First Stream Begins!

“…Uegh.”

The hand posting to Y trembled so hard it shook.

Writing something like this with my own two hands.

If the Kim Jio of the past ever found out about this future, he would dive straight out a window without hesitation.

“Well… this is only temporary.”

Even if the output was going to get polished before it went live, there was a reason I had written it that sweetly.

The VTuber fans active on Y were mostly the mild, wholesome type.

I couldn't exactly post something half-assed at them like, Debut's soon so if you're gonna watch then watch, I guess.

Even if I planned to run the stream a little differently, getting them into the seats came first.

Game installs are all done…

I'd even bought Light Soul 3 on a brand-new account under the new name.

It was an adult-rated game, but with the blood filter and a few other options flipped on, you could drop it all the way down to a 12+ rating.

That would dull the viewing experience some, sure — but being able to lean into the whole “I'm little” angle meant it wasn't pure downside either.

“Even two hundred viewers would be a huge win.”

Some corporate VTuber had pulled nine thousand on their debut with a hard-game marathon stream.

They had a rock-solid company backing them, sure, but it still proved how rare a real “gaming-genius VTuber” was.

The problem was keeping that image alive for the long haul. That was brutally hard.

Strong Math, people called it.

The term came from an internet story about some guy who memorized answer keys from hard workbooks just to look like a genius student. In the streaming scene, it meant grinding guides in advance so you could cosplay as a gaming prodigy on stream.

You could pull that off once or twice. Looking like you were good at every game under the sun? Nearly impossible.

But I can.

I was confident on that front.

Confident I could lock down every viewer who sat down thinking, Oh, this one's actually cracked at games.

I didn't need guides in the first place. I had the skill.

And if word got out that the “13 years old” red-pill was actually true…

“Eheheh.”

A big-corp streamer seat was as good as mine already.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap—

I finished my happy little daydream and hurriedly hammered at my phone screen.

Lee Soo-hwan seemed to have finished his own prep in his own way.

The model was ready. The viral push was ready. All that was left was for me not to screw it up.

“Jjosmmida-yo. Jjosmmida-yo.”

And before I started my warm-up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠games, my mouse drifted toward the VTuber Sniper Gallery bookmark.

I had to keep dripping my own viral posts on schedule, too.

“Mm! Ah, ah! Mm!”

Debut day had arrived.

I warmed up my throat and gulped down the water I'd set out, glug after glug.

Damn it, why am I sweating?

Twenty years as a shut-in gamer, and I had never once felt nerves like this.

I was shaking hard enough to wish I'd taken a sedative beforehand.

…Ah. Of course I was. I'd spent my whole life locked in a studio apartment with nothing but games and forums.

“Hoo.”

About five minutes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠left.

I wet my dry lips and flicked a glance at chat.

Time to start the build-up.

Everything was already set. All that was left was to hit the Go Live button.

“Hup!”

Click—

The studio screen lit up the moment I grunted, and the AI BGM I'd gotten as a bonus from Big Bro Ham rolled out over the waiting screen.

Chat scrolled up in a roaring flood almost instantly.

Barely seventy people, and the firepower was insane!

As expected of the zero-group.

These were the types who could resurrect a ten-viewer nobody the second the coordinates got dropped properly.

Among the hardcore newbie-diggers, there was even one hauling in full chat-log timber for me.

Maybe twenty of them were Y traffic. The rest were all Sniper Gallery imports.

Well. For a cold open, this isn't bad at all.

Seventy viewers on an indie debut with zero prior connections was enormous.

Lee Soo-hwan! I believed in you!

If I cooked this right from here, the gallery would start relaying it and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the numbers would swell even more.

Squeeze—

I stared at chat, steeled myself, and hit the mic power button.

I was a thirteen-year-old girl, and the model was cute to match, so I'd planned a little entrance bit where she peeked up from the bottom of the screen.

It was this one, right?

Hit this to send the model to the very top, and then…

“…Hueh?”

Total disaster.

A dumb little noise slipped out of me before I could stop it.

The avatar I was absolutely sure I'd parked all the way down at the bottom was sitting dead-center on the screen like she owned the place!

I scrambled to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠drag her down, but of course nothing went the way I wanted.

“…….”

In the emergency, all I could do was blink, over and over.

How could the very first button already be this wrong!

My whole plan to look like some flawless super-elite had already collapsed.

“Th… thaa…”

I'd even run simulations so I could answer any chat that came up.

Now that things had gone like this, I couldn't even think of what to say to the messages flying past.

“Ah, ah…”

In the end I decided to just slam out a greeting.

“Hello I am!!”

Even that didn't land right.

…Fuck.

Okay. We were definitely cooked.

At this point, the only option left was the hardline approach.

“Ahem! Th-thank you all for coming to watch! I am the gaming genius… uh… ah! The thirteen-year-old gaming-genius nerd, Yoo Serin!”

Once something started going wrong, it just kept going wrong.

I even stuttered through a simple self-intro, and squeezed my eyes shut from pure shame.

Kim Ji— no, Yoo Arin! Did your brain get younger along with your body, you idiot!!

Had I ever been this humiliated?

Me — the one even pros used to tremble in front of in the gaming scene!

I cracked my eyes open just enough to check chat, and—

The reaction was… weirdly good.

Was this the power of the female organism?

I'd face-planted on a real fumble and they were into it.

Th-thank god…

Honestly I'd been a little worried I wouldn't be able to stream well with zero silver tongue to my name.

But the racial stats alone were so broken that they covered for everything, apparently.

“Ahem. Then I shall begin the introduction!”

Click.

After somehow managing to shove the model off to the edge of the screen, I opened the PPT.

The materials I'd painstakingly handmade, now live.

“Name: Yoo Serin! Age: thirteen! Hobby: games! What I'm good at: also games! What I hate: backseat gaming and spoilers!”

I'd watched a handful of VTuber newcomer intro streams, and still couldn't copy them to save my life.

It had come out so smooth when I ran the sims.

Silence settled over the self-intro that had ended at lightning speed.

Um… what was I supposed to do next again?

I hadn't actually decided on a fandom name or anything.

According to the plan I was supposed to jump straight into the marathon stream from here, but it felt like I was skipping a few steps.

“Eek!”

While I was briefly stuck thinking, a sudden fanfare blast made my shoulders jump.

Wait — ten thousand won?!

I'd only been live for ten minutes?!!

“Th-thank you for the donation!!”

Whatever the donation message said, I bowed first.

It wouldn't show on the avatar, but I dipped my head two, three times.

The fact that money could just fall into my lap like free loot was still amazing to me.

“A-about the song, I—”

I was about to answer the request to sing when the first donation became a starting gun, and the alert sounds started exploding nonstop.

Messages that would not stop, and a chat window thrashing in reaction to every one of them.

Looking out at a viewer count that had already blown past a hundred, there was only one thing I could say.

“P-please talk one at a time!”