The Ban Hammer and the Sudden Hugging Impulse
The banhammer—what is that?
Anonymous: I charged 1,000 Jeollyeok.
Chat: Ban all the amdan, chicken-related, abortion dog, ttuda, and every other trash term, please. They're all hate speech from bad communities.
Anonymous: I charged 1,000 Jeollyeok.
Chat: Ban the chicken-dribblers, please, boss! T_T
Anonymous: I charged 1,000 Jeollyeok.
Chat: Can we even ban hate speech here?
My head was spinning so hard I was about to explode when the donuts started dropping one after another. I read one, thought about it, and the next one was already there. It was really impressive how smoothly it all came in, but even this was exhausting.
People don't instantly understand what someone says in 0.1 seconds, figure out the intent behind it, and decide how to respond. That's not even possible. Yet the viewers wanted exactly that, and it was killing me.
"Ah... yeah, I'm banning them. I... this is the first time the chat's been this fast and I'm having trouble."—Chat spamming nonstop~!
"Friends, I'll help you! T_T"
"Sigh, it's rough because of these human trash guys."
"So gross, Sako people... always stirring up trouble."
"Oh, they're from Sako? No wonder."
Even while I was furiously banning, the chat was exploding among themselves. The messages piled up so fast that other streamers looked amazing. Being an in-fan really isn't easy.
But Sako—what is it? Isn't it a soccer site? There were some Vtuber stories over there, right?
"Is Sako a soccer-related site? I sometimes saw soldier guys doing it."
Chat: There's a board.
"They talk about in-fans a lot."
"Never search for Sako in-fan incidents on the internet..."
"K-"
"Ppiririm~"
Ah...
It seemed like there was a lot of it. I shouldn't touch it.
I realized my danger instinct was kicking in and decided to keep banning hard. I swept away all the idiots I could find, and by the time the chat protest quieted a bit, there were still about 500 viewers left. Insanely many.
Compared to the usual days where I stared at an unresponsive chat and muttered to myself, now it was just grabbing a couple of lines and replying, and it felt way more fun and natural.
I needed to make the most of this opportunity...
Anonymous: I charged 1,000 Jeollyeok.
Chat: But I get the rest. Why ban chicken? Isn't that the one in chicken coops?
"Heck"
"Yah yah"
"That's..."
"But if we're being picky, isn't chicken coop a ban-worthy joke too?"
"Never mention that word."
The chat exploding again after that one donut. What is a chicken, anyway? Why are people losing their minds over one chicken?
And whether the person who sent it didn't know the chicken joke or was cleverly luring with bait... it was impossible to tell. Should I ban it or not?
LuminariaForeverEternal: I charged 1,000 Jeollyeok.
Chat: There's a 48-year-old original chicken video on Nyatube, and some nakaa people accidentally appeared in it, so that's why.
I glanced at it without reacting. I roughly understood. The people using my dropped VR world avatars—the so-called nakaa, or at least the suspected ones—had been caught on that video, right?
Since they were Vtuber, their real identities were hidden, but as a troll, it was just fun to keep poking, and as the targets, the more cleverly baited, the more it escalated.
That's how it had continued so far... I suppose... I'd check it properly later.
"These amdan bastards are crazy?"
"Ban that guy, please T_T"
"You can see it from here. Don't get worked up in chat."
"But if chicken hate is a ban word, eating chicken shouldn't be allowed either?"
"Chicken? You want chicken coupons?"
"I don't know... yeah. I don't know. I'll ban the recent donut. Everyone, don't get angry and calm down a little."
I was really going to lose it. It felt like a kindergarten teacher with fifty half-devils gathered in the room. If hell existed on earth, this was it.
MidlinerOnlyWatch: I charged 10,000 Jeollyeok.
Chat: Boss, are you hot? You're sweating.
"Huh? Ah, MidlinerOnlyWatch... haha. The situation is what it is, so a little cold sweat... haha..."
"Sweat on the face too."
"It looks like hot sweat."
"No aircon?"
"There is an aircon. It's because the soundproof booth is like this... it's not cool at all. It wasn't this hot normally..."
I wiped the sweat from my face and took off my uniform shirt. It was one of those fantasy clothes that was hot in summer and cold in winter (of course it was). The second I took it off, I felt a bit cooler.
A sudden gust of cold air hit my body, so I guess I'd sweated a lot. Wearing the uniform made the senses a bit dull, like I didn't even notice.
"This is such a bastard..."
"Wow shit"
"Hell"
"It's Bbing's noona haha"
"Uwah my bppus doaah"
Now in a tank top, fanning myself while glancing at the chat, it was rising even faster than when it had exploded earlier. Of course it was because I took off my clothes... but seriously, you guys are that simple? It was starting to look a bit cute.
Do you like the chest that much?
Of course I liked it too. I did like it... yeah...
MidlinerOnlyWatch: I charged 100,000 Jeollyeek.
"Ah, aigoo~! Thank you, Mr. Haejang! Thanks 10 million! Ah... thank you~ thanks ppong~"
"?"
"?"
"Um?"
"Ah..."
"What kind of reaction is this?"
"You'll probably ask for a refund after seeing that..."
The moment I showed an instinctive reaction to the cool donut that had just flown in, the chat sentiment turned vicious. Did I look that bad?
"Did your streaming talent go to waste? The reaction is horribly boring."
"Yah yah"
"What does that mean..."
"Hahaha crazy bastard"
"Puhup."
I saw the chat that caught my eye and burst out laughing.
To be honest, the line itself wasn't that funny. It was insulting me, and I probably should have felt bad.
But somehow... it was funny.
The sudden, out-of-nowhere acceleration, the words used, and the overall vibe of the chat and stream... everything combined and made me laugh for a moment. If even one part had been missing, I would have thought that bastard was broken.
But it was funny, so I had to handle it.
"When did I ever use informal speech? Come out if you're here to watch a fun stream. This is your first permanent ban."
"Oh..."
"Informal is nice."
"Oh..."
Who likes informal speech anyway.
After finishing the ban, the chat started exploding with emoticons that looked super suspicious, and I felt a bit dumbfounded.
"Huh... what kind of reaction to informal speech..."
"Hehe"
"You don't do informal speech for the stream?"
"Treat me like a friend T_T"
"A friend? I don't have any friends like that... and you guys aren't my friends anyway."
"Heck"
"Hell"
"Not friends?"
"Mom... I lost my only friend..."
Right after I finished speaking, the chat exploded with one of those images and teary-eyed emoticons. At that moment, I realized the true flavor of streaming.
The instant reactions when I said something, hundreds of people reacting to my words... the recognition desire through real-time communication was the fuel for a streamer.
It was ridiculous. Even though nothing was said, even though 10 won never dropped into the chat, I felt incredibly happy. This felt better than the 100,000 I had just received. Of course, after deductions... um.
"My usual viewers are only 4 or 5 people, right? Almost everyone here now is probably seeing me for the first time. What kind of friends are we? It's been less than an hour since we met."
"Oh, so we're just getting to know each other?"
"Is time important?"
"But friends are friends."
"And how do I think of you as friends? I mean... I'm like a store clerk or a shop assistant in a restaurant or clothing store—I'm just a service provider, and you're the customers. I make content or games and satisfy you, so what if I call you friends?"
It was like there was an invisible wall between soldiers and civilians that you could never cross. If you treated me too casually, you'd get complaints from everywhere.
"Satisfied? Ehehe"
"Satisfied... please..."
"You know what you have to do, right?"
"Aah shit..."
I never expected it to interpret it that way, so I reflexively cursed when they started to push their luck, and the chat got even better.
These weirdos... why do they like hearing swearing? Does anything go if a pretty, big-breasted person does it?
'...Now that I think about it, I did the same in Heinzel.'
I remembered the first meeting with Esterina. She had been a proud, arrogant elf, and at first she hated me intensely. Naturally curses and kicks, sometimes deliberately flipping my meal bowl—petty harassment included.
But even then, I remembered that because Esterina was so beautiful, I didn't feel much anger. Of course, if she made me not eat, I got furious, but normal cursing and hitting could be tolerated as cute.
...Ah.
Big problem.
'Dangerous... I shouldn't have thought of Esterina...
My nose started tingling. The aftereffects of my body becoming female... or the downside? Tears would suddenly flow without warning. When I dreamed of the old days or recalled memories, even now I couldn't stop the tears.
The only time it didn't matter was when I was alone, but now...
"?"
"Eh?"
"Crying?"
"I'm sorry..."
"__SEMI____SEMI__"
"Ah... really because of those scumbags..."
The chat started popping up with surprised reactions to my response. This was the first time they saw it, and seeing a complete stranger like me cry when they had zero connection to me made it both funny and shocking...
Men are like that, aren't they? There was a 0% chance of women... but there was.
I pulled out a tissue, wiped my tears, and cleared my voice.
"Ahem, ah... yeah. You don't have to apologize. I... well, not really, just because I remembered a friend..."
"?"
"Why do you cry when you think of a friend?"
"Boyfriend?"
"..."
"What boyfriend... it's a girl, a girl. An incredibly pretty friend... um... now I can't see her anymore..."
As my sentence trailed off, the chat mood sank. They probably understood I had "left the world." To some extent, since I had tried to induce the reaction, I also slapped my cheeks and made tears well up.
While I was doing that, a sudden mission appeared.
MidlinerOnlyWatch's mission! 500,000
"Make comments you want to say without holding back, casually using informal speech while streaming."
"Eh, eeeng?"
"Wow"
"I believe in the informal speech disciple haha"
"Don't you add swearing and insults to the set? Ehehe..."
"Ah... Mr. Haejang, thank you for the mission... even if you didn't have to do this to cheer me up..."
MidlinerOnlyWatch—hehe, don't you want to undo the mission?
Eh...
I was lost in thought for a second, and while I was distracted, the mission money kept climbing. Other viewers were hurling 1,000 each, expressing public opinion.
Soon the total hit 600,000, and thanks to that, people—whether they knew or not—realized how much they wanted me to use informal speech with them.
Ultimately, the reason I had started this content was to gather flow and settle a few people on my stream, right?
Thinking about that, I should do what these people in my room like so they keep watching. I pressed the mission button and accepted.
"Okay, I'll remove the filters now."