After catching Kukridia.
While gathering materials and checking the stream time, I saw that quite a lot of time had passed.
‘1 AM?’
Since I had started streaming at 8 PM, that meant I’d been on for roughly five hours.
Maybe because it was more fun than I’d expected, I ended up playing far longer than planned.
Thinking that was enough for today, I announced to my viewers that the stream was ending.
“Well then, I’ll end today’s stream here.”
- Already?
- Ah, I just clicked the link and came in…
- No!!!
- Ugh, you can’t!!
- Ugh…
- Can’t you stream a little more…?
“Nope, I can’t. See you at the same time tomorrow. Bye-bye.”
- Bye-bye~
- bb
- Kuaaack!! Stop!!
- Uwaang!!
- No!! My world is turning off!!
- Good work!!
[Streaming has ended.]
“Hoo…”
Getting up from the capsule, I wiped the sweat from my forehead with a towel hanging on the chair beside me.
My T-shirt was soaked from sweating more than I’d expected.
‘They said it was used, but it’s hotter than I thought…’
I took off my clothes, tossed them into the laundry basket, and flung myself onto the bed.
‘Ah, that’s nice.’
Enjoying the coolness in the nude, I thought about today’s stream.
From the tutorial all the way to defeating Kukridia.
There were no issues on the gameplay side.
There had been parts I’d worried might not be fun in terms of combat.
But I liked how the combat was more realistic than I’d expected.
‘Everything was fine, but…’
There was one problem.
The viewers.
Right before ending the stream, the total concurrent viewers were roughly,
“Close to 4,000…?”
A ridiculous number for just the second day of streaming.
It was almost astonishing.
So what was the problem?
The high number wasn’t the issue.
The problem was that as many people flooded in, strange people flooded in too.
Most of them liked my gameplay, so it was fine, but checking the chat here and there, I saw quite a few troublemakers who needed to be straightened out.
If I were to pick out a few noticeable ones,
- Ah, the path isn’t that way…
- You shouldn’t do that…
- This is that thing!!
- His name is Dante, the former commander. He has an important role later…
- Who the hell is this bastard to watch him like this? lolololol
And so on.
Backseating, spoilers, and even shitstirring.
These were things that should have been managed on the broadcasting side.
Starting with not having a manager to moderate the chat.
Since I was also a streaming newbie, there were many lacking aspects on the broadcasting side.
For now, I banned them on sight as soon as I saw them.
But if this kept up, there would definitely be parts I’d miss.
Checking the chat, finding shitstirrers, and banning them even while fighting monsters?
I could do it if I tried, but to me, who wanted to fully enjoy combat, it was a huge stress.
‘So what should I do now?’
Regarding stream progression, it was a problem that would be solved with time.
Since I just needed to get used to streaming.
But the chat still needed to be managed.
With over 4,000 people chatting, managing them one by one while playing the game meant a high probability the game wouldn’t progress properly.
‘Should I get a manager? It seems a bit early for that.’
It was funny that I was already trying to get a manager.
It had only been two days; I didn’t think anyone would want to be a manager.
And even if someone volunteered,
‘I’m not planning to give it to just anyone right now.’
Because if possible, I wanted to give it to someone trustworthy.
“Hmm…”
While worrying like that for a while, I saw something wriggling in the corner of the bed.
Wriggle, wriggle.
It was Newa, munching on potato chips while watching a stream on his phone.
He’d been stuck to my neck even while I was streaming, and the moment my stream ended, he’d immediately found another one to watch.
I actually thought it was impressive.
‘Hm?’
Then, a genius idea flashed through my head.
‘Is it possible…?’
After checking this and that for feasibility, I reached the conclusion that this could work.
Come to think of it, Newa watched way more streams than me.
‘Compared to Newa, wouldn’t I be just a drop in the bucket?’
Except for the time I was streaming, he invested almost all his time into watching streams.
You could truly call him a ghost of the streaming world.
Naturally, he would know a lot about streaming and have a broad perspective.
And since he was always stuck to my neck while I streamed anyway, he wasn’t watching other streams then.
So couldn’t Newa be my stream manager?
‘No matter how I think about it, it’s possible…’
He could enter virtual reality directly; how could he not manage a single chat window?
I absolutely believed it was possible.
He was smart to begin with, after all.
I crept up behind Newa and lifted him up with one hand.
“Newa!!”
Flustered at being suddenly lifted, he flailed his legs.
Thanks to that, the potato chip crumbs stuck to his body fell onto the bed.
‘I didn’t expect that…’
I’d have to make him clean that up later.
Eaters clean up their own mess.
Then I felt Newa’s gaze on me, dangling limply from my hand.
As if asking why I’d lifted him if I had nothing to say.
Looking at him like that, I gave him the kindest smile in the world.
“Hey, want to do some work with me?”
“Newa?”
Of course, a no was a no.
After lengthy persuasion, I acquired a “partially paid lifetime pact.” I gently placed the precious pushover… I mean, employee down on the bed.
He swayed dizzily in front of the phone.
I’d spun him around so much that even my sturdy shoulders were starting to hurt.
“You persistent little thing.”
I never expected that while being spun around for fifty minutes, he’d demand pocket money to donate to the stream he watched as a condition.
‘As expected of a Spirit King.’
We reached a dramatic agreement at 100,000 won per month, securing a win-win structure for both of us.
I was happy to use the multi-talented guy as a manager.
He was happy because he could throw a hundred 1,000-won punches.
“Come to think of it, those were potato chips I bought for myself.”
Wriggle?!
“Tsk, nothing I can do.”
Wriggle, wriggle.
I felt like I was taking a bit of a loss, but I decided to let it go.
I took out a beer from the refrigerator and went straight into the Gallery on my phone.
To check exactly what was going on in the Gallery, since I’d heard in chat earlier that it was in an uproar.
I could check the reactions about me too, so it was killing two birds with one stone.
“Hoo.”
The first post was unusual.
Just the comment count alone was in the hundreds.
This was something I had to click.
----- Waheun Gallery -----
Title) Who the fuck is Haerang, why is he mentioned constantly?
I come in to browse sometimes, but all day it’s just Haerang this, Haerang that, fuck
I don’t care, so please go back to your own dens
How fucking much are you mentioning some scrub I’ve never heard of?
---
: fr lol anyone would think Haerang is the gallery master lolololol
: Fucking shills, fuck off lolololol
: Ban the advertisers
: No, you lazy fucks, go watch for yourselves
: Stop the viral marketing lololol you probably only watched the early parts anyway
: Why are 4,000 people watching this?
: First of all, her face is pretty
: And her chest is whoa
: fr? I’ll check it out
: Took screenshots of the two guys above and sent them to Haerang, gg
: Do you even know where to send it?
: IDK
“Fun.”
The sight of regulars biting each other’s heads off.
At this level, you could say the gallery was on fire.
“Newa?!”
I grabbed some potato chips from beside me and lurked through the remaining posts.
Title) At this rate, is Haerang the next gallery master after Bullamyeon?
Is King God General Waheun Gallery master Bullamyeon getting dethroned?
There’s no talk of Bullamyeon in the gallery at all now.
---
: Bullamyeon dethroned!!
- ??: Bullamyeon, attention!
: Comparing Bullamyeon to a scrub like this lolololol
: He’s not a scrub though?
: [GIF of Domagirius breathing fire]
‘Bullamyeon?’
A familiar name.
A name that kept appearing while I was checking the gallery.
If someone was mentioned this often, they couldn’t be ordinary.
Having grown curious about Bullamyeon, I searched his name on YouTube.
The top results were videos of him playing Waheun.
I played the one with the highest views.
“You fucking company, you bastards!!!”
Unlike me, he seemed to mainly use the longsword, a popular weapon.
“How much did you raise the difficulty?!!!”
He was fighting a giant monster, stepping back to read its pattern.
“Uwaack!!”
Unlike his constant whining, the movement of his hands wielding the longsword was quite fluid.
“Oh… not bad.”
At this level, he’d be about a B-grade Hunter?
‘No, looking at skill alone, maybe lower A-grade?’
Of course, with the premise of identical physical specs, he’d probably still get toyed with by a B-grade Hunter.
“This much is impressive in its own way.”
Hunters who’d become combat machines through frequent battles with monsters, versus people who only played games.
Normally, there was no comparison.
‘Most people who reached C-grade already had a glint of madness in their eyes.’
Of course, I kindly fixed all those who gazed at me like that back to normal.
If I grabbed just one guy and worked on him for twenty-four hours, the others put their eyes back to normal on their own.
While watching the video and looking over various information, I found that Bullamyeon was a veteran who had already conquered many Waheun series until now.
He had cleared most of the content.
This series, he was playing in Reality Mode instead of Baby Mode from the start.
As a Waheun series veteran, he was showing his mettle.
: Doesn’t seem like it’ll work lolololol
: Stop it, Ramen, or you’ll burn yourself
The viewers must not have thought he could do it; there was even a mission on the line promising 10 million won if he cleared Reality Mode.
‘I’m a bit jealous…’
Doesn’t this kind of thing come to me?
Well, it’s only my second day streaming, so it’s not even at a stage to compare.
I skipped through a few videos, watching with interest, then turned off my phone.
I’d seen roughly everything I needed to see; watching more would spoil the fun.
‘Because monsters are only fun when you see them in the moment.’
From the videos, Bullamyeon was on a completely different story route from me.
Probably, the branching point was the choice of only catching one Domagirius in the beginning.
In a way, I could understand the saying “influx increased because of the new route.”
Since I was the one who first opened this route.
‘I like that.’
Before falling asleep like that,
I also remembered seeing several posts titled “Challenging the Haerang Route” in the gallery earlier.
Haerang Challenge, or whatever.
‘Well, even if they call it the Haerang Challenge, it’ll probably die down soon.’
They’ll just try it a few times, and if that brings in more viewers, that’s good enough.
I could tell just by looking that more people would probably come to tomorrow’s stream than today.
With my thoughts roughly organized, I hugged Newa beside me and closed my eyes.
Without the faintest idea of the massive wave the Haerang Challenge would cause.
“Newaaaa…”
***
- Hey Ramen, you know about the Haerang Challenge?
“The Haerang Challenge?”