Debut Preparations
There was plenty of time to prepare, piece by piece.
Worried she might collapse again, her parents had chosen homeschooling over sending her back to school. On top of that, operating under a pure just grow up healthy mindset, they never forced unwanted studying on her either—so every day was essentially free time from morning to night.
"Oh…."
After polishing off a lunch packed with her mother's affection, she was looking over the avatar illustration that had arrived by email.
A petite build, a cute cat-like face. Jet-black hair paired with crimson eyes. A little girl in a loose, oversized sweater, a white cat-ear beanie perched on her head.
"This is seriously hella cute-desu."
With this, she could mercilessly empty the wallets of every guy into lo*i content. No—was there anyone on the entire planet who could hate a girl this adorable? Except maybe for that tiny minority of cam-stream viewers who despised 2D models with a passion.
"Very good, yes."
Humming under her breath, she click-click-clicked the mouse. The translator-dependent back-and-forth had been more tedious than she'd wanted, but the result was more than satisfying.
The rigging was still in progress, so she couldn't start streaming just yet—and there were other things she needed to handle anyway.
If you were corporate-affiliated, the company name alone handled your promotion. Going indie, though, was bleak enough to make you want to cry. You had to claw your way up from zero viewers.
There were those nine Guardians who'd seen Yoo Serin before—but with so long since any news, it was doubtful they'd even come back.
Promotion is non-negotiable.
So she would use the social media platform Y. For a VTuber, social media was practically mandatory for fan communication anyway—and it pulled double duty as free advertising.
Of all the promo methods available, the one she'd chosen was an RT event. Cover the model completely, then peel the blind back bit by bit every time the RTs hit a certain number. That alone was enough to bait curiosity and spread the word—but the real hook was the raffle prizes tossed in alongside it.
Burger gift cards, pizza vouchers, delivery-app coupons, that sort of thing. Done right, a few tens of thousands of won in prizes could push a promo post past a hundred thousand views.
If only Mama and Papa were famous creators…
The illustrator Mama and rigger Papa could help with promotion too, in theory. A well-known artist posting I did this commission! on Y was free advertising that practically spread itself. But after accepting help from Ttagerham, that marketing route was a ship that had already sailed.
"Nngh…!"
After transferring the commission fee, she stretched hard, then leaned back into the chair and rocked her body side to side.
"Next up…."
There was still more to do. What mattered most in modern self-employment? Virality. Virality or die!! No matter the method, you had to get your name out there before you could climb to the next stage. For a tiny, no-name streamer especially, viral marketing hit like a truck.
Was that his number…?
And she knew exactly where and how to make it happen. This body—no, she—had spent nearly a year living in the VTuber Sniping Gallery.
The so-called "wall-posting." No matter what people spat in the replies, you just kept dumping your own spiel, over and over. An anonymous gallery that only deleted posts if they actively invited crime was paradise for wall-post promo.
Sure, you might catch some hate, and weirdos might latch on. But those types would fall off on their own—and genuine trolls didn't bother sinking their teeth into a brand-new indie VTuber who wasn't even corporate. Not enough meat on the bones to roast.
So the play was simple: park ten people, a hundred people, whoever, in the chat first—and keep the ones who stuck around.
"Ah, dammit—was it five, not three?"
She scratched her head raw and hunted for her internet friend's number for a good long while. Relying on a half-faded memory, she got it wrong maybe seven times.
A guy who, online at least, would do anything if the money was right. They'd run duo boosting together before, and she'd heard he'd even done community-promo gigs for new game launches—done them well enough to pocket bonuses. Talent like that didn't grow on trees.
She hesitated a beat before sending it. She could have said It's me, Kim Jio—but right now she was Arin. If problems were going to crop up later, it was better to approach even old acquaintances as Arin from the start.
The conversation went quiet for a moment. He was probably weighing it. It wasn't every day a private individual dropped a request like this.
The reply landed, and the corner of her mouth curled up. Just as planned. There was no way a guy like him would turn this down.
Another stretch of silence. The great Lee Suhwan hesitating this hard—the VTuber scene really was still underground.
There it was. Just as expected, things started flowing like water.
"Hah… one less thing off my plate-desu."
With Lee Suhwan on board, it felt like she'd just gained an army of a thousand! That alone was as good as locking down dozens of viewers for the debut stream.
"Then I guess it's about time…."
She yawned, laced her fingers together, and stretched her arms out long. From here on, the real work began.
"Time to loosen up the hands, huh?"
The Summoner is going completely berserk!
She launched Legend of Legends on the spot and queued ranked—on a smurf she'd only dabbed at in her previous life. By the fifteen-minute mark, nobody on the enemy team could stop Amelia, one of the most mechanical champions in the game.
A little awkward, sure, but… it's fine.
She could definitely feel that the body had changed. But this wasn't a game where hand size was make-or-break, and her sense and reaction speed were still intact—stomping people was no trouble at all. And the cherry on top: that stomping was happening at the very edge of Diamond, the so-called Yeti tier.
At this level, climbing to the absolute top on pure game skill should be easy.
That alone covered a solid eighty percent of the battle. Male streamers who played like former pros were a dime a dozen—women, vanishingly rare. And the red-pill kicker? She was thirteen?
Game over. End of discussion.
Not that I'm revealing it right away.
Even if she claimed to be thirteen, people would just write it off as RP. The skill level was too absurd for anyone to buy it. Most would assume it was an adult woman doing a little-girl voice, and a handful would swear she was a guy on a voice changer.
But whipping out a face cam to prove it immediately? That was the lowest of low-tier plays. The whole is-she-or-isn't-she debate was entertainment for the viewers. Besides, a VTuber sold fantasy—you didn't want to shove reality in their faces any more than you had to.
You drove the stake in only at a truly dramatic moment, when you could put on an unforgettable performance.
"Still, this is weird-desu."
She muttered to herself as she wrapped up the game. The filter that made her output something different from what her brain intended applied to in-game chat, too.
She'd meant to type:
But her fingers produced this instead:
It would work out fine for future streams—clean, wholesome language was a positive—but the feeling was still bizarre.
…Let's just chalk this up as another possession side effect.
What else could she do? Accept it and move on.
"Hmm… next, maybe I should try that."
After forcing a fifteen-minute surrender, she closed the LoL client and opened Steam. She logged in on Kim Jio's account without thinking and started installing Light Soul 3.
A game infamous for its brutal difficulty—perfect as a skill benchmark. Clear times on the bosses alone were enough to sort the gods from the goats.
Legend of Legends already proved it, but better to be thorough.
The streamer Yoo Sera was going to aim for variety-game content. It had the longest shelf life among game streams, and more importantly, it was the best way to spread influence in every direction. Sure, some multi-game streamers treated collabs like a remote island and almost never did them—but that was a personality thing. The format itself was perfect for dipping your toes everywhere.
"Nice PC."
She browsed the internet while she waited, and before long Light Soul finished installing. She jumped straight into a new game and picked the beggar starting class—nothing but a club in hand.
This'll be more than enough to flex.
The first time she'd beaten this game, the ending had taken thirteen hours. And that was only because she'd gotten lost in the swamp map—most bosses had gone down in three tries or fewer. She'd started as a knight, sure, but she barely used the shield, and later on the armor felt so sluggish she'd stripped it all off and ran around naked.
Thwack— thwack—
The trash mobs in the tutorial zone went down without a fight, and she even cleaned up the hidden enemy tucked away in the corner. A couple of hits did land thanks to the hand-size issue making the mouse drift, but she could live with that.
Rrrrrumble—
And then, the long-awaited boss room. The gatekeeper of Light Soul 3, the so-called newbie shredder: Dagon. The figure frozen like a stone statue twitched, then wrenched the polearm buried in the earth free.
A boss with a clean, elegant backstory, too. An ancient hero who tested whether those who came after were worthy to press on—or something like that. A hey, hell is waiting up ahead kind of warning to the player. How noble. How grand!
OLD HERO PAVED THE WAY
"Bug cut-desu."
Unfortunately for him, this particular player didn't lose a single hit point.