A New Month, A New Burden

A new month, a new duty, and... well.

The month had turned over. I checked the updated list of duties with a glimmer of hope, but I couldn't shake the disappointment. I was still just a Full Librarian.

I’ve been streaming my heart out, consistently writing up documentation for anomalies and items, and I even caught a Fervent Follower. With achievements like these, wouldn't it be reasonable to promote me to a Special Librarian? I’m not entirely sure if a higher rank is actually a good thing for me, but surely making some progress is a hundred times better than stagnating in the same spot. It makes me wonder if they even have any intention of promoting me at all.

Regardless, I carefully reviewed the updated duties. If I misread them, it’s all my loss, so I had to check precisely to see if even a single character had changed.

For starters, the follower requirement increased from 2,000 to 4,000, but I don't need to worry about that just yet. My current follower count is a staggering 85,000. With 100,000 followers just around the corner, there's no need to fret over the follower goal.

...Well, if the requirement keeps doubling like this, I suppose I’ll be caught up in two months. But the Shining Stars is a deity with a conscience, right? They’ll probably adjust the numbers on their own later. It seems the follower-related duty is just a minimum constraint to ensure I keep streaming diligently.

The thing to watch out for in this month's 'Full Librarian's Duties' is item number 5. The duty to become a Partner Streamer within 60 days.

Until now, the streaming-related duties only ever involved increasing follower counts, so I thought they wouldn't touch anything else regarding my broadcasts. They really snuck that one in right when I was letting my guard down.

Well, I’m not overly worried, though. It’s a bit awkward to say this myself, but considering my explosive growth, I feel like I’ll be a partner soon enough.

A Partner Streamer. It refers to streamers who have signed an exclusive contract with the platform. Once you become a partner, you gain access to very useful benefits for a streamer, such as content subsidies, a higher donation settlement ratio, and the introduction of a subscription system.

Obviously, I am not a partner streamer yet. I’m just a rookie streamer who only started three months ago.

Thanks to the grace of the Shining Stars, I was able to secure high viewership from the start with a high-quality avatar, but having high viewership doesn't automatically guarantee you'll become a partner streamer.

The exact conditions for becoming a partner streamer have never been made public. Something about internal regulations, they say. Honestly, if they did reveal the conditions, I think it would get chaotic. Viewers of a certain channel might collectively protest to the platform, screaming, "Why aren't you giving our streamer a partnership when they've perfectly met the conditions?!"

So, to conclude: I have no idea what kind of effort I need to make to achieve partnership. I have absolutely no clue.

I suppose one way would be to just keep streaming hard like I always do and wait, but the pressure of that '60 days' is really getting to me. I feel like I need to do something.

Since this seemed like a problem I couldn't solve on my own, I went down to the basement, turned on my computer, and checked my friend list on the voice messenger.

I’m glad I participated in the Ayase Battle Lounge tournament. When else would I use my connections if not now?

Fortunately, I had added the streamers who were on my team as friends, and since they were all partner streamers, I figured I could get some useful information ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if I asked them how they managed to get it.

Ayase was currently streaming, so I decided to ask her later. I sent a message to the first person who caught my eye.

M-Bot. A streamer specializing in Battle Lounge who had been on my team twice. Since we bonded over the tournament and even exchanged funny clip videos, we weren't exactly strangers.

As soon as I got a reply from M-Bot, I got straight to the point.

This guy is obsessed with Battle Lounge. I didn't even bring up the 'B' in Battle Lounge, yet he's out here playing both sides of the conversation all by himself.

Eventually, his explanation followed. He told me in quite some detail how he got his partnership and what efforts he made to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠achieve it.

...Ugh. As M-Bot said, this doesn't seem like information that will be of much help to me. It's just too different from my situation, starting off with 1,000 viewers from day one. Anyway, if I were to summarize M-Bot's words and dare to guess the conditions for partnership, it seems diligence and potential are the most important factors.

He streamed diligently in the shadows for nine months, hard-carried a tournament, and got a partnership immediately the month after. It seems the platform highly valued his diligence and potential and gave him the partnership right away.

...Now that I think about it, he's right. Diligence and potential. This is exactly my story. Since I'm streaming once a day because of the 'Full Librarian's Duties,' diligence goes without saying. And since I performed exceptionally well in Ayase's 'Narak Show' and the 'Ayase Battle Lounge,' I feel like I've already proven my potential enough...

Come to think of it, there is one streamer who is similar to me. Ayase. Ayase, who debuted like a comet one day, surpassed 100,000 followers just one month after starting her stream. She's a streamer whose core fanbase was rock solid from the start, to the point where even a karaoke stream singing requiems would get at least 5,000 viewers.

If my memory serves me correctly, Ayase... I remember she got her partnership in just one month. It was the shortest record on the platform.

I can't dare compare myself to Ayase, the incarnation of a VTuber and a broadcasting genius, but I am also a VTuber who debuted like a comet. From the very start of my broadcast, I became a hot topic with an otherworldly quality avatar created directly by the Shining Stars. My core fanbase is also quite well-formed, the faith of my believers is firm, and phrases like "This too must be the grace of the Shining Stars" and "The price of blasphemy" have become memes frequently used within the platform.

But. Why. Still. Are they not giving me a partnership?

Ah, damn it. Thanks to M-Bot, I think I found the reason.

A partner streamer is the face of the platform. From the platform's perspective, they can't just give a partnership to anyone. For instance, just thinking about the platform's image... I wouldn't give a partnership to a 'cult-concept underground streamer' either.

"..."

I'm in trouble. This seems like a much harder duty to achieve than I thought. Should I give up the cultist RP and aim for a normal broadcast starting now?

...But for me, it's not an RP. It's the truth.