Chapter 383
Team Leader Seon hurriedly climbed the steps of the spectator seats.
Toward the highest spot where Seo-jun was sitting.
"Seo-jun, have you seen the voting results?"
Realizing that Seo-jun's gaze was fixed elsewhere rather than on his phone, Team Leader Seon first tried to find where his eyes were directed, but due to the height, he couldn't make it out.
Team Leader Seon quickened his pace up the steps, and Seo-jun, noticing him coming up, turned his head to greet him.
While still keeping his attention on one spot.
"Why are you in such a rush?"
"Whew."
Team Leader Seon adjusted his glasses and took only a single deep breath before regaining his composure.
"Have you perhaps checked today’s results?"
"No."
Seo-jun figured that votes with a foregone conclusion could be checked a bit later; the fact that Eve Fimo had just appeared was far more important.
He had simply set his priorities and was mulling over the one highest on the list.
"Please check them quickly."
"All right."
Since he couldn't overhear the conversation between Eve Fimo and Jay at that moment, Seo-jun refreshed his phone screen.
The Day 2 vote tally appeared.
The target had been 60,000 votes.
Having received 47,000 on the first day, one might naively think that on the second day, with 30,000 more attendees, they would receive even more votes.
But they also had to consider the enormous public opinion that had pressured Seo-jun's fans the day before.
Korea, especially due to its closed and geographically narrow situation, is a society where social norms are inevitably strong and tolerance is low.
In the end, it became a question of whether Seo-jun's booth activities were entertaining enough to make people vote despite the lines drawn by that community sentiment.
Judging by the atmosphere, it wasn't bad, but human psychology is not that simple to grasp.
"Hmm."
"It's high, isn't it?"
"It is."
After checking the votes, Seo-jun smiled with satisfaction.
In the end, he had created a flow.
"47,000 votes on the first day. 73,000 on the second."
Seo-jun's final vote count stood at 20,000. Tomorrow, another deduction of 50,000 would be added, but with a figure like this—
"It's overwhelming. Even the first day's numbers have never appeared before."
As Team Leader Seon said, it was overwhelming.
Greed stirred within Seo-jun. If not for his own proposal to subtract 50,000 votes, he would already be in first place by such an overwhelming margin for two days straight.
Until now, other booths barely surpassed 10,000 votes just as T-Star was nearing its end.
This already confirmed Seo-jun's influence, but he was not someone to be satisfied or complacent just because it was verified.
It held little meaning.
He simply does what he wants to do.
And something he wanted to do had just come up.
"Seo-jun, judging by the current situation, an additional 30,000 people attended and the votes increased by 26,000, so it's a favorable turn for now. The voting rate rose, but the total votes for major game companies decreased even further. They were dispersed to indie games. From tomorrow, you could effectively secure first place just by holding fan meetings at the booth."
"But I don't want to do that."
Seo-jun chuckled.
"Yes, there'll probably be more talk. But it seems today's vote results were shocking. Before the results were announced, only offers from mid-tier game companies came in, but right after the announcement, love calls came from the major ones too."
It had only been a minute since the tally was announced.
They could only conclude that everyone had been waiting for the outcome.
"Good."
"Now you just have to choose. Whatever Seo-jun wants! You'll succeed no matter what!"
Contrary to Team Leader Seon's worries, the game companies were proactive.
Considering Seo-jun's influence, it was only natural, but he hadn't expected things to unfold so smoothly.
Crucially, the fact that the game companies had already confirmed if they could enter Seo-jun's booth was significant, though which company had checked first wasn't yet known.
Team Leader Seon congratulated himself that there would be no problems now.
But he fell into despair when Seo-jun spoke his next words.
"Hmm, I'd like to push past 100,000 votes. Which booth would be best for that?"
"Are you serious?"
"Yes."
The job entrusted by Point was to accept all of Seo-jun's demands and successfully wrap up the booth.
"Why—why do you want to exceed 100,000 votes?"
"I just can't resist this one."
"…"
"You'll help me, right?"
Seo-jun beamed an angelic smile at Team Leader Seon, whose face now openly displayed dismay and despair.
"We have to... find a way..."
100,000 votes.
An unprecedented feat.
Actually, 40,000 votes was also unprecedented, but wouldn't it be cool to set a record at an event like this that no one else could ever break in the future?
"A way... 100,000 votes... a way... 100,000 votes..."
Watching Team Leader Seon lose his wits, Seo-jun chuckled.
He hadn't thrown out 100,000 votes for no reason.
The reason was, indeed, because it was cool. But—
'Somehow, it felt like he'd come up with a way.'
Just then, as if the conversation between Jay and Eve Fimo had ended, Jay bowed deeply.
It must have been well past a ninety-degree angle.
And after straightening up, Jay immediately checked his phone and let out a shriek.
"Dem! O! Cra! Cy!"
As Eve Fimo walked away from Jay and approached Seo-jun's booth, she turned around in surprise, and Jay's expression contorted with horror as he saw Eve Fimo stepping one foot into Seo-jun's booth.
He was dying to know what those two had talked about.
* * *
"Hello. I'm Eve Fimo, CEO of Movie Soft."
"Hello. I'm Team Leader Seon of MCN Point, in charge of overseeing the booth of streamer Jin Seo-jun."
After exchanging business cards, Eve Fimo asked Team Leader Seon for some space, and Team Leader Seon went straight back down the steps.
"Seo-jun, it's been a while."
"It's been a while. We met when you commissioned the ad for Hyeop, and we haven't seen each other since, right?"
"Yes. Still, I've kept watching your broadcasts, so it feels like we met just yesterday. Hehe."
Eve Fimo naturally took a seat in the spectator seats and gestured for Seo-jun to sit as well.
"Shall we talk here?"
"Yes."
"First, am I the reason you came all the way to the event venue?"
"As straightforward as ever, I like that. You're right. From Day Four onward, I'd like you to run content related to our game at Seo-jun's booth."
"What about Day Three?"
"We have preparation time, so that game will be difficult to do on Day Three."
"You know what my situation is like right now, don't you?"
Seo-jun needed a game company to fill the content gap created by overly intense warm-ups, and the game company wanted Seo-jun to promote them.
But if they weren't going to cover a whole day—
"I know that if things continue like this, Day Three could get cumbersome for you."
Cumbersome.
Seo-jun nodded.
Eve Fimo's phrasing held no pretense.
"So I've brought several options to fill that gap."
As expected.
This time, he nodded inwardly.
None of these people didn't know Seo-jun.
"Then first, what game do you want me to play from Day Four onward?"
"It's Dawn of the Assassins: World of Belief."
"Oh."
Seo-jun's eyes widened.
A welcome name had come up.
"There hasn't been a single line written about its release yet. Is this a beta test?"
"Yes, you could say so. I'm asking both to gather feedback and to raise interest beforehand."
"Why didn't you propose this from the start?"
"Honestly, at that time I didn't realize T-Star would draw this much attention."
Convinced by a single answer, Seo-jun stopped caring about that point and started running calculations in his head.
A new game freshly made by Eve Fimo of Movie Soft, who had created Dawn of the Assassins—a game praised to the point of being called "The Breath of the City" for its level of completion.
There was no need to look further; he had to play it.
No other game company could possibly have brought such an appealing offering, and Movie Soft didn't skimp on money.
100,000 votes.
He could reach that too.
A new Dawn of the Assassins game was, no matter what anyone said, an issue big enough to draw the attention of the remaining tens of thousands.
Then only one thing was left hanging.
"CEO?"
"Yes, feel free to ask for whatever you'd like, Seo-jun."
"What's your plan to fill Day Three?"
And Seo-jun, with no intention of giving up on Day Three's votes, listened to Eve Fimo's plan and shook hands with immense satisfaction.
They would finalize the details through the night and sign the contract tomorrow, but since the ones shaking hands were Seo-jun and Eve Fimo, the CEO of Movie Soft, it was as good as already sealed.
* * *
[Day 3 operations will be morning only.]
==
If you pass the first test, you can meet me.
(I'll be wandering other booths like yesterday. You lot won't pass the first test anyway lol)
And you won't be able to see me at the booth in the afternoon, so if any of you have friends coming to T-Star, please let them know about the notice.
==
The moment the contract was signed.
That is, in the early hours of Day Three, Seo-jun posted his notice.
It was the earliest possible moment he could put it up.
Most visitors heading to the venue on Day Three would be asleep at that hour, but the majority of Seo-jun's fans were awake and actively buzzing.
They immediately voiced their doubts.
-Why?
-Probably thinks there's no challengers.
-But what's he doing in the afternoon?
-And that parenthesis is so damn annoying lmaooo
The reason was roughly guessable.
Booth operations had become difficult.
-Did all the challengers you booked just run away? lollollol
└This is it!
└It can't be anything else lollol With the warm-ups and the ladder game, it's just their pride getting crushed.
-30 million won vs their entire career lmaooo
Now that they'd realized anyone could get good at a newly attempted feat after just a few seconds, the prevailing sentiment was that challengers would naturally choose to flee rather than believe their own chosen event would be different.
-Does it even make sense to close the booth after getting that many votes?
└It's not closed. It's normal operations in the morning.
-Hey, if he does some other ad or takes a break, let's not vote, guys!
└The ones actually going tomorrow are sleeping right now, you trolls who aren't even coming!
└But it really might be annoying if he just rests in the afternoon.
-He's got to have something, guys.
-No way the streamer... no way he'd do that just because he wants to rest... Actually it's more terrifying because it seems like something he'd do.
And then.
Jay, a streamer sponsored by Movie Soft who had witnessed Eve Fimo talking with Seo-jun and shaking hands, was tormented by an inexplicable unease.
He kept dozing off and waking up, until he checked on Seo-jun's movements.
"Producer Kim. You haven't heard anything from the head office, right?"
[No, nothing. That person only came up briefly in talk of another new project. Honestly, I'd rather the company did something... No, anyway, it's three in the morning.]
"Haah, thank you... I mean, it's insane that the CEO of Movie Soft would move personally... Yes. Sorry. Thank you."
He lay back in bed and fell asleep.
But just...
"I'll get by..."
Until the sun rose, he suffered terrible sleep-talking.
"Don't come... don't come..."