There's a Saintess TV Broadcast Here? (2)
Meanwhile, at Baek Jiyu's house.
Baek Yongcheol, who had left the scene first, arrived home.
"Dad, you're back? You worked hard again today!"
Baek Jiyu came out to the front door in her pajamas. She'd stepped out exactly as she'd been gaming — still wearing her headset without realizing it.
Used to the sight, Baek Yongcheol grinned at his daughter.
"Kiddo! You say that, but you're only looking past me, aren't you?"
Caught red-handed, Baek Jiyu clasped her hands behind her back and flushed.
"Th-that's not it... But Junwoo... where is he?"
"Junwoo's on night duty again today. Honestly. That kid really is something. He must be exhausted and want to rest, yet he still takes the night shifts."
"Night duty again? Oh... I see..."
Baek Jiyu's voice drooped.
I was going to play Warworld with Junwoo today...
For the past three weeks, Baek Jiyu had been buzzing with anticipation.
When they were little, Junwoo had always come over to hang out in her room. She used to play games alone — but it was her precious childhood friend, Lee Junwoo, who taught her that games were more fun together.
She was pretty good at games herself. But Junwoo, even as a kid, had been shockingly skilled.
Those hours spent gaming with him had always been the happiest times of her life.
She was so introverted that she never had friends at school, and that loner-shut-in personality was still fully intact.
My only friend... will always be Junwoo.
Sure, she had online gaming friends now. But the only person she could truly call a friend offline was Lee Junwoo.
Right. Junwoo is a friend... just a friend.
But the thought that he wouldn't be coming home today left her feeling hollow the way she used to.
They had always hung out a lot. After enrolling at Theia Academy, though, the time she spent with Junwoo had steadily dwindled. Especially over the past year — the year he'd poured everything into the hero club Aegis — the most she managed was the occasional online session of Northern Warworld.
It's all... because of that Ha Yeeun!
Just thinking of Ha Yeeun made her chest tighten with anger.
The person who had stolen her only friend. And then treated him like a slave on top of it.
But Junwoo liked Ha Yeeun, so there was nothing she could do about it.
Watching it happen always left her feeling strange and empty. Baek Jiyu half-understood why — and refused to admit it.
Right. Junwoo is really just a friend... He has to be.
She knew he would never see her as anything more. Of course he wouldn't. A gloomy shut-in gamer girl who never left her room had no feminine charm to speak of.
So Baek Jiyu tried just as hard never to see him as more than a friend. If things got awkward and she somehow never saw him again, that would be unbearable.
I already know how that ends...
If her feelings crossed that line, she'd only suffer through an unrequited childhood-friend crush that could never go anywhere.
Baek Jiyu returned to her room. Out of habit, she sat down at her computer — and there was Ha Yeeun's stream, already open. A surge of irritation hit her.
"Ha. Yee. Un..."
Baek Jiyu's power class was Assassin.
Swish—
As if by magic, a dagger slipped from her sleeve. Its razor edge gleamed.
Baek Jiyu pictured that blade finding its mark in someone.
That damn bitch!
She couldn't help getting irritated every time she saw Ha Yeeun. No — not irritated. She hated her.
The shock of learning that Junwoo liked Ha Yeeun still lingered. Without exaggeration, it had felt like Baek Jiyu's entire world was collapsing. NTR was hell.
So to keep from getting hurt again, she constantly worked to never cross the line of friendship with Junwoo.
I thought I'd get to game with him again today...
Her room was still full of the console systems they'd always played on together. But right now, she needed to focus on that stream.
Junwoo claimed he didn't like Ha Yeeun. But a strong denial was a strong affirmation.
More than that — as someone who'd spent her student years glued to TukaTV streams, a so-called TukaTV NEET — she knew the type well.
Ha Yeeun. A nun of the Goddess Religion. When Baek Jiyu first learned that her classmate, that blonde, busty nun, was casually streaming on TukaTV, she'd felt a strange sense of kinship.
A three-digit nobody, huh. I'm a two-digit nobody myself.
Baek Jiyu loved games so much that she'd always wanted to stream. She'd even tried it once. Of course, her entire viewership had consisted of Lee Junwoo.
Anyway, back then Ha Yeeun had been a soft, cute blonde busty nun — the kind who could blow up at any moment. Even so, she was hopelessly bad at games and couldn't fill dead air at all.
She had absolutely nothing that counted as streamer content.
Then one day, Saintess TV exploded.
That three-digit stream climbed into the dozens, then the hundreds.
How?
A few months later, Baek Jiyu found out why.
Saintess TV's manager. That manager's ID was one she knew all too well.
Junwoo...?
For a moment, the shock hit so hard her pupils went dark. She'd suspected it — and she'd been right.
Once Junwoo came on board, Saintess TV rocketed upward every day like a vertical red line on a coin chart. Eventually, alongside the hero club Aegis, it became a major stream.
"Haa... Junwoo feels... farther away than he used to... because of that bitch."
After that, she'd watched him follow Ha Yeeun around like a boyfriend, handling everything for her. No one went that far for a girl they didn't like. Ha Yeeun had even dropped little hints on stream that Lee Junwoo had feelings for her.
And so Baek Jiyu's eyes went cold.
"I have to... learn from Ha Yeeun. No matter what."
Ha Yeeun was currently one of the top female streamers. But surprisingly, Junwoo had vanished from her manager list. She'd heard he'd left Aegis too — so there must have been some kind of falling-out.
If I... absorb every one of Ha Yeeun's strengths... and become a major streamer myself...
Just maybe. Maybe Junwoo, who never saw her as anything more, might change his mind. That was partly why she'd recently dyed her hair, cut it short, and overhauled her style so thoroughly it was practically a transformation.
No. Don't forget. Junwoo and I are just friends... friends...
Her defense mechanisms kicked in again without her noticing. The trauma Ha Yeeun had left ran deep.
Anyway, as she watched Saintess TV, something struck her as odd.
"Huh? The viewer count is lower than usual."
Come to think of it, on the streaming community boards she'd joined recently, the public opinion around Saintess TV and Aegis hadn't been great. There'd been a lot of hiatuses lately, too.
But the streaming world lived on scandals and controversies, and Aegis's fandom was still solid. So Baek Jiyu didn't pay it much mind and focused on the stream.
Huh? Isn't that the industrial complex Dad's company has been working at lately?
And today's Saintess TV content was Aegis's villain-hunting activity.
The three members of Aegis had come to an industrial district where villain sightings had been spiking lately.
According to Hunter Association intel, there was an eighty percent chance a villain would appear today — making it a perfect day to broadcast hero work.
Saintess TV. Ha Yeeun's personal stream, and the channel that relayed Aegis's hero activities.
On air, Ha Yeeun looked into the drone cam and shouted,
"Waaah!! A thirty-thousand donation!! Thank you so much~! Saintess Kyun~!! Heart Kyun~!! Subscribe too~!! Kyun-kyun~♡!"
An Yumin watched Ha Yeeun doing her donation reaction with open contempt. Song Sia wore her usual expression of total disinterest.
Ha Yeeun's insides were boiling.
These stone-faced bitches who never react properly to anything except me!
Doing reactions every single time was exhausting. But donation reactions were a streamer's destiny — content in their own right.
And lately, donation amounts had been dropping. Of course more money was always better. She could buy expensive diet pills and add to her luxury collection. But that wasn't the real problem right now.
I'm a major streamer! Rankings matter!
The total donation ranking among streamers was a matter of pride for a big-agency streamer like her, and that ranking had been eating at her constantly.
My donation rank... dropped. So annoying!! It's all because of that arrogant An Yumin bitch!!
The so-called Mung Line. She'd gotten pretty close with the streamers from the Mungseokkyu Crew.
When that irritating pervert Lee Junwoo was still around, he'd kept drawing a hard line between her and Mungseokkyu. Looking back now, it was ridiculous. There was nothing bad about linking up with ultra-major streamers.
He'd clearly been jealous because he liked her. That had to be it.
I'm so glad he's gone now!
Right after his departure, she'd done a Northern Warworld collab stream with the Mungseokkyu Crew. Their fandom had serious firepower. The spillover effect had even put her at number one on the female streamer donation rankings for a while. But the disaster three weeks ago had ruined everything.
Ha Yeeun shot a glance at An Yumin.
A beauty with long reddish-brown hair and a slender figure. Today, as always, An Yumin was in her trademark tight black hunter suit.