, it was a new feeling.
Having appropriately refreshed the atmosphere during the loading time, she went out into the field.
As expected of a latest-generation game, beautiful graphics welcomed them.
What was the most eye-catching scenery in the Norse mythology game, Odindoti?
Of course, it was Yggdrasil.
The World Tree standing at the center of the vast open world.
It was so enormous that it didn’t feel like a tree.
Rather, it looked closer to a topographical feature like a ridgeline or gorge.
The sacred ash tree extending its roots throughout the entire world was the center of the story.
“Oh. The graphics are pretty good.”
That was the extent of Hanami’s impressions, not knowing the detailed settings.
Hanami soothed the original fans who’d gotten cranky at her bland reaction, cut off paragraph spammers, comforted her existing viewers, and progressed through the game reacting only to appropriate bits of information.
When she arrived at the prearranged location, she saw an emblem waiting in advance.
A rainbow mirage.
As Hanami approached, a shadow brushed past from within.
A welcome silhouette she hadn’t expected to reunite with so soon.
Gravelly skin.
A bulging brow.
Grotesquely twisted cheekbones and jaw.
“Ugh.”
-Ugh;
Actually, it didn’t seem very welcome.
She recalled the script she’d prepared in advance.
Since it was a hastily arranged collab, there wasn’t much to it.
Just a veteran teaching a newbie the controls and introducing Odindoti.
They’d judged that the topic was already so hot that no grand planning was needed.
Wouldn’t they be able to milk the hype just by showing Hanami struggling against a boss, then having the veteran easily clear the same boss?
Actually, it had been impossible to draft a more complicated script.
When they’d coordinated beforehand, the guest had admitted they weren’t a viewer.
They said they watched a lot of streams, but mostly edited clips on Wityube.
It would be difficult to expect any wit on a live broadcast.
Before long, a monstrous figure began to appear in the distance.
Its rapidly approaching, lurching form was still grotesque.
She hadn’t had time to look into what kind of person the veteran was.
From that overbearing exterior, perhaps a trembling voice would emerge, or stammering, incoherent speech.
But if the guest lacked eloquence, it was the streamer’s job to spin that into content!!
Hanami prepared the lines she’d organized in advance.
Unfortunately, they wouldn’t mean much.
“So we meet again like this. Today’s teacher is Deungjjak-nim!!”
“Hello.”
No wonder.
The moment she heard the first words, the prepared lines flew out of her head.
“I’m an Odindoti user named Deungjjak.”
A voice one couldn’t believe came from inside such a hideous character.
A clear, beautiful voice.
And.
Huh? A woman’s voice?
“?”
“?”
-?
After a brief silence.
The chat window exploded.
-?
-?
-Yeo
-E?
-Girl?
-What is this?
-Real?
-No way, crazy
-She was a girl?
-Sensei?
-What is that voice?
-That custom is a girl?
-Is this real?
-A girl? That’s a girl?
-Unnnaaaa
-No, her voice is fucking pretty
-What is this?
-Not falling for a prank lol
-Voice changer?
-Hnng noona hnng noona
-Fuck, that face with that voice lolll
-Real?
-Fuck lolololol
“…Miss Hanami?”
While Hanami was frozen like a stone and couldn’t take any action, the chat window soared at a nonsensical speed before crashing.
The moderators, who didn’t know what to do, also gave up when they saw the frozen chat window.
“Miss Hanami?”
“…Eup?”
“Uh. Can you not hear me?”
“Nweh?”
What had broken down wasn’t just the chat.
The same went for Hanami.