The VTuber a Major Corporation Is Obsessed With

Livepia—one of the top three streaming platforms in South Korea.

Thousands of broadcasts went live every day, and hundreds of thousands of viewers flowed in and out of this vast internet broadcasting empire.

And among its many departments existed a unit that monitored those streams in real time—a so-called first-response crackdown team.

Its official name: the Streamer Support Division.

The problem was that the sweeping mandate of "support" meant they ended up handling every kind of work imaginable, earning them a legendary overtime rate and a reputation as the most thoroughly miserable department in the company.

Report verification, complaint response, feature troubleshooting, monitoring—the list went on...

Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack!!

Keyboard sounds steeped in screaming and rage never seemed to stop. Even when someone smashed a key so hard a piece of the board went flying, people here just shrugged it off.

Ah, another filthy one caught, huh. You pressed your hands together and wished them luck, and that was that.

Yet for all the extreme difficulty of the job, there was one intoxicating reward the staff of this division ranked among their greatest joys.

Spend enough ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time monitoring and, like it or not, you ended up watching more streamers' broadcasts than anyone else alive.

And then you saw it.

They appeared. That one percent who carried the makings of a superstar...!

Even in a scene where countless rookies rose and fell every single day, streamers destined to win the public's choice always emerged. The people who found those talents first, standing on the absolute front line—Livepia's finest specialists at buying low before the market ever noticed.

The purpose of monitoring was never just to catch problem streams. It was to spot rookies with growth potential early, support them, and raise them into talents who could pull even more viewers onto the platform.

And the person who oversaw that entire operation was Yoon Ok-hee, Head of the Streamer Support Division.

"...They reported five hundred seventy-two people all at once?"

It was the usual malicious-viewer report case, but the sheer scale of it left her briefly stunned.

"Yes."

"Uh... what was the highest number of reports we've ever gotten in a single ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠batch..."

"As far as I remember, it never went over a hundred at most."

"Good grief..."

"The reporting streamer also sent the evidence extremely clean, so it shouldn't take that long."

"Thank heaven. Hang in there a little longer."

"Understood."

Minseok, the youngest on the team, headed back to his desk. He hadn't been with this notoriously grueling department long as a new hire, yet watching him settle in so well made her feel proud of him.

Still... who on earth is this person?

I looked over the materials Minseok had sent through the company messenger. He had written them up thoroughly, I had to give him that.

Streamer: Cha Jinyeong. A VTuber, and like most VTubers, no personal information publicly known.

Recently she had been showing explosive viewer growth through LOK pro league commentary and a signature content series called CCTV...

But her game tier was unranked?

"She can't play the game and still blew up just from commentary?"

Was she deliberately not playing? Why? Curiosity about this novel concept surged through me.

I immediately looked up a recording of Cha Jinyeong's stream. She had uploaded her full broadcast VODs as-is, so finding one was easy enough.

"Ohh..."

In this industry, a weak tongue meant you had no right to buy rice. In a red ocean overflowing with people who could talk, you could not survive long just by manufacturing a funny moment once or twice.

In the end, chasing the easier path led to flashy cursing and sexualized reactions that could scoop up attention fast. But easy roads came with equally large risks. That kind of aggressive broadcast style could explode into controversy at any moment, and more than half the people who rose that way eventually crashed. How many rookies who pulled momentary viewers with those methods had vanished without a sound?

The real problem was that lately, only those kinds of streamers kept drawing attention.

We were not looking for temp streamers. We wanted partners who would stay until the end.

"This month's rookie scouting results aren't great either..."

And it wasn't just this month. The streamers who had grown fast recently were all slightly misaligned with the direction Livepia was aiming for.

One built their content around attacking rival streamers and generated endless controversy. Another gave us headaches with broadcasts that went way past any reasonable line. A third had seemed fine—until it turned out past illegal activity meant they were waiting on legal penalties.

Just listing them out was enough to make your guts twist. I could hardly believe this was Livepia's current reality.

Popularity alone was not enough. How were we supposed to hand those people official content commissions or corporate ads? They were certainly not people we could put forward as the platform's flagship faces.

And in that situation, the World Cup—a festival for tens of billions of people around the world—was about to begin.

On days when the national team played, even people who normally never watched sports paid attention. Massive viewer inflow. Livepia had already secured the soccer World Cup broadcasting rights and was preparing so streamers could watch together with their audiences. On top of that, a large-scale special at the platform level ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was in the works.

Simultaneous watch-alongs using the official match feed, plus talk shows before and after games. Then entertainment-style commentary pairing soccer specialist casters with popular streamers. It was a challenge that stepped one pace beyond the scale of a streaming platform and eyed the seat of a major broadcaster itself.

The problem was a shortage of hosts who could actually pull viewers in.

People with rich soccer knowledge were plentiful. But delivering that knowledge so audiences actually enjoyed it was a completely different skill. Overly technical explanations or a weak broadcast sense would not cut it. Popular streamers, on the other hand, could talk entertainingly—and that was about it.

We weren't demanding elite-level expertise; professional commentators would be sitting beside them anyway. But at minimum they needed to lock in chemistry and show the bearing of someone who belonged on a broadcast.

'Pfft... pffhahaha... how is a player's name Sex King pffhahaha...'

'...'

Just thinking about it made me dizzy. A national team match was nothing like an ordinary game stream. One careless remark could come back as a tidal wave of condemnation. It was tightrope-walking over hellfire.

You needed a way with words that people who barely knew soccer could follow—without grating on the ears of existing fans. And if they could also lift the audience's emotions at the critical moments... ah, well. I wouldn't even dare ask for that much.

"Interesting."

The contents of Cha Jinyeong's recorded stream were fascinating. Now that I looked, she was even tied up with player Crasher? This was no ordinary rookie.

I knew LOK in broad strokes myself, but Cha Jinyeong's explanations struck me as extremely newbie-friendly. Friendly enough that a surface-level viewer like me could more or less follow along.

'He's not a player who waits for opportunities to come.'

'He's a player who creates opportunities that weren't there.'

"Nice line."

That was not a memorized script. Who in a live stream of a live match could have a script ready? Those were lines she thought up on the spot, watching the action unfold in real time.

'Blue Bird isn't fighting Crasher.'

'They're fighting the possibility that Crasher might be there.'

The more I listened, the more I was pulled in. Her delivery was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠excellent. Even someone who didn't know the game's rules could understand who held the flow of the match. She had the ability to turn a player's actions into a story.

For a moment I pictured her standing among a commentary booth. We planned to seat a specialist for soccer tactics. We would assign a scenario writer to organize formations and player info. But the words that made people sink into a decisive moment—that was the domain of pure sense.

'People said it was over.'

'That his prime had passed.'

'That he no longer had the right to stand on that stage.'

'And yet he is still alive.'

'He fell countless times—but in the end, he proved himself.'

'Crasher is back.'

I clenched my fist. Even I, just listening, felt my heart pound.

There was still so much I didn't know about her. A report volume unlike anything we'd ever seen had sparked my curiosity today, and all I had done was look up a single video.

Her VTuber model was... honestly, pretty ugly.

And yet with nothing but her voice and her words, she had drawn nearly ten thousand viewers. With proper support behind her, no one could say how far she might go.

Didn't know soccer? That was not a problem. We could make her study. The most important thing was that her ability to attach narrative to a scene was outstanding—a commentator who could speak for the audience's eye level while telling the stories of national team players.

And the fact that she was a VTuber? If we could actually make this happen, Livepia might be the first.

"Cha Jinyeong..."

I checked her growth graph again. From an average of fewer than ten viewers to ten thousand in a matter of days. Luck had played a part, and she had chosen her content well—but what completed it was Cha Jinyeong's words.

"We need to lock her down before someone else snatches her up."

No matter how I looked at it, she was the talent we had been searching for. No—the talent I had been searching for.

Just because someone streamed on Livepia did not mean we owned them. Free spirits. They could leave for anywhere. That was what a regular streamer without a partner contract was.

I sent Minseok a message over messenger.

Hmm. Minseok had read me correctly.

A rookie who had appeared out of nowhere, with no verifiable past activity history. The fact that she kept her personal information so thoroughly hidden could itself become a risk. She might even be a career streamer who had been broadcasting somewhere else for quite a while.

But the little kid inside me was screaming that we had to take on every one of those risks.

Ok-hee, you idiot—get that heavy ass up and move!

Becoming a Livepia Partner Streamer came with the following benefits.

Ordinarily you needed a certain length of broadcast history, average viewer thresholds, and various other conditions. Measured by activity period alone, Cha Jinyeong fell far short of even being eligible for review.

But for streamers with exceptional potential, a special review could be applied. There were always exceptions.

I wanted to write that she was being considered as a candidate for the World Cup special commentary booth... but that would feel like I was handing her everything on a platter.

Business relationships were a push-and-pull. A healthy relationship only held when both sides still wanted something. For me, locking in something that important this early carried too much risk. A partner contract was already a fairly aggressive offer—so I would throw one chip on the table and watch what happened.

...Or had I already given away too much?